If White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is at the head of the administration’s deployment of federal agents against undocumented immigrants, it appears that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russell Vought is running the administration’s approach to the government shutdown.
THOUGHT CRIME: “Thanks to the example set by Donald Trump, his enablers and MAGA, I have become aware of the millions of Americans who would have betrayed Anne Frank.”
Real historians keep returning to this one point, don't they? Even at the height of their influence and power to kill, torture and degrade millions of people, the Nazis would have remained a small clique of cabal plotters had it not been for the assistance given to them by those throughout Europe who probably would never have described themselves as Nazis, beginning in Germany, of course, when Chancellor Franz von Papen told President Hindenburg in 1933 to approve the plan to appoint Hitler Reich Chancellor, with himself as Vice-Chancellor. The words to President Hindenburg were probably something like: 'don't worry about Herr Hitler, I will see to it that he's kept in line.'
Enter Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Speaker Poindexter A. Bobblehead, Senator Kentucky Fried Voldemort, Little Lindsey clutching his pearls, "concerned" Susan Collins, and a whole panoply of babbling enablers, facilitators, encouragers and the like who thought only of how they could use this to help the GOP, etc. etc.
At least his first Secretary of State was honest enough to describe his boss back then as a "fucking moron." How I wish more people had paid attention to all the reminders of his stupidity, sociopathy, cruelty, racism, misogyny, perfidy, dishonesty, business failures, and malignant narcissism before that, and long before what once passed for brains between his ears had turned to rancid mushmeal.
Very true, and people unfortunately didn’t care about the warnings we gave and the consequences that have come true about them. No one elected Russell Vought to dismantle the American government and assistance to citizens. We didn’t vote to have health and vaccine access to cut off. We also didn’t vote to have the unelected Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation and the Christian Nationalisrs impose a plutocratic and theocratic country on us. Trump, Roberts and Miller lambaste their critics as “the radical left.” The truth of the matter is that we who reject their collective program are not radical left. There is a minuscule group in American politics which could be seen as radical left, but their collective opponents don’t belong to a radical left.
We believe in capitalism, but we believe it has to be regulated to provide the greatest good for.the.greatest number, and we also believe that it has to imcljr tpeople who were formerly excluded from pursuit of better lives for themselves and their children. We believe government should not be cutting taxes for the morbidly rich and for wealthy corporations. We believe all Americans in need should have access to affordable and effective healthcare, healthy food, and good education. Too many people have this idea that I’ve got mine, now you go out and get yours. They believe that other people’s problems are not their problems, when the reality is that we live in a society and we do have responsibilities to one another.
And this applies even to the smallest acts. Yesterday outside a grocery store, a friend saw another shopper reach for a cart that had some empty plastic bags in it. Despite the fact a trash can was in arm's reach, the woman grabbed the bags out of the cart and threw them on the ground -- I know it is minuscule in comparison - but it seemed to me to echo what you said about the current attitude of way too many people.
When I went to church on Sunday, there were two trash receptacles outside the school, and I deposited a bag of trash into one of them. My mother raised us to clean up after ourselves and taught us not to be litter bugs. Another thing that drives me nuts is people leaving carts all over a store parking lot when they are physically capable of placing them in the cart corral. I can understand if someone with a physical disability is not able to return a cart, but people who are able to return carts do so.
This is why Aldi’s has its policy of requiring shoppers to deposit a quarter to use a cart, then they can get their quarter back when they are finished loading their vehicles and return their carts to the basket line.
People don’t see the slightest interconnection of things. On our town FB page, people constantly grumble about rising property taxes and one near constant refrain from senior citizens is “I don’t have kids in school anymore!” Then, in the next post they complain about not being able to find a plumber, or the fact that no PCPs are taking new patients and “hey what’s up with them kids hanging on the street corner??” Um if you want kids educated well enough to go on to trade school and med school, then you’d better be willing to pay for a robust K-12 education!!! We are all in this together. YES, other people’s children ARE your problem!
Aldi is simply using the German model (it is a store that started there) of depositing a coin or token in order to get the cart - since otherwise in urban areas the carts would all get taken home. Most shoppers there aren’t driving.
And yet, this: A few months ago, a new Aldi opened in a shopping center located at the margin of Little Rock's expansive nouveau riche area on the west end. Every time I visit the store, I must dodge abandoned Aldi carts when parking in their lot. I can only conclude that the store's Little Rock patrons think they are above returning the carts to the store lobby for a mere quarter.
While "the least of us" struggle to make ends meet, far too many Americans suffer from "affluenza." I have no doubt that the Trump regime is about to cure that. Perhaps that is the silver lining in the coming economic disaster.
I live in a blue state, county, city, and I see people throwing water bottles on the ground, not picking up after dogs (it's the law), leaving shopping carts in our neighborhood, running red lights all the time - maybe they're the few magas that reside in my area who are careless and irresponsible - but I think not.....
I think this is part of trauma and care for the earth is affected when one is in trauma mode. When angry easy to toss things on the ground. One of the by products of our age. Ladybird Johnson started the first view of taking care. She met Terry Tempest Williams and said the men in the Johnson administration had watered much of it down so it was so called palpable fir the American public. One has to be able to care abd sometimes have the luxury of care. Many of the earlier environmentalists came from the elite . And a clash between indigenous people who had a relationship of care then overtaken with genicifde abd the elites who saw but only saw partly. I try to send positive vibes in those situations. All we can do is clean up.
You really resonated with me! And you say it's "minuscule in comparison" but is it? Just like the serial killer supposedly starts with torturing animals, so do these little acts of self-importance build.
Many here know I had a career in the medical laboratory. When COVID hit, I thought about the hundreds of pediatric cancer patients I'd known. A.L.L (the "childhood leukemia") has a wonderful treatment rate, IF the kids don't succumb to a virus! I thought of those kids, and all immunocompromised people and was astounded people would not wear a mask for the greater good. I said to my husband if this attitude was around in WW2, can you imagine people with ration coupons? The cultural change of needing women to work in the defense factories?
Just imagine if Trump had stepped up to the role of the POTUS (as some swore he would). If he had urged people to mask up, if he had encouraged mitigation efforts and CALMLY lead people to hunker down and also help their neighbors. He could have gone down in history for good reasons, not what he will be remembered for instead.
Laurie, that woman sounds like she lived in Vietnam prior to whatever they did to clean the country up. I remember watching a woman just throw her gum wrapper on the ground, with no thought. Somehow, Vietnam is no longer that way, and I think Malaysia never has been. But Thailand, at least in Bangkok was bad when I was there in 2007.
My Dad, traveling as a preacher to visit missionaries, told me of the countries and cities where spitting was an arrestabal offense as was littering. Of course, the authorities had total government approval. I think lazy is a good word for those who litter & leave carts all over the place.
The felon child rapist regime is fill with sociopaths and psychopaths - they don't give a shit about anyone, not their spouse, not their children and most certainly not poor, Black or Brown people. They want it all for themselves and we can all go find a ditch to die in.
Absolutely Terry. That is why DJT continues to have wide support. Most people are content with their lives, they don't care about anyone less fortunate, they don't care about all the hidden things government does. Wait till bridges collapse, till highways crumble, till food is contaminated, till the grocery scales give false readings, till banks go bankrupt and can not pay off depositors, till the air is so polluted that you get sick breathing, your water is no longer safe to drink.It is a long list but staying ignorant and selfish is so easy.
I have to wonder what kind of country these theocratic psychopaths think they are going to rule over after they destroy the economy of this country. They are going to have to control a very well armed population, and there is little chance that the military will side with them. When there is no longer a middle class to buy their stuff and their hoarded dollars become worthless, they are going to be lording it over a hollowed out disaster of a world. These stupid policies are wrecking the US economy, and if we go into depression the rest of the world will also.
Still in the "Greed Is Good" upward cycle. It's racism and greed. Unbridled capitalism is not a benefit for all. Feels like the Robber Barons are control and crushing the rest of us.
I actually don’t endorse neoliberal capitalism. Capitalism must be heavily regulated so the wealthy don’t grab all the assets as they want. Working people deserve a greater share of pay for what their work has helped to achieve, and I think they deserve the right to collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions. I support abolition of private equity, stock options, and safe harbor rules, and I believe workers deserve,seats on corporate boards as they have in German companies. I also believe CEO and upper level pay should be cut considerably to avoid the huge gaps which exist between employee and executive pay.
Milton Friedman’s belief that companies should only be run for the benefit of executives and shareholders has caused an immeasurable amount of damage to American workers, and to communities all over the country which have lost factory work to see it go overseas. The people who did this only thought of their short term desires and didn’t take the longer view they should have taken to see what the long term negative effects of our policies would be. We cannot become an economic powerhouse by shipping manufacturing overseas and relying on service jobs to power our economy. I believe we made a huge mistake when we removed regulatory systems that stopped the economic abuses we see going on today.
I agree racism and greed are two of the biggest reasons why this is happening. The Republicans have pulled off a con job on many people by pretending blue collar workers and greedy robber barons have interests in common. I also think any effort to restore a middle class needs to deliberately reach out to minority citizens to include them in the middle class. We can’t return to a past where middle class status was reserved only for white families, and where redlining and housi)g segregation was the norm.
I don’t believe greed is good. On the contrary, it has done a tremendous amount of damage to people’s lives and has prevented many people from achieving their full potential. Donald Trump thinks greed is good, and he is seriously damaging the country and the world by continuing this mindset.
Kathy, I really appreciate how clearly you have laid this out. I share your belief that an economy should serve people, not the other way around. The concentration of wealth and power we see today is not inevitable, it is the result of choices that can be changed through courage, regulation, and collective action.
What you said about including everyone in the rebuilding of a real middle class especially resonates with me. Repairing what has been broken means not only restoring fairness, but expanding belonging, ensuring that the next economy is built on cooperation, equity, and shared stewardship rather than extraction. Greed may have defined this era, but it does not have to define what comes next.
Kathy Hughes and Christy Shaver: I really agree with Christy Shaver.
Ms. Hughes: You really have laid out the complex socio-economic perversity of our situation amply and quite clearly in your short commentary.
I am a Keynesian, and I while I admire the intellectual achievement of Milton Friedman, the Darwinian rush of wealth to the top, and impoverishment of the little person, makes me see how the Romantic era of the 19th century turned out the 1848 Revolution, Socialism, the political-economic theory of Marx-Engels, and the late 19th c. labor union movement.
When I grew up in the 1950s, the industrial economy was heavily unionized, with equitable benefits for the worker.
From Reagan forward, the Republicans have successfully implemented the Social Darwinianism born of Edward Spencer and living through Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek (both of whom were honorable, intellectual men, but Darwinian economists).
The unions were rough, but the worker had a living wage and benefits.
I fail to see how stratospheric wealth for the industrialists and Third-World wages and benefits for the worker should benefit America.
While I would agree with much of what you’ve said here, I wonder if you haven’t left something substantial out. “Working People” is one of those phrases that both sides throw around, usually in the sense that they are a group especially deserving of our consideration and support. They are, yes, but they are also “We the People”, that vast sea of Americans of all sizes and shapes that includes all of us. We, all of us, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, capitalists, socialists, and whatever lies between and among them, men and women and all the other categories we could name are the ones who are supposed to have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
So far, so good. But in return for those rights, what are our responsibilities? That area often seems to left out of discussions these days, a bit like the fact that everyone loves to talk about Freedom and Individual Rights, but the question of the responsibilities that must accompany both is often less ardently discussed.
I am often reminded of Lincoln’s speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield in 1838 in which he noted with remarkable prescience that “As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide”
How many Americans really understand enough about the nature and purpose of our founding to be able to defend it as dearly as it must be defended if it is to survive? We throw a lot of words about America around, but, as it seems to me, all too often without really understanding who we were designed to be. It is as if all Americans were somehow supposed to gain that understanding through some mysterious form of osmosis, simply by living here, and yet time after time the facts generally prove that those who have come here from other places and wish to become citizens study hard and often take the citizenship oath with a greater understanding of who we are than the native born.
We may rail about Trump and Miller and Vought, and it is altogether true that none of them have any concept of who we were designed to be, or if they do, they clearly reject it,
Making sure that as many of us as possible have that understanding should be our first priority. Dr Richardson is an integral part of that effort, as are others like her. So should we all.
Yep, Kathy. 100% but I would also add misogyny to the toxic mix of neoliberal capitalism, since it was developed in the 19th century, an era that saw some of the most abusive statutory restrictions on women's autonomy and independence. The women who make a choice to hitch their wagon to a patriarchal capitalist system often learn to regret it.
Read philosopher Robert Soloman on business ethics (former philosopher at UT Austin. There is a fine little video on Vimeo that every “good capitalist “ ought to watch)
Human nature being what it is, not everyone thinks peace is a good thing. The most stunning example of that would be the idiot hegseth. Boggles the mind.
Aggression at the cellular level. No brains required.
Is it the income inequality or the failure of the wealthy to pay their fair share? I could not care less that someone has amassed wealth as long as they pay their fair share into the system and the general welfare is promoted.
I'm reminded of "The Royals," the 2015-18 TV series depicting an entirely implausible British royal family that was hugely entertaining and fairly well acclaimed. The series ended prematurely because its creator, Mark Schwahn, was sexually assaulting members of the cast and crew.
In episode 6 of season 3, Prince Liam released the palace staff early to go home and celebrate the Christmas holidays with their families. To the royal family's dismay, no holiday preparations had been made in the palace, and the royals found themselves with nothing to eat because, of course, none knew how to cook.
"The Royals" of our culture seem to forget that their extravagant lifestyles are made possible by "the little people" to whom they pay pittances and deny healthcare and other benefits of a social safety net. Perhaps they will soon find out that life can be challenging when the people who don't matter are gone.
Most of us Americans believe in Pragmatic Capitalism, as put in place in the Scandinavian countries.
The argument has long been that the wealthy are entitled to those billions of dollars because they're responsible for creating jobs and wealth, giving little or no credit to the people. In a word, that is BS. There are now 900,000 people in the U.S. with a net worth of $10 million or more and 902 billionaires. If the U.S. population were only 3.4 million people, there would be no billionaires. But, we are a nation of 340 million people and as a result we have one million very wealthy people, i.e., 0.24% of the population. So, why should 1/4 of 1% receive trillions in aid while 99.76% of the population are exploited? And but for the people, they would not, could not, have that much wealth.
So, what to do? What's fair? Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and the person responsible for our having Social Security hit the nail on the head in terms of what government's purpose or function should be: "The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life." Sound familiar? It should. Excerpted from Matthew 25: 34-46: 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, , I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ So, what about our "Christian" Republican politicians who voted for Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that takes food, shelter, health care and more from "the least of these" and hands trillions of dollars to the ultra wealthy? Here it is: 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
I share your concerns and questions regarding faith and actions.
"Blind Guides?"
Francis Perkins was one of the best examples of "faith and the compassion for ones fellow man/woman".... She gave her life to such...Not just good thoughts, but actions!
It's true, Frances Perkins put her thoughts into action and benefitted hundreds of millions of Americans. Jane Goodall comes to mind as well: she made us (billions of us) better humans by expanding our "humanity" to encompass other living creatures on this earth. They also have thoughts and feelings, just as we do. if we could just put Jesus' teachings in Matthew 25: 34-46 into action. I say this even though I am not a Christian. Frances Perkins was a devout Christian and proved it.
One of the events that led Frances Perkins to work for labor was that she witnessed the events surrounding the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, which killed many women and girls after they were trapped in the burning factory. Not a few of these women and girls died when they jumped to the ground to escape the fire. Many of the victims were immigrants working to earn money for their families.
Excellent question: why do ordinary Americans not vote against those who want to destroy a pragmatic capitalistic system? There are a couple of reasons that come to my mind and they're connected. On 3-31-2001 Pres. G.W. Bush, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." Then, in 2004, Thomas Frank published his book that explains how the wealthy manipulate many ordinary Americans to vote against their own best economic interests: "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
Too many Americans have been completely programmed by Fauxnooz and right wing media to believe that Democrats in particular, and anything progressive in general is the work of the devil. Trump is now speaking to these unthinking morons when he says that Democrats need to be eliminated. None of these SOBs ever explain WHY they believe this nonsense. They just parrot the “fact” that anything leftish is evil and “against god”.
I think that the verses in Matthew 25: 34-46 contain the essence of Christianity and are a guide for all of us. I frankly doubt that a person named Jesus even existed. Nothing in the New Testament is written by anyone who ever met, spoke with, listened to or read anything written by Jesus, combined with the fact that the New Testament is written in Greek and Jesus, if he existed, spoke Aramaic. No eye witnesses. None. And, some of what Jesus is supposed to have said came decades later, and there are two versions of Jesus' death in the New Testament - crucifixion in Matthew and hanging by the Sanhedrin in Acts. Still, I think that they are some of the greatest words and thoughts ever written.
Who ever thought that Corporations should be able to control or have any say in elections? That was a bold move and paying off nicely for the Scrooge McDucks of the world.
Because of the policies of FDR and his progressive taxes on high earners and people of great wealth, "A rising tide lifts all boats" actually worked to make America the great country we were and a beacon of light for all of humanity.
FDR was the sort of president we needed and who rarely comes around often. He was very perceptive in a way few presidents are, and we many never see his like again, because our system is designed to enable people like Trump.
He was certainly what we needed then, but it is perhaps easy to forget that the modern conservative movement to restrict the power of the Federal Government and to at least severely modify FDR’s social programs, if not do away with them entirely was triggered by the New Deal. Also, of course, his misguided attempt to pack the Supreme Court is still something conservatives point to when liberals talk about trying to control today’s conservative supermajority.
I don’t say that to deny the importance of what FDR accomplished, or to suggest that those who would deconstruct what he accomplished are right to do so, but rather to suggest that in our increasingly polarized political environment the ability to navigate it with any kind of success is increasingly crucial. Can that be done? I honestly don’t know. But as I suggested in my earlier post, the real fault here lies with us. Neither FDR nor Trump were put into office by some mysterious alien force.
I also agree that a significant part of our problem is our ossified binary political party system that so invites the amplification of party loyalty over the best interests of all Americans and which certainly played a part in Trump’s victory last November. But I actually think that someone like FDR could be elected today, but mostly because of his extraordinary ability to communicate (a quality he shared with Reagan, Kennedy, and Lincoln above most other presidents). His fireside chats were in a very important way that day’s equivalent to today’s internet.
As Thomas Piketty has shown, capitalism does exactly what it says on the tin. Do not believe people who try to distinguish between 'predatory' capitalism and 'compassionate capitalism'.
The issue is that in the U.S., conservatives are used to calling anything that helps ordinary people “Marxist, Communist, or socialist,” and many Americans have been educated to avoid these terms like the plague. There is also a peculiarly American definition of the word “socialism” which Southern whites used against anyone who came down to educate or assist newly freed Black people to learn how to navigate the world of freedom. The North decided to end Reconstruction as part of the agreement that resolved the electoral vote crisis of 1876 and to give the presidency to Republican Rutherford Hayes. The consequences for Black Americans were truly dire as state after state amended their constitutions to prohibit Black men from exercising their rights to vote, placed Black citizens in economic subjection to white citizens, and otherwise informed Black citizens at every turn they were never to aspire to equality with white citizens. In the event these laws weren’t enough, there were always lynchings to remind Black citizens that whites wanted them in a position deemed inferior to white citizens. That state of affairs lasted until the 1960s, when the Civil Rights movement changed things. Nixon invited Southern white former Democrats into the Republican Party (SC Senator Strom Thurmond had already joined the Republicans.) The only difference between Donald Trump and other Republicans is that Trump openly wears his racial hatreds on his sleeve instead of disguising them in coded language.
Kathy Hughes: Here again, you capture a lot of essential points, backed up with a solid knowledge of the controversial election of 1876, to show the evolution of sores raging in today's political economy.
You really ought to consider publishing "Posts" or "Notes," because you summarize complex issues well and yet simply and efficiently.
Americans are still held fast by the myth of the eternal frontier and the idea of 'rugged individualism' (a phrase coined by Hoover). However, they don't like it much when they are subjected to increased taxes or when their benefits or access to healthcare is restricted, so there are some limits even to this. Billionaires in the US have become quite addicted to state socialism which continues to line their already deep pockets.
You are correct. That is why I used the term "Pragmatic Capitalism" to describe the Scandinavian capitalistic system that has a lot of social welfare factors built in. The means of production are not owned by the state. It is also a fact that if our population were only 3.4 million people there wouldn't be any billionaires, but because we are 340 million people, we have 900,000 deca-millionaires and 902 billionaires. They couldn't do it without the people. So, we have 0.24% of the population with as much accrued wealth as 99.76% of the population. That is, one million vs. 339 million. It's not fair.
If changes are not put in place starting immediately, that $40 trillion national debt could prevent Americans in their 30's, 40's and 50's from getting Medicare and Social Security, or in any amount that matters.
Indeed. Finland. Very high taxes. Very strong social services system. Thriving private enterprise. Happiest people on the planet.
It is not rocket science.
Capitalism is designed to develop businesses to create and distribute products and services. When regulated for concerns for the environment, workers rights and monopolies...it can perform beautifully.
Socialism is designed to do what Lincoln referenced: "Do for the people what they can't do for themselves." Socialism is simply thinking like a village of old (a nice one). When someone's barn burns down, they rebuild it. When a mother is ill, other mothers help. When the main breadwinner is hurt in an accident, neighbors bring food and help pay the doc.
It's so fracking simple and logical .... it defies reason and compassion that we won't, we refuse to learn from the obvious successes of other older countries.
And so. Now is the time for Democrats to stake out the logical, loving, compassionate - COST EFFICIENT - effective and well tested program called Medicare for ALL.
Republicans went way, way, way, WAY extremely right and libertarian, "every man for himself", "pull yourself up by your boot straps even if you don't have any boots, sorry, your fault you must be lazy or non-white". Women's reproductive health in the waste bin. Hospitals closing. Docs and nurses burning out. ER waits escalating. Have you been to one lately? Don't.
And we Democrats hover around in this fuzzy middle ground afraid to be too extreme. Holy shite. What will it take?
People whine about the "extremism on both sides". Bullcrap. Places like Finland are right down the middle, sensible and frankly a lot more efficient at taking care of each other. And why isn't that the banner, the central platform, the MESSAGE?
Why don't Democrats simply lay it out there. Capitalism without the balance of regulation and without worker involvement is feudalism. Socialism without democracy (like China) is slavery.
It is not rocket science. Every other major developed country provides their citizens with some form of universal health care. There are flaws in every one of those programs. We think we are smarter than every other country. Certainly we could harvest all the best aspects of those programs and create the best one ever imagined. Because we are exceptional, right?
Health care is a human right! Especially in the richest nation to have ever existed. To deny this is immoral and frankly stupidly inefficient. Unless, of course, we think the ER is a good health care plan.
Universal healthcare is the platform to win on. If we had the guts to adopt it. Here is a billboard:
"Please name the person you know who should die early in America because she couldn't afford a doctor."
or
"Thune and Schumer have healthcare - the best available. How's yours? Are they really more valuable and important than your family?"
Every capitalist economy on the planet is responsible for the unsustainable levels of consumption that has damaged or destroyed vital ecosystems and create numerous environmental harms.
The European Environment Agency notes in its 2025 country profile that in Finland:
"attempts to ensure economic prosperity and human well-being take a heavy toll on ecosystems and natural resources. The ecological footprint of an average Finn is high, and the material resource consumption of Finns is the highest in Europe. Finns also generate a lot of waste. While the rapid growth of renewable energy has led to reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, Finland’s carbon sinks have stagnated. The assessment of the biodiversity of species in Finland is perhaps the most thorough in the world, and the results show a negative trend, with one in nine species being endangered."
Finns can be happy while it lasts - but it won't last.
And, under the Substack Inc 2025 Terms of Use (TOU) all "Readers" & "Authors" here in this digital community owe contractual responsibilities to each other.
Kathy Hughes, you are doing a very good job discharging your responsibilities everywhere.
Bryan, perhaps it is my uncompetely caffienated brain, or I'm ignorant. I don't understand your comment to Kathy. Did you just compliment her, or are you subtly chastizing her? I admit to feeling like I did as a kid when someone told a dirty joke and I didn't understand it, but was too embarrassed to admit it. I trust you to explain and not insult me. (I've gotten enough of the insults lately here....)
You are all missing the reason this crap returned to power; the absolutely stupid and dense Biden administration. A perfect storm of opportunity arose and the MAGAs took full advantage. End of story.
Disagree!!! Biden and his cabinet picks put the U.S. on an upward road after the Covid debacle ground us and other countries to a halt. Biden left us with a thriving country and economy. He deserves our thanks.
Agree with you! In spite of his signs of aging, Biden continued to work at building back relationships throughout the world, that had been damaged during the prior Trump administration. He began "Building Back Better" projects to contribute to the growth of our economy.
Now we have an economy, education system and White House that is in disarray. Everyone is out for themselves....ie crazy monetary systems being created.... "Truth" becomes what will advance ones agenda....increases ones power to dominate and to control.
Yes that is correct. But he also became the crabby ole grandfather and he once had a better understanding of optics in his younger days. For example he gave Clarance Thomas a pass after Thomas was advised to declare “This is nothing but a high-tech lynch mod” and Biden wasn’t about to jeopardize his seat. At the end, he probably wanted the distinction of being president for the 250th anniversary. Trust me, they do think that way.
Biden was aging quicker than he realized and so many voters revenge vote or, “I’m not voting for that irritating ole fart when a nice soft spoken (con man) Donald Trump can get things done.” And then add our online cell devises that the majority use along with social media and you can swindle the populace as Trump did.
I could bring out more examples but I would just annoy you.
Ok one more example since you want one; the border was broken and thousands were pouring in and yes they were. A reporter from the News Hours asked Myorkas why Biden didn't execute an executive order and he yelled back, “Because it wouldn’t hold up in court.” How dense. How stupid. How arrogant.
We are all in the same boat, afloat in this vast emptiness, no matter how rich you are not one penny of it goes to the other side when you pass on. It’s madness plain and simple to not be supportive of your neighbor, removing people from healthcare is not a way to make our society healthier, diseases could care less how rich you are, if they can get a foot hold they will make you sick, anything that gives diseases more room to multiply and evolve is insane. Look at what happened at the beginning of Covid to the people on the cruise ships, that’s a good example of what reducing healthcare will result in happening. We are all on the same boat……🤬🤬🤬
When you say we didn't vote, there is every chance we DIDN'T. We really need to start talking about the 2024 election and the vast quantities of data that show it was manipulated. STAT. If it's true, suddenly everything makes a whole lot of sense - and pinning all our hopes on a Midterm does not.
Kathy, that's because Stephen and Donald are precisely aligned with regard to race, gender and power. Going back at least as far as Donald's grandfather, Friedrich, the Trump men have been white supremacists who believed women are good for only one thing and having power is all that matters. This is Miller's lane and he stays in it, never venturing into economics or even politics. He leaves those topics to others. Consequently, Miller never runs afoul of Donald's impulses.
It appears Miller and Voight are proceeding with their white religious nationalist steamroller. Didn't Trump say that Voight wanted the country to have only 100M in population? We should wonder how he plans to do that.
Patricia, it is becoming quite obvious how they will get the population down to 100m....all white and Christian of course: deport, ruin health care, the economy, the environment, and everything that might help ordinary people, so they just die. Also make everything so awful that no one wants to come here.
The Epstein Files ARE THE DISTRACTION!!!!! While our outrage is fully justified, it is keeping us "looking over there", while the Nazis completely dismantle our Democracy. I want every one of the lowlifes involved with Epstein and his ilk punished fully and mercilessly, but NOT at the cost of American freedom.
The Epstein- Maxwell crimes are NOT a distraction.
The Epstein Survivors hold a Press Conference in DC tomorrow 10/8 -- another major step in exposing all the facts- all the Perps including their "closest fiend" for 10 years.
I see a direct link between the Survivors goals and your top issue. Like HCR put history in an accurate context.
You're on the money. Americans (and I are one) have the disease that makes it difficult to walk and chew gum simultaneously. Why can't we focus on the shutdown, the strategies required to win big the 2026 midterms and the linked rationales for Democrats achieving both? Argh . . .
Daniel, the Epstein files might be a distraction, but I suspect Donald doesn't view them and isn't using them as such. We know a lot about his sexual misconduct, but we don't know all the details. Whether or not his fears are founded, he seems to believe that his part of the Epstein saga could discredit his standing with the MAGA/evangelical base.
In my opinion, that remains to be seen. Evangelicals love them some underage sexual predation. And when one of their clergy gets caught, well, the girl was probably asking for it (see Eve and the talking snake) and if she wasn't asking for it, there's always the escape hatch of "confession and forgiveness."
Donald knows he "can shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote," so his base may feel the same about sexual perversion.
But with few straws to grasp at, we have to grasp at what's available.
I think that his "charisma" will not extend to Vance or any other Trump bootlicker or Project 2025 enabler. Whatever the allure is with Trump, those scumbags definitely don't have it. I suspect that's one reason they've circled the wagons around him, despite his obvious mental issues.
According to the The American Heritage Dictionary, charisma is: "A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm. "
When the Epstein Files blow open -- and they will -- what will be the public's reaction? We are already jacked-up on all the insanity going on which impacts every one of us every day. So often in revolutions it is a spark that spreads like wildfire. It's starting to feel like we're slip-sliding our way to that moment.
Of course they are, because if they don't, they will ultimately fall to the wheels of justice. If the Democrats regain the White House and the Congress, I don't think we will see a repeat of Biden's hands-off nonsense. I expect any new Democratic government may in fact swing the pendulum way too far the other way and seriously go after a large number of the GOP cabal, including Trump himself. I then fear another swing back as people decide that any Democratic reprisals will be a bridge too far. This is pretty much US politics as usual.
LOL (sorry the laugh is not trying to be offensive to you, I just find the idea you wrote quite amusing).
You trust Americans to be watching to be sure this doesn't happen again? I don't trust Americans further than o can throw them to be watching out for anything. We all see what happened in 2016-2020 and what happened on Jan 7 and we STILL reelected him in 2024.
I'm wonderful too. What happens after the orange blight. Will Miller, Vought and JD work together? Miller and Vought are unelected. Their only authority comes from the orange blight and his handlers. This definitely a cult of personality. Who will fill the clown shoes next???
I have had it ICTT with writing emails to Susan Collins. She voted for Vought and without her vote, he wouldn't have become OMB director.
Knowing that no matter what we say or write, she will DO NOTHING except cower, smile and lie, so I end each email to her now with "FUCK YOU".
The only purpose of this is to make me feel better since she is a white Christian Nationalist and friends with Leonard Leo and Russell Vought. For 10 years, she worked for Mitch ignoring the wants and needs of her constituents.
She expects respect from her constituents when she has done nothing to earn it.
Let's just call her supportive constituents 'uninformed voters'. Maine is considered a blue state. The 2nd district that has elected her is comprised of a large land mass with fewer voters. Having lived here for my entire adult life I have witnessed first hand the lack of critical thought that continues to re elect her. Frustrating as hell to be sure.
We finally have some strong contenders running against her that speak clearly to these voters (here's looking at you Graham Platner) he has a real chance to gain support from both parties in our populace. But the national Democratic party appears to be pushing our beloved Governor Mills into running.She has stated she will not decide until November. I have long admired her and she has done an incredible job,but our country doesn't need another member of congress in their late 70s. If she runs she will implode the field and skew it into oblivion, all be it with the financial backing of outside interests instead of the ground support needed right here. Ugghhhh.
Agreed. Platner can fight the on the ground Collins uses to beat back challengers: she is not”from away” and delivers constituent services. I love Janet Mills but you are right she is too old to play the new game in DC.
Eliz, the problem, as I see it, is that both parties are controlled by "oldheads." Oldhead thinking: "Stick with whatever has worked in the past."
In this new world, oldhead thinking won't work. New thinking: "That was good, but how can we do it better?"
The GOP got the advantage because their leader, while an oldhead, is a cardboard cutout tycoon whose reputation was made by TV, for TV. That telegenic image attracted younger people who knew how to exploit both legacy Corporate Media and newer social media.
Meanwhile, the oldheads in the DNC have been floundering with zero expertise in building or exploiting a new media infrastructure. Unless and until, the DNC gets rid of the oldheads running the show, Democrats are going to struggle winning younger generations and persuadable people in conservative regions.
As a Maine 2nd District (Industry, near Farmington) refugee now living in VA, I feel your pain. Progressive thoughts face an uphill battle there. I think it is the result of shifting attitudes as young people able to seek higher education leave and there is not much to come back to. Brain drain even if it is only as far away as Portland.
Susan Collins is a Senator. She is not elected by district but by statewide election as are all Senators. Therefore Maine as a whole elected her Senator, not one district. Can't blame that on one district (as you might for a Congress critter).
I'm seeing a lot of negative ads aimed at concerned Collins, but, frankly, I'm not thrilled with Angus King and Jared Golden either, both of whom voted for the CR. Chellie Pingree from district 1 seems to be the only one taking this shit seriously 😐.
None of those votes surprised me. King is a former republican who is now "independent" and caucuses with the democrats. He is fairly liberal on social issues but is still quite conservative in financial policy. He opposed the shutdown and decided that voting for the shutdown would be worse than the problems of dealing with Trump's idiotic financial policies. I don't necessarily disagree. No Senator votes perfectly and king does better than many so be careful going against him in the future as you might end up with another Collins which would be way worse.
Collins is GOP through and through and her weaseling is repulsive and maybe Maine can finally put her out to pasture. One can hope.
Excellent point. I've always liked King even when he was governor. His vote surprised me but not so much to go against him. Collins is the one who must go.
Invective like that is just lazy posturing and a great way to guarantee your email will be deleted immediately. All of us are worthy of respect. And please remember that Susan Collins is after all a Republican. If you don’t like what she is doing then support the Democratic candidate next time. Not just by voting for them. Give money. Put up a yard sign. Go a little bit out of your way.
I have sent her dozens of emails since she we moved to Maine in 2004. I even voted for her when she used to give a damn about her constituents. She took millions from Leonard Leo and other oligarchs and she doesn't deserve my respect or anyone else's for that matter. She quit replying to my emails when Mitch McConnell became Senate Majority Leader. She stopped voting for anything that would help her constituents and voted with Mitch over 98% of the time. The worst thing about Mitch was that hundreds of bills went to Mitch from committee and he just let them die.
And I have done all of the things you've suggested Susan. In fact, I am just leaving for a Maine Democrat Senate Fundraiser and I have signs already posted against Maine Question 1 which is another Republican way to prevent people from voting.
And I totally disagree. Donald Trump is not worthy of respect nor is most of his cabinet. They took an oath to uphold the Constitution and had no intention of doing so. In fact, almost all Republican politicians are not worthy of our respect because they lied when they took their oath of office.
But many incumbents have had competition that should have one. Susan Collins was a few thousand votes from going to ranked choice against a candidate that wasn't very well known.
So much of it is name recognition only unfortunately.
I’m currently rereading former Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s book written before or early in Trump’s first term. She knows of what she writes — Fascism: A Warning — having lived it since late toddlerhood.
‘ #1 New York Times Bestseller — with a New Foreword
A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state.
“Albright outlines the warning signs of fascism and offers concrete actions for restoring America’s values and reputation. There is priceless wisdom on every page.”— Booklist (starred review)
The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions dead. Given these horrors, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. In Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to question that assumption.
Fascism, as Albright shows, not only endured through the course of the twentieth century, but now presents a more virulent threat to international peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II.
Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written with wisdom by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.“
I wish more people had paid attention, too, and VOTED. Project 2025 was out there. Despite the mainstream media’s constant “sane washing” and “both siding”, many people knew about it and thought Trump was involved, as well as Vance. They just didn’t think it was important enough to outweigh their apathy. Then again, the insurrection attempt was huge, and still people didn’t pay attention. I’m sorry to say that I know people who still are not paying attention, who still don’t think they will be affected. I guess it’s a protective mechanism. What a tragedy.
Perhaps many did. Perhaps many tried to block the progress of this criminal political hijacking and subsequent declaration of war on the US Constitution. If so, the truth is that they have been defeated. All law abiding Enlightenment liberals have. The acceptance of the truth and scale of this defeat is a starting point for the effective planning of a counter attack.
The problem is the DNC leadership thinks they can accept money from billionaires without recognizing the problems the existence of billionaires causes, and then court working people by offering a better future. Democrats need to dump the billionaires and start advocating for working people, improved pay, tax increases on billionaires, and collective bargaining rights if they want to have future. The leadership doesn’t appear to realize we are no longer in the Clinton era and they have to take a side. They need new and younger leadership. David Hogg tried, but wasn’t successful.
In some ways they're worse than their 1930s counterparts because the latter could hardly have said to have been cheerleaders for Hitler. Some of them harboured the notion that he was necessary but controllable. No one could seriously harbour that notion about Trump - he is quite beyond any form of control.
Trump 2.0 is almost exclusively populated by sycophants - like Bessent, Burgum, Kennedy and Bondi - and cheerleaders like Miller, Noem and Hegseth. They are joined by the tech titans and media owners, universities and law firms whose pre-capitulation has been ignominious and costly.
IMO - too many Fox watchers. People might have paid attention if they had actually been TOLD about his <insert your descriptive words here>. That channel, again IMO, has really jaded this country. (…I’m still furious that my parents fell for all their lies & nonsense). 🤦🏼♀️ Ugh. Just thinking about all the families they have divided makes me mad.
Ouch. Why did cnn and msnbc lose half their audience. And why is the approval rating of the rest 28%. Where it’s 35% for democrats and only 8% for Republicans. They brought it on themselves. Ask your self WHY FOX has more viewers now than ABC NBC AND CBS AND more viewers than cnn and msnbc COMBINED. ? They lied and lied and covered up for four years.
Don’t call the majority of Tv viewers idiots. Stupid mistake. Find out why!!!
ICTT, a good list of pejoratives. The list is very long to describe an excuse for a human that has zero redeeming qualities. To think that Americans voted for a person who cheats at golf and does not like dogs, would be enough to disqualify him from ANY position of authority, let alone the POTUS.
I'm not sure on the point that the Nazis were given significant support throughout Europe as it rose to power. Hitler's appeal to the German people was founded on the premise Germany was poorly led and domestic problems were a result of Europe's mistreatment of a superior race. Granted there was a prevalence of anti-Semitism I'm not sure that translates into Europe giving assistance to Hitler.
My reading is that much of Europe was wary of the rise of the Nazis.
We can point to the American Bundt's popularity, yet most of America was clearly wary of Hitler.
What give me hope is that the German people were far more supportive of Hitler than we are of Trump.
I suppose I should have specified the role of collaborators and local fascists in helping round up Jews, etc. I've always been struck by the fact that Holland -- the place of tolerance where thousands hid their neighbors, was also host to one of the most vicious local fascist parties. Similar tales in Slovakia, Hungary, Italy. But let's hope the analogies stop there, as you said.
I appreciate that this newsletter is pointing out that at least two people understood that trump was a "fucking moron"--Satan Miller and Russell Vought. They are now the ones in charge while they prop up trump as the front man. They keep him on the golf course and pathetically, on many occasions he appears to be surprised at what they're doing. Uncharted territory folks....
And, the real poison is in the hands of the 2025 plan to destroy a democracy by tearing through all laws and not being held accountable. trump couldn’t make coffee. Those who pretend he is in charge are the VERY VERY dangerous Treasonous angry ,empty psychopaths. Their faces should be hanging on every building as mug shots so we the people know who needs to go to prison.
“This Land is Our Land”, it does not get “bought up” by a bunch of boring empty dunces…… or does it??? Where are “We The People “?
One major problem is the oh-so-gullible-and-griftable Ammurrikan Publik. I was thinking, as I read HCR's letter this morning, about the fact that when polled about the "Affordable Care Act" people were enthusiastic in support of it, but if it was referred to as "Obamacare"--a moniker created by the Rethuglicans, and used continuously by the Felon, to appeal to the secret racists in the mix--they hated it. A bigger bunch of chumps cannot be found, at least in numbers (as I would suggest that the folks who are convinced the Rapture is happening any day now are even more self-deluded). All someone has to do is repeat a statement enough times for it to become "fact". The statement of Kelly-Ann Conway back in the Shrubby Bush Days ridiculing those of us who live in a "reality-based" universe, which was hooted at as an amusing moment in a sea of idiocy, was prescient. We're not laughing now, at least not unless Andy Borowitz is around.
Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor.
Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substantial contribution. For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his complaints that the GOP was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nation-ism.””
“Religion and race:
Elsewhere in the conversation, Vought outlined views on religion and race that seem more extreme than those Trump has publicly articulated – including criticism of the right for what he described as an excessive focus on religious freedom.
In the conservative movement, “we’ve been too focused on religious liberty, which we all support, but we’ve lacked the ability to argue we are a Christian nation,” Vought argued – an idea he’s also talked about publicly. “Our laws are built on the Judeo-Christian worldview value system.”
He said that conservatives should push to have debates over whether to allow mosques to be built in America’s downtowns, and whether Christian immigrants should be prioritized over those of other faiths – ideas that run contrary to First Amendment protections.
“I want to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation,” Vought added later. “And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism. That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism because I also believe in nationalism.”
Vought argued that it was important to pursue some of the culturally conservative policy goals listed in the Project 2025 blueprint – including abortion restrictions and making pornography illegal – while taking into account political realities.”
“And in discussing the protests and riots around the US in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Vought said that the president had the ability to use the military to restore order. He argued that the commander-in-chief wasn’t limited by the Posse Comitatus Act, a nearly 150-year-old law that prevents federal troops from conducting civilian law enforcement except when authorized by law.
“The President has, you know, the ability both along the border and elsewhere to maintain law and order with the military,” Vought said. “And that’s something that, you know, it’s going to be important for, for him to remember and his lawyers to affirm.”
Thank you, Heather, for this eye-opening post. These people are running (ruining ) our wonderful country 🆘
Russell Vought received a JD degree from George Washington University Law School in 2003, but I have not found him actively licensed as an attorney in DC, Maryland or Virginia. Some of the things he has been advising Trump to do, such as sequestration of funds upon Trump’s whims, openly violate the Anti-Sequestration Act of 1974. It forbids the President from withholding money, and the Federalist Society justices on the Supreme Court have been allowing Trump to do this in open violation of the law.
As for Vought’s Christian Nationalism, I have to wonder if he was sleeping in his Constitutionsl Law,class when they taught about the First Amendment. Christian Nationalists have been rewriting history with the efforts by propagandists like David Barton to rewrite history and pretend the founders were religious nationalists. The truth of the matter is that while the founders were baptized into various Christian denominations, they were Deists and didn’t shave Evangelical Christian beliefs. Protestant and Catholic Christian Nationalists fear that Christianity is losing its clout as more young people leave their churches. They feel like they are under siege because some Americans follow non-Christian fsiths, agnostics, or atheism. The real problem is Christianity itself gets a bad reputation because Christian Nationalists are misusing Christian religious beliefs to impose them on others as part of an effort to hijack government and to force others to follow their religious beliefs.
Please keep in mind that Christianity is not synonymous with Christian Nationalism. Many Christiams reject Christian Nationalism and openly criticize their religious and political tenets. Garden variety Christians are happy living at peace with their neighbors and friends who may share other religious and philosophical beliefs. The problem with Christian Nationalists is that they often claim to be the only true Christians around and, and many people believe this.
Back then only 4% supported the treachery described in the P2025 they were trying to keep too many people from finding the truth about. The only ones they wanted to see the truth were the small number of very large donors they wanted to fund it.
I hadn’t heard of that, but the New York Times had a very good article about Russell Vought and his intentions of screwing up the government and empowering Trump.
Vought’s contributions to Project 2025 make him a traitor. His ideas are all in direct violation of the Constitution or current law. The founders would have been horrified at the idea of a unitary executive or calling the US a Christian nation. They wanted church and state to be separate, no state supported church.
Christianity IS synonymous with violence. Just read the bible, new testament and old. It's filled with descriptions of a capricious, cruel, violent god, who kills and maims those who deny what he views as his "rightful place" in the panoply of gods. And the USA manifests that violence on a daily basis with gunned-up wackos shooting up the place. IMO, theocracy and a civil just society are polar opposites.
Excellent way of stating the problem Greg. It appears Trump is killing people with our military as a way to build within them a honor system of following orders without question. We must have no doubt Trump intends to bring this home to America also. I would add "Shame on the members of our military forces who followed these unlawful orders from a clearly mentally ill president and staged these unlawful attacks on foreign vessels and the civilians therein in total violation of their oath to protect our Constitution. Each of them should face court-martial for these atrocious four strikes with a death toll reported to be around 21 people so far.
In 1968 Army Lieutenant William Calley was convicted during the Vietnam War for his role in the My Lai massacre. He claimed he was "following orders." He likewise killed people who gave no armed resistance. The Trump presidency is a time for all members of our military to be brave and honor their oath to our Constitution which is listed first therein.
Good points Albert. As an alternative message to our military--quit or don't reenlist.
It's already difficult for the military to hire qualified candidates, so what are their options? Bring back the draft or lower their already low standards.
And I suspect may be a bit like the French Foreign Legion, anyone from anywhere, even French criminals that wanted a new identity, and Blackwater hiring "contractors" from anywhere. The French were never supposed to use them in France itself, only the colonies (though WWII had some exceptions if memory serves).
I remember the haunting memory of the hillside graves of the French Group Mobile 100 in the Mang Yang Pass, something like 900 grave markers that I was told were dug with an 18" auger so they could bury them standing up and facing France. It seemed they shouldn't have been removed after the South fell since it was a reminder of what happened to outsiders trying to rule a very independent minded people.
Most thought it was very moving that they had them facing France, so I limited bursting their bubble by pointing out that most of the lower ranks were not French, at the time I think they included many former German soldiers looking for any work that they had some experience at.
I do wonder what commemorative markers ICE agents will want on their graves if any, but hope they don't allow them in Arlington or other National Cemeteries.
I know of a dozen or so local (to me) cops (retirees and a couple who took a “leave” that went to the sandbox as “advisors” to (as I understand it) teach tactics to the Blackwater personnel deployed over there.
Some former SOG I respected told me of some who believed in what they were doing and tried to do it right, but also of others who were just mercenary types that were motivated simply by the money. Some were soldiers I'd trust anywhere and would rather work with other better equipped, competent, and well compensated professionals, ethically doing what they believed in. I couldn't fault them but did regret the loss of so many of our best experienced NCOs from our regular forces.
Greg, although I was a teacher and at first in inner city schools, I have just spent time with people who would have been Anne Frank, and I have been grateful to be in a sanctuary city, which protects people from ICE even though ICE is waging war on us, making it difficult to protect them. ICE is like the Gestapo. We have to pull the masks from their faces, or everyone should wear full burkas as a protest. Then ICE could not racial profile because they could not see you.
I actually don’t endorse neoliberal capitalism. Capitalism must be heavily regulated so the wealthy don’t grab all the assets as they want. Working people deserve a greater share of pay for what their work has helped to achieve, and I think they deserve the right to collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions. I support abolition of private equity, stock options, and safe harbor rules, and I believe workers deserve seats on corporate boards as they have in German companies. I also believe CEO and upper level pay should be cut considerably to avoid the huge gaps which exist between employee and executive pay.
Milton Friedman’s belief that companies should only be run for the benefit of executives and shareholders has caused an immeasurable amount of damage to American workers, and to communities all over the country which have lost factory work to see it go overseas. The people who did this only thought of their short term desires and didn’t take the longeview they should have taken to see what the long term negative effects of our policies would be. We cannot become an economic powerhouse by shipping manufacturing overseas and relying on service jobs to power our economy. I believe we made a huge mistake when we removed regulatory systems that stopped the economic abuses we see going on today.
I agree racism and greed are two of the biggest reasons why this is happening. The Republicans have pulled off a con job on many people by pretending blue collar workers and greedy robber barons have interests in common. I also think any effort to restore a middle class needs to deliberately reach out to minority citizens to include them in the middle class. We can’t return to a past where middle class status was reserved only for white families, and where redlining and housing segregation was the norm. To some extent, these things still persist to this day.
I don’t believe greed is good. On the contrary, it has done a tremendous amount of damage to people’s lives and has prevented many people from achieving their full potential. Donald Trump thinks greed is good, and he is seriously damaging the country and the world by continuing this mindset.
Isn't all this a little naive about human nature? No ordinary person can tell me they have not met a Donald Trump-type. Buttocks! Such people, 'though not so stupid, are the heroes of American popular literature: think a bit about Jack Ryan. Nor can anyone tell me they've never encountered unaccountable meanness. The Army spends a lot of effort to get people to move ahead - most folks have the good sense to keep their heads down and run away where possible. Finally, we only have to look at Israel's campaign in Gaza to realize that the Shoah is just a particularly well-documented example of Hotel Rwanda - O! Yes, African Hutus are just as good planners as European Nazis, better, since their Kristallnacht really worked! "Lessons of history" are as nothing before the "human nature" we have shaped for ourselves and then pretend not to notice - or blame others for having. Edmund Burke said it, friends, the asshole gets ahead when the fair-minded individual sits on his ass, keeping their head down. Let's all get a little more Rosa Parks into our day-to-day behavior, shall we?
Wow. So anti-semitism rears its’ ugly head in liberal precincts. If the Palestinians had not elected HAMAS their govt…we would be celebrating palestines independence
We must get better at helping to distill the horror of returning to the U.S. a 100 years ago…we have learned and changed a lot! One of the main issues the ACA helped with was standardized coverages, as well as covering the health many when they were uninsured…yes waiting in waiting rooms and all the other stupidity/cruelty of the prior system.
We paid! Medical inflation was a huge issues too!
One thought is the point out the ‘Christian’ values of taking care of others.
Another is that all our insurance premiums have not risen as fast, medical inflation is not a headline!
When we solve problems we see across the board benefits…the GOP and the horror and stupidity of the 2025 hate group is simply they “don’t fucking care!
"trumpelthinskin's" thoughts and slightly expressed words are, along with many others on the "dark side" who think like him say: 'we can't let that black man get credit for introducing and getting passed an affordable healthcare plan - OBAMACARE - nor being awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace...what peace for what'? It seems Mr. thinskin is quite jealous of Mr. Obama…
Only evil, hateful, ignorant and badly flawed individuals with little to no moral values would think and act that way!!! That's kinda sad - isn't it?
************
Really...it seems like more than TWO YEARS since we woke up to witness the atrocious nightmare that occurred in Israel - but that's no excuse for Netanyahu to do have carried on the degree and extent of death and destruction to Palestinians and Gaza that we have seen...some grave mistakes were made before October 7, 2023, and many afterwards. "Why can't we all just get along?"
"by which he appears to mean the growth of the federal government to protect the rights of all Americans." Project25 is to change this fundamental purpose of the government in favor of the strong prey on the weak (non-white citizens and women) America. Vought is trying to steal great America for a small minority power people.
Really well why then has anti-semitism risen by a thousand percent here? This had ONLY to do with the blind eye of Biden allowing it on campus after campus along with DEI…. And Palestinian Protests.
There was a HUGE billboard at the ft Lauderdale airport IN FEBRUARY SEEN BY MILLIONS EACH DAY that read:
IF YOU THINK TURBULENCE IS SCARY…TRY WEARING A JEWISH STAR.
Being against Netanyahu’s genocidal assault on Gaza, done partially to forestall Israeli legal charges against him involving three separate cases with allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, is not antisemetism.
This is a test. With your #2 pencil, bubble in the letter for the truest statement:
O 1) Heavily-armed militarized personnel rappel down on your living quarters from military helicopters overhead at 1:00 a.m.
O 2) Military vehicles disgorge over 100 fully-armed personnel to attack your living quarters at 1:00 a.m.
O 3) These attackers in camouflage fatigues with axes are breaking down all doors in your building, exploding flash grenades, and ransacking everyone’s living units.
O 4) All the above are true, which Donald thinks earns him Nobel Peace Prize.
Whatever Donnie Dimwit might think, both Norwegians and Swedes can easily spot the difference between shit and shinola at a thousand paces. I don't think we have to worry about them accidentally awarding the Peace Prize to a demented, violent lunatic who watches TeeVee and rage-tweets drivel in the middle of the night.
I’m pretty sure (hope) we can stop this with 2026 elections, but think of all the individual people who’ve been harmed. I hope Trump is happy to go down in history as Caligula II.
Also extreme antisocial personality disorder. Fred, Sr. raised Donald to be a sociopath, while Roy Cohn taught him the finer points of sociopathic behavior, including never admitting he was wrong, never apologizing, and hitting back twice as hard at his critics when they attack him. This combination of malignant narcissism and malignant sociopathy ensures lawless, corrupt and illegal behavior.
Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.
“Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump.
Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”)
Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
It appears that the 2026 elections, if they take place at all, will be jiggered to make Trump win.
Consider what he tried in 2020 (all the dirty tricks) and now encouraging red states to illegally redraw their election districts to favor Republicans wins for USHouse seats.
He plans to enlarge his House & Senate seats regardless of the vote. Full stop.
Dirk, if I were a betting man (I once was but no longer am) l would put my dough on martial law and cancelled elections in 2026. Trump must be so deeply in the pockets of our high-tech oligarchs that he has no choice but to consolidate and complete his destruction of government, erase the Constitution, and beggar the middle class. He's in way over his head. And senility will be the final straw for him, even if the Epstein docs are never revealed.
What we don't know yet -- because we don't know ourselves yet -- is what a post Trump world will look like.
Lolololololol. Well, one major media, Mogul, CEO owner Bet Gavin Newsom $10 million that if there were no election in 2028 , he would pay newsom $10 million but if there was an election newsom would would owe him. I’m sure he’d wager the same with you David. And the ONLY reason for martial is if you/aka the losers keep resisting enforcement of our laws while supporting criminals and illegals before supporting Americans
I think the cabal intends to provoke strong popular opposition that they will then cite to declare that a secure election cannot be held. And the Supine Court will roll over.
DOES ANYONE OF YOU SO-CALLED HISTORIANS KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MID TERM ELECTIONS?
LOOK UP THE FACTS. NEVER HAS AN INCUMBENT KEPT BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS WHEN THEY INHERITED IT DURING THEIR FIRST TERM. NEVER. but this could be it if people like you here keep up this hate and antagonism. FIVE TIMES TRIED. ALL FAILED
So it would be nothing surprising unless Trump won.
PS I’ve asked everybody here you’ll be number 31 first of all what makes these abnormal times. What makes these abnormal times is that Joe Biden left 8 to 11,000,000 illegal immigrants into this country without vetting or vaccinations and all Trump is trying to do is rid of these people.
That’s about as abnormal as it gets
So now here’s your chance name me five actual Trump policies or laws that are actually today currently substantially affecting your life negatively in the United States on a day-to-day basis
You are number 31 I’ve asked and I’ve gotten zero response
Not only will Trump go down in history as a terrible interlude in American politics, but the stupid people who not only fell for this con job but supported it will be studied by historians and psychologists to see what allowed them to become so self destructive and so hateful of everyone else.
Well JD some folks are not for sale & fight back lawfully like the State oƒ Illinois & the City of Chicago who filed yesterday, 10/6, an Oregon like lawsuit against Trump, DHS, Noem, Hegseth, U.S. Army & Dan Driscoll the Secretary of the U.S. Army.
*********************
Big Pritzker Take Away:
Trump is trying to create a pretext for "Invoking the Insurrection Act."
Back on Planet Earth, the Shutdown enters 7th Day & the Illinois-Chicago lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Illinois. Case No. 1:25-cv-12174. The lawsuit is pled as an "Emergency" for "Declaratory & Injunctive Relief".
The Oregon like Court hearing for a temporary restraining order (TRO) is set for Thursday morning, 10/10/25. The complaint specifically calls out Trump's "long-declared 'War' on Chicago & Illinois".
The Illinois lawsuit will block the deployment of "federalized" National Guardsmen from ANY state. Pritzker made a clear statement Illinois will withdraw from any National organization if they remain silent on the deployment of Texas troops or troops from any other state in Illinois & Chicago.
I am batting 1000 so far this year on Court decisions so ......................................
The Nobel Committee is never going to give Trump the peace prize, not only because he has had the military illegally attack fishing boats, but also because he’s sending the National Guard into cities in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Moreover, he’s doing this in cities located in states which have both Democratic governors and mayors. He may well be trying a dry run to illegally cancel 2026 midterm elections. He has been colluding with Texas and Missouri to ensure Republicans continue to gerrymander the state in favor of the Republicans.
One thing I am certain about, and that is the ICE raids of the sort they conducted in Chicago won’t be limited to Chicago. iCE or another federal law enforcement agency may be eventually empowered to illegally raid and wreck the homes of anyone who criticizes him.
That's not the American people's concern at this time Come To This. I would gladly concede the Peace Price to this scumbag in exange of his retirement. We still need to endure another more than 3 years of planed destruction of our country.
Nobel committee members have already made it clear that Donald Trump has no chance of being nominated for, let alone receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. The only prize he and RFK, Jr. deserve is the Ig Nobel prize for discouraging vaccination to protect public health. It appears that the GOP under Trump wants to oppose vaccination and take an antivax stance despite overwhelming evidence of vaccination’s benefits for protecting children and adults from dangerous contagious diseases.
If they don’t give him the Peace Prize, Donnie will rage about how “unfair” it is and he’ll claim the decision was somehow “rigged.” Next, he’ll threaten the countries with tariffs. Finally, he’ll get one of his rich pals to create a new Peace Prize award that is “bigger and better” than the old, worn-out Nobel. His fawning oligarchs will throw a big party that Fox will cover beginning to end. The award itself will be a hideous, gold-plated monstrosity vaguely resembling Trump. He’ll proudly display it on the Resolute Desk.
How many presidents do you know that have brokered at least five peace deals. With a sixth peace deal of a worldwide 2000 year-old war ?
You poor deer are so blinded by your hatred. It’s actually sickening.
So Dave, you could be number 32. I’ve now asked 31 people to name me five policies or laws from Donald Trump’s administration that have negatively affected your life currently and specifically. You’ll be the 32nd person not to answer.
There is a meme showing the Nobel Committee sitting around a table and someone says, "Just for fun let's give it to Obama again."
Ukraine is systematically bombing refineries, pipelines, chemical plants and other Russian infrastructure. Over half of the gas stations in Crimea are closed due to no supply. And Russia is very close to being unable to export oil.
Since Trump has given Putin his 2 week ultimatum 21 weeks ago, Putin has only escalated the bombing of Ukraine. Trump is a Russian asset. If Putin falls, what will Trump do?
Hate hate, hate hate hate hate hate hate negative negative negative negative negative negative negative. Look out, pal there might be a major wind coming major wake up call for you not that you’ll ever wake up from your hate. Wait no sorry wake up from your needless irrational delusional, hate
And here we go, Dan I’m giving you another chance. Use the 33rd person who can’t answer the question. Why the hate name me five Trump era policies or laws that have negatively affected your life currently on a day-to-day basis your personal life. ?
Wow good one there Dan. Now would you like to list the five Trump policies that are CURRENTLY affecting your life in a negative way…but it was nice hearing from you anyway. Take care of yourself. Support your President and your Country
Well maybe that one and Pakistan India where actually Pakistani leaders suggested it. Or Cambodia?or Israel/ Iran? And if this Israel Hamas deal plays out it might just stop a war of over 2000 years or more
''The Architect of Authoritarianism: Russell Vought and the Blueprint for a Shape-Shifting Presidency''
Russell Vought is not a public household name, but his influence now shapes the dismantling of fundamental democratic norms. During Trump’s first term, Vought served as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Since returning to that role in 2025, he has become the chief operational figure executing Project 2025’s plan to remake the federal government around a powerful, unbounded executive.
Vought and his allies openly reject the post–New Deal administrative state. He advocates a “radical constitutionalism” in which the presidency is sovereign over bureaucracies and congressional constraints. Applying that philosophy in practice would mean sweeping legal and institutional change, with the presidency elevated to near-monarchical status.
Project 2025, produced by the Heritage Foundation, outlines a comprehensive playbook for concentrating authority in the executive branch, dismantling or reprogramming federal agencies, and replacing career civil servants with politically loyal administrators. Vought authored the chapter on the presidency and executive control, making him one of the chief architects of this strategy.
The government shutdown that began on October 1, 2025, has become Vought’s proving ground. Trump has publicly said he is working with Vought to decide which agencies to cut or shutter, calling them “Democrat agencies.” Vought has already moved to cancel or freeze billions of dollars in infrastructure, climate, and state-level projects, especially in Democratic-led states.
The administration is threatening mass layoffs instead of traditional furloughs, using the shutdown as leverage to purge the civil service. Federal agencies have been ordered to prepare termination notices for positions not aligned with the administration’s priorities. Legal experts and former officials warn that many such actions may violate federal law or lack required notice periods.
One of the most immediate impacts is on healthcare. If the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits expire, premiums for millions of Americans will more than double. Analysts estimate that average out-of-pocket premiums for subsidized marketplace enrollees could rise by more than 100 percent in a single year. Even insurers are proposing rate hikes on top of these effects.
This price shock will not only affect low-income Americans. Over 24 million people currently purchase ACA coverage, many in states Trump won. Recent polls show broad bipartisan support—nearly four out of five Americans want the credits extended, including majorities of Republicans and MAGA supporters.
Vought’s prior advocacy to House Republicans also offers context. He pushed for sweeping cuts: roughly two trillion dollars from Medicaid over a decade, six hundred billion from the Affordable Care Act, and hundreds of billions from housing and food assistance. These proposals represent a drastic shrinking of the social safety net, one that would strip essential programs from tens of millions of people.
Another major front is Social Security’s disability benefits. The administration is preparing a proposal to eliminate or raise age criteria in disability evaluations—tightening access for older workers. Critics call it the largest disability cut in American history, arguing that it would force many people to work into old age to access the benefits they earned.
Consolidating all this power depends on silencing or replacing career civil servants, ignoring legal constraints, using economic pain as coercion, and banking on public resignation. But cracks are forming. Many Republicans and swing voters are seeing their own costs: spiking insurance, cancelled projects, and lost jobs.
What the American People Can Do
1. Stay informed and demand transparency. Citizens must press for full accounting of government actions, funding decisions, and their legal basis.
2. Mobilize voting power. Midterms, primaries, and local elections matter. Support candidates who defend democratic norms and reject authoritarian concentration of power.
3. Organize locally. Civic groups, unions, community organizations, and advocacy networks can rally support, fundraise, and pressure representatives.
4. Pursue oversight and legal challenges. Support watchdog organizations and lawsuits that hold officials accountable for illegal or unconstitutional acts.
5. Use narrative and media power. Share accurate information and real human stories about how these policies affect everyday lives.
6. Protect institutions. Defend the courts, free press, and the independence of civil service systems that anchor democracy.
The danger is profound. Yet democracy has never survived through apathy. It endures when ordinary people refuse to surrender their voice. The authoritarian project thrives on fatigue, cynicism, and despair—but it collapses when citizens insist on truth, accountability, and collective action.
First, your final words to your para 3, where you refer to a "presidency elevated to near-monarchical status." Why the "near" in "near monarchical"?
Then, your penultimate para, where you intone how democracy "endures when ordinary people refuse to surrender their voice."
Oh geez, Michael, have you no idea how systematically tens of millions of K-12 youth and their teachers all routinely undergo submission to the dehumanizing assembly line of standardized testing? Its first goal is to have all surrender individual voice, and to avoid, eschew skills to see the personal in others. Instead, it stresses the "rationality" of life primarily as grouped, categorized only -- the world where cynical corporate packagers rule. It stresses not the human (and natural) world where oddity, complications, multiple layerings, accident, chance, and serendipity rule, but, instead, the relentless chronologies and causalities of the simpleton linear.
Please check out Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police" if all this is new to you.
Your comment misses the focus of my essay. I am describing the deliberate centralization of power under Russell Vought’s “radical constitutionalism,” not the failures of education policy. Standardized testing is indeed dehumanizing, but it’s a separate symptom of the same disease, authoritarian control through conformity. My argument concerns its political apex, not its academic roots.
Your multiple choice test today was great fun. As for the rest here, your endless false elucidations of standardized testing killing off the humanities and blaming the schools for that, plus your allusions to Ravitch's book as justification for your inaccurate claims, need to be permanently shelved, not repeated every time it comes to your mind. Will you oblige me to post this every time you post yours?? (sigh)
Yes Lynell, thanks for the observation. Writing at 3 am well before my first cup of coffee it's a big factor on my writing. As for the rest of the day, my mild dyslexia is my constant companion. 😉
Gutting programs that work. Removing safety nets, student financial aid programs, environmental protections, hospital subsidies, housing subsidies and food security. There is little if any justice left in the Justice Department. Police forces are being created not to protect and defend our communities but to attack us. Where are these “savings” going? The cost of being an American continues to skyrocket while the only ones benefiting are the wealthiest 1% and Ghislaine Maxwell.
By the way, I don’t know if you’re aware of it but we’re almost $38 trillion in the hole. When was the last time you wrote a check knowing absolutely positively knowing that you couldn’t cover the check and that it would bounce ?
They are NOT. NOT …NOT Attacking you…..the Biden 20% inflation doubling gas prices tripling mtg rates and a 7 t0 9% inflation rate is what you are living on now. Trump rate up 2.7. Oooooops
1200 miles away I can still feel the terror of that night. I can only imagine what those families went through. Few of us could have imagined our nation would descend into this level of cruelty so quickly.
This is a test for all the moron haters here what are you gonna say when there’s actually a piece between Hamas and Israel and Palestine after 2000 years huh what are you gonna do then because when that happens I am gonna bombard each and every one of you haters with that fact Nice and peaceful like you people need to wake up and stop hating it’s the most disgusting group of people I’ve ever seen. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate negative negative negative negative negative negative negative and you don’t even have a reason. I’ve asked now this is gonna be my 29th time. Send me provide me with five current policies that are substantially negatively affecting your life today you’ll be number 30 that won’t have an answer.
He doesn’t think he deserves it. Just four of the country leaders that said so on tv when they shook hands after warring for 27 years. FICE PEACE DEALS PAL. AND A SIXTH BREWING…that ]s’ over 2000 years old. . Try the news ok? You don’t get that here
True. If the house flips in the next election, best to go after the Vought’s and Miller’s et.al. rather than another run at impeachment of Trump. Go for the real power, not the throne
Trump and his minions are working hard to make sure they win the 2026 House & Senate elections. They are not concerned how people will vote because they will not abide by our election laws in any case you can dream up.
Why would they? They sure didn’t in 2020. Playing fair is not their game.
Not IF the House flips. How can the Party plan to assure that it will? Why didn't it begin on November 6? What can we do to galvanize them into action before it's too damn late? We need to work on things that are doable, not ramble on with tepid observation and blame games.
I love it that the New York Bar Assn has come out and warned people like Miller and Vought that they are not immune from prosecution for their crimes. I am sure they will be able to eventually charge them with State crimes that Neither Donnie or JD will have the power to pardon.
I recall when I was eight years old in 1960 my dad and older brothers talking at the kitchen table about the problem the The John Birch Society (Founded in 1958) was going to become for America. They were known for conspiracy theories.
Most people apparently are unable to imagine pain until it affects them personally. Immigration sweeps will never detain U.S. citizens. Until they do. People won't lose their health care. Until they do. Hard-working people won't lose their jobs. Until they do. Consumers won't pay for the tariffs. Until they do. The question, therefore, is, whether people who are not yet feeling the pain this regime is inflicting will understand that the pain that others are feeling now will soon be their pain, too. How long will it take? How long?
"Immigration sweeps" are horrible and shameful. I cannot imagine, nor do I want to imagine how these human beings are being treated. These men and women have been hard workers, participating in jobs as laborers no one else would take. I would like to say this treatment is unAmerican or even unChristian ...but Americans and many Christians condone these actions and or are doing nothing to stop it.
It only proves that PREJUDICE is in our blood...alive and well!
These actions condemn anyone who proclaims themselves to be "Christian" or of any true faith.
These actions are an insult to God, our creator and savior! He commanded us to "love one another as I have loved you." And this choice to love us had nothing to do with our perceived "goodness", accomplishments, powerful family ties, but with COMPASSION, because He saw we were LOST!
I am not aware of a faith that would seek to harm fellow human beings as we are doing!
Our nation and the future of our children will suffer for this behavior.
Pain is often personal. But it ain't necessarily so. I feel pain for the families of those who were killed in Israel two years ago today. I feel pain for the Gazans who have lost family members as a result of the Israeli bombings and denial of humanitarian aid during the past two years. It's called empathy, an emotion that the regime holds in derision, but that allows us to join with others beyond our own family or tribe or nation.
We suffer from that old negative (per muskrat), empathy. Such grief can overwhelm so many become ostriches or worse. Personally, I’d rather feel than be numb. The trick is to balance your need for sanity. Numb chips away at humanity…
And let's not forgot the long history and the quickly growing and very profitable industry of private "prisons". The quote marks are important here. Everyone should become very knowledgeable about GEO Group and CoreCivic. I've been tracking them and their patterns for about a decade. It is one head of this multi headed beast.
Yes. The youth prisons are what caused me to dive deep into researching an industry I hadn't known existed. And the horrific realization that most of us are somehow invested in them through the other industry I hadn't known existed until then. Asset management firms. Ignorance was bliss before following the patterns that got us here. Yet I don't want the bliss back. Because that ignorance is what got us here.
I also was thinking of residential treatment centers, hospitals, juvenile detention centers, foster care and group homes. So much as you mentioned coportization and profit being the only motivation. Every now and then one finds a good place or good people. Back in the early eighties despite hard issues it was less bottom line money concerns ruling everything. Glad you found out and not afraid to see truths and then continue to work on research. Thanks. So important. The history of all of this helpful for me to find out what happened and what was forgotten good and bad.
Also am so concerned about the children in Chicago with the ICE raid and in other cities and in the first t administration and in general over the past fifty years ago when folks started sending their children to the states because of several cival wars and environmental issues and also the drugs and gangs. This all the end result of colonization and industrialists coming in for a variety of goods
I am thinking Gov Pritzker should appoint a team GAL guardian et liteum for those children perhaps intestate and perhaps other officials as well. Because the law on the books use the phrase among other things duty of care.
Intervention has at times been problematic due to racism and sexism and ableism etc but in times like these one has to do what one has to do. It would be a new concept and are not the norm if at all. But in the past issues with JD GALs versus non JD GALS and a team solves the problem and always a better way to go then just one person. There was a lovely group called MAUDD in Maryland that used that team approach long ago when I was in graduate school. The GAL goes back to Roman times so perhaps if SCOTUS has been dusting off antique legal judgements we can too only with integrity.
I worked in law enforcement, corrections (county jail) for 18 months, transport ( inmate movement to court, doctor appointments, and penitentiary transfers for 6 months; the remaining 28 years on patrol.
I never learned about for profit prisons until I watched the documentary “Thirteenth” after I retired. It disgusts me. In retirement, I worked part time in Court Security, and while at our youth detention facility learned about for profit juvenile detention centers.
Blackrock, Vanguard and StateStreet are the big 3. If you have any kind of investments; pensions, 401ks, stock holding in corporations...you are an invested in these private prison companies. It is a very complicated tangle of connection. It took me months to even begin to untangle it enough for me to just comprehend the basics.
Yes I do. And it’s tragic that we call it "justice" while allowing the running of a system that profits massively when people fail. If we actually invested in rehabilitation and reentry support instead of punishment for profit, those numbers would tell a different story.
Thank you for your relentless combat against what today we can call plain fascism.
IMHO, President Trump has been put at the helm by people like Russel Vaught and the people behind project 2025. Trump did not appoint Vaught. It was the other way around.
Which is even more scary, because the people behind project 2025 are intelligent. They write the executive orders and tell Trump what to do. They soon recognised his incredible narcissism, ignorance, and corruption, all of which made him the perfect buffoon they were looking for. A puppet on a string they now handle at will as their useful idiot.
Well said, they chose him, but he chose the corrupt Republican Party back in the day. Gravitated to them like the mob boss he is.. now he’s just a useful fool. But one with a flamethrower
If you are not familiar with what happened at the Kent State Massacre, this short video covers most of the facts. Watching it will alert you to the risks of mobilizing the US military to manage domestic unrest. The US military is trained and organized to be a powerful killing force for use in warfare. I lived through that time (of the Kent State Massacre) as a student and can vouch for the accuracy of the video. Keep in mind that all the male students at that time were by law registered for the draft and carried draft cards. They could at anytime receive a notice from their draft board to report for induction into the US military and be sent to Vietnam. They also almost to the person knew someone who had died or been seriously injured in Vietnam. I knew several and some who returned with severe PTSD. A medical school classmate served as a medic that rode in a helicopter to rescue wounded soldiers from the battlefields in Vietnam. He had nightmares and whenever helicopters flew overhead he had flashbacks to the severely injured very young men who rode on the medvac helicopter with him. Many of whom he knew would not survive. They also knew that the Vietnam War was cooked up by government officials (the Gulf of Tonkin Incident) to prop up a South Vietnam dictator. Something they didn’t want to die for. This was not a WWII situation which they would have had a different attitude toward.
NB: I spent three years in and graduated from a military school. I have two nephews who completed US Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and are officers in the Marines. I support the men and women of the US military as long as they are following their “rules of engagement”, are following the rule of law and are acting to protect our country and its citizens from foreign enemies and not being used for domestic political purposes.
You might also like to view this video of US Representative Maxine Waters confronting the National Guard troops in her district in Los Angeles and imploring them to not fire their weapons at her or the unarmed, nonviolent, peaceful women, men and children protesters.
The "lights in the water" on August 4, 1965, were caused by the reflections of the moon and lighting flashes from the squalls in all quadrants, of the enormous school of flying fish that has been annually transiting the Gulf of Tonkin the first week of August for several million years. Finding out a month after the event from my best friend in bootcamp - who had been in charge of the gun tower on "Maddox" and was courtmartialed for the three times he refused the order to "open fire" was what changed my life forever. I was then on the staff of the command in charge of the two destroyers. After I got home and was working with Dr. Peter Dale Scott to get to the truth, I met the Asst Gunnery Officer on "Turner Joy" (by then a grad student at Cal), who managed to convince his captain the only target out there was Maddox.
Thank you so much for your comment and filling in the history of the event. Kudos. I hope you didn’t lose any friends in that terrible conflict. Thank you for your service to our country and I hope you have found peace.
It is something to know about in these fraught times. It has not been invalidated by subsequent laws passed by Congress or declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. There is also the fact that every member of the US Armed Services has taken an oath to support and defend the US Constitution including its Amendments. This oath has no expiration date.
However, this hasn’t prevented Trump from putting his sycophants in positions of power over the US military and the Pentagon. He has also made it clear to unit commanders of the US forces that their promotions and careers are dependent on them following his every command no matter what it is. In this light it is especially troubling that he has recently changed all the commanders of the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg - which controls Special Operations/Delta Forces. These are the military that carry out “black” operations such as assassinations.
3 Fort Bragg command changes that have happened this summer - The Fayetteville Observerhttps://apple.news/AxR5HYqSUQ5OEoGvvTm6w7g
NB: The laws of our country and enforcement of the rule of law only protect us if the people in charge follow the laws in good faith. Unfortunately Trump and his Administration are behaving in many instances like they are not bound by the laws and when confronted are untruthful about or obfuscate their actions. They have disavowed the US Constitution.
The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription | National Archives
Well, in the past few months, I’ve received 900 thank youse and liked the comments actually liked not just comment but actually demonstrated my post and what they liked about it. Which is really not my concern at all because that’s not why I’m here. I am. I’m here to kind of give you rational thought but you don’t wanna hear any, but I’m gonna make it easy for you, Sabine since you’re nothing but a hater for no reason I’m gonna have you prove that you’re a hater for no reason. And it will undoubtedly be the last time I hear from you.
Provide me a list of six of Donald Trump’s administration’s policies that have negatively and are currently specifically affecting your life today.
Well, keep yourself in good shape so you get to use those tickets. These people are the types to thrive on their immorality and illegality while everyone else's blood pressure is going through the roof.
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
I keep thinking that Trump and his cronies are the proverbial idiots standing in the middle of a circle on top of an iceberg, using a giant hacksaw to finish the job, fully expecting the iceberg to sink rather than themselves.
The violations of law, morality, procedure and convention aren't just egregious, they're incredibly dumb. Hammering away at the ACA when 3/4 of enrollees live in counties Trump won in 2024 represents the height of political idiocy so gobsmacking as to take your breath away.
We can all be mistaken in our assessments, but the image that keeps returning, again and again, is a giant Rube Goldberg contraption held together with scotch tape, gumballs and bad wiring, all creaking, groaning, unraveling, swaying back and forth in near hurricane-force winds.
Which means we have to be ones to make sure that wind machine keeps blowing at maximum volume.
You were lied to about the ACA everybody was lied to about the ACA and the subsidies were going to disappear in December so don’t blame Trump. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan you can keep your plan. Uh oh.
Besides appreciating the reliably even-handed and factual account, I want to thank HCR for two small but important details: First: calling them ‘states led by Democrats’ rather than the ubiquitous and inaccurate ’blue states’. It would behoove Governors like mine in Washington State to remind the world that thousands of Republicans, Independents, and unaffiliated citizens inhabit our state, and use the opportunity to build bridges and solidarity among us while we are under attack. Second, and dear to my heart, thanks for NOT referring to Vought as an ‘architect’ of Project 2025. Your careful language is noted and much appreciated.
Frankly - I'm not interested in building bridges. Not with MAGA and MAGA "Independents". And we don't need them.
Harris lost because millions of Democrats and Independent Democrats stayed home. She managed to get less votes than Biden. THAT is the story of the election.
There wasn't any rightward shift to the voters. There hasn't been any rightward shift to the country. The Democrats sat this one out. The people that elected Trump are the Democrats that stayed home.
If the Democrats actually show up and vote the Republicans will lose.
So, the only folks I want to reach are the stay-at-home Democrats. The Republicans can go pound sand.
I want the MAGA crowd to treat me with respect. If they don't I intend verbally harass them. I want to ruin their day. I want them to be afraid to open their mouths and spew out garbage. I want them to shrink away and cower in the corner.
It's meant to be hostile and dismissive. The real problem is the naive approach to those that will never be won over. To those that we truly do not need to win elections.
I live in California where we kicked Republicans to the curb long ago. And we've done so much better now that we openly dismiss them.
Thanks Dr. Richardson. As many of us suspected those Executive orders that trump slime authorized on the afternoon of January 20, 2025 were already written and planned to do maximum harm to American citizens. Vought obviously has read, understands, and hates The Constitution. Strangely, the men who actually wrote the Constitution were of the wealthy class, they just happened to believe like the Patriotic Millionaires, in the Common Good. That even the poorest among us are entitled to a living wage. And that all Americans should support the public works which all of them used.
It's no wonder he especially dislikes the First Amendment. The first phrase starts with: "Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" This is anathema to Fundamental Calvanists, who firmly believe 'God favors the wealthy, else they wouldn't be wealthy.' Trust me, you won't find those words in the Hebrew, Latin, or King James versions of the bible.
Appointing PeeWee German to head the ICE deployment of goons to arrest tamale stand owners has to be one of the dumbest things Donnie Dimpleknees could ever do. Ironically it gives some real hope. Clearly, they think he's a badass who'll show those Haitians and Salvadorans what's what. But Junior Gropenfūhrer was clearly behind the dumb Signal Chat musings with Kegsbreath about sending in the 82nd Airborne to quell a non-existent violent insurrection. Exhibit A: these Keystone Kops haven't bothered to tie their own shoelaces before running down the street with their billy clubs.
And this will be used by Pritzker, Newsom and an entire host of those filing amici curiae briefs as evidence of true mens rea -- criminal intent and aforethought. Because the evidence that no such insurrections are taking place, whether in Portland, Washington DC, Chicago, Memphis, Boston, Lost Angeles, is overwhelming. So it begs the question. What's all this about, if not the obvious --- rule by the cynical assholes around Trump -- Miller, Vought, Hegseth, Noem -- to feed the required incendiary nonsense back to Trump (who is clearly lost in total lalaland) about cities burning down, raging out-of-control hordes of Haitians eating cats and roasting dogs, knowing full well that he needs only the flimsiest excuse to beat his chest and go "I'd do it [invoke the Insurrection Act] if it was necessary", portraying himself as Mighty Mouse ("Here I Come to Save the Day!").
But why invoke the Insurrection Act in the first place, unless you want to use it as justification for preventing elections you know you're going to lose if don't do something first to stop them? While dastardly, again, they haven't thought through much of anything. Elections remain the province of the states, whose Secretaries of State are already planning for next November. Little Sturmbannfūhrer forgot to consult them first.
The answers aren't exactly hiding themselves from view, but then again, neither are the obvious failures waiting to blow up in their faces. I remain stubbornly optimistic.
Stephen Miller seems to enjoy his role as Trump's Retribution Whisperer - a malignant voice for bringing vengeance and pain to “the enemy within". As reported, Miller helps translate Trump's delusions and vengeful impulses into policy and action.
Two key allies in Miller's enterprise are Project 2025's/OMB's Russell Vought and Trump VP JD Vance.
Vought has examined every nook and cranny of federal government operations. With Miller and others, he has laid a path to destroying federal government of, by and for the people using every legal loophole, gap and weak link in the system to do so.
JD Vance, shapeshifter supreme, gives cover to the destruction. In his latest role as Trump supplicant on a mission infused with the hardline brand of Catholicism to which he converted, Vance acts and lies brazenly for the MAGA cause with ease and conviction.
These three men are doing what Trump is too lazy and inept to do, while feeding Trump’s inclinations to megalomania, vengeance and paranoia. All four men need each other. It’s a perilous house of cards for the rest of us, especially those not on the MAGA train.
Just remember that the Maybelline Buttwipe has all the animal magnetism of a fresh cow patty, the personality of used blotting paper. He's not likely to emerge as anybody's savior once all those hamberders finally remove the Manchurian Cantaloupe from our presence.
I am speculating with this one, my apologies in advance. The whole Venezuela thing is staged and part of Trumpolini's Kayfabe. To that asshole, it's "just like shooting fish in a barrel"! He has not a single ounce of intention to "save thousands of lives". Masquerading as "warrior" just allows him to get closer to calling out his national emergency with which he will disrupt voting in 2026. Be prepared, even if it is speculation.
THOUGHT CRIME: “Thanks to the example set by Donald Trump, his enablers and MAGA, I have become aware of the millions of Americans who would have betrayed Anne Frank.”
Real historians keep returning to this one point, don't they? Even at the height of their influence and power to kill, torture and degrade millions of people, the Nazis would have remained a small clique of cabal plotters had it not been for the assistance given to them by those throughout Europe who probably would never have described themselves as Nazis, beginning in Germany, of course, when Chancellor Franz von Papen told President Hindenburg in 1933 to approve the plan to appoint Hitler Reich Chancellor, with himself as Vice-Chancellor. The words to President Hindenburg were probably something like: 'don't worry about Herr Hitler, I will see to it that he's kept in line.'
Enter Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Speaker Poindexter A. Bobblehead, Senator Kentucky Fried Voldemort, Little Lindsey clutching his pearls, "concerned" Susan Collins, and a whole panoply of babbling enablers, facilitators, encouragers and the like who thought only of how they could use this to help the GOP, etc. etc.
At least his first Secretary of State was honest enough to describe his boss back then as a "fucking moron." How I wish more people had paid attention to all the reminders of his stupidity, sociopathy, cruelty, racism, misogyny, perfidy, dishonesty, business failures, and malignant narcissism before that, and long before what once passed for brains between his ears had turned to rancid mushmeal.
Some of us did scream into the void! Little good did it do.
In actuality Trump is the weakest link. The Epstein File can be his downfall!
The question then is: Are the rest of them secure enough in their roles to continue their attacks on the American Way?
Very true, and people unfortunately didn’t care about the warnings we gave and the consequences that have come true about them. No one elected Russell Vought to dismantle the American government and assistance to citizens. We didn’t vote to have health and vaccine access to cut off. We also didn’t vote to have the unelected Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation and the Christian Nationalisrs impose a plutocratic and theocratic country on us. Trump, Roberts and Miller lambaste their critics as “the radical left.” The truth of the matter is that we who reject their collective program are not radical left. There is a minuscule group in American politics which could be seen as radical left, but their collective opponents don’t belong to a radical left.
We believe in capitalism, but we believe it has to be regulated to provide the greatest good for.the.greatest number, and we also believe that it has to imcljr tpeople who were formerly excluded from pursuit of better lives for themselves and their children. We believe government should not be cutting taxes for the morbidly rich and for wealthy corporations. We believe all Americans in need should have access to affordable and effective healthcare, healthy food, and good education. Too many people have this idea that I’ve got mine, now you go out and get yours. They believe that other people’s problems are not their problems, when the reality is that we live in a society and we do have responsibilities to one another.
And this applies even to the smallest acts. Yesterday outside a grocery store, a friend saw another shopper reach for a cart that had some empty plastic bags in it. Despite the fact a trash can was in arm's reach, the woman grabbed the bags out of the cart and threw them on the ground -- I know it is minuscule in comparison - but it seemed to me to echo what you said about the current attitude of way too many people.
When I went to church on Sunday, there were two trash receptacles outside the school, and I deposited a bag of trash into one of them. My mother raised us to clean up after ourselves and taught us not to be litter bugs. Another thing that drives me nuts is people leaving carts all over a store parking lot when they are physically capable of placing them in the cart corral. I can understand if someone with a physical disability is not able to return a cart, but people who are able to return carts do so.
This is why Aldi’s has its policy of requiring shoppers to deposit a quarter to use a cart, then they can get their quarter back when they are finished loading their vehicles and return their carts to the basket line.
People don’t see the slightest interconnection of things. On our town FB page, people constantly grumble about rising property taxes and one near constant refrain from senior citizens is “I don’t have kids in school anymore!” Then, in the next post they complain about not being able to find a plumber, or the fact that no PCPs are taking new patients and “hey what’s up with them kids hanging on the street corner??” Um if you want kids educated well enough to go on to trade school and med school, then you’d better be willing to pay for a robust K-12 education!!! We are all in this together. YES, other people’s children ARE your problem!
Aldi is simply using the German model (it is a store that started there) of depositing a coin or token in order to get the cart - since otherwise in urban areas the carts would all get taken home. Most shoppers there aren’t driving.
And yet, this: A few months ago, a new Aldi opened in a shopping center located at the margin of Little Rock's expansive nouveau riche area on the west end. Every time I visit the store, I must dodge abandoned Aldi carts when parking in their lot. I can only conclude that the store's Little Rock patrons think they are above returning the carts to the store lobby for a mere quarter.
While "the least of us" struggle to make ends meet, far too many Americans suffer from "affluenza." I have no doubt that the Trump regime is about to cure that. Perhaps that is the silver lining in the coming economic disaster.
The coin to release a cart comes from Aldi's German roots where inserting a Deutsche Mark was SOP. It's probably a Euro coin now.
I leave my cart in the parking lot...it keeps teenagers and others employed./s
I like Aldi's cart fee! Good plan.
If you park so far away from a cart return, you're not handicapped.
I live in a blue state, county, city, and I see people throwing water bottles on the ground, not picking up after dogs (it's the law), leaving shopping carts in our neighborhood, running red lights all the time - maybe they're the few magas that reside in my area who are careless and irresponsible - but I think not.....
Not all idiots are MAGA. Some are just Karens.
I think this is part of trauma and care for the earth is affected when one is in trauma mode. When angry easy to toss things on the ground. One of the by products of our age. Ladybird Johnson started the first view of taking care. She met Terry Tempest Williams and said the men in the Johnson administration had watered much of it down so it was so called palpable fir the American public. One has to be able to care abd sometimes have the luxury of care. Many of the earlier environmentalists came from the elite . And a clash between indigenous people who had a relationship of care then overtaken with genicifde abd the elites who saw but only saw partly. I try to send positive vibes in those situations. All we can do is clean up.
lauriemcf,
You really resonated with me! And you say it's "minuscule in comparison" but is it? Just like the serial killer supposedly starts with torturing animals, so do these little acts of self-importance build.
Many here know I had a career in the medical laboratory. When COVID hit, I thought about the hundreds of pediatric cancer patients I'd known. A.L.L (the "childhood leukemia") has a wonderful treatment rate, IF the kids don't succumb to a virus! I thought of those kids, and all immunocompromised people and was astounded people would not wear a mask for the greater good. I said to my husband if this attitude was around in WW2, can you imagine people with ration coupons? The cultural change of needing women to work in the defense factories?
Just imagine if Trump had stepped up to the role of the POTUS (as some swore he would). If he had urged people to mask up, if he had encouraged mitigation efforts and CALMLY lead people to hunker down and also help their neighbors. He could have gone down in history for good reasons, not what he will be remembered for instead.
Imagine is the right word for what is required here Miselle. Imagination so great it might be better described as delusion.
What you describe is not in any way possible for Trump to do. Grocery store? Clean up after someone else? Clean up after himself? Please.
Students in hallways feel free to disparage others as well.
Laurie, that woman sounds like she lived in Vietnam prior to whatever they did to clean the country up. I remember watching a woman just throw her gum wrapper on the ground, with no thought. Somehow, Vietnam is no longer that way, and I think Malaysia never has been. But Thailand, at least in Bangkok was bad when I was there in 2007.
My Dad, traveling as a preacher to visit missionaries, told me of the countries and cities where spitting was an arrestabal offense as was littering. Of course, the authorities had total government approval. I think lazy is a good word for those who litter & leave carts all over the place.
…and they will be amongst the first to suffer ..
I believe that Ignorance should be made the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
The felon child rapist regime is fill with sociopaths and psychopaths - they don't give a shit about anyone, not their spouse, not their children and most certainly not poor, Black or Brown people. They want it all for themselves and we can all go find a ditch to die in.
Absolutely Terry. That is why DJT continues to have wide support. Most people are content with their lives, they don't care about anyone less fortunate, they don't care about all the hidden things government does. Wait till bridges collapse, till highways crumble, till food is contaminated, till the grocery scales give false readings, till banks go bankrupt and can not pay off depositors, till the air is so polluted that you get sick breathing, your water is no longer safe to drink.It is a long list but staying ignorant and selfish is so easy.
There is one pressure point I have noticed over the years, air travel.
I wish I could…
Narcissists all.
True. Their behavior makes it obvious they view people other than themselves with contempt, and they don’t think it would ever bounce back upon them.
I have to wonder what kind of country these theocratic psychopaths think they are going to rule over after they destroy the economy of this country. They are going to have to control a very well armed population, and there is little chance that the military will side with them. When there is no longer a middle class to buy their stuff and their hoarded dollars become worthless, they are going to be lording it over a hollowed out disaster of a world. These stupid policies are wrecking the US economy, and if we go into depression the rest of the world will also.
"a slice of bread buys a bag of gold..."
Still in the "Greed Is Good" upward cycle. It's racism and greed. Unbridled capitalism is not a benefit for all. Feels like the Robber Barons are control and crushing the rest of us.
I actually don’t endorse neoliberal capitalism. Capitalism must be heavily regulated so the wealthy don’t grab all the assets as they want. Working people deserve a greater share of pay for what their work has helped to achieve, and I think they deserve the right to collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions. I support abolition of private equity, stock options, and safe harbor rules, and I believe workers deserve,seats on corporate boards as they have in German companies. I also believe CEO and upper level pay should be cut considerably to avoid the huge gaps which exist between employee and executive pay.
Milton Friedman’s belief that companies should only be run for the benefit of executives and shareholders has caused an immeasurable amount of damage to American workers, and to communities all over the country which have lost factory work to see it go overseas. The people who did this only thought of their short term desires and didn’t take the longer view they should have taken to see what the long term negative effects of our policies would be. We cannot become an economic powerhouse by shipping manufacturing overseas and relying on service jobs to power our economy. I believe we made a huge mistake when we removed regulatory systems that stopped the economic abuses we see going on today.
I agree racism and greed are two of the biggest reasons why this is happening. The Republicans have pulled off a con job on many people by pretending blue collar workers and greedy robber barons have interests in common. I also think any effort to restore a middle class needs to deliberately reach out to minority citizens to include them in the middle class. We can’t return to a past where middle class status was reserved only for white families, and where redlining and housi)g segregation was the norm.
I don’t believe greed is good. On the contrary, it has done a tremendous amount of damage to people’s lives and has prevented many people from achieving their full potential. Donald Trump thinks greed is good, and he is seriously damaging the country and the world by continuing this mindset.
Kathy, I really appreciate how clearly you have laid this out. I share your belief that an economy should serve people, not the other way around. The concentration of wealth and power we see today is not inevitable, it is the result of choices that can be changed through courage, regulation, and collective action.
What you said about including everyone in the rebuilding of a real middle class especially resonates with me. Repairing what has been broken means not only restoring fairness, but expanding belonging, ensuring that the next economy is built on cooperation, equity, and shared stewardship rather than extraction. Greed may have defined this era, but it does not have to define what comes next.
Kathy Hughes and Christy Shaver: I really agree with Christy Shaver.
Ms. Hughes: You really have laid out the complex socio-economic perversity of our situation amply and quite clearly in your short commentary.
I am a Keynesian, and I while I admire the intellectual achievement of Milton Friedman, the Darwinian rush of wealth to the top, and impoverishment of the little person, makes me see how the Romantic era of the 19th century turned out the 1848 Revolution, Socialism, the political-economic theory of Marx-Engels, and the late 19th c. labor union movement.
When I grew up in the 1950s, the industrial economy was heavily unionized, with equitable benefits for the worker.
From Reagan forward, the Republicans have successfully implemented the Social Darwinianism born of Edward Spencer and living through Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek (both of whom were honorable, intellectual men, but Darwinian economists).
The unions were rough, but the worker had a living wage and benefits.
I fail to see how stratospheric wealth for the industrialists and Third-World wages and benefits for the worker should benefit America.
While I would agree with much of what you’ve said here, I wonder if you haven’t left something substantial out. “Working People” is one of those phrases that both sides throw around, usually in the sense that they are a group especially deserving of our consideration and support. They are, yes, but they are also “We the People”, that vast sea of Americans of all sizes and shapes that includes all of us. We, all of us, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, capitalists, socialists, and whatever lies between and among them, men and women and all the other categories we could name are the ones who are supposed to have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
So far, so good. But in return for those rights, what are our responsibilities? That area often seems to left out of discussions these days, a bit like the fact that everyone loves to talk about Freedom and Individual Rights, but the question of the responsibilities that must accompany both is often less ardently discussed.
I am often reminded of Lincoln’s speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield in 1838 in which he noted with remarkable prescience that “As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide”
How many Americans really understand enough about the nature and purpose of our founding to be able to defend it as dearly as it must be defended if it is to survive? We throw a lot of words about America around, but, as it seems to me, all too often without really understanding who we were designed to be. It is as if all Americans were somehow supposed to gain that understanding through some mysterious form of osmosis, simply by living here, and yet time after time the facts generally prove that those who have come here from other places and wish to become citizens study hard and often take the citizenship oath with a greater understanding of who we are than the native born.
We may rail about Trump and Miller and Vought, and it is altogether true that none of them have any concept of who we were designed to be, or if they do, they clearly reject it,
Making sure that as many of us as possible have that understanding should be our first priority. Dr Richardson is an integral part of that effort, as are others like her. So should we all.
I believe the USA set up those rules that empower European workers post war. The idea was that it might prevent the rise of fascism.
Now there's irony.
Yep, Kathy. 100% but I would also add misogyny to the toxic mix of neoliberal capitalism, since it was developed in the 19th century, an era that saw some of the most abusive statutory restrictions on women's autonomy and independence. The women who make a choice to hitch their wagon to a patriarchal capitalist system often learn to regret it.
Thank you for the great article Kathy!
Read philosopher Robert Soloman on business ethics (former philosopher at UT Austin. There is a fine little video on Vimeo that every “good capitalist “ ought to watch)
Yes!!!
Been saying for years - get rid of income inequality and racism and we have a chance at peace.
Human nature being what it is, not everyone thinks peace is a good thing. The most stunning example of that would be the idiot hegseth. Boggles the mind.
Aggression at the cellular level. No brains required.
Is it the income inequality or the failure of the wealthy to pay their fair share? I could not care less that someone has amassed wealth as long as they pay their fair share into the system and the general welfare is promoted.
I'm reminded of "The Royals," the 2015-18 TV series depicting an entirely implausible British royal family that was hugely entertaining and fairly well acclaimed. The series ended prematurely because its creator, Mark Schwahn, was sexually assaulting members of the cast and crew.
In episode 6 of season 3, Prince Liam released the palace staff early to go home and celebrate the Christmas holidays with their families. To the royal family's dismay, no holiday preparations had been made in the palace, and the royals found themselves with nothing to eat because, of course, none knew how to cook.
"The Royals" of our culture seem to forget that their extravagant lifestyles are made possible by "the little people" to whom they pay pittances and deny healthcare and other benefits of a social safety net. Perhaps they will soon find out that life can be challenging when the people who don't matter are gone.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3597912
Most of us Americans believe in Pragmatic Capitalism, as put in place in the Scandinavian countries.
The argument has long been that the wealthy are entitled to those billions of dollars because they're responsible for creating jobs and wealth, giving little or no credit to the people. In a word, that is BS. There are now 900,000 people in the U.S. with a net worth of $10 million or more and 902 billionaires. If the U.S. population were only 3.4 million people, there would be no billionaires. But, we are a nation of 340 million people and as a result we have one million very wealthy people, i.e., 0.24% of the population. So, why should 1/4 of 1% receive trillions in aid while 99.76% of the population are exploited? And but for the people, they would not, could not, have that much wealth.
So, what to do? What's fair? Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and the person responsible for our having Social Security hit the nail on the head in terms of what government's purpose or function should be: "The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life." Sound familiar? It should. Excerpted from Matthew 25: 34-46: 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, , I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ So, what about our "Christian" Republican politicians who voted for Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that takes food, shelter, health care and more from "the least of these" and hands trillions of dollars to the ultra wealthy? Here it is: 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Richard Sutherland,
I share your concerns and questions regarding faith and actions.
"Blind Guides?"
Francis Perkins was one of the best examples of "faith and the compassion for ones fellow man/woman".... She gave her life to such...Not just good thoughts, but actions!
It's true, Frances Perkins put her thoughts into action and benefitted hundreds of millions of Americans. Jane Goodall comes to mind as well: she made us (billions of us) better humans by expanding our "humanity" to encompass other living creatures on this earth. They also have thoughts and feelings, just as we do. if we could just put Jesus' teachings in Matthew 25: 34-46 into action. I say this even though I am not a Christian. Frances Perkins was a devout Christian and proved it.
One of the events that led Frances Perkins to work for labor was that she witnessed the events surrounding the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, which killed many women and girls after they were trapped in the burning factory. Not a few of these women and girls died when they jumped to the ground to escape the fire. Many of the victims were immigrants working to earn money for their families.
If “most Americans” believe in it why do they not “make it so” by voting against those who want to destroy it!?
Excellent question: why do ordinary Americans not vote against those who want to destroy a pragmatic capitalistic system? There are a couple of reasons that come to my mind and they're connected. On 3-31-2001 Pres. G.W. Bush, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." Then, in 2004, Thomas Frank published his book that explains how the wealthy manipulate many ordinary Americans to vote against their own best economic interests: "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
Too many Americans have been completely programmed by Fauxnooz and right wing media to believe that Democrats in particular, and anything progressive in general is the work of the devil. Trump is now speaking to these unthinking morons when he says that Democrats need to be eliminated. None of these SOBs ever explain WHY they believe this nonsense. They just parrot the “fact” that anything leftish is evil and “against god”.
My favorite Bible verses
I think that the verses in Matthew 25: 34-46 contain the essence of Christianity and are a guide for all of us. I frankly doubt that a person named Jesus even existed. Nothing in the New Testament is written by anyone who ever met, spoke with, listened to or read anything written by Jesus, combined with the fact that the New Testament is written in Greek and Jesus, if he existed, spoke Aramaic. No eye witnesses. None. And, some of what Jesus is supposed to have said came decades later, and there are two versions of Jesus' death in the New Testament - crucifixion in Matthew and hanging by the Sanhedrin in Acts. Still, I think that they are some of the greatest words and thoughts ever written.
Who ever thought that Corporations should be able to control or have any say in elections? That was a bold move and paying off nicely for the Scrooge McDucks of the world.
Because of the policies of FDR and his progressive taxes on high earners and people of great wealth, "A rising tide lifts all boats" actually worked to make America the great country we were and a beacon of light for all of humanity.
Unfortunately the top 1% own all the boats now.
FDR was the sort of president we needed and who rarely comes around often. He was very perceptive in a way few presidents are, and we many never see his like again, because our system is designed to enable people like Trump.
He was certainly what we needed then, but it is perhaps easy to forget that the modern conservative movement to restrict the power of the Federal Government and to at least severely modify FDR’s social programs, if not do away with them entirely was triggered by the New Deal. Also, of course, his misguided attempt to pack the Supreme Court is still something conservatives point to when liberals talk about trying to control today’s conservative supermajority.
I don’t say that to deny the importance of what FDR accomplished, or to suggest that those who would deconstruct what he accomplished are right to do so, but rather to suggest that in our increasingly polarized political environment the ability to navigate it with any kind of success is increasingly crucial. Can that be done? I honestly don’t know. But as I suggested in my earlier post, the real fault here lies with us. Neither FDR nor Trump were put into office by some mysterious alien force.
I also agree that a significant part of our problem is our ossified binary political party system that so invites the amplification of party loyalty over the best interests of all Americans and which certainly played a part in Trump’s victory last November. But I actually think that someone like FDR could be elected today, but mostly because of his extraordinary ability to communicate (a quality he shared with Reagan, Kennedy, and Lincoln above most other presidents). His fireside chats were in a very important way that day’s equivalent to today’s internet.
As Thomas Piketty has shown, capitalism does exactly what it says on the tin. Do not believe people who try to distinguish between 'predatory' capitalism and 'compassionate capitalism'.
The issue is that in the U.S., conservatives are used to calling anything that helps ordinary people “Marxist, Communist, or socialist,” and many Americans have been educated to avoid these terms like the plague. There is also a peculiarly American definition of the word “socialism” which Southern whites used against anyone who came down to educate or assist newly freed Black people to learn how to navigate the world of freedom. The North decided to end Reconstruction as part of the agreement that resolved the electoral vote crisis of 1876 and to give the presidency to Republican Rutherford Hayes. The consequences for Black Americans were truly dire as state after state amended their constitutions to prohibit Black men from exercising their rights to vote, placed Black citizens in economic subjection to white citizens, and otherwise informed Black citizens at every turn they were never to aspire to equality with white citizens. In the event these laws weren’t enough, there were always lynchings to remind Black citizens that whites wanted them in a position deemed inferior to white citizens. That state of affairs lasted until the 1960s, when the Civil Rights movement changed things. Nixon invited Southern white former Democrats into the Republican Party (SC Senator Strom Thurmond had already joined the Republicans.) The only difference between Donald Trump and other Republicans is that Trump openly wears his racial hatreds on his sleeve instead of disguising them in coded language.
Kathy Hughes: Here again, you capture a lot of essential points, backed up with a solid knowledge of the controversial election of 1876, to show the evolution of sores raging in today's political economy.
You really ought to consider publishing "Posts" or "Notes," because you summarize complex issues well and yet simply and efficiently.
Americans are still held fast by the myth of the eternal frontier and the idea of 'rugged individualism' (a phrase coined by Hoover). However, they don't like it much when they are subjected to increased taxes or when their benefits or access to healthcare is restricted, so there are some limits even to this. Billionaires in the US have become quite addicted to state socialism which continues to line their already deep pockets.
You are correct. That is why I used the term "Pragmatic Capitalism" to describe the Scandinavian capitalistic system that has a lot of social welfare factors built in. The means of production are not owned by the state. It is also a fact that if our population were only 3.4 million people there wouldn't be any billionaires, but because we are 340 million people, we have 900,000 deca-millionaires and 902 billionaires. They couldn't do it without the people. So, we have 0.24% of the population with as much accrued wealth as 99.76% of the population. That is, one million vs. 339 million. It's not fair.
If changes are not put in place starting immediately, that $40 trillion national debt could prevent Americans in their 30's, 40's and 50's from getting Medicare and Social Security, or in any amount that matters.
I get your point, I think mixed economies work best.
Indeed. Finland. Very high taxes. Very strong social services system. Thriving private enterprise. Happiest people on the planet.
It is not rocket science.
Capitalism is designed to develop businesses to create and distribute products and services. When regulated for concerns for the environment, workers rights and monopolies...it can perform beautifully.
Socialism is designed to do what Lincoln referenced: "Do for the people what they can't do for themselves." Socialism is simply thinking like a village of old (a nice one). When someone's barn burns down, they rebuild it. When a mother is ill, other mothers help. When the main breadwinner is hurt in an accident, neighbors bring food and help pay the doc.
It's so fracking simple and logical .... it defies reason and compassion that we won't, we refuse to learn from the obvious successes of other older countries.
And so. Now is the time for Democrats to stake out the logical, loving, compassionate - COST EFFICIENT - effective and well tested program called Medicare for ALL.
Republicans went way, way, way, WAY extremely right and libertarian, "every man for himself", "pull yourself up by your boot straps even if you don't have any boots, sorry, your fault you must be lazy or non-white". Women's reproductive health in the waste bin. Hospitals closing. Docs and nurses burning out. ER waits escalating. Have you been to one lately? Don't.
And we Democrats hover around in this fuzzy middle ground afraid to be too extreme. Holy shite. What will it take?
People whine about the "extremism on both sides". Bullcrap. Places like Finland are right down the middle, sensible and frankly a lot more efficient at taking care of each other. And why isn't that the banner, the central platform, the MESSAGE?
Why don't Democrats simply lay it out there. Capitalism without the balance of regulation and without worker involvement is feudalism. Socialism without democracy (like China) is slavery.
It is not rocket science. Every other major developed country provides their citizens with some form of universal health care. There are flaws in every one of those programs. We think we are smarter than every other country. Certainly we could harvest all the best aspects of those programs and create the best one ever imagined. Because we are exceptional, right?
Health care is a human right! Especially in the richest nation to have ever existed. To deny this is immoral and frankly stupidly inefficient. Unless, of course, we think the ER is a good health care plan.
Universal healthcare is the platform to win on. If we had the guts to adopt it. Here is a billboard:
"Please name the person you know who should die early in America because she couldn't afford a doctor."
or
"Thune and Schumer have healthcare - the best available. How's yours? Are they really more valuable and important than your family?"
Every capitalist economy on the planet is responsible for the unsustainable levels of consumption that has damaged or destroyed vital ecosystems and create numerous environmental harms.
The European Environment Agency notes in its 2025 country profile that in Finland:
"attempts to ensure economic prosperity and human well-being take a heavy toll on ecosystems and natural resources. The ecological footprint of an average Finn is high, and the material resource consumption of Finns is the highest in Europe. Finns also generate a lot of waste. While the rapid growth of renewable energy has led to reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, Finland’s carbon sinks have stagnated. The assessment of the biodiversity of species in Finland is perhaps the most thorough in the world, and the results show a negative trend, with one in nine species being endangered."
Finns can be happy while it lasts - but it won't last.
And, under the Substack Inc 2025 Terms of Use (TOU) all "Readers" & "Authors" here in this digital community owe contractual responsibilities to each other.
Kathy Hughes, you are doing a very good job discharging your responsibilities everywhere.
Bryan, perhaps it is my uncompetely caffienated brain, or I'm ignorant. I don't understand your comment to Kathy. Did you just compliment her, or are you subtly chastizing her? I admit to feeling like I did as a kid when someone told a dirty joke and I didn't understand it, but was too embarrassed to admit it. I trust you to explain and not insult me. (I've gotten enough of the insults lately here....)
Big KH fan here as she often hits the 🎯
You are all missing the reason this crap returned to power; the absolutely stupid and dense Biden administration. A perfect storm of opportunity arose and the MAGAs took full advantage. End of story.
Disagree!!! Biden and his cabinet picks put the U.S. on an upward road after the Covid debacle ground us and other countries to a halt. Biden left us with a thriving country and economy. He deserves our thanks.
Elizabeth Wallace,
Agree with you! In spite of his signs of aging, Biden continued to work at building back relationships throughout the world, that had been damaged during the prior Trump administration. He began "Building Back Better" projects to contribute to the growth of our economy.
Now we have an economy, education system and White House that is in disarray. Everyone is out for themselves....ie crazy monetary systems being created.... "Truth" becomes what will advance ones agenda....increases ones power to dominate and to control.
Yes that is correct. But he also became the crabby ole grandfather and he once had a better understanding of optics in his younger days. For example he gave Clarance Thomas a pass after Thomas was advised to declare “This is nothing but a high-tech lynch mod” and Biden wasn’t about to jeopardize his seat. At the end, he probably wanted the distinction of being president for the 250th anniversary. Trust me, they do think that way.
Biden was aging quicker than he realized and so many voters revenge vote or, “I’m not voting for that irritating ole fart when a nice soft spoken (con man) Donald Trump can get things done.” And then add our online cell devises that the majority use along with social media and you can swindle the populace as Trump did.
I could bring out more examples but I would just annoy you.
Ok one more example since you want one; the border was broken and thousands were pouring in and yes they were. A reporter from the News Hours asked Myorkas why Biden didn't execute an executive order and he yelled back, “Because it wouldn’t hold up in court.” How dense. How stupid. How arrogant.
We are all in the same boat, afloat in this vast emptiness, no matter how rich you are not one penny of it goes to the other side when you pass on. It’s madness plain and simple to not be supportive of your neighbor, removing people from healthcare is not a way to make our society healthier, diseases could care less how rich you are, if they can get a foot hold they will make you sick, anything that gives diseases more room to multiply and evolve is insane. Look at what happened at the beginning of Covid to the people on the cruise ships, that’s a good example of what reducing healthcare will result in happening. We are all on the same boat……🤬🤬🤬
It is, and as another commenter rightly mentions, we have not only rights but responsibilities toward each other. I especially need that reminder.
When you say we didn't vote, there is every chance we DIDN'T. We really need to start talking about the 2024 election and the vast quantities of data that show it was manipulated. STAT. If it's true, suddenly everything makes a whole lot of sense - and pinning all our hopes on a Midterm does not.
If Vought has enough administration support I think he and the odious Miller will stay until they are dragged out. The sheer cruelty is mind-boggling.
Unfortunately, they will. Miller was the one person who stayed with Trump for all four years of Trump’s first term in office.
Kathy, that's because Stephen and Donald are precisely aligned with regard to race, gender and power. Going back at least as far as Donald's grandfather, Friedrich, the Trump men have been white supremacists who believed women are good for only one thing and having power is all that matters. This is Miller's lane and he stays in it, never venturing into economics or even politics. He leaves those topics to others. Consequently, Miller never runs afoul of Donald's impulses.
Maybe they will be found rotting in some obscure office? One can hope lauriemcf.
It appears Miller and Voight are proceeding with their white religious nationalist steamroller. Didn't Trump say that Voight wanted the country to have only 100M in population? We should wonder how he plans to do that.
This is a “survival of the richest” cult.
Patricia, it is becoming quite obvious how they will get the population down to 100m....all white and Christian of course: deport, ruin health care, the economy, the environment, and everything that might help ordinary people, so they just die. Also make everything so awful that no one wants to come here.
Tourists don't even want to come here now, given the way people from other countries are now being treated!
A person from Germany is coming to visit a friend of ours and the airline cost was incredibly low. Still few want to come.
The Epstein Files ARE THE DISTRACTION!!!!! While our outrage is fully justified, it is keeping us "looking over there", while the Nazis completely dismantle our Democracy. I want every one of the lowlifes involved with Epstein and his ilk punished fully and mercilessly, but NOT at the cost of American freedom.
The Epstein- Maxwell crimes are NOT a distraction.
The Epstein Survivors hold a Press Conference in DC tomorrow 10/8 -- another major step in exposing all the facts- all the Perps including their "closest fiend" for 10 years.
I see a direct link between the Survivors goals and your top issue. Like HCR put history in an accurate context.
You're on the money. Americans (and I are one) have the disease that makes it difficult to walk and chew gum simultaneously. Why can't we focus on the shutdown, the strategies required to win big the 2026 midterms and the linked rationales for Democrats achieving both? Argh . . .
Agreed, who at this point doesn't understand Trump is a sexual predator?
Daniel, the Epstein files might be a distraction, but I suspect Donald doesn't view them and isn't using them as such. We know a lot about his sexual misconduct, but we don't know all the details. Whether or not his fears are founded, he seems to believe that his part of the Epstein saga could discredit his standing with the MAGA/evangelical base.
In my opinion, that remains to be seen. Evangelicals love them some underage sexual predation. And when one of their clergy gets caught, well, the girl was probably asking for it (see Eve and the talking snake) and if she wasn't asking for it, there's always the escape hatch of "confession and forgiveness."
Donald knows he "can shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote," so his base may feel the same about sexual perversion.
But with few straws to grasp at, we have to grasp at what's available.
Dale, love the reference to Eve and the talking snake!
I think that his "charisma" will not extend to Vance or any other Trump bootlicker or Project 2025 enabler. Whatever the allure is with Trump, those scumbags definitely don't have it. I suspect that's one reason they've circled the wagons around him, despite his obvious mental issues.
Gail E.
What "charisma" are you speaking of???!!!
The kind that you put in "quotes."
According to the The American Heritage Dictionary, charisma is: "A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm. "
Certainly applies to Trump.
Gail E,
I am referring to the “Hitler” type of blind, ignorant charisma followers.
It only proves how foolish we are and how easily humans can be deceived.
These are frightening times.
When the Epstein Files blow open -- and they will -- what will be the public's reaction? We are already jacked-up on all the insanity going on which impacts every one of us every day. So often in revolutions it is a spark that spreads like wildfire. It's starting to feel like we're slip-sliding our way to that moment.
Jay, screamed in 2016 and got the middle finger from those who should have known better.
Recall that tomorrow, Wednesday, 10/8, Epstein Survivors hold a Press Conference in DC.
Of course they are, because if they don't, they will ultimately fall to the wheels of justice. If the Democrats regain the White House and the Congress, I don't think we will see a repeat of Biden's hands-off nonsense. I expect any new Democratic government may in fact swing the pendulum way too far the other way and seriously go after a large number of the GOP cabal, including Trump himself. I then fear another swing back as people decide that any Democratic reprisals will be a bridge too far. This is pretty much US politics as usual.
I certainly see your point. I have a bit more faith in Americans. We will ALL be watching to ensure this doesn’t happen. (I hope)
LOL (sorry the laugh is not trying to be offensive to you, I just find the idea you wrote quite amusing).
You trust Americans to be watching to be sure this doesn't happen again? I don't trust Americans further than o can throw them to be watching out for anything. We all see what happened in 2016-2020 and what happened on Jan 7 and we STILL reelected him in 2024.
That legacy gives you faith in Americans?
Sorry, not me.
I'm wonderful too. What happens after the orange blight. Will Miller, Vought and JD work together? Miller and Vought are unelected. Their only authority comes from the orange blight and his handlers. This definitely a cult of personality. Who will fill the clown shoes next???
I have had it ICTT with writing emails to Susan Collins. She voted for Vought and without her vote, he wouldn't have become OMB director.
Knowing that no matter what we say or write, she will DO NOTHING except cower, smile and lie, so I end each email to her now with "FUCK YOU".
The only purpose of this is to make me feel better since she is a white Christian Nationalist and friends with Leonard Leo and Russell Vought. For 10 years, she worked for Mitch ignoring the wants and needs of her constituents.
She expects respect from her constituents when she has done nothing to earn it.
The question is why her constituents kept electing her. Maybe this is what the majority wanted.
Until representatives pay by not being reelected …
Let's just call her supportive constituents 'uninformed voters'. Maine is considered a blue state. The 2nd district that has elected her is comprised of a large land mass with fewer voters. Having lived here for my entire adult life I have witnessed first hand the lack of critical thought that continues to re elect her. Frustrating as hell to be sure.
We finally have some strong contenders running against her that speak clearly to these voters (here's looking at you Graham Platner) he has a real chance to gain support from both parties in our populace. But the national Democratic party appears to be pushing our beloved Governor Mills into running.She has stated she will not decide until November. I have long admired her and she has done an incredible job,but our country doesn't need another member of congress in their late 70s. If she runs she will implode the field and skew it into oblivion, all be it with the financial backing of outside interests instead of the ground support needed right here. Ugghhhh.
Agreed. Platner can fight the on the ground Collins uses to beat back challengers: she is not”from away” and delivers constituent services. I love Janet Mills but you are right she is too old to play the new game in DC.
Eliz, the problem, as I see it, is that both parties are controlled by "oldheads." Oldhead thinking: "Stick with whatever has worked in the past."
In this new world, oldhead thinking won't work. New thinking: "That was good, but how can we do it better?"
The GOP got the advantage because their leader, while an oldhead, is a cardboard cutout tycoon whose reputation was made by TV, for TV. That telegenic image attracted younger people who knew how to exploit both legacy Corporate Media and newer social media.
Meanwhile, the oldheads in the DNC have been floundering with zero expertise in building or exploiting a new media infrastructure. Unless and until, the DNC gets rid of the oldheads running the show, Democrats are going to struggle winning younger generations and persuadable people in conservative regions.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oldhead
As a Maine 2nd District (Industry, near Farmington) refugee now living in VA, I feel your pain. Progressive thoughts face an uphill battle there. I think it is the result of shifting attitudes as young people able to seek higher education leave and there is not much to come back to. Brain drain even if it is only as far away as Portland.
As a franchised absentee-voter Mainer it's always good to hear from someone who's focused and knows what they're talking about. Good on ya!
Susan Collins is a Senator. She is not elected by district but by statewide election as are all Senators. Therefore Maine as a whole elected her Senator, not one district. Can't blame that on one district (as you might for a Congress critter).
I'm seeing a lot of negative ads aimed at concerned Collins, but, frankly, I'm not thrilled with Angus King and Jared Golden either, both of whom voted for the CR. Chellie Pingree from district 1 seems to be the only one taking this shit seriously 😐.
None of those votes surprised me. King is a former republican who is now "independent" and caucuses with the democrats. He is fairly liberal on social issues but is still quite conservative in financial policy. He opposed the shutdown and decided that voting for the shutdown would be worse than the problems of dealing with Trump's idiotic financial policies. I don't necessarily disagree. No Senator votes perfectly and king does better than many so be careful going against him in the future as you might end up with another Collins which would be way worse.
Collins is GOP through and through and her weaseling is repulsive and maybe Maine can finally put her out to pasture. One can hope.
Excellent point. I've always liked King even when he was governor. His vote surprised me but not so much to go against him. Collins is the one who must go.
Smiles & lies are all I get from MY representatives too. (Ohio)
Invective like that is just lazy posturing and a great way to guarantee your email will be deleted immediately. All of us are worthy of respect. And please remember that Susan Collins is after all a Republican. If you don’t like what she is doing then support the Democratic candidate next time. Not just by voting for them. Give money. Put up a yard sign. Go a little bit out of your way.
I have sent her dozens of emails since she we moved to Maine in 2004. I even voted for her when she used to give a damn about her constituents. She took millions from Leonard Leo and other oligarchs and she doesn't deserve my respect or anyone else's for that matter. She quit replying to my emails when Mitch McConnell became Senate Majority Leader. She stopped voting for anything that would help her constituents and voted with Mitch over 98% of the time. The worst thing about Mitch was that hundreds of bills went to Mitch from committee and he just let them die.
And I have done all of the things you've suggested Susan. In fact, I am just leaving for a Maine Democrat Senate Fundraiser and I have signs already posted against Maine Question 1 which is another Republican way to prevent people from voting.
And I totally disagree. Donald Trump is not worthy of respect nor is most of his cabinet. They took an oath to uphold the Constitution and had no intention of doing so. In fact, almost all Republican politicians are not worthy of our respect because they lied when they took their oath of office.
But many incumbents have had competition that should have one. Susan Collins was a few thousand votes from going to ranked choice against a candidate that wasn't very well known.
So much of it is name recognition only unfortunately.
So help get the name of her opponent known next time.
I’m currently rereading former Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s book written before or early in Trump’s first term. She knows of what she writes — Fascism: A Warning — having lived it since late toddlerhood.
‘ #1 New York Times Bestseller — with a New Foreword
A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state.
“Albright outlines the warning signs of fascism and offers concrete actions for restoring America’s values and reputation. There is priceless wisdom on every page.”— Booklist (starred review)
The twentieth century was defined by the clash between democracy and Fascism, a struggle that created uncertainty about the survival of human freedom and left millions dead. Given these horrors, one might expect the world to reject the spiritual successors to Hitler and Mussolini should they arise in our era. In Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to question that assumption.
Fascism, as Albright shows, not only endured through the course of the twentieth century, but now presents a more virulent threat to international peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II.
Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written with wisdom by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.“
https://www.powells.com/book/fascism-a-warning-9780062802200
So well said!
???? Which word? Lol
I wish more people had paid attention, too, and VOTED. Project 2025 was out there. Despite the mainstream media’s constant “sane washing” and “both siding”, many people knew about it and thought Trump was involved, as well as Vance. They just didn’t think it was important enough to outweigh their apathy. Then again, the insurrection attempt was huge, and still people didn’t pay attention. I’m sorry to say that I know people who still are not paying attention, who still don’t think they will be affected. I guess it’s a protective mechanism. What a tragedy.
But he’s apparently a better choice than … a WOMAN!
ANd btw, how long does Johnson get to call his troops off work before we withhold their salaries?
Great post…
Perhaps many did. Perhaps many tried to block the progress of this criminal political hijacking and subsequent declaration of war on the US Constitution. If so, the truth is that they have been defeated. All law abiding Enlightenment liberals have. The acceptance of the truth and scale of this defeat is a starting point for the effective planning of a counter attack.
Democrats - taking a chess board into a cage fighting ring.
Then complaining when the board gets knocked over.
Then again who would you rather make reasoned, realistic policy decisions, a chess master or a cage fighter?
Point, GP.
The problem is the DNC leadership thinks they can accept money from billionaires without recognizing the problems the existence of billionaires causes, and then court working people by offering a better future. Democrats need to dump the billionaires and start advocating for working people, improved pay, tax increases on billionaires, and collective bargaining rights if they want to have future. The leadership doesn’t appear to realize we are no longer in the Clinton era and they have to take a side. They need new and younger leadership. David Hogg tried, but wasn’t successful.
Thank you Chris. I’ve been saying since the beginning. Give the voters A REASON TO SUPPORT YOU…..HAVE A FERRRRREAKING AGENDA. GET A LEADER…
nope let’s see how far “resist” gets us. ? And here we are
In some ways they're worse than their 1930s counterparts because the latter could hardly have said to have been cheerleaders for Hitler. Some of them harboured the notion that he was necessary but controllable. No one could seriously harbour that notion about Trump - he is quite beyond any form of control.
Trump 2.0 is almost exclusively populated by sycophants - like Bessent, Burgum, Kennedy and Bondi - and cheerleaders like Miller, Noem and Hegseth. They are joined by the tech titans and media owners, universities and law firms whose pre-capitulation has been ignominious and costly.
IMO - too many Fox watchers. People might have paid attention if they had actually been TOLD about his <insert your descriptive words here>. That channel, again IMO, has really jaded this country. (…I’m still furious that my parents fell for all their lies & nonsense). 🤦🏼♀️ Ugh. Just thinking about all the families they have divided makes me mad.
Ouch. Why did cnn and msnbc lose half their audience. And why is the approval rating of the rest 28%. Where it’s 35% for democrats and only 8% for Republicans. They brought it on themselves. Ask your self WHY FOX has more viewers now than ABC NBC AND CBS AND more viewers than cnn and msnbc COMBINED. ? They lied and lied and covered up for four years.
Don’t call the majority of Tv viewers idiots. Stupid mistake. Find out why!!!
ICTT, a good list of pejoratives. The list is very long to describe an excuse for a human that has zero redeeming qualities. To think that Americans voted for a person who cheats at golf and does not like dogs, would be enough to disqualify him from ANY position of authority, let alone the POTUS.
I'm not sure on the point that the Nazis were given significant support throughout Europe as it rose to power. Hitler's appeal to the German people was founded on the premise Germany was poorly led and domestic problems were a result of Europe's mistreatment of a superior race. Granted there was a prevalence of anti-Semitism I'm not sure that translates into Europe giving assistance to Hitler.
My reading is that much of Europe was wary of the rise of the Nazis.
We can point to the American Bundt's popularity, yet most of America was clearly wary of Hitler.
What give me hope is that the German people were far more supportive of Hitler than we are of Trump.
I suppose I should have specified the role of collaborators and local fascists in helping round up Jews, etc. I've always been struck by the fact that Holland -- the place of tolerance where thousands hid their neighbors, was also host to one of the most vicious local fascist parties. Similar tales in Slovakia, Hungary, Italy. But let's hope the analogies stop there, as you said.
I appreciate that this newsletter is pointing out that at least two people understood that trump was a "fucking moron"--Satan Miller and Russell Vought. They are now the ones in charge while they prop up trump as the front man. They keep him on the golf course and pathetically, on many occasions he appears to be surprised at what they're doing. Uncharted territory folks....
And, the real poison is in the hands of the 2025 plan to destroy a democracy by tearing through all laws and not being held accountable. trump couldn’t make coffee. Those who pretend he is in charge are the VERY VERY dangerous Treasonous angry ,empty psychopaths. Their faces should be hanging on every building as mug shots so we the people know who needs to go to prison.
“This Land is Our Land”, it does not get “bought up” by a bunch of boring empty dunces…… or does it??? Where are “We The People “?
One major problem is the oh-so-gullible-and-griftable Ammurrikan Publik. I was thinking, as I read HCR's letter this morning, about the fact that when polled about the "Affordable Care Act" people were enthusiastic in support of it, but if it was referred to as "Obamacare"--a moniker created by the Rethuglicans, and used continuously by the Felon, to appeal to the secret racists in the mix--they hated it. A bigger bunch of chumps cannot be found, at least in numbers (as I would suggest that the folks who are convinced the Rapture is happening any day now are even more self-deluded). All someone has to do is repeat a statement enough times for it to become "fact". The statement of Kelly-Ann Conway back in the Shrubby Bush Days ridiculing those of us who live in a "reality-based" universe, which was hooted at as an amusing moment in a sea of idiocy, was prescient. We're not laughing now, at least not unless Andy Borowitz is around.
Greg, you hit the nail on the head! The attack on immigrants and non-Christians is blatantly described by Vought himself!
Everyone NEEDS TO WATCH THE VIDEOS in this CNN report❗️
Hidden-camera video shows Project 2025 co-author discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term
By Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash and Kyung Lah, CNN
Updated 10:56 AM EDT, Thu August 15, 2024
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/russ-vought-project-2025-trump-secret-recording-invs
“CNN —
Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor.
Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substantial contribution. For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his complaints that the GOP was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nation-ism.””
“Religion and race:
Elsewhere in the conversation, Vought outlined views on religion and race that seem more extreme than those Trump has publicly articulated – including criticism of the right for what he described as an excessive focus on religious freedom.
In the conservative movement, “we’ve been too focused on religious liberty, which we all support, but we’ve lacked the ability to argue we are a Christian nation,” Vought argued – an idea he’s also talked about publicly. “Our laws are built on the Judeo-Christian worldview value system.”
He said that conservatives should push to have debates over whether to allow mosques to be built in America’s downtowns, and whether Christian immigrants should be prioritized over those of other faiths – ideas that run contrary to First Amendment protections.
“I want to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation,” Vought added later. “And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism. That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism because I also believe in nationalism.”
Vought argued that it was important to pursue some of the culturally conservative policy goals listed in the Project 2025 blueprint – including abortion restrictions and making pornography illegal – while taking into account political realities.”
“And in discussing the protests and riots around the US in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Vought said that the president had the ability to use the military to restore order. He argued that the commander-in-chief wasn’t limited by the Posse Comitatus Act, a nearly 150-year-old law that prevents federal troops from conducting civilian law enforcement except when authorized by law.
“The President has, you know, the ability both along the border and elsewhere to maintain law and order with the military,” Vought said. “And that’s something that, you know, it’s going to be important for, for him to remember and his lawyers to affirm.”
Thank you, Heather, for this eye-opening post. These people are running (ruining ) our wonderful country 🆘
Russell Vought received a JD degree from George Washington University Law School in 2003, but I have not found him actively licensed as an attorney in DC, Maryland or Virginia. Some of the things he has been advising Trump to do, such as sequestration of funds upon Trump’s whims, openly violate the Anti-Sequestration Act of 1974. It forbids the President from withholding money, and the Federalist Society justices on the Supreme Court have been allowing Trump to do this in open violation of the law.
As for Vought’s Christian Nationalism, I have to wonder if he was sleeping in his Constitutionsl Law,class when they taught about the First Amendment. Christian Nationalists have been rewriting history with the efforts by propagandists like David Barton to rewrite history and pretend the founders were religious nationalists. The truth of the matter is that while the founders were baptized into various Christian denominations, they were Deists and didn’t shave Evangelical Christian beliefs. Protestant and Catholic Christian Nationalists fear that Christianity is losing its clout as more young people leave their churches. They feel like they are under siege because some Americans follow non-Christian fsiths, agnostics, or atheism. The real problem is Christianity itself gets a bad reputation because Christian Nationalists are misusing Christian religious beliefs to impose them on others as part of an effort to hijack government and to force others to follow their religious beliefs.
Please keep in mind that Christianity is not synonymous with Christian Nationalism. Many Christiams reject Christian Nationalism and openly criticize their religious and political tenets. Garden variety Christians are happy living at peace with their neighbors and friends who may share other religious and philosophical beliefs. The problem with Christian Nationalists is that they often claim to be the only true Christians around and, and many people believe this.
Seems a good time to look again at the Aug 2024 hidden-camera video of Vought discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term at https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/russ-vought-project-2025-trump-secret-recording-invs
Back then only 4% supported the treachery described in the P2025 they were trying to keep too many people from finding the truth about. The only ones they wanted to see the truth were the small number of very large donors they wanted to fund it.
I hadn’t heard of that, but the New York Times had a very good article about Russell Vought and his intentions of screwing up the government and empowering Trump.
Vought’s contributions to Project 2025 make him a traitor. His ideas are all in direct violation of the Constitution or current law. The founders would have been horrified at the idea of a unitary executive or calling the US a Christian nation. They wanted church and state to be separate, no state supported church.
Christianity IS synonymous with violence. Just read the bible, new testament and old. It's filled with descriptions of a capricious, cruel, violent god, who kills and maims those who deny what he views as his "rightful place" in the panoply of gods. And the USA manifests that violence on a daily basis with gunned-up wackos shooting up the place. IMO, theocracy and a civil just society are polar opposites.
Kari, thanks a million for these links on Vought. Not only will I amplify across my platforms - it's GREAT research for my current novel.
Good luck with your novel. Hopefully you’ll share its progress with the LFAA community.
As far as the link goes, it’s Heather’s. I’m just amplifying it for all of us.
Y eah all five of you go watch cnn who they’ve been trying to spin off as they lost over half their audience….and why? Uh oh.
Excellent way of stating the problem Greg. It appears Trump is killing people with our military as a way to build within them a honor system of following orders without question. We must have no doubt Trump intends to bring this home to America also. I would add "Shame on the members of our military forces who followed these unlawful orders from a clearly mentally ill president and staged these unlawful attacks on foreign vessels and the civilians therein in total violation of their oath to protect our Constitution. Each of them should face court-martial for these atrocious four strikes with a death toll reported to be around 21 people so far.
In 1968 Army Lieutenant William Calley was convicted during the Vietnam War for his role in the My Lai massacre. He claimed he was "following orders." He likewise killed people who gave no armed resistance. The Trump presidency is a time for all members of our military to be brave and honor their oath to our Constitution which is listed first therein.
Good points Albert. As an alternative message to our military--quit or don't reenlist.
It's already difficult for the military to hire qualified candidates, so what are their options? Bring back the draft or lower their already low standards.
ICE is showing them the path of lower standards.
And I suspect may be a bit like the French Foreign Legion, anyone from anywhere, even French criminals that wanted a new identity, and Blackwater hiring "contractors" from anywhere. The French were never supposed to use them in France itself, only the colonies (though WWII had some exceptions if memory serves).
I remember the haunting memory of the hillside graves of the French Group Mobile 100 in the Mang Yang Pass, something like 900 grave markers that I was told were dug with an 18" auger so they could bury them standing up and facing France. It seemed they shouldn't have been removed after the South fell since it was a reminder of what happened to outsiders trying to rule a very independent minded people.
Most thought it was very moving that they had them facing France, so I limited bursting their bubble by pointing out that most of the lower ranks were not French, at the time I think they included many former German soldiers looking for any work that they had some experience at.
I do wonder what commemorative markers ICE agents will want on their graves if any, but hope they don't allow them in Arlington or other National Cemeteries.
I know of a dozen or so local (to me) cops (retirees and a couple who took a “leave” that went to the sandbox as “advisors” to (as I understand it) teach tactics to the Blackwater personnel deployed over there.
I was (and am) disgusted.
Some former SOG I respected told me of some who believed in what they were doing and tried to do it right, but also of others who were just mercenary types that were motivated simply by the money. Some were soldiers I'd trust anywhere and would rather work with other better equipped, competent, and well compensated professionals, ethically doing what they believed in. I couldn't fault them but did regret the loss of so many of our best experienced NCOs from our regular forces.
I think a sign stating, "WARNING Rubber Galoshes needed near this grave."
Greg, although I was a teacher and at first in inner city schools, I have just spent time with people who would have been Anne Frank, and I have been grateful to be in a sanctuary city, which protects people from ICE even though ICE is waging war on us, making it difficult to protect them. ICE is like the Gestapo. We have to pull the masks from their faces, or everyone should wear full burkas as a protest. Then ICE could not racial profile because they could not see you.
A true statement!
I actually don’t endorse neoliberal capitalism. Capitalism must be heavily regulated so the wealthy don’t grab all the assets as they want. Working people deserve a greater share of pay for what their work has helped to achieve, and I think they deserve the right to collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions. I support abolition of private equity, stock options, and safe harbor rules, and I believe workers deserve seats on corporate boards as they have in German companies. I also believe CEO and upper level pay should be cut considerably to avoid the huge gaps which exist between employee and executive pay.
Milton Friedman’s belief that companies should only be run for the benefit of executives and shareholders has caused an immeasurable amount of damage to American workers, and to communities all over the country which have lost factory work to see it go overseas. The people who did this only thought of their short term desires and didn’t take the longeview they should have taken to see what the long term negative effects of our policies would be. We cannot become an economic powerhouse by shipping manufacturing overseas and relying on service jobs to power our economy. I believe we made a huge mistake when we removed regulatory systems that stopped the economic abuses we see going on today.
I agree racism and greed are two of the biggest reasons why this is happening. The Republicans have pulled off a con job on many people by pretending blue collar workers and greedy robber barons have interests in common. I also think any effort to restore a middle class needs to deliberately reach out to minority citizens to include them in the middle class. We can’t return to a past where middle class status was reserved only for white families, and where redlining and housing segregation was the norm. To some extent, these things still persist to this day.
I don’t believe greed is good. On the contrary, it has done a tremendous amount of damage to people’s lives and has prevented many people from achieving their full potential. Donald Trump thinks greed is good, and he is seriously damaging the country and the world by continuing this mindset.
Isn't all this a little naive about human nature? No ordinary person can tell me they have not met a Donald Trump-type. Buttocks! Such people, 'though not so stupid, are the heroes of American popular literature: think a bit about Jack Ryan. Nor can anyone tell me they've never encountered unaccountable meanness. The Army spends a lot of effort to get people to move ahead - most folks have the good sense to keep their heads down and run away where possible. Finally, we only have to look at Israel's campaign in Gaza to realize that the Shoah is just a particularly well-documented example of Hotel Rwanda - O! Yes, African Hutus are just as good planners as European Nazis, better, since their Kristallnacht really worked! "Lessons of history" are as nothing before the "human nature" we have shaped for ourselves and then pretend not to notice - or blame others for having. Edmund Burke said it, friends, the asshole gets ahead when the fair-minded individual sits on his ass, keeping their head down. Let's all get a little more Rosa Parks into our day-to-day behavior, shall we?
Wow. So anti-semitism rears its’ ugly head in liberal precincts. If the Palestinians had not elected HAMAS their govt…we would be celebrating palestines independence
I agree Greg…And that may be the saddest part of this episode.
We must get better at helping to distill the horror of returning to the U.S. a 100 years ago…we have learned and changed a lot! One of the main issues the ACA helped with was standardized coverages, as well as covering the health many when they were uninsured…yes waiting in waiting rooms and all the other stupidity/cruelty of the prior system.
We paid! Medical inflation was a huge issues too!
One thought is the point out the ‘Christian’ values of taking care of others.
Another is that all our insurance premiums have not risen as fast, medical inflation is not a headline!
When we solve problems we see across the board benefits…the GOP and the horror and stupidity of the 2025 hate group is simply they “don’t fucking care!
This is Truth. I wouldn't have believed it 60 years ago, or even 20, but I believe it now. I will remember it.
Then we better dump him before those behind him gain full control!
"trumpelthinskin's" thoughts and slightly expressed words are, along with many others on the "dark side" who think like him say: 'we can't let that black man get credit for introducing and getting passed an affordable healthcare plan - OBAMACARE - nor being awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace...what peace for what'? It seems Mr. thinskin is quite jealous of Mr. Obama…
Only evil, hateful, ignorant and badly flawed individuals with little to no moral values would think and act that way!!! That's kinda sad - isn't it?
************
Really...it seems like more than TWO YEARS since we woke up to witness the atrocious nightmare that occurred in Israel - but that's no excuse for Netanyahu to do have carried on the degree and extent of death and destruction to Palestinians and Gaza that we have seen...some grave mistakes were made before October 7, 2023, and many afterwards. "Why can't we all just get along?"
"by which he appears to mean the growth of the federal government to protect the rights of all Americans." Project25 is to change this fundamental purpose of the government in favor of the strong prey on the weak (non-white citizens and women) America. Vought is trying to steal great America for a small minority power people.
We who are Jewish always knew that.
Very interesting comment. I hear you and agree
Really well why then has anti-semitism risen by a thousand percent here? This had ONLY to do with the blind eye of Biden allowing it on campus after campus along with DEI…. And Palestinian Protests.
There was a HUGE billboard at the ft Lauderdale airport IN FEBRUARY SEEN BY MILLIONS EACH DAY that read:
IF YOU THINK TURBULENCE IS SCARY…TRY WEARING A JEWISH STAR.
Being against Netanyahu’s genocidal assault on Gaza, done partially to forestall Israeli legal charges against him involving three separate cases with allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, is not antisemetism.
This is a test. With your #2 pencil, bubble in the letter for the truest statement:
O 1) Heavily-armed militarized personnel rappel down on your living quarters from military helicopters overhead at 1:00 a.m.
O 2) Military vehicles disgorge over 100 fully-armed personnel to attack your living quarters at 1:00 a.m.
O 3) These attackers in camouflage fatigues with axes are breaking down all doors in your building, exploding flash grenades, and ransacking everyone’s living units.
O 4) All the above are true, which Donald thinks earns him Nobel Peace Prize.
Whatever Donnie Dimwit might think, both Norwegians and Swedes can easily spot the difference between shit and shinola at a thousand paces. I don't think we have to worry about them accidentally awarding the Peace Prize to a demented, violent lunatic who watches TeeVee and rage-tweets drivel in the middle of the night.
I’m pretty sure (hope) we can stop this with 2026 elections, but think of all the individual people who’ve been harmed. I hope Trump is happy to go down in history as Caligula II.
Think of those who will continue to be harmed, for I've no doubt it will get worse in the short-run. I'm not sure Donnie knows who Caligula even was.
Of course, he doesn’t know history.
Trump's always been divorced from reality. He may be demented by age, but he always was — by extreme wealth and who. knows what mental state.
Of the charts malignant narcissism.
Also extreme antisocial personality disorder. Fred, Sr. raised Donald to be a sociopath, while Roy Cohn taught him the finer points of sociopathic behavior, including never admitting he was wrong, never apologizing, and hitting back twice as hard at his critics when they attack him. This combination of malignant narcissism and malignant sociopathy ensures lawless, corrupt and illegal behavior.
https://t.co/vJqXUEeB5x
Name me some non narcissistic presidents please?
The state of mowbring the leader of America and the world’s daddy
Rick, here is a new documentary movie you would benefit from viewing:
The new documentary film “Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5” by director Raul Peck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBfHby9uq7c
He doesn't. I don't believe Donald has ever read anything that does not include a $. (And even then it had better not be long.)
Maybe.
From Vanity Fair:
Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.
“Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump.
Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”)
Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
Vanity fair? And politics? Yikes. Wow. Some folks are either really lost or really gullible
Guess what. Lololol. NOR DOES IT MATTER. CANT STOP LAUGHING
It appears that the 2026 elections, if they take place at all, will be jiggered to make Trump win.
Consider what he tried in 2020 (all the dirty tricks) and now encouraging red states to illegally redraw their election districts to favor Republicans wins for USHouse seats.
He plans to enlarge his House & Senate seats regardless of the vote. Full stop.
Dirk, if I were a betting man (I once was but no longer am) l would put my dough on martial law and cancelled elections in 2026. Trump must be so deeply in the pockets of our high-tech oligarchs that he has no choice but to consolidate and complete his destruction of government, erase the Constitution, and beggar the middle class. He's in way over his head. And senility will be the final straw for him, even if the Epstein docs are never revealed.
What we don't know yet -- because we don't know ourselves yet -- is what a post Trump world will look like.
All bets are off.
And what do you think DNC, Jeffries, Schumer contingency plans are for addressing such contingencies??
That's what I thought!
Lolololololol. Well, one major media, Mogul, CEO owner Bet Gavin Newsom $10 million that if there were no election in 2028 , he would pay newsom $10 million but if there was an election newsom would would owe him. I’m sure he’d wager the same with you David. And the ONLY reason for martial is if you/aka the losers keep resisting enforcement of our laws while supporting criminals and illegals before supporting Americans
I think the cabal intends to provoke strong popular opposition that they will then cite to declare that a secure election cannot be held. And the Supine Court will roll over.
https://t.co/vJqXUEeB5x
And Ellison, who helped him plan in 2020, will soon control Tiktok in addition to CNN and CBS/paramount
DOES ANYONE OF YOU SO-CALLED HISTORIANS KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MID TERM ELECTIONS?
LOOK UP THE FACTS. NEVER HAS AN INCUMBENT KEPT BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS WHEN THEY INHERITED IT DURING THEIR FIRST TERM. NEVER. but this could be it if people like you here keep up this hate and antagonism. FIVE TIMES TRIED. ALL FAILED
So it would be nothing surprising unless Trump won.
Sorry Rick. But quoting normal times won’t cut it. These are most definitely not normal times. This is new territory.
If things were anywhere near normal Trump and others would have been impeached months ago.
These are perfectly absolutely 100% normal times the only difference is you are not in control and that’s why it’s not a normal time for you.
What you just said here Dirk Joe Biden could’ve been impeached years ago. Would you like to know the reasons I can certainly provide them for you
And try this, Dirk https://t.co/vJqXUEeB5x
PS I’ve asked everybody here you’ll be number 31 first of all what makes these abnormal times. What makes these abnormal times is that Joe Biden left 8 to 11,000,000 illegal immigrants into this country without vetting or vaccinations and all Trump is trying to do is rid of these people.
That’s about as abnormal as it gets
So now here’s your chance name me five actual Trump policies or laws that are actually today currently substantially affecting your life negatively in the United States on a day-to-day basis
You are number 31 I’ve asked and I’ve gotten zero response
It’s irrational hatred is all you have
2026 gets traction when turnout for the 52,000 state and local elections scheduled for November 4 breaks all records…
And ALL media channels report on it.
And you Still believe the media? After lying to you for YEARS.
BTW IT WILL HAPPEN FROM BOTH SIDES.
But with a Nobel Peace Prize. Hahaha
Obama got one!
Exactly, galls him to the bone
Navel piece prize is more appropriate
Thanks, but you have a point. I did correct but anal might be even better
Trump be goin' "Peace? Who cares about PEACE?! I thought it was PIZZA!!!"
Not only will Trump go down in history as a terrible interlude in American politics, but the stupid people who not only fell for this con job but supported it will be studied by historians and psychologists to see what allowed them to become so self destructive and so hateful of everyone else.
You misspelled Biden.
Sad that money can buy so many souls, hope some are not for sale.
Well JD some folks are not for sale & fight back lawfully like the State oƒ Illinois & the City of Chicago who filed yesterday, 10/6, an Oregon like lawsuit against Trump, DHS, Noem, Hegseth, U.S. Army & Dan Driscoll the Secretary of the U.S. Army.
*********************
Big Pritzker Take Away:
Trump is trying to create a pretext for "Invoking the Insurrection Act."
********************************************************************
Back on Planet Earth, the Shutdown enters 7th Day & the Illinois-Chicago lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Illinois. Case No. 1:25-cv-12174. The lawsuit is pled as an "Emergency" for "Declaratory & Injunctive Relief".
The Oregon like Court hearing for a temporary restraining order (TRO) is set for Thursday morning, 10/10/25. The complaint specifically calls out Trump's "long-declared 'War' on Chicago & Illinois".
The Illinois lawsuit will block the deployment of "federalized" National Guardsmen from ANY state. Pritzker made a clear statement Illinois will withdraw from any National organization if they remain silent on the deployment of Texas troops or troops from any other state in Illinois & Chicago.
I am batting 1000 so far this year on Court decisions so ......................................
TRO GRANTED.
Thanks, Counselor!
Go get ‘em. Glory
The Nobel Committee is never going to give Trump the peace prize, not only because he has had the military illegally attack fishing boats, but also because he’s sending the National Guard into cities in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Moreover, he’s doing this in cities located in states which have both Democratic governors and mayors. He may well be trying a dry run to illegally cancel 2026 midterm elections. He has been colluding with Texas and Missouri to ensure Republicans continue to gerrymander the state in favor of the Republicans.
One thing I am certain about, and that is the ICE raids of the sort they conducted in Chicago won’t be limited to Chicago. iCE or another federal law enforcement agency may be eventually empowered to illegally raid and wreck the homes of anyone who criticizes him.
Or might be a Dem voter…
That's not the American people's concern at this time Come To This. I would gladly concede the Peace Price to this scumbag in exange of his retirement. We still need to endure another more than 3 years of planed destruction of our country.
No way in hell should he be even remotely considered.
Nobel committee members have already made it clear that Donald Trump has no chance of being nominated for, let alone receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. The only prize he and RFK, Jr. deserve is the Ig Nobel prize for discouraging vaccination to protect public health. It appears that the GOP under Trump wants to oppose vaccination and take an antivax stance despite overwhelming evidence of vaccination’s benefits for protecting children and adults from dangerous contagious diseases.
Ricardo Grinbank,
It would be an insult for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Netanyahu has no humanity only fierce ambition for himself.
Trump is a useful tool.
In any case Emily, my comment was sarcastic. Sorry if my internet didn't come through.
I couldn't agreed more with you Emily 😉
If they don’t give him the Peace Prize, Donnie will rage about how “unfair” it is and he’ll claim the decision was somehow “rigged.” Next, he’ll threaten the countries with tariffs. Finally, he’ll get one of his rich pals to create a new Peace Prize award that is “bigger and better” than the old, worn-out Nobel. His fawning oligarchs will throw a big party that Fox will cover beginning to end. The award itself will be a hideous, gold-plated monstrosity vaguely resembling Trump. He’ll proudly display it on the Resolute Desk.
Exactly. He was literally calling the Nobel Committee to give him the peace prize. That’s what a toddler would do!
How many presidents do you know that have brokered at least five peace deals. With a sixth peace deal of a worldwide 2000 year-old war ?
You poor deer are so blinded by your hatred. It’s actually sickening.
So Dave, you could be number 32. I’ve now asked 31 people to name me five policies or laws from Donald Trump’s administration that have negatively affected your life currently and specifically. You’ll be the 32nd person not to answer.
There is a meme showing the Nobel Committee sitting around a table and someone says, "Just for fun let's give it to Obama again."
Ukraine is systematically bombing refineries, pipelines, chemical plants and other Russian infrastructure. Over half of the gas stations in Crimea are closed due to no supply. And Russia is very close to being unable to export oil.
Since Trump has given Putin his 2 week ultimatum 21 weeks ago, Putin has only escalated the bombing of Ukraine. Trump is a Russian asset. If Putin falls, what will Trump do?
But ICTT, they are the smart ones!
Stranger things have happened.
https://t.co/vJqXUEeB5x Definition and activity of the Democratic party
Hate hate, hate hate hate hate hate hate negative negative negative negative negative negative negative. Look out, pal there might be a major wind coming major wake up call for you not that you’ll ever wake up from your hate. Wait no sorry wake up from your needless irrational delusional, hate
And I am going to laugh my ass off if and when he gets it
FIVE PEACE DEALS. MAYBE SIX. AFTER 2000 YEARS OF WAR….. You EPITOMIZE hate pal and it’s really sad.
there you go, slurping shit our of your ass again
https://t.co/vJqXUEeB5x
And here we go, Dan I’m giving you another chance. Use the 33rd person who can’t answer the question. Why the hate name me five Trump era policies or laws that have negatively affected your life currently on a day-to-day basis your personal life. ?
Wow good one there Dan. Now would you like to list the five Trump policies that are CURRENTLY affecting your life in a negative way…but it was nice hearing from you anyway. Take care of yourself. Support your President and your Country
I don’t recall any one previously requesting that they get the Nobel Peace Prize.
He wants it for the war he stopped between Azerbaijan and Albania. 🤷🏻♂️
Well maybe that one and Pakistan India where actually Pakistani leaders suggested it. Or Cambodia?or Israel/ Iran? And if this Israel Hamas deal plays out it might just stop a war of over 2000 years or more
Haha
Do you want a list of the five peace deals now gonna be six Fred
4 (to Phil)
Phil loves multiple-choice tests! :)
😁
''The Architect of Authoritarianism: Russell Vought and the Blueprint for a Shape-Shifting Presidency''
Russell Vought is not a public household name, but his influence now shapes the dismantling of fundamental democratic norms. During Trump’s first term, Vought served as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Since returning to that role in 2025, he has become the chief operational figure executing Project 2025’s plan to remake the federal government around a powerful, unbounded executive.
Vought and his allies openly reject the post–New Deal administrative state. He advocates a “radical constitutionalism” in which the presidency is sovereign over bureaucracies and congressional constraints. Applying that philosophy in practice would mean sweeping legal and institutional change, with the presidency elevated to near-monarchical status.
Project 2025, produced by the Heritage Foundation, outlines a comprehensive playbook for concentrating authority in the executive branch, dismantling or reprogramming federal agencies, and replacing career civil servants with politically loyal administrators. Vought authored the chapter on the presidency and executive control, making him one of the chief architects of this strategy.
The government shutdown that began on October 1, 2025, has become Vought’s proving ground. Trump has publicly said he is working with Vought to decide which agencies to cut or shutter, calling them “Democrat agencies.” Vought has already moved to cancel or freeze billions of dollars in infrastructure, climate, and state-level projects, especially in Democratic-led states.
The administration is threatening mass layoffs instead of traditional furloughs, using the shutdown as leverage to purge the civil service. Federal agencies have been ordered to prepare termination notices for positions not aligned with the administration’s priorities. Legal experts and former officials warn that many such actions may violate federal law or lack required notice periods.
One of the most immediate impacts is on healthcare. If the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits expire, premiums for millions of Americans will more than double. Analysts estimate that average out-of-pocket premiums for subsidized marketplace enrollees could rise by more than 100 percent in a single year. Even insurers are proposing rate hikes on top of these effects.
This price shock will not only affect low-income Americans. Over 24 million people currently purchase ACA coverage, many in states Trump won. Recent polls show broad bipartisan support—nearly four out of five Americans want the credits extended, including majorities of Republicans and MAGA supporters.
Vought’s prior advocacy to House Republicans also offers context. He pushed for sweeping cuts: roughly two trillion dollars from Medicaid over a decade, six hundred billion from the Affordable Care Act, and hundreds of billions from housing and food assistance. These proposals represent a drastic shrinking of the social safety net, one that would strip essential programs from tens of millions of people.
Another major front is Social Security’s disability benefits. The administration is preparing a proposal to eliminate or raise age criteria in disability evaluations—tightening access for older workers. Critics call it the largest disability cut in American history, arguing that it would force many people to work into old age to access the benefits they earned.
Consolidating all this power depends on silencing or replacing career civil servants, ignoring legal constraints, using economic pain as coercion, and banking on public resignation. But cracks are forming. Many Republicans and swing voters are seeing their own costs: spiking insurance, cancelled projects, and lost jobs.
What the American People Can Do
1. Stay informed and demand transparency. Citizens must press for full accounting of government actions, funding decisions, and their legal basis.
2. Mobilize voting power. Midterms, primaries, and local elections matter. Support candidates who defend democratic norms and reject authoritarian concentration of power.
3. Organize locally. Civic groups, unions, community organizations, and advocacy networks can rally support, fundraise, and pressure representatives.
4. Pursue oversight and legal challenges. Support watchdog organizations and lawsuits that hold officials accountable for illegal or unconstitutional acts.
5. Use narrative and media power. Share accurate information and real human stories about how these policies affect everyday lives.
6. Protect institutions. Defend the courts, free press, and the independence of civil service systems that anchor democracy.
The danger is profound. Yet democracy has never survived through apathy. It endures when ordinary people refuse to surrender their voice. The authoritarian project thrives on fatigue, cynicism, and despair—but it collapses when citizens insist on truth, accountability, and collective action.
The time to show up is now.
Two problems I have with yours here, Michael.
First, your final words to your para 3, where you refer to a "presidency elevated to near-monarchical status." Why the "near" in "near monarchical"?
Then, your penultimate para, where you intone how democracy "endures when ordinary people refuse to surrender their voice."
Oh geez, Michael, have you no idea how systematically tens of millions of K-12 youth and their teachers all routinely undergo submission to the dehumanizing assembly line of standardized testing? Its first goal is to have all surrender individual voice, and to avoid, eschew skills to see the personal in others. Instead, it stresses the "rationality" of life primarily as grouped, categorized only -- the world where cynical corporate packagers rule. It stresses not the human (and natural) world where oddity, complications, multiple layerings, accident, chance, and serendipity rule, but, instead, the relentless chronologies and causalities of the simpleton linear.
Please check out Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police" if all this is new to you.
Your comment misses the focus of my essay. I am describing the deliberate centralization of power under Russell Vought’s “radical constitutionalism,” not the failures of education policy. Standardized testing is indeed dehumanizing, but it’s a separate symptom of the same disease, authoritarian control through conformity. My argument concerns its political apex, not its academic roots.
Roots matter more, Michael.
Your multiple choice test today was great fun. As for the rest here, your endless false elucidations of standardized testing killing off the humanities and blaming the schools for that, plus your allusions to Ravitch's book as justification for your inaccurate claims, need to be permanently shelved, not repeated every time it comes to your mind. Will you oblige me to post this every time you post yours?? (sigh)
Yes, Hendrik -- every time.
Phil, your description seems to come out after a scene in "Shindler List".
I think Phil is describing what happened in a Chicago apartment complex just a few days ago.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/military-style-ice-raid-in-chicago-shows-escalation-in-tactics/ar-AA1NRDkZ
Morning, Lynell!
My assessment of the fiasco in Chicago is that there were no skills or tactics involved, only cruelty and destruction.
Agree; morning, Ally!
Ditto
Inspired by the film "Shindler List" but with modern equipment Linell.
Thanks, Ricardo. Isn't it "Schindler's List"?
Lynell
Yes Lynell, thanks for the observation. Writing at 3 am well before my first cup of coffee it's a big factor on my writing. As for the rest of the day, my mild dyslexia is my constant companion. 😉
Gutting programs that work. Removing safety nets, student financial aid programs, environmental protections, hospital subsidies, housing subsidies and food security. There is little if any justice left in the Justice Department. Police forces are being created not to protect and defend our communities but to attack us. Where are these “savings” going? The cost of being an American continues to skyrocket while the only ones benefiting are the wealthiest 1% and Ghislaine Maxwell.
By the way, I don’t know if you’re aware of it but we’re almost $38 trillion in the hole. When was the last time you wrote a check knowing absolutely positively knowing that you couldn’t cover the check and that it would bounce ?
They are NOT. NOT …NOT Attacking you…..the Biden 20% inflation doubling gas prices tripling mtg rates and a 7 t0 9% inflation rate is what you are living on now. Trump rate up 2.7. Oooooops
1200 miles away I can still feel the terror of that night. I can only imagine what those families went through. Few of us could have imagined our nation would descend into this level of cruelty so quickly.
This is a test for all the moron haters here what are you gonna say when there’s actually a piece between Hamas and Israel and Palestine after 2000 years huh what are you gonna do then because when that happens I am gonna bombard each and every one of you haters with that fact Nice and peaceful like you people need to wake up and stop hating it’s the most disgusting group of people I’ve ever seen. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate negative negative negative negative negative negative negative and you don’t even have a reason. I’ve asked now this is gonna be my 29th time. Send me provide me with five current policies that are substantially negatively affecting your life today you’ll be number 30 that won’t have an answer.
4
He doesn’t think he deserves it. Just four of the country leaders that said so on tv when they shook hands after warring for 27 years. FICE PEACE DEALS PAL. AND A SIXTH BREWING…that ]s’ over 2000 years old. . Try the news ok? You don’t get that here
DT is not the head of the snake. It is a consortium which has worked a half century for this moment. These two are henchmen,
True. If the house flips in the next election, best to go after the Vought’s and Miller’s et.al. rather than another run at impeachment of Trump. Go for the real power, not the throne
Trump and his minions are working hard to make sure they win the 2026 House & Senate elections. They are not concerned how people will vote because they will not abide by our election laws in any case you can dream up.
Why would they? They sure didn’t in 2020. Playing fair is not their game.
Trust 'em to cheat. It has become the MO of the whole party.
Do Dems know this, or even care…
Nor did they abide by the rules in 2024.
Follow the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
There needs to be Nuremberg 2.0 trials for the whole lot of them
I hope I live long enough to see it.
Not IF the House flips. How can the Party plan to assure that it will? Why didn't it begin on November 6? What can we do to galvanize them into action before it's too damn late? We need to work on things that are doable, not ramble on with tepid observation and blame games.
I love it that the New York Bar Assn has come out and warned people like Miller and Vought that they are not immune from prosecution for their crimes. I am sure they will be able to eventually charge them with State crimes that Neither Donnie or JD will have the power to pardon.
Hillary Clinton warned us about the ‘vast right wing conspiracy’. We should have listened.
https://time.com/68537/unsealed-clinton-docs-shed-light-on-vast-right-wing-conspiracy/
Some of us did listen
It was already the elephant in the room.
I recall when I was eight years old in 1960 my dad and older brothers talking at the kitchen table about the problem the The John Birch Society (Founded in 1958) was going to become for America. They were known for conspiracy theories.
Spot on. Nothing good comes from the Birchers.
Just about exactly, Annabel -- given issuance date of the Powell memo being Aug. 23, 1971.
Annabel, DT it's the tail of the snake and I don't want to point out which part of the tail precisely.
Most people apparently are unable to imagine pain until it affects them personally. Immigration sweeps will never detain U.S. citizens. Until they do. People won't lose their health care. Until they do. Hard-working people won't lose their jobs. Until they do. Consumers won't pay for the tariffs. Until they do. The question, therefore, is, whether people who are not yet feeling the pain this regime is inflicting will understand that the pain that others are feeling now will soon be their pain, too. How long will it take? How long?
Too long I'm afraid Betsy. That's why the speed of destruction of our institutions and consolidation of their power it's increasing, just in case.
I could add that COVID is a hoax, until they or their loved one is dying on an ICU bed.....
Betsy Smith,
"Immigration sweeps" are horrible and shameful. I cannot imagine, nor do I want to imagine how these human beings are being treated. These men and women have been hard workers, participating in jobs as laborers no one else would take. I would like to say this treatment is unAmerican or even unChristian ...but Americans and many Christians condone these actions and or are doing nothing to stop it.
It only proves that PREJUDICE is in our blood...alive and well!
These actions condemn anyone who proclaims themselves to be "Christian" or of any true faith.
These actions are an insult to God, our creator and savior! He commanded us to "love one another as I have loved you." And this choice to love us had nothing to do with our perceived "goodness", accomplishments, powerful family ties, but with COMPASSION, because He saw we were LOST!
I am not aware of a faith that would seek to harm fellow human beings as we are doing!
Our nation and the future of our children will suffer for this behavior.
Prejudice is in our blood, sad but true. Seems to stem from tribal habits (community to the extreme.). Civilization needs to grow up…
Pain is personal.
Pain is often personal. But it ain't necessarily so. I feel pain for the families of those who were killed in Israel two years ago today. I feel pain for the Gazans who have lost family members as a result of the Israeli bombings and denial of humanitarian aid during the past two years. It's called empathy, an emotion that the regime holds in derision, but that allows us to join with others beyond our own family or tribe or nation.
We suffer from that old negative (per muskrat), empathy. Such grief can overwhelm so many become ostriches or worse. Personally, I’d rather feel than be numb. The trick is to balance your need for sanity. Numb chips away at humanity…
But we can resonate.
why are you losers so Afraid of the word ILLEGAL? Try it. ILLEGAL. GOT IT ? Nope
And let's not forgot the long history and the quickly growing and very profitable industry of private "prisons". The quote marks are important here. Everyone should become very knowledgeable about GEO Group and CoreCivic. I've been tracking them and their patterns for about a decade. It is one head of this multi headed beast.
Thanks for this and also private treatment for not only adults but teens and children. It is like the Mara who tried to triumph over the Buddha.
Yes. The youth prisons are what caused me to dive deep into researching an industry I hadn't known existed. And the horrific realization that most of us are somehow invested in them through the other industry I hadn't known existed until then. Asset management firms. Ignorance was bliss before following the patterns that got us here. Yet I don't want the bliss back. Because that ignorance is what got us here.
I also was thinking of residential treatment centers, hospitals, juvenile detention centers, foster care and group homes. So much as you mentioned coportization and profit being the only motivation. Every now and then one finds a good place or good people. Back in the early eighties despite hard issues it was less bottom line money concerns ruling everything. Glad you found out and not afraid to see truths and then continue to work on research. Thanks. So important. The history of all of this helpful for me to find out what happened and what was forgotten good and bad.
Also am so concerned about the children in Chicago with the ICE raid and in other cities and in the first t administration and in general over the past fifty years ago when folks started sending their children to the states because of several cival wars and environmental issues and also the drugs and gangs. This all the end result of colonization and industrialists coming in for a variety of goods
I am thinking Gov Pritzker should appoint a team GAL guardian et liteum for those children perhaps intestate and perhaps other officials as well. Because the law on the books use the phrase among other things duty of care.
Intervention has at times been problematic due to racism and sexism and ableism etc but in times like these one has to do what one has to do. It would be a new concept and are not the norm if at all. But in the past issues with JD GALs versus non JD GALS and a team solves the problem and always a better way to go then just one person. There was a lovely group called MAUDD in Maryland that used that team approach long ago when I was in graduate school. The GAL goes back to Roman times so perhaps if SCOTUS has been dusting off antique legal judgements we can too only with integrity.
Illegal is illegal. Right? Yikes
Stupid is as stupid is I blocked you.
I worked in law enforcement, corrections (county jail) for 18 months, transport ( inmate movement to court, doctor appointments, and penitentiary transfers for 6 months; the remaining 28 years on patrol.
I never learned about for profit prisons until I watched the documentary “Thirteenth” after I retired. It disgusts me. In retirement, I worked part time in Court Security, and while at our youth detention facility learned about for profit juvenile detention centers.
Hey, Ally, almost every day (when I succumb to reading posts here) i learn another tidbit about you. TY
It’s not the prisons. It’s the ease of their lives their thst allow them to go back.
“Asset management firms.” Will you please give some specific examples.
Blackrock, Vanguard and StateStreet are the big 3. If you have any kind of investments; pensions, 401ks, stock holding in corporations...you are an invested in these private prison companies. It is a very complicated tangle of connection. It took me months to even begin to untangle it enough for me to just comprehend the basics.
Wait? Aren’t they both dead? Now try 2025.
Thx for mentioning this Kristine.
Private Prison Companies’ Enormous Windfall: Who Stands to Gain as ICE Expands
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/private-prison-companies-enormous-windfall-who-stands-gain-ice-expands
Are you aware of the recidivism rate in this country? Do you know why that is? Look it up.
Yes I do. And it’s tragic that we call it "justice" while allowing the running of a system that profits massively when people fail. If we actually invested in rehabilitation and reentry support instead of punishment for profit, those numbers would tell a different story.
Bear with me, I am not a native speaker.
Thank you for your relentless combat against what today we can call plain fascism.
IMHO, President Trump has been put at the helm by people like Russel Vaught and the people behind project 2025. Trump did not appoint Vaught. It was the other way around.
Which is even more scary, because the people behind project 2025 are intelligent. They write the executive orders and tell Trump what to do. They soon recognised his incredible narcissism, ignorance, and corruption, all of which made him the perfect buffoon they were looking for. A puppet on a string they now handle at will as their useful idiot.
and Vance is just waiting on Miller and Vought to sign off on the 25th Amendment when Trump's dementia becomes impossible to hide from MAGA.
He wants to stretch it out until rumpy has served half his term. That way he gets 10 years - 2 of Trump's and 8 of his own.
Whoa! Still thinking in terms of "terms"! There won't be any if the Project 2025 Government isn't toppled.
Well said, they chose him, but he chose the corrupt Republican Party back in the day. Gravitated to them like the mob boss he is.. now he’s just a useful fool. But one with a flamethrower
If you are not familiar with what happened at the Kent State Massacre, this short video covers most of the facts. Watching it will alert you to the risks of mobilizing the US military to manage domestic unrest. The US military is trained and organized to be a powerful killing force for use in warfare. I lived through that time (of the Kent State Massacre) as a student and can vouch for the accuracy of the video. Keep in mind that all the male students at that time were by law registered for the draft and carried draft cards. They could at anytime receive a notice from their draft board to report for induction into the US military and be sent to Vietnam. They also almost to the person knew someone who had died or been seriously injured in Vietnam. I knew several and some who returned with severe PTSD. A medical school classmate served as a medic that rode in a helicopter to rescue wounded soldiers from the battlefields in Vietnam. He had nightmares and whenever helicopters flew overhead he had flashbacks to the severely injured very young men who rode on the medvac helicopter with him. Many of whom he knew would not survive. They also knew that the Vietnam War was cooked up by government officials (the Gulf of Tonkin Incident) to prop up a South Vietnam dictator. Something they didn’t want to die for. This was not a WWII situation which they would have had a different attitude toward.
NB: I spent three years in and graduated from a military school. I have two nephews who completed US Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and are officers in the Marines. I support the men and women of the US military as long as they are following their “rules of engagement”, are following the rule of law and are acting to protect our country and its citizens from foreign enemies and not being used for domestic political purposes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DNdS-JXrLo
You might also like to view this video of US Representative Maxine Waters confronting the National Guard troops in her district in Los Angeles and imploring them to not fire their weapons at her or the unarmed, nonviolent, peaceful women, men and children protesters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QeFDzDiZw
The "lights in the water" on August 4, 1965, were caused by the reflections of the moon and lighting flashes from the squalls in all quadrants, of the enormous school of flying fish that has been annually transiting the Gulf of Tonkin the first week of August for several million years. Finding out a month after the event from my best friend in bootcamp - who had been in charge of the gun tower on "Maddox" and was courtmartialed for the three times he refused the order to "open fire" was what changed my life forever. I was then on the staff of the command in charge of the two destroyers. After I got home and was working with Dr. Peter Dale Scott to get to the truth, I met the Asst Gunnery Officer on "Turner Joy" (by then a grad student at Cal), who managed to convince his captain the only target out there was Maddox.
Thank you so much for your comment and filling in the history of the event. Kudos. I hope you didn’t lose any friends in that terrible conflict. Thank you for your service to our country and I hope you have found peace.
I’m going to plug his book here Fred. https://www.amazon.com/Tonkin-Gulf-Yacht-Club-Aviation-ebook/dp/B08W572RQV/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UFNMORVK54KH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.lxDGDfk_5CWLXJ-5nWVD_qEZ8Av-bK00f7-x_T0BZQs.ZhbULHU7tdv-NL7UzHVpSz-_zQwyWrAukVwR4Vfnwdo&dib_tag=se&keywords=Tonkin+Gulf+Yacht+club+Tom+Cleaver&qid=1759836099&s=books&sprefix=tonkin+gulf+yacht+club+tom+cleaver%2Cstripbooks%2C110&sr=1-1
Beat me to it!
We can plug Tom's Substack "That's Another Fine Mess"!
Folks, "TCinLA" will provide news that seems to fall by the wayside in other journalist's Substack or YouTube channels.
https://tcinla757.substack.com/
I saw this yesterday Ally and immediately saved it to share with you!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/r_UP_EiXwKA
The truth can set you free or do whiplash on your brain. Keep telling the tale.
1965? IM THINKING MAYBE AN OLE LSD TRIP/.
Fred. It’s 2025. You sound like a pretty smart guy. Try to catch up.
This is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 in plain text.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section1385&num=0&edition=prelim
It is something to know about in these fraught times. It has not been invalidated by subsequent laws passed by Congress or declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. There is also the fact that every member of the US Armed Services has taken an oath to support and defend the US Constitution including its Amendments. This oath has no expiration date.
However, this hasn’t prevented Trump from putting his sycophants in positions of power over the US military and the Pentagon. He has also made it clear to unit commanders of the US forces that their promotions and careers are dependent on them following his every command no matter what it is. In this light it is especially troubling that he has recently changed all the commanders of the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg - which controls Special Operations/Delta Forces. These are the military that carry out “black” operations such as assassinations.
3 Fort Bragg command changes that have happened this summer - The Fayetteville Observerhttps://apple.news/AxR5HYqSUQ5OEoGvvTm6w7g
My Life Became a Living Hell’: One Woman’s Career in Delta Force, the Army’s Most Elite Unit - POLITICO https://apple.news/AaJb_RRzGTw6oP26gfRKepg
NB: The laws of our country and enforcement of the rule of law only protect us if the people in charge follow the laws in good faith. Unfortunately Trump and his Administration are behaving in many instances like they are not bound by the laws and when confronted are untruthful about or obfuscate their actions. They have disavowed the US Constitution.
The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription | National Archives
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
It sure appears that Vaught and Miller are our unelected co-presidents!
Vought and Miller -- more like the entire MAGA Congress in two individuals.
Mike Johnson's toadies otherwise do nothing but draw their salaries, and fish for more, more, more bribes from K Street.
And don't forget Phil, they'll keep their health insurance paid by us regardless of the consequences of their policies.
Currently, remember Musk? In the future, perhaps his defensive lawyers will need to save him.
How can that be? You anointed Trump king. Lololol.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.“
It’s amazing that Johnson, and all the other CINOs in the T**** administration, aren’t consumed in righteous flame by their jealous God.
Many, many people are in for a rude awakening when they front up to the Pearly Gates.
There are quite a few obituaries I'm looking forward to - that'll do me.
What an empathetic human you are. Lmao.
One of them would be yours - if you were of any relevance 😉
Well, in the past few months, I’ve received 900 thank youse and liked the comments actually liked not just comment but actually demonstrated my post and what they liked about it. Which is really not my concern at all because that’s not why I’m here. I am. I’m here to kind of give you rational thought but you don’t wanna hear any, but I’m gonna make it easy for you, Sabine since you’re nothing but a hater for no reason I’m gonna have you prove that you’re a hater for no reason. And it will undoubtedly be the last time I hear from you.
Provide me a list of six of Donald Trump’s administration’s policies that have negatively and are currently specifically affecting your life today.
Checkmate Sabine
How much longer do we have to wait for that event Sandra? Is it there anything that we can do to speed up the process before it's too late ?😉
Tickets for sale at St Peter's gatehouse. Get your front row ticket to see your favourite Christian fascists diverted to purgatory.
Im so ready Sandra that I'm not going to ask how much are the tickets 🙃
Well, keep yourself in good shape so you get to use those tickets. These people are the types to thrive on their immorality and illegality while everyone else's blood pressure is going through the roof.
I promise to take my pills Sandra. Thanks for your concern 😅
Where's "Apache" today? Not on yet, I guess. He's had some thoughts on that.
Funny Miselle, I always look fir his comments and replies. 😄
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
– John Adams
Relax Derek, Karma is a BITCH!
And too slow bruce.
Been waiting for that lightening strike. That they are steadfast in their actions means that, to a one, repubs are hypocrites of the most vile ilk.
Yikes. You do know why the U.S. came to be? Right ?
🙄
Thanks Derek.
👍🏼
I keep thinking that Trump and his cronies are the proverbial idiots standing in the middle of a circle on top of an iceberg, using a giant hacksaw to finish the job, fully expecting the iceberg to sink rather than themselves.
The violations of law, morality, procedure and convention aren't just egregious, they're incredibly dumb. Hammering away at the ACA when 3/4 of enrollees live in counties Trump won in 2024 represents the height of political idiocy so gobsmacking as to take your breath away.
We can all be mistaken in our assessments, but the image that keeps returning, again and again, is a giant Rube Goldberg contraption held together with scotch tape, gumballs and bad wiring, all creaking, groaning, unraveling, swaying back and forth in near hurricane-force winds.
Which means we have to be ones to make sure that wind machine keeps blowing at maximum volume.
You were lied to about the ACA everybody was lied to about the ACA and the subsidies were going to disappear in December so don’t blame Trump. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan you can keep your plan. Uh oh.
Besides appreciating the reliably even-handed and factual account, I want to thank HCR for two small but important details: First: calling them ‘states led by Democrats’ rather than the ubiquitous and inaccurate ’blue states’. It would behoove Governors like mine in Washington State to remind the world that thousands of Republicans, Independents, and unaffiliated citizens inhabit our state, and use the opportunity to build bridges and solidarity among us while we are under attack. Second, and dear to my heart, thanks for NOT referring to Vought as an ‘architect’ of Project 2025. Your careful language is noted and much appreciated.
Frankly - I'm not interested in building bridges. Not with MAGA and MAGA "Independents". And we don't need them.
Harris lost because millions of Democrats and Independent Democrats stayed home. She managed to get less votes than Biden. THAT is the story of the election.
There wasn't any rightward shift to the voters. There hasn't been any rightward shift to the country. The Democrats sat this one out. The people that elected Trump are the Democrats that stayed home.
If the Democrats actually show up and vote the Republicans will lose.
So, the only folks I want to reach are the stay-at-home Democrats. The Republicans can go pound sand.
I want the MAGA crowd to treat me with respect. If they don't I intend verbally harass them. I want to ruin their day. I want them to be afraid to open their mouths and spew out garbage. I want them to shrink away and cower in the corner.
Those first two sentences, unfortunately, identify you as part of the problem. "We don't need them" is needlessly hostile and dismissive.
It's meant to be hostile and dismissive. The real problem is the naive approach to those that will never be won over. To those that we truly do not need to win elections.
I live in California where we kicked Republicans to the curb long ago. And we've done so much better now that we openly dismiss them.
Exactly right Nora. Thanks 😄
Thanks Dr. Richardson. As many of us suspected those Executive orders that trump slime authorized on the afternoon of January 20, 2025 were already written and planned to do maximum harm to American citizens. Vought obviously has read, understands, and hates The Constitution. Strangely, the men who actually wrote the Constitution were of the wealthy class, they just happened to believe like the Patriotic Millionaires, in the Common Good. That even the poorest among us are entitled to a living wage. And that all Americans should support the public works which all of them used.
It's no wonder he especially dislikes the First Amendment. The first phrase starts with: "Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" This is anathema to Fundamental Calvanists, who firmly believe 'God favors the wealthy, else they wouldn't be wealthy.' Trust me, you won't find those words in the Hebrew, Latin, or King James versions of the bible.
Appointing PeeWee German to head the ICE deployment of goons to arrest tamale stand owners has to be one of the dumbest things Donnie Dimpleknees could ever do. Ironically it gives some real hope. Clearly, they think he's a badass who'll show those Haitians and Salvadorans what's what. But Junior Gropenfūhrer was clearly behind the dumb Signal Chat musings with Kegsbreath about sending in the 82nd Airborne to quell a non-existent violent insurrection. Exhibit A: these Keystone Kops haven't bothered to tie their own shoelaces before running down the street with their billy clubs.
And this will be used by Pritzker, Newsom and an entire host of those filing amici curiae briefs as evidence of true mens rea -- criminal intent and aforethought. Because the evidence that no such insurrections are taking place, whether in Portland, Washington DC, Chicago, Memphis, Boston, Lost Angeles, is overwhelming. So it begs the question. What's all this about, if not the obvious --- rule by the cynical assholes around Trump -- Miller, Vought, Hegseth, Noem -- to feed the required incendiary nonsense back to Trump (who is clearly lost in total lalaland) about cities burning down, raging out-of-control hordes of Haitians eating cats and roasting dogs, knowing full well that he needs only the flimsiest excuse to beat his chest and go "I'd do it [invoke the Insurrection Act] if it was necessary", portraying himself as Mighty Mouse ("Here I Come to Save the Day!").
But why invoke the Insurrection Act in the first place, unless you want to use it as justification for preventing elections you know you're going to lose if don't do something first to stop them? While dastardly, again, they haven't thought through much of anything. Elections remain the province of the states, whose Secretaries of State are already planning for next November. Little Sturmbannfūhrer forgot to consult them first.
The answers aren't exactly hiding themselves from view, but then again, neither are the obvious failures waiting to blow up in their faces. I remain stubbornly optimistic.
If republicans relax about the 2026 elections it will mean that the fix is in. Just like he told MAGAts in 2024, no need to vote again.
Stephen Miller seems to enjoy his role as Trump's Retribution Whisperer - a malignant voice for bringing vengeance and pain to “the enemy within". As reported, Miller helps translate Trump's delusions and vengeful impulses into policy and action.
Two key allies in Miller's enterprise are Project 2025's/OMB's Russell Vought and Trump VP JD Vance.
Vought has examined every nook and cranny of federal government operations. With Miller and others, he has laid a path to destroying federal government of, by and for the people using every legal loophole, gap and weak link in the system to do so.
JD Vance, shapeshifter supreme, gives cover to the destruction. In his latest role as Trump supplicant on a mission infused with the hardline brand of Catholicism to which he converted, Vance acts and lies brazenly for the MAGA cause with ease and conviction.
These three men are doing what Trump is too lazy and inept to do, while feeding Trump’s inclinations to megalomania, vengeance and paranoia. All four men need each other. It’s a perilous house of cards for the rest of us, especially those not on the MAGA train.
Just remember that the Maybelline Buttwipe has all the animal magnetism of a fresh cow patty, the personality of used blotting paper. He's not likely to emerge as anybody's savior once all those hamberders finally remove the Manchurian Cantaloupe from our presence.
Bravo New York City Bar.
Attorneys speaking out.
Cf another voice
https://adw.org/news/homily-red-mass-mcelroy-eng-25/
I am speculating with this one, my apologies in advance. The whole Venezuela thing is staged and part of Trumpolini's Kayfabe. To that asshole, it's "just like shooting fish in a barrel"! He has not a single ounce of intention to "save thousands of lives". Masquerading as "warrior" just allows him to get closer to calling out his national emergency with which he will disrupt voting in 2026. Be prepared, even if it is speculation.
Exactly, it’s all performance. If the 2026 election looks close, there will be another “sacrificial lamb.” Count on it.
It's not speculation Bruce, everything indicates it's the final goal of this regime's plan of staying perpetually, otherwise, why to bother?