This regime will be broken as soon as the economy is broken. And it will be broken if everyone simply limits their spending to food, drink, energy. That's all. Or just live like the Brits did during WW2.Or like humans lived very happily for millenia before the Industrial Revolution. Break the massive corporations, the plastics industry, the Texas oligarchs, and you break the regime. JUST STOP SPENDING ON ANYTHING BUT ESSENTIALS FROM NOW!
Wear your clothes ‘til they’re rags. Drive your car into the ground; better yet, don’t drive at all — walk everywhere always. Don’t stream programs — inessential, right! “Stop Spending” on inessential Internet services! How silly!
Recycle. Buy second-hand or resale clothes. Donate to worthy charities. Ask if you really need that before you click online or put it into your cart in the supermarket. Can you get what you need locally while you are out? Keep well informed via reputable sources you curate while sober. Wine is okay. Then take a break and entertain yourself, not vice versa (entertain yourself too well then take a break and inform yourself). Avoid tuning out altogether. You can have a piece of cake or an ice cream cone every now and then.
Oh! You believe we could have a piece of cake — and even an ice cream cone! — “every now and then!” This is the kind of preaching from the Left that got Drumpf elected — twice!
This is the kind of remark, much worse than mine, that makes our side ineffective.. beating up on our own. This was,Michael, my sarcasm or joking. Get a grip. "the Left?" what are you talking about anyway. Do you know?
Oh! Apologies that my remark was much worse than yours, Potter. Your pretentious directive to "Recycle!" "Buy Local" "Inform yourself," This kind of virtue signaling is exactly what I meant by the Left in America preaching-- it's sickening and faintly despicable. Shame on you.
In its own way, your message is like Bush, Jr. after 9/11 telling us to go shopping! (Here’s a bunch of rich people who have everything telling everyone else to stop buying extra stuff…)
You, Potter, are the arbiter of what we "need" here? You're shameless and pretentious and probably hypocritical. Live a good life, be a good person, and stop preaching your dross.
Little things matter. Don’t leave the lights on when you are not using them. Stuff the cracks in your house before winter. Keep the thermostat low. Don’t wash your clothes so often. The Trump government is not dealing with climate change. We still need to and have to. And don’t have so many kids!!!
Yes yes yes this is exactly right. The power is ours and we have to stop pretending not to know this. Come on people: get the fuck organized. Get the fuck disciplined. Get the fuck committed.
Did you ever notice how the government always seems to pick the worst possible time to pull its shadiest tricks? Three in the morning on a holiday weekend, for instance. That’s when the Trump administration decided it would be a good idea to quietly put children on planes and send them back to Guatemala. Not criminals, not drug lords, not spies. Kids. Alone.
Now, you’d think there are some things even politicians wouldn’t try to get away with, but apparently, you’d be wrong. There are laws protecting these children. Laws passed by Congress. Laws that say you can’t just scoop them up in the dead of night and toss them back into danger. But the administration tried anyway.
If it weren’t for one judge who answered the phone in the middle of the night, those kids would be gone. Imagine that. Our democracy held together because one person decided to stay awake and do the right thing.
I don’t know about you, but I find that both comforting and terrifying. Comforting because someone stepped up. Terrifying because that’s what it took. When the government has to be stopped by emergency court orders to keep from deporting children, we’ve crossed into dangerous territory.
You can argue politics all day, but this isn’t about left or right. It’s about right and wrong. And sneaking kids onto planes at midnight isn’t just wrong. It’s shameful.
I am tearfully speechless at this adroit cruelty. It's almost as if these goons practiced ahead of time to get it all right. Thank you, Judge, for being on alert to this awful step over the cliff...
Even worse, Humpty has pardoned some of the most notorious criminals in recent American and global history. He feels the pain of other master criminals (that were caught and prosecuted)! He has moved many if not most of the federal agents of the DOJ and the FBI off of assignments to prosecute white collar crime, cyberhacking, human trafficking, extortion and murder! He slashed the ATFE by about 30 percent! He is not investigating domestic terrorist militias (no real surprise there), but they show no signs of interfering with gun smuggling, such as from Virginia to DC, or from Indiana, Mississippi and Louisiana to the democratic cities (the guns go from “red” states to “blue” cities, or to all cities, given that hardened criminals tend to prefer “clean” guns that haven’t been used in other crimes. Slashed the ATFE, the premier agency that has worked with Chicago to get illegal guns off the street! In other words, his violations of the Posse Comitatus Act (which stands for “Power of the Country”, regarding the power given to sheriffs to deputized others, I think) as a federal judge indicated, show that he is trying to create a national police force with him as the Commandant. I can only hope that he enjoys the same fate as Mussolini, if he is doing what he clearly is attempting to do.
I looked up the etymology of the phrase and found (among the Latin derivations) this interesting comment by (guess who?) AI:
"The term evolved from a common law tradition into the modern context of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes."
something wrong here, eh? Not sure what the last phrase actually means. To me, it says that the verb "restricts"... "for domestic law enforcement purposes" without exception - - just the converse of the meaning ascribed to the Posse Comitatus Act by historical interpretation; or am I reading it wrong?
I really don’t know the answer, but much of American law is to some extent based on English common law, with many significant improvements over European legal traditions…. (Many of which were abusive). Sounds like I actually know? No, but I learned it, probably from my favorite erudite historian! Perhaps we Americans pointedly did not adopt all aspects of English common law, since of course, they despised many shabby treatments of American colonists by the Empire, so would not have been inclined to promote bad practices. I have no evidence for this.
One might inquire of El Presidente if he knows the etymology of the phrase he is enamored of - - Posse Comitatus - - and see if his answer (whatever it might be) squares with his interpretation of it as applied.
I read an essay nigh unto two years ago, the title of which eludes me now, that described King George III's reign in a much more favorable light than American history seems to give him credit for; our founders were born of disgruntled English serfs (in part) who did not want to be governed from afar and who probably had no one-on-one contact with His Majesty; it was all hearsay and what really turned them off was the tea tax. They liked their tea. Shadows of tariffs today, it seems...
I am a tyro at maneuvering through the substack sites, so please excuse the cumbersome way I am doing this, but, for those of you who saw the viewing of
"Members-Only Live Podcast with Heather Cox Richardson and Marc Elias- Gallery view" today (it was b/cast yesterday) it is worth watching. It was the most comprehensive background-filling expose' on the current sordid state of national affairs. I highly recommend it and will post it on their websites.
There is currently enough lipstick on trumps ass from American governors that he is out of room. Even on his large behind. So republican governors you will have to plant your lips closer and closer to the dark stinky orifice to take your war to children. Children. Did you comprehend how that is going to not only shape your legacy but more importantly play out in the polls? American people defend children. Too bad you don’t. Let me put it as nice as I can. 🎼rock a bye baby above the tree tops where your plane lands we couldn’t care less. Into the unknown in the dark of the night , we want you to remember this last scary flight.🎼when it’s time for voting your lips will come up. Right there in the middle of trumps pink hairy butt.
How about the justice department gives the administration the same amount of time to appeal as the administration gave to those immigrant children this past weekend? How about putting the administration on a goddamn plane to fucking Guatemala in the middle of the night?
Send the bastards to Russia: they will immediately be sent to the front lines to fight along with the North Koreans! The big cheese will of course go to “club Sochi” where he can hobnob with Assad, the Butcher of Damascus.
LEgal AF reported this Sunday am...about the children. The people who claim to want to protect the unborn don't mind harming the living as we have all too many examples.
As we know, Trump has never given a thought to separating children from their parents or putting children in danger. The damage and severe trauma he has caused children to suffer may never heal. He and so many of his unqualified administration are cruel beyond belief, and Trump himself should be in a prison for the criminally insane.
Most of Trump's problems stem his piss poor parenting. His father was a bully and a jerk. His mother wasn't interested. Hence, they sent him to boarding school.
This is not an excuse. Many people who went to boarding school are very nice, nuturing parents. Trump just can't be bothered. It's in his DNA
I am no expert on the life of Donald Trump but he has always seemed to me to be a profoundly unhappy man obsessed with personal grievances.
Consider this, for example. In recent days, his government has lost federal appeals court cases on tariffs and immigration; it's lost another case on his deployment of the National Guard in California; and the net is closing on the president himself regarding his long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein as survivors of his attacks have called on the government to release all the files in its possession on the case.
Yet at 2.46am this morning he posted this message on Truth Social, again threatening to revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship together with a distorted picture of her face.
He nurtures grievances and allows them to feed into his politics of resentment. How could anyone believe that such a misanthrope could ever possibly Make America Great Again?
Melania tried to position herself as caring for the children- her recent note to Putin remember? Someone should bring that up to her... our First Lady.
What particular sandwich was Dunn's? I think it should be promoted heavily wherever he bought it. A symbol for a flag perhaps? Or subject for a statue?
While Congress is obsessed with pursuing the Epstein files, innocent, parent-less children are rounded up in the middle of the night and shut up in a plane waiting to be deported to a country from which they once fled in fear. So where is the hue and cry from Congress about this abusive behavior and crime against children? Are not the perpetrators of this abduction just as cruel, sadistic, and sick as Maxwell and Epstein? No government authorization can mitigate the moral depravity of this administration's orders and of those
None of this is a surprise. All you have to do is look at Homan and know that he doesn't have a soul or moral compass. It would be hard to find anyone in this administration that has a moral compass.
They just don't care.
I want to see the signature of the person who authorized this!
Yeah; and he hasn’t done a damned thing about getting Russia to release the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children PUtin kidnapped! He hasn’t done a damned thing about all the tens of thousands of children in Gaza (who the IDF has not quite managed to kill yet, but they’re working on it). Humpty hasn’t put any new sanctions of note on Russia: TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out! He hasn’t put any of his beloved, illegal tariffs on Russia -None! What does PUtin know about him and the files they maintain on him? Or is he just terrified by the prospect of PUtin using nuclear weapons???
ICE princess has requested her own fleet of aircraft -- the purpose being to commit more illegal deportations so quickly that no one will find out until it is too late. This REPUBLICAN Administration believes they can do absolutely anything they want to do without any consequences ... the less than Supreme Court apparently agrees. I keep waiting for more in government to stand up and say 'Enough!"
This regime will be broken as soon as the economy is broken. And it will be broken if everyone simply limits their spending to food, drink, energy. That's all. Or just live like the Brits did during WW2.Or like humans lived very happily for millenia before the Industrial Revolution. Break the massive corporations, the plastics industry, the Texas oligarchs, and you break the regime. JUST STOP SPENDING ON ANYTHING BUT ESSENTIALS FROM NOW!
Wear your clothes ‘til they’re rags. Drive your car into the ground; better yet, don’t drive at all — walk everywhere always. Don’t stream programs — inessential, right! “Stop Spending” on inessential Internet services! How silly!
Recycle. Buy second-hand or resale clothes. Donate to worthy charities. Ask if you really need that before you click online or put it into your cart in the supermarket. Can you get what you need locally while you are out? Keep well informed via reputable sources you curate while sober. Wine is okay. Then take a break and entertain yourself, not vice versa (entertain yourself too well then take a break and inform yourself). Avoid tuning out altogether. You can have a piece of cake or an ice cream cone every now and then.
Brilliant Mr/Ms Potter, brilliant. We are of one accord!
Oh! You believe we could have a piece of cake — and even an ice cream cone! — “every now and then!” This is the kind of preaching from the Left that got Drumpf elected — twice!
This is the kind of remark, much worse than mine, that makes our side ineffective.. beating up on our own. This was,Michael, my sarcasm or joking. Get a grip. "the Left?" what are you talking about anyway. Do you know?
Oh! Apologies that my remark was much worse than yours, Potter. Your pretentious directive to "Recycle!" "Buy Local" "Inform yourself," This kind of virtue signaling is exactly what I meant by the Left in America preaching-- it's sickening and faintly despicable. Shame on you.
Oh for goodness sake-- get off your horse. This is divisive and mean-spirited.. just what we don't need here.
You must get Sarah's point , though! Just don't spend ,will break this regime!!!!
In its own way, your message is like Bush, Jr. after 9/11 telling us to go shopping! (Here’s a bunch of rich people who have everything telling everyone else to stop buying extra stuff…)
Oh for goodness sake-- get off your horse. This is divisive and mean-spirited.. just what we don't need here.
You, Potter, are the arbiter of what we "need" here? You're shameless and pretentious and probably hypocritical. Live a good life, be a good person, and stop preaching your dross.
What a fighter you are!!! So admirable. Inspiring!! Will do. Thanks.
Let’s take this a step further…A national shutdown sounds called for here…
How would that happen?
Little things matter. Don’t leave the lights on when you are not using them. Stuff the cracks in your house before winter. Keep the thermostat low. Don’t wash your clothes so often. The Trump government is not dealing with climate change. We still need to and have to. And don’t have so many kids!!!
Your advice is nasty at its core. The immensity of your self entitlement is beyond belief.
And yours? Not? I took my cue from yours which gave me permission.
Great idea along with an organized general strike
I totally agree - stop using Amazon and stop unnecessary purchases.
Why not stop paying federal taxes?
Genius! That won't bring the ire of the Feds down on ya!
That's sort of the point. We have to face the power cabal down somehow, sometime. It's gonna hurt. Change does.
Well we just have to hope that Kennedy is Trump's personal doctor...
A little cheeky, but understandable...
Yes yes yes this is exactly right. The power is ours and we have to stop pretending not to know this. Come on people: get the fuck organized. Get the fuck disciplined. Get the fuck committed.
Thank you for being a voice of reason, Heather. Trump is on the Epstein list. We need justice for the victims: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/trump-epstein-list
SECRET FLIGHTS IN THE NIGHT
Did you ever notice how the government always seems to pick the worst possible time to pull its shadiest tricks? Three in the morning on a holiday weekend, for instance. That’s when the Trump administration decided it would be a good idea to quietly put children on planes and send them back to Guatemala. Not criminals, not drug lords, not spies. Kids. Alone.
Now, you’d think there are some things even politicians wouldn’t try to get away with, but apparently, you’d be wrong. There are laws protecting these children. Laws passed by Congress. Laws that say you can’t just scoop them up in the dead of night and toss them back into danger. But the administration tried anyway.
If it weren’t for one judge who answered the phone in the middle of the night, those kids would be gone. Imagine that. Our democracy held together because one person decided to stay awake and do the right thing.
I don’t know about you, but I find that both comforting and terrifying. Comforting because someone stepped up. Terrifying because that’s what it took. When the government has to be stopped by emergency court orders to keep from deporting children, we’ve crossed into dangerous territory.
You can argue politics all day, but this isn’t about left or right. It’s about right and wrong. And sneaking kids onto planes at midnight isn’t just wrong. It’s shameful.
I am tearfully speechless at this adroit cruelty. It's almost as if these goons practiced ahead of time to get it all right. Thank you, Judge, for being on alert to this awful step over the cliff...
Even worse, Humpty has pardoned some of the most notorious criminals in recent American and global history. He feels the pain of other master criminals (that were caught and prosecuted)! He has moved many if not most of the federal agents of the DOJ and the FBI off of assignments to prosecute white collar crime, cyberhacking, human trafficking, extortion and murder! He slashed the ATFE by about 30 percent! He is not investigating domestic terrorist militias (no real surprise there), but they show no signs of interfering with gun smuggling, such as from Virginia to DC, or from Indiana, Mississippi and Louisiana to the democratic cities (the guns go from “red” states to “blue” cities, or to all cities, given that hardened criminals tend to prefer “clean” guns that haven’t been used in other crimes. Slashed the ATFE, the premier agency that has worked with Chicago to get illegal guns off the street! In other words, his violations of the Posse Comitatus Act (which stands for “Power of the Country”, regarding the power given to sheriffs to deputized others, I think) as a federal judge indicated, show that he is trying to create a national police force with him as the Commandant. I can only hope that he enjoys the same fate as Mussolini, if he is doing what he clearly is attempting to do.
I looked up the etymology of the phrase and found (among the Latin derivations) this interesting comment by (guess who?) AI:
"The term evolved from a common law tradition into the modern context of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes."
something wrong here, eh? Not sure what the last phrase actually means. To me, it says that the verb "restricts"... "for domestic law enforcement purposes" without exception - - just the converse of the meaning ascribed to the Posse Comitatus Act by historical interpretation; or am I reading it wrong?
Serious person wants to know...
I really don’t know the answer, but much of American law is to some extent based on English common law, with many significant improvements over European legal traditions…. (Many of which were abusive). Sounds like I actually know? No, but I learned it, probably from my favorite erudite historian! Perhaps we Americans pointedly did not adopt all aspects of English common law, since of course, they despised many shabby treatments of American colonists by the Empire, so would not have been inclined to promote bad practices. I have no evidence for this.
One might inquire of El Presidente if he knows the etymology of the phrase he is enamored of - - Posse Comitatus - - and see if his answer (whatever it might be) squares with his interpretation of it as applied.
I read an essay nigh unto two years ago, the title of which eludes me now, that described King George III's reign in a much more favorable light than American history seems to give him credit for; our founders were born of disgruntled English serfs (in part) who did not want to be governed from afar and who probably had no one-on-one contact with His Majesty; it was all hearsay and what really turned them off was the tea tax. They liked their tea. Shadows of tariffs today, it seems...
I am a tyro at maneuvering through the substack sites, so please excuse the cumbersome way I am doing this, but, for those of you who saw the viewing of
"Members-Only Live Podcast with Heather Cox Richardson and Marc Elias- Gallery view" today (it was b/cast yesterday) it is worth watching. It was the most comprehensive background-filling expose' on the current sordid state of national affairs. I highly recommend it and will post it on their websites.
There is currently enough lipstick on trumps ass from American governors that he is out of room. Even on his large behind. So republican governors you will have to plant your lips closer and closer to the dark stinky orifice to take your war to children. Children. Did you comprehend how that is going to not only shape your legacy but more importantly play out in the polls? American people defend children. Too bad you don’t. Let me put it as nice as I can. 🎼rock a bye baby above the tree tops where your plane lands we couldn’t care less. Into the unknown in the dark of the night , we want you to remember this last scary flight.🎼when it’s time for voting your lips will come up. Right there in the middle of trumps pink hairy butt.
This is CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. A regime which is cruel to children has lost all legitimacy.
How about the justice department gives the administration the same amount of time to appeal as the administration gave to those immigrant children this past weekend? How about putting the administration on a goddamn plane to fucking Guatemala in the middle of the night?
Send the bastards to Russia: they will immediately be sent to the front lines to fight along with the North Koreans! The big cheese will of course go to “club Sochi” where he can hobnob with Assad, the Butcher of Damascus.
That is a great idea!
Then it can go down in the Atlantic.
LEgal AF reported this Sunday am...about the children. The people who claim to want to protect the unborn don't mind harming the living as we have all too many examples.
As we know, Trump has never given a thought to separating children from their parents or putting children in danger. The damage and severe trauma he has caused children to suffer may never heal. He and so many of his unqualified administration are cruel beyond belief, and Trump himself should be in a prison for the criminally insane.
Given the distance he has always maintained between himself and his own children one can perhaps see why he fails to empathise.
Most of Trump's problems stem his piss poor parenting. His father was a bully and a jerk. His mother wasn't interested. Hence, they sent him to boarding school.
This is not an excuse. Many people who went to boarding school are very nice, nuturing parents. Trump just can't be bothered. It's in his DNA
I am no expert on the life of Donald Trump but he has always seemed to me to be a profoundly unhappy man obsessed with personal grievances.
Consider this, for example. In recent days, his government has lost federal appeals court cases on tariffs and immigration; it's lost another case on his deployment of the National Guard in California; and the net is closing on the president himself regarding his long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein as survivors of his attacks have called on the government to release all the files in its possession on the case.
Yet at 2.46am this morning he posted this message on Truth Social, again threatening to revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship together with a distorted picture of her face.
https://x.com/yashar/status/1963418466343391577
We saw the same sort of behaviour in his first term.
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/30/496050913/trump-again-attacks-miss-universe-contestant
He nurtures grievances and allows them to feed into his politics of resentment. How could anyone believe that such a misanthrope could ever possibly Make America Great Again?
The 2:46am post.....dementia perhaps, combined with immaturity?
Pure vindictiveness, in my opinion, Gayle. There is no medical treatment for that.
Melania tried to position herself as caring for the children- her recent note to Putin remember? Someone should bring that up to her... our First Lady.
I do not think Mace cracked. I believe she sought the deniability by leaving early. Thus she did not hear some things. She ran for cover. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/mace-melts-stansbury-stands?r=3m1bs
C-i-t-a-d-e-l. Cit-a-del!
Check out Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) as they hold a news conference on their push to have Congress vote on the release of files related to the Epstein investigation. https://www.c-span.org/event/news-conference/reps-khanna-massie-hold-a-news-conference-on-epstein-files/436072
Need only 4 more Republicans to get all the files.
Only 2 more, latest I heard.
What particular sandwich was Dunn's? I think it should be promoted heavily wherever he bought it. A symbol for a flag perhaps? Or subject for a statue?
Subway Footlong”
Right! Will ask for it on my next visit to a Subway!
While Congress is obsessed with pursuing the Epstein files, innocent, parent-less children are rounded up in the middle of the night and shut up in a plane waiting to be deported to a country from which they once fled in fear. So where is the hue and cry from Congress about this abusive behavior and crime against children? Are not the perpetrators of this abduction just as cruel, sadistic, and sick as Maxwell and Epstein? No government authorization can mitigate the moral depravity of this administration's orders and of those
who willfully execute them.
None of this is a surprise. All you have to do is look at Homan and know that he doesn't have a soul or moral compass. It would be hard to find anyone in this administration that has a moral compass.
They just don't care.
I want to see the signature of the person who authorized this!
I feel like I’m in the worst dream you can imagine, and I want to wake up.
Send DJT and his entire administrative staff out of the country...leave the children alone !!!
Yeah; and he hasn’t done a damned thing about getting Russia to release the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children PUtin kidnapped! He hasn’t done a damned thing about all the tens of thousands of children in Gaza (who the IDF has not quite managed to kill yet, but they’re working on it). Humpty hasn’t put any new sanctions of note on Russia: TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out! He hasn’t put any of his beloved, illegal tariffs on Russia -None! What does PUtin know about him and the files they maintain on him? Or is he just terrified by the prospect of PUtin using nuclear weapons???
ICE princess has requested her own fleet of aircraft -- the purpose being to commit more illegal deportations so quickly that no one will find out until it is too late. This REPUBLICAN Administration believes they can do absolutely anything they want to do without any consequences ... the less than Supreme Court apparently agrees. I keep waiting for more in government to stand up and say 'Enough!"
This is a historic moment for the country, we must stand together against this corruption.