The fact that Rupert can just shuffle off into the sunset to enjoy the wealth he created by weakening democracy, sewing fear and hatred, and spreading lies is a crime against humanity.
And the majority of the GOP that acted against the certification of the 2020 election, and continue to do all they can to obstruct justice should be expelled, indicted, and barred from ever holding elected office.
To allow them to hold the budget, military promotions, justice, voting rights, and any legislation necessary to strengthen democracy hostage is just a continuation of the attack on the American system that peaked on January 6th but started well before the direct, violent attack on the Capitol.
Aside from crippling the American democracy with Faux News, don’t forget what Murdoch has “done” for the UK: he had a heavy hand in the Brexit as well…
The departure of Rupert Murdoch & the ascendancy of his son LACHLAN KEITH MURDOCH, the CEO of Fox Corp, is essentially a corporate asset protection strategy to shelter billions from SMARTMATI's upcoming Trial against Rupert & Son for virulent misinformation conspiracies & commercial defamation. Make no mistake, Rupert is still personally deeply involved.
Let’s be honest. There is a very long and deep thread of bigotry, racism and violence that runs through our society extending all the way back to our arrival on these pristine shores. It’s as though, having glimpsed the vast bounty of the continent we were simply unable to accept our good fortune with grace, but instead ravaged, first, it’s native population, then built an economy on the shoulders of a large population of slaves, then, used our economic and industrial might to interfere in the sovereign affairs of other nations. The Brits did it before us, the colonization, and our roots are deeply entwined.
None of this makes us any worse than any other collection of people; it is simply “the human condition” run amok, given the boundless wealth we conscripted.
But there is a myth, another thread that runs deeply through our society, that we are “exceptional”. The “shining city on the hill”, and all of that. We know, deeply, that we are guilty of systemic racism, global economic hegemony, and warring, often for economic gain on innocent people elsewhere, particularly if they are not “white people”. We know it deep down. We don’t want to think about it, and we certainly don’t want to hear about it from our media.
Enter Fox News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch, consciously aware of this or not, has tapped into that artery. He has created an environment in which many of us can feel comfortable with ourselves. No reminders that there are two sides to the story. Constant reinforcement of the message we want to hear. A relentless drumbeat of self reinforcing propaganda designed to draw us together as a group of maligned, persecuted, good folk who stand for only the best in America. Motherhood! Apple pie! Patriotism! USA! USA! USA!
Having unleashed this genie, it will be difficult to stuff it back into its bottle, Rupert or no Rupert. We must try, however, through education of our children, and it will take generations. Mr. Polisner's comment above, of course, expresses this far more succinctly.
Not necessarily. Lachlan has been running the company since 2014. He is a "responsible officer" and as such, is a party to the lawsuits. Four years in the NY Tax Dept. taught me a few things.
Burning books is a clue pointing to what's happening right now. Fascism is alive and pounding our country hard. It's got to be stopped, but how? Vote Blue, one and all. Get young people to register and vote. We just can not let them win!
I agree George; however, I also understand, that in real life, there are people striving to find money to buy a little food, and some who work for low wages in companies that pay their CEOs millions. There is a line between being informed, educated, and an engaged society and people who only read headlines as they pass a newsstand because they cannot afford a paper.
It is up to those who have been blessed with and have worked for an education, who have a little time to research what is really going on and who should engage at any level to assure that elections are free and fair.
SNAP benefits are more generous in some states than others. Even so, when I was unemployed I was able to eat, thanks to SNAP. You make America sound like the streets are lined with beggars. Yes, low wage jobs are a crisis - we need to implement a Living Wage for All. But the biggest crisis right now is not food, but housing. Have you noticed what people have to pay for even a studio apartment?
I do understand your point. Nevertheless being informed, at a minimum about things directly impacting an individual, their family, and community is a basic responsibility in democracy. Imagine if because we all voted in our informed self-interest there would be living wages (not poverty wages) and adequate time for civic and community engagement.
Spot on Gail! And all of the work that Biden & Harris are doing to expand the middle class and uplift those in need is the first step in the process of ensuring an educated population.
It’s all laid out in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The needs at the bottom of the pyramid must be addressed first.
As you know a lot about the inner workings of our current "mess", I ask for your thoughts about Russian involvement with our media - legacy and social. I don't have evidence. But much reporting suggests that Putin's influence via his internet troll farms is much more pervasive than we had thought.
The Russian connection just haunts me. Trump selling condos to Russian oligarchs. Eric or Don Jr declaring that most of their investment money was Russian. Trump trusting Putin over our own intelligence services - as well as a Republican Senate investigation. Trump endorsing the invasion of Ukraine.
The ease with which phony identities can be created on FB, X, Instagram, etc is appalling. Anyone who doubts me, just try it. I have experimented. It's really easy.
Senator Joe McCarthy led a witch hunt for Communists. There WERE communists in the US. But of course, his search became a nightmare. With that in mind, how do we explain the lack of interest by leading politicians (Republicans...) in exposing the influence of a foreign dictatorship currently performing a genocide? I hate conclusion jumpers. But one word just keeps leaping into my mind: "cahoots"
Why do the likes of a MTG or Gaetz side with Russia when a winning Republican tactic has ALWAYS been a strong defense - and often a dangerous and stupid version? How did a blond, weight lifting, AR-15 toting, southern political hack become a "peacenick" or an "isolationist"?
I think Russia is infinitely more clever than we know...am I wrong?
Well put Bill. I believe Russian state efforts to destabilize the U.S. and NATO are well-evidenced in the Mueller Report. Really, the only modern way I see to inoculate a society is ensuring every citizen is well-educated, informed, and can delineate the difference between facts and disinformation.
And to be sure, adversarial efforts will only get more sophisticated over time.
George, having a well-educated and informed electorate is exactly what the Repugnants are trying to stop by banning books and dictating curricula in public schools and other offensive measures. "Democracy dies in darkness," and that is precisely what they are making happen.
Well-educating and informing is much easier said than done, in civics as well as most other subjects, but the sentiment is noble, and id be the last to think of standing in the way of effort.
Part of the education needed is study of logical fallacies and techniques of persuasion. And also math, percentages especially. For example, Anti-vaxxers missed the lesson on Correlation is not Causation. People died after their shots, therefore the shots were responsible. (What percentage of people died versus those who did not die? What kind of numbers are we talking about? A 100% increase of 2 is 4.) Sorry for the rant, I once taught this stuff to kids who grasped it.
You are not wrong. What absolutely boggles my mind is how friends of mine from law enforcement who were (mostly) far more conservative in the traditional sense of the word, many of whom are Cold War era veterans are now fawning all over Russia and its leader.
Your colleagues are not conservative at all, but far right regressive bullies who see a chance to undermine any progress we have made in this country. Being a really tough guy with a gun is what is important to them. When I was engaged with them briefly on your Facebook page, I could almost smell the excess testosterone. Also they dreck they posted was so predictable.
It is still there, and they are still posting ultimate drivel. I am girding up to engage again (I pretty much stopped since they were getting so much free rent in my head, but the time has come again to do battle.)
No, Americans are just much more “stupid”--by that I mean, simpleminded. Most seem to understand things in terms of binaries--all good or all bad, completely “for” or “against”. And these stances are more essential to such “thinkers” and “knowers” than facts are.
In this sense politics is now like a football game. People blindly want their “side” to win. The media feeds this. “Dems win vote on infrastructure”. GOP wins this vote or that vote. Legislation and policy is about most of us winning or losing. The media should be explaining why we win or lose. They are not needed to simply publish a vote count.
Yes, socialism (like woke) has become the a new code word and rallying cry for those continuing to work on the concentration of wealth and power. Too many are far more concerned with the negligible funding PBS gets, while silent on the billions of taxpayer money paid as subsidies for Big Oil.
True, although I suspect the EU is stronger with more participating nations and their respective economies. Maybe I am more naively idealistic, but I think of the world we could share through collaboration and cooperation.
My cousins live in London. Their son happens to work for the British Embassy. When Brexit was being voted on, my cousins voted for it. Their children were appalled and so was I. I am certain they regret doing that now. And...this couple are highly educated, so there’s that.
Yes. Well-educated is not always well-informed. This is why Noam Chomsky wrote “Manufacturing Consent” -even easier when a handful of media companies control information.
You don’t have to be religious to recognize truth and wisdom wherever you find it. We need a heap of both right now. How about “Throw the money changers out “?
He’s saying that spewing one-liners out of context is meaningless. Much like the ones we hear daily. Poking fun at his own expense with the “even this on” comment.
I agree with all you just said but how do we expel these thieves from Congress?They are doing all that they can to destroy the country but what is our recourse here?I am wringing my hands that a very small rogue minority is hamstringing the entire operation of the US government and concerned citizens are looking on in horror while all of this is being crammed down our throats.
In the 2016 election cycle I had warned (with many others) that the lack of Democratic unity was going to lead to disaster -and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coathanger Barrett (aside from many others in lower courts) are the outcome of the former administration.
The 2024 election cycle is our last stand, however beyond 2024, if we are able to retake the House and Senate majority, we must be prepared to invest in long term political infrastructure. The current democratic strategy of sign my petition and send money is not effective against the framework articulated by Lewis Powell in 1971, that has been updated in the Heritage Foundation's sinister Project 2025 plans.
I totally agree again with you that sign my petition and send money tactics DO NOT WORK. If the 2024 election is our only recourse do we just sit on our hands while all of this is reigning down on us now? I certainly have made many calls to my Congressional representatives expressing my abject horror as to what they are doing and not doing but it seems there has to be a way to deal with this in the here and now.2024 election time is a year away.
Continue to pressure McCarthy to work with a handful of Republicans who haven’t pledged their fealty to Trump to work a budget deal with the House Democrats is important. McCarthy wants to remain in power (at any cost) and this might be the only deal with a path to success.
If the few GOP Representatives and Senators understand that centrist/independents prefer a democracy over theocracy, oligarchy, or kleptocracy- they may shift a little toward the center to maintain any hold on power.
From my perspective -we must vote them out. And in places where Dems can’t win -candidates like Liz Cheney putting country over party are fine with me.
Hear, here! Continue the drummed message George, this is Germaine to accountability. 1) VOTE THE COMPLICIT OUT 2) STAY VOTING BLUE ...but HOLD the NEW BLUE order feet to the fire.
It’s time and with plenty of evidence to reorganize , to address the inequality rampant. This alone set up the division ...clever observation ? No , but it’s been used effectively.
If retribution is what some perceive as needed, then make it known . Take the chant of the liars for worth. Every claim was self disclosure. A layered text of laws needing to be revised ,put in place to protect and define This American Dream.
History has repeatedly documented what NOT to do, the sordid ,bloody and inevitable end. Our educational system should adequately teach this, not hide it to protect the ‘innocent minds from guilt ‘...is that technique not self disclosing ...Desantis de slow d e a t h
We take no glory in this GOP death spiral either.
There’s room for plenty of US to dissect and improve. Plenty of mistakes to provide a more solid foundation . It IS a Constitution of merit and dreams long ago suggested that deserves credited and better defined .
Their Deep State is indeed intact Heritage ,Federalist, Corporate, and Fascist...powerful, intent on division furthering the painful riff of have and have nots.
We HAVE and are ABLE to see the cracks , the flaws , but only WE THE PEOPLE can make the change needed.
Hold the accountable to the consequence due. Keep eyes vigilant -on the lesson provided and.....
my congresswoman is Marjorie Green , there is no point in calling her. when she holds local sessions only loyalists are allowed to attend, anyone asking uncomfortable questions is escorted out by armed men.
Gangrene is doing what over two-thirds of the white voters in her district want her to do. Their enthusiasm for cruelty is unbounded. They can’t get enough of it. Politicians are not the crux ofvthe problem. A majority of white voters are the problem. Our only hope is to shellac Republicans in the 2024 election. Not possible in gangrene’s district but just barely possible in enough districts, nationwide, to bring to heel the racists who see authoritarianism as the only way to preserve their control.
One nice piece of good news is that Democrats have been picking up in state and local elections, performing far better than Republicans, despite national polls seeming to the contrary. And for whatever reason New Hampshire voters were polled and gave 2024 to Biden by 52% to Trump's 40% with 8% undecided.
George, my sentiments exactly. We have so many fundamental changes to make to stop the authoritarian and dystopian trains running here—and around the world.
America must stand up, together, and look at these shadows. Lucky for us they are so blatant and run by such ignoramuses who have infiltrate many of our most important systems. To ignore them and not create blocks to their paths is at our democracy's demise. All of America must have the resolve to shine the light brightly on this and consolidate our brightest minds, undergird all our systems to face a new world where pyramidal wealth combined with cyberwarfare propaganda are powers that can be interrupted and disbanded. This insidiously planned coup upon us since Reagan days must lose its hold and be neutered by a strong democracy willing to stand against it. The power of the media is critical in reporting facts and must have stronger doctrines to abide by.
Agreed, but the media (e.g., The New York Times and The Washington Post) are leaning farther and farther right, and the chyrons on CNN are often blatantly pro-Republican, even with Chris Licht gone.
American journalist George Seldes’ (1890-1995) writings on foreign and domestic fascist movements leading up to WW2 also provide very instructive historical background. As you so aptly framed it, dynamic then and now seems to distill down to conflict between allegiance to a system founded on “justice and equity” (see preamble to Constitution) as opposed to a despotic caste system orbiting around service to “power and wealth”.
Unlike our fellow citizens at places like the Heritage Foundation (see ‘2025’ project proposal), I have come to believe that well-regulated capitalism only pathway to democratic ideal of “liberty and justice for all”while so-called ‘free-market’ or ‘monopoly’ capitalism (i.e. totally unregulated) as likely a pathway to totalitarian dystopia as communism, pure socialism, and fascism.
Recommend starting with one (or more) of following books by Mr. Seldes:
1. Facts and Fascism (1947)
2. 1000 Americans (1947)
3. The Facts Are: A Guide to Falsehood and Propaganda in the Press and Radio (1942)
The parasites, like MTG, and Trump in his blown up, grandiose course, want to keep parasitizing the U S Govt and all its resources, not actually kill their host. Their threats and hostile actions are more blackmail than they are steps on an independent path. Just like Putin and his threats of nuclear attack--this is essentially just manipulation to gain power and resources in the world. If such parasites were ever to succeed ultimately in taking over, they would soon (historically speaking) scuttle the ship. Because their mode of action and form of relationship with necessary others inevitably become unworkable. One-sided exploitativeness, in its ever-increasing punitiveness and totalitarian stance, always hits dead ends in reality--it crashes, or implodes and fails.
So the “sweet spot” for such actors is to keep the relationship going so the exploitation can continue. The abuser wants to stay in business, just as parasites do. So even though there are grand displays of supremacy and total possession, of acquisition of the ideal, these people and their “plays” are still parasitic and derivative. They are like an angry, rebellious teenager holding his parents at gunpoint--parents he still depends on for support, meals and a clean house-- This angry teenager is furious that his parents havent made a perfect world in which he can continue to be King Baby, and take the consequences if his actions.
So yeah, the brinkmanship and blackmail will continue, both here in the US and in Europe--in fact everywhere humanity is struggling to gain a more mature form of organization and purpose. But this requires relationship and collaboration rather than just taking overAnd if and when they were to succeed in grabbing the wheel and running up their pretentious flag, it wont be for long because they will run the boat aground, or crash it. Send these children home, to once again face the challenges of real maturity.
Sometimes you just have to channel anger and despair into action. I believe there are an increasing number of people in this country who are fed up and more than ready to take action. Let’s all channel our frustration into constructive action.
The time for hand wringing is over! ❤️ Instead of feeling victimized, we must do what we can to get out the vote. It's going to take a couple voting cycles to rid ourselves of these miscreants, but voting is our superpower!
I'm hard at work writing postcards to registered voters who haven't voted recently. Check out Chop Wood, Carry Water (on Substack) for a source of addresses. Activate America is my source.
George, we are living thru such insanity. When so few have so much power. A dictatorship could not wreak more havoc. What kind of democracy could afford so few the ability to cause so much harm. As the old Chinese curse goes, may you live in interesting times.
It's interesting how much of our democracy was initially eroded by a single U.S. Senator from Kentucky. Or you could readily point back to the Lewis Powell memo of 1971 which provided a framework for the wealthy to work together (ironically, unionize) leading to all of the damage started by Ronald Reagan. These are indeed issues likely caused by fundamental compromise imposed upon the founders in order to protect wealth.
The ability of power hungry politicians to get elected by convincing many to vote against their best interests. The primary tool is HATRED. (George good comments)
George, you can take it farther back than Lewis Powell's outrageous memo. Like to the 1950s and '60s. Check out Anne Nelson's book, "Shadow Network", which details the path that led up to the Heritage Foundation and the Council on National Policy, the most insidious cabal almost no one has heard of. The book opens with a discussion of the Southern Baptist Convention and the schism in Protestantism in America in the late 1960s, and goes from there.
We need more truly investigative reporters, with the funding to do the digging, not to mention the desire. (This has been yet another aspect of the disaster of the death of so many newspapers.)
Yes, I was corresponding with Prof. Chomsky on the Powell Memo and he pointed me to the Trilateral commission. There is no doubt the conflict between those who seek to concentrate power and wealth, and those who seek justice and equity preceded all of us and will continue for generations.
I just don’t want to see rapid regression on our watch.
There is also a really cool Chinese cup that, if you fill it up too much, all the tea leaks out through invisible holes. The Republicans are overplaying their hand right now. It is our job as citizens to make sure they lose it all. I would go so far as to say it is our patriotic duty to do so. The extremists pose a clear and present danger to the everyone. Don’t let them get away with it.
George, Reading your comment amplifies my belief that we have yet to reckon with why, in 8 years, we have not mounted a large enough majority to seal the importance of supporting candidates who accept the results of elections, of voting for candidates who accept the rule of law, who don’t congenitally lie, or who don’t pander and indulge in conspiracy theories. Indeed, the current President who so aptly is leading the coalition abroad must likewise more compellingly lead in the fight to preserve our fundamental values here at home.
I've been working on it since my (infamous) departure from Oracle in 2016. I've been using personal funds, and raising some funds to help inform, educate, engage, and empower people through the https://civ.works effort I founded. We've recently signed a joint development agreement with a Canada-based entity, PlaceSpeak.com and will work together on common vision and goals. We hope to grow, scale, empower people, and strengthen democracy throughout the world.
George, I deeply appreciate your reply, specifically the links to organizations, which, rather than regarding us as an audience who gets to look through the window, treats us as citizens who get to come through the door and participate.
Why do we not protest as we did in the 60s? Is it because we are strapped to an economic hamster wheel with pay not rising as fast as what it costs us to live our daily lives? Is it because we can't do without the perks once unknown to our grandparents like vacations and meals out and games?
We can, at least, protest with our spending -- don't watch TV -- we can get news without the outfits, makeup, and facial expressions and save some grocery money. We can make sure not to spend electricity & gas dollars during prime time (which actually means the time of greatest expense charged by the utilities). And we can actually protest and let it be made clear that we're not going to give up our country to those who already have proved that they wish to repress us. Tell the party people that we want action, not surveys and pleas and scare tactics endlessly and repeatedly flooding our inboxes. We must demand a representative democracy that answers to us.
We are like Ukraine threatened with forces massing at the borders -- we must avoid experiencing our own version of Ukraine's pain.
Roxanna, Thank you for writing. While I would submit that tens of millions of us are engaged, at the local, state, and federal levels, in thousands of actions aimed at blocking the potential undoing of our cherished, albeit flawed, American experiment, I have noted 2 problems: 1) Our movement feels fragmented because our grassroots organizing typically functions independently of one another and 2) Far too many of us have grown increasingly complacent, content to allow others to carry the weight for us. Admittedly, I don’t have a ready solution to offer, only the conviction that the situation demands one.
One more thing: I intend to borrow your Ukraine analogy. Nonetheless, I will modify it because whatever fate could lie in wait, as devastating as it could be, in my view, would fall dramatically short of the devastation we’re witnessing in Ukraine.
Thanks, Barbara Jo, for noting the numbers of citizens engaged in activism and in direct changes through political participation. Yes, the fragmentation feel is keen -- any response to the barrage seems to make no impact as the barrage continues along the same reactionary theme of panic/anguish/anger/shock/etc.
I'm definitely concerned about the complacent ones who seem to believe that 'things will be just fine' when things actually seem to have escalated from argument to violence to contempt over time. The others who seem programmed to stay in 'reaction' mode merely provide the audience response that seems to feed increasing fascism.
You are most welcome to 'borrow' the analogy. Ukraine has seen many versions of the devil over the years, some that struck obviously and some that slithered into people's lives always showing up meaner and crazier and colder....
Roxanna, While your warnings of the dangers ahead are articulated with such insight and precision, I do wish to comment on your remark that “any response to the barrage seems to make no impact…”. In a word, I believe it is impossible to foretell precisely when any of our endeavors will reach critical mass, suddenly creating change. Nor can we predict when a single seemingly insignificant effort will produce powerful results.
"Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and John Fetterman (D-PA) have both visited Michigan to meet with UAW workers, but it was nonetheless a surprise when the White House announced that the president will travel on Tuesday to Michigan, where he will, as he posted on X, “join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create. It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.""
Yes!!! Thwart the hollowing out of the middle class which would leave only serfs and those who profit off their labor exist -- the age old story!
For all of us who still subscribe to cable, we are forced to pay for Fox News and Fox Business every month. We can only get the local stations with cable so we're stuck. Whenever I go into a business that is airing far-right drivel I request that they change the station.
Cut the cord. You can have internet only service (we pay $49.99 for super fast service), stream an infinite variety of entertainment options. And if you still want some legacy network stuff, turn on the free ROKU channel. If you are a sports fan and you want everything that cable offers in that respect, buy a subscription to YouTube TV. It's all there. Your total bill may be less and you won't be funding the American version of Tass or Pravda.
Cut loose! Down with cable! It's trending...big time.
Research what is on YouTube TV - I think you can stream every sport. My neighbor and my son are huge sports fans. They cut the cord a long time ago and watch whatever they want on YouTube. Could be win-win! :)
Not with Comcast. I tried. I have to have cable internet due to the location of my house, and am just waiting for the fiberoptic network to arrive in my neighborhood. My cell phone plan offers a great internet deal, but due to the ridge that I live just down from, I have no signal (I have to augment my cell coverage with internet service about half the time.)
Jenny, I find that I have little time for TV, even though I used to love watching both professional baseball and football all the time. I can't follow shows enough to "binge watch" on subscription channels. I don't read as many books as I used to because of vision issues, but I do listen to a variety of books/essays/podcasts (usually while working in the yard).
Maybe the new joint chief and Navy and Marine commandants can order that Fox News not be shown on any base TVs around the world. They are proven liars, so why allow our troops to watch.
The attack didn't peak on Jan. 6, that was just the first public attempt at a takeover. We'll need to be vigilant, active, engaged until the election in 2024 and then again until the next one.
Another newsletter with sad, insidious truths to upset yet another breakfast. How can a handful of blind, poisonous people wreak so much havoc? Just Murdoch, Putin, Trump, and Kev and his tormentors alone! Oh, and BTW George, Murdoch is not shuffling into a sunset any time soon--he will be consultant emeritus until his last breath....
While digesting breakfast (and before it's completely ruined) the work of Heather Cox Richardson and many others helps to provide a baseline of information and education so people do engage. Also, in my moments of despair -I remind myself that the GOP lost the popular vote in every Presidential election since 2004.
I really think all people who are center-right, center, and center-left should work to build a necessary countervailing machine to the think tanks, media consolidation, and academic constraints called for in the Powell memo. Otherwise every election cycle will be an all-too-close vote on democracy itself until an authoritarian government has been installed.
While I so appreciate Heather's concise info offerings that tie everything together, bad behavior is brazenly conducted in broad daylight for all of us to see. That's what astounds me--until now, any propensity for authoritarianism in this country, or even appearance of selfishness was attempted to be kept hidden. Now, lying and destruction of society is blatantly laid out in the open. How will these fools' constituents who work for the government feel when they're not getting their paychecks? Which circles back to what you alluded to re: elections--they can play games now with no thought of repercussions (i.e. Boebert's teenage antics in the theater) but you can bet that people will be fervently voting in the next election....
I agree 100%! I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. What are they waiting for? Indict them all, tfg and especially including Murdock! Crimes against humanity indeed!
I suspect Murdoch would hide behind free speech -and unless there was evidence of communication or correspondence that he acted to obstruct justice, or in a conspiracy with others to subvert elections, it might be an interesting and yet very challenging legal issue -which eventually would lead to a currently very corrupt Supreme Court.
Standing back and watching the GOP/MAGA cult prepare to burn this country to the ground, I can't help but think, do they not think we see their motives?
They are fully prepared to cut off money and services to their own party members as well as the rest of the country to protect Trump.
Do they really think we don't see that?
Who will the Republicans blame when they don't get their Social Security check and other needed services?
Social Security checks are not affected by a shut down because they do not depend on yearly reauthorizations. Other Social Security services may not be available like processing new enrollments.
I also checked that out too. However, i don't know about my pension that is also paid through the Pension Guaranty Benefit Corporation which is a Federal Government agency. The company i worked for raided our pension fund and then went bankrupt leaving the Federal Government to pay our pensions back in the year 2008. I think all Social Security offices will be closed in the event of a shutdown until if and when the shutdown ends.
"During a partial federal government shutdown, all PBGC offices, including our customer contact center, will remain open during regularly scheduled business hours. All operations will continue uninterrupted. "
Thank you, now i won't have to try to call them next week. I have an incredibly crappy cell phone and in an area that has crappy cell coverage. Every time i try to call someone, it will either drop the call, or shut off in the middle of a conversation. I purchased a book about Social Security a while back and checked out what happens in the event of a government shutdown. Back in 2006, George W. Bush tried and failed to abolish the PBCG.
Yes, it does ease my mind greatly since i got notice yesterday my mortgage payment is going to increase because my escrow is low because of the greedy insurance company has increased my premiums by over $1,000 in the past 2 years for homeowner's insurance. My escrow is always running low due to these huge increases and is as much as the bank mortgage payment is. It's like i am paying double every month now on my mortgage.
Georgia, just spoke to someone from my local SSA office. She said " our money" isn't affected, but the people who process our payments may be. Even they don't know as of yet. What a horrible way to live.
Georgia, I did check as well. I'm on Social Security as well as working. I've received conflicting answers.
You are correct about processing new requests.
It does concern me that at the first threat to shut downs, Zellen stated numerous times that we would not, possibly, maybe.... get our deposits. I haven't heard her say that this time around.
It isn’t to protect Trump. As usual, it to ensure tax cuts for the wealthy and reduction of government oversight of criminal business actions. Trump is a pawn.
I've always thought the same of Trump. IMHO, he's just not very smart (failing in business after business) and then knowing nothing on government, spending what? 4 hours a day perhaps three days a week "working" as POTUS? Too full of his own hot air to get distracted by whomever is behind the curtain.
Ally, the more I look at it, the more I find myself obliged to admit that our democracies are today lacking in certain quite basic defense mechanisms against overthrow by would-be tyrants and oligarchic interests. People who put money and privilege before country. People who so despise their fellow citizens that their only uses for them entail permanent subjection... when they don't simply regard them as vermin.
At end August 2001, I wrote to a friend that we are "sleepwalking on the edge of the abyss". On September 10th, I wrote to the same friend that our democracies are like a dog asleep in the middle of the highway... "One doubts our survival instincts"... And my correspondent told me "Peter, you are exaggerating as usual..."
Well, we saw what the next day brought.
I worked in an important EU institution where I had been deeply upset by the ambient complacency, the West's crass triumphalism after the collapse of the USSR, an unpleasant sense that we would now be inheriting the bureaucratic automatisms, the language and propaganda of Komintern... turned inside out... And yes, that is quite literally what did happen. Above all, I was both horrified and disgusted by the Yugoslav wars, by European nations taking sides with the parties instead of banding together to threaten ALL the Yugoslav republics. Already shocked by the total lack of preparedness for the fall of the Soviet empire and by the smug schadenfreude and unhelpfulness that followed...
In the mid-90s I recall exclaiming loudly in a lobby crowded with well-informed insiders that democracy might not outlast the new generation... and being called "a philosopher" -- meaning, a kook.
A kook? Fair enough.
Only look. Today, any fool can see the crisis... Any fool can see that we're hanging on by the skin of our teeth.
Only, most don't.
Such are the Disasters of Peace... about to fade into something even more horrible than Goya's Disasters of War.
It's pointless to see what's unfolding when most people prefer to see only whatever they want to see.
Were you affected by the 2019 shutdown ? Write Letters To Ed about your experience.
The president of local machinists/aerospace workers recently wrote an op Ed about the profound impact of last 35 -day shutdown and how financial losses ripple throughout our communities…
How about not letting them get away with this? We’ve celebrated wealth and celebrity over everything else since the 1980’s and it shows. But there has always been a huge number of quiet people who didn’t buy that then and don’t now. The extremists are like the Buddhist’s hungry ghosts. They are empty vessels who can never get enough. Simon Rosenberg is correct: We have to get louder and we have to know what we are talking about and say the truth clearly.
I suspect he knew they would heckle and yell at him and he was too embarrassed to let that happen. It would be too accurate of a demonstration for all to see that he has absolutely zero power in his role as speaker.
Just remember the extremists are cowards. Cowards bully, yell, and scream because they don’t have the capacity to do anything else. We do. Let’s find our voices and use them for the common good.
Like the New Yorker cartoon caption put it, "Those who fail to understand history are condemned to repeat it, but we who do understand history are forced to go along for the ride."
Lets not take that ride. Tp paraphrase Margaret Mead, change has always come about by a small, dedicated group of people. We’re up against a well-funded group of extremist nobodies who want to be somebodies. Let’s pool our collective wisdom and strength and get them out. We can do this. It’s the only way anything positive ever happens. Don’t give up.
And the SP500 and gapped lower to close down -1.65% triggering technical signals that point to a pullback to the October 2022-March 2023 consolidation. So the likely game plan to wreck the economy ahead of the 2024 election looks like it is gearing up in earnest.
What is scaring me is that the Republican rag the Washington Examiner reported that MTG has written an autobiography.
"Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who overcame Democratic silencing efforts to become one of the most effective voices on the Right, is getting ready to settle some scores with an autobiography that could pave the way to higher office — including the VICE PRESIDENCY." (my emphasis)
This is nicely timed with her being one of the 5 Republicans in the House that voted against bringing McCarthy's attempt to bring the House version of the defense appropriations bill to the floor for debate. McCarthy must be really feeling the sting of that given his statement back during his fight for the Speakership when he said he would do anything for that woman.
McCarthy is craven in his desire to cling to the Speakership--he has the power to break the funding deadlock in the House by walking across the aisle with a bipartisan deal. But that would set up another speakership fight which he would lose now that Trump is being even more brazen in calling for total dysfunction in government.
I assume MTG’s book was ghostwritten (?), or at least had a really good editor/spellchecker to decipher things like “gazpacho police”. Doubt there was a lie-checker involved based on who published it. Def NOT on my must-buy list!
I wouldn't read a book by that ignorant cretin if my life depended on it. They had to have a good editor and especially a spell checker. She cannot even spell simple words she is so dumb. Her book should be on the list of banned books immediately. It will be chocked full of lies and blatant misinformation for sure.
John, your comment raises the question of whether it is worse to be cretinous than simply ignorant, or vice versa. Be that as it may, I would require that books written by ignorant cretins and/or cretinous ignoramuses be banned and sent for immediate recycling as toilet paper. MTG is an ass.
MGT was an average student and I understand she once made a pretty awful appearance on American Idol long before she got into politics. She’s a tv person like DT. She strikes me as an extremely banal person who appeals to similar souls. Both sad and dangerous. Of all the wonderful and inspiring literature out there, her book would not make the list.
It is even more scary to listen to him talk like Jesus did.
I recently heard him quoted on NPR: "I am being indicted FOR YOU" at one of his rallies someplace.
Compare this to Jesus claims that he was on the cross FOR YOUR SINS.
Whoever is advising Trump is not stupid. Most people will NOT notice he is mimicking Jesus BUT those who follow Jesus will instinctively respond to his martyr language.
Mike, that is a fabulous assessment. Couch the message in the language and cant that they have been indoctrinated with, and it will cause their Pavlovian response.
Fascinating. I think TfG and Murdoch both suffer from the same malaise: the inability to be accepted into a certain class of society using money alone.
That worm of a former president dares to call himself a patriot and the media continues to put him on the front page. He is a “front runner” because polls of hundreds of people, not thousands or millions of people answered a phone call. We know Russians are involved in throwing the election again and probably with the polls. Tfg attacked his own government. Apologies to worms, snakes and slime, the bully is unfit in every way.
"He is a “front runner” because polls of hundreds of people, not ...." Right you are Gigi and also correct re., Russian (and other adversaries) aid. It would be great to find any means to spread those certainties.
What does the resignation of Rupert Murdoch mean to the Fox media and the entire Republican bricade? Is it a change of direction? Do they want knew audience, far away from the pro-Rs? In any change of leadership mantle, there will be changes.
The reign of Rupert has been marred with lies and misinformation; the Fox profited off from gaming the emotions of the people and making people pit against each other. If you were were Democrat, you deserved to be misreported, misquoted, and misunderstood. The Rs got the better part of the buttered bread in political scene and escape most of the times from being summoned by the truth.
The Rupert model and other anti-democratic MSMs of journalism was and is no longer healthy for the soul. Every news was fashioned to ignite your roller coaster of emotions and put people in darkness. The result? The creation of a wild person with disastrous beliefs and full of misinformation.
According to this article from Reuter's Lachlan Murdoch who is the new CEO of the Fox companies is even further to the right than his father. I expect Fox will move even further right as well.
True, that article has tell it all. Their model is primarily a model of attention economy, curated with news that tear your soul and keep people glued to their screens. It is working for them and the more they go to the right, the more they profit. So, if his son is extremely to the right, this will be disastrous to the democracy and health of the mind. Credibility of news will be an alien in their newsroom. And so we expect a more brutal R.
For a network that’s spent decades stoking the flames of xenophobia, I’m amazed that none of the so-called, hyper-patriotic viewers have noticed that the Murdochs “not be from around here.”
I doubt if Fox can be chucked out. It is doing what the establishment enjoys and benefits from it, though he is Australian-born. And if he has constitutionally fill all the requirements, no one will sue him about citizenship.
I had to go back and reread that. Edward said that was part of the Faux / Murdoch model and not something that was in any way true or natural. I think.
Why is there no uproar or MORE uproar against tfg? How come he is still running free to exert influence via his sh…y ‘truth’ platform? How come he is able to be “…trying to assert dominance over the country?” and being quite successful? Do millions of Americans have to continue to suffer his insolence?
And why oh why do upright lawyers like Nora Dennehy have to withhold crucial information about the wrongdoings of people like Mr Whitewash-Barr for 3 years?
Her resignation was a statement in itself, but to whom she may of spoken about details I do not know. Now she in in a position that more will notice. With it, of course, will likely come verbal abuse from Redhats,
Trump's power lies in his base of millions of MAGAs who hang onto his every word via Truth (a-HEM) Social who will do his bidding at the drop of a (red) hat.
You’d be surprised at how many liberals have guns too. If a civil war comes, I think many will be surprised about how much they underestimated their ‘enemy’. And we’ll squash them once again.
Last evening a friend of mine, a life long commented on one of my threads that she just wants out of this mess. She blamed the Democrats for not listening and said she was considering voting Green in the upcoming.
This was my response:
That won’t get us out. Sadly we have only two parties. And only one that is anywhere near functional.
It isn’t that the Dems are not listening. It is that the system itself is broken.
If you vote green the Republicans have a better chance of winning. And they have already announced the plan for American fascism if they win. That is not a campaign tactic by the Dems. It’s a fact.
And even if the Dems win, they do not have nearly the latitude to govern that people think they do.
The corporate oligarchs are more powerful than this government. That is the true enemy. Not the Democrats.
The choice is how much harm will be done. The Republicans are in alignment with the oligarchs. The Democrats will do what they can to avoid the worst harm.
So what can we do? Vote blue to keep the level of authoritarianism where it is, instead of a bare fascist dictatorship. Which would be a hell greater than we can imagine.
And figure out how to either bring down the oligarchy or take ourselves en masse out of its control.
We won’t be able to do any of that under Republican Christo-fascist rule. We will be too busy surviving and maybe risking our lives in the resistance.
I have a smart friend who is that stupid. Third parties are spoilers at this point (and in the past 80 years). Repubs funding most. Wake up America, third party nuts are just repubs in Better clothes
You undercut your own response by your admissions in it. ‘The system itself is broken.’
There comes a point in which anything, in this case, the duopoly of the two parties, is broken beyond repair. We have reached this point.
‘The corporate oligarchs are more powerful than this government’. You’re right, they are the ‘true enemy’. ‘Not the Democrats’, but also not the GOP. Both parties are owned, lock, stock, and barrel.
The choice is not lesser of evil harm reduction anymore. The ratchet effect of voting lesser evil/harm reduction is exactly what brought us to the point that a buffoon like Trump could have even sniffed the Oval Office, much less occupied it. The choice is, do you continue to prop up the duopoly by participating in it, or break with it, to break it?
What can we do? Vote third party, support a constitutional amendment to neuter the Supreme Court’s corporate personhood precedents (see MoveToAmend.org), and support, via funding or actual participation, general strikes and nonviolent civil disobedience.
If third party voting can reach a critical threshold, it can force the duopoly to accede to electoral reforms like ranked choice voting, abolishment of the electoral college, and other reforms which would rejuvenate a democracy which has been lost since both parties were captured by corporate and monied neoliberal economic interests back in the late 70s.
I will never vote to keep ‘authoritarianism where it is’. I need to be able to look in the mirror. Our kids won’t have a chance to escape the coming climate chaos if we keep incrementally wandering through a duopoly desert expecting a broken system to self correct itself. Better to take an altogether different path, imo.
If Trump should win the 2024 election, make sure that when you look in the mirror, you accept responsibility for helping to put that profoundly unfit man back in the Oval Office.
Bless your heart. My responsibility pales beside that of Democratic voters who have blindly turned themselves into lemmings since the Party turned its back on the working class and poor in the late 70s, in lieu of chasing the corporate donor gravy train. Vote Blue No Matter Who is a perfect encapsulation of an uncritical, propagandized, void of curiosity mindset that would make any government apologist in Russia/China proud.
If Trump wins in 2024, my vote for West won’t have a damn thing to do with it, anymore than my votes for Nader or Stein affected Democratic losses in ‘00, ‘04, or ‘16 did. Votes for third parties in each of those elections didn’t come close to matching the vote totals of…. wait for it… registered Democratic voters who voted for the GOP candidate; not to mention registered Democrats who didn’t bother to vote. I was never going to vote for corporate sycophants like Gore, Kerry, Clinton or Biden. Clean up your house before you throw feces at others.
What you look at when you gaze into your mirror is someone who thinks third party voters owe you something that isn’t earned; that lesser of evil voting has demonstrably led to improving the lives of the poor and working class. Last time I checked, the Democrats still govern to please corporate donors: broken promises on health care, student debt, permitting more fossil fuel extraction than Trump, not to mention the unanimous backing of a stupid proxy war in Ukraine.
Nope. I’m done with the duopoly. That, is what is unfit for a vote.
Tom, you owe me nothing. What you owe your nation, your children, and your grandchildren, is your own business. I don’t even consider myself a Democrat, even though I do tend to vote that way, so please don’t paint me with that brush. What I do see is that, as Annabel says below, we are staring into the maw of fascism, and if we want ever to have the chance to establish new parties or to force change in the system we have, job one is securing our democracy and everything else is secondary. If we fail at that, we will have failed at all of it. My voting reflects that stark choice. Pretending it isn’t so doesn’t make it so.
"If you vote green the Republicans have a better chance of winning. And they have already announced the plan for American fascism if they win. That is not a campaign tactic by the Dems. It’s a fact." - Annabel Ascher
I couldn't have said it better! We need to work within the system we have. It's extremely bad timing to waste a vote on a third party. The way it is, a third party doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell to win, literally wasting a vote for Democrats to win. Once the Democrats gain back the majority in every branch of government, there will be a chance to have a third party conversation. Until then, we must work with everything we have to vote the MAGA GOP OUT by voting Blue!
I understand your point, but the issue I have with a theirs party now is that it will most certainly put TFG or his ilk in office again, and that us unthinkable. Third parties have been useful as change agents in the country. This time they will certainly swing the vote where none of us want it to go. I wish there were a younger democratic candidate that Biden would step aside for, but if he announces he isn’t running, what a mess.
The Socialist and, yes, Communist Parties brought us the New Deal, because they scared the crap out of FDR and the capitalist class. Third Parties need to scare the crap out of the duopoly now. I find it interesting that Democratic voters vote shame the Green Party, and welcome the Libertarian vote, when in fact, the elimination of all third party voters would hurt Dems more.
All the ‘save democracy’ hysteria rings hollow, not to mention disingenuous, when one pursues an agenda that presupposes that votes are owed, instead of earned. If I thought for one second that the Democratic Party would stand up to its corporate donors, and capitalist elites, in a meaningful, as opposed to performative way (see the ACA, climate policy, addressing the financial sector ‘too big to fail’, etc.), it would have my vote.
But it doesn’t, and it won’t, until enough outside pressure is brought to bear.
Measure for measure, the argument that the two-party system is broken and a third will fix it, KR, is just plain wrong. There is either autocracy or the ongoing struggle of democratic factions to reach periodic consensus. Human nature intervenes too frequently on the side avarice and bellicosity, not enough in the direction of hope and mutual commitment to the Declaration’s aspirations.
But be assured, Trump fever is sky high because it is burning out, its intentions revealed to be 100% autocratic, deadly, totally self-centered. A third-party candidate effort is underway, but would tip the scales to assure a Trump autocracy. History speaks for itself. Everything important is at stake. Hang in there.
Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here. It for sure isn’t I who advocates voting third party right now. I understand the laudable impulse for change, and even share many of the goals. But as Annabel states above, we are staring into the maw of fascism. There is no equivalence, false or otherwise between the two parties we have right now. Let’s secure our democracy first, then work on the rest. That one thing will determine whether there’s ever a chance to do more.
Swimming against the Vote Blue No Matter Who current can be tough at times. But the realization of the anti-democratic nature of such a mindset is liberating and provides the comfort that not falling for logical fallacy provides.
Here’s a paragraph from a recent Caitlin Johnstone piece that illustrates the nature of questioning common tropes and status quo definitions of ‘reality’; while not always a comfortable place to reside, much preferable to latching on to illusion in order to remain comfortable.
“This is what Terence McKenna was talking about when he said "The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation." And it's what Jiddu Krishnamurti was pointing at when he said "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." A lucid perception of reality today will necessarily be accompanied by the ever-present smell of bullshit.”
The Democrats are in alignment with the oligarchs now as well. Agree with everything you said about the GOP. Never have cast a vote for them. Ever.
You have the judgmental shades on. What aided and abetted the fascists has been Democratic voters who failed to hold their elected officials to account as they drifted further and further rightward into neoliberal economic acquiescence, with the resultant increasing frustration and rage from average voters who no longer had a political party they could count on to support workers and their families.
I reread your comment. My critique stands. One thing I do know, after reading extensively on the subjects of empire, narrative, messaging, and propaganda in the last decade, is when people begin to reference ‘the real world’ as in ‘In the real world’, what follows is inevitably some simplistic, condescending endorsement of the status quo.
First of all, thank you HCR for another informative, albeit scary letter. I really do look forward to reading these letters everyday. I have a question. If the government shuts down and millions of of people won't receive their paychecks, why don't we start with the five or six idiots that are making this happen in the first place? I know this is a pipe dream but, these "people" will never stop acting like spoiled babies unless they feel the pain of their actions. This just illustrates how important it is to VOTE BLUE all the way through!
In the beginning of the week, it was the Freedom Caucus at the mic decrying Biden’s reckless spending and blamed him for inflation and gas prices, but by the end of the week, it has devolved into a s#*tshow.
Watched Squawk Box this morning as two party reps discussed spending issues in cuts demanded by extremists. No mention of corporate taxes by Republican, even when asked directly. Wiggled right out of it.
'Former President Donald Trump has been charged in four criminal cases over a four-and-a-half-month span. In New York, he faces 34 felony counts in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. In Florida, he faces 40 felony counts for hoarding classified documents and impeding efforts to retrieve them. In Washington, D.C., he faces four felony counts for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And in Georgia, he faces 13 felony counts for his election interference in that state.' (Politico)
Donald J. Trump is still calling the shots!
'The extremists are bolstered by former president Donald Trump, who posted on his social media platform today that the Republicans in Congress “can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government…. This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots. They failed on the debt limit, but they must not fail now. Use the power of the purse and defend the Country!” (Letter)
'Experts say shutting down the government would not, in fact, end the former president’s legal troubles, but he is actually doing more than that here: he is trying to assert dominance over the country. As Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said: “Let’s be clear about what the former president is saying here. House Republicans should shut down the government unless the prosecutions against him are shut down. He would deny paychecks to millions of working families & devastate the US economy, all in the service of himself.” (Letter)
'Extremist leader Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) responded to Trump’s statement with his own: “Trump Opposes the Continuing Resolution” to fund the government,” he wrote. “Hold the line.” Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch noted: “House Republicans refuse to fund the government to protect Donald Trump.” (Letter)
How will this end?
“The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of America is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.” —Franklin Roosevelt
Unfortunately, not sure Murdoch's son is much better..... we'll see.
I have no words to describe these RepubReps who are trying to sabotage the government, which is actually the source of their own wealth. Most of them, I can't imagine their earning an honest living anywhere. A dishonest one, maybe. And TFG - he must still be collecting 6 figures from the gov't. Les saboteurs being rewarded by the "sabotee". What a sinister farce.
The Putin wing of the Republican party is retaliating for our support for Ukraine in acts of legislative terrorism, even including hostage taking as with Kevin McCarthy.
The fact that Rupert can just shuffle off into the sunset to enjoy the wealth he created by weakening democracy, sewing fear and hatred, and spreading lies is a crime against humanity.
And the majority of the GOP that acted against the certification of the 2020 election, and continue to do all they can to obstruct justice should be expelled, indicted, and barred from ever holding elected office.
To allow them to hold the budget, military promotions, justice, voting rights, and any legislation necessary to strengthen democracy hostage is just a continuation of the attack on the American system that peaked on January 6th but started well before the direct, violent attack on the Capitol.
Aside from crippling the American democracy with Faux News, don’t forget what Murdoch has “done” for the UK: he had a heavy hand in the Brexit as well…
Yes, absolutely. Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and Rupert weakened the EU and diminished the quality of life for many in the UK as well.
I wonder how different our lives would be in the US and UK if Murdock's drivel had never existed.
Or if people were educated and informed enough to be inoculated against propaganda and disinformation.
It is why my mantra is democracy requires an informed, educated, and engaged society.
The departure of Rupert Murdoch & the ascendancy of his son LACHLAN KEITH MURDOCH, the CEO of Fox Corp, is essentially a corporate asset protection strategy to shelter billions from SMARTMATI's upcoming Trial against Rupert & Son for virulent misinformation conspiracies & commercial defamation. Make no mistake, Rupert is still personally deeply involved.
Let’s be honest. There is a very long and deep thread of bigotry, racism and violence that runs through our society extending all the way back to our arrival on these pristine shores. It’s as though, having glimpsed the vast bounty of the continent we were simply unable to accept our good fortune with grace, but instead ravaged, first, it’s native population, then built an economy on the shoulders of a large population of slaves, then, used our economic and industrial might to interfere in the sovereign affairs of other nations. The Brits did it before us, the colonization, and our roots are deeply entwined.
None of this makes us any worse than any other collection of people; it is simply “the human condition” run amok, given the boundless wealth we conscripted.
But there is a myth, another thread that runs deeply through our society, that we are “exceptional”. The “shining city on the hill”, and all of that. We know, deeply, that we are guilty of systemic racism, global economic hegemony, and warring, often for economic gain on innocent people elsewhere, particularly if they are not “white people”. We know it deep down. We don’t want to think about it, and we certainly don’t want to hear about it from our media.
Enter Fox News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch, consciously aware of this or not, has tapped into that artery. He has created an environment in which many of us can feel comfortable with ourselves. No reminders that there are two sides to the story. Constant reinforcement of the message we want to hear. A relentless drumbeat of self reinforcing propaganda designed to draw us together as a group of maligned, persecuted, good folk who stand for only the best in America. Motherhood! Apple pie! Patriotism! USA! USA! USA!
Having unleashed this genie, it will be difficult to stuff it back into its bottle, Rupert or no Rupert. We must try, however, through education of our children, and it will take generations. Mr. Polisner's comment above, of course, expresses this far more succinctly.
Damn.
Not necessarily. Lachlan has been running the company since 2014. He is a "responsible officer" and as such, is a party to the lawsuits. Four years in the NY Tax Dept. taught me a few things.
Education is what’s lacking in America today! Wake up Americans, Russia is coming to the US
Education has been coopted by those who want an uneducated nation of serfs.
Fascism has been in America for fucken ever. We’re letting the bastards win.
Exactly. Education should be a priority.
Burning books is a clue pointing to what's happening right now. Fascism is alive and pounding our country hard. It's got to be stopped, but how? Vote Blue, one and all. Get young people to register and vote. We just can not let them win!
I agree George; however, I also understand, that in real life, there are people striving to find money to buy a little food, and some who work for low wages in companies that pay their CEOs millions. There is a line between being informed, educated, and an engaged society and people who only read headlines as they pass a newsstand because they cannot afford a paper.
It is up to those who have been blessed with and have worked for an education, who have a little time to research what is really going on and who should engage at any level to assure that elections are free and fair.
SNAP benefits are more generous in some states than others. Even so, when I was unemployed I was able to eat, thanks to SNAP. You make America sound like the streets are lined with beggars. Yes, low wage jobs are a crisis - we need to implement a Living Wage for All. But the biggest crisis right now is not food, but housing. Have you noticed what people have to pay for even a studio apartment?
I do understand your point. Nevertheless being informed, at a minimum about things directly impacting an individual, their family, and community is a basic responsibility in democracy. Imagine if because we all voted in our informed self-interest there would be living wages (not poverty wages) and adequate time for civic and community engagement.
Spot on Gail! And all of the work that Biden & Harris are doing to expand the middle class and uplift those in need is the first step in the process of ensuring an educated population.
It’s all laid out in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The needs at the bottom of the pyramid must be addressed first.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/maslow-hierachy-of-needs-min-1536x1086.jpg
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Absolutely agree George. That would address the underlying problem
Unfortunately, people have to be willing to learn, and the MAGA crowd has no desire to learn.
It is often quoted ‘the cream will rise to the top’! However, Murdoch’s maniacal pursuit of greed shows that ‘the scum will also rise to the top’!
Time to skim it off.
I wonder if you analogy about scum relates to the fact that boiling causes the scum to form and rise.
It is also said that, 'the big chunks float to the top.'
George,
As you know a lot about the inner workings of our current "mess", I ask for your thoughts about Russian involvement with our media - legacy and social. I don't have evidence. But much reporting suggests that Putin's influence via his internet troll farms is much more pervasive than we had thought.
The Russian connection just haunts me. Trump selling condos to Russian oligarchs. Eric or Don Jr declaring that most of their investment money was Russian. Trump trusting Putin over our own intelligence services - as well as a Republican Senate investigation. Trump endorsing the invasion of Ukraine.
The ease with which phony identities can be created on FB, X, Instagram, etc is appalling. Anyone who doubts me, just try it. I have experimented. It's really easy.
Senator Joe McCarthy led a witch hunt for Communists. There WERE communists in the US. But of course, his search became a nightmare. With that in mind, how do we explain the lack of interest by leading politicians (Republicans...) in exposing the influence of a foreign dictatorship currently performing a genocide? I hate conclusion jumpers. But one word just keeps leaping into my mind: "cahoots"
Why do the likes of a MTG or Gaetz side with Russia when a winning Republican tactic has ALWAYS been a strong defense - and often a dangerous and stupid version? How did a blond, weight lifting, AR-15 toting, southern political hack become a "peacenick" or an "isolationist"?
I think Russia is infinitely more clever than we know...am I wrong?
Well put Bill. I believe Russian state efforts to destabilize the U.S. and NATO are well-evidenced in the Mueller Report. Really, the only modern way I see to inoculate a society is ensuring every citizen is well-educated, informed, and can delineate the difference between facts and disinformation.
And to be sure, adversarial efforts will only get more sophisticated over time.
George, having a well-educated and informed electorate is exactly what the Repugnants are trying to stop by banning books and dictating curricula in public schools and other offensive measures. "Democracy dies in darkness," and that is precisely what they are making happen.
Well-educating and informing is much easier said than done, in civics as well as most other subjects, but the sentiment is noble, and id be the last to think of standing in the way of effort.
Part of the education needed is study of logical fallacies and techniques of persuasion. And also math, percentages especially. For example, Anti-vaxxers missed the lesson on Correlation is not Causation. People died after their shots, therefore the shots were responsible. (What percentage of people died versus those who did not die? What kind of numbers are we talking about? A 100% increase of 2 is 4.) Sorry for the rant, I once taught this stuff to kids who grasped it.
You are not wrong. What absolutely boggles my mind is how friends of mine from law enforcement who were (mostly) far more conservative in the traditional sense of the word, many of whom are Cold War era veterans are now fawning all over Russia and its leader.
Your colleagues are not conservative at all, but far right regressive bullies who see a chance to undermine any progress we have made in this country. Being a really tough guy with a gun is what is important to them. When I was engaged with them briefly on your Facebook page, I could almost smell the excess testosterone. Also they dreck they posted was so predictable.
It is still there, and they are still posting ultimate drivel. I am girding up to engage again (I pretty much stopped since they were getting so much free rent in my head, but the time has come again to do battle.)
Was it waning testosterone they were afraid of, maybe?
The predictability maybe shows how hungry they are for their favorite propaganda, the messages that really make them feel better?
No, Americans are just much more “stupid”--by that I mean, simpleminded. Most seem to understand things in terms of binaries--all good or all bad, completely “for” or “against”. And these stances are more essential to such “thinkers” and “knowers” than facts are.
In this sense politics is now like a football game. People blindly want their “side” to win. The media feeds this. “Dems win vote on infrastructure”. GOP wins this vote or that vote. Legislation and policy is about most of us winning or losing. The media should be explaining why we win or lose. They are not needed to simply publish a vote count.
I believe there has been so much Propaganda in the US with regard to Russia and China that it has now become difficult to know.
Socialism is also terrible for the US people this is propaganda too.
Yes, socialism (like woke) has become the a new code word and rallying cry for those continuing to work on the concentration of wealth and power. Too many are far more concerned with the negligible funding PBS gets, while silent on the billions of taxpayer money paid as subsidies for Big Oil.
Propaganda working well. I have never heard 'socialism' being used like this!
The old Republican party, with it's strong defense tactic, was not winning elections, but not for that reason alone.
Spot on. All in the name of more profit and less rules... And less rules means: more profit!
Good phrase--diminished the quality of life. You might like to read Robert Reich’s blog today on reclaiming the common good.
Robert is excellent and makes complex economic concepts accessible. Grateful for his work and that of Inequality Media.
TBF they also did it to themselves…
I don't think the EU was weakened too much because of Brexit. It was more to do with chaos at the border in England and new forms to fill out.
True, although I suspect the EU is stronger with more participating nations and their respective economies. Maybe I am more naively idealistic, but I think of the world we could share through collaboration and cooperation.
My cousins live in London. Their son happens to work for the British Embassy. When Brexit was being voted on, my cousins voted for it. Their children were appalled and so was I. I am certain they regret doing that now. And...this couple are highly educated, so there’s that.
Yes. Well-educated is not always well-informed. This is why Noam Chomsky wrote “Manufacturing Consent” -even easier when a handful of media companies control information.
I am not so sure. The bigger the EU gets the harder it is to manage.
Big does not necessarily mean better.
"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul"?
A pity I'm not religious, or believe in scripture....they do have some good lines!
You don’t have to be religious to recognize truth and wisdom wherever you find it. We need a heap of both right now. How about “Throw the money changers out “?
IMO one liners are extremely dangerous without context provided by education. (even this one)
Not sure I get you?
Neither do I.
He’s saying that spewing one-liners out of context is meaningless. Much like the ones we hear daily. Poking fun at his own expense with the “even this on” comment.
But several of the preceding comments provided the context. And are one liners now banned?
I agree with all you just said but how do we expel these thieves from Congress?They are doing all that they can to destroy the country but what is our recourse here?I am wringing my hands that a very small rogue minority is hamstringing the entire operation of the US government and concerned citizens are looking on in horror while all of this is being crammed down our throats.
In the 2016 election cycle I had warned (with many others) that the lack of Democratic unity was going to lead to disaster -and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coathanger Barrett (aside from many others in lower courts) are the outcome of the former administration.
The 2024 election cycle is our last stand, however beyond 2024, if we are able to retake the House and Senate majority, we must be prepared to invest in long term political infrastructure. The current democratic strategy of sign my petition and send money is not effective against the framework articulated by Lewis Powell in 1971, that has been updated in the Heritage Foundation's sinister Project 2025 plans.
I totally agree again with you that sign my petition and send money tactics DO NOT WORK. If the 2024 election is our only recourse do we just sit on our hands while all of this is reigning down on us now? I certainly have made many calls to my Congressional representatives expressing my abject horror as to what they are doing and not doing but it seems there has to be a way to deal with this in the here and now.2024 election time is a year away.
Continue to pressure McCarthy to work with a handful of Republicans who haven’t pledged their fealty to Trump to work a budget deal with the House Democrats is important. McCarthy wants to remain in power (at any cost) and this might be the only deal with a path to success.
If the few GOP Representatives and Senators understand that centrist/independents prefer a democracy over theocracy, oligarchy, or kleptocracy- they may shift a little toward the center to maintain any hold on power.
From my perspective -we must vote them out. And in places where Dems can’t win -candidates like Liz Cheney putting country over party are fine with me.
Hear, here! Continue the drummed message George, this is Germaine to accountability. 1) VOTE THE COMPLICIT OUT 2) STAY VOTING BLUE ...but HOLD the NEW BLUE order feet to the fire.
It’s time and with plenty of evidence to reorganize , to address the inequality rampant. This alone set up the division ...clever observation ? No , but it’s been used effectively.
If retribution is what some perceive as needed, then make it known . Take the chant of the liars for worth. Every claim was self disclosure. A layered text of laws needing to be revised ,put in place to protect and define This American Dream.
History has repeatedly documented what NOT to do, the sordid ,bloody and inevitable end. Our educational system should adequately teach this, not hide it to protect the ‘innocent minds from guilt ‘...is that technique not self disclosing ...Desantis de slow d e a t h
We take no glory in this GOP death spiral either.
There’s room for plenty of US to dissect and improve. Plenty of mistakes to provide a more solid foundation . It IS a Constitution of merit and dreams long ago suggested that deserves credited and better defined .
Their Deep State is indeed intact Heritage ,Federalist, Corporate, and Fascist...powerful, intent on division furthering the painful riff of have and have nots.
We HAVE and are ABLE to see the cracks , the flaws , but only WE THE PEOPLE can make the change needed.
Hold the accountable to the consequence due. Keep eyes vigilant -on the lesson provided and.....
💙💙VOTE💙💙
Like… yeah, I like you.
my congresswoman is Marjorie Green , there is no point in calling her. when she holds local sessions only loyalists are allowed to attend, anyone asking uncomfortable questions is escorted out by armed men.
That is UnAmerican!!! She should be impeached for not upholding her sworn pledge to the US Constitution!
Tried as a seditionist in connection with the Capitol Invasion.
Oh!
Gangrene is doing what over two-thirds of the white voters in her district want her to do. Their enthusiasm for cruelty is unbounded. They can’t get enough of it. Politicians are not the crux ofvthe problem. A majority of white voters are the problem. Our only hope is to shellac Republicans in the 2024 election. Not possible in gangrene’s district but just barely possible in enough districts, nationwide, to bring to heel the racists who see authoritarianism as the only way to preserve their control.
My congressman is Rich McCormick, who is not much better. He only won because Republicans gerrymandered District 6 to oust democratic votes.
That's true. I miss having Lucy McBath as my congresswoman.
K Paschal- armed men?
open carry state
Reminds me of "Deliverance" ! Sounds like the urban-rural divide is even worse in Georgia than my state (Oregon).
No surprise there ....
🤬
One nice piece of good news is that Democrats have been picking up in state and local elections, performing far better than Republicans, despite national polls seeming to the contrary. And for whatever reason New Hampshire voters were polled and gave 2024 to Biden by 52% to Trump's 40% with 8% undecided.
We need those undecideds.
George, my sentiments exactly. We have so many fundamental changes to make to stop the authoritarian and dystopian trains running here—and around the world.
America must stand up, together, and look at these shadows. Lucky for us they are so blatant and run by such ignoramuses who have infiltrate many of our most important systems. To ignore them and not create blocks to their paths is at our democracy's demise. All of America must have the resolve to shine the light brightly on this and consolidate our brightest minds, undergird all our systems to face a new world where pyramidal wealth combined with cyberwarfare propaganda are powers that can be interrupted and disbanded. This insidiously planned coup upon us since Reagan days must lose its hold and be neutered by a strong democracy willing to stand against it. The power of the media is critical in reporting facts and must have stronger doctrines to abide by.
Amen🙏👏 I agree and will do all I can to try to open the eyes & minds of all the people I come in contact with! God bless America 🙏
Agreed, but the media (e.g., The New York Times and The Washington Post) are leaning farther and farther right, and the chyrons on CNN are often blatantly pro-Republican, even with Chris Licht gone.
Readying my light to cast into the shadows, Pensa.
American journalist George Seldes’ (1890-1995) writings on foreign and domestic fascist movements leading up to WW2 also provide very instructive historical background. As you so aptly framed it, dynamic then and now seems to distill down to conflict between allegiance to a system founded on “justice and equity” (see preamble to Constitution) as opposed to a despotic caste system orbiting around service to “power and wealth”.
Unlike our fellow citizens at places like the Heritage Foundation (see ‘2025’ project proposal), I have come to believe that well-regulated capitalism only pathway to democratic ideal of “liberty and justice for all”while so-called ‘free-market’ or ‘monopoly’ capitalism (i.e. totally unregulated) as likely a pathway to totalitarian dystopia as communism, pure socialism, and fascism.
Recommend starting with one (or more) of following books by Mr. Seldes:
1. Facts and Fascism (1947)
2. 1000 Americans (1947)
3. The Facts Are: A Guide to Falsehood and Propaganda in the Press and Radio (1942)
4. Witch Hunt (1940)
Well-stated. Thank you Richard.
The parasites, like MTG, and Trump in his blown up, grandiose course, want to keep parasitizing the U S Govt and all its resources, not actually kill their host. Their threats and hostile actions are more blackmail than they are steps on an independent path. Just like Putin and his threats of nuclear attack--this is essentially just manipulation to gain power and resources in the world. If such parasites were ever to succeed ultimately in taking over, they would soon (historically speaking) scuttle the ship. Because their mode of action and form of relationship with necessary others inevitably become unworkable. One-sided exploitativeness, in its ever-increasing punitiveness and totalitarian stance, always hits dead ends in reality--it crashes, or implodes and fails.
So the “sweet spot” for such actors is to keep the relationship going so the exploitation can continue. The abuser wants to stay in business, just as parasites do. So even though there are grand displays of supremacy and total possession, of acquisition of the ideal, these people and their “plays” are still parasitic and derivative. They are like an angry, rebellious teenager holding his parents at gunpoint--parents he still depends on for support, meals and a clean house-- This angry teenager is furious that his parents havent made a perfect world in which he can continue to be King Baby, and take the consequences if his actions.
So yeah, the brinkmanship and blackmail will continue, both here in the US and in Europe--in fact everywhere humanity is struggling to gain a more mature form of organization and purpose. But this requires relationship and collaboration rather than just taking overAnd if and when they were to succeed in grabbing the wheel and running up their pretentious flag, it wont be for long because they will run the boat aground, or crash it. Send these children home, to once again face the challenges of real maturity.
(Sorry, I hit Send before I had finished trying to edit. Guess my body was telling me “Stop”!)
Sometimes you just have to channel anger and despair into action. I believe there are an increasing number of people in this country who are fed up and more than ready to take action. Let’s all channel our frustration into constructive action.
VOTE BLUE 💙
Victoria
The time for hand wringing is over! ❤️ Instead of feeling victimized, we must do what we can to get out the vote. It's going to take a couple voting cycles to rid ourselves of these miscreants, but voting is our superpower!
I'm hard at work writing postcards to registered voters who haven't voted recently. Check out Chop Wood, Carry Water (on Substack) for a source of addresses. Activate America is my source.
George, we are living thru such insanity. When so few have so much power. A dictatorship could not wreak more havoc. What kind of democracy could afford so few the ability to cause so much harm. As the old Chinese curse goes, may you live in interesting times.
It's interesting how much of our democracy was initially eroded by a single U.S. Senator from Kentucky. Or you could readily point back to the Lewis Powell memo of 1971 which provided a framework for the wealthy to work together (ironically, unionize) leading to all of the damage started by Ronald Reagan. These are indeed issues likely caused by fundamental compromise imposed upon the founders in order to protect wealth.
The ability of power hungry politicians to get elected by convincing many to vote against their best interests. The primary tool is HATRED. (George good comments)
George, you can take it farther back than Lewis Powell's outrageous memo. Like to the 1950s and '60s. Check out Anne Nelson's book, "Shadow Network", which details the path that led up to the Heritage Foundation and the Council on National Policy, the most insidious cabal almost no one has heard of. The book opens with a discussion of the Southern Baptist Convention and the schism in Protestantism in America in the late 1960s, and goes from there.
We need more truly investigative reporters, with the funding to do the digging, not to mention the desire. (This has been yet another aspect of the disaster of the death of so many newspapers.)
Yes, I was corresponding with Prof. Chomsky on the Powell Memo and he pointed me to the Trilateral commission. There is no doubt the conflict between those who seek to concentrate power and wealth, and those who seek justice and equity preceded all of us and will continue for generations.
I just don’t want to see rapid regression on our watch.
There is also a really cool Chinese cup that, if you fill it up too much, all the tea leaks out through invisible holes. The Republicans are overplaying their hand right now. It is our job as citizens to make sure they lose it all. I would go so far as to say it is our patriotic duty to do so. The extremists pose a clear and present danger to the everyone. Don’t let them get away with it.
George, Reading your comment amplifies my belief that we have yet to reckon with why, in 8 years, we have not mounted a large enough majority to seal the importance of supporting candidates who accept the results of elections, of voting for candidates who accept the rule of law, who don’t congenitally lie, or who don’t pander and indulge in conspiracy theories. Indeed, the current President who so aptly is leading the coalition abroad must likewise more compellingly lead in the fight to preserve our fundamental values here at home.
I've been working on it since my (infamous) departure from Oracle in 2016. I've been using personal funds, and raising some funds to help inform, educate, engage, and empower people through the https://civ.works effort I founded. We've recently signed a joint development agreement with a Canada-based entity, PlaceSpeak.com and will work together on common vision and goals. We hope to grow, scale, empower people, and strengthen democracy throughout the world.
George, I deeply appreciate your reply, specifically the links to organizations, which, rather than regarding us as an audience who gets to look through the window, treats us as citizens who get to come through the door and participate.
Why do we not protest as we did in the 60s? Is it because we are strapped to an economic hamster wheel with pay not rising as fast as what it costs us to live our daily lives? Is it because we can't do without the perks once unknown to our grandparents like vacations and meals out and games?
We can, at least, protest with our spending -- don't watch TV -- we can get news without the outfits, makeup, and facial expressions and save some grocery money. We can make sure not to spend electricity & gas dollars during prime time (which actually means the time of greatest expense charged by the utilities). And we can actually protest and let it be made clear that we're not going to give up our country to those who already have proved that they wish to repress us. Tell the party people that we want action, not surveys and pleas and scare tactics endlessly and repeatedly flooding our inboxes. We must demand a representative democracy that answers to us.
We are like Ukraine threatened with forces massing at the borders -- we must avoid experiencing our own version of Ukraine's pain.
Roxanna, Thank you for writing. While I would submit that tens of millions of us are engaged, at the local, state, and federal levels, in thousands of actions aimed at blocking the potential undoing of our cherished, albeit flawed, American experiment, I have noted 2 problems: 1) Our movement feels fragmented because our grassroots organizing typically functions independently of one another and 2) Far too many of us have grown increasingly complacent, content to allow others to carry the weight for us. Admittedly, I don’t have a ready solution to offer, only the conviction that the situation demands one.
One more thing: I intend to borrow your Ukraine analogy. Nonetheless, I will modify it because whatever fate could lie in wait, as devastating as it could be, in my view, would fall dramatically short of the devastation we’re witnessing in Ukraine.
Thanks, Barbara Jo, for noting the numbers of citizens engaged in activism and in direct changes through political participation. Yes, the fragmentation feel is keen -- any response to the barrage seems to make no impact as the barrage continues along the same reactionary theme of panic/anguish/anger/shock/etc.
I'm definitely concerned about the complacent ones who seem to believe that 'things will be just fine' when things actually seem to have escalated from argument to violence to contempt over time. The others who seem programmed to stay in 'reaction' mode merely provide the audience response that seems to feed increasing fascism.
You are most welcome to 'borrow' the analogy. Ukraine has seen many versions of the devil over the years, some that struck obviously and some that slithered into people's lives always showing up meaner and crazier and colder....
Roxanna, While your warnings of the dangers ahead are articulated with such insight and precision, I do wish to comment on your remark that “any response to the barrage seems to make no impact…”. In a word, I believe it is impossible to foretell precisely when any of our endeavors will reach critical mass, suddenly creating change. Nor can we predict when a single seemingly insignificant effort will produce powerful results.
Yes. You remind me to avoid hopelessness. Wisdom that enables perseverance. Thanks, Barbara Jo.
Today!
"Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and John Fetterman (D-PA) have both visited Michigan to meet with UAW workers, but it was nonetheless a surprise when the White House announced that the president will travel on Tuesday to Michigan, where he will, as he posted on X, “join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create. It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.""
Yes!!! Thwart the hollowing out of the middle class which would leave only serfs and those who profit off their labor exist -- the age old story!
For all of us who still subscribe to cable, we are forced to pay for Fox News and Fox Business every month. We can only get the local stations with cable so we're stuck. Whenever I go into a business that is airing far-right drivel I request that they change the station.
If only we could opt out of the MAGA channels.
Cut the cord. You can have internet only service (we pay $49.99 for super fast service), stream an infinite variety of entertainment options. And if you still want some legacy network stuff, turn on the free ROKU channel. If you are a sports fan and you want everything that cable offers in that respect, buy a subscription to YouTube TV. It's all there. Your total bill may be less and you won't be funding the American version of Tass or Pravda.
Cut loose! Down with cable! It's trending...big time.
We did the same, and we do get local channels on YouTube tv.
We also use an antenna! Only functional in certain areas. But old school and free way to watch the corrupted ABC,NBC,CBS News...and shows.
I would love to cut the cord but I have a husband who is a sports fanatic so the cable companies get our money. Ugh
Research what is on YouTube TV - I think you can stream every sport. My neighbor and my son are huge sports fans. They cut the cord a long time ago and watch whatever they want on YouTube. Could be win-win! :)
Thanks, Bill. I will check it out.
Cut the cord. I did this several years ago and never looked back. I doubt you will miss cable tv.
NYT is my next subscription to be cut.
Here we are.
This is a good point and a way to start.
Can you not say I need cable but do not want Fox news. If a lot of people did this it might work?
Not with Comcast. I tried. I have to have cable internet due to the location of my house, and am just waiting for the fiberoptic network to arrive in my neighborhood. My cell phone plan offers a great internet deal, but due to the ridge that I live just down from, I have no signal (I have to augment my cell coverage with internet service about half the time.)
Probably better not to watch TeeVee at all.
I haven't for about 10yrs and don't miss it.
I get news from here and many substack writers and I read many books.
Jenny, I find that I have little time for TV, even though I used to love watching both professional baseball and football all the time. I can't follow shows enough to "binge watch" on subscription channels. I don't read as many books as I used to because of vision issues, but I do listen to a variety of books/essays/podcasts (usually while working in the yard).
Great! I have learned so much from books during my life.
Sorry about your eyes.
A lot of the military are watching as Fox runs in the background.
Maybe the new joint chief and Navy and Marine commandants can order that Fox News not be shown on any base TVs around the world. They are proven liars, so why allow our troops to watch.
The attack didn't peak on Jan. 6, that was just the first public attempt at a takeover. We'll need to be vigilant, active, engaged until the election in 2024 and then again until the next one.
Another newsletter with sad, insidious truths to upset yet another breakfast. How can a handful of blind, poisonous people wreak so much havoc? Just Murdoch, Putin, Trump, and Kev and his tormentors alone! Oh, and BTW George, Murdoch is not shuffling into a sunset any time soon--he will be consultant emeritus until his last breath....
While digesting breakfast (and before it's completely ruined) the work of Heather Cox Richardson and many others helps to provide a baseline of information and education so people do engage. Also, in my moments of despair -I remind myself that the GOP lost the popular vote in every Presidential election since 2004.
I really think all people who are center-right, center, and center-left should work to build a necessary countervailing machine to the think tanks, media consolidation, and academic constraints called for in the Powell memo. Otherwise every election cycle will be an all-too-close vote on democracy itself until an authoritarian government has been installed.
While I so appreciate Heather's concise info offerings that tie everything together, bad behavior is brazenly conducted in broad daylight for all of us to see. That's what astounds me--until now, any propensity for authoritarianism in this country, or even appearance of selfishness was attempted to be kept hidden. Now, lying and destruction of society is blatantly laid out in the open. How will these fools' constituents who work for the government feel when they're not getting their paychecks? Which circles back to what you alluded to re: elections--they can play games now with no thought of repercussions (i.e. Boebert's teenage antics in the theater) but you can bet that people will be fervently voting in the next election....
Yes, absolutely!!!
Good for you George. I applaud your reasoning
I agree 100%! I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. What are they waiting for? Indict them all, tfg and especially including Murdock! Crimes against humanity indeed!
I suspect Murdoch would hide behind free speech -and unless there was evidence of communication or correspondence that he acted to obstruct justice, or in a conspiracy with others to subvert elections, it might be an interesting and yet very challenging legal issue -which eventually would lead to a currently very corrupt Supreme Court.
VOTE BLUE 💙
Brilliant and thank you!
Thank you Heather.
Standing back and watching the GOP/MAGA cult prepare to burn this country to the ground, I can't help but think, do they not think we see their motives?
They are fully prepared to cut off money and services to their own party members as well as the rest of the country to protect Trump.
Do they really think we don't see that?
Who will the Republicans blame when they don't get their Social Security check and other needed services?
Be safe. Be well.
Social Security checks are not affected by a shut down because they do not depend on yearly reauthorizations. Other Social Security services may not be available like processing new enrollments.
I am on Social Security so I checked!
I also checked that out too. However, i don't know about my pension that is also paid through the Pension Guaranty Benefit Corporation which is a Federal Government agency. The company i worked for raided our pension fund and then went bankrupt leaving the Federal Government to pay our pensions back in the year 2008. I think all Social Security offices will be closed in the event of a shutdown until if and when the shutdown ends.
That was easy enough to check for you:
"During a partial federal government shutdown, all PBGC offices, including our customer contact center, will remain open during regularly scheduled business hours. All operations will continue uninterrupted. "
https://www.pbgc.gov/govtshutdown
Thank you, now i won't have to try to call them next week. I have an incredibly crappy cell phone and in an area that has crappy cell coverage. Every time i try to call someone, it will either drop the call, or shut off in the middle of a conversation. I purchased a book about Social Security a while back and checked out what happens in the event of a government shutdown. Back in 2006, George W. Bush tried and failed to abolish the PBCG.
You're welcome, glad I could help ease your mind!
Yes, it does ease my mind greatly since i got notice yesterday my mortgage payment is going to increase because my escrow is low because of the greedy insurance company has increased my premiums by over $1,000 in the past 2 years for homeowner's insurance. My escrow is always running low due to these huge increases and is as much as the bank mortgage payment is. It's like i am paying double every month now on my mortgage.
Wish that were true of my check from OPM
Georgia, just spoke to someone from my local SSA office. She said " our money" isn't affected, but the people who process our payments may be. Even they don't know as of yet. What a horrible way to live.
Georgia, I did check as well. I'm on Social Security as well as working. I've received conflicting answers.
You are correct about processing new requests.
It does concern me that at the first threat to shut downs, Zellen stated numerous times that we would not, possibly, maybe.... get our deposits. I haven't heard her say that this time around.
Phew!
It isn’t to protect Trump. As usual, it to ensure tax cuts for the wealthy and reduction of government oversight of criminal business actions. Trump is a pawn.
The mouthpiece for the real DEEP STATE of billionaires
I've always thought the same of Trump. IMHO, he's just not very smart (failing in business after business) and then knowing nothing on government, spending what? 4 hours a day perhaps three days a week "working" as POTUS? Too full of his own hot air to get distracted by whomever is behind the curtain.
Moselle, didn't he once say, though, that he was a "stable genius". The genius part is laughable. But the stable part applies- he's a stubborn a--.
In no few cases, they need to protect themselves from the consequences of their own misdeeds.
Misdeeds? Crimes...
So, they hope to get away with these by upping the ante, creating chaos and hijacking the nation.
Peter, thank you for your in-course correction. "Crimes" is most descriptive of what is taking place.
Ally, the more I look at it, the more I find myself obliged to admit that our democracies are today lacking in certain quite basic defense mechanisms against overthrow by would-be tyrants and oligarchic interests. People who put money and privilege before country. People who so despise their fellow citizens that their only uses for them entail permanent subjection... when they don't simply regard them as vermin.
At end August 2001, I wrote to a friend that we are "sleepwalking on the edge of the abyss". On September 10th, I wrote to the same friend that our democracies are like a dog asleep in the middle of the highway... "One doubts our survival instincts"... And my correspondent told me "Peter, you are exaggerating as usual..."
Well, we saw what the next day brought.
I worked in an important EU institution where I had been deeply upset by the ambient complacency, the West's crass triumphalism after the collapse of the USSR, an unpleasant sense that we would now be inheriting the bureaucratic automatisms, the language and propaganda of Komintern... turned inside out... And yes, that is quite literally what did happen. Above all, I was both horrified and disgusted by the Yugoslav wars, by European nations taking sides with the parties instead of banding together to threaten ALL the Yugoslav republics. Already shocked by the total lack of preparedness for the fall of the Soviet empire and by the smug schadenfreude and unhelpfulness that followed...
In the mid-90s I recall exclaiming loudly in a lobby crowded with well-informed insiders that democracy might not outlast the new generation... and being called "a philosopher" -- meaning, a kook.
A kook? Fair enough.
Only look. Today, any fool can see the crisis... Any fool can see that we're hanging on by the skin of our teeth.
Only, most don't.
Such are the Disasters of Peace... about to fade into something even more horrible than Goya's Disasters of War.
It's pointless to see what's unfolding when most people prefer to see only whatever they want to see.
Were you affected by the 2019 shutdown ? Write Letters To Ed about your experience.
The president of local machinists/aerospace workers recently wrote an op Ed about the profound impact of last 35 -day shutdown and how financial losses ripple throughout our communities…
Republicans will blame Democrats for not caving in to Republican demands.
Barbara, it will no doubt be our fault. Everything else is in their minds.
Recipients will still receive their Social Security checks. As it is funded through permanent appropriations.
The robber barons want a kleptocracy.
How about not letting them get away with this? We’ve celebrated wealth and celebrity over everything else since the 1980’s and it shows. But there has always been a huge number of quiet people who didn’t buy that then and don’t now. The extremists are like the Buddhist’s hungry ghosts. They are empty vessels who can never get enough. Simon Rosenberg is correct: We have to get louder and we have to know what we are talking about and say the truth clearly.
McCarthy-We’re too busy to host a foreign leader/ally in the House Of Representatives.
McCarthy-We’re not getting anything done here so you guys go home for the weekend.
I suspect he knew they would heckle and yell at him and he was too embarrassed to let that happen. It would be too accurate of a demonstration for all to see that he has absolutely zero power in his role as speaker.
McCarthy embarrassed???
I think you give that man far more credit than he deserves.
Or “flaunting” herself, she and LB, in low cut cocktail clothes on the floor?
This just galls me how much time off these clowns get paid for. They never should have been allowed a summer recess.
I had to get up at 5 this morning to finish yesterdays work so I would have enough time today to do this days work!
Just remember the extremists are cowards. Cowards bully, yell, and scream because they don’t have the capacity to do anything else. We do. Let’s find our voices and use them for the common good.
Like the New Yorker cartoon caption put it, "Those who fail to understand history are condemned to repeat it, but we who do understand history are forced to go along for the ride."
Lets not take that ride. Tp paraphrase Margaret Mead, change has always come about by a small, dedicated group of people. We’re up against a well-funded group of extremist nobodies who want to be somebodies. Let’s pool our collective wisdom and strength and get them out. We can do this. It’s the only way anything positive ever happens. Don’t give up.
And the SP500 and gapped lower to close down -1.65% triggering technical signals that point to a pullback to the October 2022-March 2023 consolidation. So the likely game plan to wreck the economy ahead of the 2024 election looks like it is gearing up in earnest.
What is scaring me is that the Republican rag the Washington Examiner reported that MTG has written an autobiography.
"Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who overcame Democratic silencing efforts to become one of the most effective voices on the Right, is getting ready to settle some scores with an autobiography that could pave the way to higher office — including the VICE PRESIDENCY." (my emphasis)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/marjorie-taylor-greene-tell-all-book-autobiography
This is nicely timed with her being one of the 5 Republicans in the House that voted against bringing McCarthy's attempt to bring the House version of the defense appropriations bill to the floor for debate. McCarthy must be really feeling the sting of that given his statement back during his fight for the Speakership when he said he would do anything for that woman.
McCarthy is craven in his desire to cling to the Speakership--he has the power to break the funding deadlock in the House by walking across the aisle with a bipartisan deal. But that would set up another speakership fight which he would lose now that Trump is being even more brazen in calling for total dysfunction in government.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-demands-republicans-shut-government-defund-criminal-prosecutions-rcna111365
I assume MTG’s book was ghostwritten (?), or at least had a really good editor/spellchecker to decipher things like “gazpacho police”. Doubt there was a lie-checker involved based on who published it. Def NOT on my must-buy list!
I wouldn't read a book by that ignorant cretin if my life depended on it. They had to have a good editor and especially a spell checker. She cannot even spell simple words she is so dumb. Her book should be on the list of banned books immediately. It will be chocked full of lies and blatant misinformation for sure.
John, your comment raises the question of whether it is worse to be cretinous than simply ignorant, or vice versa. Be that as it may, I would require that books written by ignorant cretins and/or cretinous ignoramuses be banned and sent for immediate recycling as toilet paper. MTG is an ass.
At the end of the day there is no difference…
😊❤️❤️❤️❤️🙏👍
Lol Barb !
MGT was an average student and I understand she once made a pretty awful appearance on American Idol long before she got into politics. She’s a tv person like DT. She strikes me as an extremely banal person who appeals to similar souls. Both sad and dangerous. Of all the wonderful and inspiring literature out there, her book would not make the list.
Even the thought of MTG, Kari Lake, or their ilk makes me truly want to vomit. What a shitshow that would be. Retribution unleashed.
"He would deny paychecks to millions of working families & devastate the US economy, all in the service of himself.”
But of course. Trump has always been the only thing that matters to Trump. Weird how many look to him for salvation.
JL,
"Weird how many look to him for salvation."
It is even more scary to listen to him talk like Jesus did.
I recently heard him quoted on NPR: "I am being indicted FOR YOU" at one of his rallies someplace.
Compare this to Jesus claims that he was on the cross FOR YOUR SINS.
Whoever is advising Trump is not stupid. Most people will NOT notice he is mimicking Jesus BUT those who follow Jesus will instinctively respond to his martyr language.
Mike, that is a fabulous assessment. Couch the message in the language and cant that they have been indoctrinated with, and it will cause their Pavlovian response.
This is his most egregious message, and the most nonsense
Yes, I noticed and find it odious. I so want to hear from churches that notice that Trump is no "second coming", but rather a excrable rough beast.
#MalignantNarcissist
I really don’t get the Trump as salvation thing either. Of all the weird beliefs of Trump supporters, that to me is the weirdest.
Fascinating. I think TfG and Murdoch both suffer from the same malaise: the inability to be accepted into a certain class of society using money alone.
You can’t buy your way in. See Gatsby, Jay.
Well played! Although I always thought Murdoch resembled Mr. Burns 😂
💯 true Annie. The .01% wanted the tax cuts — but not even Princess Purses is invited to their parties.
"Princes Purses"---IJBOL!!
That worm of a former president dares to call himself a patriot and the media continues to put him on the front page. He is a “front runner” because polls of hundreds of people, not thousands or millions of people answered a phone call. We know Russians are involved in throwing the election again and probably with the polls. Tfg attacked his own government. Apologies to worms, snakes and slime, the bully is unfit in every way.
"He is a “front runner” because polls of hundreds of people, not ...." Right you are Gigi and also correct re., Russian (and other adversaries) aid. It would be great to find any means to spread those certainties.
2024
What does the resignation of Rupert Murdoch mean to the Fox media and the entire Republican bricade? Is it a change of direction? Do they want knew audience, far away from the pro-Rs? In any change of leadership mantle, there will be changes.
The reign of Rupert has been marred with lies and misinformation; the Fox profited off from gaming the emotions of the people and making people pit against each other. If you were were Democrat, you deserved to be misreported, misquoted, and misunderstood. The Rs got the better part of the buttered bread in political scene and escape most of the times from being summoned by the truth.
The Rupert model and other anti-democratic MSMs of journalism was and is no longer healthy for the soul. Every news was fashioned to ignite your roller coaster of emotions and put people in darkness. The result? The creation of a wild person with disastrous beliefs and full of misinformation.
According to this article from Reuter's Lachlan Murdoch who is the new CEO of the Fox companies is even further to the right than his father. I expect Fox will move even further right as well.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/who-is-lachlan-murdoch-what-will-happen-fox-news-corp-2023-09-21/
True, that article has tell it all. Their model is primarily a model of attention economy, curated with news that tear your soul and keep people glued to their screens. It is working for them and the more they go to the right, the more they profit. So, if his son is extremely to the right, this will be disastrous to the democracy and health of the mind. Credibility of news will be an alien in their newsroom. And so we expect a more brutal R.
Can Fox etc not be chucked out of the US and UK. He is Australian?
For a network that’s spent decades stoking the flames of xenophobia, I’m amazed that none of the so-called, hyper-patriotic viewers have noticed that the Murdochs “not be from around here.”
Who didn’t know that. Ronnie invited him in to do exactly what he did.
Maybe someone SHOULD advertise it?
Well said.
I doubt if Fox can be chucked out. It is doing what the establishment enjoys and benefits from it, though he is Australian-born. And if he has constitutionally fill all the requirements, no one will sue him about citizenship.
Rupert Murdoch became a naturalized US citizen in 1985 in order to satisfy legal requirements to own a TV station in the US.
Very odd. I would think a President could do this?
There may be cause for civil suits in all the havoc created by Fox News.
40 years too late, I fear. Been tried…
Democrats deserved to be misreported, misquoted, and misunderstood. I beg to differ. WTH?
I had to go back and reread that. Edward said that was part of the Faux / Murdoch model and not something that was in any way true or natural. I think.
Thanks for further clarifying 👍
Thank you
Why is there no uproar or MORE uproar against tfg? How come he is still running free to exert influence via his sh…y ‘truth’ platform? How come he is able to be “…trying to assert dominance over the country?” and being quite successful? Do millions of Americans have to continue to suffer his insolence?
And why oh why do upright lawyers like Nora Dennehy have to withhold crucial information about the wrongdoings of people like Mr Whitewash-Barr for 3 years?
Her resignation was a statement in itself, but to whom she may of spoken about details I do not know. Now she in in a position that more will notice. With it, of course, will likely come verbal abuse from Redhats,
Trump's power lies in his base of millions of MAGAs who hang onto his every word via Truth (a-HEM) Social who will do his bidding at the drop of a (red) hat.
Oh, and they have guns.
You’d be surprised at how many liberals have guns too. If a civil war comes, I think many will be surprised about how much they underestimated their ‘enemy’. And we’ll squash them once again.
(Raises hand). And I have a solid cadre of friends of the same ilk, all of us who train with our weapons in a safe and prudent manner.
Last evening a friend of mine, a life long commented on one of my threads that she just wants out of this mess. She blamed the Democrats for not listening and said she was considering voting Green in the upcoming.
This was my response:
That won’t get us out. Sadly we have only two parties. And only one that is anywhere near functional.
It isn’t that the Dems are not listening. It is that the system itself is broken.
If you vote green the Republicans have a better chance of winning. And they have already announced the plan for American fascism if they win. That is not a campaign tactic by the Dems. It’s a fact.
And even if the Dems win, they do not have nearly the latitude to govern that people think they do.
The corporate oligarchs are more powerful than this government. That is the true enemy. Not the Democrats.
The choice is how much harm will be done. The Republicans are in alignment with the oligarchs. The Democrats will do what they can to avoid the worst harm.
So what can we do? Vote blue to keep the level of authoritarianism where it is, instead of a bare fascist dictatorship. Which would be a hell greater than we can imagine.
And figure out how to either bring down the oligarchy or take ourselves en masse out of its control.
We won’t be able to do any of that under Republican Christo-fascist rule. We will be too busy surviving and maybe risking our lives in the resistance.
I have a smart friend who is that stupid. Third parties are spoilers at this point (and in the past 80 years). Repubs funding most. Wake up America, third party nuts are just repubs in Better clothes
You undercut your own response by your admissions in it. ‘The system itself is broken.’
There comes a point in which anything, in this case, the duopoly of the two parties, is broken beyond repair. We have reached this point.
‘The corporate oligarchs are more powerful than this government’. You’re right, they are the ‘true enemy’. ‘Not the Democrats’, but also not the GOP. Both parties are owned, lock, stock, and barrel.
The choice is not lesser of evil harm reduction anymore. The ratchet effect of voting lesser evil/harm reduction is exactly what brought us to the point that a buffoon like Trump could have even sniffed the Oval Office, much less occupied it. The choice is, do you continue to prop up the duopoly by participating in it, or break with it, to break it?
What can we do? Vote third party, support a constitutional amendment to neuter the Supreme Court’s corporate personhood precedents (see MoveToAmend.org), and support, via funding or actual participation, general strikes and nonviolent civil disobedience.
If third party voting can reach a critical threshold, it can force the duopoly to accede to electoral reforms like ranked choice voting, abolishment of the electoral college, and other reforms which would rejuvenate a democracy which has been lost since both parties were captured by corporate and monied neoliberal economic interests back in the late 70s.
I will never vote to keep ‘authoritarianism where it is’. I need to be able to look in the mirror. Our kids won’t have a chance to escape the coming climate chaos if we keep incrementally wandering through a duopoly desert expecting a broken system to self correct itself. Better to take an altogether different path, imo.
If Trump should win the 2024 election, make sure that when you look in the mirror, you accept responsibility for helping to put that profoundly unfit man back in the Oval Office.
Bless your heart. My responsibility pales beside that of Democratic voters who have blindly turned themselves into lemmings since the Party turned its back on the working class and poor in the late 70s, in lieu of chasing the corporate donor gravy train. Vote Blue No Matter Who is a perfect encapsulation of an uncritical, propagandized, void of curiosity mindset that would make any government apologist in Russia/China proud.
If Trump wins in 2024, my vote for West won’t have a damn thing to do with it, anymore than my votes for Nader or Stein affected Democratic losses in ‘00, ‘04, or ‘16 did. Votes for third parties in each of those elections didn’t come close to matching the vote totals of…. wait for it… registered Democratic voters who voted for the GOP candidate; not to mention registered Democrats who didn’t bother to vote. I was never going to vote for corporate sycophants like Gore, Kerry, Clinton or Biden. Clean up your house before you throw feces at others.
What you look at when you gaze into your mirror is someone who thinks third party voters owe you something that isn’t earned; that lesser of evil voting has demonstrably led to improving the lives of the poor and working class. Last time I checked, the Democrats still govern to please corporate donors: broken promises on health care, student debt, permitting more fossil fuel extraction than Trump, not to mention the unanimous backing of a stupid proxy war in Ukraine.
Nope. I’m done with the duopoly. That, is what is unfit for a vote.
Tom, you owe me nothing. What you owe your nation, your children, and your grandchildren, is your own business. I don’t even consider myself a Democrat, even though I do tend to vote that way, so please don’t paint me with that brush. What I do see is that, as Annabel says below, we are staring into the maw of fascism, and if we want ever to have the chance to establish new parties or to force change in the system we have, job one is securing our democracy and everything else is secondary. If we fail at that, we will have failed at all of it. My voting reflects that stark choice. Pretending it isn’t so doesn’t make it so.
Speaking of your stark choice, and pretending.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/on-vote-shaming-21-ways-supporting
"If you vote green the Republicans have a better chance of winning. And they have already announced the plan for American fascism if they win. That is not a campaign tactic by the Dems. It’s a fact." - Annabel Ascher
I couldn't have said it better! We need to work within the system we have. It's extremely bad timing to waste a vote on a third party. The way it is, a third party doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell to win, literally wasting a vote for Democrats to win. Once the Democrats gain back the majority in every branch of government, there will be a chance to have a third party conversation. Until then, we must work with everything we have to vote the MAGA GOP OUT by voting Blue!
I understand your point, but the issue I have with a theirs party now is that it will most certainly put TFG or his ilk in office again, and that us unthinkable. Third parties have been useful as change agents in the country. This time they will certainly swing the vote where none of us want it to go. I wish there were a younger democratic candidate that Biden would step aside for, but if he announces he isn’t running, what a mess.
The Socialist and, yes, Communist Parties brought us the New Deal, because they scared the crap out of FDR and the capitalist class. Third Parties need to scare the crap out of the duopoly now. I find it interesting that Democratic voters vote shame the Green Party, and welcome the Libertarian vote, when in fact, the elimination of all third party voters would hurt Dems more.
All the ‘save democracy’ hysteria rings hollow, not to mention disingenuous, when one pursues an agenda that presupposes that votes are owed, instead of earned. If I thought for one second that the Democratic Party would stand up to its corporate donors, and capitalist elites, in a meaningful, as opposed to performative way (see the ACA, climate policy, addressing the financial sector ‘too big to fail’, etc.), it would have my vote.
But it doesn’t, and it won’t, until enough outside pressure is brought to bear.
Measure for measure, the argument that the two-party system is broken and a third will fix it, KR, is just plain wrong. There is either autocracy or the ongoing struggle of democratic factions to reach periodic consensus. Human nature intervenes too frequently on the side avarice and bellicosity, not enough in the direction of hope and mutual commitment to the Declaration’s aspirations.
But be assured, Trump fever is sky high because it is burning out, its intentions revealed to be 100% autocratic, deadly, totally self-centered. A third-party candidate effort is underway, but would tip the scales to assure a Trump autocracy. History speaks for itself. Everything important is at stake. Hang in there.
Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here. It for sure isn’t I who advocates voting third party right now. I understand the laudable impulse for change, and even share many of the goals. But as Annabel states above, we are staring into the maw of fascism. There is no equivalence, false or otherwise between the two parties we have right now. Let’s secure our democracy first, then work on the rest. That one thing will determine whether there’s ever a chance to do more.
Amen. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
And thanks to you, for yours!
I agree. Problem is timing for third party is not good right now as we are in middle of a firefight.
We’re always in the middle of a firefight. That’s the nature of democracy.
The timidity of the ‘timing’ argument is what led an exasperated MLK to pen his Letter From Birmingham Jail.
Well done. I want to agree — still hesitant
Swimming against the Vote Blue No Matter Who current can be tough at times. But the realization of the anti-democratic nature of such a mindset is liberating and provides the comfort that not falling for logical fallacy provides.
Here’s a paragraph from a recent Caitlin Johnstone piece that illustrates the nature of questioning common tropes and status quo definitions of ‘reality’; while not always a comfortable place to reside, much preferable to latching on to illusion in order to remain comfortable.
“This is what Terence McKenna was talking about when he said "The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation." And it's what Jiddu Krishnamurti was pointing at when he said "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." A lucid perception of reality today will necessarily be accompanied by the ever-present smell of bullshit.”
That IS the point. And that point does not absolve the Republican Party but rather convicts it. For they are the ones that helped break it.
Did you see the part in my original comment about the Republicans being in alignment with the oligarchs?
The unholy alliance has been a factor since the 1960s but was cemented in the Reagan era.
Yes, there should be at least four viable parties. But there are not. In the real world we are staring in to the maw of full barefaced fascism.
And the argle bargle of “lesser of two evils” virtue signaling nonsense is aiding and abetting the fascists.
I would ask that you remove your judgmental glasses and read my comment again, but I doubt that would help.
The Democrats are in alignment with the oligarchs now as well. Agree with everything you said about the GOP. Never have cast a vote for them. Ever.
You have the judgmental shades on. What aided and abetted the fascists has been Democratic voters who failed to hold their elected officials to account as they drifted further and further rightward into neoliberal economic acquiescence, with the resultant increasing frustration and rage from average voters who no longer had a political party they could count on to support workers and their families.
I reread your comment. My critique stands. One thing I do know, after reading extensively on the subjects of empire, narrative, messaging, and propaganda in the last decade, is when people begin to reference ‘the real world’ as in ‘In the real world’, what follows is inevitably some simplistic, condescending endorsement of the status quo.
Not playing that game.
Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t get it. Thank goodness you only have one vote.
Good luck and have a good life.
Vote shaming becomes you.
You as well.
First of all, thank you HCR for another informative, albeit scary letter. I really do look forward to reading these letters everyday. I have a question. If the government shuts down and millions of of people won't receive their paychecks, why don't we start with the five or six idiots that are making this happen in the first place? I know this is a pipe dream but, these "people" will never stop acting like spoiled babies unless they feel the pain of their actions. This just illustrates how important it is to VOTE BLUE all the way through!
In the beginning of the week, it was the Freedom Caucus at the mic decrying Biden’s reckless spending and blamed him for inflation and gas prices, but by the end of the week, it has devolved into a s#*tshow.
TBH, it’s _always_ been a shitshow with these idiots.
Watched Squawk Box this morning as two party reps discussed spending issues in cuts demanded by extremists. No mention of corporate taxes by Republican, even when asked directly. Wiggled right out of it.
Donald J. Trump is calling the shots.
'Former President Donald Trump has been charged in four criminal cases over a four-and-a-half-month span. In New York, he faces 34 felony counts in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. In Florida, he faces 40 felony counts for hoarding classified documents and impeding efforts to retrieve them. In Washington, D.C., he faces four felony counts for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And in Georgia, he faces 13 felony counts for his election interference in that state.' (Politico)
Donald J. Trump is still calling the shots!
'The extremists are bolstered by former president Donald Trump, who posted on his social media platform today that the Republicans in Congress “can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government…. This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots. They failed on the debt limit, but they must not fail now. Use the power of the purse and defend the Country!” (Letter)
'Experts say shutting down the government would not, in fact, end the former president’s legal troubles, but he is actually doing more than that here: he is trying to assert dominance over the country. As Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said: “Let’s be clear about what the former president is saying here. House Republicans should shut down the government unless the prosecutions against him are shut down. He would deny paychecks to millions of working families & devastate the US economy, all in the service of himself.” (Letter)
'Extremist leader Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) responded to Trump’s statement with his own: “Trump Opposes the Continuing Resolution” to fund the government,” he wrote. “Hold the line.” Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch noted: “House Republicans refuse to fund the government to protect Donald Trump.” (Letter)
How will this end?
“The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of America is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.” —Franklin Roosevelt
Thank you, Fern. You find some good stuff.
Thank you, Ally. No one matches Donald J. Trump as the USA's #1 Enemy, and he's got
plenty of partners, here, there and everywhere.
Unfortunately, not sure Murdoch's son is much better..... we'll see.
I have no words to describe these RepubReps who are trying to sabotage the government, which is actually the source of their own wealth. Most of them, I can't imagine their earning an honest living anywhere. A dishonest one, maybe. And TFG - he must still be collecting 6 figures from the gov't. Les saboteurs being rewarded by the "sabotee". What a sinister farce.
Paying for our own destruction, will his check stop, like mine will. Probably not.
Nope
The Putin wing of the Republican party is retaliating for our support for Ukraine in acts of legislative terrorism, even including hostage taking as with Kevin McCarthy.