This evening, the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to four key figures in the Trump White House who either were working with or had communications with the White House in the days surrounding the January 6 insurrection: former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel, and former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon.
While reading this, I can't help but think of all the time, effort and funds being spent to both to perpetuate and stop the 'Big Lie' while our world crumbles down around us due to climate change and the people dying due to the inability to work together in an effort to control this epidemic. There are certainly some in power intent on destruction.
This is why I call the R party, the party of death....death of individuals from the virus which are now preventable, death of our democracy, and death of the planet.
I was put in FB's jail several times for writing about Zelenko and hydroxychloroquine and zinc. In my opinion the Left and its media and Fauci and Big Pharma caused America as much harm as Trump, the January 6 mob, the MAGAs and the Republicans.
Subscribers, LFAA does have software, which would block disinformation. The following represents information from a highly reputable sources of medical science:
'Recently, several physicians hosted a press conference in which one physician claimed that the combination of hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin and the mineral zinc could cure COVID-19. The video footage of that press conference went viral on social media, and soon many social media platforms removed the videos for providing inaccurate, non-scientifically backed claims. But questions from the public may still remain.
According to Johns Hopkins experts, there are no significant clinical trials to date showing that these drugs are an effective treatment against COVID-19. At least three controlled, large trials showed either no advantage or higher risk of cardiovascular complications in patients receiving the drug.
“Patients infected with COVID-19 often have compromised heart and vascular systems, and receive other drugs that can interact with hydroxychloroquine and can put patients at increased risk of arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats,” says cardiologist Oscar Cingolani, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “These cardiovascular side effects in some COVID patients aren’t often seen in patients receiving the drug for other purposes like autoimmune disorders, so therefore the safety observed in these other patients can’t be inferred for COVID-19 patients.”
To date, Johns Hopkins physicians endorse the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on not using these drugs for treatment of COVID-19.' (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Newsroom)
Q: Are chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine sulfate approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19?
A: No. Hydroxychloroquine sulfate and some versions of chloroquine phosphate are FDA-approved to treat malaria. Hydroxychloroquine sulfate is also FDA-approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
On March 28, 2020, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate to treat adults and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 for whom a clinical trial was not available or participation was not feasible. Based on FDA’s continued review of the scientific evidence available, the criteria for an EUA for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate as outlined in Section 564(c)(2) of the FD&C Act are no longer met. As a result, the EUA for these two drugs was revoked on June 15, 2020. Read more about this action. (FDA)
My husband's name, given by the soldiers in his company, was 'Indy'. He died in 2018. When I see your name, Terry, '(Indy)', there is often a tear and a smile on my face. You know, I not thinking of Indiana.
He's talking about treating at risk patients this way, older people and younger people with serious medical problems. He did not treat low risk covid patients with hydroxychloroquine and zinc.
I don't think those patients were treated nearly as quickly as Dr. Zelenko treated his patients. His explanation in the YouTube I furnished early of treatment before Covid-19 sets in around day 6 is ... devastating, if treatment is delayed
Here is a link to a recent YouTube interview of Dr. Zelenko, I'm about 20 minutes into it, he's describing how this began for him and how he responded and why, and now he and Trump and Mark Meadows got involved, and now he's talking about why there was so intense blow back which at first made no sense to him. I've heard all of this in other YouTube interviews of him. If this man is a liar, then he's a darn good one. But I leave for you to watch the YouTube, or not.
Was wrong about length of presentation, it's over 100 minutes. He's covering the basis, including his own nearly dying from medical troubles, and now he's explaining the hydroxychloroquine and zinc dynamic. All I have heard from him before.
Here's the text of an email from a friend who has a friend working in CDC:
Dear Sloan: I know a young woman who is a MD. She chose to work for the CDC and became an epidemiologist. Her comment on COVID is that the best thing anyone can do is to continue with a prophylactic regime as recommended by Dr. Zelenko. There are multiple subtypes of COVID, alpha and delta and gamma variants are the most commonly occurring. Because they have different RNA sequences, they also have no guarantee that the vaccines people have taken will protect them. Commingling of these subtypes of COVID could result in a superbug version of COVID- such a consequence could prove disastrous. In addition, her comment on vaccine side effects is that we do not have enough data on people properly and completely vaccinated. Look at the population 18+ and the number who reported receiving the vaccine. We simply don't have a complete enough picture to determine the whether the vaccine is responsible for the problems reported. At the same time, we cannot dismiss the allegations of severe complications due to taking the vaccine- that would be terribly irresponsible. We do need to examine the cofactors that could possibly cause vaccine complications.
Here's a link to my blog post that contains a photo of Dr. Zelenko and his March 23, 2020 letter to All World Health Professionals, cc President Donald J. Trump and Mark Meadow, Chief of Staff. This is the lies and quackery I am spreading. If the New York Medical Board thought it was lies and quackery, they would have been all over Dr. Zelenko.
Your opinion has no basis in reality. Or, rather, it's based on your ideologically-driven alternate reality, in which the real world has no place.
Ultimately, one's views are either based on reality and routinely tested against it. Or they are based on what one wants or needs to believe and never tested against reality. Indeed, reality is something to be ignored or, at best, selectively edited to conform to ideology. It's called confirmation bias.
My experience is that there is no way past this bias.
Elaine Hewitt, our drop-in Rusky troll. How I’ve missed you.
You still haven’t said whether you’re related to that formerly reliable conservative radio talk-show host, now flaming Orange Menace apologist Hugh Hewitt. (Who’s sadly swallowed the red pill.)
And while FB puts those who post misinformation in jail. Our governor makes one our new surgeon general. This is his approach as reported in Tampa Bay Times yesterday:
“Here is my prescription for local and state leaders: Keep shutdowns short, keep the economy going, keep schools in session, keep jobs intact, and focus single-mindedly on building the capacity we need to survive this into our health care system,” Ladapo wrote. He opposes mask and vaccine mandates while advocating unproven treatments.
In other words, let Covid rip through the population and just build more hospital capacity.
While we’re at it, might as well stop wearing seatbelts, remove speed limits and stop signs, make smoking in public places legal, sell guns to anyone who wants one. Just build more hospitals.
I beg to differ. I've had multiple accounts deleted for "dealing in guns, drugs, or other contraban on the Facebook platform". All from pushing back on trump-sheep. Never sold a thing on Facebook in my life.
My blog has very little traffic. Older blogs had much more traffic. A friend told me about Heather's letters and suggested I should check that out, so I did, and I found someone writing her guts, heart and soul out, putting herself in the crosshairs of legions of loonies mostly in the red spectrum. I really admired and respected that. I admired and respected that Heather's allowed her readers to comment freely. I once read the very mostly white right wing Patriot Post. The readers there really didn't like me, then I asked how many of them were not white people? Oh, that didn't go over well. There were lots of right wing comments, some really strung out. I was the only commenter who was not right wing. I quit participating, because what I viewed as patriotism was nothing like their view. And, because I wondered if they might retaliate against me through people I cared about. Later, the owner of that platform disallowed reader comments. I emailed him that he wasn't much on free speech. He did not reply.
Heh, I think Donald Trump is a grotesque, despicable human being, who, along with his white supremacist mob that assaulted, breached and invaded the Capitol on January 6, should have been shot dead months ago. I started banging Trump on my blog and on Facebook in 2015, and never let up. I have banged him here. He and his fanatical mobs caused me to fear for the physical safety of my children, and that is one reason I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden. The other reason was Biden at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. I put that on blog and Facebook many times, as well.
I have been called nutty and worse by Trumpers, and conservative Christians, and Republicans, and liberal Christians, and Democrats, and lots more "sects".
Not to put too fine a point on it, but being dismissed as a nut by a wide spectrum of people of vastly differing viewpoints is not, in fact, a point in your favor. It is, in fact, rather the opposite. And labeling everyone who suggests you are a loony as a member of a "sect" doesn't change that.
He deserves all of it for spreading lies about a dangerous pandemic. So do you if you believe that drivel.
How many more people have to die and how badly stressed does our medical system have to become before you people start facing reality instead of pushing your quackery and paranoia?
I'm used to harsh razzing. What I hope still is something will change and hydroxychloroquine and zinc will be freely available without prescription. That would really infuriate Big Pharma and its captured federal agencies.
I take hydroxychloroquine for light eruptions, and you would not believe the hassles I have been experiencing trying to obtain my meds due to shortages and restrictions of dispensing 16 tablets at a time. So forgive me for not taking you seriously on this misinformation.
Big Pharma is not a friend of the people who need certain prescriptions, but that doesn't mean you should push ineffective remedies of the virus. If you've got a gripe against Big Pharma (and many do) attack them for exorbitant prices on drugs. But don't push your pet remedies, for whatever reason.
Unfortunately for America and humanity, Trump was handed a cheap, 5-da early stage Covid-19 infection cure in March 2020, which led to the Hassidic doctor Vladimir Zelenko, who developed it in his very large family practice in a tightknit Hassidic New York community being interviewed by Sean Hannity and Trump promoting the cure on Television. Then, came massive Democrat and its media and Dr. Fauci, CDC, WHO, The Lancet, FDA and Big Pharma, CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media witch hunts, which killed the cheap fast early stage infection cure that would have saved America and humanity from Red China's bioweapon. Trump could have used the power off his office to make the cure freely available to all people in America, but he caved to the political pressure and went for Operation Warp Speed, which, heh, his much of his own base rejected, as did more Republicans than Democrats and Independents. The cheap 5-day cure, which saved the doctor's patients from even going to hospitals, if they were treated as soon as symptoms appeared, even before testing positive, was hydroxychloroquine, zinc and azithromycin. HCQ transports zine into body cells, where zinc inhibits C-19 replication. Azithromycin dealt with any secondary infection. No big money to made in that by Big Pharma.
The last thing that anyone here wants are insane people like you pushing this abject stupidity.
Fauci was struggling to work in the middle of Trump's smoke & mirrors bullshit as Americans paid the price with their lives, and idiots- like you- assisted in disseminating this propagandist manure.
Enough. Seek help. Get medicated. Dry up and blow away.
This sort of thing really makes it difficult for people (like myself) who have to help guide less than astute people safely through things like this. And I mainly have to deal with my own family members. What Trump and his cult have done is not only tragic, but criminal, in my personal opinion.
I wonder if those career legal professionals saw themselves in my 3rd book, KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? A CLIENTS GUIDE TO HIRING, FIRING, USING AND SUING LAWYERS? Prentice-Hall Division of Simon & Shuster?
(sigh) While I can see why your approach has generated so much outright rejection, I mislike simply calling names and yelling, "Go Home!" Nevertheless, you should not, Mr. Bashinsky, be making so many outre and complicated assertions without some citation to authority. You seem to be simply listing a bunch of baseless claims, then hoping the people on this forum will to the work of fact-checking you.
No dice, sir. You wanna make claims that a 5-day regimen of oral medications can kill a virus attack in delicately vascularized deep lung tissue? Go right ahead, but cite your sources. Who is this Dr. Zelenko who has done in his little clinic what 20 years of research into SARS-CoV infections has not been able to do? Has he published his research? Does he have a website? If the combined efforts of the "Democrat and its media and Dr. Fauci, CDC, WHO, The Lancet, FDA and Big Pharma, CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media witch hunts" were marshalled to suppress news of this "miracle," where did you hear about it?
I'm actually amazed that it seems some or a lot readers here do not know about Dr. Zelenko. Yes, he published his research, and published more, and he did YouTube presentations, and it all was banned on Facebook. I have read online of a number of doctors using same cure for early stage infection getting same results. Note, early stage infection. I have heard of doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine off label, to bypass the pharmaceutical and medical boards, because they liked using hydroxychloroquine with zinc. I have read many studies slamming hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19, it's dangerous, it doesn't work. None of the studies used zinc with hydroxychloroquine, and without zinc, hydroxychloroquine isn't effective against Covid-19. Hydroxychloroquine its the caddy, zinc is Tiger Woods. Covid-19 does not like zinc. Hydroxychloroquine is so dangerous it has been used for decades to prevent and treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It is derived from chloroquine, which is derived from quinine, which is derived from the bark of a tree. I told a friend today that some of the people of this blog are as reactionary and hysterical as MAGAs and Evangelicals. Imagine what would have happened if President Trump had made Zelenko's cure freely available in April 2020. Imagine the bioweapon being stopped in its tracks. Imagine Trump being viewed a the guy responsible for that. He would have won the 2020 election in a LANDSLIDE!!! I detest the man. But he would still be president. Too damn bad Trump didn't have big enough balls to ignore the backlash against Zelenko's cure, which Trump himself took to prevent catching Covid-19 after some of his staff tested positive. Some doctor prescribed it for Trump. Later, after Trump caught Covid-19, he did not take the Zelenko cure and got and in really bad shape and was taken to ICU, where he was given Regeneron's new, still not yet approved for general use, very expensive monoclonal antibody treatment, which saved his sorry ass. Trump went for vaccines, which also were far more lucrative for Big Pharma than hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Now the irony, the right is a lot less vaccinated than the left. But from what I've heard on grapevines, the right and its doctors are more inclined to prescribe Zelenko's cure off label, and ivermectin, which Zelenko later came to say was a good early stage treatment. Also quercetin with zinc. Quercetin also transports zinc into body cells, and it does not require prescription. I've been taking quercetin and zinc since May 2020, and D-3, and I have not had even a sniffle. I also have now received 3 Pfizer shots. You folks who think I'm crazy might try doing your own research on Dr. Zelenko and his cure. There is gobs of stuff online. If you go looking for what agrees with you, then, well, isn't that way Republicans, MAGAs, Evangelicals, KKK, Nazis, Fascists, Communists do research?
Google search "Dr. Zelenko" and read everything that comes up, and watch all the videos that come up, which will you a while. I am amazed that it seems you and all but one person in this discussion seem to know nothing about him. Plain and simple, because Trump touted Zelenko's cure (without naming Zelenko), the left's media and the left and medical-industrial complex went haywire. The left, because anything that made Trump look good was anathamea. The medical-industrial complex, because it had humongo;us money-making plans for new cures, vaccines, etc., which Dr. Zelenko's cure made unnecessary. I read article after article, supposedly scientific, slamming hydroxychloroquine as being dangerous (bull shit, it was used extensively for decades to treat and prevent malaria, and to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. I read article after article on studies showing hydroxychloroquine was inneffective against Covid-19. But none of the articles and studies had zinc in the study. Which, Zelenko kept saying was the key ingredient, the bullet, and hydroxychloroquine was the gun that shot the bullet into body cells, where the bullet inhibited coronavirus replication. In his March 23, 2020 letter to All World Health Professionals, copied to Trump and Mark Meadows, Zelenko mentined old research about zinc being effective against coronaviruses. He described his reasoning and how he evolved it and then used it to treat his patients. I see no vehicle for posting that letter here, but I'm happy to provide a copy to anyone who wants to see it; sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com. That letter was read to America by Sean Hannity, who interviewed Zelenko. The left and its media went haywire. Look like mass insanity to me. The right looks like mass insanity to me. Heather paints that beautifully most days. I don't belong to a political party, or to the left or to the right. I am not loyal to either side's cannons, liturgies, catechisms, rituals, mantras. I see both sides spinning and twisting. And I see the truth buried in both sides, but only the truth they wish to claim. One wee example. I was banged here for quoting Gloria Steinem saying the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. I was banged for not saying that saying came much earlier in time. And, it was a spin off of Jesus' words in the Godpels, Nobody here gave Steinem credit for saying it, but it's the title of one of her books, which I was obliged to point out a few times, and not a dent seemed to be made in the people who had banged me for quoting Steinem. i view that, Fern, as inanity. There is a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews that reminds me of you. It was addressed to Jewish followers of Jesus who had fallen into bad habits:
Hebrews 5:12 Although by this time you ought to be teachers ...https://biblehub.com › hebrews
Instead of eating solid food, you still have to drink milk. ... By now you should be teachers. Instead, you still need someone to teach you the elementary truths ...
No, but Dr. Zelenko has medical license. He was maligned in many ways, but his results were not, to my knowledge ever challenged. I've read online and of other doctors getting same results with his cure. Cui bono?
The great problem with Dr. Zelenko's theory is that no one else was able to get the same results concerning these drugs. You must be able to repeat these studies in order to verify efficacy.
True. And I find it curious that they will incorporate the results of Zelenkos 'study,' and not the CDC studies on the vaccines...which, as we know, now are totally vetted from independent research.
Lots of doctors got same results, but most of them didn't care for medical board investigations and public witch hunts and did it off label. Some doctors took the risk of coming out publicly for using hydroxychloroquine with zinc, and they were banned from Facebook, You-Tube, just like Zelenko. If Zelenko had made up his "story", the New York State Medical Board would have had his hide. A Texas doctor who promoted hcq and zinc in front of the national
Capitol, the youtube of it went viral in minutes, internationally, then was killed by YouTube, was investigated by the Texas Medical Board, which later dismissed the investigation. That doctor was from Africa. Was a Trump fan. A minister. She gave a sermon on women having sex with demon sperm. In her spiritual history, that probably was something people believed in. The Bible speaks of angels coming down and having sex with human women. Anyway, looked to me that doctor failed to see the demon sperm that had infected Trump, which he was spewing everywhere and infecting tens of millions of Americans, while the doctor was vilified on national TV, even as she was saving people with Covid-19, using hydroxychloroquine and zinc, and she was not disciplined by her medical board.
“Agrowing body of clinical studies indicates that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective in treating COVID-19 and may actually increase mortality. The World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi, which sells hydroxychloroquine under the brand name Plaquenil, have all issued guidelines cautioning against the kind of early, prophylactic use of the drug that Trump has hyped and Zelenko advocates. On Friday a retrospective study of 96,000 COVID-19 patients on six continents, published in the medical journal The Lancet, found that hospitalized patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic—part of the drug combination Zelenko has plugged—were 45% likelier to die.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/documents-expose-fda-commissioners-interventions-on-behalf-of-trump
Sloan Bashinsky’s information is clear, detailed, and essentially correct. You could dispute the information he provides, but instead, the mob here calls him “insane,” an “idiot,” calls the information “abject stupidity” and “manure,” and wishes for his demise. Notice the response contains no content, just rage. Which side should we listen to, the one with information (which we can research and debate) or the one that wants to stone the witch?
Dr. Zelenko himself is clear and humble, with no apparent motive other than to help people (for which, of course, he is defamed by the New York Times.) Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are among the safest drugs the world has ever known. Hydroxychloroquine is 65 years old, prescribed to hundreds of millions with virtually no ill side effects. Ivermectin is 40 years old and has been called one of the three “wonder drugs” along with aspirin and penicillin. It also has been prescribed safely to hundreds of millions of people. From a 2011 paper (before COVID politics) from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which is supported and funded by the U.S. government:
“There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.”
It’s hard to know the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as COVID prophylactics or treatments because the media smear them as “dangerous” (“horse-de-wormer,” in the case of ivermectin). The Lancet published a study purporting to demonstrate the danger of hydroxychloroquine, which they had to retract because it was bogus. They hadn’t even tried to vet the source before they ran the article. Fauci (of course) cited the study favorably. He is a menace, telling us that “authority” is “science.” Not once have I heard him advocate for protecting old people, exploring novel treatments, or advising people to lose weight and improve their immune systems. He talks only of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines. He just likes being on TV, and he knows what will keep him there.
Seth Meyers does 20 minutes on the stupid and vile people who seek ivermectin as a treatment. I have a friend who has long-COVID. She had to call multiple pharmacists before finding one that would fill her doctor’s prescription, then had to drive 90 miles for it. Thank you, Seth Meyers and the New York Times.
The only thing wrong with these drugs is that they are inexpensive. Maybe they don’t help in every situation, but they certainly help in some, and we should be allowed to study and discuss the results. The media love huge corporations and expensive technology but they seem to have an irrational hatred of human beings.
Subscribers, please refer to medical science for information concerning our health. Unfortunately, another spreader of disinformation is among us. As we have advised, these are unfortunate distractions from the truth and our mission to work on behalf of democracy, addressing climate change, anti-abortion, anti-government, anti-taxes and anti-public health movements... you've got the drift. Salud!
Fern, I believe most subscribers don't need to be reminded to refer to medical science when dealing with health issues of any sort. The few odd ducks who come here to spread their propaganda are not taken seriously by (probably) 99.9% of the folks here. What is frightening folks on other pages who are less judicious and far more gullible and willing to swallow the swill presented to them by charlatans. That is who needs to be convinced to "step away from the door".
Daria, This particular “odd duck”, Ned, has come here expressly to find support for his thesis that we are a cavern of raging filth, and he has cherry picked numerous quotes of comments here to attempt to prove his point. Here’s a quote he used on his blog of one of your comments: “ Daria writes, “There is no real difference between the far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban. There are too many MAGA angry fat white men without masks yelling and threatening people with violence.” By far right, she probably means middle-of-the-road Republicans who support gay marriage and legalized pot, but she doesn’t elaborate.“
I debated to give any attention to him at all due to my age old self debate. Am I exposing it to light or just serving to elevate it. I know my intention but not the result. 🤷🏻♀️
It was unseemly yesterday for you to suggest that my comment was inappropriate and to assume that you know better that I what would and would not be of interest to subscribers. Your wish to direct my work is not welcome.
Look, Ivermectin is a very effective antiparasitic drug taken the world over to rid the body of certain intestinal parasites. Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial and is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other auto immune disorders. Both if these drugs are great for what they are used for. However, what's not great is people jumping on a bandwagon of anecdotally driven information peddled by anyone, MD, DO, DC, Veterinarian, Holistic Healer, etc. The internet is loaded with voodoo medicine and fake science sites; people pass bogus information to one another at the beauty salon, barbers, over coffee. There's no denying Big Pharma is a monster, but for God's sake, when a New York Doctor who has treated a small cohort of patients with Hydroxychloroquine says that it's a cure that does not qualify as a study. And frankly, why should anyone trust the results of Zelenko's little experiment? What else were his patients taking along with the Hydroxychloroquine?
Please, stop spreading unsound medical conjecture and advice. Please keep your conspiracy theories to yourself, on your own substack page. Thanks.
zinc and azithromycin. hydroxychloroquine transported zinc into body cells, which zinc does not do on its own. Zinc inhibited Covid-19 replication. Azithromycin killed any secondary infection. 5 days of that was the total treatment. It was given to patients as soon as they showed symptoms, before they tested positive. To wait and let Covid-19 was too risky. Once it set in good, all that could have helped them was heroic medicine. M*A*S*H revisited. That was before Regeneron developed it's really expensive monoclonal antibody treatment, which saved Trump after he caught Covid-19 and was forced by his doctor into ICU. He was a grave risk, but that was never reported in the news.
What that doctor did was a battlefield study with his own patients, who had Covid-19 and his cure saved them from going to hospitals even dying there. That doctor had no reason to make it up. Other doctors heard of him and used his cure. They became the Resistance against the Medical-Industrial Complex, which stood to make peanuts from the doctor's cure. Peanuts. If I say that doctor was inspired by God, would anyone here believe me? I bet lots of MAGAs and Evangelicals would believe me, if they didn't view me as the Devil incarnate, because of how much I detest Donald Trump and them.
And if, as SB says, Zelenko served his cocktail in the very early stage, "even before they tested positive", one has to wonder if it actually did some harm? If they hadn't yet tested positive, took the Koolaid, and THEN tested positive..........huh?
This corrects the article "RETRACTED: Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis" in Lancet, 32450107.
Retraction and republication: cardiac toxicity of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19
Christian Funck-Brentano, Lee S Nguyen, and Joe-Elie Salem”
I take Hydrochloroquine and am tested yearly for blood, heart, and eye abnormalities that this drug can cause. I can't get it refilled unless I go through these evaluations. But, it works for my autoimmune disorder.
Thank you for the compliment AshleyR but I do not want to be overestimated as super smart but trying hard to be as competent as possible in my own field. ❤️
It isn't the prescribing of these drugs that is problematic. I use one of them regularly and it appears to keep my skin eruptions at bay. (I am also screened yearly for heart problems, blood disorders, and eye side effects due to this medication use because they are very common.) It is the supposed doctors that stepped forward to assign these medications as cures for COVID-19, and the rapid spread of this false information throughout the world that is the heart of this matter. This information was based on zero studies and evidence. Similar to drinking bleach or injecting sunshine into our veins.
Ned, the next time you quote me on your substack page please do so accurately. You attribute a comment to me that was not made by me. Please, do your homework. I will post the comment you attribute to me with the actual author's name as well as my own quote below. You wanna blog? Get your act together and do it right.
Cathy Learoyd (Texas)Sep 1
I agree. The far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban are basically indistinguishable. There are too many MAGA angry fat white men without masks yelling and threatening people with violence. With Rights come the responsibility to protect those rights for others. Otherwise it is anarchy.
My comment:
daria wilber (merida, yucatan)6 min ago
Christy, heres.my original post from 1 September. Ned obviously cannot be bothered to accurately quote me.
daria wilber (merida, yucatan)Sep 1
I need to think and collect my thoughts. The war in Afghanistan has taken a terrible toll on Afghan citizens, US Americans, and allies. There are loose ends which will result in additional lives being lost.
It is, first and foremost, time for every US American to understand that being a US American citizen is not a gift but something that takes dedication and commitment. That commitment includes not diminishing the intrinsic worth of another human being no matter where they live, the color of their skin or the god they believe in. Those of us who have sprung from immigrants, today or centuries ago, need to stop, take a breath and consider the fate of those Afghans (and others) who are desperate to land on US soil and live a "good life" - one where they and their children can learn and grow unencumbered by the politics of submission and hate.
There is no real difference between the far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban. They all are about curbing human and civil rights. We, in the US, have allowed bigotry and hate to percolate just below the surface for decades. When Trump became president he unleashed an unfathomable amount of hate and rage which infected millions around the country. We still, today, live with Trump's influence and stain.
My 67 years on this planet have been extraordinary in so many ways. I have been blessed. Even when I've struggled, I've believed in a better tomorrow and carried on. I no longer believe in a better tomorrow even as I advocate for one today. My thoughts are with those who have personally felt terror and loss as a result of the war in Afghanistan and subsequent withdrawal. May they find peace and comfort.
Actually Liz I believe it has increased. 26% is of the entire population. Most of that is the 78% of Republicans who believe it. Republicans are about 25% of the population so it must be Republican leaning independents that believe it. PT Barnum would call them all suckers.
Don't let the overall figure give you relief in that of the parties, the percentage is 78 of Republicans. That will remain the scary figure in my opinion.
Yes, when I see 78% of Republicans I want to know what percent of the population identify themselves as Republicans and has that changed. On President Biden's Inauguration day one of the big polls showed 25% Republican, 25% Democrat, and 50% independent! The same poll in August (Gallup) says 28% R, 29% D, 40% I. Statistics are so easy to give the wrong impression.
I will Top U and always wonder if they caused it ? It was said that in the “ Situation Room “ in problem solving if TFG was shown on a scale of 1-10 the actions that could be taken. TFG would pick 10 every-time ! 10 being the worst. Then they would have to spend all their time explaining to him the ‘Possible ‘ repercussions of that ‘10 ‘ and why it wasn’t a good idea.It explained why so many quit but also why so many stayed and resigned ( got fired )giving him pushback and trying to protect us. As bad as that Administration of 4 yrs was I’m positive there were/are some unsung hero’s.
Oops, I think Gloria Steinem said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
For years, I voted for 3rd party presidential candidates, or didn't vote. I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden because he and his legions didn't cause me to fear for the physical safety of my children and their families, and because he at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. Yet, Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama had staunchly continued the two Bush Cheney wars, after Obama was awarded, incredibly, and accepted, incredibility, the Nobel Prize for Peace. Then, the Democrats nominated the candidate Donald Trump could beat, Hillary Clinton, after the she and the DNC Watergated Bernie Sanders.
There is plenty of evil on both sides of the aisle, where I imagine a special place in hell is reserved.
However, the Trump train took America to its lowest level since the Vietnam war, and even since the Civil War. The election fraud claims are veiled allegations that black Americans stole the presidential election and gave the Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives.
How can anyone with half a brain think this giant cluster F is going to be satisfactory resolved? Yet, to do nothing, to let the bastards get away without at least trying them in the court of public opinion, even if the law courts don't stand to muster, well, I would not want that in my epitaph.
The saying " The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off was already in circulation by 1990. Detailed citations for these dates are given further below.
This saying simultaneously modifies and evokes a well-known Biblical verse: John 8:32: 1
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
This saying was published in a Syracuse, New York newspaper in a 1978 article about a treatment program for alcoholics. A poster displayed in a residential facility presented a variant of the saying with the phrase “make you miserable” instead of “piss you off”.
On the wall at The Willows dining room is a poster that poignantly reflects the alcoholic’s struggle: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
For decades—and especially now, in these times of crisis—people around the world have found guidance, humor, and unity in Gloria Steinem's gift for creating ...
For decades—and especially now, in these times of crisis—people around the world have found guidance, humor, and unity in Gloria Steinem's gift for creating ...
For decades—and especially now, in these times of crisis—people around the world have found guidance, humor, and unity in Gloria Steinem's gift for creating ...
Oh Gloria… I don’t think she realized how many would be on that train come 2021.
Appreciate the quote and comment, Sloan.
I do believe the cluster f*ck will be resolved like breaking up a head of broccoli or cauliflower, but not quite sure yet how fresh those florets are going to taste.
It’s a lotta wheels to get back onto the bus.
I hope we all contribute our energy to the right solution.
In state after state the Big Lie (another audit, stronger laws for the o protection of election integrity in absence of evidence of fraud) is being paid for with tax dollars because, well I think I smell smoke so there must be a fire someplace to put out. So goes democracy by repeated insinuations. TFG never pays for the disaster created in his wake, only his rubes get the bill.
“ . . . Patel prevented Pentagon officials from talking to the Biden team during the transition, keeping it from receiving intelligence briefings for the weeks before January 6.“
This has always deeply concerned me. Am I correct in believing Patel’s obstruction amounts to treason?
TC would they really be dumb enough to use Secure Phones ? TFG claimed he wouldn’t. His was probably one of his Housekeepers in The Southern W.H. and some come from different Countries .
I believe you are correct, Catherine. And, personally I believe the Patel subpoena is the most important and relevant action in exposing the attempt to overthrow the government and deny transition to a new administration.
Important but not the most important--Bannon is the most important. He's the one with the chops to plan a coup that came within minutes of succeeding and he has the international background and connections to learn how it's done.
I can agree with that also, Bill. I cite Patel because he was employed at time as federal employee and the former was his boss. Bannon’s participation was as private citizen.
Yes. And he fires and or replaces them if any “patsy becomes pasty”.
He has the fastest employment and personal revolving door of any leader that I know of. It’s the fact that he can entice so many to even try to enter the building that amazes me. What a carnival barker he is!
That’s what I always called him.The only ladder he was ever able to climb. Went from the ‘Barker ‘ to an A One Man Act ! Talk about “The Family Circus !” In the White House . The real ones used to be fun .
I know. I love the unique histories and actions of former First Ladies and their first families. Melania Trump does not enter into this category for me. It’s another area to be restored by our current First Lady Professor Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Treason is essentially, levying war against our government or giving aid & comfort to its enemies. See,In re Charge to Grand Jury, 2 Curt. C.C. 630 (D. Mass. Cir. Court 1851..
See also, LFAA, Paragraph 4 tonite:"Kashynap Patel is the interesting name in the subpoenas". Very interesting. Patel was the Chief Operative (oops, chief of staff) of then acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller. I assume Patel will appear before the House Select Committee & plead his 5th Amendment privilege or cut a deal for his testimony.
The machinations of Trump’s Big Lie remind me of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The Lost Cause mythology trumpeted that the Civil War was heroic, just, and not contended over slavery. This Big Lie was sustained over generations to justify white domination and racism throughout the South.
Regional support for the Southern Big Lie was of a greater magnitude than the “26% of Americans [who] now believe the ‘2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.’” The southern Big Lie grievously wounded our country for generations. Unless we can shatter Trump’s Hitler-like Big Lie, our country will suffer grievously in coming years.
This is a must read from today's Washington Post by Kagan.
“Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation.
Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election” by a simple majority vote.”
“We weren’t there to steal things. We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.” January 6 insurrectionist.
Agree, Barbara. I read Kagan's long essay just before going to bed last night. It made for restless sleep. Among the many dire warnings we've read about the danger we face, including from HCR, Kagan's made a persuasive case: the demise of democracy is much further along than we are willing to accept.
Hi Michael, I also read Kagan's Opinion a bit before bedtime. Part of it, analyzing Trump nature and what about it has his followers hypnotized were very astute, however, I was not comfortable with Kagan's certitude about where the country is headed. There are reasons to consider that direction and factors against it. Of course, we are in a heap of trouble, which began, in my opinion, with the Reagan administration and onward. Kagan's tone was one of over-confident declaration, which I did not appreciate.
I agree. But he made me ponder the possibility that things could get real sooner than we think. I tend to believe that it won't ever get to full-blown civil strife across the country. Those who seek violence as a solution to their perceived grievances tend to be small in number and not exactly effective planners. Then again, it's prudent to consider worst-case scenarios.
Also, the monied right-wingers moving the chess pieces know that the various investigations are intensifying and the hammer could come down on Trump and his enablers sooner than we thought. Or if not the hammer, a wave of damning information from the House committee investigation. I see them getting desperate. Who knows what they might do?
We now have the beginnings of a paper trail outlining their planned coup attempt along with an acknowledgment that they knew the election wasn't stolen. And the committee is just getting started.
Now, I'm trying to keep in mind that your neck in a brace as I begin this reply. When following your list of possibilities, it is difficult to avoid using the analogy of watching a tennis match when facing the center of the court. We want this war to end peacefully with the democratic forces in much better command. In the most difficult situations, I function best when calm, which also includes listening and reading the best sources available. As citizens one of the most useful things we can do is contact the Democrats that seem the most wobbly and the Republicans with whom there is, perhaps, only the slimmest of chance to ask that they vote in favor of national voting rights legislation. Figuring out a few things we can and doing them is both productive and stress reducing. We cannot figure out the country's future at this time, and I think trying to do that is not good for your neck. Salud!
Good advice. Getting the top priority legislation is essential to our future. It would prove that our wounded system is resilient despite the relentless attacks. Doing so would be like releasing the valve on a pressure cooker.
The Gore V W. Bush still does. Wish they would have gone to this length to prove that election.But hey, they made Gore the Climate Guy that they don’t believe that’s happening now ?
The temptation to believe that I am watching a really bad, reality-TV-style version of "Wag the Dog", or better yet "King Lear" is great, until I remember that if not for the integrity of our top military leaders and some select secretaries of state, we would have a strong-man style dictatorship in this country right now. I saw an article yesterday stating that 5 or 6 of the top lawyers tasked with defending Trump in his various (very serious) legal troubles are either resigning or being fired. I would take this as a sign that Trump-world is falling apart, except that it always seems to be falling apart. Trumpism remains a powerful force, even as the relevance of Trump himself is waning. Whomever takes up the mantle of Trumpism next (Abbott? DeSantis? ? ?) will not have his ADHD tendencies or his antisocial personality disorder (people with personality disorders are easily manipulated by the people around them - Trump certainly was/is). A Trump World not handicapped by Trump is what REALLY scares me.
But TFG’s TV personality holds charm for his minions and Abbott, etc. don’t have that either. They’re politicians and not gilded in glittering gold. Marjorie Taylor Greene is no Sarah Palin either.
Christy, This is to let you know that Sloan has been hounding me. I didn't make direct contact with him yesterday was trying to ward subscribers away from him and the N. guy. I don't open Sloan's garbage, just delete. I think that whatever else Sloan is up to, he seems nuts as well. My tip would be to stay away -- no contact. We cannot even have peace on the Forum. If you have any tips for me, please post Have a good rest of the weekend. Salud!
I always keep in mind that DeSantis and Abbott are immensely disliked. Even in their own states. And they wouldn’t get anywhere in other states. Most of them would reject them based on their Covid and abortion stances. The anti-abortion crowd is much smaller than the right wing bots and trolls would have you believe. I think Ted Cruz has a better chance than they do and he’s just a mean, petty man. There is no good Republican candidate and won’t be for a very long time.
Sorry, I'll stick my neck out on this one, but the entire 2016 Republican line-up of presidential candidates consisted of narcissistic perverts, they looked just like a police identity parade, and Cruz was about the worst specimen of all.
Then Agent Orange came along, doesn’t fit the usual pattern for these two-faced perverts who cultivate a smooth public appearance, are systematically cruel to underlings whenever they can get away with it, fawn upon those more powerful… while DT is as nasty as he looks, hides nothing and has only been seen to kowtow to Putin.
It worked so well for him that now the bastards are springing up like mushrooms after rain. The most deadly toxic varieties.
A distinguished psychiatrist whom I know described narcissistic perversion as the form taken by evil in our time.
Having to put up with these tarantulas (whether or not in angel’s disguise)?
I suppose that’ll depend on how long we humans keep letting ourselves get caught up in their sticky threads in other words forever… Bear in mind they’re dangerous to cops dangerous even to shrinks… A danger to all living things.
Even if they find enough straitjackets high-security jails high-security nuthouses padded cells dungeons oubliettes to contain this poisonous plague… more will scuttle out and take their place…
And if we’re not careful we’ll find ourselves doing time with ’em in their realtor-tarantulas’ hell…
Spider
I am the Great Intelligence.
I link, encircle, comprehend.
My walls have ears, my gutters, claws.
My fangs and gastric acids penetrate
The inner city’s maw.
I AM THE LAW.
And who are you?
Some half-digested morsel
In my larder.
I came here bearing presents, and shall leave
Only when there is nothing left to take.
My favours I bestowed, kisses and perfumed words,
Honey, dripping, dripping from my razor tongue,
Commingling with your blood.
You are just food. If I don’t eat you,
Others will, the cats, the rats,
The lice, the insects and the worms.
[Excuse me, I’ve had enough of maligning wolves whether in sheep’s grandma’s wolves’—even of Wall Street—clothing. I’m into maligning arthropods—but only because people don’t believe in demons even when they meet ’em…]
I see Rubio as a sleeper candidate. He already threw his hat in the ring for 2016. He’s supported the right wing crowd just enough to stay on their good side. Young, good-looking, speaks well and has a strong surface appeal to Hispanic voters.
Another of those vile creeps. Americans have been so conditioned by looking at fifth-class soaps that most couldn't tell a real human being from one of these lousy ham actors. Diogenes would have had a hard time searching for A MAN with a lantern in broad daylight.
Just look at people's body language. Conditioned. Conditioned. Conditioned. Conned. Conned. Conned.
What I just wrote sounds nasty. Why have it in for people who take refuge in conformism? I’ve already told in this place of a nice, intelligent woman I knew when we were young, who’d lived in Mexico and couldn’t understand how the descendants of the Maya who built such extraordinary cities in Central America could be “so stupid”.
I replied at the time that I doubted if they were stupid but they knew very well that if they didn’t look stupid they’d be dead…
Maybe the pressures to conform to a particular type of appearance aren’t quite so dire now, even after DT’s mass characterization of Latinos as rapists and criminals (“just like me, only I can get away with it, you can’t”); but if your facial features aren’t standard Waspish you’ll maybe want to keep a low profile… and try to look and behave—and, you think, VOTE—like “seen on TV”.
There are plenty of reasons for mimicking common behavior patterns, but they all signal an oppressive society inured to myths of ultra-individualism divided into alpha male “winners” and “loser” masses who dream of becoming winners and do the next best thing, joining the herd that follows that smart-looking boss man…
Appearances, appearances…
And “boss men”. From societies in which only "boss men" count.
Steve I find modest solace that Huey Long’s phony populist movement collapsed with his assassination. Alas, I fear that even an orange-suited prison uniform would not destroy Trump in the eyes of his cultists. I find comfort in listening to Billy Joel’s The Entertainer, who is on the edge of falling off the cliff. I’m happy to give him a shove.
Keith, I see that you are prowling around at this late hour. I'll take the opportunity to ask whether you read Eric Foner's Op in NY Times today about antitrust challenge to big tech? I'm going to comment about it tomorrow. Biden is working it!
"I saw an article yesterday stating that 5 or 6 of the top lawyers tasked with defending Trump in his various (very serious) legal troubles are either resigning or being fired. "
" “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” " is idiotic on the face of it. Who would use "force" against who? It is analogous to the idea that "liberals want to take guns away from people". Who would do the leg work of such an enterprise and who would turn over their guns? Actually, the only force that can restore Donald Trump to the presidency is his re-election. By the time of the next election he will have traveled down a path of so many lies, frauds, and felonious actions that he will be declared unfit to hold public office by criminal convictions and vast public contempt. In fact, at this moment, he is just shooting off his mouth to make money. The tragedy is the mass media is helping him do it for their own profit and to the detriment of our democracy and society. In a sense, Trump is the true virus raging through our country. The only vaccine to use against him is indifference, sadly not everybody is inoculated.
His Followers are far from indifferent, so we (and our representatives need to be VIGILANT).
Our indifference is how he came to power in the first place.
(I learned this lesson the hard way. I was persecuted by the government and fought the wrong battle. A wise pol explained it all to me in one sentence: "This is the government you got when you weren't looking.".
Hi Daniel. I agree with both “indifference” and “vigilant” as necessary attitudes. I agree with Tom as supporting something I’ve observed about President Biden. He has presented an attitude of ignoring, indifference, and an almost uncanny way of not even mentioning the former’s name. I like that merely because it doesn’t feed the media’s incessant attention on the former and personally, I relish the idea that it must make the former gnash his teeth and reach for another burger and steroid shot.
I believe our President has done the one thing that serves to negate the power of a bully. And that can be characterized as indifference, even if it is carefully orchestrated. I do not believe our President underestimates the situation in any way. But he is the one with executive privilege now and must recapture America’s focus.
Agree. And I support Atty Gen Merrick Garland and the DOJ team as re-formed under the current administration 100%. I dislike how slow the wheels of justice turn as most do but that’s why checks and balances are designed in any system with moving parts.
My comments about Pres Biden support your comment about attacking. But tactics play a huge roll during current “crisis”. What I have said repeatedly is “the media is not the place to attack from”. It is a role that many social media and mainstream media outlets have assumed for $ and entertainment’s sake.
It makes sense to me, when the entire platform of the current so called “Republican Party” is to annihilate the “libs”, then don’t engage. Keep your head down and do your work and not get drawn into their wanna be ridiculous battle.
I’ve been asking this question for months. What do folks think this “civil war” they are afraid of will look like. These raging Trumpsters do not have the courage of a jihadist. They will not go against our military unless they are just lacking any brains at all. But, then I read this and do believe this is what TFG and friends have been trying to do for years is incite the mentally unfit to take out minorities in public places. They have zero/zilch sense of morality. They do not comprehend this is murder. TFG has brainwashed them to believe this is how to fight. It is beyond evil. There are no words. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/jan-6-has-given-the-right-hundreds-of-new-martyrs/
It is a civil war IN THEIR HEADS. Gives the purpose and a sence of solidarity. I also agree that it is the extremely marginalized, not just those simply disaffected, who act out violently.
I keep coming back to our first incident in the neighborhood. That was handled and resolved so beautifully, that even though I am disappointed in this "break through" virus making it here, we are immunized.
The “in their heads” makes sense for the aggressors, but my question is asking those on the side of democracy, what do they see a “civil war” in 2021 looking like due to these “ragers” with guns?
I see it as a civil war. And lest we forget how easily it could become problematic, I'd like to point out McCarthyism... And now this debacle of the last four years.
Obama really pissed in Donnie Tramp's Cheerios, at that Press Club Dinner. And this carnival barker came to the fore with his cult.
LOL Debby that’s an excellent interpretation. Many in the community use it to refer to The Former Guy. In my mind I am thinking of a different F word though.
It's usually the former guy since like me, many people refuse to use his name. In fact, I never referred to him by his name or by the title president while he was occupying the WH.
I have only uttered his name about 4 times in the last 5 years and that was by mistake, TFG to me means that fucking goon, pardon my French, as it were 🤷♂️😎 He’s way pasted loathing, that was step one and we have been on a long journey.
Oh, I use that same word often in referring to death star and his minions. I have run out of words to say how much I loathe him. I sometimes think about all the wonderful names that the Scots have come up with for him. I did see one this week that I liked Trumplethinskin.
Trump wanted to employ the Military for his own ends. He had already used force against the protesters in DC, was advocating violence against BLM protesters during the summer of 2020 and there were those mysterious white vans rounding people up in Portland.
A lot of press is being given to Milley circumventing Trump from pushing the button. It is important to note Milley's public statemen on October 11, 2020: "As the presidential election looms, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells NPR's Morning Edition that the military plays no role in politics, and that he has complete trust in America's institutions to manage election disputes.
"We have established a very long 240-year tradition of an apolitical military that does not get involved in domestic politics," Milley told NPR's Steve Inskeep on Sunday.
Milley, who has said in statements to Congress that he wants to stay out of all election disputes, tells NPR that he is "very confident in the resilience of the American institutions and the American government and the American people's adherence to the principles of rules of law."
"This isn't the first time that someone has suggested that there might be a contested election," Milley said. "And if there is, it'll be handled appropriately by the courts and by the U.S. Congress. There's no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election. Zero. There is no role there."
"Trump wanted to employ the Military for his own ends. He had already used force against the protesters in DC, was advocating violence against BLM protesters during the summer of 2020 and there were those mysterious white vans rounding people up in Portland."
In the summer of 2020 Trump was testing the waters to see just how far he could push the envelope. Having Milley walk beside him to Lafayette Square was supposed to signal the military's support of the use of force. Thank the gods it backfired.
I and others have personally thanked General Mark Milley in phone calls and personal notes for publicly taking blame for his walk with the former president and also for standing up to him. Wishing more people would show the courage of a Mark A. Milley.
“He had an army. An army for Trump. He wants that back, “ Brad Parscal, Trump’s former campaign manager said privately in July 2021. “I don’t think he sees that as a comeback, he sees it as vengeance.” (On the back cover of Woodward and Costa’s book “Peril”)
“… 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.””
In my experience, one cannot reason with the unreasonable. Biden and Democratic lawmakers tried using the carrot. Now it’s time to use the stick.
Time to use the law against Trump. Including the NY lawsuits regarding taxes. What has come of that. But also just combine the crimes that all underlings are on the hook for, and indict the leader of the gang already!
Trump is trying to exert Executive Privilege regarding his taxes. Besides that, his lawyers will do the accepted lawyerly thing to do for Defense Attorneys: delay, delay, delay hoping time will make it all go away, or at least whittle it down to insignificant charges.
I’m ok with the stick as long as we understand that NORC is actually, like most polls, a sampling of only about 500 of each party. Whom do you trust to get into a poll sample and lie?? How many on the repub side are trolls?? We know that only a handful of people are responsible for huge numbers of social media posts. How do we get the real truth out when people watch a live insurrection on tv and deny it happened? Time for them to take off their aluminum foil antennas and wake up or crawl back under their rocks. They are treasonous, heinous, unAmerican, lying bullies in love with greed and power and a sleezebag whose only true statement in 4 years was You Knew I was a Snake. Let’s roll Senators!
For serious insurrection cases which are proved beyond doubt, public corporal punishment (not severe) along with some jail time or public service to make financial reparations might not be a bad idea.
For serious treason though, they should lose their wealth and citizenship at the very least, their life at the most.
I draw the line at the death penalty, but yes, they deserve to be totally disenfranchised and made penniless for life. Gitmo has always been my choice for their confinement. Then again, a firing squad...wouldn't that be just desserts for the traitors who have bastardized the intent of the second amendment?
I just think some people are too dangerous to live. For severe acts of treason, such as attempting to overthrow a democracy preferred by majority, it can be presumed they will never stop trying - even in prison.
It's important to remember that some of that 74m voted for the Republican presidential candidate and would have if it had been you or me. The dfp's support has never been as massive or monolithic as it appears and that is why he and his clique can be beaten. Democrats will have to come up with a very strong and principled candidate in '24 and run a tight campaign without the internal bickering that has delayed House action on everything.
"All of these subpoenas focus on Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection. They are a significant ratcheting up of the investigation."
That was a significant birthday present for me yesterday. It appeared as though all these wheels were taking far too long to turn and reveal what we all know to be true: that 45 and his pack of treasonous Aldrich Ameses belong behind bars. We just don't know all the how's, whys, and wherefores! Thank you, dear Prof. for spelling out their dirty roles and filthy deeds.
A fabulous birthday present, indeed! The sweetness of that cupcake should linger for a long while. I got it, too. The Committees are onto something sweet, for sure. Maybe the DOJ isn't sleeping, after all. 🎂
Ooooo. I just did a toast to you with my morning coffee, Rowshan. Happy Birthday, friend. I was just thinking lately as I saw someone blowing out their birthday candles after making a wish…..I’ll bet a lot of birthday wishes going to the Universe this year have to do with an ardent restoring desire of late for peace, unity, joy, abundance.
These guys are amazing. How they, in our faces, commit treason and incite another insurrection. Who is this Mitch McConnell and what does Trump or Putin have on him? Why won’t he and all republican elected officials stand up for our constitution?
Mitch McConnell, to me, is a lawyer who relishes power and knows how to manipulate the law to achieve his ends. He will manipulate to the extent that he says that he IS standing up for the constitution and that those who oppose him are not.
“According to a new poll by NORC at the University of Chicago, 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.”
And that means that some 74% of those surveyed believe Biden won property and some 92% are against the use of force.
Decent, intelligent, well informed people are clearly in the majority.
I 100% agree that we must continue to exercise our right to vote. We had a stupendous turnout in the 2020 election.
Here is the dark side. The Republican Legislatures in a number of states are enacting laws whose purpose is to suppress voting opportunities and to NULLIFY election results and reassign the outcome to their desired results.
We desperately need to pass voter protection laws. This begins at the federal level. Call and write Congress! Urge them to pass vote protection legislation!
Here are Jamelle Bouie's thoughts on the upcoming elections in today's New York Times. It is an excellent article. Here is a piece of it:
"It was always possible, theoretically, to manipulate the rules to seize power from the voters. Now, it’s a live option. And with the right pieces in place, Trump could succeed. All he needs is a rival slate of electoral votes from contested states, state officials and state legislatures willing to intervene on his behalf, a supportive Republican majority in either house of Congress, and a sufficiently pliant Supreme Court majority.
As it happens, Trump may well run for president in 2024 (he is already amassing a sizable war chest) with exactly that board in play. Republican state legislatures in states like Georgia and Arizona have, for example, used claims of fraud to seize control of key areas of election administration. Likewise, according to Reuters, 10 of the 15 declared Republican candidates for secretary of state in five swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada — have either declared the 2020 election stolen or demanded that authorities invalidate the results in their states. It is also not unlikely that a Republican Party with pro-Trump zealots at its helm wins Congress in November of next year and holds it through the presidential election and into 2025."
I think that Trump will wait until midterms are over to see which way the wind is blowing. If the Republicans take the Congress , he will run with the confidence that regardless of the popular vote, he will be appointed President. 😩
If partisan legislatures or election boards in Republican-controlled purple states are empowered to throw out results that show Democrats winning, will voting be enough?
Congress cannot act to protect the vote. To do that, there would need to be at least two more Democrats in the Senate to get past the refusal of Manchin and Sinema to eliminate the filibuster. Even more than two might be required because there may be some senators (Feinstein, for example, who is long past her sell-by date) hiding behind Manchin and Sinema to avoid revealing their support for the filibuster. It would be far worse, though, without the miracle in Georgia. If either Democrat running for the Senate in Georgia had failed to win in 2020, McConnell would be calling all the shots, and Congress would be able to do absolutely nothing (as opposed to almost nothing).
The law suits in GA concerning voter suppression will not be decided before the midterm election which is very upsetting. Kemp has also called meetings to redraw lines so that in state legislator elections Republicans will be guaranteed to win. Because justice takes so long, they are changing everything they possibly can, incredibly frightening as there is no way to stop this.
That conviction will come in handy in 2022, but I wonder if the former president isn’t stoking it for a more immediate reason.
As Brad Parscale told Woodward and Cost: "I don't think he sees it as a comeback. He sees it as vengeance."
I always get a laugh out of the fact that the best radio interview I ever did for one of my books was for "The Bridgebusters: the True Story of the Catch-22 Bomb Wing." The interviewer had definitely read it all, he must have underlined the scenes he really liked, and he was genuinely enthusiastic when he told the listeners it was one of the best books he'd ever read.
That was Steve Bannon, six weeks before Trump hired him in 2016.
Interesting. A very strange fish, Bannon. My memory, as politically traumatized as it is, points to an equally strange, but bigger fish, Robert Mercer (hedge fund algorithms and data mining tech developer) funds Bannon and Breitbart. He also is a heavy funder (high stakes owner) of the TFG. He introduced Bannon and Kellyanne to TFG and secured their positions in campaign and administration. A short, cursory search brought up a NYT article that that is the most concise information tying Mercer to so many despicable things that are reflected the past presidency, including: "Trump issued perhaps the most incendiary statement of his Presidency: a tweet calling the news media “the enemy of the American people.”(https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency). From purporting the safety of nuclear bombs, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, Citizens United -- which purports Mercer's highest philosophy— wealth supremacy above all else. Everyone else is expendable--which makes me wonder about the promotion of Coronavirus... TFG's approach, his tweets and his rants spout all things "Mercer." Putin used Cambridge Analytica (Mercer developed) for his data mining and troll farming. So he and Mercer may have a bromance, I reckon. Anyone can be bought--even the presidency and the republicans. It appears that Mercer holds significant, high-stake purse strings to the downfall of our democracy....but, what do I know?
The sheer number of Middle Earth orcs serving within and surrounding the Tя☭mp administration should tell all what kind of world they would create given the chance. There are none who will see anything other than the 9th Circle in Dante's inferno.
Thanks for posting this, Penelope. I often wonder what dark money funds tfg, and often wonder about the Mercers, who seem to stay off the radar even while they support and profit from tfg's nefarious destructiveness.
Hi Penelope. I could be wrong but I read somewhere that the Mercers (Robert & daughter Rebekah), among others, had stopped funding Bannon. Of course that doesn't mean they aren't continuing to fund the Big Lie and TFG( The Former Guy), as you point out.
I just looked that idea up. Yes, the Mercers stopped backing him when he crossed Trump. They withheld support for him. But Bannon appears to have risen again for the Jan. 6th insurrection-- so I would not hold my breath who is funding whom —as long as they prop up TFG. It makes me nauseated that monied wackos can create such havoc. Someone needs to investigate the Mercers and Kochs and a lot of our elected officials' bank accounts or sudden assets in real estate. Whatever happened with the Deutsche Bank investigations??
Again and again, I lay blame on the block of American voters who swallowed the Big Lie. The gullibility meter is off the charts. It's much bigger than McCarthyism. There is an increasing inability of some to distinguish truth from lies--or, worse yet, they know in their guts that Trump is lying but political expediency supersedes their moral character. As a nation, we are losing our souls.
When situations are complex, like most things in life, it’s much easier to believe ‘The Big Lie’ and conspiracy theories. They are simple, white vs. black w/no shades of gray. The one thing that gets me, though, is how are GOP Chump loonies, elected on the same ballot w/Chump complaining that the election was fraudulent, stolen, etc?
I think some of us lost or never had souls, but there is also the argument that all of this is causing many if not most of us to scrutinize our values, pay more attention to our politics, and not take anything for granted/value our democracy.
Your comments resonate with me. I'm not much of a moralist, but it also seems as though Trump people have abandoned even their own obvious interests in service of devotion to their sense of grievance. There seems no point in calling out the abject stupidity of supporting the interests of oligarchs hoping that their control of our country would improve their circumstances.
About a year ago (give or take) Professor Richardson mentioned a book written in the early 1950's by Eric Hoffer, "The True Believers". It was one of President Eisenhower's favorite books, and he insisted that people close to him and his Cabinet read it. It is a discourse on mass movements and serves to explain the ways in which holding tightly to an individual's identity/belief that they are being "threatened" can explain how there is a descent into fanaticism. The first time I saw it applied was with conservative Christians who are of the "true belief" that Christianity is under attack. You can sub in the "big lie" believers for Christians, and there's solid ground for arguing they are heading towards demanding an authoritarian government to "right the wrongs".
Ally, thanks for the reminder of the continuing relevance of "old heads" like Hoffer. His aphoristic style often leaves out important complexifying details, but at the same time the distillation leads me to stop and reflect. You might also like his follow-up "The Passionate State of Mind" (1955). One nugget struck me for today's discussions:
"The times of drastic change are times of passion. We can never be fit and ready for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem; we undergo a test; we have to prove ourselves. A population subjected to drastic change is thus a population of misfits, and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of passion."
Hi Ally. The Book of Revelation describes a scenario in which the fearful people of the world welcome an authoritarian savior and a high priest who usher in a global theocratic government. And then…
“Buyer beware” and “Be careful what you ask for” and “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” (or ride) come to mind.
I agree with you that the smarter ones know it’s a lie. But you see Democrats are/ have been the “Deep State “ for yrs and they justify it all hating that ‘Evil ‘ more.A Survey was passed around in D.C. yrs ago. All who participated were anonymous. They used a fake reason for it as the questions were structured to identify Sociopaths or Psychopath. 65% were Socio. Some borderline and 15% could be classified as Psycho. That goes back like 20 yrs ago ??????
In my observations, for many people in myriad denominations, abortion is a singular, blinding and highly divisive denominator. And the author of conflict and divisions is… 👿
“… 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.””
The technical term for this situation is "pre-insurrectional."
Right. For those like me who had to do some quick Google work: between the national guard and the military, it seems we have about 1.8 million Americans, or about 0.5% of our population, currently in service. I wonder what the overlap is with those 8% who think the use of force is warranted, and how high up the chain of command it lies.
What percentage of the German people, I wonder, were actual hard-core, bloodthirsty Nazis before Hitler and company grabbed power? I'll bet it wasn't a majority. The Fascist (formerly Republican) Party doesn't need a majority or anything like it to wipe out representative government and replace it with a hereditary dictatorship. They already tried once. They'll try again.
If voter intimidation doesn't work, they're resort to actual violence. If that doesn't work, Fascist Party legislatures will simply nullify opposition votes. How do the rest of us defend ourselves and the nation against these people?
It is past time to continue to soft pedal what happened leading up to and on January 6. The DOJ needs to bring charges against all involved, including the crime boss Tя☭mp, head of this whole scheme, for conspiracy to commit a coup. I do not care that Republicans will claim it is political persecution. The retort should be, “No, it’s prosecution, and warranted based on the facts of the cases.”
More about the NORC poll on theconversation.com link: First, NORC pulls together a panel of 40,000 people, called AmeriSpeak, who are representative of the entire U.S. population on dozens of characteristics, such as age, race, income, location of residence and religion. From that representative sample, NORC drew a random sample – in our case, 1,070 people.
And immediately a headline follows about what AMERICANS believe. This to me is shockingly wrong, incendiary, downright depressing reporting and I don’t care how pollsters twist themselves into knots saying it is legit. Please HCR, can you add poll sample numbers prominently to your reporting and help us lower our blood pressure and stop making repubs feel like they are so powerful. 80 million eligible people did not even vote. Actually around 500 repubs were in the survey. Tulsi Gabbard and others know how to get into poll samples. It’s not so holy.
Polls are only as good as their details. W/o sample size, demographics and standard deviations, polls are useless. Their results used for clickbait and fodder for the ‘newspapers/news shows’.
Bottom line: those numbers look disturbingly real. And it doesn't take a majority or anything like it to create a violent terrorist movement. The far right already has a cult ready to sacrifice their own health and even their own lives to COVID-19 because they have been told to do so. They won't hesitate to start killing the rest of us.
I hear the drums rolling in the distance. This is the warning sign that the bipartisan Select Committee is coming to “git” those sorry-ass hateful fools. Adam Schiff reported that if they disobey a federal order to appear, there are other means that can be used to persuade them. Whips? Chains? Oh sorry…I got carried away! Hopefully Schiff meant that they will be arrested for failure to comply. Let’s get this show on the road and get to the bottom as to why they are protecting Fake 45.
I agree, but then the cautionary person in me reminds me that the wheels of justice grind very slowly and that can apply to Congressional Select Committees as well.
The more they delay, the closer to the midterms we get. Given the American attention span, maybe that’s not all bad. If I were them, I’d get it over with now and gamble that people will forget. Unless, of course, their testimony puts them in jail.
But will the committee have the you-know-what to enforce those subpoenas when the various recipients blow them offI won’t believe they will until, I see it.
A group of young men in Jacksonville, Florida, arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in 1900. My brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, and I decided to write a song to be sung at the exercises. I wrote the words and he wrote the music. Our New York publisher, Edward B. Marks, made mimeographed copies for us, and the song was taught to and sung by a chorus of five hundred colored school children.
Shortly afterwards my brother and I moved away from Jacksonville to New York, and the song passed out of our minds. But the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country. Today the song, popularly known as the Negro National Hymn, is quite generally used.
The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children.
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
thanks for posting this, Fern. I memorized all the verses 5 or so years ago on my early morning walk so I could sing it in church (our church sings it often) without looking at the words. it wasn't easy, but worth the work: By recalling g them or singing to myself, I can now lift my spirits on walks or anytime I need to.
This song rings of past bravery, vision and of youth as it bolsters present struggles and our determination for freer tomorrows. What a supreme choice for church singing, MaryB of Pasadena.
there should be more places that practice radical inclusion and work toward truth and justice. All Saints-Pasadena: "We are committed to audacious examination and challenging of power and privilege in the world and in our church to pursue truth relentlessly not for retribution but toward trust and reconciliation. We choose love over fear to overcome prejudice and promote healing to redress oppression and to restore environmental equilibrium." Idealistic? Optimistic? Of course!
I was with a group of people last night, a political caucus of sorts. One commenter made mention of this song, deriding it as treasonous that “black people now need their own national anthem? What’s wrong with the Star Spangled Banner?”
I had to reply…”Nothing at all. This hymn, a beautiful poem in fact, was originally written to honor Lincoln decades ago at a celebration. I took a fancy to it the first time I heard it sung by a children’s gospel choir.”
Your response, Christine, was with charity and personal witness. The challenge is how to deal with ignorance without compounding it with rejection and anger.
While reading this, I can't help but think of all the time, effort and funds being spent to both to perpetuate and stop the 'Big Lie' while our world crumbles down around us due to climate change and the people dying due to the inability to work together in an effort to control this epidemic. There are certainly some in power intent on destruction.
This is why I call the R party, the party of death....death of individuals from the virus which are now preventable, death of our democracy, and death of the planet.
All the more fitting that McConnell calls himself "The Grim Reaper"!
I’m stealing this for FB. I’m guessing you won’t mind in the least. 😁❤️
Please do. I post this all the time on Facebook.
Thanks, Michele. I riffed on it today, too.
I was put in FB's jail several times for writing about Zelenko and hydroxychloroquine and zinc. In my opinion the Left and its media and Fauci and Big Pharma caused America as much harm as Trump, the January 6 mob, the MAGAs and the Republicans.
Subscribers, LFAA does have software, which would block disinformation. The following represents information from a highly reputable sources of medical science:
'Recently, several physicians hosted a press conference in which one physician claimed that the combination of hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin and the mineral zinc could cure COVID-19. The video footage of that press conference went viral on social media, and soon many social media platforms removed the videos for providing inaccurate, non-scientifically backed claims. But questions from the public may still remain.
According to Johns Hopkins experts, there are no significant clinical trials to date showing that these drugs are an effective treatment against COVID-19. At least three controlled, large trials showed either no advantage or higher risk of cardiovascular complications in patients receiving the drug.
“Patients infected with COVID-19 often have compromised heart and vascular systems, and receive other drugs that can interact with hydroxychloroquine and can put patients at increased risk of arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats,” says cardiologist Oscar Cingolani, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “These cardiovascular side effects in some COVID patients aren’t often seen in patients receiving the drug for other purposes like autoimmune disorders, so therefore the safety observed in these other patients can’t be inferred for COVID-19 patients.”
To date, Johns Hopkins physicians endorse the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on not using these drugs for treatment of COVID-19.' (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Newsroom)
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/covid-19-story-tip-hydroxychloroquine-not-recommended-for-treatment-of-covid-19
Q: Are chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine sulfate approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19?
A: No. Hydroxychloroquine sulfate and some versions of chloroquine phosphate are FDA-approved to treat malaria. Hydroxychloroquine sulfate is also FDA-approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
On March 28, 2020, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate to treat adults and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 for whom a clinical trial was not available or participation was not feasible. Based on FDA’s continued review of the scientific evidence available, the criteria for an EUA for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate as outlined in Section 564(c)(2) of the FD&C Act are no longer met. As a result, the EUA for these two drugs was revoked on June 15, 2020. Read more about this action. (FDA)
Excellent counter move, Fern. I salute you.
Thanks SL.
Correction: '...LFAA does not have software to block...'
Darn! I was hoping we had a troll/aggravation solution.
You're correct, authors of content pages are the only ones who can block a commenter. 😐
What's LFAA?
Thank you, Fern. It would be nice if LFAA could block some blather here, but I'm guessing that we can manage to find reality on our own in most cases.
It repels me as well, particularly on the forum where we work hard to share and learn from one another.
Thank you Fern.
My husband's name, given by the soldiers in his company, was 'Indy'. He died in 2018. When I see your name, Terry, '(Indy)', there is often a tear and a smile on my face. You know, I not thinking of Indiana.
Link to a New York study of using hydroxychloroquine with and without zinc:
https://www.neurologyinsights.com/2020/12/01/study-zinc-hydroxychloroquine-combination-reduces-covid-19-mortality-rates/
He's talking about treating at risk patients this way, older people and younger people with serious medical problems. He did not treat low risk covid patients with hydroxychloroquine and zinc.
I don't think those patients were treated nearly as quickly as Dr. Zelenko treated his patients. His explanation in the YouTube I furnished early of treatment before Covid-19 sets in around day 6 is ... devastating, if treatment is delayed
Here is a link to a recent YouTube interview of Dr. Zelenko, I'm about 20 minutes into it, he's describing how this began for him and how he responded and why, and now he and Trump and Mark Meadows got involved, and now he's talking about why there was so intense blow back which at first made no sense to him. I've heard all of this in other YouTube interviews of him. If this man is a liar, then he's a darn good one. But I leave for you to watch the YouTube, or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhLD1P5nH30
Was wrong about length of presentation, it's over 100 minutes. He's covering the basis, including his own nearly dying from medical troubles, and now he's explaining the hydroxychloroquine and zinc dynamic. All I have heard from him before.
Here's the text of an email from a friend who has a friend working in CDC:
Dear Sloan: I know a young woman who is a MD. She chose to work for the CDC and became an epidemiologist. Her comment on COVID is that the best thing anyone can do is to continue with a prophylactic regime as recommended by Dr. Zelenko. There are multiple subtypes of COVID, alpha and delta and gamma variants are the most commonly occurring. Because they have different RNA sequences, they also have no guarantee that the vaccines people have taken will protect them. Commingling of these subtypes of COVID could result in a superbug version of COVID- such a consequence could prove disastrous. In addition, her comment on vaccine side effects is that we do not have enough data on people properly and completely vaccinated. Look at the population 18+ and the number who reported receiving the vaccine. We simply don't have a complete enough picture to determine the whether the vaccine is responsible for the problems reported. At the same time, we cannot dismiss the allegations of severe complications due to taking the vaccine- that would be terribly irresponsible. We do need to examine the cofactors that could possibly cause vaccine complications.
Here's a link to my blog post that contains a photo of Dr. Zelenko and his March 23, 2020 letter to All World Health Professionals, cc President Donald J. Trump and Mark Meadow, Chief of Staff. This is the lies and quackery I am spreading. If the New York Medical Board thought it was lies and quackery, they would have been all over Dr. Zelenko.
https://afoolsworkneverends.blogspot.com/2021/09/dr-zelenkos-letter.html
You know that you're talking Science...
...right?
Your opinion has no basis in reality. Or, rather, it's based on your ideologically-driven alternate reality, in which the real world has no place.
Ultimately, one's views are either based on reality and routinely tested against it. Or they are based on what one wants or needs to believe and never tested against reality. Indeed, reality is something to be ignored or, at best, selectively edited to conform to ideology. It's called confirmation bias.
My experience is that there is no way past this bias.
Who’s reality?
Everybody shares they same reality. Opinions may differ, but facts are the same for everyone.
Elaine Hewitt, our drop-in Rusky troll. How I’ve missed you.
You still haven’t said whether you’re related to that formerly reliable conservative radio talk-show host, now flaming Orange Menace apologist Hugh Hewitt. (Who’s sadly swallowed the red pill.)
You don't get a personal reality, sorry. Unless you're delusional, of course.
And, rightfully so for spreading disinformation and lies.
And while FB puts those who post misinformation in jail. Our governor makes one our new surgeon general. This is his approach as reported in Tampa Bay Times yesterday:
“Here is my prescription for local and state leaders: Keep shutdowns short, keep the economy going, keep schools in session, keep jobs intact, and focus single-mindedly on building the capacity we need to survive this into our health care system,” Ladapo wrote. He opposes mask and vaccine mandates while advocating unproven treatments.
In other words, let Covid rip through the population and just build more hospital capacity.
While we’re at it, might as well stop wearing seatbelts, remove speed limits and stop signs, make smoking in public places legal, sell guns to anyone who wants one. Just build more hospitals.
Wouldn't be so bad if it affected only his party. Morons!
"We're gonna need a bigger morgue."
Being put in FB jail is not the Badge of Honor that you think it is.
I beg to differ. I've had multiple accounts deleted for "dealing in guns, drugs, or other contraban on the Facebook platform". All from pushing back on trump-sheep. Never sold a thing on Facebook in my life.
OK. It is NOT an honor when bestowed. It is ONLY an honor for one who earned it.
Not that it matters, of course, since you are obviously just trolling here to generate traffic to your blog.
My blog has very little traffic. Older blogs had much more traffic. A friend told me about Heather's letters and suggested I should check that out, so I did, and I found someone writing her guts, heart and soul out, putting herself in the crosshairs of legions of loonies mostly in the red spectrum. I really admired and respected that. I admired and respected that Heather's allowed her readers to comment freely. I once read the very mostly white right wing Patriot Post. The readers there really didn't like me, then I asked how many of them were not white people? Oh, that didn't go over well. There were lots of right wing comments, some really strung out. I was the only commenter who was not right wing. I quit participating, because what I viewed as patriotism was nothing like their view. And, because I wondered if they might retaliate against me through people I cared about. Later, the owner of that platform disallowed reader comments. I emailed him that he wasn't much on free speech. He did not reply.
You sound as nutty as a Trumper.
Robert, if you’re referencing SB’s BS above (Fauci caused as much harm as iDJT?!?!), I completely agree with your take.
Yes, absolutely.
I think there's no "as" involved. I would bet money Bashinsky is a true believer is Trumpism. Or maybe just a paid troll. Hard to tell the difference.
Heh, I think Donald Trump is a grotesque, despicable human being, who, along with his white supremacist mob that assaulted, breached and invaded the Capitol on January 6, should have been shot dead months ago. I started banging Trump on my blog and on Facebook in 2015, and never let up. I have banged him here. He and his fanatical mobs caused me to fear for the physical safety of my children, and that is one reason I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden. The other reason was Biden at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. I put that on blog and Facebook many times, as well.
I have been called nutty and worse by Trumpers, and conservative Christians, and Republicans, and liberal Christians, and Democrats, and lots more "sects".
Troll sensors activated
Not to put too fine a point on it, but being dismissed as a nut by a wide spectrum of people of vastly differing viewpoints is not, in fact, a point in your favor. It is, in fact, rather the opposite. And labeling everyone who suggests you are a loony as a member of a "sect" doesn't change that.
Seriously?!!
I use preemptively zinc, sovereign silver and a few other well tested supplements.
Have you gotten the vaccine that has prevented thousands of deaths yet Elaine?
Don't forget your copper bracelet, essential oils, and Pirelli's Miracle Elixir.
Agreed agreed agreed! Thank you for your courage. You’ll get more harsh razzing for this. Stay strong!
He deserves all of it for spreading lies about a dangerous pandemic. So do you if you believe that drivel.
How many more people have to die and how badly stressed does our medical system have to become before you people start facing reality instead of pushing your quackery and paranoia?
I have seriously had it with you fools.
I'm used to harsh razzing. What I hope still is something will change and hydroxychloroquine and zinc will be freely available without prescription. That would really infuriate Big Pharma and its captured federal agencies.
I take hydroxychloroquine for light eruptions, and you would not believe the hassles I have been experiencing trying to obtain my meds due to shortages and restrictions of dispensing 16 tablets at a time. So forgive me for not taking you seriously on this misinformation.
Big Pharma is not a friend of the people who need certain prescriptions, but that doesn't mean you should push ineffective remedies of the virus. If you've got a gripe against Big Pharma (and many do) attack them for exorbitant prices on drugs. But don't push your pet remedies, for whatever reason.
Unfortunately for America and humanity, Trump was handed a cheap, 5-da early stage Covid-19 infection cure in March 2020, which led to the Hassidic doctor Vladimir Zelenko, who developed it in his very large family practice in a tightknit Hassidic New York community being interviewed by Sean Hannity and Trump promoting the cure on Television. Then, came massive Democrat and its media and Dr. Fauci, CDC, WHO, The Lancet, FDA and Big Pharma, CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media witch hunts, which killed the cheap fast early stage infection cure that would have saved America and humanity from Red China's bioweapon. Trump could have used the power off his office to make the cure freely available to all people in America, but he caved to the political pressure and went for Operation Warp Speed, which, heh, his much of his own base rejected, as did more Republicans than Democrats and Independents. The cheap 5-day cure, which saved the doctor's patients from even going to hospitals, if they were treated as soon as symptoms appeared, even before testing positive, was hydroxychloroquine, zinc and azithromycin. HCQ transports zine into body cells, where zinc inhibits C-19 replication. Azithromycin dealt with any secondary infection. No big money to made in that by Big Pharma.
The last thing that anyone here wants are insane people like you pushing this abject stupidity.
Fauci was struggling to work in the middle of Trump's smoke & mirrors bullshit as Americans paid the price with their lives, and idiots- like you- assisted in disseminating this propagandist manure.
Enough. Seek help. Get medicated. Dry up and blow away.
He's a conspiracy theorist of the first order. I had a look at his substack postings. Pay him no mind.
Indeed, Robert!!
(And I am well acquainted with legitimate, career, legal professionals who can factually speak to SB’s decades-long, whackadoo BS.)
This sort of thing really makes it difficult for people (like myself) who have to help guide less than astute people safely through things like this. And I mainly have to deal with my own family members. What Trump and his cult have done is not only tragic, but criminal, in my personal opinion.
I wonder if those career legal professionals saw themselves in my 3rd book, KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? A CLIENTS GUIDE TO HIRING, FIRING, USING AND SUING LAWYERS? Prentice-Hall Division of Simon & Shuster?
(sigh) While I can see why your approach has generated so much outright rejection, I mislike simply calling names and yelling, "Go Home!" Nevertheless, you should not, Mr. Bashinsky, be making so many outre and complicated assertions without some citation to authority. You seem to be simply listing a bunch of baseless claims, then hoping the people on this forum will to the work of fact-checking you.
No dice, sir. You wanna make claims that a 5-day regimen of oral medications can kill a virus attack in delicately vascularized deep lung tissue? Go right ahead, but cite your sources. Who is this Dr. Zelenko who has done in his little clinic what 20 years of research into SARS-CoV infections has not been able to do? Has he published his research? Does he have a website? If the combined efforts of the "Democrat and its media and Dr. Fauci, CDC, WHO, The Lancet, FDA and Big Pharma, CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media witch hunts" were marshalled to suppress news of this "miracle," where did you hear about it?
Again, quit being lazy and CITE YOUR SOURCES!
I'm actually amazed that it seems some or a lot readers here do not know about Dr. Zelenko. Yes, he published his research, and published more, and he did YouTube presentations, and it all was banned on Facebook. I have read online of a number of doctors using same cure for early stage infection getting same results. Note, early stage infection. I have heard of doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine off label, to bypass the pharmaceutical and medical boards, because they liked using hydroxychloroquine with zinc. I have read many studies slamming hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19, it's dangerous, it doesn't work. None of the studies used zinc with hydroxychloroquine, and without zinc, hydroxychloroquine isn't effective against Covid-19. Hydroxychloroquine its the caddy, zinc is Tiger Woods. Covid-19 does not like zinc. Hydroxychloroquine is so dangerous it has been used for decades to prevent and treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It is derived from chloroquine, which is derived from quinine, which is derived from the bark of a tree. I told a friend today that some of the people of this blog are as reactionary and hysterical as MAGAs and Evangelicals. Imagine what would have happened if President Trump had made Zelenko's cure freely available in April 2020. Imagine the bioweapon being stopped in its tracks. Imagine Trump being viewed a the guy responsible for that. He would have won the 2020 election in a LANDSLIDE!!! I detest the man. But he would still be president. Too damn bad Trump didn't have big enough balls to ignore the backlash against Zelenko's cure, which Trump himself took to prevent catching Covid-19 after some of his staff tested positive. Some doctor prescribed it for Trump. Later, after Trump caught Covid-19, he did not take the Zelenko cure and got and in really bad shape and was taken to ICU, where he was given Regeneron's new, still not yet approved for general use, very expensive monoclonal antibody treatment, which saved his sorry ass. Trump went for vaccines, which also were far more lucrative for Big Pharma than hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Now the irony, the right is a lot less vaccinated than the left. But from what I've heard on grapevines, the right and its doctors are more inclined to prescribe Zelenko's cure off label, and ivermectin, which Zelenko later came to say was a good early stage treatment. Also quercetin with zinc. Quercetin also transports zinc into body cells, and it does not require prescription. I've been taking quercetin and zinc since May 2020, and D-3, and I have not had even a sniffle. I also have now received 3 Pfizer shots. You folks who think I'm crazy might try doing your own research on Dr. Zelenko and his cure. There is gobs of stuff online. If you go looking for what agrees with you, then, well, isn't that way Republicans, MAGAs, Evangelicals, KKK, Nazis, Fascists, Communists do research?
Halllelujah! It's all on YouTube! Why didn't you say so in the first place?!
Looks like she lost you at "Source".....Oxford suggests...
Noun:
Similar: reference authority informant documentation
~ a book or document used to provide evidence in research
Zelenko ...so show us the studies...
it will be all the proof we need......
And, YouTube is NOT a source.
Counsel, Might there be some some cognitive hindrance concerning the defense's ability to coherently respond?
Google search "Dr. Zelenko" and read everything that comes up, and watch all the videos that come up, which will you a while. I am amazed that it seems you and all but one person in this discussion seem to know nothing about him. Plain and simple, because Trump touted Zelenko's cure (without naming Zelenko), the left's media and the left and medical-industrial complex went haywire. The left, because anything that made Trump look good was anathamea. The medical-industrial complex, because it had humongo;us money-making plans for new cures, vaccines, etc., which Dr. Zelenko's cure made unnecessary. I read article after article, supposedly scientific, slamming hydroxychloroquine as being dangerous (bull shit, it was used extensively for decades to treat and prevent malaria, and to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. I read article after article on studies showing hydroxychloroquine was inneffective against Covid-19. But none of the articles and studies had zinc in the study. Which, Zelenko kept saying was the key ingredient, the bullet, and hydroxychloroquine was the gun that shot the bullet into body cells, where the bullet inhibited coronavirus replication. In his March 23, 2020 letter to All World Health Professionals, copied to Trump and Mark Meadows, Zelenko mentined old research about zinc being effective against coronaviruses. He described his reasoning and how he evolved it and then used it to treat his patients. I see no vehicle for posting that letter here, but I'm happy to provide a copy to anyone who wants to see it; sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com. That letter was read to America by Sean Hannity, who interviewed Zelenko. The left and its media went haywire. Look like mass insanity to me. The right looks like mass insanity to me. Heather paints that beautifully most days. I don't belong to a political party, or to the left or to the right. I am not loyal to either side's cannons, liturgies, catechisms, rituals, mantras. I see both sides spinning and twisting. And I see the truth buried in both sides, but only the truth they wish to claim. One wee example. I was banged here for quoting Gloria Steinem saying the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. I was banged for not saying that saying came much earlier in time. And, it was a spin off of Jesus' words in the Godpels, Nobody here gave Steinem credit for saying it, but it's the title of one of her books, which I was obliged to point out a few times, and not a dent seemed to be made in the people who had banged me for quoting Steinem. i view that, Fern, as inanity. There is a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews that reminds me of you. It was addressed to Jewish followers of Jesus who had fallen into bad habits:
Hebrews 5:12 Although by this time you ought to be teachers ...https://biblehub.com › hebrews
Instead of eating solid food, you still have to drink milk. ... By now you should be teachers. Instead, you still need someone to teach you the elementary truths ...
Sloan, I’m curious if you have a medical license to go with your law license?
No, but Dr. Zelenko has medical license. He was maligned in many ways, but his results were not, to my knowledge ever challenged. I've read online and of other doctors getting same results with his cure. Cui bono?
The great problem with Dr. Zelenko's theory is that no one else was able to get the same results concerning these drugs. You must be able to repeat these studies in order to verify efficacy.
True. And I find it curious that they will incorporate the results of Zelenkos 'study,' and not the CDC studies on the vaccines...which, as we know, now are totally vetted from independent research.
Lots of doctors got same results, but most of them didn't care for medical board investigations and public witch hunts and did it off label. Some doctors took the risk of coming out publicly for using hydroxychloroquine with zinc, and they were banned from Facebook, You-Tube, just like Zelenko. If Zelenko had made up his "story", the New York State Medical Board would have had his hide. A Texas doctor who promoted hcq and zinc in front of the national
Capitol, the youtube of it went viral in minutes, internationally, then was killed by YouTube, was investigated by the Texas Medical Board, which later dismissed the investigation. That doctor was from Africa. Was a Trump fan. A minister. She gave a sermon on women having sex with demon sperm. In her spiritual history, that probably was something people believed in. The Bible speaks of angels coming down and having sex with human women. Anyway, looked to me that doctor failed to see the demon sperm that had infected Trump, which he was spewing everywhere and infecting tens of millions of Americans, while the doctor was vilified on national TV, even as she was saving people with Covid-19, using hydroxychloroquine and zinc, and she was not disciplined by her medical board.
“Agrowing body of clinical studies indicates that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective in treating COVID-19 and may actually increase mortality. The World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi, which sells hydroxychloroquine under the brand name Plaquenil, have all issued guidelines cautioning against the kind of early, prophylactic use of the drug that Trump has hyped and Zelenko advocates. On Friday a retrospective study of 96,000 COVID-19 patients on six continents, published in the medical journal The Lancet, found that hospitalized patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic—part of the drug combination Zelenko has plugged—were 45% likelier to die.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/documents-expose-fda-commissioners-interventions-on-behalf-of-trump
Thanks, Christy.
And a source or sources?
Hopefully your Key West contacts include Dr. Jack Norris. He’s addressed the issue thoroughly.
The Lancet withdrew its article after a flood of complaints shredded it as false and contrived
huh?
Right, Daniel?!
Sloan Bashinsky’s information is clear, detailed, and essentially correct. You could dispute the information he provides, but instead, the mob here calls him “insane,” an “idiot,” calls the information “abject stupidity” and “manure,” and wishes for his demise. Notice the response contains no content, just rage. Which side should we listen to, the one with information (which we can research and debate) or the one that wants to stone the witch?
Dr. Zelenko himself is clear and humble, with no apparent motive other than to help people (for which, of course, he is defamed by the New York Times.) Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are among the safest drugs the world has ever known. Hydroxychloroquine is 65 years old, prescribed to hundreds of millions with virtually no ill side effects. Ivermectin is 40 years old and has been called one of the three “wonder drugs” along with aspirin and penicillin. It also has been prescribed safely to hundreds of millions of people. From a 2011 paper (before COVID politics) from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which is supported and funded by the U.S. government:
“There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.”
It’s hard to know the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as COVID prophylactics or treatments because the media smear them as “dangerous” (“horse-de-wormer,” in the case of ivermectin). The Lancet published a study purporting to demonstrate the danger of hydroxychloroquine, which they had to retract because it was bogus. They hadn’t even tried to vet the source before they ran the article. Fauci (of course) cited the study favorably. He is a menace, telling us that “authority” is “science.” Not once have I heard him advocate for protecting old people, exploring novel treatments, or advising people to lose weight and improve their immune systems. He talks only of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines. He just likes being on TV, and he knows what will keep him there.
Seth Meyers does 20 minutes on the stupid and vile people who seek ivermectin as a treatment. I have a friend who has long-COVID. She had to call multiple pharmacists before finding one that would fill her doctor’s prescription, then had to drive 90 miles for it. Thank you, Seth Meyers and the New York Times.
The only thing wrong with these drugs is that they are inexpensive. Maybe they don’t help in every situation, but they certainly help in some, and we should be allowed to study and discuss the results. The media love huge corporations and expensive technology but they seem to have an irrational hatred of human beings.
Subscribers, please refer to medical science for information concerning our health. Unfortunately, another spreader of disinformation is among us. As we have advised, these are unfortunate distractions from the truth and our mission to work on behalf of democracy, addressing climate change, anti-abortion, anti-government, anti-taxes and anti-public health movements... you've got the drift. Salud!
Fern, I believe most subscribers don't need to be reminded to refer to medical science when dealing with health issues of any sort. The few odd ducks who come here to spread their propaganda are not taken seriously by (probably) 99.9% of the folks here. What is frightening folks on other pages who are less judicious and far more gullible and willing to swallow the swill presented to them by charlatans. That is who needs to be convinced to "step away from the door".
Daria, This particular “odd duck”, Ned, has come here expressly to find support for his thesis that we are a cavern of raging filth, and he has cherry picked numerous quotes of comments here to attempt to prove his point. Here’s a quote he used on his blog of one of your comments: “ Daria writes, “There is no real difference between the far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban. There are too many MAGA angry fat white men without masks yelling and threatening people with violence.” By far right, she probably means middle-of-the-road Republicans who support gay marriage and legalized pot, but she doesn’t elaborate.“
I debated to give any attention to him at all due to my age old self debate. Am I exposing it to light or just serving to elevate it. I know my intention but not the result. 🤷🏻♀️
It was unseemly yesterday for you to suggest that my comment was inappropriate and to assume that you know better that I what would and would not be of interest to subscribers. Your wish to direct my work is not welcome.
Thank you Fern! He’s been lurking awhile, and now painting this community with his own brush.
I'm guessing that deprivation of oxygen should render both "contributors" unable to continue their scholarly endeavors.
Look, Ivermectin is a very effective antiparasitic drug taken the world over to rid the body of certain intestinal parasites. Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial and is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other auto immune disorders. Both if these drugs are great for what they are used for. However, what's not great is people jumping on a bandwagon of anecdotally driven information peddled by anyone, MD, DO, DC, Veterinarian, Holistic Healer, etc. The internet is loaded with voodoo medicine and fake science sites; people pass bogus information to one another at the beauty salon, barbers, over coffee. There's no denying Big Pharma is a monster, but for God's sake, when a New York Doctor who has treated a small cohort of patients with Hydroxychloroquine says that it's a cure that does not qualify as a study. And frankly, why should anyone trust the results of Zelenko's little experiment? What else were his patients taking along with the Hydroxychloroquine?
Please, stop spreading unsound medical conjecture and advice. Please keep your conspiracy theories to yourself, on your own substack page. Thanks.
zinc and azithromycin. hydroxychloroquine transported zinc into body cells, which zinc does not do on its own. Zinc inhibited Covid-19 replication. Azithromycin killed any secondary infection. 5 days of that was the total treatment. It was given to patients as soon as they showed symptoms, before they tested positive. To wait and let Covid-19 was too risky. Once it set in good, all that could have helped them was heroic medicine. M*A*S*H revisited. That was before Regeneron developed it's really expensive monoclonal antibody treatment, which saved Trump after he caught Covid-19 and was forced by his doctor into ICU. He was a grave risk, but that was never reported in the news.
What that doctor did was a battlefield study with his own patients, who had Covid-19 and his cure saved them from going to hospitals even dying there. That doctor had no reason to make it up. Other doctors heard of him and used his cure. They became the Resistance against the Medical-Industrial Complex, which stood to make peanuts from the doctor's cure. Peanuts. If I say that doctor was inspired by God, would anyone here believe me? I bet lots of MAGAs and Evangelicals would believe me, if they didn't view me as the Devil incarnate, because of how much I detest Donald Trump and them.
And if, as SB says, Zelenko served his cocktail in the very early stage, "even before they tested positive", one has to wonder if it actually did some harm? If they hadn't yet tested positive, took the Koolaid, and THEN tested positive..........huh?
This corrects the article "RETRACTED: Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis" in Lancet, 32450107.
Retraction and republication: cardiac toxicity of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19
Christian Funck-Brentano, Lee S Nguyen, and Joe-Elie Salem”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7347305/
I take Hydrochloroquine and am tested yearly for blood, heart, and eye abnormalities that this drug can cause. I can't get it refilled unless I go through these evaluations. But, it works for my autoimmune disorder.
Science for the win! Thanks for posting this, Christy! (The herders here whose names start with “Chris” seem super sharp!)
Thank you for the compliment AshleyR but I do not want to be overestimated as super smart but trying hard to be as competent as possible in my own field. ❤️
Amen, Ned. Good darn luck getting through to the reactionaries here.
It isn't the prescribing of these drugs that is problematic. I use one of them regularly and it appears to keep my skin eruptions at bay. (I am also screened yearly for heart problems, blood disorders, and eye side effects due to this medication use because they are very common.) It is the supposed doctors that stepped forward to assign these medications as cures for COVID-19, and the rapid spread of this false information throughout the world that is the heart of this matter. This information was based on zero studies and evidence. Similar to drinking bleach or injecting sunshine into our veins.
Ned, the next time you quote me on your substack page please do so accurately. You attribute a comment to me that was not made by me. Please, do your homework. I will post the comment you attribute to me with the actual author's name as well as my own quote below. You wanna blog? Get your act together and do it right.
Cathy Learoyd (Texas)Sep 1
I agree. The far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban are basically indistinguishable. There are too many MAGA angry fat white men without masks yelling and threatening people with violence. With Rights come the responsibility to protect those rights for others. Otherwise it is anarchy.
My comment:
daria wilber (merida, yucatan)6 min ago
Christy, heres.my original post from 1 September. Ned obviously cannot be bothered to accurately quote me.
daria wilber (merida, yucatan)Sep 1
I need to think and collect my thoughts. The war in Afghanistan has taken a terrible toll on Afghan citizens, US Americans, and allies. There are loose ends which will result in additional lives being lost.
It is, first and foremost, time for every US American to understand that being a US American citizen is not a gift but something that takes dedication and commitment. That commitment includes not diminishing the intrinsic worth of another human being no matter where they live, the color of their skin or the god they believe in. Those of us who have sprung from immigrants, today or centuries ago, need to stop, take a breath and consider the fate of those Afghans (and others) who are desperate to land on US soil and live a "good life" - one where they and their children can learn and grow unencumbered by the politics of submission and hate.
There is no real difference between the far right, the evangelical right and the Taliban. They all are about curbing human and civil rights. We, in the US, have allowed bigotry and hate to percolate just below the surface for decades. When Trump became president he unleashed an unfathomable amount of hate and rage which infected millions around the country. We still, today, live with Trump's influence and stain.
My 67 years on this planet have been extraordinary in so many ways. I have been blessed. Even when I've struggled, I've believed in a better tomorrow and carried on. I no longer believe in a better tomorrow even as I advocate for one today. My thoughts are with those who have personally felt terror and loss as a result of the war in Afghanistan and subsequent withdrawal. May they find peace and comfort.
"...time, effort and funds being spent to both to perpetuate and stop the 'Big Lie' while our world crumbles down around us"
It's worse.
The world crumbles BECAUSE we're focused only on these delusions that we've created.
It seems to me that the good news is the percentage of Americans believing in the Big Lie has decreased significantly.
Actually Liz I believe it has increased. 26% is of the entire population. Most of that is the 78% of Republicans who believe it. Republicans are about 25% of the population so it must be Republican leaning independents that believe it. PT Barnum would call them all suckers.
Don't let the overall figure give you relief in that of the parties, the percentage is 78 of Republicans. That will remain the scary figure in my opinion.
Numbers can be looked at in many ways...a good thing to remember.
Yes, when I see 78% of Republicans I want to know what percent of the population identify themselves as Republicans and has that changed. On President Biden's Inauguration day one of the big polls showed 25% Republican, 25% Democrat, and 50% independent! The same poll in August (Gallup) says 28% R, 29% D, 40% I. Statistics are so easy to give the wrong impression.
Also, those that follow and support TFG are not at all Republicans in the general sense. Polls haven't kept up with that trend.
I will Top U and always wonder if they caused it ? It was said that in the “ Situation Room “ in problem solving if TFG was shown on a scale of 1-10 the actions that could be taken. TFG would pick 10 every-time ! 10 being the worst. Then they would have to spend all their time explaining to him the ‘Possible ‘ repercussions of that ‘10 ‘ and why it wasn’t a good idea.It explained why so many quit but also why so many stayed and resigned ( got fired )giving him pushback and trying to protect us. As bad as that Administration of 4 yrs was I’m positive there were/are some unsung hero’s.
Oops, I think Gloria Steinem said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
For years, I voted for 3rd party presidential candidates, or didn't vote. I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden because he and his legions didn't cause me to fear for the physical safety of my children and their families, and because he at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. Yet, Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama had staunchly continued the two Bush Cheney wars, after Obama was awarded, incredibly, and accepted, incredibility, the Nobel Prize for Peace. Then, the Democrats nominated the candidate Donald Trump could beat, Hillary Clinton, after the she and the DNC Watergated Bernie Sanders.
There is plenty of evil on both sides of the aisle, where I imagine a special place in hell is reserved.
However, the Trump train took America to its lowest level since the Vietnam war, and even since the Civil War. The election fraud claims are veiled allegations that black Americans stole the presidential election and gave the Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives.
How can anyone with half a brain think this giant cluster F is going to be satisfactory resolved? Yet, to do nothing, to let the bastards get away without at least trying them in the court of public opinion, even if the law courts don't stand to muster, well, I would not want that in my epitaph.
Please stop with your false facts!
The saying " The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off was already in circulation by 1990. Detailed citations for these dates are given further below.
This saying simultaneously modifies and evokes a well-known Biblical verse: John 8:32: 1
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
This saying was published in a Syracuse, New York newspaper in a 1978 article about a treatment program for alcoholics. A poster displayed in a residential facility presented a variant of the saying with the phrase “make you miserable” instead of “piss you off”.
On the wall at The Willows dining room is a poster that poignantly reflects the alcoholic’s struggle: “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
SB is getting way too much attention for BS, which is exactly what he's looking for. What a waste of time and space on the forum.
Playing with men of scraggy beards and thoughts is funny.
(I have no truck with beards, sporting one these days.
But have no truck with scraggly thinkers.)
Daniel, you constantly amuse me!!
"If you don't laugh, you're gonna' [sometimes: 'gotta'] cry."
Old Jewish Saying
And old Jews know from what they're saying.
Check this out: Steinem's book
The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com › books › the-tr...
For decades—and especially now, in these times of crisis—people around the world have found guidance, humor, and unity in Gloria Steinem's gift for creating ...
I am, of course, familiar with Ms Steinem's work and her contributions to society. There is no need for me to "Check this out".
Please keep your references straight though.
A version of the expression that you quote was already in circulation by 1990, decades before Ms Steinem's book.
Not to mention the version appearing in the Bible, from long ago
Actually, in the Gosoels, Jesus told people, if they abide in his words, they would come to know the truth and the truth would set them free.
And your notation re the quotation is important for the topic here is...?
It was a Tell that the commenter was stretching to validate has comment by attributing his knowledge of Gloria Steinem.
Basic knowledge would have informed that this quotation is found much earlier (like Biblical, or at least, The Willows guidance.)
The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com › books › the-tr...
For decades—and especially now, in these times of crisis—people around the world have found guidance, humor, and unity in Gloria Steinem's gift for creating ...
Check this out, Steinem's book
The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com › books › the-tr...
For decades—and especially now, in these times of crisis—people around the world have found guidance, humor, and unity in Gloria Steinem's gift for creating ...
Oh Gloria… I don’t think she realized how many would be on that train come 2021.
Appreciate the quote and comment, Sloan.
I do believe the cluster f*ck will be resolved like breaking up a head of broccoli or cauliflower, but not quite sure yet how fresh those florets are going to taste.
It’s a lotta wheels to get back onto the bus.
I hope we all contribute our energy to the right solution.
United!
Look at the commotion my comments caused in this forum, one nation under God, indivisible, not even close, sadly
Thank you. Terry; I think nihilism is the word.
So, true!
In state after state the Big Lie (another audit, stronger laws for the o protection of election integrity in absence of evidence of fraud) is being paid for with tax dollars because, well I think I smell smoke so there must be a fire someplace to put out. So goes democracy by repeated insinuations. TFG never pays for the disaster created in his wake, only his rubes get the bill.
"TFG never pays for the disaster created in his wake, only his rubes get the bill."
Read Naomi Klein's 'Disaster Capitalism' to see how he makes money BY CREATING DISASTERS.
Exactly. Such a waste, among other things.
Terry This gives an entirely new perspective on Shakespeare’s Henry IV UNEASY LIES THE CROWN. How easy lies the ex-crown.
Fern My bizarre humor offsets the tasteful understatements of my comments. Can you Trump this?
I've aced it, Keith. Better luck next time. I can't wait.
“ . . . Patel prevented Pentagon officials from talking to the Biden team during the transition, keeping it from receiving intelligence briefings for the weeks before January 6.“
This has always deeply concerned me. Am I correct in believing Patel’s obstruction amounts to treason?
Yes. All of them are now demonstrated to have committed treason as defined in the Constitution: "Making war on the United States."
Your last post is a masterpiece, TC......
Jan. 6 as precursor. Uh oh......
Thanks, TC.
Thankful I joined your TAFM. Agree that your posts are excellent. ❤️🤍💙
TAFM?
Thsat's Another Fine Mess
https://substack.com/profile/5328688-tcinla
Oh, TC’s Substack!
TC would they really be dumb enough to use Secure Phones ? TFG claimed he wouldn’t. His was probably one of his Housekeepers in The Southern W.H. and some come from different Countries .
I believe you are correct, Catherine. And, personally I believe the Patel subpoena is the most important and relevant action in exposing the attempt to overthrow the government and deny transition to a new administration.
Important but not the most important--Bannon is the most important. He's the one with the chops to plan a coup that came within minutes of succeeding and he has the international background and connections to learn how it's done.
I can agree with that also, Bill. I cite Patel because he was employed at time as federal employee and the former was his boss. Bannon’s participation was as private citizen.
TFG always has his Patsy ‘s doesn’t he.
Yes. And he fires and or replaces them if any “patsy becomes pasty”.
He has the fastest employment and personal revolving door of any leader that I know of. It’s the fact that he can entice so many to even try to enter the building that amazes me. What a carnival barker he is!
Let’s not forget the respectable “Patsys,” some of whom may be here in the herd with us.
That’s what I always called him.The only ladder he was ever able to climb. Went from the ‘Barker ‘ to an A One Man Act ! Talk about “The Family Circus !” In the White House . The real ones used to be fun .
I know. I love the unique histories and actions of former First Ladies and their first families. Melania Trump does not enter into this category for me. It’s another area to be restored by our current First Lady Professor Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Treason is essentially, levying war against our government or giving aid & comfort to its enemies. See,In re Charge to Grand Jury, 2 Curt. C.C. 630 (D. Mass. Cir. Court 1851..
See also, LFAA, Paragraph 4 tonite:"Kashynap Patel is the interesting name in the subpoenas". Very interesting. Patel was the Chief Operative (oops, chief of staff) of then acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller. I assume Patel will appear before the House Select Committee & plead his 5th Amendment privilege or cut a deal for his testimony.
Yes! It is treason!
The machinations of Trump’s Big Lie remind me of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The Lost Cause mythology trumpeted that the Civil War was heroic, just, and not contended over slavery. This Big Lie was sustained over generations to justify white domination and racism throughout the South.
Regional support for the Southern Big Lie was of a greater magnitude than the “26% of Americans [who] now believe the ‘2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.’” The southern Big Lie grievously wounded our country for generations. Unless we can shatter Trump’s Hitler-like Big Lie, our country will suffer grievously in coming years.
This is a must read from today's Washington Post by Kagan.
“Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation.
Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election” by a simple majority vote.”
“We weren’t there to steal things. We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.” January 6 insurrectionist.
Robert Kagan, Washington Post, September 24, 2021
Agree, Barbara. I read Kagan's long essay just before going to bed last night. It made for restless sleep. Among the many dire warnings we've read about the danger we face, including from HCR, Kagan's made a persuasive case: the demise of democracy is much further along than we are willing to accept.
Hi Michael, I also read Kagan's Opinion a bit before bedtime. Part of it, analyzing Trump nature and what about it has his followers hypnotized were very astute, however, I was not comfortable with Kagan's certitude about where the country is headed. There are reasons to consider that direction and factors against it. Of course, we are in a heap of trouble, which began, in my opinion, with the Reagan administration and onward. Kagan's tone was one of over-confident declaration, which I did not appreciate.
I agree. But he made me ponder the possibility that things could get real sooner than we think. I tend to believe that it won't ever get to full-blown civil strife across the country. Those who seek violence as a solution to their perceived grievances tend to be small in number and not exactly effective planners. Then again, it's prudent to consider worst-case scenarios.
Also, the monied right-wingers moving the chess pieces know that the various investigations are intensifying and the hammer could come down on Trump and his enablers sooner than we thought. Or if not the hammer, a wave of damning information from the House committee investigation. I see them getting desperate. Who knows what they might do?
We now have the beginnings of a paper trail outlining their planned coup attempt along with an acknowledgment that they knew the election wasn't stolen. And the committee is just getting started.
Now, I'm trying to keep in mind that your neck in a brace as I begin this reply. When following your list of possibilities, it is difficult to avoid using the analogy of watching a tennis match when facing the center of the court. We want this war to end peacefully with the democratic forces in much better command. In the most difficult situations, I function best when calm, which also includes listening and reading the best sources available. As citizens one of the most useful things we can do is contact the Democrats that seem the most wobbly and the Republicans with whom there is, perhaps, only the slimmest of chance to ask that they vote in favor of national voting rights legislation. Figuring out a few things we can and doing them is both productive and stress reducing. We cannot figure out the country's future at this time, and I think trying to do that is not good for your neck. Salud!
Good advice. Getting the top priority legislation is essential to our future. It would prove that our wounded system is resilient despite the relentless attacks. Doing so would be like releasing the valve on a pressure cooker.
Agreed Michael. This is what keeps me up at night as well.
The "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" is alive and well today in its Republiqan cohort.
Excellent point. That lie still reverberates.
The Gore V W. Bush still does. Wish they would have gone to this length to prove that election.But hey, they made Gore the Climate Guy that they don’t believe that’s happening now ?
Agree, wholeheartedly!!
Sad but it feels true. At least it resonates with me.
The temptation to believe that I am watching a really bad, reality-TV-style version of "Wag the Dog", or better yet "King Lear" is great, until I remember that if not for the integrity of our top military leaders and some select secretaries of state, we would have a strong-man style dictatorship in this country right now. I saw an article yesterday stating that 5 or 6 of the top lawyers tasked with defending Trump in his various (very serious) legal troubles are either resigning or being fired. I would take this as a sign that Trump-world is falling apart, except that it always seems to be falling apart. Trumpism remains a powerful force, even as the relevance of Trump himself is waning. Whomever takes up the mantle of Trumpism next (Abbott? DeSantis? ? ?) will not have his ADHD tendencies or his antisocial personality disorder (people with personality disorders are easily manipulated by the people around them - Trump certainly was/is). A Trump World not handicapped by Trump is what REALLY scares me.
But TFG’s TV personality holds charm for his minions and Abbott, etc. don’t have that either. They’re politicians and not gilded in glittering gold. Marjorie Taylor Greene is no Sarah Palin either.
MTG is her acorn cousin that the squirrels got to first
😂
😂😂😂
Christy, This is to let you know that Sloan has been hounding me. I didn't make direct contact with him yesterday was trying to ward subscribers away from him and the N. guy. I don't open Sloan's garbage, just delete. I think that whatever else Sloan is up to, he seems nuts as well. My tip would be to stay away -- no contact. We cannot even have peace on the Forum. If you have any tips for me, please post Have a good rest of the weekend. Salud!
You've articulated my nightmare scenario as well- Trump as transitional figure from failed authoritarian to competent authoritarian.
You misspelled competent. It’s Con-Petent. 😆 but I get You're point.
Ironic, *your* typo but amusing 🤣
I always keep in mind that DeSantis and Abbott are immensely disliked. Even in their own states. And they wouldn’t get anywhere in other states. Most of them would reject them based on their Covid and abortion stances. The anti-abortion crowd is much smaller than the right wing bots and trolls would have you believe. I think Ted Cruz has a better chance than they do and he’s just a mean, petty man. There is no good Republican candidate and won’t be for a very long time.
Sorry, I'll stick my neck out on this one, but the entire 2016 Republican line-up of presidential candidates consisted of narcissistic perverts, they looked just like a police identity parade, and Cruz was about the worst specimen of all.
Then Agent Orange came along, doesn’t fit the usual pattern for these two-faced perverts who cultivate a smooth public appearance, are systematically cruel to underlings whenever they can get away with it, fawn upon those more powerful… while DT is as nasty as he looks, hides nothing and has only been seen to kowtow to Putin.
It worked so well for him that now the bastards are springing up like mushrooms after rain. The most deadly toxic varieties.
A distinguished psychiatrist whom I know described narcissistic perversion as the form taken by evil in our time.
How long did hebdaybee have to esit it out?
One more time…
How long did he say we have to wait it out?
Wait out what, Susan?
Having to put up with these tarantulas (whether or not in angel’s disguise)?
I suppose that’ll depend on how long we humans keep letting ourselves get caught up in their sticky threads in other words forever… Bear in mind they’re dangerous to cops dangerous even to shrinks… A danger to all living things.
Even if they find enough straitjackets high-security jails high-security nuthouses padded cells dungeons oubliettes to contain this poisonous plague… more will scuttle out and take their place…
And if we’re not careful we’ll find ourselves doing time with ’em in their realtor-tarantulas’ hell…
Spider
I am the Great Intelligence.
I link, encircle, comprehend.
My walls have ears, my gutters, claws.
My fangs and gastric acids penetrate
The inner city’s maw.
I AM THE LAW.
And who are you?
Some half-digested morsel
In my larder.
I came here bearing presents, and shall leave
Only when there is nothing left to take.
My favours I bestowed, kisses and perfumed words,
Honey, dripping, dripping from my razor tongue,
Commingling with your blood.
You are just food. If I don’t eat you,
Others will, the cats, the rats,
The lice, the insects and the worms.
[Excuse me, I’ve had enough of maligning wolves whether in sheep’s grandma’s wolves’—even of Wall Street—clothing. I’m into maligning arthropods—but only because people don’t believe in demons even when they meet ’em…]
I see Rubio as a sleeper candidate. He already threw his hat in the ring for 2016. He’s supported the right wing crowd just enough to stay on their good side. Young, good-looking, speaks well and has a strong surface appeal to Hispanic voters.
Rubio, the sanctimonious tweeter of Bible passages, has not an ounce of leadership skills, much less charisma. An empty suit if there ever was one.
Sleeper candidate is a good description Danielle. He has mostly stayed out of the frey waiting for an opportunity.
Hopefully, Val Demmings will eat him alive!
Another of those vile creeps. Americans have been so conditioned by looking at fifth-class soaps that most couldn't tell a real human being from one of these lousy ham actors. Diogenes would have had a hard time searching for A MAN with a lantern in broad daylight.
Just look at people's body language. Conditioned. Conditioned. Conditioned. Conned. Conned. Conned.
Alas.
What I just wrote sounds nasty. Why have it in for people who take refuge in conformism? I’ve already told in this place of a nice, intelligent woman I knew when we were young, who’d lived in Mexico and couldn’t understand how the descendants of the Maya who built such extraordinary cities in Central America could be “so stupid”.
I replied at the time that I doubted if they were stupid but they knew very well that if they didn’t look stupid they’d be dead…
Maybe the pressures to conform to a particular type of appearance aren’t quite so dire now, even after DT’s mass characterization of Latinos as rapists and criminals (“just like me, only I can get away with it, you can’t”); but if your facial features aren’t standard Waspish you’ll maybe want to keep a low profile… and try to look and behave—and, you think, VOTE—like “seen on TV”.
There are plenty of reasons for mimicking common behavior patterns, but they all signal an oppressive society inured to myths of ultra-individualism divided into alpha male “winners” and “loser” masses who dream of becoming winners and do the next best thing, joining the herd that follows that smart-looking boss man…
Appearances, appearances…
And “boss men”. From societies in which only "boss men" count.
Steve I find modest solace that Huey Long’s phony populist movement collapsed with his assassination. Alas, I fear that even an orange-suited prison uniform would not destroy Trump in the eyes of his cultists. I find comfort in listening to Billy Joel’s The Entertainer, who is on the edge of falling off the cliff. I’m happy to give him a shove.
Keith, I see that you are prowling around at this late hour. I'll take the opportunity to ask whether you read Eric Foner's Op in NY Times today about antitrust challenge to big tech? I'm going to comment about it tomorrow. Biden is working it!
I just alluded to the same thing. Should have read You’re post first and ❤️ It first.Bob Woodward’s first book was Titled ‘Fear ‘. No kidding !
"I saw an article yesterday stating that 5 or 6 of the top lawyers tasked with defending Trump in his various (very serious) legal troubles are either resigning or being fired. "
Steve, can you cite your source. I did find this was true during the 2nd Impeachment hearings. However, the only recent mention I find is: https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-lawyers-defending-donald-trump-former-president-legal-woes-mount-2021-8
Be careful what you wish for, Steve.
" “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” " is idiotic on the face of it. Who would use "force" against who? It is analogous to the idea that "liberals want to take guns away from people". Who would do the leg work of such an enterprise and who would turn over their guns? Actually, the only force that can restore Donald Trump to the presidency is his re-election. By the time of the next election he will have traveled down a path of so many lies, frauds, and felonious actions that he will be declared unfit to hold public office by criminal convictions and vast public contempt. In fact, at this moment, he is just shooting off his mouth to make money. The tragedy is the mass media is helping him do it for their own profit and to the detriment of our democracy and society. In a sense, Trump is the true virus raging through our country. The only vaccine to use against him is indifference, sadly not everybody is inoculated.
100% agree with you
...until the last line.
His Followers are far from indifferent, so we (and our representatives need to be VIGILANT).
Our indifference is how he came to power in the first place.
(I learned this lesson the hard way. I was persecuted by the government and fought the wrong battle. A wise pol explained it all to me in one sentence: "This is the government you got when you weren't looking.".
Hi Daniel. I agree with both “indifference” and “vigilant” as necessary attitudes. I agree with Tom as supporting something I’ve observed about President Biden. He has presented an attitude of ignoring, indifference, and an almost uncanny way of not even mentioning the former’s name. I like that merely because it doesn’t feed the media’s incessant attention on the former and personally, I relish the idea that it must make the former gnash his teeth and reach for another burger and steroid shot.
I believe our President has done the one thing that serves to negate the power of a bully. And that can be characterized as indifference, even if it is carefully orchestrated. I do not believe our President underestimates the situation in any way. But he is the one with executive privilege now and must recapture America’s focus.
The Presidency is not the place to attack from.
Think Justice.
Think Congress' ability to Investigate.
Think NYS AG!
Agree. And I support Atty Gen Merrick Garland and the DOJ team as re-formed under the current administration 100%. I dislike how slow the wheels of justice turn as most do but that’s why checks and balances are designed in any system with moving parts.
My comments about Pres Biden support your comment about attacking. But tactics play a huge roll during current “crisis”. What I have said repeatedly is “the media is not the place to attack from”. It is a role that many social media and mainstream media outlets have assumed for $ and entertainment’s sake.
Ludicrous.
Very much agree. Peril continues to exist.
Christine, you stated most well my own sentiments!
It makes sense to me, when the entire platform of the current so called “Republican Party” is to annihilate the “libs”, then don’t engage. Keep your head down and do your work and not get drawn into their wanna be ridiculous battle.
This. Thank you.
I’ve been asking this question for months. What do folks think this “civil war” they are afraid of will look like. These raging Trumpsters do not have the courage of a jihadist. They will not go against our military unless they are just lacking any brains at all. But, then I read this and do believe this is what TFG and friends have been trying to do for years is incite the mentally unfit to take out minorities in public places. They have zero/zilch sense of morality. They do not comprehend this is murder. TFG has brainwashed them to believe this is how to fight. It is beyond evil. There are no words. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/jan-6-has-given-the-right-hundreds-of-new-martyrs/
It is a civil war IN THEIR HEADS. Gives the purpose and a sence of solidarity. I also agree that it is the extremely marginalized, not just those simply disaffected, who act out violently.
I keep coming back to our first incident in the neighborhood. That was handled and resolved so beautifully, that even though I am disappointed in this "break through" virus making it here, we are immunized.
The “in their heads” makes sense for the aggressors, but my question is asking those on the side of democracy, what do they see a “civil war” in 2021 looking like due to these “ragers” with guns?
I don't see no civil war.
That to is in the heads of "those on the side of democracy"
for many of the same reasons
and fueled by fear.
I see it as a civil war. And lest we forget how easily it could become problematic, I'd like to point out McCarthyism... And now this debacle of the last four years.
Obama really pissed in Donnie Tramp's Cheerios, at that Press Club Dinner. And this carnival barker came to the fore with his cult.
Please explain what "TFG" refers to - I have only seen it as a reference Too Far Gone - extreme right operatives.
LOL Debby that’s an excellent interpretation. Many in the community use it to refer to The Former Guy. In my mind I am thinking of a different F word though.
It's usually the former guy since like me, many people refuse to use his name. In fact, I never referred to him by his name or by the title president while he was occupying the WH.
I have only uttered his name about 4 times in the last 5 years and that was by mistake, TFG to me means that fucking goon, pardon my French, as it were 🤷♂️😎 He’s way pasted loathing, that was step one and we have been on a long journey.
Oh, I use that same word often in referring to death star and his minions. I have run out of words to say how much I loathe him. I sometimes think about all the wonderful names that the Scots have come up with for him. I did see one this week that I liked Trumplethinskin.
And never-ever the name and title together, then, now, or ever!!
Thank you! I was wondering myself. I looked it up and found Too Far Gone, which does make sense...
HA!
Trump wanted to employ the Military for his own ends. He had already used force against the protesters in DC, was advocating violence against BLM protesters during the summer of 2020 and there were those mysterious white vans rounding people up in Portland.
A lot of press is being given to Milley circumventing Trump from pushing the button. It is important to note Milley's public statemen on October 11, 2020: "As the presidential election looms, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells NPR's Morning Edition that the military plays no role in politics, and that he has complete trust in America's institutions to manage election disputes.
"We have established a very long 240-year tradition of an apolitical military that does not get involved in domestic politics," Milley told NPR's Steve Inskeep on Sunday.
Milley, who has said in statements to Congress that he wants to stay out of all election disputes, tells NPR that he is "very confident in the resilience of the American institutions and the American government and the American people's adherence to the principles of rules of law."
"This isn't the first time that someone has suggested that there might be a contested election," Milley said. "And if there is, it'll be handled appropriately by the courts and by the U.S. Congress. There's no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election. Zero. There is no role there."
"Trump wanted to employ the Military for his own ends. He had already used force against the protesters in DC, was advocating violence against BLM protesters during the summer of 2020 and there were those mysterious white vans rounding people up in Portland."
In the summer of 2020 Trump was testing the waters to see just how far he could push the envelope. Having Milley walk beside him to Lafayette Square was supposed to signal the military's support of the use of force. Thank the gods it backfired.
I and others have personally thanked General Mark Milley in phone calls and personal notes for publicly taking blame for his walk with the former president and also for standing up to him. Wishing more people would show the courage of a Mark A. Milley.
“He had an army. An army for Trump. He wants that back, “ Brad Parscal, Trump’s former campaign manager said privately in July 2021. “I don’t think he sees that as a comeback, he sees it as vengeance.” (On the back cover of Woodward and Costa’s book “Peril”)
“… 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.””
In my experience, one cannot reason with the unreasonable. Biden and Democratic lawmakers tried using the carrot. Now it’s time to use the stick.
Time to use the law against Trump. Including the NY lawsuits regarding taxes. What has come of that. But also just combine the crimes that all underlings are on the hook for, and indict the leader of the gang already!
Trump is trying to exert Executive Privilege regarding his taxes. Besides that, his lawyers will do the accepted lawyerly thing to do for Defense Attorneys: delay, delay, delay hoping time will make it all go away, or at least whittle it down to insignificant charges.
I’m ok with the stick as long as we understand that NORC is actually, like most polls, a sampling of only about 500 of each party. Whom do you trust to get into a poll sample and lie?? How many on the repub side are trolls?? We know that only a handful of people are responsible for huge numbers of social media posts. How do we get the real truth out when people watch a live insurrection on tv and deny it happened? Time for them to take off their aluminum foil antennas and wake up or crawl back under their rocks. They are treasonous, heinous, unAmerican, lying bullies in love with greed and power and a sleezebag whose only true statement in 4 years was You Knew I was a Snake. Let’s roll Senators!
I’ve been saying that forever. Some creative punishments (preferably made public) might be a good idea.
Here is a very mild version.
https://youtu.be/pZSTu98-Cus
For serious insurrection cases which are proved beyond doubt, public corporal punishment (not severe) along with some jail time or public service to make financial reparations might not be a bad idea.
For serious treason though, they should lose their wealth and citizenship at the very least, their life at the most.
I draw the line at the death penalty, but yes, they deserve to be totally disenfranchised and made penniless for life. Gitmo has always been my choice for their confinement. Then again, a firing squad...wouldn't that be just desserts for the traitors who have bastardized the intent of the second amendment?
I just think some people are too dangerous to live. For severe acts of treason, such as attempting to overthrow a democracy preferred by majority, it can be presumed they will never stop trying - even in prison.
You're right, they will never stop trying.
This same sentence jumped off the page for me. (See above... I posted before reading what everyone else had written)
Those numbers seem to have diminished, do they not?
Sharon, if you haven't already, go directly to the NORC poll for context.
I guess I'm thinking "smaller" compared to the 74+ million who voted for the Former Guy.
It's important to remember that some of that 74m voted for the Republican presidential candidate and would have if it had been you or me. The dfp's support has never been as massive or monolithic as it appears and that is why he and his clique can be beaten. Democrats will have to come up with a very strong and principled candidate in '24 and run a tight campaign without the internal bickering that has delayed House action on everything.
Well past time.
"All of these subpoenas focus on Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection. They are a significant ratcheting up of the investigation."
That was a significant birthday present for me yesterday. It appeared as though all these wheels were taking far too long to turn and reveal what we all know to be true: that 45 and his pack of treasonous Aldrich Ameses belong behind bars. We just don't know all the how's, whys, and wherefores! Thank you, dear Prof. for spelling out their dirty roles and filthy deeds.
A fabulous birthday present, indeed! The sweetness of that cupcake should linger for a long while. I got it, too. The Committees are onto something sweet, for sure. Maybe the DOJ isn't sleeping, after all. 🎂
Was it your birthday, too? Happy belated birthday, Janet! You are quite right -- the DOJ may not be sleeping after all. Lol!
Two weeks ago!
Ooooo. I just did a toast to you with my morning coffee, Rowshan. Happy Birthday, friend. I was just thinking lately as I saw someone blowing out their birthday candles after making a wish…..I’ll bet a lot of birthday wishes going to the Universe this year have to do with an ardent restoring desire of late for peace, unity, joy, abundance.
Light and Love for the birthday week!
Beautifully put, Christine! Thank you so much!
Happy birthday! My wonderful son turned 30 yesterday.
Thank you, Kim, and a happy belated birthday to your son!
Happy belated birthday, Rowshan!
Thanks so much, Jennifer!
Very happy birthday, Rowshan! Maybe there will be enough good news to make it a birthday week.
Many, many thanks, Daria! Here"s to a birthday week!
Happy belated birthday, Rowshan!
Thanks so much, Lynell!
A great present indeed! Happy belated Birthday Rowshan!
Many, many thanks, Gail!
Happy Birthday, Rowshan! Nice present you got!
Many thanks, Marlene! Yes, it was!
Birthday balloons of love and hope signed by Rowshan and LFAA subscribers are filling the sky. Wishing you joyful and healthy days ahead, Rowshan!
What joy! That's such a magical image, Fern! Thank you!
Happy birthday, Rowshan! What a lovely topping for your day. :)
Thanks so much, Laureen! It was, indeed!
Happy birthday, Rowshan. Yes, the news does lighten to day some.
Happy, happy birthday, Rowshan!!
Thanks so much, Ashley!
Happy birthday, Rowshan!
Many thanks, Kathy!
These guys are amazing. How they, in our faces, commit treason and incite another insurrection. Who is this Mitch McConnell and what does Trump or Putin have on him? Why won’t he and all republican elected officials stand up for our constitution?
Mitch McConnell, to me, is a lawyer who relishes power and knows how to manipulate the law to achieve his ends. He will manipulate to the extent that he says that he IS standing up for the constitution and that those who oppose him are not.
McConnell, like Chump, is only interested in…. $$$$$$
I would say that Mitch McConnell has the scruples of an alley cat, but that would be a politically incorrect characterization of an alley cat.
“According to a new poll by NORC at the University of Chicago, 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.”
And that means that some 74% of those surveyed believe Biden won property and some 92% are against the use of force.
Decent, intelligent, well informed people are clearly in the majority.
Come midterms, they must
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE.
There is no other solution.
None.
I 100% agree that we must continue to exercise our right to vote. We had a stupendous turnout in the 2020 election.
Here is the dark side. The Republican Legislatures in a number of states are enacting laws whose purpose is to suppress voting opportunities and to NULLIFY election results and reassign the outcome to their desired results.
We desperately need to pass voter protection laws. This begins at the federal level. Call and write Congress! Urge them to pass vote protection legislation!
Here are Jamelle Bouie's thoughts on the upcoming elections in today's New York Times. It is an excellent article. Here is a piece of it:
"It was always possible, theoretically, to manipulate the rules to seize power from the voters. Now, it’s a live option. And with the right pieces in place, Trump could succeed. All he needs is a rival slate of electoral votes from contested states, state officials and state legislatures willing to intervene on his behalf, a supportive Republican majority in either house of Congress, and a sufficiently pliant Supreme Court majority.
As it happens, Trump may well run for president in 2024 (he is already amassing a sizable war chest) with exactly that board in play. Republican state legislatures in states like Georgia and Arizona have, for example, used claims of fraud to seize control of key areas of election administration. Likewise, according to Reuters, 10 of the 15 declared Republican candidates for secretary of state in five swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada — have either declared the 2020 election stolen or demanded that authorities invalidate the results in their states. It is also not unlikely that a Republican Party with pro-Trump zealots at its helm wins Congress in November of next year and holds it through the presidential election and into 2025."
"Trump may well run for president in 2024 (he is already amassing a sizable war chest)"
The money to be made in Fundraising exceeds the skim in Loansharking.
More like the margin in Prostitution.
Trump know these schemes intimately.
(not to intimate that he can be intimate)
I think that Trump will wait until midterms are over to see which way the wind is blowing. If the Republicans take the Congress , he will run with the confidence that regardless of the popular vote, he will be appointed President. 😩
Exactly, 2022 will be a turning point, one way or another.
Yes.
Midterms will determine the fate of our democracy.
If partisan legislatures or election boards in Republican-controlled purple states are empowered to throw out results that show Democrats winning, will voting be enough?
I do not believe voting will be enough in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles. This is why we desperately need Congress to act to protect the vote.
Congress cannot act to protect the vote. To do that, there would need to be at least two more Democrats in the Senate to get past the refusal of Manchin and Sinema to eliminate the filibuster. Even more than two might be required because there may be some senators (Feinstein, for example, who is long past her sell-by date) hiding behind Manchin and Sinema to avoid revealing their support for the filibuster. It would be far worse, though, without the miracle in Georgia. If either Democrat running for the Senate in Georgia had failed to win in 2020, McConnell would be calling all the shots, and Congress would be able to do absolutely nothing (as opposed to almost nothing).
What can be done to protect the vote?
The only hope, and it’s a slim one, even with a monumental effort, is for the
Dems to retain the House and gain two seats in the Senate in 2022. Otherwise, a white autocracy probably will replace democracy in the US in 2024.
My question is a sincere one. How do we accomplish that if there is rampant voter suppression and vote nullification in the United States?
The first big test will come with the midterm race for the Senate in Georgia.
It’s critical for the Republicans that Warnock loses.
Time will tell .
Dr. Warnock is my Senator and he’s not going to lose, he stands heads above almost every one else in the Senate
The law suits in GA concerning voter suppression will not be decided before the midterm election which is very upsetting. Kemp has also called meetings to redraw lines so that in state legislator elections Republicans will be guaranteed to win. Because justice takes so long, they are changing everything they possibly can, incredibly frightening as there is no way to stop this.
"8% believe that '[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.'”.
Mostly talkers
“Property “= properly. 🤦🏼♂️
That conviction will come in handy in 2022, but I wonder if the former president isn’t stoking it for a more immediate reason.
As Brad Parscale told Woodward and Cost: "I don't think he sees it as a comeback. He sees it as vengeance."
I always get a laugh out of the fact that the best radio interview I ever did for one of my books was for "The Bridgebusters: the True Story of the Catch-22 Bomb Wing." The interviewer had definitely read it all, he must have underlined the scenes he really liked, and he was genuinely enthusiastic when he told the listeners it was one of the best books he'd ever read.
That was Steve Bannon, six weeks before Trump hired him in 2016.
Interesting. A very strange fish, Bannon. My memory, as politically traumatized as it is, points to an equally strange, but bigger fish, Robert Mercer (hedge fund algorithms and data mining tech developer) funds Bannon and Breitbart. He also is a heavy funder (high stakes owner) of the TFG. He introduced Bannon and Kellyanne to TFG and secured their positions in campaign and administration. A short, cursory search brought up a NYT article that that is the most concise information tying Mercer to so many despicable things that are reflected the past presidency, including: "Trump issued perhaps the most incendiary statement of his Presidency: a tweet calling the news media “the enemy of the American people.”(https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency). From purporting the safety of nuclear bombs, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, Citizens United -- which purports Mercer's highest philosophy— wealth supremacy above all else. Everyone else is expendable--which makes me wonder about the promotion of Coronavirus... TFG's approach, his tweets and his rants spout all things "Mercer." Putin used Cambridge Analytica (Mercer developed) for his data mining and troll farming. So he and Mercer may have a bromance, I reckon. Anyone can be bought--even the presidency and the republicans. It appears that Mercer holds significant, high-stake purse strings to the downfall of our democracy....but, what do I know?
The sheer number of Middle Earth orcs serving within and surrounding the Tя☭mp administration should tell all what kind of world they would create given the chance. There are none who will see anything other than the 9th Circle in Dante's inferno.
Thanks for posting this, Penelope. I often wonder what dark money funds tfg, and often wonder about the Mercers, who seem to stay off the radar even while they support and profit from tfg's nefarious destructiveness.
Hi Penelope. I could be wrong but I read somewhere that the Mercers (Robert & daughter Rebekah), among others, had stopped funding Bannon. Of course that doesn't mean they aren't continuing to fund the Big Lie and TFG( The Former Guy), as you point out.
I just looked that idea up. Yes, the Mercers stopped backing him when he crossed Trump. They withheld support for him. But Bannon appears to have risen again for the Jan. 6th insurrection-- so I would not hold my breath who is funding whom —as long as they prop up TFG. It makes me nauseated that monied wackos can create such havoc. Someone needs to investigate the Mercers and Kochs and a lot of our elected officials' bank accounts or sudden assets in real estate. Whatever happened with the Deutsche Bank investigations??
Wow! (Steve Bannon) Comeback vs. vengeance: good point.
Hysterical.
Again and again, I lay blame on the block of American voters who swallowed the Big Lie. The gullibility meter is off the charts. It's much bigger than McCarthyism. There is an increasing inability of some to distinguish truth from lies--or, worse yet, they know in their guts that Trump is lying but political expediency supersedes their moral character. As a nation, we are losing our souls.
When situations are complex, like most things in life, it’s much easier to believe ‘The Big Lie’ and conspiracy theories. They are simple, white vs. black w/no shades of gray. The one thing that gets me, though, is how are GOP Chump loonies, elected on the same ballot w/Chump complaining that the election was fraudulent, stolen, etc?
I agree, Deb. The desperate-especially when they have no real agenda of their own--cheat.
You know I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right on ! Even the loser’s other than Trump haven’t been whining or complaining . Interesting observation.
I think some of us lost or never had souls, but there is also the argument that all of this is causing many if not most of us to scrutinize our values, pay more attention to our politics, and not take anything for granted/value our democracy.
I suppose this, at least for now, is our silver lining.
Randy:
Your comments resonate with me. I'm not much of a moralist, but it also seems as though Trump people have abandoned even their own obvious interests in service of devotion to their sense of grievance. There seems no point in calling out the abject stupidity of supporting the interests of oligarchs hoping that their control of our country would improve their circumstances.
About a year ago (give or take) Professor Richardson mentioned a book written in the early 1950's by Eric Hoffer, "The True Believers". It was one of President Eisenhower's favorite books, and he insisted that people close to him and his Cabinet read it. It is a discourse on mass movements and serves to explain the ways in which holding tightly to an individual's identity/belief that they are being "threatened" can explain how there is a descent into fanaticism. The first time I saw it applied was with conservative Christians who are of the "true belief" that Christianity is under attack. You can sub in the "big lie" believers for Christians, and there's solid ground for arguing they are heading towards demanding an authoritarian government to "right the wrongs".
Ally, thanks for the reminder of the continuing relevance of "old heads" like Hoffer. His aphoristic style often leaves out important complexifying details, but at the same time the distillation leads me to stop and reflect. You might also like his follow-up "The Passionate State of Mind" (1955). One nugget struck me for today's discussions:
"The times of drastic change are times of passion. We can never be fit and ready for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem; we undergo a test; we have to prove ourselves. A population subjected to drastic change is thus a population of misfits, and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of passion."
Hi Ally. The Book of Revelation describes a scenario in which the fearful people of the world welcome an authoritarian savior and a high priest who usher in a global theocratic government. And then…
“Buyer beware” and “Be careful what you ask for” and “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” (or ride) come to mind.
This is book that we reference frequently and our copy is well used.
Indeed and as if. :’-(
I agree with you that the smarter ones know it’s a lie. But you see Democrats are/ have been the “Deep State “ for yrs and they justify it all hating that ‘Evil ‘ more.A Survey was passed around in D.C. yrs ago. All who participated were anonymous. They used a fake reason for it as the questions were structured to identify Sociopaths or Psychopath. 65% were Socio. Some borderline and 15% could be classified as Psycho. That goes back like 20 yrs ago ??????
Not all of them believe the Big Lie, because they believe a smaller lie, that abortion is the greatest sin ever.
99% of the people I know who voted for the former guy voted one issue. Guess what percentage were or are Catholic?
In my observations, for many people in myriad denominations, abortion is a singular, blinding and highly divisive denominator. And the author of conflict and divisions is… 👿
“… 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.””
The technical term for this situation is "pre-insurrectional."
Right. For those like me who had to do some quick Google work: between the national guard and the military, it seems we have about 1.8 million Americans, or about 0.5% of our population, currently in service. I wonder what the overlap is with those 8% who think the use of force is warranted, and how high up the chain of command it lies.
That's it.
I posted a rather long message to this effect yesterday.
The noose tightens, threats of violent turbulence increase.
This same sentence jumped off the page for me. (See above... I posted before reading what everyone else had written)
What percentage of the German people, I wonder, were actual hard-core, bloodthirsty Nazis before Hitler and company grabbed power? I'll bet it wasn't a majority. The Fascist (formerly Republican) Party doesn't need a majority or anything like it to wipe out representative government and replace it with a hereditary dictatorship. They already tried once. They'll try again.
If voter intimidation doesn't work, they're resort to actual violence. If that doesn't work, Fascist Party legislatures will simply nullify opposition votes. How do the rest of us defend ourselves and the nation against these people?
We unfortunately don’t fight back. War is too expensive on every level. We cave in and survive until we find a better way to fix the problem.
Bingo
It is past time to continue to soft pedal what happened leading up to and on January 6. The DOJ needs to bring charges against all involved, including the crime boss Tя☭mp, head of this whole scheme, for conspiracy to commit a coup. I do not care that Republicans will claim it is political persecution. The retort should be, “No, it’s prosecution, and warranted based on the facts of the cases.”
I agree. Crimes have been committed. It does not matter if this is "breaking precedent." Since when did precedent ever matter to Putin's puppet?
More about the NORC poll on theconversation.com link: First, NORC pulls together a panel of 40,000 people, called AmeriSpeak, who are representative of the entire U.S. population on dozens of characteristics, such as age, race, income, location of residence and religion. From that representative sample, NORC drew a random sample – in our case, 1,070 people.
And immediately a headline follows about what AMERICANS believe. This to me is shockingly wrong, incendiary, downright depressing reporting and I don’t care how pollsters twist themselves into knots saying it is legit. Please HCR, can you add poll sample numbers prominently to your reporting and help us lower our blood pressure and stop making repubs feel like they are so powerful. 80 million eligible people did not even vote. Actually around 500 repubs were in the survey. Tulsi Gabbard and others know how to get into poll samples. It’s not so holy.
Polls are only as good as their details. W/o sample size, demographics and standard deviations, polls are useless. Their results used for clickbait and fodder for the ‘newspapers/news shows’.
True, but generally speaking the more reputable and professional organizations understand things like sample size, error bars, and the like. If one looks at the article at The Conversation (here's a direct link: https://theconversation.com/21-million-americans-say-biden-is-illegitimate-and-trump-should-be-restored-by-violence-survey-finds-168359) it does into that information in some detail.
Bottom line: those numbers look disturbingly real. And it doesn't take a majority or anything like it to create a violent terrorist movement. The far right already has a cult ready to sacrifice their own health and even their own lives to COVID-19 because they have been told to do so. They won't hesitate to start killing the rest of us.
I hear the drums rolling in the distance. This is the warning sign that the bipartisan Select Committee is coming to “git” those sorry-ass hateful fools. Adam Schiff reported that if they disobey a federal order to appear, there are other means that can be used to persuade them. Whips? Chains? Oh sorry…I got carried away! Hopefully Schiff meant that they will be arrested for failure to comply. Let’s get this show on the road and get to the bottom as to why they are protecting Fake 45.
I agree, but then the cautionary person in me reminds me that the wheels of justice grind very slowly and that can apply to Congressional Select Committees as well.
The more they delay, the closer to the midterms we get. Given the American attention span, maybe that’s not all bad. If I were them, I’d get it over with now and gamble that people will forget. Unless, of course, their testimony puts them in jail.
But will the committee have the you-know-what to enforce those subpoenas when the various recipients blow them offI won’t believe they will until, I see it.
They’d better if they want to save face! I honestly believe Bennie doesn’t mess around.
Good question, one I've often wondered myself.
Lift Every Voice and Sing
BY JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
A group of young men in Jacksonville, Florida, arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in 1900. My brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, and I decided to write a song to be sung at the exercises. I wrote the words and he wrote the music. Our New York publisher, Edward B. Marks, made mimeographed copies for us, and the song was taught to and sung by a chorus of five hundred colored school children.
Shortly afterwards my brother and I moved away from Jacksonville to New York, and the song passed out of our minds. But the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country. Today the song, popularly known as the Negro National Hymn, is quite generally used.
The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children.
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.
Source: Complete Poems (2000)
thanks for posting this, Fern. I memorized all the verses 5 or so years ago on my early morning walk so I could sing it in church (our church sings it often) without looking at the words. it wasn't easy, but worth the work: By recalling g them or singing to myself, I can now lift my spirits on walks or anytime I need to.
This song rings of past bravery, vision and of youth as it bolsters present struggles and our determination for freer tomorrows. What a supreme choice for church singing, MaryB of Pasadena.
there should be more places that practice radical inclusion and work toward truth and justice. All Saints-Pasadena: "We are committed to audacious examination and challenging of power and privilege in the world and in our church to pursue truth relentlessly not for retribution but toward trust and reconciliation. We choose love over fear to overcome prejudice and promote healing to redress oppression and to restore environmental equilibrium." Idealistic? Optimistic? Of course!
Beautiful.
This mission makes my heart sing, MaryB❣️
I was with a group of people last night, a political caucus of sorts. One commenter made mention of this song, deriding it as treasonous that “black people now need their own national anthem? What’s wrong with the Star Spangled Banner?”
I had to reply…”Nothing at all. This hymn, a beautiful poem in fact, was originally written to honor Lincoln decades ago at a celebration. I took a fancy to it the first time I heard it sung by a children’s gospel choir.”
Honestly. The hatred.
Ludicrous.
Your response, Christine, was with charity and personal witness. The challenge is how to deal with ignorance without compounding it with rejection and anger.
Christine, Your report stabbed my heart. A song so heartfelt and hopeful to be greeted as you described calls for quiet and reflection.