616 Comments

Thank you, Heather, for listing the instances in which the MAGA liars are finally getting their comeuppance. I’m especially glad to see the Sandy Hook families finally getting their just compensation for Alex Jones’ scurrilous lies.

Expand full comment

Ditto. One of many things I'm grateful for is the broad expanse of news she summarizes for us. For instance, I totally missed that news about the Texas courts actions, an actual real thing that bolsters some faith in the slow grind of justice.

Expand full comment

Dear Heather Cox Richardson; Don’t cha know, mainline white folks don’t care about reason and logic in politics anymore. We’ve labeled them deplorables remember?. They ‘er ya’ll, ‘er, we all were blamed for being privileged one too many times. We are peed off Heather. We’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it any longer. (Wasn’t that line in a movie?) And yours Truely, the King Kong of Reason and Logic, I’m hereby becoming an honorary MAGA supporter forthwith.

Ok, just joking. Don’t have a heart attack. I am illustrating how damaging the ole Blame Game can be. We have bifurcated our society. We have clustered together on social media in our little mutually-supporting pods of like-minded nincompoops. Add AI and no one will soon be able to tell what is real from what is not.

Harris/Walz 2024

Expand full comment

We can each help by reaching out to friends with Heather's letters and other similar newsletters. They in turn can share with others. It may not seem like a whole lot, but for some of us it is at least SOMETHING we can do.

Expand full comment

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for years. Take out a most moving quote as a teaser to what’s in the letter. There are often several, since HCR covers so much ground.

Expand full comment

Exactly how I've been sharing her letters. :)

Expand full comment

Bill, there it is, the bothsidesism. We may not consume the same media, but one of the sides has been working on taking over our nation for their own benefit for decades and the other has not. Dems talk about trying to "reach across the aisle" but Republicans care nothing for that, only controlling everything in their line of sight. Democrats may be a mixed bag of people who are often disgruntled and don't always agree, but they do not pump out massive lies, statements designed to incite violence, or spew hate speech to degrade people in this country, as many Republicans have chosen to do.

Expand full comment
Sep 27·edited Sep 28

I apologize up front for getting into another argument with you, Bill, but I disagree with you. Lying about immigrants, crime, disease, and the economy IS deplorable, whether it's politically smart to say so or not. The people who concoct these lies and the ones who buy into and promote them have peeled themselves away from the foundational principles of our country as surely as the states' secession that caused the Civil War. I'm not ready to give them a free pass just to bring them back into the fold, as much as I'd like to see our country united again. It's up to them to denounce their own gaslighting and make their own peace with reality.

Expand full comment

bifurcated? You would never hear that in a trumper interview or in a trump speech.

Expand full comment

That's for darn sure. Well.. unless Bill writes there too - Yikes ! (just kidding Bill)

Expand full comment

There is an Old Saying, 'I've Seen It With My Own Two Eyes'... That is very Helpful... A Salient Problem with Modern Society, is it's Social Isolation... The COVID Shutdowns were very Destructive in that regard... That is why I like to Wander, and Pick-Up Random Conversations... Boomers are better at that then 'Gen Zers'... I believe that National Service is a Good Idea... Better to Fight Forest Fires than Each Other...

Expand full comment

I will truly be happy if I see video of Alex Jones homeless and begging in the streets.

Expand full comment

It’s only his business assets that are being auctioned off but perhaps they can come after him personally since the judgement is a billion.

Expand full comment

Nope I don't think it can work that way. The verdict was against his company and so his personal assets should be sheltered as they should be. You may not like that but it works to protect everyone from government overreach.

Expand full comment

The harms that his exercise of 'free speech' has caused... What price could be put on all that ?

Expand full comment

If there is a town square in Sandy Hook, Alex Jones ought have his fat pizatts pilloried there for January and February. That will make a Connecticut Yankee out of that whacker cracker.

Expand full comment

Some Democrats with money should be at Alex Jones auction to buy his Infowars business and establish progressive radio in Texas.

Expand full comment

Very clever! That would be irony with an iron fist!

Expand full comment

Apparently billionaire backed thugs, in TX have been kicking in the doors of Hispanics, Blacks and other people of color to try to intimidate people of color from voting.

Of course, no names have been released yet, but with the Senate race in TX so close, we need to make sure that people feel safe in voting.

Expand full comment

I hope they go out in numbers and have their own security in tow.

Expand full comment

Hey hey, I’m a nut-megger we used to be called such in Connecticut until the legislature decommissioned nutmeger. But I’m still a proud nutmeger because I am a nut.

Expand full comment

I wonder how that nick name came about... Any idea ?

Expand full comment

I live in CT for six years. Does that qualify? I would like to explain why I am justified in being a nut! 😉

Expand full comment

I wouldn't want to touch his stuff; however, if I were very very rich, I'd buy it at the auction and then burn it all to the ground.

Expand full comment

Some Russian-backed nut will probably buy it to continue with the lies.

Expand full comment

Definitely!

Expand full comment

I am not sure but I don't think his business actually has any radio licenses (I believe they bought their air time). Without licenses, the business won't be worth much.

Expand full comment

Ah, “whacker cracker”……the power of alliteration!

Expand full comment

I would have preferred assonance for the asinine. 😉

Expand full comment

Comeuppance for the Corrupt.

Expand full comment

Hear, here! Thank you, Ally; always a pleasure to hear from you. 😊

Expand full comment

Thank You Ned and Ally!

Expand full comment

Really, there should be public corporal punishment included in legal punishments for certain offences. What Jones did is one of them.

Expand full comment

I agree. However, the way you get to a person like that is financially. Next time he better think twice before he opens his mouth with lies.

Justice was finally served.

Expand full comment

Wow, love your verbiage

Expand full comment

To me or not to me, that is the question. 🤭

If that is directed to me, J.D., thank you. 😊 If not to me, hey, I lived in N.Y.C. long enough to know how to take credit when it is not due! 😉

Expand full comment

Oh yes, you are deserving

Expand full comment

Well, thank you, Ma'am; I blush with gratitude.

Expand full comment

Always a pleasure to peek at your thoughts

Expand full comment

I'd second that Ned !

Expand full comment

Some people, like Jones, deserve 20 years on Rikers Isle. I hope the families receive the settlement and we can put this terrible chapter behind us, along with the one we're in at the moment. Four years ago, America started beginning again. We sure don't need a would-be anarchist and a trophy nude-model riding down Pennsylvania Avenue in a carriage. Out of town on a rail at the end of a pride-parade might be fun to watch though. Enough of the three of them.

Expand full comment

Hard to put this behind us while the supreme court is going nuts on gun rights, tying them to musket times for motive to regulate while saying they are not limited to muskets as was the "historical" case. Both sides of the mouth and remember they found that ATF cannot ban bumstocks. Oh brother! Regulating guns is now harder than it was even with new found political will on one side of the aisle.

Expand full comment

We need to let the families of Sandy Hook move on to the extent that they can after such naked evil took so many children and teachers away. On the other hand, we need to keep Sandy Hook alive in the abstract finally to make progress on gun control:

> lift the liability exemption for arms manufacturers (for foreseeable mis-use);

> make parents accountable for the murderous children; and,

> ban assault weapons, shot-guns, and rifles in the home with a new crime that possession of one such weapon NOT LOCKED IN A REMOTE GUN CLUB be possession with the intent to use,

Expand full comment

P.S., item #4: regulate the distribution of ammunition.

Expand full comment

Could not agree more. The false-ness that has permeated the airwaves, big screen, along with our daily lives causes any halfway intelligent person to fall for it. Even all the photos Ike took, the fact that most have been kept out-of-our-view, that too is part of our dumbing down. Then we have our government covering up military atrocities. We might just have to come out of the woodwork to stem this next one due in November.

Expand full comment

Damn! You are a poet!! Great post.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Tim. 🤝

Expand full comment

Sticks and stones…

Expand full comment

I don’t feel a bit sorry for Alex Jones losing everything, he did it all to himself, and he tried to play lawyer, which failed to do him a bit of good.

Expand full comment

His lies are costing him as they should. But just think that his lies made him a lot of money. How? Because there was a large audience that needed to believe his BS. The same audience that needs to believe Trump and et al. BS.

Expand full comment

And he’s still trying to do it. He, like Trump would be wise to learn to curb his tongue.

Expand full comment

Curb their tongue? Not when there is a hungry audience that needs to hear their BS. And as Roy Cohn told him, "You do not have to believe what you say."

Expand full comment

If he curbed his tongue he would deflate like a leaky balloon. He is nothing but tongue.

Expand full comment

and poisonous tongue at that.

Expand full comment

People’s behavior tends to be consistent with who they really are. In trial lawyering we say never do anything inconsistent with the theory of your case.

Expand full comment

Yeah.., okay, but, let's just keep an eye on"Jones" who will continue to get his crummy hands on a microphone to further feed his gullible fans, and don't forget his enablers. Very sick people, who exist amongst us. If possible, let's refrain from providing them free air-time, hopefully from their jail-cell.

Expand full comment

I don't think he is going to jail. The legal actions against Jones were civil, not criminal.

Expand full comment

It is about freaking time for the Sandy Hook families to get just compensation....as if there can be ANY compensation for that horror.

Expand full comment

Ally, not really. But this hits him where it hurts.....in his pocketbook which is a good part of the reason he and others spew their lies and hate. I do sorta like the idea of putting him in stocks in Sandy Hook. People should not throw good food at him, but all things rotten and smelly.

Expand full comment

Lol cute but just to remind everyone that stocks and pillories have been outlawed in this country (for good reason) since before the American Revolution (except where they were used against slaves, sigh, which fortunately is no more).

Expand full comment

Just a fantasy, Jon. They are doing the best thing, of course, by hitting what really matters to him (and a lot of these people who spread dreck), his assets.

Expand full comment

What I think, Ally and Michele, is that it's most important to the re-unification and recuperation of our free society that lies and slander not be tolerated. I'm happy to see this fraudulent business go under and its proceeds go to the community it targeted, but I also don't care who makes how much money, as long as they do it honestly.

Expand full comment

Mary, me too. And I am delighted the Haitians are suing death star and JD. Anytime these liars are being held accountable is a good day.

Expand full comment

Cannot agree more with your comment. The awful suffering imposed on those parents, exacerbated by the slow grinding pace of the legal system, can never EVER be appropriately compensated. I pray there is not yet another loop hole through which the guilty individual(s) can wiggle, once more time!

Expand full comment

- Pulled Quote -

Immediately, Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA), who in the past supported Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and filmed a selfie inside a gas chamber at Auschwitz, posted on social media: “Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters…but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their *ss out of our country before January 20th.”

''Nazis, I hate these guys.'' - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Expand full comment

Rep. Clay Higgins has a few other skeletons in his closet. He put a gun to the head of his ex-wife. While working as a police officer, he assaulted an unarmed Black man, lied about it, and later hired one of the other officers involved to work in his Congressional office.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/09/clay-higgins-racist-tweet-springfield-gun-wives-nazi-david-duke/

Rep. Higgins is running for re-election. We can support his Democratic opponent, Priscilla Gonzalez:

https://prisforcongress.com/

Expand full comment

I'm reminded of the scene in the Blues Brothers where Jake and Elwood ram the Nazis and send them off a bridge during a rally, careening into the water. The Nazis try to get their revenge in a chase scene through Chicago, but their car crashes through an overpass. As it's going down down down the second Nazi in command turns to the head Nazi and says "I've always loved you." That's how I think of Vance and Trump right now.

Expand full comment

Steve! Nice catch and perfect.

Expand full comment

I love Jake and Elwood. Jake; “I hate Illinois Nazis.”

Expand full comment

Thank you. Electing such in the first place gives a black eye to every public servant of character in Congress.

Expand full comment

According to today's Guardian:

"A former captain in a Louisiana sheriff’s office, Higgins was forced to resign in 2016 after he described members of a predominantly Black gang as 'animals' in a video that went viral. He won his House seat months later.

A Washington Post report at the time called him a 'God-fearing man of the law with a deep southern drawl ' whose no-nonsense, tough-talking approach had earned him folk-hero status."

Expand full comment

America’s shame. The South has risen again. Proud and evil as ever. All, those civil war deaths in vane, including my ancestors. You would think that as we live, we would learn. But hate gets passed down, just like eye color, height, etc.

Expand full comment

I so "unlike" this. But thanks for reality, JL.

Expand full comment

We wonder how these people ever get on the ballot. What was the procedure for their vetting? Low info voters are a danger to us all.

Expand full comment

My thoughts while reading Heather's letter:

The importance of voting for Democrats in House and Senate races to enable Harris to accomplish her goals; our goals!

Expand full comment

Vetting? What vetting?!

Expand full comment

True. Beyond basic qualifications, the voters are the vetters.

Expand full comment

Gives new meaning to the Vote Vets org.

Expand full comment

This directly results from the absence of real history, civics, and logic in our high schools.

Expand full comment

There is no evidence of this absence in my community schools. Is there in yours? https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/teaching-hard-history-behind-todays-news Note this perspective is from 2018.

Expand full comment

I think of impoverished areas and repressed curricula mandates, such as in some red states. Civics is no longer offered in many schools, nor are critical thinking skills such as logic.

Expand full comment

A friend invited me to a so called debate in St. Louis between Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reily when Obama was President. What a joke. As the crowd roared at the suggestion that we not only delete history from history books but that we eliminate public education, I literally begged my body to protrude puke onto the idiots. I did not speak to my friend for over a year after that and we were friends 20 years already. UG. She's come back to normalcy now but be aware- a whole bunch of conservatives would eliminate public education if they could.

Expand full comment

Let's be careful, Hope, of "logic."

The standardized tests all present, stress, and enforce one continuous form of logic, and that is how life needs to be seen primarily for its categories.

Thus the a-b-c-d choices largely stick to three items being in one common category, or group, with the fourth being outlier.

Another form of logic beloved by elite ghouls: the linear, with causality presented in insufferable conceits of simple chronology.

All this suits the corporate living dead who want to commodify all life, number it, and insist all units be in their hierarchical, accustomed, authority-set rank-&-file.

These status quo conceits also feed all the tribalism, group conformities of the world, from the atavistic long gripping the Middle East to the more fashionable identity silos now having taken over all U.S. corporate academe.

The human? The natural? We have literacy for that, though you won't see any evidence of that in any of our ruling elites.

Expand full comment

That's what you get with state control of anything. The smaller the entity; the greater chance for small minds to take control. Look at all those tiny little counties in the east.

Expand full comment

Please, Patricia, read Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police."

In her text and in its appendixes she cites the massive, consistent ways the conceits of standardized testing and corporate textbooks have combined to suffocate the human and the natural.

Expand full comment

I love Diane Ravitch. I'll add this to my list!

Expand full comment

It's all about money. When you have billionaires, corporations, and the federalist society pouring in huge amounts of money into these campaigns any NUT can run.

Just like they pack the Supreme Court with the 3 extremist justices when Trump was president. All bought and paid for to destroy women reproductive health care and to grant Trump immunity for his crimes. To undermine our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Expand full comment

And to stop regulation of guns, allow challenges to environmental regulations to be more successful and they have stacked the federal courts with judges who shut the doors on Plaintiffs.

Expand full comment

Exactly! We have to vote every state official out of office in November.

Expand full comment

I don't think there is a vetting process.

Expand full comment

Along with low information information.

Expand full comment

Shocking! I can't "like" that, but people like Higgins should not be in Congress. There should be a vetting process, imo.

Expand full comment

Good suggestion. Remember. Louisiana has a non-partisan primary on November 5. Democrats need to consolidate around a single supporter (there is another Dem candidate according to Ballotpedia). Send Priscilla Gonzalez some money. Help her make it through to the run off in December.

Expand full comment

From Scott Dworkin’s post today:📣

“Today we’ll be sharing this article with millions of people, using the hashtag #ExpelHiggins to make sure everyone sees our call to expel Higgins for his racist, hateful attack.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/dworkin/p/expel-clay-higgins-for-his-racist?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Expand full comment

I just tried to donate to Priscilla for Congress and it said that donations are not being accepted through ActBlue right now. Paypal and Venmo are apparently, but I don't do those. I'll try again another time. Thanks, Ellie!

Expand full comment

I found the same; only accepts donations through venues I don't use.

Expand full comment

I emailed Priscilla Gonzalez that a number of Substackers would like to donate through ActBlue. This moment is an opportunity for her. She replied right away:

On Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 02:22:14 PM PDT, Priscilla Gonzalez <prisforcongress@gmail.com> wrote:

"I just re-submitted my request to ActBlue so they can reinstate my account. Thank you so much! I just posted on Threads:" https://www.threads.net/@prisagonzalez_?hl=en

Expand full comment

Thank You, Ellie, for this and all you do to preserve our democracy.

Expand full comment

And Mike Johnson calls Higgins a "principled man"?! Despicable man is more like it.

I can't believe that racist son-of-a-&*@# is in office. 😠

Expand full comment

Thank You for the sources, Ellie!

Expand full comment

Mike Johnson, who called Higgins a “very principled man,”

It's disgusting, yet I burst out laughing.

Expand full comment

Mike wouldn’t know a principle if one showed up in the Bible. Oh, wait…

Expand full comment

The only principle he believes in is the almighty dollar.

Expand full comment

With a helping of revenge and cruelty

Expand full comment

Would loved to have seen Tim Russert interview Mike Johnson like he did with David Duke, another slick talking Louisiana politician.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSJE2gZE4U

Expand full comment

Thank you for the link. Tim Russert was a treasure and sorely missed.

Expand full comment

Jim Young -- Thank you for that fabulous clip of some of Tim Russert's greatest "Pin to the Wall" moments! Yes, it would be wonderful to have Tim Russert interview [small potatoes] Mike Johnson, and everyone else. No one since has matched his skill. Can't help but wonder, though, if Tim would even bother with Mike Johnson.

Expand full comment

I'm pretty sure he would since he skinned a few especially clever sounding scoundrels.

Can you imagine what he could do with Vance and Trump?

Expand full comment

“Johnson seemed unconcerned about his colleague’s racism, saying, “we believe in redemption around here.”

Johnson is a “Christian”Nationalist so “we” only refers to other “Christian” Nationalists.

Expand full comment

“Redemption” is what they think excuses all the deliberate cruelty. They think that they are fooling their God. lol

Expand full comment

A very slick way of saying nothing. The problem is-Just exactly what are his principles? I think he has made it clear!

Expand full comment

Yes , I agree. It was a disgrace to the people of this country that he would even say that.

Expand full comment

Voodoo, anyone, Michael?

It's like a black comedy show, except it's pathetic, too, how the fat orange felon stands for nothing practical, nothing real to help most Americans.

Remember, the orange felon's chief sycophant, J.D. Vance has claimed, as to abusive relationships, that women should be forced to stay in them. Accept abuse. Just as the Clarence court has ruled women must accept states controlling their personal health.

These conceits hurt women. But the fools get their energy from how even more massively damaged white men are. And the murderous pain to women, the insulting racism to legal immigrants get more traction thanks to how the Republicans can presume all these white men as group determined, as if some mass group identity – man-o-sphere? – rules totally.

White men especially sink due to humanities’ disappearance from schools. Those white men supporting their orange felon never learned to see any individual nuances, never learned to see the personal or related complications. They learned, instead, something onerous via the machineries of standardized testing that replaced the humanities. Those tests more than anything push the logic of life set to categories. America’s white males have learned there’s nothing higher in life than proper fit to proper groups. So Republican voodoo rules.

And the deaths white men die for their mad neuterdom, their conformities – millions with nothing higher in their lives than their fat orange criminal convict cult leader.

Expand full comment

Sadly, and to your points, a 60% majority of white men voted for Trump in 2020. The reverse is true with women for Biden. Oops abt 52% slight majority of white women, misread that somehow. The gender gap is running full throttle this year. Here's a recent article from the Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/gender-gap-women-voters-election/

Expand full comment

According to Wiki and other reliable sources, 55% of white women voted for Trump in 2020. Republicans have gotten roughly a 20-point majority (or more) of white votes in presidential elections for several decades. Bigger majorities for men than women, but significant majorities in both genders. The plus side is that if 5% of white women who voted for Trump decide they’re tired of being treated like brood mares and flip to D, Harris will win in a landslide.

Expand full comment

I wasn’t one of the women who voted for Trump. I’ve never voted for a GQP presidential candidate, and I thought George W. Bush was bad with his stupid unfunded war in Iraq and failing to heed the examples of other nations that stayed too long in Afghanistan. However, the further the 2016 election season went on, the more I detested Donald Trump. I still detest him, and hope he doesn’t get into office by manipulating vote counts, throwing the election to a GOP Congress, or getting his SCOTUS majority to install him as dictator.

Expand full comment

Kathy, Bush believed he was a messenger from God. Many of the MAGA cult believe Trump is a messenger from God. If God chose Bush and Trump as messengers, it is time for the son to take over the family business.

Expand full comment

Now would a demonstrably corrupt, accountable to nobody SCOTUS do a thing like that?

Expand full comment

Yez! (I know it was a rhetorical question but thought it best to have its answer in writing).

Expand full comment

Absolutely they would. They have their marching orders from on high.

Expand full comment

I'll bet a lot of those 55% are in their childbearing years.

Expand full comment

What that really says is that 60% of white men voted against women in 2020. There was a time when I was naive enough to think that the majority of white men loved their women. 😖

Expand full comment

This has been a conundrum for me. I have decided that women keep thinking their men are ok because most treat their women ok, it’s just the “others” that get put in another category. Not always true but often enough. Several years ago we and grands went to the funeral of a relative, who was a saint among men for most and he was profoundly lauded. On the way home, I told them that what was said was true, but that only applied to people who looked like him and who he felt was “worthy.” I had had more than a few conversations with him about his hero, Rush Limbaugh. Sometimes you get a glimpse of people’s hearts. I think St Peters does too. Sad that so many don’t.

Expand full comment

😪

Expand full comment

One needs to look beyond the obvious.

Expand full comment

I don't think they think it though, and right wing media fills their heads with hubris and garbage. Garbage In - Garbage Out; Doublethink.

Expand full comment

60% of registered male voters!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Phil. Toxic white masculinity is a real thing. I like to think it's on its way out, but Kamala is right to orient some economic goals to small businesses and non-college-educated fair-wage jobs. At least in part, that is a factor in their hatred of others and sense of failure in their lives. But more so, like on these pages, good men need to be role models.

Expand full comment

Absolutely correct you are, Hope.

The non-college-educated got the shaft totally when M.B.A., finance, law, and other elites offshored their millions of working-class jobs.

Trouble is, the 1971 Powell memo guaranteed that, before the decades of that predation, a new ALEC, a new Heritage Foundation, and older Hoover first combined to orchestrate their killing off of humanities in schools -- and their replacement by all the living dead ghouls and neutered conceits of since-dominant standardized testing.

The living dead ghouls and the neutered conceits still rule.

Expand full comment

The non-college-educated got the shaft from Democratic leadership as well as from the "the elites" with off-shoring their livelihoods. I sat stunned in a meeting where then Michigan Governor Granholm explained that all those auto workers would now be "going to college to learn computer work",, denigrating a whole class of skilled, hardworking folks in our state.

Expand full comment

STEM + A (for art) = STEAM. Learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics without art is like having a driver's license with no place to go.

A rational decision is based on effort and impact. The removal of the humanities from education increased the effort and had an enormous negative impact. I propose that educators who use the acronym STEM in lieu of STEAM be treated like drivers who don't obey the rules of the road.

Interested in STEAM? Watch Being Human podcast host Richard Atherton interview Michael Gelb about his book, What if da Vinci Built Companies?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V65JIAM_LfY

Expand full comment

Our tuba group did a STEAM presentation on brass music at our local library. We took lengths of PVC piping to demonstrate the diameters of the various instruments, and string to show how long the tubing was. We also had one example of each of the brass instruments. The kids loved learning how to "buzz" (no other adults give them permission to make almost farty sounds by vibrating their lips) and showing how that buzz translated into a mouthpiece and then into a horn. Every kid in that group (12 or so) eventually got a musical sound out of at least one of the instruments.

Expand full comment

Ally, what a wonderful, fun, instructive experience! Bravo!

Expand full comment

There’s the garden-hose-as-French horn fun, too.

Expand full comment

I recently learned there is another acronym in education:SHAPE.

Expand full comment

Phil! Regarding the trip to Japan with my orchestra from St. Paul, Minnesota that is the sister city to Nagasaki, we are on the fence! The brass may not have a chance to play in the combined concerts between our two orchestras, but it may be worth going anyway.

We have a decision to make in the next couple of weeks whether to commit! I admit musically my interest as a tuba player is diminished if we can't do something great like play Mahler the last time around in 1998.

But maybe I say screw it, and don't even bring my horn and just go with the fam! Maybe I just bring my mouthpiece! It is expensive, $2000 per person for the airfare alone. And then I have large issues with traveling long distances overnight, with my bipolar medications. This is a complicated decision!

Expand full comment

Phil and Matt, maybe keep personal information in personal communications? And you can use the little 3 dots … to delete your personal information posts.

Expand full comment

I sympathize, Matt. It's a long trip by air. Terrible food. Insultingly stuffed crowded.

Nagasaki, though, a beautiful city -- bays, mountains, old streetcars, great food.

Expand full comment

omg... I would so love to see Japan. I have long held a certain admiration for the people, what little I know of them.

Expand full comment

I'm lucky, D4N -- I live in "inaka," the countryside, in the middle of Kyushu.

Taketa, my little town, is formed by two mountain rivers, channeled in basalt -- the black rock which underlies all the rice-terraced, forested hills here, which formed the three large volcanic mountains around us (only one still active).

A great composer, a great painter, a great sculptor, and a great naval commander (Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05) all came from here.

Many, many Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples.

And our skies are all Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki ("Totoro," "Spirited Away," "Kiki's Delivery Service") all year.

Expand full comment

My daughter started learning Japanese at age 11, and taught in a rural town (Yabu) for a year. That interest began with Miyazaki films, especially "Princess Mononoke". The Japanese live in an amazing land with a remarkable culture.

Expand full comment

For things not-quite-germane to Heather's writings, Matt, you may contact me at EssDiff@gmail.com .

Expand full comment

By the way, shouldn’t that actually read the wanna be President and VP?

Expand full comment

Never again president and never will be vp

Expand full comment

Never was president. It was one of his frauds.

Expand full comment

And it's voodoo, not vudu. (Usually HCR puts "sic" by misspellings.)

Vudu was a streaming channel that renamed itself. They should sue this clown for libel. /S

Expand full comment

If the "immigrant problem" is as wide-spread and serious as Shay-D Vance says it is, he probably would have been able to find a actual example to illustrate it, and not have to make one up - especially one involving his own constituents.

Expand full comment

Read an interview with his mother—Springfield is only about an hour away.

Expand full comment

Magnificent!

Expand full comment

"I hate Illinois Nazis." - Joliet Jake, The Blues Brothers (1980)

Love these films!

Expand full comment

This would be a good time to put Indiana Jones back in the theatres and featured on TV. It also appears that Trump is doing everything he can to keep the film the Apprentice out of distribution.

Expand full comment

But chump calls dems what he is, and the cult nuts bow down. Maybe some would wake up, so worth a try. So hope the Apprentice sees the screen, soon…

Expand full comment

He is a classic narcissist bully. He projects constantly. It amazes me how many still will vote for him...but I'm hearing more who openly say they don't like him.

Expand full comment

I hear so many say how horrible he is but they will vote for him. Liz and Adam seem more sane all the time.

Expand full comment

Mike, my MAGAt friends are doubling down on him. I can only hope that cognitive dissonance comes to the rescue.

Expand full comment

I've started posting "Historians for Harris...because Facts Matter" here on Facebook. I don't think it will change any of the hard core...they still believe the propaganda. But my hope is that it touches people who aren't in the hard core camp.It looks like there's still at least 5% who can be swayed.

Expand full comment

Don’t think their cognition is capable of dissonance

Expand full comment

I don’t know if I could watch it without spending the run time nauseated.

Expand full comment

Oh I would heave. But I’d love to see him face accountability instead of seeing reruns of his cruel projection.

Expand full comment

I hope to see it IRT!

Expand full comment

Wonder if Trump will reap any financial benefits from the use of the name?

Expand full comment

And snakes

Expand full comment

Oh yeah, those too!

Expand full comment
Sep 26·edited Sep 26

At this point I'm over all of the people in the GOP that cover up for their racists friends and colleagues. It's insulting and disgusting. He "prayed about it". I never post racist things online and have to think about removing them later because I'm not a racist. They aren't dumb, they know what they are doing.

Let's all try and make sure that we donate and support Higgins opponent Priscilla Gonzalez: https://prisforcongress.com/

Expand full comment

Heather has described a bunch of wackos who, in my opinion, are living a modern-day version of George Orwell’s 1984.

‘Black is white, up is down, Harris is a Marxist communist, Haitians are eating cats and dogs, crime in America has never been greater, Ukrainian sovereignty is worth s++t, trickle down supply-side economics is a salvation for the American economy (or is the salvation massive tariffs), Trump ‘saved’ the Affordable Health Care Act (and is working on a ‘concept’ to improve it)….’

In my 90 years I have never experienced such horse s++t about my own country. It reminds me of my 1955 college course HOW RUSSIA IS RULED. Stalin was capable of declaring that he was MAKING RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN, as the Soviet empire was constipated and then in a death spiral wrapped in communist authoritarianism.

Like any country, we have problems. That is reality. There are no Utopian Valhallas. Rather, there are practical choices to try to make our country better or cockamamie blathering based on fear and falsehoods that is extremely destructive.

I will be 91 next month. I have witnessed massive changes, both good and bad, in my country and globally.

I firmly believe that President Biden, after Trump mucked up my country during his presidency, has restored our ship of state to a positive, forward-looking course.

I also believe that the Kamala/Coach team is providing an economic chart for my country that will result in a better nation.

In sharp contrast, Trump is captaining the Titanic. In American history there has never been such a wrong-headed individual who has been in (or close) to the White House.

George Orwell would be gobsmacked to see Trump’s authoritarian nonsense, as am I.

Personally, as I read Heather’s latest scorecard on Trumpania, I am astonished that pundits consider the November 5th presidential election a nail biter.

What the hell is happening in my country?

Expand full comment

Prolonged applause!!!

And here's wishing you many wise and healthy years more!

Expand full comment

Keith, Great letter!! I might add one more concern — the utter failure of corporate and social media to address these developments! Instead, we are fed more and more mediocre polls and misinformation. Trump is falling apart in front of our eyes but the conditions that allowed him to reach the WH remain.

Expand full comment

Bonnie Spot on! Corporations and the media are playing amateur checkers in a serious chess game. Some billionaires are concerned with themselves rather than their country.

[Whether Trump is a billionaire may be questioned, but his ME ME MEISM is a clear and present danger.]

Expand full comment

So true!

Expand full comment

Remember bots. Remind others to remember instead of failing to vote. I for one believe that there is no uncontaminated poll. (Sorry, Steve Kornacki. Sicker, too.)

Expand full comment

SILVER, as in Nate.

Expand full comment

Bonnie As a scholar you (and I) were imbued with the strength (and weaknesses) of academia—-careful scholarship that often was more footnoted than visceral. [I was a professor between age 58 and 80.] (My book on modern Egypt was accepted as my doctoral dissertation in 1960–and I could complete my requirements in a ‘sweet heart’ deal—, but I chose the tranquility of the Foreign Service and six years in/on Congo.)

I have written a great deal over the years, including running a national management consulting company and as founding editor of Film & History’s Guide to Documentary Films.

Four compression fractures of my lower back 8 years ago obliged a massive change in my writing pattern. No longer did I have the sustained energy for extensive writing. Gradually, I have learned to wean myself away from ‘scholarship.’

Instead, I find myself riffing on Heather, the NYT, and several other Substacks. Now I feel liberated to write spontaneously for 20-30 minutes, hit send, and go back to sleep.

That’s what occurred with ‘wackos’ at 4 am. Like you, I have accumulated experience. Now, for me, it is READY, FIRE, and very little aim in my spontaneity. Why not try it?

Expand full comment

Good advice, Keith. Take care.

Expand full comment

Your long view is invaluable

Expand full comment

Orwell would have recognized Trump as the Big Brother.

Expand full comment

I’m not so sure. I think he is the megaphone for Big Brother. He’s the one who is distorting the 2025 crew of Big Brother.

Expand full comment

Was Big Brother the one pulling the strings or the propaganda master. It’s been a while.

Expand full comment

Big Brother was, like Trump and Reagan before him, an actor reading lines.

Expand full comment

Talking for the money

Expand full comment

Somehow, "poling science" has morphed (been co-opted?) into "poling influence", in that they seem to be trying to influence public opinion rather than reporting it. This does not involve every poling outlet, but enough to muddy any meaningful prediction re: elective outcomes. They have been wrong, after all, about every major trend since 2016 - including every special election and ballot measure in the past 2 years.

Still the Harris/Walz strategy of running like you're 5 points behind is a good one. When we fight, we win.

Expand full comment

The "a typical voting precinct" (or whatever the 'polling services' attempt to model their polling samples on) models and weighting methods for adjusting their polling samples are all very flawed. I haven't paid attention to any poll since 2016 because, truthfully, they are simply "snapshots in time" and not truly predictive.

Expand full comment

Steve Abbott -- Hearty agreement with your final sentence! IMO, a brilliant strategy that makes it not even seem like a strategy!

Expand full comment

Happy birthday in advance Keith! And hail to your clear mind and articulate keyboard!!

Expand full comment

Bravo, Keith! You've got roughly a third more time on the clock than I do (slightly less than a third, but numbers confuse me greatly) and I love what you've written here.

Your question: "What the hell is happening to my country?" is a good and profound one. I alternately believe its soul has been sold to the highest bidder or that we have dumbed down to the point where many of our citizens are vegetables. I do not understand, at all, the hate and vitriol that has been directed at "others".

Expand full comment

Ally, I got to watch for 10 years from a small boat in the canals (countryside) of France (2001-11). Found myself viewing US as the “bad teenagers on the block.” Having always been involved in politics (I’m about 7 months younger than Keith, but without his level of experience and expertise) and endlessly curious, I feel I know how we got here (hubris, greed, “exceptionalism”), but have not given up on US. If we can elect enough Democrats to weed out the traitors, there IS hope.

Has any of you tried explaining Putin to a Trump voter? I have. It’s a terrible lack of imagination. Too many “reality

shows” not enough novels read or “Moscow 1937,” which I recommend. It’s real, heavily researched history.

Expand full comment

What I wouldn’t give to live on a canal in France!

Expand full comment

You could. It was probably the least expensive living since the 1930’s. That I was fluent in French and my husband kept the engine in shape to run on 1/4 liter of diesel per day’s cruising and there were small town markets and lockkeepers’ gardens for fresh vegetables also contributed to the affordability. But all my terror of not getting a line on a bollard fast enough didn’t dull the pleasure of the time in France. (Champagne from growers on the Marne was another enhancement for this champagne lover. And I mourned Al Gore’s loss in 2000 with a small producer who told me what would happen to champagne with climate change. He was, of course, correct. Would whoever knows a current source of blanc de blancs for under $100 a bottle, please let me know.)

Expand full comment

Ally Thanks to my favorite tubaist!

Expand full comment

Thank you. I am only 75 and now looking forward to getting older and getting smarter,wiser and eloquent. That is how it happens right?

Expand full comment

Gjay Just don’t look back. The bastards may be gaining on you (and me). Also, remember not to do anything that would embarrass you, if it appeared in the media.

Also, by nearly 91 almost all of my ‘bastards’ are dead.

Expand full comment

Let’s hope so. I am only 82 and looking forward to all that.

Expand full comment

Keith, I watched Alex Wagner’s (MSNBC) interviews with a focus group of Michigan union members. Two young ones (remember, no civics, no history, only the me-me-me of American adolescents of any age), who obviously got “news” from the web, believed what they saw there. Was it yesterday or day before that Russian propaganda got a major exposure in the msm? Anyway, to see the failure of our education system staring at me was chilling. Trickle down (Reagan, University of Chicago, two oilmen presidents) as our education system was failing, has left US with low information, non-caring voters. Greed is the powerful accompaniment. We hang by a thread.

I just keep writing postcards, my expression of caring; you write searing commentary as yours. Good luck to US all.

Expand full comment

Remember—it’s the repubs who have been attacking our education system for 40 years at least. Part of the plan was decreasing support for public universities. Maybe trade schools too. They don’t want educated citizens. And here we are.

Expand full comment

Nancy MacClean’s “Democracy in Chains”, an exposé of the Koch brothers, is an excellent source, as is the film “Starving the Beast” about the attack on public universities launched by the Kochs.

Expand full comment

Thank You for your service, Virginia!!

Expand full comment

Thank You, Keith!!

Expand full comment

Well said! I'll be 74 in a few weeks. You write about my experiences and questions about how we got to this point also.

Expand full comment

The traditional news outlets are miffed at the Harris campaign because she's taking her campaign directly to the public instead of letting them mediate her messaging. Before they can opinionate or "analyze", they're trapped into first having to simply report what she did.

By running her own campaign without them she's jamming their paradigm, and it's succeeding!

Meanwhile, the contest is resolving further. Guilty Donny is deteriorating mentally a bit more with each passing day, and his campaign staff can no longer hand-wave it away. He isn't getting better and they're losing voters.

Expand full comment

In addition to the speech Kamala Harris gave in Pittsburgh, she gave an interview for MSNBC to Stephanie Ruhle, who did a good job:

https://youtu.be/36ovmQj7gbQ?si=_klcL0MwvVCIKrBR

Expand full comment

Cue up the media to bitch about lack of specifics after she actually gave . . . specifics. Bastards.

Expand full comment

Got that right Ellie. Stephanie has Econ chops. Kam chose the perfect Campaign time & place to lay out her substantive 'Economy' policies. Heather nailed the specifics.

It's the Economy smarty.

Expand full comment

"Stephanie has Econ chops"...I agree.

Expand full comment

Thank you for posting this link Ellie. When I looked at msnbc, they were interviewing each other instead of posting the interview with Kamala.

Expand full comment

it was pretty sick, and frustrating, bouncing from one YouTube MSNBC clip to another, just to watch and hear them patting each other on the back... OTOH Mark Cuban was very strong about Harris vs Trump on the economy. I guess billionaires with a lot of TV experience learn how to not let themselves be interrupted (as much).

Expand full comment

I thought Cuban was an IU grad. I checked and he is (as am I but far less famous … ok, not famous) but I digress. I thought what he said about Harris was spectacular and in terms any CEO could relate to. Definitely good to have on her side.

Expand full comment

Gigi -- and John Gregory -- here's the link to VP Harris's speech in Pittsburgh. It was JUST posted on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-zTQl83nw

Expand full comment

Thx..is there a link to the Pittsburgh one?

Expand full comment

Pittsburgh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-zTQl83nw

Expand full comment

Thanks - I was talking about HCR’s appearance in Pittsburgh, though!

Expand full comment

Saw that last night, Ellie. Great interview.

Expand full comment

Thank providence for all that.

Expand full comment

From your keyboard to God's eyes!

Expand full comment

The news outlets can decide to report that a Harris/Walz rally occurred, rather than to actually cover it. NPR seems to be doing this, in that you hear Trump’s voice more often than you hear Kamala’s or Tim’s.(Granted, Trump provides more entertainment.)

Maybe we should be hearing Trump’s delusions from his own lips. On the other hand, are we meant to be getting used to it? Harris and Walz are not in hiding! We hear plenty about them, but not so much from them.

Expand full comment

Tomorrow we will find more reprehensible statements from Trump and Maga. Everyday a new low like Trumps media stock. Thanks Heather!

Expand full comment

Every time when I think that tfg and his henchmen and supporters must have hit the bottom of low life trash talks and actions, there is more. Worse - Reps like higgins and robinson also have quite a few followers in the maga 'reality'. Is it lack of education or stubborn idiocy? Shame on all of them. The new low of trump's media stock seems to be the only highlight.

Expand full comment

Maybe the price of "Truth Social" stock is why Trump thinks the economy is so bad?

Expand full comment

Maybe, but if it had gone up to 150, he would still be railing on the US economy.

Hopefully, he'll move to Russia to avoid incarceration and prosecution after the election.

Expand full comment

He’s never liked travel or “foreigners”. He wants to stay in his cocoon. House arrest in Florida is probably the worst he suffers. No golf would be ultimate punishment.

Expand full comment

Gary Loft -- I think that as a thrice (?) convicted he can't leave the country! ??

Expand full comment

He could leave, but many countries will not permit convicted felons to enter. (Scotland is one!)

Also, he may be considered a flight risk and his passport confiscated.

Expand full comment

I don't think they made him surrender his passport - YET! If they do, he will likely try to sneak out.

Expand full comment

It is not an either-or situation. It is a both-and. Lack of education does not necessarily produce stubbornness and vice versa. There are highly educated people as we call them, for instance Vance from Yale and Trump from Wharton School of Business (yes, there)

who are stubborn idiots sticking to their power fantasies which they want to make real. That's basically what it's all about here. We so need psychologists in this discussion.

Expand full comment

Learned long ago that educated idiots exist and are all around. At NASA, most were quickly identified and didn’t last long. But a few found a niche. Politics must have become like a light to a moth.

Expand full comment

"Highly educated" is often used as a dog whistle for Ivy League education. I think we have a culture that not only worships college education, but also considers a degree from certain colleges somehow magically makes those graduates better at anything.

Can we really believe that a student at the bottom of the class at Harvard is better educated than the top students at any State college?

Expand full comment

Great point. Thanks.

Expand full comment

Great letter today, dispassionately documenting the egregious statements of those pretending to be working to make America great again. At our house we believe the most effective strategy for exposing the absurdities is simply to let both Trump and Vance keep talking. Fortunately, they are obliging in that regard.

Expand full comment

Both are "cratering".

Expand full comment

When it's obvious that Trump has lost the election, DJT stock is going to plunge. I've never sold stock short, but this might be a good time to try it. Please don't consider this a stock tip. I suck when it comes to predicting the market, that's why I let a broker make ALL of my stock decisions.

Expand full comment

You have DJT stock?

Expand full comment

“We appear to be in a moment when the reality-based community is challenging the ability of the MAGA Republicans to create their own reality.”

Trump’s rhetoric is becoming increasingly detached from reality and simply bizarre, in ways that go beyond his already previously detached bizarreness. It is becoming increasingly evident to certain of his supporters. That he is even on the ticket as the Republican candidate is absurd and dangerous, to not only America, but the world.

Expand full comment

Bush's senior aide expressed neocon imperial sentiments starkly, remember the false pretense invasion of Iraq which planned to remake Iraq into democracy, like it or not, "with shock and awe"? Of course, there was the oil after all. It was to help pay for the invasion, as I heard, but apparently that was only an early idea and a false suspicion. The justification ie weapons of mass destruction, was part of the elephant in the room at Biden's address to the UN.

Expand full comment

Hope nobody will ever forget, I was so ashamed of my America.

Expand full comment

Frank, the US oil companies had to pay for the right to bid for a license to develop better production in existing oil fields in southern Iraq. Then they has to pay at Lear 90% of realized revenue derived from any oil sold to Iraq. We didn't invade for the oil.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Jerry, I stand corrected. These claims circulated at the time, apparently the idea was discussed during planning for the war.

Expand full comment

I think I recall Trump saying he would take oil by conquest. Not the exact words, but see what I found at:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trumps-take-the-oil-madness/

"... Editor's note:

Taking the oil is the most dangerous and irresponsible of all of the Republican nominee’s policy proposals, writes Bruce Riedel. It’s one he has repeated often. If you want permanent war in the Middle East and a titanic clash of cultures between Islam and America, he writes, it’s your best bet. This piece originally appeared in The Daily Beast.

Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump has said repeatedly the United States should take Iraq’s oil as the spoils of war. With him, it’s an old refrain that goes back at least five years..."

Expand full comment

Oh, I wouldn't know whether this idea was circulated within the group that decided to go to war. I could see, though, that the thought that getting rid of a regime that's hostile to the US will encourage cooperation on production levels to help keep oil prices relatively stable.

Stepping back a bit, to me, the initial impulse to suspect that the US government will somehow steal another country's natural resources to enrich domestic coffers seems to come from the same place as the impulse to accuse our government of Socialism when it tries to impose regulations to protect the American public. The reality is always more boring to those passionate patriots who seek simple answers.

Expand full comment

Thanks for bringing us all up to speed.

It must leave you breathless to gather all the idiocy together each day. I know my mind is continuously blown.

Are you going to the Women’s March in DC on 11/2? I’m going.

Have a great sleep! Erin

Expand full comment

This is the first I’ve heard of this woman’s March. Please share more information!

Expand full comment

Erin, I'd love more info on that march; I would join them and if they need, help in any way, including navigating D.C. Please forward more info on that demonstration as that's the first I 've heard of it. Thx~

Expand full comment

We need a blue tsunami to put these racist woman hating nazis in their place. Then I sincerely hope that the justice system goes after some of these criminals. The system let the confederate generals and senators get away with that horrendous war, Nixon was allowed to go free and has resulted in what we’re dealing with here today. When will we learn that there must be consequences to criminal behavior.

Expand full comment

Thank you for summarizing the news concisely and precisely, Ma'am. 🤝

Candidate Trump showed his true colors on Ukraine; the bottomless self-pity is hard to endure. 🤢

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5134206/user-clip-candidate-trump-bails-ukraine

Then, along comes Speaker Mikey Mouse in a fatuous letter to President Zelenskyy. 😡

https://english.nv.ua/nation/speaker-johnson-demands-zelenskyy-dismiss-ukraine-s-ambassador-to-us-50453752.html

Talk about creating reality. I would call this stuff fantasy but fantasy requires intelligence. 😱

Expand full comment

It gets even more wild: Rep. Comer and the GOP opened an investigation into Zelenskyy's visit to the ammo factory and has sent letters requesting information to Loyd Austin, Att'y Gen. Merrick Garland, and White House counsel Edward Siskel, accusing the administration of having facilitated potential meddling in the 2024 presidential election by facilitating that visit.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/09/25/congress/comer-launches-zelenskyy-probe-00180960

Expand full comment

Could we please see an accounting of the tax payer money that have gone into each and all of these Republican leaders ‘investigations’/‘hearings’/retributions since they took the house in the wake of the insurrection, many of the same politicians supported?

Expand full comment

These guys are flailing. It is impossible for me to endure Representative M.A.G.A.-Coma for more than ten minutes. Even his nasally abrasive voice drives me to distraxion. 🤭

Wait until Representative Jared Moskowitz gets a hold of this; he will make Rep. Coma squirm like possum caught in the middle of I-75. 🥳 Feel badly for the possum in this analogy; feel badly for the rest of us in Coma's created banality. 😢

Expand full comment

Good lord, they don’t even pretend anymore. Wonder if Frank Luntz regrets giving scholarly verbiage to W’s lies, when it’s apparent that they are dredging the sewer for ideas this time.

Expand full comment

I'm getting very very disgusted and very tired of Rep. Comer's incessant bullshit investigations. Comer is neurotically obsessed and desperately needs a psychological evaluation.

Expand full comment

So are most others, I believe or, at least, hope.

Expand full comment

Oh, good grief.

Expand full comment

My sentiments exactly, Ally.

Expand full comment

Oh good grief. Goober Comer needs real work to do.

Expand full comment

Evil intelligence is a thing. Not all evil is MAGAt stupid.

Expand full comment

Artless lying? They just claim whatever drifts though their head.

Expand full comment

It’s not so much artless as obvious.

Expand full comment

I think there is a narrative brilliance in the Harris campaign strategy. In her interview yesterday she focused on a very pragmatic approach to the economy that rests on results for the middle class within an industrial, capital society. It is center-left and she is running as a D but it is likely going to steer the reactions away from adjectives like liberal, progressive which get distorted as socialist and or communist, terms thrown about as swear words by people ignorant of the original meaning or historic underpinnings. You add this pragmatism with her ‘vibe’ of can-do optimism and positivity and the mystifying group of undecided voters might have a ‘gut’ feeling that motivates them to vote and vote for Harris.

Expand full comment

Bad news for MAGAts = Good news for America

Expand full comment

It is hard to believe that someone like Clay Higgins is a member of Congress in this day and age. What a disgrace!

Expand full comment

And fired from two policing jobs!

Expand full comment

Only a schmuck like Bill Kristol would call her a "Reagan Democrat". That moron has been wrong about everything he's ever written about and still gets print space and air time.

Expand full comment

That got my hairs up too. Reagan Democrat is

the worst name I can call someone

Expand full comment

Though better than calling her a "communist fascist".

Expand full comment

I agree...because that works for some folks in the "middle" who are not sure who to vote for. A lot of folks voted for Reagan and still feel good about him...especially the bringing down the Commies part. Bill has never been a Trumper. I work a conservative awards event in DC, partly to hear what they say...and it's good money. They have never embraced Trump. They don't like Dems...but they are not MAGA and very few high level Trump people ever show up. They don't mention him by name from the stage.

Expand full comment

Good points

Expand full comment

And yet the polls are still too close to call and the MAGA crowd is finding ingenious ways of preventing Democrats from voting.

Expand full comment

Yes, they are

Expand full comment

How patriotic.

Expand full comment

And Harris is making it worse by continuing to decline most press interview requests. She is playing a very risky game. I hope it works but I refuse to ignore the risks. Many people here say she should continue to ignore the MSM but I think it is going to cost her big time in the election possibly enough to swing the final vote for Trump.

Expand full comment

I think times have changed. The MSM are not kingmakers (or in this case madam president-makers) anymore. Harris is busy every day talking to voters—I have no lack of knowledge about her plans. And where is tfg? Golfing/\.

Expand full comment

Well you'd better look again. Trump has been on the campaign trail all week.

Expand full comment

After reading tonight’s letter, I had a mental flashback to the ending of Bob Newhart’s 2nd TV show…. Wouldn’t it be nice if we are wake up tomorrow morning and MAGA was nothing but a bad & sorrowful dream.

If wishing only made it so. All that’s left to do is keep the pressure on, stick to facts and maybe the MAGA backers might wake up in the morning and say “ WTF, over… How did I let myself get bamboozled?”

Hawaii ballots get mailed out on 10/18. Can’t wait. Aloha …

Expand full comment

“we create our own reality”

How’s that working out for Putin’s regime? Yes, the GOP is really this stupid.

Expand full comment

"Creating their own reality" was never more than a different way of re-stating Putin's line of jive about living in a post-truth society.

Expand full comment