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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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...

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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Definitely!

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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.

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

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I would have preferred assonance for the asinine. 😉

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Comeuppance for the Corrupt.

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

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Thank You Ned and Ally!

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

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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.

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Wow, love your verbiage

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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! 😉

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Oh yes, you are deserving

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

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Always a pleasure to peek at your thoughts

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I'd second that Ned !

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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.

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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.

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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,

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

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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.

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Damn! You are a poet!! Great post.

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Thank you, Tim. 🤝

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Sticks and stones…

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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.

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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.

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

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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."

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

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and poisonous tongue at that.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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- 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)

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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/

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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.

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Steve! Nice catch and perfect.

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

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

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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."

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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.

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

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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.

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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!

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Vetting? What vetting?!

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

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Gives new meaning to the Vote Vets org.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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I don't think there is a vetting process.

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Along with low information information.

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

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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.

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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

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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!

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

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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

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

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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. 😠

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Thank You for the sources, Ellie!

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

It's disgusting, yet I burst out laughing.

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

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The only principle he believes in is the almighty dollar.

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With a helping of revenge and cruelty

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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

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

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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.

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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?

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“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.

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

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

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

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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.

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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/

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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. 😖

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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.

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😪

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One needs to look beyond the obvious.

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

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60% of registered male voters!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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

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

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

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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!

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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Never again president and never will be vp

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Never was president. It was one of his frauds.

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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

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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.

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

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Magnificent!

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

Love these films!

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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.

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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…

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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.

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

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

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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.

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Don’t think their cognition is capable of dissonance

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

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

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I hope to see it IRT!

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

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And snakes

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Oh yeah, those too!

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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/

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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?

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Prolonged applause!!!

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

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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.

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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.]

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So true!

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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.)

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SILVER, as in Nate.

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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?

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Good advice, Keith. Take care.

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Your long view is invaluable

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Orwell would have recognized Trump as the Big Brother.

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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.

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

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

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Talking for the money

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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".

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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.

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

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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.)

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Ally Thanks to my favorite tubaist!

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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?

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Thank You for your service, Virginia!!

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Thank You, Keith!!

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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.

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

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

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Sep 26·edited Sep 26

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).

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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.

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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

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

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

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

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Saw that last night, Ellie. Great interview.

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Thank providence for all that.

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From your keyboard to God's eyes!

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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"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?

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Great point. Thanks.

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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.

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Both are "cratering".

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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.

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You have DJT stock?

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“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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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..."

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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.

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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

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

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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~

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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.

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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. 😱

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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

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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?

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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. 😢

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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.

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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.

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

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Oh, good grief.

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My sentiments exactly, Ally.

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

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

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

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It’s not so much artless as obvious.

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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.

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Bad news for MAGAts = Good news for America

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

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And fired from two policing jobs!

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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.

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That got my hairs up too. Reagan Democrat is

the worst name I can call someone

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Though better than calling her a "communist fascist".

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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.

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Good points

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

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Yes, they are

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How patriotic.

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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.

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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/\.

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

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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 …

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“we create our own reality”

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

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"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.

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