Today Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that twenty men who were awarded the Medal of Honor for their participation in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre would keep their medals, despite more than a century of controversy over them.
Wake up and smell the white nationalism. This entire regime is erasing POC, women, and the indigenous peoples. I would not be surprised if they try to erase the code-talkers who helped win WW2.
Their support of Israel is hooked to their apocalyptic fantasies. They actually hate Jews too. The only safe group is the straight white male, and poor white men will barely make the cut.
Hello Annabel... For awhile the Navajo Code Talkers were Erased from the DoD, and US Army Web-Sites in March 2025... They were too DEI for Pete Hegseth... I'd like to see Pete Hegseth Assault Japanese Fortifications under Withering Japanese Machine-Gun fire like they did...
Apache, Pete the drunk would be cuddling with a bottle of whiskey way behind the lines if he were in the war theater at all. My husband has Lakota ancestry and so this whole story resonates with us. One of his cousins had a female ancestor who survived Wounded Knee.
I read the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", over 50 years ago, and as a 1/8th Cherokee, I will never forget what I read --- My heart was broken, and to hear about Hegseth awarding the Medal of Honor to those men is bringing back my outrage again today. I do love HCR's ability to point out the comparisons to today's insanity we're living with under Trump.
Ikaq, I also read that book many years ago, but since we have been communicating with my husband's Lakota relatives, it has taken on much more meaning to us. Although I have no Native American ancestry that I know of, my heart always breaks whenever I about all the heinous things Europeans and white Americans have done. I haven't finished the book about the removal of Native Americas from the eastern United States because it was unbearable. The same with a book on cotton slavery. Whenever I read what death star and his minions are doing and the idea that this is a white nationalist Christian country, I find the whole thing to be so wrong that I cannot find the words.
I feel the same way you do, Michele. I also have no Native American ancestry, but the way they have always been treated by whites of European ancestry is heartbreaking. Apache recommended (among other books) that I read Geronimo My Life. In the beginning you get to see how the war department didn't want some things published because it made whites look bad. I haven't finished the book yet, but with all the history I've read, it is very clear that Geronimo is telling the truth. Whites have been trying to avoid accountability since forever.
Susan, and now we have the same: trying to repress history that makes whites look bad. I have not read the book on Geronimo, but I have I have read several books about the Lakota and indigenous people in general. Frankly, in the beginning European countries did not always send the best people who only had eyes for what they could extract. In the book on Appalachia that I recently finished, George Washington was busy eyeing the best lands and trying to get them for himself as an example. We have had here in Oregon a couple returns of land and the opening of the Klamath River in Oregon with the removal of dams. There are a number of projects with cooperation with indigenous people and state government programs. Right now I am reading a novel, third of a trilogy set in ancient Sumer as they are invaded by Akkadians. Good escape.
lkaq, it seems the only thing Trump is good at is bamboozling his Klan/cult/whatever. They want so badly to be the heroes of everything they read when in reality, their behavior and choices make them heroes of nothing.
Hegseth's newest maximization of MAGAT malevolence attempts the hitherto-unthinkable evil of transmogrifying the heart-wrenching atrocity of Wounded Knee into a white-supremacist triumph.
With eternal gratitude to our hostess Heather Cox Richardson for her valor in crushing such criminal deception with the decisive weapon of historical truth, let us therefore recognize Wounded Knee not just as a symbol of all that we deplore, but as yet another decisive revelation of the MAGATs' ecogenocidal intent.
Which -- in ironic self-inflicted reversal and defeat for our foes -- forever elevates the martyrs of Wounded Knee to Crispus-Attucks heroes of the Republic.
And perhaps births one more unifying protest chant: "Not Another Wounded Knee/ Down with Trump and MAGATry." (Improved -- better meter, more pointed message -- 8 hrs. after original posting.)
Loren, I like it. It could be a good way to educate people about the real history rather than the whitewashed brand MAGAs, in their fear of everyone else, love so much.
Here is a song I wrote in 2022 titled, "Mr. President Please Pardon Leonard Peltier." I had wanted to write this song for years but the words never materialized. The that thing called "Devine Inspiration" visited and the words came pouring out. I quickly recorded it and sent it to the group in Rapid City, South Dakota that lobbied for his freedom for more than 45 years for falsely charged with shooting 2 FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Within a few moments I received an email asking me to perform it on the Mall in Washington. A group had been marching for months across the country and were going to rally there in November. Of course I said yes. With that kind of request I had no choice but to travel from CT to DC a 6 hour drive. It was the least I could do.
Then I received another message. The band in Rapid City sent the song to a contemporary of Peltier to review the lyrics and so we talked. He told me some of the lyrics were not true but I explained that everything I wrote was taken from official texts. As I got to know him, I realized he was just on a power trip and wanted to demand of me to change my song which I wouldn't. So instead of performing on the Mall, I was demoted to performing at a press conferance the next day in front of the White House. I still went. I later found that this guy who prevented me from the Mall performance told me he used to take cats and dogs and cut their tails off. What an asshole.
Here is my song. Joe Biden as president finally released him from prison within moments of finishing his term in office probably so the FBI couldn't protest as they had under Bill Clinton. It's not a pardon but a conditional release and Leonard is now enjoying the rest of his life on the reservation with his family. I sent him a letter of happiness and offered to travel out there to perform it at any gathering. So if you know Leonard, please pass it on.
A friend of both my wife and I had been actively involved for the release of Leonard Peltier for years.
One year she went to Leavenworth where Leonard was imprisoned. My went with her (actually my wife and her were really really good friends)
My wife, a professional photographer, was taking pictures of the prison (of all days it was Easter Sunday) when a sniper from the prison told her to step away from the fence. There were actually two snipers pointing their guns at her. The one closest to her told her to step away. She was going to be shot for taking pictures of Leavenworth (while on public property). My wife’s friend was with her. Both were horrified….
Leonard‘s release was more than a long long time coming.
Very scary stuff. I went to protest Bannon’s release from Danbury federal prison and as I searched for where to goi was on prison grounds and a guard sternly told me to get off the property NOW. As I turned I cussed him out for being ignorant and told him as an American, I owned that prison.
Apache, it is sickening that Hegseth doesn't realize that the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in winning WWII. Which is more important, DEI or winning a major war? I don't like horror movies, but I'd watch if Hegseth were going to be shot down by Japanese machine-gun fire.
Hello Susan… Read about Lozen…. She was a Warrior Apache Shamanic Medicine Woman that Rode with Geronimo… Lozen could Ride As Hard, and Shoot As Straight as the Men... She would have applied some Traditional Apache Remedies to Hegseth… When Fighting Apache, Save The Last Bullet For Yourself...
Hi Apache. I will definitely try to find info about Lozen. She sounds like somebody I would like. I am currently reading Geronimo, at your suggestion, and was blown away by how politics wanted to stop publication of his story. I'm hoping to find that the whole story is told.
Hello Susan... Suppression, and Insults are still ongoing... Arizona passed a Law that forbade the Chiricahua Tribe from returning to Arizona after the final Surrender of Geronimo.... The Chiricahua were the last Great Tribe to Surrender, in 1886, and were held as Prisoners of War until 1917.... The Chiricahua are still NOT a Federally Recognized Tribe, and do not have a Home Reservation, and are still Scattered....
Hi Apache. I read about Lozen in Wikipedia, and she was clearly something else. It was nice to see that she was well respected by everybody. It is sad that the Chiricahuas are not federally recognized, and don't have a home reservation. Here in El Paso we have the Tiguas, who are in the same situation. It makes me very angry that Europeans and/or those of us with European ancestry still treat the natives to whom the land belonged (I understand that they didn't own land the way we do, but they did have their areas where they were dominant, and which they took good care of) as if they were lesser and of no value. I hate that they were always referred to as savages, when to my mind, the Europeans were the savages because of how they treat people. You could get me on a rant very easily here. I'll just say that two of the most impressive people I've ever met were Native Americans. My English professor in college, who was Kiowa, and a 4-year old boy who would have been an Arapahoe chief, if he had lived. He had an autoimmune disease that affected his muscles (I think it was dermatomyositis), and he wasn't expected to live very long. But he was so dignified. He knew who he was, and was not like any other 4-year old I've ever encountered.
Oh please, Apache. Pete is much too busy styling his hair and shaving his chiseled chin! We all know that it's better to look good than to actually be good.
If/when they get us into a shooting war, his lack of leadership skills are going to get a lot of our service people killed. Especially if it's a major war.
Hello Robot... I had Japanese-American Friends Growing Up whose Fathers Served Honorably is that War.... I also had Friends whose Parents were sent to the Internment Camps... The American Indigenous, and the American-Japanese have an Interesting Bond...
Apache, I suspect Hegseth would have frozen and pushed Black troops ahead of him. I have heard nothing of his "courage" in combat, but a lot about his hatred of women and people of color in our armed forces and his dismissal of them from leadership while promoting unproven white men. That is what incompetents do and hegseth is one as were the guys in charge at Wounded Knee. It's too bad Miles didn't have those soldiers court martialed.
Well, straight white males better watch out, too, lest their neighbours simply tell the ICE Gestapo that they are secretly gay, or supportive of Black rights, belong to Antifa, or anything else considered “radical leftist stuff”. After all, this administration doesn’t need any proof nor a court of law; a message by a ‘loyal citizen’ should suffice, right? A perfect way to end a squabble and get rid of that neighbour you don’t like.
“Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention, according to data released by the government. The number of people with no criminal history arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and detained by the Trump administration has now surpassed the number of those charged with crimes.”
“As the data shows, the increase in collateral arrests also leads to the detention and deportation of immigrants with no criminal record. It also opens the door to the arrest and detention of people legally in the US.”
Thank you for the numbers. The real Christians should be shouting them from the pulpits tomorrow. Will they? How many “brother’s keeper(s)” have we? The “No Kings” day crowds should tell US. Of course no brownish people with accents (of any kind) should attend (unless, of course, disguised in white sheets).
Add to that children who get angry with parents for some imagined “unfairness” and we are completely returned to 1940’s Germany. After the war, Germany learned from its mistakes. The US never really learned anything from the war, and how Hitler came to be, and instead allowed hate to grow. And here we are.
I don’t think it’s WWII we didn’t learn from. It’s the Civil War. We have never come to terms with slavery or the treatment of the indigenous population and the role of white America in centuries of oppression, including after the Civil War up through today. Germany did do that after WWII.
Our firm (and mistaken) belief in our own exceptionalism has prevented us from learning from the past and doomed us to this present. The future? Wouldn’t it be nice if this were our turning point, our wake up call? I thought the election of Obama was that turning point, and it was indeed a turning point, but not the one I’d hoped for.
I am with you 100%, Terry. Unless and until we both acknowledge it and make meaningful reparations, we cannot and will not move forward as a society. The success that MAGA has experienced with tapping into that racist ideology clearly articulates KR's original point.
I feel the same way, Terry and Ally. America is not a nice country. We are living on stolen lands. That’s how we started out. Then, we brought African people over to do the dirty work that white folk refused to do. We tortured them. We raped them. The same was done to Native Americans. We have never been nice.
This ^^ every word of it from KR. Our nation was built on the dual original sins of slavery and genocide. That is the ugly truth that so few, even many on the “left” are willing to confront. For a long time we could avert our gaze from it as we enjoyed global hegemony as the world’s biggest superpower. But now, the American Century is over, and we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room.
One of the hardest things for me to contemplate is “when this is over.” And here is how I finish the sentence: we cannot go back to the way things were. We need a new republic and a new constitution that centers the voice of people, not corporations or billionaires, and justice for all as its founding principle.
Some say this opens up a Pandora’s box. But I say we are already at the break glass moment. It is time for patriots to rise up and say we no longer recognize this tyrannical government as legitimate. It is time to redeclare our independence. And then be prepared to defend it by any means necessary.
Hear, hear! I’m with you, Chris. Thanks for taking my point to a logical conclusion.
I like to think that when we know better, we do better. This administration is actively trying to prevent us from knowing better, in order to prevent progress. It’s shameful.
Hello KR... The problem with Obama, was that he ran a Great Marketing Campaign is 2008... The Country was tired of the GWB Regime... When Obama won, Obama didn't didn't actually have a Plan to Deliver... When is a Position of Great Responsibility, one should choose one's Words Carefully....
So it is, sadly... If children had been taught European history in schools (actual history, not the fascist fairy tales that Hegseth calls 'history'), it might have been otherwise. Alas, the Heritage Foundation knew what they were doing: start at the schools, and you'll have an easy takeover of the country after 50 years.
Dutch Mike, this is as “telling” a comment as has been made here. In 1952, I was shown a newspaper article that stated unequivocally that those students currently pursuing Education degrees were the lowest 25% of SAT scorers. A college freshman at the time I remember the article well because it made me aware that I could never major in “Education.” Coming from a family of teachers on both sides and generations, of course I taught, but never in public school where I had had wonderful teachers.
Virginia,I had wonderful teachers too in public schools during the 50s and graduated in 1961. I have taught in Sierra Leone in the Peace Corps and a small public school near Salem which was a good place to work until we got a principal who in some ways reminds me of death star. I also taught a class in ESL at the local community college for a while.
Here's one for you: "Those that Can't, Teach." - I had very few good teachers in Oklahoma public schools. I mostly taught myself through reading everything and anything I could get my hands on. I left OK at 19 and came to CA to get an education. I am so glad I left. I understand that the state now requires the Bible to be taught in Public Schools and requires teachers to sign a loyalty pledge in order to get hired. Unbelievable!
Did you really mean to tell us that a newspaper article asserting making such a low scores statement was enough to deny yourself the kind of preparations that could have made you a better teacher when you had no more prior awareness of what it might take to perform capably as a teacher other than your own experience as a child? ("Of course you taught?" Because you were surrounded by a family of teachers? Did you lack the skills or inclination to teach in public schools? .What kind of comment is that? (You might want to take a glance at what HCR has written about Know Nothings. /s) Put simply, directly, the attitudes you seem to reveal here appall me.
And who am I? An Amherst and Harvard-educated historian and philosopher who became a Fed long-range-future's oriented strategic planner, and then a policy scientist, a dean of education who believed -- and acted accordingly -- that America's teachers' unique responsibility was to bring their charges to levels of understanding and performance that would equip them to assume their roles as citizens in a democracy of, for, and by the people. You try being a university dean in service to faculty who are perceived by administration and preparing young women for roles whose delicacy and complexity and scholarly underpinnings are unacknowledged, unreognized, or disbelieved, whose worth in society is -- obviousl, right? -- confirmed by the lower salaries they earn. In the policy arenas where I played out my prickly roles (you may judge the degree to which I've lost my touch), they were not paid for the roles they played, but received and chose the roles boards and legislatures at rates THEY were willing to pay. I've had it to here (hand at ,my throat) the attitude, the contempt that seeps from what you wrote, whether you believe it or not. I conclude you don't fully know what you're talking about (like the Gen Z focus I listened to for an hour today on the Bulwark), and I'm sorry for that . . . but not responsible. That's in your pot and your past. You pushed my button and its what the machine you "put two dollars in" was slated to deliver. I and the faculty who worked with me gave better than an old college try; a redesign of the program to five years in duration, an Arts Science degree AND a professional degree, a fifth year internship in the local schools jointly managed by the college faculty, the schools, and the teachers union. It dramatically increased the placement of our graduates; hiring principals and superintendents, fully briefed on the program, knew exactly what they were getting, partly since their own teachers had participated intimately in the professional preparation. (BTW, I did have to unilaterally adjust upward the women faculty's salaries upward in 1972 when I first arrived to match the men's [and did so initially out of the College's budget until the University recognized its own responsibilities. That 'less regard' applied as much to the genderede university faculty as much as the lower schools.)
Over the course of my thirty years in professional education (followed by twenty more in self-supported public advocacy) it was obligatory to put up with yards and yards, pounds and pounds of ignorance and bias. Thanks for triggering in me the opportunity to finally talk unfettered. I appreciate the opportunity.
I learned from excellent teachers how to be one, by imitating the best in their techniques. What I know about “education” courses is mostly how dull they are. Subject matter is what interested me. I have no regrets about never having taken an education course. I did learn research in musicology from a bunch of marvelous veterans who returned from their military service to graduate school and trained a recent AB in the mysteries of microfilm readers.
Hello Dutch Mike… The Conservative Movement has had great Success at the expense of the Majority because they Plan, Persist, and are Organized… We, the Majority, are Organized like Cats….
Every time I read the story of Wounded Knee my heart breaks a little more. Corruption and incompetence led to this massacre and we are setting ourselves up again to repeat history.
Same here. Today may be the correct day to start my birthday gift to myself this year, which was Professor Richardson's book on Wounded Knee. I couldn't find the head space for it this summer, but now is (I hope) the time.
Ally, that book is not an easy read, from the standpoint of the subject matter, but it is very well written and very educational. I had read Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee 50+ years ago, when my heart was not as sensitive to what happened there. I am really glad to have read Heather's book. If you go slow where it upsets you, you will be able to make it through, and you'll be glad you did. I learned a lot from it.
Sandra, I agree with you on both accounts: the Wounded Knee massacre is deeply sad and we are repeating history again, especially with the current ridiculous administration. Will we ever learn?
Germany, and Japan, learned from her mistakes because she had a good teacher.
The US and her allies.
The US was instrumental in creating the UN to resolve disputes peacefully, the US instituted the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany rather than punish it to prevent another Hitler, Lead by the US Japan was rehabilitated from a militaristic society ruled by a god-like emperor to a parliamentary democracy with land reform, promoting privileges to women, and renouncing the "right" to wage war.
For the first time in history after a major war the victors gave a helping hand to the vanquished.
We did that.
Because Trump and MAGA don't remember history doesn't mean "we" didn't learn anything.
“We” the people learned. But the right-wing has learned how to become stronger and stronger, and more corrupt every year. They learned how to use people to get what they want, which is ansolute power and a tearing up off our constitution.
Gary, our children didn't learn anything, because civics, for all intents and purposes, was eliminated from the curriculum. The MAGA movement is a product of a flawed education system, who are, once again, dependent on the support of the gov't..
I never said anything about public school, however, I taught in the Public School system for more than 35 years and I can confirm that civics was eliminated as a subject from the curriculum, until they reached high school and then it was given very short shrift.
Fortunately, the one right across the street is not well and he would turn everyone in. Even our neighbor who used to talk to him because he is an excellent craftsman, especially in metals, will no longer talk to him be our neighbor is very angry and does not want to deal with MAGAs.
I smell it. Trump and his entire entire regime stinks as does his policies and personality. Twenty three years after the Wounded Knee Massacre the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified. That granted Congress power to collect taxes on incomes, “from whatever source derived,”. Thus we the “citizens of the United States” (Fourteenth Amendment) have since paid taxes to IRS without ever voting on the issue ourselves (Taxation without representation!). Nevertheless the support for the Sixteenth Amendment came from the argument it would replace the use of high tariffs as the means of revenue to run the Federal government. Consider today that we pay IRS and now Trump wants to return to high tariffs too and keep the Federal minimum wage at $7.25 while lowering taxes on billionaires. “Make America Great Again” means returning to the wealth disparities and political corruption of the Gilded Age (1870-1910); the age of lies about the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890); Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which validated "Jim Crow laws" holding racial segregation in public transportation constitutional saying separate but equal is equal; White nationalism and the KKK festering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the assassination of President McKinley (1901) who was a longtime supporter of higher tariffs but shot by a man living in economic hardships after being from fired his job. Trump is ignoring too much history for his own good.
Trump isn't ignoring history. He doesn't read and he doesn't listen to those who might have some knowledge of our history. He's too busy believing he is making history. And, sadly, in a way, he is. Just not the history we want. There are days that I think what our country would be like today if we had elected Harris. But no, we couldn't elect a woman.
The telling note: It does not matter if you were an elected Senator and Secretary of State, or if you were an elected Senator and Vice President, if you're a woman, the good ol' USA will not vote for you.
True for now. IMO, history will read this mess as being the Democrats were wrong in not knowing the nature of the beast. America is a racist / sexist society who would vote for a felon with a white penis rather than the two most qualified candidates ever who lacked that all important qualification. We can't change history but if I could I would like to have seen Biden resign from office twenty five months after entering and allow America to see Harris prove her worth. It may take that kind of spoon feeding to make this spoiled little baby grow-up. To paraphrase President Johnson when he spoke about America being racist, “If you can convince the lowest man he's better than the best woman, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
The Supreme Court would be Six to three without Neil M. Gorsuch,
Brett M. Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett. Clinton serving two terms likely would have appointed three plus Merrick Garland would have at least been appointed as a temporary Justice following Clinton's winning and then remained on the Court after Clinton becoming President. However, I would like to think that once Clinton won then Senator McConnell would finally have done his sworn duty to defend the Constitution (Our Government) and provided Garland with a hearing in the Senate and then Obama would have appointed him to the Court before leaving the White House. The entire Federal Court system would be one for We the People and not corproatist fascist replacement parts.
I like the "couldn't" in your last sentence, Penny.
It show how many -- especially many ostensibly "educated" -- are in fact ruled by those very same forces Henry pondered in his "The Education of Henry Adams."
Those forces still rule today, in the forms of testing, corporate-packaged textbooks, social media billionaire greed, the similar greed of congresspeople for lobbyists' bribes, similar greed of Clarence and others on that "highest" court in the land to bless Donald criminality, and the cohering wall of cover-up by so many who raped the underage girls Donald's pals trafficked.
Penny, excellent analysis of death star. And where would be if we had elected HRC....for starters, we wouldn't have the sycophants on the Supreme Court.
Of course you voted on the issue — back then. Amendments to the Constitution don’t get ratified unless 3/4 of state legislatures vote in favor. You don’t get to keep voting on the 16th Amendment any more than you do the 1st.
You are giving Trump way too much credit for thinking about these things. When he comes out with some big policy announcement, you'll notice he's reading it. If you want to know what he's really thinking, just watch one of his impromptu rants which are basically stream of consciousness gibberish full of hate and nonsensical proclamations. He's not smart and aware enough to be responsible for 90% of the decisions he makes. He is a convenient, ignorant, hate-filled idiot who is easily incited to do the bidding of those who are really guiding our turn to fascism and Christian nationalism.
YES! Exactly! That’s why Trump is always ranting about Biden’s autopen use…bc Trump knows he’s not running the government either! He may be signing his name, but Trump has NO IDEA what he’s signing!
Jr. knows how to use his family name and how to play people for attention. Yet there is and maybe always has been something very wrong in the bell tower; bats.
Thank you Annabel Ascher & thank you Professor Richardson for even more detailed historical context of the " ... road to Wounded Knee".
We are about to experience Hegseth's Mysognistic Rave at Quantico. Call it out, condemn it but, remain alert to deployment plans & contrarian voices among officers & others.
Related Update: Per WAPO at 12:18 a.m EDT this Saturday morning, 9/27: "FBI fires agents photographed kneeling during 2020 Gorge Floyd protest". Those agents kneeled, bended their knees, 5 years ago.
Heather: In 1889 the government forced the Lakotas to sign treaties agreeing to sell about half of their land and to move closer to six agencies on smaller reservations in what would soon be a new state.
United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980), The Supreme Court found a wrongful taking of tribal property and ordered the government to pay just compensation for the Black Hills.
Rejection of the Ruling: The Sioux rejected the monetary compensation awarded by the Supreme Court, which was valued at over $1 billion as of 2018.
"The Black Hills Are Not for Sale": The Sioux believe that the Black Hills are not simply land to be bought but are sacred, a core part of their culture and sovereignty.
Deeper Meaning: The refusal to accept the money illustrates a profound struggle for sovereignty, recognition, and land restitution, going beyond mere financial reparations.
Thank You Daniel... "Deeper Meaning: The refusal to accept the money illustrates a profound struggle for sovereignty, recognition, and land restitution, going beyond mere financial reparations."... The Indigenous Have Laid Our Bones In This Land For Over A Thousand Generations... We Are This Land...
White men have been on this continent 4% of the time of human settlers. I figured 500 years of white people. 12,000 years of all humans on this continent. I won't be around to see the non human animals take back this continent. "500 Nations" is a wonderful way to understand how this continent was settled. Free on You Tube
I've also read the number of years as 19,000. Whatever, we are insignificant and destroying what we have.. Besides Bury my heart at Wounded Knee, there is the Trail of Tears in Georgia . My first grandchild has the straight black hair. One of my granddaughters has the high cheek bones. And I still want to know Martin Luther King's origin with his high cheek bones. because the indigenous had to destroy their heritage, which is happening now under Taco, no one mentions King's high cheek bones. I moved to western NY in 1973 and found this is an area of Seneca and other settlers.
Hello Daniel.... Few are Republicans... There is still much Voter suppression in the Nations.... Many of the Indigenous still feel cheated by the 'System'... When We do Vote, We tend to Vote Democratic...
Ah, but what Daniel wrote was "Naive" Americans -- not native -- and when he said they were all, not registered or Republicans , of course I took him at his word. /s
Many of us are experiencing disorientation and despair at the current situation. As a descendant of the colonizers, I can't help but feel this is just a small taste of what Native peoples have gone through, here and elsewhere, with the destruction of their environments and societies by powerful, greedy profiteers.
Daniel, thank you for this. I appreciate the focus of your last sentence: deeper meaning. Nothing is sacred in the materialistic society that forms the US.
Apache, death star is greed combined with an incredible narcissistic personality that is so awful that it is beyond words. I call him death star because he is a ball of destruction hurtling through our democracy and everything that is decent. He is aided and abetted by a bunch of greedy bastards. In the end their money will not save them.
Do you know how to find a news film showing German officers swearing fealty to Hitler? I saw it, probably on MSNBC, years ago. That is what I fear from this preposterous powwow. Hegseth is as dangerous as Vance. Both are toxic and lacking in general empathy, without thought, drunk on power.
Virginia, this may not be what you are looking for, but it is a short clip of German soldiers swearing loyalty to Hitler en masse. The automated translation is a little "clunky," but there's enough to understand the oath.
Thank you. The film showed a cadre of (perhaps) SS officers from the rear shouting fealty to the Führer the way I fear Hegseth is planning for the generals to do for Trump.
All rational citizens should hold all right-wingers responsible for the catastrophic political policies implemented by this generation of right-wingers, and all the anti-democracy policies since the original Constitutional Convention.
Thinking about the likely agenda at Tuesday’s meeting of generals and admirals at Quantico, I’ve been posting that right-thinking leaders who would prefer to decline to swear a loyalty oath even if it means they would have to resign should instead take the oath and go along with it so they remain military leaders. Otherwise if/when martial law is unlawfully declared, they won’t be there to stand up for the country.
If you agree with this stratagem, you may wish to share it more broadly.
Your stratagem may be the best possible solution, but after 24 hours of considering it, still wondering if setting an example, then leaving it to others, less quick to recognize the necessity to act, might be possible and more inspiring and unifying to everyone. The wake-up needs to be as total as possible.
Hopefully the generals are taking steps to align in advance. Their natural inclination will be to refuse any unconstitutional oath. Tempting to wish that if 100% refuse, they would then inform the secretary of the grave risk he just took and that he's the one who now needs to resign.
Loren Bliss, read your piece and thank you. Remembering that in the early 20th century Wisconsin had Socialist high officials, but have not taken time to learn the details. Read Tony Judt, however, and watching Zohran Mamdani (also Social Democracy) and hoping that voters will begin to see the connection to Francis Perkins and FDR. (Should add Eleanor as well.)
I don't believe that Christian Nationalists are even Christian at all. Just because they use the term Christian does not make them Christian. They are cultists that have rejected the teachings of Jesus, including the fact that Jesus fulfilled the not abolished it. The right wing cultists are living by the Mosaic law NOT by Christs salvation through His death and resurrection. I maintain that you cannot support tump and walk the walk of Christ
Oh, they're christian, alright. But only under the strict definition of the word.
Few people realize that the word, christ, is not the last name of the ancient itinerant Jewish rabbi referred to by the English as Jesus.
Christ is a Greek derivative translated from ancient Hebrew meaning "the anointed one" or "messiah." It is an honorific that could apply to anyone.
For racist, misogynist homophobes who've lived in the U.S. since its inception, Donald Trump is their messiah, and they will follow him to the gates of Hell, an appropriate destination.
The professor reminds us of a dark period in American history and supporters of the Great Replacement Theory that there was an earlier great replacement - of Native American Indians driven out of their ancestral homelands because of some bullshit called Manifest Destiny.
Medals for Massacres: How America Decorates Its Own Lies
Nothing says “valor” like showering medals on men who gunned down unarmed women and children. At least, that was the logic of President Benjamin Harrison’s administration in 1891, when it awarded twenty Medals of Honor to soldiers involved in the Wounded Knee Massacre. More than 230 Lakota people lay dead in the snow, but Washington insisted it had been a heroic stand. Fast forward 134 years, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed that these “honors” will remain intact. America still prefers ribbon and brass over truth and justice.
The original decision was less about military gallantry than political desperation. Harrison’s administration faced electoral ruin, thanks to corrupt patronage networks and the wildly unpopular McKinley Tariff. What better distraction than to turn a criminal slaughter into a tale of courage? Medals were the perfect cover—shiny tokens that could polish over bloodstains. One might say the massacre was bad optics, but the optics were quickly reframed as “heroism.” Problem solved.
Of course, even at the time, the Army itself called it what it was: “a criminal military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children.” But the White House needed a different story, and medals provided just that. It is a tactic America has perfected. From Vietnam’s body counts to Iraq’s “shock and awe,” the strategy is always the same: rewrite atrocity into victory, then decorate it. If Nero had had a Pentagon, he’d have received a medal for “urban renewal.”
Hegseth’s decision to preserve the Wounded Knee medals continues this ignoble tradition. Rather than confront the obvious—that these decorations are unearned, undeserved, and dishonorable—he doubles down. “Brave soldiers,” he calls them, as if bravery is measured by the number of civilians you can kill before your own crossfire takes you down. If that’s courage, then America is indeed the most decorated nation on earth.
The problem is bigger than symbolism. Every unearned medal is a message. It tells us that truth can be buried, history can be rewritten, and injustice can be laundered through ceremony. It says that killing Indigenous people for political convenience can still be dressed up as valor.
If Hegseth truly wanted to honor courage, he’d rescind the medals and recognize the Lakota who danced for survival while Washington trembled in fear. Until then, the Medals of Honor at Wounded Knee remain what they always were: decorations for deceit.
They were the most undeserved ever awarded MOH’s in the history of the award. Many of the awardees died in the actions that earned them, the survivors have been held in high esteem by anyone that understands what they did to earn them. Those 20 stand out as a betrayal of the valor so many justly deserve. We have a government run by fools, so we shouldn’t expect anything remotely sane to come out of them. 🤬
Michael, next Hegseth will award medals to those who now killed 22 boat people, and a medal to Ron DeSantis for allowing alligator prison to be built on a Florida swamp.
I am glad you said this -- for while it seems that most of the Christo-Nationalists are straight white males filled with grievance and entitlement, it is important to remember that many straight white males are wonderful people who do not share these odious beliefs and are fighting on the right side of history -- my son is one of the good guys too.
In some of my stand ups, I identify as a straight man and call myself out of fashion. I frequently wear my Mod Carnaby St pin-striped blazer bought in the 1960s as evidence of being out of fashion. Then I suggest that I identify as a lesbian. And suddenly in fashion. Some like it and some don’t.
The more I learn of US history the more disgusted I get. And it never stops… this country was founded on genocide and slavery and we need to admit this and make reparations in some way: education, land no interest loans, something. And white racism and superiority needs to be addressed.
Annabel Ascher: Pete Hedgehog is especially repellant.
"Support . . . of their apocalyptic fantasies" is right. I grew up in such Fundamentalist lunacies. They were anti-Semitic, but wanted Israel to prevail, because in their Fundamentalist illusions, this would bring the end of the world.
OK. ... OK . . .
Imagine, wanting Israel to be aggressive, because the Fundamentalist gods would bring the end of the world.
The white nationalism: Is it EVER!
And . . . what about firing the Judge Advocates General!!
Pete Hedgehog wants to promote a lawless environment in the military.
Whatcha want to bet, the calling of admirals and generals to Quantico is about?
That man is so sick, no telling what the admirals and generals will suffer through with Pete Hedgehog in Quantico!
tump has panicked about indicting innocent people. Comey for example. I just hope the generals going to Quantico have their own personal armed guards with them. In considering the source of the order to convene, this smells like a coup!
Mark D. Olsen: We are living in a world painted by Salvador Dali and Giorgio de Chirico.
My theory is that Pete Hedgehog is erecting a system of Nuremberg military orders. I believe the Hedgehog, who had a failed military career, is trying to cow the flag officers into accepting Military Doctrine that contradicts the Traditions of ordered discipline under international law, and to politically suppress the humanitarian instincts of our Flag officers into a war nihilism of Attila the Hun.
A coup is unnecessary and is too conspiratorial by half. Attila is At the helm, so why a coup? And Pete Hedgehog is a nonentity infatuated with his powers against the Flag officers who had restrained him during his mediocre military career.
@Armand--I am extremely concerned about the 30th. Authoritarian takeovers happen slowly, and then very quickly. Shutting down the government at the same time...I believe they are ready to increase the pace on implementing P-25.
I am working on having a self-sufficient household so I don't have to go out, just in case there are soldiers in the streets of my city, or large bands of ICE-thugs.
I have a wife I love with all my heart (54 years together; 52 years married), two daughters that give life to my heart, a granddaughter who absorbs my whole soul, two well-loved sons-in-law, and five beautiful, well-loved grandsons.
My mind is full of beautiful art (especially but not limited to Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism through Jackson Pollack) and music (Schubert, Prokofiev, Shostakovich), and literature -- Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov), and wonder (Philosophy of David Hume, Immanuel Kant; Quantum Physics).
But, you know, if ICE were to do . . . to Armando, my life is complete, and no harm to anybody would have been done.
Although I am Catholic, I am fine with the idea of death being a vanishing into dust particles. I am reconciled to that.
I will not live to see a free America with love of neighbor and due process.
So, if the Trump Administration would do me in, it would be no loss to me, and largely invisible to the world.
Hmm. My wife would notice that the dishes pile up and the vacuuming wasn't done.
So, Trump, bring it on to Armando, if you must, I am fine with it. Leave others alone.
I would stand on the forecastle of the ship with my defiant fist up as the ship sank.
Armand, although a craving for the Apocalypse is one feature of evangelical culture, another is currying favor with their God, as noted in Genesis 12 of the Hebrew Scriptures, aka The Old Testament, which suggests that God will favor any nation that favors Israel.
So, while evangelicals "know" American Jews are "going to hell" because they don't accept Jesus as messiah, they still carry Israel – over there in the Middle East – as a lucky charm, so God will continue to keep the U.S. the most powerful.
Dale Rowett: If the Fundamentalism didn‘t involve hatred of Jews, there would be very dark humor in catering to God‘s love of His People à la Genesis 12, while indulging in self-promoting DAMNATION to Hell of these selfsame People of God,
If the Fundamentalists understood the humor of satire, the self-contradictory beliefs of Fundamentalism would SELF-DESTRUCT, like the robot on Star Trek repeating after Captain Kirk, „Everything I say is a lie. The last statement is true“ — where Mr Spock and Captain Kirk watch the robot steam and overheat as it reasons through the oxymoron with no solution until the robot expires from overheating.
Armand, I talked about this in my reply to Cindy below.
I remember that Star Trek episode.
If a critically thinking person of even average intelligence were to try and embrace fundamentalism/evangelicalism, their head would explode.
For best results, one has to be born into evangelicalism, and be conditioned to accept that up is down, in is out, black is white, hate is love, wrong is right, etc.
That's why Donald is so popular with evangelicals.
Interesting thoughts. I often wonder what the white Christian nationalists really think about Jewish people. If their aim is to turn America into a strictly Christian nation -- which seems to be their end game -- I wonder how this would impact Jewish people and others who are not Christian.
Evangelicalism works only for people who are able to live with perpetual cognizant disconnects. It starts with the notion of a deity who's supposed to be the source of all true love, yet, if you don't love him back, he will condemn you to burn in Hell for eternity. That has to be the most perverse understanding of love ever known to humankind! And evangelical doctrine goes downhill from there.
So in answer to your question, christian nationalists simultaneously hate American Jews here in the U.S. and adore Israelis over there in the Middle East.
Ally House: You and I share humane, core values, which I have appreciated for quite some time.
Two things are true at the same time.
Benjamin Netanyahu is committing terrible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The current war is a continuation of a long-lasting, evil strategy to abort any possibility of a Palestinian State.
In proclaiming against a war on terror, Mr. Netanyahu has taken to a war on hospitals, ambulances, humanitarian aid, refugee camps, houses of worship — killing untold thousands of children and other noncombatants.
As far as noncombatants, it does not matter what their private opinions are. They are entitled to protection and humanity under the Geneva and Hague Conventions of War. Even if a little kid thinks she supports Hamas, she is an innocent, a noncombatant.
I condemn roundly the war crimes and the long-standing aggressive pushing out of Palestinians, who have suffered loss of home and hearth since the year of my birth, 1948.
ON THE OTHER HAND . . .
The Third Reich carried out genocide primarily against Jews (6 Million) and other groups (a total of circa 14 Millions dying in the camps).
Postwar, the Jews needed a homeland.
In my book, America could have brought in every Jew in the world who needed refuge.
As a Catholic, I have attended numerous Conservative Synagogue Services, and Jews are well-loved and most welcome here.
My love for the Jewish neighbor is not conditioned on her point of view. I condemn Netanyahu and his evil and crimes, but will tolerate ignorance in my neighbor, whom I love.
I will use what limited public image I have to combat the war crimes of Netanyahu and the crimes in the US of ICE and MAGA.
My war is with evil leadership, not with little people who earn a living and do not know better.
I totally agree with your remark.
I am really thankful that Substack brings me in contact with friends like you!
@ Cindy, I have been attacked from the right online. Called a "big-nose bitch" and had suggestions about my untimely demise. Remember the J-6 traitors tee shirt--6MWE. This code for “6 Million Wasn't Enough”
They don't consider Jews to be "white" and on that one point, I agree. If white means Anglo, Nordic, or Aryan, we are not. We are Semites. One objection to Republican Jesus is the blond, blue-eyed depiction when it is known that he would have been brown. The difference is that I embrace my brownness while they want to kill me and mine for it.
Annabel, I'm so sorry you've been attacked -- that is frightening. I've been attacked too, in different ways, for my left-wing views. I actually deleted all of my Substack essays because of the harassment from MAGA supporters. I agree with your observations, and I worry.
@James--for the first time that I know of in our history, you are correct. The end game is to destroy the Democrats, and all other parties for that matter, and have only one--MAGA.
You listen to MAGA types like Trump and Goebbels (oops I mean Miller), and the outright hatred they display toward Democrats. It is nazi-esque, and has to be stopped.
I am a POC woman who is erasing herself. I am living elsewhere. I need health care. Don't trust it to last here. Already I am told that the medical center I belong to is not giving out covid vaccines. So much for my health care coverage. It can't cover that which is no longer on offer.
Well, I know some of them dislike the fact that my book "Turning the Tide" tells the story of how the Tuskegee Airmen fought for the right to fight, while the follow-up "Mediterranean Sweep" tells how they had to continue the fight to fight in the Italian campaign. They're really going to dislike next year's "Bloody Skies" which fills in the Red Tails combat record in the Fifteenth Air Force. I actually don't know how most of them manage to read one of my books, since I don't write on a fifth grade level and use big words most of the inbreds can't pronounce. So yes, the white trash peckerwoods are out there trying to trash their betters and make their miserable existences something other than the trash they are. So far unsuccessfully.
The last recorded lynching in the United States was of Michael Donald on March 21, 1981. He was hanged from a tree in Mobile, Alabama. Several Ku Klux Klan(KKK) members beat and killed this 19 year old African-American and hung his body from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was executed by electrical chair in 1997; while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty and testifying against Hays.
That was 44 years ago... At 7:00 am on September 15, 2025, the body of Demartravion "Trey" Reed, a 21 year old black man, was found hanging from a tree at Delta State Univ. in Cleveland, Mississippi. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy on Sept 17, ruling the death a suicide by hanging. Toxicology results are pending, which could take weeks. Police have said there is no evidence of foul play, but Reed's family has pushed back, citing conflicting details about his death. Authorities have declined to release Reed's official autopsy report, further fueling the family's unease.
Colin Kaepernick, former NFL quarterback, will pay for an independent autopsy for Trey, one that Kaepernick will cover through Know Your Rights Camp Initiative, a program created to give families access to independent forensic reviews. Hanging is a horrific way to die. Trey was a young man. My heart goes out to the family as they await the independent autopsy report...
Much of our history is awful - and it is only by recognizing and dealing with it that we can move forward -- though the current administration prefers to try to eradicate it.
The current regime is not the only group of people who are trying to whitewash American history. The Lost Cause theory was avidly supported by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and they worked to change the narrative about the Civil War.
Why? It's a survival trait hard wired into human genetics. It is fueled by material prosperity that enables humans to shed "strength in numbers" and go it alone in the competition for the top spot. It rejects the concept of leadership and replaces it with control based on material power.
In a fight for survival the strongest will survive and "birth" the next generation to continue the survival of the human species.
The trouble with this is that the human reproduction cycle is too much longer than the current pace of resource consumption and other evolutionary events are taking charge at a much more rapid pace.
Another reason why our own self-destruction on the planet is not all bad. Just concerning that it's probably the worst of us that survive. Oh well, I won't be around anyway.
lauriemcf, that is WHY they are trying to eradicate it. They want it sanitized so that their Christian Nationalistic racism is celebrated, not condemned.
Human History is filled with with atrocities. And continues to be- worldwide. Current in Turkey, Venezuala, Hungary, Palestine, UKRAINE and more.
TRUE:
Our current government is one of the stupidest elected governments in our history. And poisoning the air we breath daily.
Thank you HCR for detailing the history of Wounded Knee Masacre.
Daniel Royer = Pete Hogsbreath
"Their most unfortunate appointment was that of Daniel Royer to the Pine Ridge Reservation. Royer was a staunch Republican, but he was also a failed medical man with a budding drug addiction and little knowledge of Lakotas. After he arrived in October 1890, the Lakotas named him “Young-Man-Afraid-of-Indians.”
We must keep up the Good Trouble , NO KINGS , support our local schools and libraries and all the positive news that goes unpublished in our gross media conglomerates.
An example: Congressperson Pat Ryan in NY 18th district introduced 'Patients over Profit Act'. We need all our representatives to take on Heathcare and break the current conglomerates who have bought all our local healthcare centers.
Even with ObomaCare these businesses are ruining our healthcare.
Thank you for reminding US of this horror. Colin Kaepernick is doing national duty which a decent president would have done in this case and should be thanked by all of US.
I'm a monthly contributor to Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp, and I hold him in exceptionally high regard. If only there were more people of all colors and faiths like him ... .
Thank you for this slice of historical truth. It is disgusting for Hegseth to continue to support a lie, but,after all, that's what this administration is all about.
Tuesday's forced meeting of all the top officers in the military with Hegseth in person is a very bad thing. It's especially bad when you understand that it meets the same day as the budget resolution expires. I'm thinking a purge and loyalty oaths to Trump bad.
Wounded Knee is another genocidal blot on our history. While decent Americans would regret the event and make amends for the actions of out -of-control white soldiers, the current racist, ignorant SecDef tries to erase it from our history by continuing to honor the murderers. This is what happens when you appoint incompetents to Cabinet positions. Let’s make sure this gets reversed when sanity returns to governing.
I agree, Andrea. I would add that if I had to choose between "incompetence" and "racism" as characteristics of an important government department Secretary, I would prefer the former. Of course, with Trump we rarely get only one or the other, and frequently we get large doses of misogyny, xenofobia, ignorance, plain stupidity and arrogance mixed in.
Oh yeah, let's add religious fervor to the mix, too, kinda like putting out a fire with gasoline.
Lmao can’t stop laughing. Religious fervor? Well God forbid….lol. Let’s wipe of all the engravings in DC ON OUR BUILDINGS …AS WELL AS AND FOUNDING DOCUMENTS relating to God. At the Supreme Court etc…..and the dollar bill
Cool. Then let’s eliminate any dialogue about our founding fathers and FOUNDING DOCUMENTS. AND all the references to God in our History and wipe all the engravings from our federal buildings. And our monetary units. The English word might be DENIAL. Lololol
Ps. The entire new cycle yesterday is filled with almost every single network, talking about Jim Comey, and all the rest of the people that are going to be called to testify about the Russia hoax. Another example of keeping you in the dark/deflection…. lol. And she talks about something that happened more than a century ago…..as if it has ANY BEARING ON TODAY???
don’t forget your daily right of genuflection at Heather’s altar. So sad.
Lolololololol. Once more. Biden had the files for more than a year and did nothing to totally destroy trump if he could. But….nope he sat on Them.
He could have leaked names like to a “journalist” lol. Like someone we know….lmao. And yesterday the Dems indeed did that by naming names in the newly released documents of all conservative targets. BUTTTTTT somehow managed NOT to name the democrat names there. How can that be?? Yikes. You are one of many hopelsess waiting for GODOT. Sad.
Hey, Everybody, gosh, "Rick Sender" sure has shown us all his genius and surely he knows more than a Ph.D. professor who has studied history and political landscape for decades and has written several books and taught for decades, because "Rick" reads Breitbart and FOX. Boy, have we been duped. Thank goodness he has come on here and corrected everybody. Nevermind that he is a screeching Banshee, everyone, he has done "his own research".
PS and if you’d like to talk about maturity let’s talk about the Democrats RESOLVE for decades decades are decades REFUSAL to shut down the government because of the pain and suffering it delivers to the people that need the government most. How absolutely horrible it is to shut down the government, and there is video after video of the leaders in liberals history stating that they refused to shut down the government because of that and I’m gonna send you a link as well. Now how do they feel? They feel HATE and that’s all they feel and so let’s shut it down and make Trump look bad regardless of how much pain and suffering it’s going to cause their constituents. If you wanna talk about maturity, talk to your Democrat colleagues
We agree on the terrible aspects of the DNC, maybe other stuff too. The book by EO Wilson, The Social Conquest of the Earth, I think, might be of interest….
I’ve read the synopsis of the book and I find it curious at best. And while it tries to explain humanities domination of the biosphere, so to speak to me, that’s obvious simply because of our brains and our ability to think and solve issues for survival and a higher level. Forgive me, but I didn’t need anybody to teach me that or to endeavor to illustrate that.
I have long believed in many of Darwin’s philosophies and teachings and I think he was correct we continue to adapt to our environment biologically but it takes hundreds of thousands of years if we have that many left
I’ve read a few books like this, and the problem with this and many other books of its nature is there are no solutions. There are no alternatives offered, and if we learn anything about history whatsoever, the constant comments about history, repeating itself have no value whatsoever.
And what I mean by that is humanity doesn’t learn from history (For the most part) it keeps repeating history over and over again, despite the rational thought as to why we do that.
The further problem with these books is that the author never can envision the life we will live tomorrow, as new scientific inventions and creation change even the way we think, absorb, and act.
Lastly, while it’s easy enough to analyze history because it exists, it’s impossible to analyze tomorrow. There are guidelines and foundations of what has happened, but there is absolutely nothing that guarantees that that will continue.
Thank you for guiding me in that direction and I’m not certain I’ve digested the entire concept of the book nor do I have time or purpose to read it now, but I have read similar books and they pretty and too many end the same …. and while I agree, with a number of the concepts, there are too many let’s call them social upheaval's and mutations that constantly bombard and alter the future.
Agreed. I’ve accepted that we homo sapiens are a strange parasite that is harming our host. I am rereading Issac Asimov’s Foundation series as escapism. Kim Stanley Robinson also. Best regards to another person that tries to understand
Wow, that’s a really deep comment about the barrel. lol.
I’m probably one of the most altruistic people that you would know if you knew me. Not that I care if you do…
Another ignorant individual with a degree in psychology/psychiatry for people you have never spoken with or never met .
I’m more concerned with right and wrong, and good and evil than I am with maturity.
The problem with many of you is, I confuse you. Easiest way to confuse a liberal… use facts, proof, and logic.
This group is altruistic unto to itself ONLY. The only thing it has going for them is they all commiserate with their immature/and needless hate of Trump
And nobody can tell me anything negative about him, other than his physical characteristics, or the words that come out of his mouth.
He is the President of the United States for the next three years in this country and is en route to restoring what we’ve lost the last 25 years since Bill Clinton.
The only problem with the group here which is the same problem as most Democrats have …they currently have no control nor do they have an agenda other than hate Trump..nor do they have a leader. NONE. That’s pure democracy in an election n’est pas? And when democrats don’t have control …they lose control and violence ensues.
And all you have left right now is violence and hate and if you call that maturity, you can have it.
This is such a painful and heartbreaking story of hatred and anger! A quote from “The Not-Yet-God”——“A frustrated and hollow human person with a beating heart is the most dangerous weapon around.” Can we look inward and see our own shortcomings and pain so that it’s not projected outward in the violence that is staggering in our country and our world?
Perhaps the one who tries to erase all memory itself is an even more dangerous weapon.
Years ago, a wonderful Professor of History at the University of Michigan once said that the study of history will break your heart. It should break your heart, she added. If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with the way you’ve been looking at it.
MAGAworld is doing everything it can now to turn the study of history into a caricature filled with honeyed lies and idiocy. We must never accommodate them in their efforts.
We are in Europe and it’s true that history breaks your heart. I needed to hear that this morning. I’ve turned into, and perhaps always was a hopeless empath. I learned that from my dad, a WWII vet who pilfered supplies in the Philippines for a nearby orphanage. I learned it from my history teachers, who had us read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Giants in the Earth, and Victor Frankel.
On tours, I find it surprising how little people know. I’m no expert, but I’m often the one to answer a question. Americans do not have the centuries of war, hatred, starvation and devastation that Europeans do. I hope we, and the rest of the world see less of it, but I fear that will not be the case unless we stand strong against it.
Perhaps it takes great effort simply to keep knowledge alive. As a former docent at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, I found asking visitors to simply to know enough history simply to ask the right questions daunting. We all did, I think. The lanyard around my neck carrying my federal ID simply read: “Think About What You Saw.” That is all we would ever really ask of visitors — whether high school students, police, FBI, judges, religious groups, others. It remains the only real task of historians of any age studying history. Think and remember.
My daughter and I visited the museum some years ago. She watched as her father did his best to keep from sobbing at one of the exhibits. And now I talk with my Jewish friends who see Israelis becoming to the Palestinians what the Nazis were to the Jews. They, too, try not to sob.
Yes the gunning down of Palestinians in Gaza is not so different from the Wounded Knee massacre. But the massacre in Gaza just keeps going on and on, "as the war machine keeps turning". Too much profit and agendas for war and never enough being done to end the maiming, killing and total destruction in Gaza.
In both situations they use starvation as a weapon.
I've never known hunger, but I've seen hundreds of pictures and have seen the results of anorexia. Trump loves to use hunger as a weapon as does Bibi and Putin.
How about the return of 50 hostages, left from the 250 that were murdered who are still languishing in prisons for 3 years. Why won't Hamas return the hostages? The war would have been over long ago. How would you feel if more than 40,000 Americans were killed in one day on 10/7, the equivalent of more than 1200 murdered in Israel? What about the continued deliberate murders of their own, because Palestinians followed Israeli warnings to move, because they were about to attack. How many countries do that? Did you buy the propaganda that IDF killed children with pictures posted across the internet. Turns out, they were pictures of children suffering from neurological diseases. Did you know that these children and many more like them are treated in Israeli hospitals? Can you say the same for Arab or Muslim hospitals? Did you know that Monsour Abbas, member of the Israeli Knesset, attended Hebrew University and is a dentist by profession. How many Jews attend Arab or Muslim universities? Ans. Zero. How many times has Israel been attacked by their neighbors, and how many wars do they have to win to prove they have a right to exist? Answer 16 so far.
To think that someone who doesn't visit museums or cultural sites, and doesn't read about art or culture or history, is attacking museums and historic sites, is not just sad, but disgusting. No, we shouldn't accommodate them, but it's hard to know how to stop these attacks.
Carol - that's my feeling, exactly. I am always sick with grief at these genocidal stories but the answer is acknowledgement and atonement, not erasure.
Thank you, Pat. Because of your enigmatic question, I now know that Gen. Forsyth was in command of the 7th Cavalry at the time of Wounded Knee. Do you know if Forsyth was AT Wounded Knee? Would he have been involved in the killing? I lived in Montana for nearly 20 years but never learned about this guy and now don't know if I still have the book of Montana place names. EDIT: Hearing my husband read the Wiki piece on Forsyth, sounds like Forsyth was hugely responsible for the slaughter.
Forsyth was in command of troops at Wounded knee. Historians have not been kind to him, although he was acquitted of wrong doing. Sadly Melinda I have Indian friends who consider the most dangerous animal on the planet to be a middle aged Christian white lady.
This was a wonderful Letter, grievous though its contents be. I'd previously heard the sad tale of the Wounded Knee Massacre, but Dr. Richardson places it in a historical context with which I was not fully aware. History may not be repeating itself, but it is definitely rhyming. And Hegseth is beneath contempt.
Why I read Heather Cox Richardson every day; first, without fail, before anything else.
I once tried to send a gift subscription of Letters to the Trump White House but it didn’t go through. I would try again but if I succeeded this time, and someone on the WH staff actually read one or two, it might endanger HCR more than she likely already is. I have no doubt she is on the Trump Junta’s enemies list.
As far as I’m concerned, Heather Cox Richardson is the nation’s historian.
She is certainly on some lists. Charlie Kirk’s group tried to doxx her at Boston College, I believe.
I’m guessing many we know and admire are on some kind of list. Officer Mike Fanone still gets death threats. Some scumbag out there is trying to impersonate Adam Kinzinger’s mother. Arrest papers are no doubt being prepared for Miles Taylor. Some of us ourselves might be on some dipwad’s list. I just hope we remember James Comey’s words: ‘I hope you’re not intimidated.’
You and me both, Ralph. Since the 2024 election, Professor Richardson has been using these letters to document what a 19th century historian notes, observes, and believes about this current administration for some future historian to read.
Thank you, Heather, for the powerful reminder that history matters, and those who try to annul it, censor it, bowdlerize it, pretend it didn’t really take place, try to force some other narrative to take the place of it, must never be permitted to do so.
Not for nothing has this current administration made war against history a priority. Incompetence fobbing itself off as skill, the use of performative outrage to conceal fuckupery and deceit, gaslighting to change the subject — again and again — the hallmarks of stupidity and cruelty combined.
Screwing with the gerrymander, rewarding cronyism and destroying expertise, engaging in acts of savagery, racism, wrapping yourself in an American flag to change the conversation — we once thought we were beyond all that.
NOTE: I'd expected Heather to speak to the ongoing today, and had prepared this in advance:
Cannot blame the criminally corrupt, rapist Donald alone. Nor his MAGA.
When Dems took White House, January, 2021, they also had majorities in the U.S. Senate and House. Article 14, Section Three of the U.S. Constitution says how their vote then would have denied Donald any public office ever again anywhere.
Many Republicans, still smarting from Donald’s insurrectionary attack on Congress just three weeks earlier, would have joined the Dems. But Dems didn’t need them. Article 14, Section Three says Donald needed 2/3 forgiveness of his insurrection by both houses of Congress, which he’d never have gotten, even if all Republicans voted forgiveness in both houses.
Not calling that vote, Dems invited further criminality by Donald: his ICE terrorism on American streets, his police state arrogance, his suck-up to mass murderer Putin, to genocidal Netanyahu, and his continued cover-up for the rich who long raped the underaged girls Donald’s pals long trafficked.
Dems ought to have seen the peril of this criminal, rapist, and insurrectionist. They didn’t because it would have required human beings taking dangers personally, seriously, humanly real. And Dems had become neutered, anodyne. Couldn’t see the amount of human pain abroad the land.
So helpless Dems is what we got when we let schools routinely take nothing personally – no novels, memoirs, or histories where characters face urgencies. Rather, we got testing’s conceits, where all normalize neutering. And got, too, as Diane Ravitch charts in “The Language Police,” the corporate textbooks where no one in any American school ever sees anything personal.
It takes a strange mindset to ignore everything that was actually taking place in the country at the time in order to heap scorn and blame on the intended victims of January 6, while appearing to exonerate those truly responsible for it — all in picture-perfect hindsight, too.
In 2021, the country was awash in the middle of a global pandemic that would eventually kill over a million of us and plunged our healthcare, trade, economic and social systems into a crisis none of us had ever experienced before. The Biden Administration was busy not only with administering hundreds of millions of vaccines, but securing the votes necessary for an economic support package to combat the pandemic’s worst effects. A moribund global economy, massive trade imbalances and supply disruptions threatened everyone’s well-being.
Biden not only secured the votes necessary for that economic support package to succeed, he then fashioned the largest public investment package the country had seen since the New Deal — which passed by bipartisan votes. Belatedly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg aptly named it — the Big Deal. It was indeed. Its programs are in place all over America today, with Republicans who once voted against it cynically now touting its benefits and claiming credit for it.
That was what was actually taking place in the country at the time. Another word for it was “governing” — which is generally what Democrats do when Republicans wrap themselves in conspiracy theories and search for witches to burn. You can certainly argue that the Attorney General did not move with sufficient speed or alacrity mounting successful prosecutions against the perpetrators of insurrection, but what is the point of blaming “Democrats” for the persistence of a Republican cult most observers at the time thought would never rear its shamed head again?
ICTT, I totally agree that Biden was an excellent President for a couple of years, but he was wrong to seek reelection and should have insisted on a lively DEM primary. He will be remembered more for that than for any of his positive accomplishments, many of which are being totally ruined by our current dictator. And I think he got bad advice from the Democratic Party establishment, now largely in hiding.
I hope history is kinder to him than that because those accomplishments alone will endure a long time after he’s left this earth. But it’s hard not to agree that something went very wrong with the way the Democratic Party tried to look past his age for the second go-around, and refused to engage in the hard work necessary for the regeneration and reinvention of its own ranks.
David, I don't disagree with you, but I think I understand how things unfolded. As you note, Biden was an excellent president for exactly the time in which he served. Age, itself, should not be a disqualifier, especially for an executive who surrounds her/himself with supremely competent operators, as Biden did – with one exception.
I come from a retail background, and was a buyer for several years. I noticed that many of my colleagues were terrified of having a loss, so they bought the same merchandise – in different colors – year after year. My management gave me the confidence to be adventurous, saying, "We want our store to be exciting. Don't be afraid to try something new. If it bombs, we'll make it up next season." Overall, we outperformed our peers because we were willing to take risks.
The Dem Party establishment was terrified of a loss, so they stuck with Biden because he beat Trump before. I believe Biden's horrific debate performance was due to factors other than aging, but recall the persistent media drumbeat of "Biden's too old." The DNC caved to the drumbeat and "switched horses mid-stream," to everyone's disadvantage. Corporate Media is as much to blame for our current predicament as anyone. They have consistently boosted Trump because his outrageous behavior is good for audience share.
The DNC are like the timid buyers I knew, lacking the courage to try something new. The Democratic Party needs new management willing to try new methods, new media and new candidates.
That feels like a wise encapsulation of what actually happened in 2024. Happily, defeat does carry lessons smart people pay attention to. There's a great deal of new Democratic energy from new people in different parts of the country at different levels of power already changing the political landscape, many bringing humor and satire as well as political skill to the fight. Can't happen too soon I guess.
Good as far as the discussion goes, but I will need to understand more of what happens during shutdowns, the consequences & historical outcomes: a refresher course.
Plus, how do Dems then fend off the Whiner-in-Chief’s victimization cries … and suddenly EVERYTHING under the sun going wrong will be Dem’s fault - when actually everything going wrong is a result of Trump’s machinations.
Jay, I'm with you! Those who say, "Let it shut down!" make a good case. Those who advise against a shutdown also make a good case. I have no idea what should be the correct approach. Unfortunately, historical outcomes are of no value now. Donald is as unpredictable as a coked-up squirrel (borrowing from Jeff Tiedrich).
It really is a matter of choosing the least catastrophic consequence, and I have no idea what that is.
We could use the art of quoting so much more, the art of seeing others, seeing more widely the personal and other perspectives in regard to the issues sweeping us.
Dems, thanks to the regimes of standardized testing, which lifted the clever but dehumanized nearly all, could quote many of our apt novels, memoirs, histories, and other arts on what happened to our working classes. But as a rule they cannot do this. Again, thanks to the neutering conceits built into that testing.
Dale, your take on all this is interesting and coherent. But can we really reduce the return of Trump to a lack of good business sense among Biden's inner circle of advisors? Doesn't the speed and nature of social change caused by the rise of instant and largely unreliable sources of information via social media (controlled by the huge wealth of a relative handful of Musk-like weirdos for whom the bottom line is seemingly all there is in life) play a fundamental role in the creation of MAGA insanity? I mean, we Democrats are all gamely clutching our venerable Constitution hoping it will save us in the end, but it can't because it's authors never imagined a world like ours, and neither did we until MAGA simply overwhelmed us. I mean there has never been an American President as " in your face" as Donald Trump, a humorless idiot with a remarkable talent for getting attention 24/7. He should have been jailed within days of the assault on the US Capitol.
David, I certainly didn't mean to imply that our current state of the union is the result of a simple business miscalculation. We are here because of a perfect storm of causes that had brewed for decades.
There's value in looking at the past to learn from mistakes that were made, but at some point, we have to stop looking at the past. Whatever was true then is not true now, so we have to figure out how to chart a course for the future.
There are Democrats doing that, but the DNC is not helping and is useless. A GOOD steering committee would be listening to the voices who are attracting an audience and based on their success, mapping a way forward, crafting an effective message and a plan for delivering it.
I think it would have been "governing" too if somebody would have found the time to prevent the next Trump presidency when the opportunity was given. That's what governments are for - multi-tasking. If they didn't see it coming - one thing about Trump is he says what he's going to do - that is not a sign of political foresight.
It's schools I blame, and the testing regimes to which they're locked in, and their corporate textbook packagers, and the billionaires who fuel, organize, fund and then profit from those assembly lines. I pity Dems as much as I do all the MAGA who got damaged by these elite fools.
Both of you stop. I find both of you to be well informed and express your thoughts and opinions well. I look for comments from both of you, and respect you both. I don't understand why you both have taken offense with each other, but I get a sense of canines marking the territory here. 😩
A few days ago, a new commentor here (Christopher?) expressed concern about reading because of nasty back and forths. I'd hate for him to see your fight and say "forget it" --because you both have value and we NEED everyone to hear your voices. We have a tough battle ahead.
Yesterday, I posted I was pretty depressed at the comment content and I had to stop. Ally asked what order I read them in, and taught me I could adjust their order, so I did. I've started with the oldest first. I've hardly read any, and here you guys are at it.
I'm telling you the honest truth: I'm near tears reading you guys fight. I've been concerned since Trump was elected; nervous since DOGE and the ICE; now I'm anxious with the looming shutdown and recall of the generals. HOW THE HELL WILL WE SURVIVE IF "WE" SUCCUMB TO INFIGHTING?
Please please please stop, or take your fight to DM'ing each other.
I'm copinging this so you both see it, and then I'm stopping reading today.
Phil Balla's comments and contributions are based on highly personal narratives, only lightly rest on scholarship judging from the absence of citations or references and the weight he gives to those he does cite, and his views are heavily dependent on his own particular idiosyncracies. To many (or maybe too many think) he sounds good but there's little there there, maybe even less than that. For its value he takes up far too much space on HRT's site.
As I have two HS English teaching daughters I understand Phil's pushing of Humanities and hating on testing. As an aspiring author, I relish ICCT's prose. (Okay, I'm jealous of it!)
I've learned some people on the forum are housebound for various reasons. If this community gives them pleasure in their day, so be it. Others are stuck in a red area and this group gives them support and sanity. Some leave one comment, others a few, some enjoy conversing with many people here. I can't get through all the comments, so if I see a thread go off in a direction not of interest to me, I skip it.
I think many of my comments are also based on my personal experiences, so honestly, I'm not sure that is a bad thing--as long as we consider the other persons viewpoint. I hope I don't bore readers with too much me-me-me.
I just hate to see any of the people here fight. We must be united to stay strong in the face of the future.
I’m a graduate of public elementary, junior high, high schools and state universities who liked learning and studied hard. I washed dishes and slopped hash for $2.42 a hour so I could keep attending the University of California. I TAed my way through graduate school so I wouldn’t have to borrow too much money to keep attending there.
Perhaps you’ve confused me with George Bush, Donald Trump or others either born into wealth or products of the Ivy League. I am neither.
Both of you stop. I find both of you to be well informed and express your thoughts and opinions well. I look for comments from both of you, and respect you both. I don't understand why you both have taken offense with each other, but I get a sense of canines marking the territory here. 😩
A few days ago, a new commentor here (Christopher?) expressed concern about reading because of nasty back and forths. I'd hate for him to see your fight and say "forget it" --because you both have value and we NEED everyone to hear your voices. We have a tough battle ahead.
Yesterday, I posted I was pretty depressed at the comment content and I had to stop. Ally asked what order I read them in, and taught me I could adjust their order, so I did. I've started with the oldest first. I've hardly read any, and here you guys are at it.
I'm telling you the honest truth: I'm near tears reading you guys fight. I've been concerned since Trump was elected; nervous since DOGE and the ICE; now I'm anxious with the looming shutdown and recall of the generals. HOW THE HELL WILL WE SURVIVE IF "WE" SUCCUMB TO INFIGHTING?
Please please please stop, or take your fight to DM'ing each other.
I'm copinging this so you both see it, and then I'm stopping reading today.
One thing I've learned in my now-going-on 79 years.
Having civilization depends on our ability to see others -- as individuals.
One thing defeats this: our tribal tendencies only to assign others to groups, to stereotype them, package them, as units, numbers.
So I war on testing, given that testing by its very design promotes only seeing in the logic of groups, categories -- and all action as chronologically linear only.
Our novels, memoirs, histories, and other arts all say no to such excess rationality. They let us dwell instead in the complicated, the contradictory, the serendipitous, overlapping, simultaneous nuances of actual natural and human life.
I'm perfectly aware most even here on Heather's site prefer the imaginative status quo all got from schools long now reliant only on testing as human measure. It's not human. It's mechanical. Serve our worst corporate and oligarchical overlords.
I've never initiated any negativity with ICTT. I've invited him to read Diane Ravitch's key "The Language Police." I've urged him to cite humanities. But no, he like most here defends the ruling status quo.
Both of you offer value and perspective to the forum. I respect both of your opinions. I hate to see it devolve into sparring, which is what it looks like to me. That is distressing, as I look for both of your comments.
Thank you for your good efforts urging decency, civility, Miselle.
Sorry if differences of opinion "devolve into sparring." I don't want that and have asked him to read the key work on the role of testing (Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police"). But he won't -- preferring ad hominem to evidence-based.
Those who prefer the imaginative status quo, Miselle, really dislike opposition to it.
Many players who have come up short, Apache, or proved worse than nefarious.
And the deeper, systematic machinery of neutering all persists across the land, and now, too, around the globe.
We have the tools to combat the remorseless cynicism, the monstrous arrogance of the dehumanized elites, the moneyed, the ones who number all life, who reduce life to numbers, units, demographics, bomb sites only.
But so many, so many got so accustomed to all the playbooks of the living dead. Did you see, for instance, how instantly the elite law firms caved, the universities wanted to "obey in advance," or whenever rapist Donald so demanded, and the legacy media the same, social media even worse?
May be paranoia but some think Trump is crashing the economy on purpose. Supplicants like Musk, Bezos, Bill Gates, et al are his marks, just like his political contributors. The goal may/may not be to displace currtency with crypto currency, especially his proprietary gelt.
AI: During the April 2025 tariff selloff, some of Trump's own economic allies and advisors, including economist Stephen Moore and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, expressed alarm and concerns about the economic impact of his policies.
Insider trading allegations: The timing of Trump's April 2025 comments and a subsequent stock rebound led to insider trading allegations from Democrats, though no wrongdoing was proven.
Different analyses provide varying estimates for Trump's overall crypto fortune, largely due to price fluctuations and different valuation methods:
-$5.1 billion (June 2025): Forbes estimated his total wealth at this figure, with much of it tied to his crypto ventures.
-$3.3 billion (June 2025): One video report states that this amount, or about 60% of his net worth at the time, was in crypto.
-$2.9 billion (May 2025): The advocacy group State Democracy Defenders Action estimated his crypto holdings at this amount, representing nearly 40% of his net worth.
-$1.6 billion (June 2025): A financial disclosure report filed by Trump listed assets, including crypto holdings, valued at over $1.6 billion.
-$1.2 billion (July 2025): Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee cited a Forbes investigation stating Trump had gained this much from his crypto schemes.
I don't know if it's planned or just due to his incompetence, but either way it won't matter if the economy faceplants. Millions will suffer while the billionaires prosper.
To be clear, the liberals always seem to try and take the "high road" when in power. It is a trait that Matthew Dowd talked about as a cause of why conservatives continue to march this direction. Libs (dems) fear cons (repubs)) more than vice versa. the repubs confessed their plans in the Lewis Powell Memo and dems never thought they would actually carry out those plans. Sarah Kenzdior wrote a book They Knew where she laid out how the 2 party system was ripe for failure. You are correct that the dems never took action. The prosecution of the first administration should have started from the top down, not the bottom up as the FBI did. tRump should have been arrested on J7 and charged with inciting a riot. Had that happened, I am sure there would have been a lot of running for the hills.
I don't want to use the p word but it would fit perfectly right here in describing the Democrats.
I do not believe anyone, sadly including most Republicans, knew the full extent, even with the project spelled out, what it meant. Of course they'll still deny he's going to do any of it. I kept holding on to Heather's words telling us it was good to be a rough summer but come September...things would improve. I have a lot of catch up reading to do. I know what is going on I just want to go back and read all in order. 🤞💙
Phil Balla: A hearty SECOND to everything you say here!
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, even the central-government minded Alexander Hamilton wanted separation and balance of powers under the teachings of the great Historian, Polybius, in his commentary on the Roman Constitution in Book 6 of his History of the Punic Wars.
Thanks to one sentence in Article II — “the executive powers of the United States shall reside in the President” (or words to that effect — Chief Justice John Roberts has earned his place in history to stand next to Chief Justice Roger Taney as being among the two Chief Justices to have done the greatest damage to American Constitutionalism and Constitutional Law.
Chief Justice John Roberts has enabled Orange-Tramp to have absolute powers and has enabled Tramp to be his most dangerous self.
More distorted history from Philly boy. Language police? Yep here ya go!
Sundar …CEO of Google/you tube APOLOGIZES to The Trump administration for eliminating free speech/censoring conservatives on its’ services. BAED UPON THE PRESSURE OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION! There’s your language police !!
Oh sorry Heather might not have mentioned that here. Ooooopsie
So…now you have a more complete story….heather must have missed it!!!
Google admits and apologizes to the Trump administration for censorship based upon pressure for the Biden administration.
"Defense Secretary Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice — and without a stated reason — at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, sowing confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year. The highly unusual directive was sent to virtually all of the military’s top commanders worldwide, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter." -WaPo
“Imagine the response if a Dem Administration removed every top general and admiral from every US military post all around the world (including conflict zones), in order to force them to attend a big in-person meeting in DC (with a former cable news co-host).” - Rachel Maddow
No one outside of Hegseth’s office seems to know why.
It’s an open question whether foreign adversaries or non-state actors might try to exploit the fact that every U.S. general and admiral on the planet is suddenly leaving their posts at the same time.
“It will make the commands just diminished if something pops up,” one defense official told the Post.
The predator-in-chief, ever more divorced from reality, told reporters: “Isn’t it nice that people are coming from all over the world to be with us?”
Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling was on MSNBC tonight. He said .. "This could be done so much easier via teleconference, You can do this without putting alot of people on a plane" "... It's a very long ride for a one hour meeting." He also said, "We defend ideas and that's important. We don't need to be lectured to." "You don't need the whole chain of command from one to four stars going to this meeting"
This should raise red flags everywhere. What is the purpose of this unnecessary in-person meeting with a known incompetent Secretary of Defense? Why bring so many of our top military into one physical location? An attempted coup? A confrontation by Hegseth with the commanders to test their loyalty to T****? There is no way to consider this plan anything other than hostile. Hostile to the military, hostile to the people, hostile to the security of the United States.
It's so hostile to to the military, and the 800 or so highest ranking officers and senior enlisted in particular, that it's been suggested that the generals and admirals might want to consider bringing sidearms with them.
Frank, at this point I think a military coup might be in our best interest. It would definitely be the quickest and most thorough way of getting all the Trump- appointed incompetents out of power.
It may be something as petty and dipshitty as Kegsbreath pumping his manly tattooed chest and telling hundreds of officers who outrank him intellectually, morally, professionally in so many ways that he’s one tough hombre not to be trifled with (enter swelling boom-boom chords from the Village People’s “He’s a Macho, Macho, Macho Man”), and then dismissing them like misbehaving schoolchildren.
These people are the tenderest of wee little snowflakes, remember.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, erstwhile home of the Trump Presidential Library (and theme park), we expect a war with Venezuela.
So far we've shot and killed occupants of three (3) Venezuelan boats. We've offered a bounty on Maduro since Trump# 45. As of today, we have a significant naval and air presence in the Caribbean near Venezuela, ostensibly as part of an anti-drug trafficking and counter-cartel operation. Eight warships, a submarine, and fighter jets, has led to heightened tensions, with Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro accusing the U.S. of threatening regime change.
We've also withdrawn our ambassador from Colombia. Today, they cancelled the Colombian president's visa.
Roughly 250,000 dual Venezuela/US citizens want revenge stemming to Chavez. Many Cuban Americans also lobby for war with Cuba.
Typical Miami news: "On a December night last year in Caracas, opposition activist Jesús Armas stepped out of a café and walked toward his car. Before he could reach it, at least five hooded men dressed in black surrounded him. They asked only his name before forcing him into a gold SUV with no license plates. There was no warrant, no explanation, no indication of where he was being taken. For weeks, his family searched for him. Only later did they discover he had been transferred to El Helicoide, the notorious intelligence prison run by Venezuela’s feared Bolivarian National Intelligence Service."
I think about what a gift this could be to a hostile foreign power. One bomb takes out the entire military command staff! That Hegseth is pulling the stunt shows yet again what an utter incompetent he is.
Thinking about the possible agenda at Tuesday’s meeting of generals and admirals at Quantico, i’ve been posting that right-thinking leaders tempted to decline to swear a loyalty oath — on principle — even if it means they would have to resign should instead take the oath and go along with it so they remain military leaders. Otherwise if/when martial law is unlawfully declared, they won’t be there to stand up for the country.
If you agree with this stratagem, you may wish to share it more broadly.
So when do we stand up to this regime? ALL of them should refuse to sign. The ones who do not are traitors to their oath to defend the constitution "from all enemies, foreign and domestic". What part of the oath do you not understand? Those who would sign that loyalty oath, in the end, should be charged with treason and court-martialed.
Once they sign they wouldn't really represent the army of the United States anymore, would they, they would be Trump's army. The time to make a stand would be exactly now, if that's what is planned.
What a wide open invitation for our adversaries to do some real harm. Like so many in this administration -- he is doing this to show that he can - even when it's a crazy and dangerous idea.
The thing that sticks in my craw is the cowardice and lying by Mitch McConnell who was the leader of the republicans in the Senate. Before January 20th, 2021 when feelings and anger at Trump ran high in both parties, McConnell said that they should wait until after he was no longer in office to impeach him for the 2nd time. Then after Biden was inaugurated, McConnell said that he was no longer president and there really was no point to impeach him. McConnell was the snake (apologies to snakes. They do not deserve this.) that kept the old stinker in power and allowed him to continue. McConnell has not taken responsibility for his part in this. He probably knew about project 2025 and wanted to see it succeed.
Combine your words with McConnell's big part in packing the SCOTUS with neo-fascists who have abandoned the Constitution and anointed the convicted felon. He can easily be blamed for much of the mess we're in now. McConnell and McCarthy, two real lapdogs of Dictator Donnie.
And his utter hypocrisy now acting as if he didn't expect to happen what's happening now - not believable considering he was the top-strategist - and very successful one has to give him - for the GOP.
Spot on!! Obama could have said that the democrats have review Garland and approved. He is now on the SCOTUS. RBG should have retired when Obama was president. McConnell does not keep his word. Yes. He was the architect as much as Jim Jordan et al was responsible for January 6th.
McConnell has never been known for consistency. He refused to consider letting Obama replace Scalia after his death in February 2016 - too close to the election in November, he claimed - but moved Heaven and earth to let Trump put Barrett on the Court after RBG died in mid-September 2020.
Make either of those moves consistent with the other, and the current 6-3 supermajority, along with its corrupt and ahistorical stream of shadow socket decisions, does not exist.
It was McConnell's corruption and hypocrisy in carrying out his responsibilities as a national leader that set the stage for almost everything that came after. He is the fulcrum on which our current arc of history turned.
Thank you, Dr. Richardson, for this enlightening background to the massacre at Wounded Knee. I was, of course aware of the massacre itself. But it really helps knowing the lead up and pointing out the fallibility of appointing 'Government' officials who have no knowledge of history or of the Constitution of the United States. This further enhances the need to take education away from at least 40 of the 50 States and replace with individualized education for each and every child educating them to the best of that child's intellectual ability, interests, talents, vocational goals, Instead of deliberately under educating masses of children to keep them less informed and therefor easier for sleazy politicians to manage.
I concur, Fay. I can't figure out which is worse—letting parents with a poor understanding of history and other important subjects "home school" their children or sending them to charter schools biased by right-wing ideology. The Republican agenda for education must be opposed at every opportunity.
Different flavors of unsatisfactory, progwoman. Thank you for the use of quotation marks around "home school". So little of what I have seen is anything approaching "school" as I know it.
After reading and absorbing this story, this history, how can one wonder that America's butcher's bill is finally coming due? Or that more blood with have to be shed?
Yes, it's the White Christian Nationalists with their diabolical delusions of Rapture and Messiah and End Of Days and their billions of dollars who are forcing us all into this hellish nightmare of the collapse of American democracy and the eventual collapse of a habitable Earth.
But they're a minority that have seized power. We are the majority, but until we're ready to put our bodies on the line for our children and grandchildren we're only paying lip service to that fact.
Their version of Christianity is heretical and the Catholic church and most Protestnat scts are complicit for not calling them on it. Pope Bob and his college of cardinals should excommunicate all MAGATs.
As a retired military officer, my blood boils every time I see Pete Hegseth’s name in the news! A more vile, incompetent person in such a position of authority is hard to imagine!
It is interesting, ICCT. Speaking for my generation, and very globally, my former work cohort made up of enlisted men, many of whom either went to the Sandbox as reservists or who left the department and enlisted are all in for what Hegseth stands for. A few of the career reservists are very opposed. Most of the ones I know that were officers are horrified.
Wake up and smell the white nationalism. This entire regime is erasing POC, women, and the indigenous peoples. I would not be surprised if they try to erase the code-talkers who helped win WW2.
Their support of Israel is hooked to their apocalyptic fantasies. They actually hate Jews too. The only safe group is the straight white male, and poor white men will barely make the cut.
This is what racism and sexism look like.
Hello Annabel... For awhile the Navajo Code Talkers were Erased from the DoD, and US Army Web-Sites in March 2025... They were too DEI for Pete Hegseth... I'd like to see Pete Hegseth Assault Japanese Fortifications under Withering Japanese Machine-Gun fire like they did...
Apache, Pete the drunk would be cuddling with a bottle of whiskey way behind the lines if he were in the war theater at all. My husband has Lakota ancestry and so this whole story resonates with us. One of his cousins had a female ancestor who survived Wounded Knee.
I read the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", over 50 years ago, and as a 1/8th Cherokee, I will never forget what I read --- My heart was broken, and to hear about Hegseth awarding the Medal of Honor to those men is bringing back my outrage again today. I do love HCR's ability to point out the comparisons to today's insanity we're living with under Trump.
Ikaq, I also read that book many years ago, but since we have been communicating with my husband's Lakota relatives, it has taken on much more meaning to us. Although I have no Native American ancestry that I know of, my heart always breaks whenever I about all the heinous things Europeans and white Americans have done. I haven't finished the book about the removal of Native Americas from the eastern United States because it was unbearable. The same with a book on cotton slavery. Whenever I read what death star and his minions are doing and the idea that this is a white nationalist Christian country, I find the whole thing to be so wrong that I cannot find the words.
I feel the same way you do, Michele. I also have no Native American ancestry, but the way they have always been treated by whites of European ancestry is heartbreaking. Apache recommended (among other books) that I read Geronimo My Life. In the beginning you get to see how the war department didn't want some things published because it made whites look bad. I haven't finished the book yet, but with all the history I've read, it is very clear that Geronimo is telling the truth. Whites have been trying to avoid accountability since forever.
Susan, and now we have the same: trying to repress history that makes whites look bad. I have not read the book on Geronimo, but I have I have read several books about the Lakota and indigenous people in general. Frankly, in the beginning European countries did not always send the best people who only had eyes for what they could extract. In the book on Appalachia that I recently finished, George Washington was busy eyeing the best lands and trying to get them for himself as an example. We have had here in Oregon a couple returns of land and the opening of the Klamath River in Oregon with the removal of dams. There are a number of projects with cooperation with indigenous people and state government programs. Right now I am reading a novel, third of a trilogy set in ancient Sumer as they are invaded by Akkadians. Good escape.
lkaq, it seems the only thing Trump is good at is bamboozling his Klan/cult/whatever. They want so badly to be the heroes of everything they read when in reality, their behavior and choices make them heroes of nothing.
Helllo Ruth.... DJT's Cult Members are Useful Idiots...
Hegseth's newest maximization of MAGAT malevolence attempts the hitherto-unthinkable evil of transmogrifying the heart-wrenching atrocity of Wounded Knee into a white-supremacist triumph.
With eternal gratitude to our hostess Heather Cox Richardson for her valor in crushing such criminal deception with the decisive weapon of historical truth, let us therefore recognize Wounded Knee not just as a symbol of all that we deplore, but as yet another decisive revelation of the MAGATs' ecogenocidal intent.
Which -- in ironic self-inflicted reversal and defeat for our foes -- forever elevates the martyrs of Wounded Knee to Crispus-Attucks heroes of the Republic.
And perhaps births one more unifying protest chant: "Not Another Wounded Knee/ Down with Trump and MAGATry." (Improved -- better meter, more pointed message -- 8 hrs. after original posting.)
Loren, ecogenocidal intent. Excellent observation.
Thank you!
Loren, I like it. It could be a good way to educate people about the real history rather than the whitewashed brand MAGAs, in their fear of everyone else, love so much.
Thank you!
Here is a song I wrote in 2022 titled, "Mr. President Please Pardon Leonard Peltier." I had wanted to write this song for years but the words never materialized. The that thing called "Devine Inspiration" visited and the words came pouring out. I quickly recorded it and sent it to the group in Rapid City, South Dakota that lobbied for his freedom for more than 45 years for falsely charged with shooting 2 FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Within a few moments I received an email asking me to perform it on the Mall in Washington. A group had been marching for months across the country and were going to rally there in November. Of course I said yes. With that kind of request I had no choice but to travel from CT to DC a 6 hour drive. It was the least I could do.
Then I received another message. The band in Rapid City sent the song to a contemporary of Peltier to review the lyrics and so we talked. He told me some of the lyrics were not true but I explained that everything I wrote was taken from official texts. As I got to know him, I realized he was just on a power trip and wanted to demand of me to change my song which I wouldn't. So instead of performing on the Mall, I was demoted to performing at a press conferance the next day in front of the White House. I still went. I later found that this guy who prevented me from the Mall performance told me he used to take cats and dogs and cut their tails off. What an asshole.
Here is my song. Joe Biden as president finally released him from prison within moments of finishing his term in office probably so the FBI couldn't protest as they had under Bill Clinton. It's not a pardon but a conditional release and Leonard is now enjoying the rest of his life on the reservation with his family. I sent him a letter of happiness and offered to travel out there to perform it at any gathering. So if you know Leonard, please pass it on.
"Mr. President, Please Pardon Leonard Peltier." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ell2BLzNA
A friend of both my wife and I had been actively involved for the release of Leonard Peltier for years.
One year she went to Leavenworth where Leonard was imprisoned. My went with her (actually my wife and her were really really good friends)
My wife, a professional photographer, was taking pictures of the prison (of all days it was Easter Sunday) when a sniper from the prison told her to step away from the fence. There were actually two snipers pointing their guns at her. The one closest to her told her to step away. She was going to be shot for taking pictures of Leavenworth (while on public property). My wife’s friend was with her. Both were horrified….
Leonard‘s release was more than a long long time coming.
Very scary stuff. I went to protest Bannon’s release from Danbury federal prison and as I searched for where to goi was on prison grounds and a guard sternly told me to get off the property NOW. As I turned I cussed him out for being ignorant and told him as an American, I owned that prison.
Thanks for sharing the song.
I’m sharing. I hope that others will, too.
Thank you Bill. Heart moving!
Thank you, Sir!!! A bit of mercy for a terrible injustice, from a lie.
Donald Fictionspur Shitsinpants would undoubtedly be rushing/hobbling into the driving off the Japanese warriors with his stink.
Apache, it is sickening that Hegseth doesn't realize that the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in winning WWII. Which is more important, DEI or winning a major war? I don't like horror movies, but I'd watch if Hegseth were going to be shot down by Japanese machine-gun fire.
Hello Susan… Read about Lozen…. She was a Warrior Apache Shamanic Medicine Woman that Rode with Geronimo… Lozen could Ride As Hard, and Shoot As Straight as the Men... She would have applied some Traditional Apache Remedies to Hegseth… When Fighting Apache, Save The Last Bullet For Yourself...
Hi Apache. I will definitely try to find info about Lozen. She sounds like somebody I would like. I am currently reading Geronimo, at your suggestion, and was blown away by how politics wanted to stop publication of his story. I'm hoping to find that the whole story is told.
Hello Susan... Suppression, and Insults are still ongoing... Arizona passed a Law that forbade the Chiricahua Tribe from returning to Arizona after the final Surrender of Geronimo.... The Chiricahua were the last Great Tribe to Surrender, in 1886, and were held as Prisoners of War until 1917.... The Chiricahua are still NOT a Federally Recognized Tribe, and do not have a Home Reservation, and are still Scattered....
Hi Apache. I read about Lozen in Wikipedia, and she was clearly something else. It was nice to see that she was well respected by everybody. It is sad that the Chiricahuas are not federally recognized, and don't have a home reservation. Here in El Paso we have the Tiguas, who are in the same situation. It makes me very angry that Europeans and/or those of us with European ancestry still treat the natives to whom the land belonged (I understand that they didn't own land the way we do, but they did have their areas where they were dominant, and which they took good care of) as if they were lesser and of no value. I hate that they were always referred to as savages, when to my mind, the Europeans were the savages because of how they treat people. You could get me on a rant very easily here. I'll just say that two of the most impressive people I've ever met were Native Americans. My English professor in college, who was Kiowa, and a 4-year old boy who would have been an Arapahoe chief, if he had lived. He had an autoimmune disease that affected his muscles (I think it was dermatomyositis), and he wasn't expected to live very long. But he was so dignified. He knew who he was, and was not like any other 4-year old I've ever encountered.
They're known in Oklahoma, according to my Kiowa friend, as the "Fort Sill Apaches." Now in the sixth generation of being punished for their ancestry.
Me too.
Oh please, Apache. Pete is much too busy styling his hair and shaving his chiseled chin! We all know that it's better to look good than to actually be good.
If/when they get us into a shooting war, his lack of leadership skills are going to get a lot of our service people killed. Especially if it's a major war.
The Japanese-Americans who served in WW II, as well.
Hello Robot... I had Japanese-American Friends Growing Up whose Fathers Served Honorably is that War.... I also had Friends whose Parents were sent to the Internment Camps... The American Indigenous, and the American-Japanese have an Interesting Bond...
Apache, I suspect Hegseth would have frozen and pushed Black troops ahead of him. I have heard nothing of his "courage" in combat, but a lot about his hatred of women and people of color in our armed forces and his dismissal of them from leadership while promoting unproven white men. That is what incompetents do and hegseth is one as were the guys in charge at Wounded Knee. It's too bad Miles didn't have those soldiers court martialed.
Well, straight white males better watch out, too, lest their neighbours simply tell the ICE Gestapo that they are secretly gay, or supportive of Black rights, belong to Antifa, or anything else considered “radical leftist stuff”. After all, this administration doesn’t need any proof nor a court of law; a message by a ‘loyal citizen’ should suffice, right? A perfect way to end a squabble and get rid of that neighbour you don’t like.
“Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention, according to data released by the government. The number of people with no criminal history arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and detained by the Trump administration has now surpassed the number of those charged with crimes.”
“As the data shows, the increase in collateral arrests also leads to the detention and deportation of immigrants with no criminal record. It also opens the door to the arrest and detention of people legally in the US.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/26/immigrants-criminal-record-ice-detention
This is such an important well-researched article by the Guardian. Have any of the other media outlets with broader reach picked this up?
Thank you for the numbers. The real Christians should be shouting them from the pulpits tomorrow. Will they? How many “brother’s keeper(s)” have we? The “No Kings” day crowds should tell US. Of course no brownish people with accents (of any kind) should attend (unless, of course, disguised in white sheets).
They’ll never hit Stephen Miller’s huge deportation goals if they only deport criminals. There just aren’t enough of them.
...This, in a country that incarcerates the highest percentage of its population of any country on the planet.
Thank you to bringing our conversation to something substantial.
Add to that children who get angry with parents for some imagined “unfairness” and we are completely returned to 1940’s Germany. After the war, Germany learned from its mistakes. The US never really learned anything from the war, and how Hitler came to be, and instead allowed hate to grow. And here we are.
I don’t think it’s WWII we didn’t learn from. It’s the Civil War. We have never come to terms with slavery or the treatment of the indigenous population and the role of white America in centuries of oppression, including after the Civil War up through today. Germany did do that after WWII.
Our firm (and mistaken) belief in our own exceptionalism has prevented us from learning from the past and doomed us to this present. The future? Wouldn’t it be nice if this were our turning point, our wake up call? I thought the election of Obama was that turning point, and it was indeed a turning point, but not the one I’d hoped for.
Genocide and slavery: that’s our foundation. We are not sustainable on any level.
I am with you 100%, Terry. Unless and until we both acknowledge it and make meaningful reparations, we cannot and will not move forward as a society. The success that MAGA has experienced with tapping into that racist ideology clearly articulates KR's original point.
I feel the same way, Terry and Ally. America is not a nice country. We are living on stolen lands. That’s how we started out. Then, we brought African people over to do the dirty work that white folk refused to do. We tortured them. We raped them. The same was done to Native Americans. We have never been nice.
This ^^ every word of it from KR. Our nation was built on the dual original sins of slavery and genocide. That is the ugly truth that so few, even many on the “left” are willing to confront. For a long time we could avert our gaze from it as we enjoyed global hegemony as the world’s biggest superpower. But now, the American Century is over, and we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room.
One of the hardest things for me to contemplate is “when this is over.” And here is how I finish the sentence: we cannot go back to the way things were. We need a new republic and a new constitution that centers the voice of people, not corporations or billionaires, and justice for all as its founding principle.
Some say this opens up a Pandora’s box. But I say we are already at the break glass moment. It is time for patriots to rise up and say we no longer recognize this tyrannical government as legitimate. It is time to redeclare our independence. And then be prepared to defend it by any means necessary.
Hear, hear! I’m with you, Chris. Thanks for taking my point to a logical conclusion.
I like to think that when we know better, we do better. This administration is actively trying to prevent us from knowing better, in order to prevent progress. It’s shameful.
We learn, but then propaganda, greed, laziness, hatred help us to forget, and we do the same things over again. Yesterday's Army is today’s ICE.
Hello KR... The problem with Obama, was that he ran a Great Marketing Campaign is 2008... The Country was tired of the GWB Regime... When Obama won, Obama didn't didn't actually have a Plan to Deliver... When is a Position of Great Responsibility, one should choose one's Words Carefully....
So it is, sadly... If children had been taught European history in schools (actual history, not the fascist fairy tales that Hegseth calls 'history'), it might have been otherwise. Alas, the Heritage Foundation knew what they were doing: start at the schools, and you'll have an easy takeover of the country after 50 years.
Dutch Mike, this is as “telling” a comment as has been made here. In 1952, I was shown a newspaper article that stated unequivocally that those students currently pursuing Education degrees were the lowest 25% of SAT scorers. A college freshman at the time I remember the article well because it made me aware that I could never major in “Education.” Coming from a family of teachers on both sides and generations, of course I taught, but never in public school where I had had wonderful teachers.
Virginia,I had wonderful teachers too in public schools during the 50s and graduated in 1961. I have taught in Sierra Leone in the Peace Corps and a small public school near Salem which was a good place to work until we got a principal who in some ways reminds me of death star. I also taught a class in ESL at the local community college for a while.
Here's one for you: "Those that Can't, Teach." - I had very few good teachers in Oklahoma public schools. I mostly taught myself through reading everything and anything I could get my hands on. I left OK at 19 and came to CA to get an education. I am so glad I left. I understand that the state now requires the Bible to be taught in Public Schools and requires teachers to sign a loyalty pledge in order to get hired. Unbelievable!
Did you really mean to tell us that a newspaper article asserting making such a low scores statement was enough to deny yourself the kind of preparations that could have made you a better teacher when you had no more prior awareness of what it might take to perform capably as a teacher other than your own experience as a child? ("Of course you taught?" Because you were surrounded by a family of teachers? Did you lack the skills or inclination to teach in public schools? .What kind of comment is that? (You might want to take a glance at what HCR has written about Know Nothings. /s) Put simply, directly, the attitudes you seem to reveal here appall me.
And who am I? An Amherst and Harvard-educated historian and philosopher who became a Fed long-range-future's oriented strategic planner, and then a policy scientist, a dean of education who believed -- and acted accordingly -- that America's teachers' unique responsibility was to bring their charges to levels of understanding and performance that would equip them to assume their roles as citizens in a democracy of, for, and by the people. You try being a university dean in service to faculty who are perceived by administration and preparing young women for roles whose delicacy and complexity and scholarly underpinnings are unacknowledged, unreognized, or disbelieved, whose worth in society is -- obviousl, right? -- confirmed by the lower salaries they earn. In the policy arenas where I played out my prickly roles (you may judge the degree to which I've lost my touch), they were not paid for the roles they played, but received and chose the roles boards and legislatures at rates THEY were willing to pay. I've had it to here (hand at ,my throat) the attitude, the contempt that seeps from what you wrote, whether you believe it or not. I conclude you don't fully know what you're talking about (like the Gen Z focus I listened to for an hour today on the Bulwark), and I'm sorry for that . . . but not responsible. That's in your pot and your past. You pushed my button and its what the machine you "put two dollars in" was slated to deliver. I and the faculty who worked with me gave better than an old college try; a redesign of the program to five years in duration, an Arts Science degree AND a professional degree, a fifth year internship in the local schools jointly managed by the college faculty, the schools, and the teachers union. It dramatically increased the placement of our graduates; hiring principals and superintendents, fully briefed on the program, knew exactly what they were getting, partly since their own teachers had participated intimately in the professional preparation. (BTW, I did have to unilaterally adjust upward the women faculty's salaries upward in 1972 when I first arrived to match the men's [and did so initially out of the College's budget until the University recognized its own responsibilities. That 'less regard' applied as much to the genderede university faculty as much as the lower schools.)
Over the course of my thirty years in professional education (followed by twenty more in self-supported public advocacy) it was obligatory to put up with yards and yards, pounds and pounds of ignorance and bias. Thanks for triggering in me the opportunity to finally talk unfettered. I appreciate the opportunity.
I learned from excellent teachers how to be one, by imitating the best in their techniques. What I know about “education” courses is mostly how dull they are. Subject matter is what interested me. I have no regrets about never having taken an education course. I did learn research in musicology from a bunch of marvelous veterans who returned from their military service to graduate school and trained a recent AB in the mysteries of microfilm readers.
Hello Dutch Mike… The Conservative Movement has had great Success at the expense of the Majority because they Plan, Persist, and are Organized… We, the Majority, are Organized like Cats….
True. They are ruthless and focused out of sheer malice, and that keeps them going steadily in one direction...
Every time I read the story of Wounded Knee my heart breaks a little more. Corruption and incompetence led to this massacre and we are setting ourselves up again to repeat history.
Same here. Today may be the correct day to start my birthday gift to myself this year, which was Professor Richardson's book on Wounded Knee. I couldn't find the head space for it this summer, but now is (I hope) the time.
Ally, that book is not an easy read, from the standpoint of the subject matter, but it is very well written and very educational. I had read Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee 50+ years ago, when my heart was not as sensitive to what happened there. I am really glad to have read Heather's book. If you go slow where it upsets you, you will be able to make it through, and you'll be glad you did. I learned a lot from it.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Sandra, I agree with you on both accounts: the Wounded Knee massacre is deeply sad and we are repeating history again, especially with the current ridiculous administration. Will we ever learn?
The US never learned anything from WWII?
Really?
Germany, and Japan, learned from her mistakes because she had a good teacher.
The US and her allies.
The US was instrumental in creating the UN to resolve disputes peacefully, the US instituted the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany rather than punish it to prevent another Hitler, Lead by the US Japan was rehabilitated from a militaristic society ruled by a god-like emperor to a parliamentary democracy with land reform, promoting privileges to women, and renouncing the "right" to wage war.
For the first time in history after a major war the victors gave a helping hand to the vanquished.
We did that.
Because Trump and MAGA don't remember history doesn't mean "we" didn't learn anything.
“We” the people learned. But the right-wing has learned how to become stronger and stronger, and more corrupt every year. They learned how to use people to get what they want, which is ansolute power and a tearing up off our constitution.
Gary, our children didn't learn anything, because civics, for all intents and purposes, was eliminated from the curriculum. The MAGA movement is a product of a flawed education system, who are, once again, dependent on the support of the gov't..
I'm with you until the part about public schools.
What is your alternative?
I never said anything about public school, however, I taught in the Public School system for more than 35 years and I can confirm that civics was eliminated as a subject from the curriculum, until they reached high school and then it was given very short shrift.
That is exactly how it’s done in authoritarian regimes. No one is ever comfortable. That is the goal.
Yes, like the Stasi in East Germany. Friends and family members turning each other in.
Exactly.
Hadn't thought of that. Thanks
(Cynically)
Dutch Mike, so Nazi. I even know which of our close(as in nearby) neighbors would do this.
Oh my. Be careful, Michele...
Fortunately, the one right across the street is not well and he would turn everyone in. Even our neighbor who used to talk to him because he is an excellent craftsman, especially in metals, will no longer talk to him be our neighbor is very angry and does not want to deal with MAGAs.
I smell it. Trump and his entire entire regime stinks as does his policies and personality. Twenty three years after the Wounded Knee Massacre the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified. That granted Congress power to collect taxes on incomes, “from whatever source derived,”. Thus we the “citizens of the United States” (Fourteenth Amendment) have since paid taxes to IRS without ever voting on the issue ourselves (Taxation without representation!). Nevertheless the support for the Sixteenth Amendment came from the argument it would replace the use of high tariffs as the means of revenue to run the Federal government. Consider today that we pay IRS and now Trump wants to return to high tariffs too and keep the Federal minimum wage at $7.25 while lowering taxes on billionaires. “Make America Great Again” means returning to the wealth disparities and political corruption of the Gilded Age (1870-1910); the age of lies about the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890); Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which validated "Jim Crow laws" holding racial segregation in public transportation constitutional saying separate but equal is equal; White nationalism and the KKK festering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the assassination of President McKinley (1901) who was a longtime supporter of higher tariffs but shot by a man living in economic hardships after being from fired his job. Trump is ignoring too much history for his own good.
Trump isn't ignoring history. He doesn't read and he doesn't listen to those who might have some knowledge of our history. He's too busy believing he is making history. And, sadly, in a way, he is. Just not the history we want. There are days that I think what our country would be like today if we had elected Harris. But no, we couldn't elect a woman.
If we had elected Gore.
Which we did.
That one too, Jen.
I wake up every day thinking of how different things would be had she won. So many lives ruined/ended here and abroad because he is in the WH.
What about Hillary? This country would be so very different had she won and gone two terms.
James Comey to the white courtesy phone, please.
So, so different.
The telling note: It does not matter if you were an elected Senator and Secretary of State, or if you were an elected Senator and Vice President, if you're a woman, the good ol' USA will not vote for you.
True for now. IMO, history will read this mess as being the Democrats were wrong in not knowing the nature of the beast. America is a racist / sexist society who would vote for a felon with a white penis rather than the two most qualified candidates ever who lacked that all important qualification. We can't change history but if I could I would like to have seen Biden resign from office twenty five months after entering and allow America to see Harris prove her worth. It may take that kind of spoon feeding to make this spoiled little baby grow-up. To paraphrase President Johnson when he spoke about America being racist, “If you can convince the lowest man he's better than the best woman, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
We made a big mistake. We would have had 2 amazing brains in the Ehite house, had Hillary won.
The Supreme Court would be Six to three without Neil M. Gorsuch,
Brett M. Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett. Clinton serving two terms likely would have appointed three plus Merrick Garland would have at least been appointed as a temporary Justice following Clinton's winning and then remained on the Court after Clinton becoming President. However, I would like to think that once Clinton won then Senator McConnell would finally have done his sworn duty to defend the Constitution (Our Government) and provided Garland with a hearing in the Senate and then Obama would have appointed him to the Court before leaving the White House. The entire Federal Court system would be one for We the People and not corproatist fascist replacement parts.
I like the "couldn't" in your last sentence, Penny.
It show how many -- especially many ostensibly "educated" -- are in fact ruled by those very same forces Henry pondered in his "The Education of Henry Adams."
Those forces still rule today, in the forms of testing, corporate-packaged textbooks, social media billionaire greed, the similar greed of congresspeople for lobbyists' bribes, similar greed of Clarence and others on that "highest" court in the land to bless Donald criminality, and the cohering wall of cover-up by so many who raped the underage girls Donald's pals trafficked.
Penny, excellent analysis of death star. And where would be if we had elected HRC....for starters, we wouldn't have the sycophants on the Supreme Court.
Of course you voted on the issue — back then. Amendments to the Constitution don’t get ratified unless 3/4 of state legislatures vote in favor. You don’t get to keep voting on the 16th Amendment any more than you do the 1st.
Yeah, I didn't get that either...
You are giving Trump way too much credit for thinking about these things. When he comes out with some big policy announcement, you'll notice he's reading it. If you want to know what he's really thinking, just watch one of his impromptu rants which are basically stream of consciousness gibberish full of hate and nonsensical proclamations. He's not smart and aware enough to be responsible for 90% of the decisions he makes. He is a convenient, ignorant, hate-filled idiot who is easily incited to do the bidding of those who are really guiding our turn to fascism and Christian nationalism.
YES! Exactly! That’s why Trump is always ranting about Biden’s autopen use…bc Trump knows he’s not running the government either! He may be signing his name, but Trump has NO IDEA what he’s signing!
Back to the Guilded Age exactly.
I can remember bob kennedy writing an article re gilded age in the 90's that made me like him and also he used to be a River Advocate.
What happened to this Kennedy and where are the Kenndy's not speaking out against their cousin?
Jr. knows how to use his family name and how to play people for attention. Yet there is and maybe always has been something very wrong in the bell tower; bats.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=batshit+crazy
Caroline Kennedy did speak out calling RFK Jr. a "predator."
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/caroline-kennedy-calls-rfk-jr-predator-urges-senate-reject-nomination-rcna189678
RFK’s siblings and cousins have spoken out against RFK’s behavior and antivax stances. A lot of them quite frankly regard him as nuts.
Thank you Annabel Ascher & thank you Professor Richardson for even more detailed historical context of the " ... road to Wounded Knee".
We are about to experience Hegseth's Mysognistic Rave at Quantico. Call it out, condemn it but, remain alert to deployment plans & contrarian voices among officers & others.
Related Update: Per WAPO at 12:18 a.m EDT this Saturday morning, 9/27: "FBI fires agents photographed kneeling during 2020 Gorge Floyd protest". Those agents kneeled, bended their knees, 5 years ago.
Heather: In 1889 the government forced the Lakotas to sign treaties agreeing to sell about half of their land and to move closer to six agencies on smaller reservations in what would soon be a new state.
United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980), The Supreme Court found a wrongful taking of tribal property and ordered the government to pay just compensation for the Black Hills.
Rejection of the Ruling: The Sioux rejected the monetary compensation awarded by the Supreme Court, which was valued at over $1 billion as of 2018.
"The Black Hills Are Not for Sale": The Sioux believe that the Black Hills are not simply land to be bought but are sacred, a core part of their culture and sovereignty.
Deeper Meaning: The refusal to accept the money illustrates a profound struggle for sovereignty, recognition, and land restitution, going beyond mere financial reparations.
Thank You Daniel... "Deeper Meaning: The refusal to accept the money illustrates a profound struggle for sovereignty, recognition, and land restitution, going beyond mere financial reparations."... The Indigenous Have Laid Our Bones In This Land For Over A Thousand Generations... We Are This Land...
White men have been on this continent 4% of the time of human settlers. I figured 500 years of white people. 12,000 years of all humans on this continent. I won't be around to see the non human animals take back this continent. "500 Nations" is a wonderful way to understand how this continent was settled. Free on You Tube
Hello Eva... Thank You... Our Legends place our History Longer... 12,000yrs is just the estimated age of the oldest Artifacts found so far...
I've also read the number of years as 19,000. Whatever, we are insignificant and destroying what we have.. Besides Bury my heart at Wounded Knee, there is the Trail of Tears in Georgia . My first grandchild has the straight black hair. One of my granddaughters has the high cheek bones. And I still want to know Martin Luther King's origin with his high cheek bones. because the indigenous had to destroy their heritage, which is happening now under Taco, no one mentions King's high cheek bones. I moved to western NY in 1973 and found this is an area of Seneca and other settlers.
What is exasperating is that many Naive Americans are not registered to vote and or are Republicans.
Hello Daniel.... Few are Republicans... There is still much Voter suppression in the Nations.... Many of the Indigenous still feel cheated by the 'System'... When We do Vote, We tend to Vote Democratic...
Apache, the ones that I know of who are Rs are fundamentalists and see death star as some kind of savior which I find absolutely nauseating.
Daniel,
Here are some situations that challenge First Nations peoples from voting.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voting-for-all-americans-native-americans
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voting-for-all-americans-native-americans
Also, like all demographic groups, pinpointing an allegiance to either party by any group is complicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_United_States_elections
Tom Cole, Markwayne Mullin, virtually all tribal leaders kin Oklahoma, the Dakotas, even Cherokee in N. Carolina.....
Ah, but what Daniel wrote was "Naive" Americans -- not native -- and when he said they were all, not registered or Republicans , of course I took him at his word. /s
True for the eastern tribes, including my husband’s tribe. It astounds me.
Daniel,
Here are some situations that challenge First Nations peoples from voting.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voting-for-all-americans-native-americans
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voting-for-all-americans-native-americans
Also, like all demographic groups, pinpointing an allegiance to either party by any group is complicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_United_States_elections
I was an officer of the Judicial Division, ABA for about 20 years. JD had a tribal council. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/about/committees/tribal-courts/?login
I will testify that to a preponderance most were Republicans.
When I hear, say, strident MAGAT Markwayne Mullins, ironic that many of his fellow MAGATs would exterminate him based on geneology.
Many of us are experiencing disorientation and despair at the current situation. As a descendant of the colonizers, I can't help but feel this is just a small taste of what Native peoples have gone through, here and elsewhere, with the destruction of their environments and societies by powerful, greedy profiteers.
Daniel, thank you for this. I appreciate the focus of your last sentence: deeper meaning. Nothing is sacred in the materialistic society that forms the US.
I disagree: pursuit of the almighty dollar and taking every last natural resource for consumption is what is sacred to them.
Blasphemy to us, sacred to them; just like so much else that drives society today.
Ally, I take your point, but I guess i don't want to apply the word sacred to greed.
Blessed be.
Thank You Michele… Is Greed the Secular Religion of the Mainstream Society?… If so, than DJT is the Perfect Representative…
Apache, death star is greed combined with an incredible narcissistic personality that is so awful that it is beyond words. I call him death star because he is a ball of destruction hurtling through our democracy and everything that is decent. He is aided and abetted by a bunch of greedy bastards. In the end their money will not save them.
Thanks Michelle... In the End, the Creator Comes For Us All... $$$ will not save you... That is why the Evil Siths want to live forever....
Do you know how to find a news film showing German officers swearing fealty to Hitler? I saw it, probably on MSNBC, years ago. That is what I fear from this preposterous powwow. Hegseth is as dangerous as Vance. Both are toxic and lacking in general empathy, without thought, drunk on power.
And Miller, possibly the worst.
I think he’s the worst too.
Virginia, this may not be what you are looking for, but it is a short clip of German soldiers swearing loyalty to Hitler en masse. The automated translation is a little "clunky," but there's enough to understand the oath.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60DNrNj6WEg
It’s at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Good luck in trying to search for it by name though. The archives aren’t exactly overly user-friendly.
Thank you. The film showed a cadre of (perhaps) SS officers from the rear shouting fealty to the Führer the way I fear Hegseth is planning for the generals to do for Trump.
All right-wingers fit that description, Virginia.
All rational citizens should hold all right-wingers responsible for the catastrophic political policies implemented by this generation of right-wingers, and all the anti-democracy policies since the original Constitutional Convention.
Relevant analysis of the "preposterous powwow": https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/09/26/hduo-s26.html?pk_kwd=wsws-daily-newsletter
Thinking about the likely agenda at Tuesday’s meeting of generals and admirals at Quantico, I’ve been posting that right-thinking leaders who would prefer to decline to swear a loyalty oath even if it means they would have to resign should instead take the oath and go along with it so they remain military leaders. Otherwise if/when martial law is unlawfully declared, they won’t be there to stand up for the country.
If you agree with this stratagem, you may wish to share it more broadly.
Your stratagem may be the best possible solution, but after 24 hours of considering it, still wondering if setting an example, then leaving it to others, less quick to recognize the necessity to act, might be possible and more inspiring and unifying to everyone. The wake-up needs to be as total as possible.
Hopefully the generals are taking steps to align in advance. Their natural inclination will be to refuse any unconstitutional oath. Tempting to wish that if 100% refuse, they would then inform the secretary of the grave risk he just took and that he's the one who now needs to resign.
Loren Bliss, read your piece and thank you. Remembering that in the early 20th century Wisconsin had Socialist high officials, but have not taken time to learn the details. Read Tony Judt, however, and watching Zohran Mamdani (also Social Democracy) and hoping that voters will begin to see the connection to Francis Perkins and FDR. (Should add Eleanor as well.)
Awful! 😞 I hope these agents sue.
That is disgusting, Counselor.
WOW!
The White Christian Nationats are pure irony. I laugh when I hear of them. Jesus was not white. And he was Jewish.
I don't believe that Christian Nationalists are even Christian at all. Just because they use the term Christian does not make them Christian. They are cultists that have rejected the teachings of Jesus, including the fact that Jesus fulfilled the not abolished it. The right wing cultists are living by the Mosaic law NOT by Christs salvation through His death and resurrection. I maintain that you cannot support tump and walk the walk of Christ
Oh, they're christian, alright. But only under the strict definition of the word.
Few people realize that the word, christ, is not the last name of the ancient itinerant Jewish rabbi referred to by the English as Jesus.
Christ is a Greek derivative translated from ancient Hebrew meaning "the anointed one" or "messiah." It is an honorific that could apply to anyone.
For racist, misogynist homophobes who've lived in the U.S. since its inception, Donald Trump is their messiah, and they will follow him to the gates of Hell, an appropriate destination.
Fake christians using religion to control others.
However, St. Paul's movement won.
The professor reminds us of a dark period in American history and supporters of the Great Replacement Theory that there was an earlier great replacement - of Native American Indians driven out of their ancestral homelands because of some bullshit called Manifest Destiny.
Medals for Massacres: How America Decorates Its Own Lies
Nothing says “valor” like showering medals on men who gunned down unarmed women and children. At least, that was the logic of President Benjamin Harrison’s administration in 1891, when it awarded twenty Medals of Honor to soldiers involved in the Wounded Knee Massacre. More than 230 Lakota people lay dead in the snow, but Washington insisted it had been a heroic stand. Fast forward 134 years, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed that these “honors” will remain intact. America still prefers ribbon and brass over truth and justice.
The original decision was less about military gallantry than political desperation. Harrison’s administration faced electoral ruin, thanks to corrupt patronage networks and the wildly unpopular McKinley Tariff. What better distraction than to turn a criminal slaughter into a tale of courage? Medals were the perfect cover—shiny tokens that could polish over bloodstains. One might say the massacre was bad optics, but the optics were quickly reframed as “heroism.” Problem solved.
Of course, even at the time, the Army itself called it what it was: “a criminal military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children.” But the White House needed a different story, and medals provided just that. It is a tactic America has perfected. From Vietnam’s body counts to Iraq’s “shock and awe,” the strategy is always the same: rewrite atrocity into victory, then decorate it. If Nero had had a Pentagon, he’d have received a medal for “urban renewal.”
Hegseth’s decision to preserve the Wounded Knee medals continues this ignoble tradition. Rather than confront the obvious—that these decorations are unearned, undeserved, and dishonorable—he doubles down. “Brave soldiers,” he calls them, as if bravery is measured by the number of civilians you can kill before your own crossfire takes you down. If that’s courage, then America is indeed the most decorated nation on earth.
The problem is bigger than symbolism. Every unearned medal is a message. It tells us that truth can be buried, history can be rewritten, and injustice can be laundered through ceremony. It says that killing Indigenous people for political convenience can still be dressed up as valor.
If Hegseth truly wanted to honor courage, he’d rescind the medals and recognize the Lakota who danced for survival while Washington trembled in fear. Until then, the Medals of Honor at Wounded Knee remain what they always were: decorations for deceit.
I just hope the felon child rapist doesn’t repeat history…
They were the most undeserved ever awarded MOH’s in the history of the award. Many of the awardees died in the actions that earned them, the survivors have been held in high esteem by anyone that understands what they did to earn them. Those 20 stand out as a betrayal of the valor so many justly deserve. We have a government run by fools, so we shouldn’t expect anything remotely sane to come out of them. 🤬
Michael, next Hegseth will award medals to those who now killed 22 boat people, and a medal to Ron DeSantis for allowing alligator prison to be built on a Florida swamp.
It is sad that they are tainting the image of straight white males with their evil. My son is a straight white male and he is a good, ethical man.
I am glad you said this -- for while it seems that most of the Christo-Nationalists are straight white males filled with grievance and entitlement, it is important to remember that many straight white males are wonderful people who do not share these odious beliefs and are fighting on the right side of history -- my son is one of the good guys too.
In some of my stand ups, I identify as a straight man and call myself out of fashion. I frequently wear my Mod Carnaby St pin-striped blazer bought in the 1960s as evidence of being out of fashion. Then I suggest that I identify as a lesbian. And suddenly in fashion. Some like it and some don’t.
The more I learn of US history the more disgusted I get. And it never stops… this country was founded on genocide and slavery and we need to admit this and make reparations in some way: education, land no interest loans, something. And white racism and superiority needs to be addressed.
Terry: Unfortunately, your thesis is right on!
Annabel Ascher: Pete Hedgehog is especially repellant.
"Support . . . of their apocalyptic fantasies" is right. I grew up in such Fundamentalist lunacies. They were anti-Semitic, but wanted Israel to prevail, because in their Fundamentalist illusions, this would bring the end of the world.
OK. ... OK . . .
Imagine, wanting Israel to be aggressive, because the Fundamentalist gods would bring the end of the world.
The white nationalism: Is it EVER!
And . . . what about firing the Judge Advocates General!!
Pete Hedgehog wants to promote a lawless environment in the military.
Whatcha want to bet, the calling of admirals and generals to Quantico is about?
That man is so sick, no telling what the admirals and generals will suffer through with Pete Hedgehog in Quantico!
tump has panicked about indicting innocent people. Comey for example. I just hope the generals going to Quantico have their own personal armed guards with them. In considering the source of the order to convene, this smells like a coup!
Mark D. Olsen: We are living in a world painted by Salvador Dali and Giorgio de Chirico.
My theory is that Pete Hedgehog is erecting a system of Nuremberg military orders. I believe the Hedgehog, who had a failed military career, is trying to cow the flag officers into accepting Military Doctrine that contradicts the Traditions of ordered discipline under international law, and to politically suppress the humanitarian instincts of our Flag officers into a war nihilism of Attila the Hun.
A coup is unnecessary and is too conspiratorial by half. Attila is At the helm, so why a coup? And Pete Hedgehog is a nonentity infatuated with his powers against the Flag officers who had restrained him during his mediocre military career.
@Armand--I am extremely concerned about the 30th. Authoritarian takeovers happen slowly, and then very quickly. Shutting down the government at the same time...I believe they are ready to increase the pace on implementing P-25.
I am working on having a self-sufficient household so I don't have to go out, just in case there are soldiers in the streets of my city, or large bands of ICE-thugs.
Annabel Ascher: I am a little darker than that.
I will early next year be 78.
I have a wife I love with all my heart (54 years together; 52 years married), two daughters that give life to my heart, a granddaughter who absorbs my whole soul, two well-loved sons-in-law, and five beautiful, well-loved grandsons.
My mind is full of beautiful art (especially but not limited to Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism through Jackson Pollack) and music (Schubert, Prokofiev, Shostakovich), and literature -- Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov), and wonder (Philosophy of David Hume, Immanuel Kant; Quantum Physics).
But, you know, if ICE were to do . . . to Armando, my life is complete, and no harm to anybody would have been done.
Although I am Catholic, I am fine with the idea of death being a vanishing into dust particles. I am reconciled to that.
I will not live to see a free America with love of neighbor and due process.
So, if the Trump Administration would do me in, it would be no loss to me, and largely invisible to the world.
Hmm. My wife would notice that the dishes pile up and the vacuuming wasn't done.
So, Trump, bring it on to Armando, if you must, I am fine with it. Leave others alone.
I would stand on the forecastle of the ship with my defiant fist up as the ship sank.
F-- them.
Armand, although a craving for the Apocalypse is one feature of evangelical culture, another is currying favor with their God, as noted in Genesis 12 of the Hebrew Scriptures, aka The Old Testament, which suggests that God will favor any nation that favors Israel.
So, while evangelicals "know" American Jews are "going to hell" because they don't accept Jesus as messiah, they still carry Israel – over there in the Middle East – as a lucky charm, so God will continue to keep the U.S. the most powerful.
Dale Rowett: If the Fundamentalism didn‘t involve hatred of Jews, there would be very dark humor in catering to God‘s love of His People à la Genesis 12, while indulging in self-promoting DAMNATION to Hell of these selfsame People of God,
If the Fundamentalists understood the humor of satire, the self-contradictory beliefs of Fundamentalism would SELF-DESTRUCT, like the robot on Star Trek repeating after Captain Kirk, „Everything I say is a lie. The last statement is true“ — where Mr Spock and Captain Kirk watch the robot steam and overheat as it reasons through the oxymoron with no solution until the robot expires from overheating.
Armand, I talked about this in my reply to Cindy below.
I remember that Star Trek episode.
If a critically thinking person of even average intelligence were to try and embrace fundamentalism/evangelicalism, their head would explode.
For best results, one has to be born into evangelicalism, and be conditioned to accept that up is down, in is out, black is white, hate is love, wrong is right, etc.
That's why Donald is so popular with evangelicals.
AGREE 100%
Interesting thoughts. I often wonder what the white Christian nationalists really think about Jewish people. If their aim is to turn America into a strictly Christian nation -- which seems to be their end game -- I wonder how this would impact Jewish people and others who are not Christian.
Cindy, see my reply to Armand Beede, above.
Evangelicalism works only for people who are able to live with perpetual cognizant disconnects. It starts with the notion of a deity who's supposed to be the source of all true love, yet, if you don't love him back, he will condemn you to burn in Hell for eternity. That has to be the most perverse understanding of love ever known to humankind! And evangelical doctrine goes downhill from there.
So in answer to your question, christian nationalists simultaneously hate American Jews here in the U.S. and adore Israelis over there in the Middle East.
This is one of my "I don't get this" as well, Cindy. The unflagging support for what Israel is doing in Gaza from my former work cohort is stunning.
Ally, I hear you. As the commenter above noted, there are a lot of "cognizant disconnects."
Ally House: You and I share humane, core values, which I have appreciated for quite some time.
Two things are true at the same time.
Benjamin Netanyahu is committing terrible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The current war is a continuation of a long-lasting, evil strategy to abort any possibility of a Palestinian State.
In proclaiming against a war on terror, Mr. Netanyahu has taken to a war on hospitals, ambulances, humanitarian aid, refugee camps, houses of worship — killing untold thousands of children and other noncombatants.
As far as noncombatants, it does not matter what their private opinions are. They are entitled to protection and humanity under the Geneva and Hague Conventions of War. Even if a little kid thinks she supports Hamas, she is an innocent, a noncombatant.
I condemn roundly the war crimes and the long-standing aggressive pushing out of Palestinians, who have suffered loss of home and hearth since the year of my birth, 1948.
ON THE OTHER HAND . . .
The Third Reich carried out genocide primarily against Jews (6 Million) and other groups (a total of circa 14 Millions dying in the camps).
Postwar, the Jews needed a homeland.
In my book, America could have brought in every Jew in the world who needed refuge.
As a Catholic, I have attended numerous Conservative Synagogue Services, and Jews are well-loved and most welcome here.
My love for the Jewish neighbor is not conditioned on her point of view. I condemn Netanyahu and his evil and crimes, but will tolerate ignorance in my neighbor, whom I love.
I will use what limited public image I have to combat the war crimes of Netanyahu and the crimes in the US of ICE and MAGA.
My war is with evil leadership, not with little people who earn a living and do not know better.
I totally agree with your remark.
I am really thankful that Substack brings me in contact with friends like you!
@ Cindy, I have been attacked from the right online. Called a "big-nose bitch" and had suggestions about my untimely demise. Remember the J-6 traitors tee shirt--6MWE. This code for “6 Million Wasn't Enough”
They don't consider Jews to be "white" and on that one point, I agree. If white means Anglo, Nordic, or Aryan, we are not. We are Semites. One objection to Republican Jesus is the blond, blue-eyed depiction when it is known that he would have been brown. The difference is that I embrace my brownness while they want to kill me and mine for it.
Annabel, I'm so sorry you've been attacked -- that is frightening. I've been attacked too, in different ways, for my left-wing views. I actually deleted all of my Substack essays because of the harassment from MAGA supporters. I agree with your observations, and I worry.
"The only safe group is the straight white male..." Well that's me, but I am a progressive. So I do not feel that safe.
@James--for the first time that I know of in our history, you are correct. The end game is to destroy the Democrats, and all other parties for that matter, and have only one--MAGA.
You listen to MAGA types like Trump and Goebbels (oops I mean Miller), and the outright hatred they display toward Democrats. It is nazi-esque, and has to be stopped.
I am a POC woman who is erasing herself. I am living elsewhere. I need health care. Don't trust it to last here. Already I am told that the medical center I belong to is not giving out covid vaccines. So much for my health care coverage. It can't cover that which is no longer on offer.
Yeah, I have had the white nationalism smell in my nose for several months now. Nasty.
Actually they removed the code talkers from references and reinstated them afterwards! They are a pathetic bunch.
Well, I know some of them dislike the fact that my book "Turning the Tide" tells the story of how the Tuskegee Airmen fought for the right to fight, while the follow-up "Mediterranean Sweep" tells how they had to continue the fight to fight in the Italian campaign. They're really going to dislike next year's "Bloody Skies" which fills in the Red Tails combat record in the Fifteenth Air Force. I actually don't know how most of them manage to read one of my books, since I don't write on a fifth grade level and use big words most of the inbreds can't pronounce. So yes, the white trash peckerwoods are out there trying to trash their betters and make their miserable existences something other than the trash they are. So far unsuccessfully.
Hegseth, like Trump and all of Trump's minions, is cruel,, stupid and ignorant of history, science and art.
HERE IS YET ANOTHER TRAGEDY IN OUR TIME...
LYNCHING...
The last recorded lynching in the United States was of Michael Donald on March 21, 1981. He was hanged from a tree in Mobile, Alabama. Several Ku Klux Klan(KKK) members beat and killed this 19 year old African-American and hung his body from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was executed by electrical chair in 1997; while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty and testifying against Hays.
That was 44 years ago... At 7:00 am on September 15, 2025, the body of Demartravion "Trey" Reed, a 21 year old black man, was found hanging from a tree at Delta State Univ. in Cleveland, Mississippi. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy on Sept 17, ruling the death a suicide by hanging. Toxicology results are pending, which could take weeks. Police have said there is no evidence of foul play, but Reed's family has pushed back, citing conflicting details about his death. Authorities have declined to release Reed's official autopsy report, further fueling the family's unease.
Colin Kaepernick, former NFL quarterback, will pay for an independent autopsy for Trey, one that Kaepernick will cover through Know Your Rights Camp Initiative, a program created to give families access to independent forensic reviews. Hanging is a horrific way to die. Trey was a young man. My heart goes out to the family as they await the independent autopsy report...
Much of our history is awful - and it is only by recognizing and dealing with it that we can move forward -- though the current administration prefers to try to eradicate it.
The current regime is not the only group of people who are trying to whitewash American history. The Lost Cause theory was avidly supported by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and they worked to change the narrative about the Civil War.
Jenn, you can drop the "trying" part of that, and use "whitewashing" instead.
Yes...that is true.. But I will always feel deep, deep sadness. . And I will always say, 'Why does this have to happen?'
And why does it have to happen again and again? I think the same about Germany.
Why? It's a survival trait hard wired into human genetics. It is fueled by material prosperity that enables humans to shed "strength in numbers" and go it alone in the competition for the top spot. It rejects the concept of leadership and replaces it with control based on material power.
In a fight for survival the strongest will survive and "birth" the next generation to continue the survival of the human species.
The trouble with this is that the human reproduction cycle is too much longer than the current pace of resource consumption and other evolutionary events are taking charge at a much more rapid pace.
Another reason why our own self-destruction on the planet is not all bad. Just concerning that it's probably the worst of us that survive. Oh well, I won't be around anyway.
I am with you there.
lauriemcf, that is WHY they are trying to eradicate it. They want it sanitized so that their Christian Nationalistic racism is celebrated, not condemned.
Human History is filled with with atrocities. And continues to be- worldwide. Current in Turkey, Venezuala, Hungary, Palestine, UKRAINE and more.
TRUE:
Our current government is one of the stupidest elected governments in our history. And poisoning the air we breath daily.
Thank you HCR for detailing the history of Wounded Knee Masacre.
Daniel Royer = Pete Hogsbreath
"Their most unfortunate appointment was that of Daniel Royer to the Pine Ridge Reservation. Royer was a staunch Republican, but he was also a failed medical man with a budding drug addiction and little knowledge of Lakotas. After he arrived in October 1890, the Lakotas named him “Young-Man-Afraid-of-Indians.”
We must keep up the Good Trouble , NO KINGS , support our local schools and libraries and all the positive news that goes unpublished in our gross media conglomerates.
An example: Congressperson Pat Ryan in NY 18th district introduced 'Patients over Profit Act'. We need all our representatives to take on Heathcare and break the current conglomerates who have bought all our local healthcare centers.
Even with ObomaCare these businesses are ruining our healthcare.
Thank you for reminding US of this horror. Colin Kaepernick is doing national duty which a decent president would have done in this case and should be thanked by all of US.
I'm a monthly contributor to Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp, and I hold him in exceptionally high regard. If only there were more people of all colors and faiths like him ... .
So glad that Kap is taking this on. Not releasing the autopsy report is a HUGE red flag.
Thank you for this slice of historical truth. It is disgusting for Hegseth to continue to support a lie, but,after all, that's what this administration is all about.
This latest one by Hegseth is particularly bad.
Tuesday's forced meeting of all the top officers in the military with Hegseth in person is a very bad thing. It's especially bad when you understand that it meets the same day as the budget resolution expires. I'm thinking a purge and loyalty oaths to Trump bad.
It’s looking bad.
Wounded Knee is another genocidal blot on our history. While decent Americans would regret the event and make amends for the actions of out -of-control white soldiers, the current racist, ignorant SecDef tries to erase it from our history by continuing to honor the murderers. This is what happens when you appoint incompetents to Cabinet positions. Let’s make sure this gets reversed when sanity returns to governing.
I agree, Andrea. I would add that if I had to choose between "incompetence" and "racism" as characteristics of an important government department Secretary, I would prefer the former. Of course, with Trump we rarely get only one or the other, and frequently we get large doses of misogyny, xenofobia, ignorance, plain stupidity and arrogance mixed in.
Oh yeah, let's add religious fervor to the mix, too, kinda like putting out a fire with gasoline.
Lmao can’t stop laughing. Religious fervor? Well God forbid….lol. Let’s wipe of all the engravings in DC ON OUR BUILDINGS …AS WELL AS AND FOUNDING DOCUMENTS relating to God. At the Supreme Court etc…..and the dollar bill
ALWAYS NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU HEATHENS.
Heathens! I consider that a compliment. Thanks Rick.
Cool. Then let’s eliminate any dialogue about our founding fathers and FOUNDING DOCUMENTS. AND all the references to God in our History and wipe all the engravings from our federal buildings. And our monetary units. The English word might be DENIAL. Lololol
So much for those here who bow down to history….
Ps. The entire new cycle yesterday is filled with almost every single network, talking about Jim Comey, and all the rest of the people that are going to be called to testify about the Russia hoax. Another example of keeping you in the dark/deflection…. lol. And she talks about something that happened more than a century ago…..as if it has ANY BEARING ON TODAY???
don’t forget your daily right of genuflection at Heather’s altar. So sad.
Hey Rick, you're right that we should be talking about more current deflections. How about showing us those Epstein files, Mr. Trump?
Hey X Soros find advisor was just arrested on rape and having a sexual dungeon.
Lolololololol. Once more. Biden had the files for more than a year and did nothing to totally destroy trump if he could. But….nope he sat on Them.
He could have leaked names like to a “journalist” lol. Like someone we know….lmao. And yesterday the Dems indeed did that by naming names in the newly released documents of all conservative targets. BUTTTTTT somehow managed NOT to name the democrat names there. How can that be?? Yikes. You are one of many hopelsess waiting for GODOT. Sad.
Hey, Everybody, gosh, "Rick Sender" sure has shown us all his genius and surely he knows more than a Ph.D. professor who has studied history and political landscape for decades and has written several books and taught for decades, because "Rick" reads Breitbart and FOX. Boy, have we been duped. Thank goodness he has come on here and corrected everybody. Nevermind that he is a screeching Banshee, everyone, he has done "his own research".
which blessed event we can expect when pigs fly
HCR -- You are a great and invaluable historian!
Yep if like socialism/communism.
And altruism, as I do. The empty barrel makes the most noise, Mr. Sender. But wisdom takes a maturity that you have yet to gain. Keep trying.
PS and if you’d like to talk about maturity let’s talk about the Democrats RESOLVE for decades decades are decades REFUSAL to shut down the government because of the pain and suffering it delivers to the people that need the government most. How absolutely horrible it is to shut down the government, and there is video after video of the leaders in liberals history stating that they refused to shut down the government because of that and I’m gonna send you a link as well. Now how do they feel? They feel HATE and that’s all they feel and so let’s shut it down and make Trump look bad regardless of how much pain and suffering it’s going to cause their constituents. If you wanna talk about maturity, talk to your Democrat colleagues
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/old-clips-of-chuck-schumer-railing-against-shutdowns-go-viral-as-top-democrat-campaigns-against-gop-spending-bill/ar-AA1ARnJn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPQScyuH-QE
We agree on the terrible aspects of the DNC, maybe other stuff too. The book by EO Wilson, The Social Conquest of the Earth, I think, might be of interest….
I’ve read the synopsis of the book and I find it curious at best. And while it tries to explain humanities domination of the biosphere, so to speak to me, that’s obvious simply because of our brains and our ability to think and solve issues for survival and a higher level. Forgive me, but I didn’t need anybody to teach me that or to endeavor to illustrate that.
I have long believed in many of Darwin’s philosophies and teachings and I think he was correct we continue to adapt to our environment biologically but it takes hundreds of thousands of years if we have that many left
I’ve read a few books like this, and the problem with this and many other books of its nature is there are no solutions. There are no alternatives offered, and if we learn anything about history whatsoever, the constant comments about history, repeating itself have no value whatsoever.
And what I mean by that is humanity doesn’t learn from history (For the most part) it keeps repeating history over and over again, despite the rational thought as to why we do that.
The further problem with these books is that the author never can envision the life we will live tomorrow, as new scientific inventions and creation change even the way we think, absorb, and act.
Lastly, while it’s easy enough to analyze history because it exists, it’s impossible to analyze tomorrow. There are guidelines and foundations of what has happened, but there is absolutely nothing that guarantees that that will continue.
Thank you for guiding me in that direction and I’m not certain I’ve digested the entire concept of the book nor do I have time or purpose to read it now, but I have read similar books and they pretty and too many end the same …. and while I agree, with a number of the concepts, there are too many let’s call them social upheaval's and mutations that constantly bombard and alter the future.
Agreed. I’ve accepted that we homo sapiens are a strange parasite that is harming our host. I am rereading Issac Asimov’s Foundation series as escapism. Kim Stanley Robinson also. Best regards to another person that tries to understand
Wow, that’s a really deep comment about the barrel. lol.
I’m probably one of the most altruistic people that you would know if you knew me. Not that I care if you do…
Another ignorant individual with a degree in psychology/psychiatry for people you have never spoken with or never met .
I’m more concerned with right and wrong, and good and evil than I am with maturity.
The problem with many of you is, I confuse you. Easiest way to confuse a liberal… use facts, proof, and logic.
This group is altruistic unto to itself ONLY. The only thing it has going for them is they all commiserate with their immature/and needless hate of Trump
And nobody can tell me anything negative about him, other than his physical characteristics, or the words that come out of his mouth.
He is the President of the United States for the next three years in this country and is en route to restoring what we’ve lost the last 25 years since Bill Clinton.
The only problem with the group here which is the same problem as most Democrats have …they currently have no control nor do they have an agenda other than hate Trump..nor do they have a leader. NONE. That’s pure democracy in an election n’est pas? And when democrats don’t have control …they lose control and violence ensues.
And all you have left right now is violence and hate and if you call that maturity, you can have it.
I've read Heather's letters about Wounded Knee before, but didn't realize it was all instigated by political maneuvering. Even more shameful.
It's also in her book - "Wounded Knee" in greater detail. it's as hard to read in places as "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."
Just as you will see after they come after us, unless...you guessed it!
This is such a painful and heartbreaking story of hatred and anger! A quote from “The Not-Yet-God”——“A frustrated and hollow human person with a beating heart is the most dangerous weapon around.” Can we look inward and see our own shortcomings and pain so that it’s not projected outward in the violence that is staggering in our country and our world?
Perhaps the one who tries to erase all memory itself is an even more dangerous weapon.
Years ago, a wonderful Professor of History at the University of Michigan once said that the study of history will break your heart. It should break your heart, she added. If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with the way you’ve been looking at it.
MAGAworld is doing everything it can now to turn the study of history into a caricature filled with honeyed lies and idiocy. We must never accommodate them in their efforts.
We are in Europe and it’s true that history breaks your heart. I needed to hear that this morning. I’ve turned into, and perhaps always was a hopeless empath. I learned that from my dad, a WWII vet who pilfered supplies in the Philippines for a nearby orphanage. I learned it from my history teachers, who had us read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Giants in the Earth, and Victor Frankel.
On tours, I find it surprising how little people know. I’m no expert, but I’m often the one to answer a question. Americans do not have the centuries of war, hatred, starvation and devastation that Europeans do. I hope we, and the rest of the world see less of it, but I fear that will not be the case unless we stand strong against it.
Perhaps it takes great effort simply to keep knowledge alive. As a former docent at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, I found asking visitors to simply to know enough history simply to ask the right questions daunting. We all did, I think. The lanyard around my neck carrying my federal ID simply read: “Think About What You Saw.” That is all we would ever really ask of visitors — whether high school students, police, FBI, judges, religious groups, others. It remains the only real task of historians of any age studying history. Think and remember.
My daughter and I visited the museum some years ago. She watched as her father did his best to keep from sobbing at one of the exhibits. And now I talk with my Jewish friends who see Israelis becoming to the Palestinians what the Nazis were to the Jews. They, too, try not to sob.
Yes the gunning down of Palestinians in Gaza is not so different from the Wounded Knee massacre. But the massacre in Gaza just keeps going on and on, "as the war machine keeps turning". Too much profit and agendas for war and never enough being done to end the maiming, killing and total destruction in Gaza.
In both situations they use starvation as a weapon.
I've never known hunger, but I've seen hundreds of pictures and have seen the results of anorexia. Trump loves to use hunger as a weapon as does Bibi and Putin.
May they all reap what they sow.
How about the return of 50 hostages, left from the 250 that were murdered who are still languishing in prisons for 3 years. Why won't Hamas return the hostages? The war would have been over long ago. How would you feel if more than 40,000 Americans were killed in one day on 10/7, the equivalent of more than 1200 murdered in Israel? What about the continued deliberate murders of their own, because Palestinians followed Israeli warnings to move, because they were about to attack. How many countries do that? Did you buy the propaganda that IDF killed children with pictures posted across the internet. Turns out, they were pictures of children suffering from neurological diseases. Did you know that these children and many more like them are treated in Israeli hospitals? Can you say the same for Arab or Muslim hospitals? Did you know that Monsour Abbas, member of the Israeli Knesset, attended Hebrew University and is a dentist by profession. How many Jews attend Arab or Muslim universities? Ans. Zero. How many times has Israel been attacked by their neighbors, and how many wars do they have to win to prove they have a right to exist? Answer 16 so far.
“The Tears of Things” is Richard Rohr’s latest book.
Applicable all around.
Think and remember. Yes. And then start living your life in today.
I don't believe that empathy can be learned, it is something you feel.
You either have the ability to experience it or you don't and people who don't feel it are people with dark personality disorders.
They are the people wielding power in the United States today.
To think that someone who doesn't visit museums or cultural sites, and doesn't read about art or culture or history, is attacking museums and historic sites, is not just sad, but disgusting. No, we shouldn't accommodate them, but it's hard to know how to stop these attacks.
Don’t worry. You’re not doing that. ….they are doing just fine without your support.
AS IF THESE MEDALS MEAN S** T in todays’ world. Aka History, however biased is your God.
Once you guys stop living in yesterday, you’ll start enjoying your lives in today
Carol - that's my feeling, exactly. I am always sick with grief at these genocidal stories but the answer is acknowledgement and atonement, not erasure.
Could atonement include renaming the town of Forsyth Montana?
Thank you, Pat. Because of your enigmatic question, I now know that Gen. Forsyth was in command of the 7th Cavalry at the time of Wounded Knee. Do you know if Forsyth was AT Wounded Knee? Would he have been involved in the killing? I lived in Montana for nearly 20 years but never learned about this guy and now don't know if I still have the book of Montana place names. EDIT: Hearing my husband read the Wiki piece on Forsyth, sounds like Forsyth was hugely responsible for the slaughter.
Forsyth was in command of troops at Wounded knee. Historians have not been kind to him, although he was acquitted of wrong doing. Sadly Melinda I have Indian friends who consider the most dangerous animal on the planet to be a middle aged Christian white lady.
This was a wonderful Letter, grievous though its contents be. I'd previously heard the sad tale of the Wounded Knee Massacre, but Dr. Richardson places it in a historical context with which I was not fully aware. History may not be repeating itself, but it is definitely rhyming. And Hegseth is beneath contempt.
Why I read Heather Cox Richardson every day; first, without fail, before anything else.
I once tried to send a gift subscription of Letters to the Trump White House but it didn’t go through. I would try again but if I succeeded this time, and someone on the WH staff actually read one or two, it might endanger HCR more than she likely already is. I have no doubt she is on the Trump Junta’s enemies list.
As far as I’m concerned, Heather Cox Richardson is the nation’s historian.
If I ruled the world…
She is certainly on some lists. Charlie Kirk’s group tried to doxx her at Boston College, I believe.
I’m guessing many we know and admire are on some kind of list. Officer Mike Fanone still gets death threats. Some scumbag out there is trying to impersonate Adam Kinzinger’s mother. Arrest papers are no doubt being prepared for Miles Taylor. Some of us ourselves might be on some dipwad’s list. I just hope we remember James Comey’s words: ‘I hope you’re not intimidated.’
my first read every morning too -- we depend on her knowledge and ability to tie history and the present together. My second read is Joyce Vance.
You and me both, Ralph. Since the 2024 election, Professor Richardson has been using these letters to document what a 19th century historian notes, observes, and believes about this current administration for some future historian to read.
Mine too. HCR is my first daily read.
So grateful for substacks when the big media failed us.
Me too, Ralph. I read Dr Richardson first thing every morning without fail. I agree with all you say. If I ruled the world also.....
Thank you, Heather, for the powerful reminder that history matters, and those who try to annul it, censor it, bowdlerize it, pretend it didn’t really take place, try to force some other narrative to take the place of it, must never be permitted to do so.
Not for nothing has this current administration made war against history a priority. Incompetence fobbing itself off as skill, the use of performative outrage to conceal fuckupery and deceit, gaslighting to change the subject — again and again — the hallmarks of stupidity and cruelty combined.
Screwing with the gerrymander, rewarding cronyism and destroying expertise, engaging in acts of savagery, racism, wrapping yourself in an American flag to change the conversation — we once thought we were beyond all that.
Apparently we were misinformed.
Thanks, ICTT. "...try to force some other narrative..." That reminds me: RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES
Morning, Lynell. Agreed.
NOTE: I'd expected Heather to speak to the ongoing today, and had prepared this in advance:
Cannot blame the criminally corrupt, rapist Donald alone. Nor his MAGA.
When Dems took White House, January, 2021, they also had majorities in the U.S. Senate and House. Article 14, Section Three of the U.S. Constitution says how their vote then would have denied Donald any public office ever again anywhere.
Many Republicans, still smarting from Donald’s insurrectionary attack on Congress just three weeks earlier, would have joined the Dems. But Dems didn’t need them. Article 14, Section Three says Donald needed 2/3 forgiveness of his insurrection by both houses of Congress, which he’d never have gotten, even if all Republicans voted forgiveness in both houses.
Not calling that vote, Dems invited further criminality by Donald: his ICE terrorism on American streets, his police state arrogance, his suck-up to mass murderer Putin, to genocidal Netanyahu, and his continued cover-up for the rich who long raped the underaged girls Donald’s pals long trafficked.
Dems ought to have seen the peril of this criminal, rapist, and insurrectionist. They didn’t because it would have required human beings taking dangers personally, seriously, humanly real. And Dems had become neutered, anodyne. Couldn’t see the amount of human pain abroad the land.
So helpless Dems is what we got when we let schools routinely take nothing personally – no novels, memoirs, or histories where characters face urgencies. Rather, we got testing’s conceits, where all normalize neutering. And got, too, as Diane Ravitch charts in “The Language Police,” the corporate textbooks where no one in any American school ever sees anything personal.
It takes a strange mindset to ignore everything that was actually taking place in the country at the time in order to heap scorn and blame on the intended victims of January 6, while appearing to exonerate those truly responsible for it — all in picture-perfect hindsight, too.
In 2021, the country was awash in the middle of a global pandemic that would eventually kill over a million of us and plunged our healthcare, trade, economic and social systems into a crisis none of us had ever experienced before. The Biden Administration was busy not only with administering hundreds of millions of vaccines, but securing the votes necessary for an economic support package to combat the pandemic’s worst effects. A moribund global economy, massive trade imbalances and supply disruptions threatened everyone’s well-being.
Biden not only secured the votes necessary for that economic support package to succeed, he then fashioned the largest public investment package the country had seen since the New Deal — which passed by bipartisan votes. Belatedly, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg aptly named it — the Big Deal. It was indeed. Its programs are in place all over America today, with Republicans who once voted against it cynically now touting its benefits and claiming credit for it.
That was what was actually taking place in the country at the time. Another word for it was “governing” — which is generally what Democrats do when Republicans wrap themselves in conspiracy theories and search for witches to burn. You can certainly argue that the Attorney General did not move with sufficient speed or alacrity mounting successful prosecutions against the perpetrators of insurrection, but what is the point of blaming “Democrats” for the persistence of a Republican cult most observers at the time thought would never rear its shamed head again?
Thanks for that, ICTT.
ICTT, I totally agree that Biden was an excellent President for a couple of years, but he was wrong to seek reelection and should have insisted on a lively DEM primary. He will be remembered more for that than for any of his positive accomplishments, many of which are being totally ruined by our current dictator. And I think he got bad advice from the Democratic Party establishment, now largely in hiding.
I hope history is kinder to him than that because those accomplishments alone will endure a long time after he’s left this earth. But it’s hard not to agree that something went very wrong with the way the Democratic Party tried to look past his age for the second go-around, and refused to engage in the hard work necessary for the regeneration and reinvention of its own ranks.
You are also a member of the "Democratic Party" so when we cast blame, we have to accept OUR part.
IMHO Biden knew that the election was compromised, had a inhouse audit to show that we actually won, but didn't act. Neither did Harris.
The only people who tried, were rejected outright.
David, I don't disagree with you, but I think I understand how things unfolded. As you note, Biden was an excellent president for exactly the time in which he served. Age, itself, should not be a disqualifier, especially for an executive who surrounds her/himself with supremely competent operators, as Biden did – with one exception.
I come from a retail background, and was a buyer for several years. I noticed that many of my colleagues were terrified of having a loss, so they bought the same merchandise – in different colors – year after year. My management gave me the confidence to be adventurous, saying, "We want our store to be exciting. Don't be afraid to try something new. If it bombs, we'll make it up next season." Overall, we outperformed our peers because we were willing to take risks.
The Dem Party establishment was terrified of a loss, so they stuck with Biden because he beat Trump before. I believe Biden's horrific debate performance was due to factors other than aging, but recall the persistent media drumbeat of "Biden's too old." The DNC caved to the drumbeat and "switched horses mid-stream," to everyone's disadvantage. Corporate Media is as much to blame for our current predicament as anyone. They have consistently boosted Trump because his outrageous behavior is good for audience share.
The DNC are like the timid buyers I knew, lacking the courage to try something new. The Democratic Party needs new management willing to try new methods, new media and new candidates.
That feels like a wise encapsulation of what actually happened in 2024. Happily, defeat does carry lessons smart people pay attention to. There's a great deal of new Democratic energy from new people in different parts of the country at different levels of power already changing the political landscape, many bringing humor and satire as well as political skill to the fight. Can't happen too soon I guess.
Good as far as the discussion goes, but I will need to understand more of what happens during shutdowns, the consequences & historical outcomes: a refresher course.
Plus, how do Dems then fend off the Whiner-in-Chief’s victimization cries … and suddenly EVERYTHING under the sun going wrong will be Dem’s fault - when actually everything going wrong is a result of Trump’s machinations.
Jay, I'm with you! Those who say, "Let it shut down!" make a good case. Those who advise against a shutdown also make a good case. I have no idea what should be the correct approach. Unfortunately, historical outcomes are of no value now. Donald is as unpredictable as a coked-up squirrel (borrowing from Jeff Tiedrich).
It really is a matter of choosing the least catastrophic consequence, and I have no idea what that is.
Thanks, Dale, for your quoting Jeff.
We could use the art of quoting so much more, the art of seeing others, seeing more widely the personal and other perspectives in regard to the issues sweeping us.
Dems, thanks to the regimes of standardized testing, which lifted the clever but dehumanized nearly all, could quote many of our apt novels, memoirs, histories, and other arts on what happened to our working classes. But as a rule they cannot do this. Again, thanks to the neutering conceits built into that testing.
Dale, your take on all this is interesting and coherent. But can we really reduce the return of Trump to a lack of good business sense among Biden's inner circle of advisors? Doesn't the speed and nature of social change caused by the rise of instant and largely unreliable sources of information via social media (controlled by the huge wealth of a relative handful of Musk-like weirdos for whom the bottom line is seemingly all there is in life) play a fundamental role in the creation of MAGA insanity? I mean, we Democrats are all gamely clutching our venerable Constitution hoping it will save us in the end, but it can't because it's authors never imagined a world like ours, and neither did we until MAGA simply overwhelmed us. I mean there has never been an American President as " in your face" as Donald Trump, a humorless idiot with a remarkable talent for getting attention 24/7. He should have been jailed within days of the assault on the US Capitol.
David, I certainly didn't mean to imply that our current state of the union is the result of a simple business miscalculation. We are here because of a perfect storm of causes that had brewed for decades.
There's value in looking at the past to learn from mistakes that were made, but at some point, we have to stop looking at the past. Whatever was true then is not true now, so we have to figure out how to chart a course for the future.
There are Democrats doing that, but the DNC is not helping and is useless. A GOOD steering committee would be listening to the voices who are attracting an audience and based on their success, mapping a way forward, crafting an effective message and a plan for delivering it.
I think it would have been "governing" too if somebody would have found the time to prevent the next Trump presidency when the opportunity was given. That's what governments are for - multi-tasking. If they didn't see it coming - one thing about Trump is he says what he's going to do - that is not a sign of political foresight.
Thanks, ICTT.
You cannot read, ICTT.
It's schools I blame, and the testing regimes to which they're locked in, and their corporate textbook packagers, and the billionaires who fuel, organize, fund and then profit from those assembly lines. I pity Dems as much as I do all the MAGA who got damaged by these elite fools.
I read quite well, but thanks for your concern for my literacy.
Phil & ICCT--
PLEASE
Both of you stop. I find both of you to be well informed and express your thoughts and opinions well. I look for comments from both of you, and respect you both. I don't understand why you both have taken offense with each other, but I get a sense of canines marking the territory here. 😩
A few days ago, a new commentor here (Christopher?) expressed concern about reading because of nasty back and forths. I'd hate for him to see your fight and say "forget it" --because you both have value and we NEED everyone to hear your voices. We have a tough battle ahead.
Yesterday, I posted I was pretty depressed at the comment content and I had to stop. Ally asked what order I read them in, and taught me I could adjust their order, so I did. I've started with the oldest first. I've hardly read any, and here you guys are at it.
I'm telling you the honest truth: I'm near tears reading you guys fight. I've been concerned since Trump was elected; nervous since DOGE and the ICE; now I'm anxious with the looming shutdown and recall of the generals. HOW THE HELL WILL WE SURVIVE IF "WE" SUCCUMB TO INFIGHTING?
Please please please stop, or take your fight to DM'ing each other.
I'm copinging this so you both see it, and then I'm stopping reading today.
This fighting is making me sick and disheartened.
Phil Balla's comments and contributions are based on highly personal narratives, only lightly rest on scholarship judging from the absence of citations or references and the weight he gives to those he does cite, and his views are heavily dependent on his own particular idiosyncracies. To many (or maybe too many think) he sounds good but there's little there there, maybe even less than that. For its value he takes up far too much space on HRT's site.
As I have two HS English teaching daughters I understand Phil's pushing of Humanities and hating on testing. As an aspiring author, I relish ICCT's prose. (Okay, I'm jealous of it!)
I've learned some people on the forum are housebound for various reasons. If this community gives them pleasure in their day, so be it. Others are stuck in a red area and this group gives them support and sanity. Some leave one comment, others a few, some enjoy conversing with many people here. I can't get through all the comments, so if I see a thread go off in a direction not of interest to me, I skip it.
I think many of my comments are also based on my personal experiences, so honestly, I'm not sure that is a bad thing--as long as we consider the other persons viewpoint. I hope I don't bore readers with too much me-me-me.
I just hate to see any of the people here fight. We must be united to stay strong in the face of the future.
Not concerned for your literacy, ICTT.
Rather, concerned for all damaged by elites like you, your smug normalizing.
I’m a graduate of public elementary, junior high, high schools and state universities who liked learning and studied hard. I washed dishes and slopped hash for $2.42 a hour so I could keep attending the University of California. I TAed my way through graduate school so I wouldn’t have to borrow too much money to keep attending there.
Perhaps you’ve confused me with George Bush, Donald Trump or others either born into wealth or products of the Ivy League. I am neither.
Phil & ICCT--
PLEASE
Both of you stop. I find both of you to be well informed and express your thoughts and opinions well. I look for comments from both of you, and respect you both. I don't understand why you both have taken offense with each other, but I get a sense of canines marking the territory here. 😩
A few days ago, a new commentor here (Christopher?) expressed concern about reading because of nasty back and forths. I'd hate for him to see your fight and say "forget it" --because you both have value and we NEED everyone to hear your voices. We have a tough battle ahead.
Yesterday, I posted I was pretty depressed at the comment content and I had to stop. Ally asked what order I read them in, and taught me I could adjust their order, so I did. I've started with the oldest first. I've hardly read any, and here you guys are at it.
I'm telling you the honest truth: I'm near tears reading you guys fight. I've been concerned since Trump was elected; nervous since DOGE and the ICE; now I'm anxious with the looming shutdown and recall of the generals. HOW THE HELL WILL WE SURVIVE IF "WE" SUCCUMB TO INFIGHTING?
Please please please stop, or take your fight to DM'ing each other.
I'm copinging this so you both see it, and then I'm stopping reading today.
This fighting is making me sick and disheartened.
I hear you, Miselle.
One thing I've learned in my now-going-on 79 years.
Having civilization depends on our ability to see others -- as individuals.
One thing defeats this: our tribal tendencies only to assign others to groups, to stereotype them, package them, as units, numbers.
So I war on testing, given that testing by its very design promotes only seeing in the logic of groups, categories -- and all action as chronologically linear only.
Our novels, memoirs, histories, and other arts all say no to such excess rationality. They let us dwell instead in the complicated, the contradictory, the serendipitous, overlapping, simultaneous nuances of actual natural and human life.
I'm perfectly aware most even here on Heather's site prefer the imaginative status quo all got from schools long now reliant only on testing as human measure. It's not human. It's mechanical. Serve our worst corporate and oligarchical overlords.
I've never initiated any negativity with ICTT. I've invited him to read Diane Ravitch's key "The Language Police." I've urged him to cite humanities. But no, he like most here defends the ruling status quo.
Both of you offer value and perspective to the forum. I respect both of your opinions. I hate to see it devolve into sparring, which is what it looks like to me. That is distressing, as I look for both of your comments.
Thank you for your good efforts urging decency, civility, Miselle.
Sorry if differences of opinion "devolve into sparring." I don't want that and have asked him to read the key work on the role of testing (Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police"). But he won't -- preferring ad hominem to evidence-based.
Those who prefer the imaginative status quo, Miselle, really dislike opposition to it.
Hello Phil... Don't forget the Insidious effects of AIPAC, the Dark Siths, and SCOTUS... Their Mega$$ buys both Parties....
Many players who have come up short, Apache, or proved worse than nefarious.
And the deeper, systematic machinery of neutering all persists across the land, and now, too, around the globe.
We have the tools to combat the remorseless cynicism, the monstrous arrogance of the dehumanized elites, the moneyed, the ones who number all life, who reduce life to numbers, units, demographics, bomb sites only.
But so many, so many got so accustomed to all the playbooks of the living dead. Did you see, for instance, how instantly the elite law firms caved, the universities wanted to "obey in advance," or whenever rapist Donald so demanded, and the legacy media the same, social media even worse?
May be paranoia but some think Trump is crashing the economy on purpose. Supplicants like Musk, Bezos, Bill Gates, et al are his marks, just like his political contributors. The goal may/may not be to displace currtency with crypto currency, especially his proprietary gelt.
AI: During the April 2025 tariff selloff, some of Trump's own economic allies and advisors, including economist Stephen Moore and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, expressed alarm and concerns about the economic impact of his policies.
Insider trading allegations: The timing of Trump's April 2025 comments and a subsequent stock rebound led to insider trading allegations from Democrats, though no wrongdoing was proven.
Different analyses provide varying estimates for Trump's overall crypto fortune, largely due to price fluctuations and different valuation methods:
-$5.1 billion (June 2025): Forbes estimated his total wealth at this figure, with much of it tied to his crypto ventures.
-$3.3 billion (June 2025): One video report states that this amount, or about 60% of his net worth at the time, was in crypto.
-$2.9 billion (May 2025): The advocacy group State Democracy Defenders Action estimated his crypto holdings at this amount, representing nearly 40% of his net worth.
-$1.6 billion (June 2025): A financial disclosure report filed by Trump listed assets, including crypto holdings, valued at over $1.6 billion.
-$1.2 billion (July 2025): Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee cited a Forbes investigation stating Trump had gained this much from his crypto schemes.
I don't know if it's planned or just due to his incompetence, but either way it won't matter if the economy faceplants. Millions will suffer while the billionaires prosper.
Neutered. The perfect description of the Democrats. Then and now.
Hopefully Barry they learned their lesson and that description won't fit them tomorrow.
Yes, when all else fails, we can always hope. That and a 3-dollar bill...
I said hopefully David. On the other hand, you might be 💯 % right.
To be clear, the liberals always seem to try and take the "high road" when in power. It is a trait that Matthew Dowd talked about as a cause of why conservatives continue to march this direction. Libs (dems) fear cons (repubs)) more than vice versa. the repubs confessed their plans in the Lewis Powell Memo and dems never thought they would actually carry out those plans. Sarah Kenzdior wrote a book They Knew where she laid out how the 2 party system was ripe for failure. You are correct that the dems never took action. The prosecution of the first administration should have started from the top down, not the bottom up as the FBI did. tRump should have been arrested on J7 and charged with inciting a riot. Had that happened, I am sure there would have been a lot of running for the hills.
Well said, Rickey.
I don't want to use the p word but it would fit perfectly right here in describing the Democrats.
I do not believe anyone, sadly including most Republicans, knew the full extent, even with the project spelled out, what it meant. Of course they'll still deny he's going to do any of it. I kept holding on to Heather's words telling us it was good to be a rough summer but come September...things would improve. I have a lot of catch up reading to do. I know what is going on I just want to go back and read all in order. 🤞💙
Phil Balla: A hearty SECOND to everything you say here!
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, even the central-government minded Alexander Hamilton wanted separation and balance of powers under the teachings of the great Historian, Polybius, in his commentary on the Roman Constitution in Book 6 of his History of the Punic Wars.
Thanks to one sentence in Article II — “the executive powers of the United States shall reside in the President” (or words to that effect — Chief Justice John Roberts has earned his place in history to stand next to Chief Justice Roger Taney as being among the two Chief Justices to have done the greatest damage to American Constitutionalism and Constitutional Law.
Chief Justice John Roberts has enabled Orange-Tramp to have absolute powers and has enabled Tramp to be his most dangerous self.
I damn CJ John Roberts right with CJ Roger Taney.
More distorted history from Philly boy. Language police? Yep here ya go!
Sundar …CEO of Google/you tube APOLOGIZES to The Trump administration for eliminating free speech/censoring conservatives on its’ services. BAED UPON THE PRESSURE OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION! There’s your language police !!
Oh sorry Heather might not have mentioned that here. Ooooopsie
So…now you have a more complete story….heather must have missed it!!!
Google admits and apologizes to the Trump administration for censorship based upon pressure for the Biden administration.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/google-admits-to-censoring-americans-at-the-behest-of-the-biden-admin-vows-to-make-amends/ar-AA1Na92H
https://www.thestar.com/business/technology/youtube-to-start-bringing-back-creators-banned-for-covid-19-and-election-misinformation/article_1ca6943e-0326-51b4-b2c3-d6c4878c60ca.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jim-jordan-demands-immediate-answers-from-youtube-about-alleged-censorship-of-trump-s-joe-rogan-interview/ar-AA1tkIWi
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/09/24/unacceptable-and-wrong-google-admits-censorship-in-coordination-with-the-biden-administration/
https://washingtonstand.com/article/google-tells-all-on-biden-admins-digital-censorship-pressures-against-conservative-critics
https://therightscoop.com/breaking-jim-jordan-announces-that-google-is-apologizing-for-censorship/
Hesgeth, f---ing the country on dual timelines.
"Defense Secretary Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice — and without a stated reason — at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, sowing confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year. The highly unusual directive was sent to virtually all of the military’s top commanders worldwide, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter." -WaPo
“Imagine the response if a Dem Administration removed every top general and admiral from every US military post all around the world (including conflict zones), in order to force them to attend a big in-person meeting in DC (with a former cable news co-host).” - Rachel Maddow
No one outside of Hegseth’s office seems to know why.
It’s an open question whether foreign adversaries or non-state actors might try to exploit the fact that every U.S. general and admiral on the planet is suddenly leaving their posts at the same time.
“It will make the commands just diminished if something pops up,” one defense official told the Post.
The predator-in-chief, ever more divorced from reality, told reporters: “Isn’t it nice that people are coming from all over the world to be with us?”
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-house-pretends-pete-hegseths-mystery-meeting-normal-really-isnt-rcna233903
Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling was on MSNBC tonight. He said .. "This could be done so much easier via teleconference, You can do this without putting alot of people on a plane" "... It's a very long ride for a one hour meeting." He also said, "We defend ideas and that's important. We don't need to be lectured to." "You don't need the whole chain of command from one to four stars going to this meeting"
This should raise red flags everywhere. What is the purpose of this unnecessary in-person meeting with a known incompetent Secretary of Defense? Why bring so many of our top military into one physical location? An attempted coup? A confrontation by Hegseth with the commanders to test their loyalty to T****? There is no way to consider this plan anything other than hostile. Hostile to the military, hostile to the people, hostile to the security of the United States.
It's so hostile to to the military, and the 800 or so highest ranking officers and senior enlisted in particular, that it's been suggested that the generals and admirals might want to consider bringing sidearms with them.
I wish the generals had some authority to arrest Hegseth.
They perhaps do. But they'd have to arrest T****, Miller, Vance, Johnson, et alii. And a military coup is not exactly in our best interest.
"Not in our best interest". Compared to what?
Frank, at this point I think a military coup might be in our best interest. It would definitely be the quickest and most thorough way of getting all the Trump- appointed incompetents out of power.
It may be something as petty and dipshitty as Kegsbreath pumping his manly tattooed chest and telling hundreds of officers who outrank him intellectually, morally, professionally in so many ways that he’s one tough hombre not to be trifled with (enter swelling boom-boom chords from the Village People’s “He’s a Macho, Macho, Macho Man”), and then dismissing them like misbehaving schoolchildren.
These people are the tenderest of wee little snowflakes, remember.
Let's hope it's something so petty. I fear that it's not.
Yeah, you wouldn't put a "Why?" - "Because I can!" past him.
What if this is a ploy to separate the generals from their posts? The beginning/end of a coup?
What a frightening thought!
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, erstwhile home of the Trump Presidential Library (and theme park), we expect a war with Venezuela.
So far we've shot and killed occupants of three (3) Venezuelan boats. We've offered a bounty on Maduro since Trump# 45. As of today, we have a significant naval and air presence in the Caribbean near Venezuela, ostensibly as part of an anti-drug trafficking and counter-cartel operation. Eight warships, a submarine, and fighter jets, has led to heightened tensions, with Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro accusing the U.S. of threatening regime change.
We've also withdrawn our ambassador from Colombia. Today, they cancelled the Colombian president's visa.
Roughly 250,000 dual Venezuela/US citizens want revenge stemming to Chavez. Many Cuban Americans also lobby for war with Cuba.
Typical Miami news: "On a December night last year in Caracas, opposition activist Jesús Armas stepped out of a café and walked toward his car. Before he could reach it, at least five hooded men dressed in black surrounded him. They asked only his name before forcing him into a gold SUV with no license plates. There was no warrant, no explanation, no indication of where he was being taken. For weeks, his family searched for him. Only later did they discover he had been transferred to El Helicoide, the notorious intelligence prison run by Venezuela’s feared Bolivarian National Intelligence Service."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article312224076.html#storylink=cpy
He's really making friends all over the place, isn't he?
I think about what a gift this could be to a hostile foreign power. One bomb takes out the entire military command staff! That Hegseth is pulling the stunt shows yet again what an utter incompetent he is.
I hope someone leaks a video of the meeting.
Thinking about the possible agenda at Tuesday’s meeting of generals and admirals at Quantico, i’ve been posting that right-thinking leaders tempted to decline to swear a loyalty oath — on principle — even if it means they would have to resign should instead take the oath and go along with it so they remain military leaders. Otherwise if/when martial law is unlawfully declared, they won’t be there to stand up for the country.
If you agree with this stratagem, you may wish to share it more broadly.
So when do we stand up to this regime? ALL of them should refuse to sign. The ones who do not are traitors to their oath to defend the constitution "from all enemies, foreign and domestic". What part of the oath do you not understand? Those who would sign that loyalty oath, in the end, should be charged with treason and court-martialed.
Once they sign they wouldn't really represent the army of the United States anymore, would they, they would be Trump's army. The time to make a stand would be exactly now, if that's what is planned.
Isn’t it a little disconcerting how many will be there, all in one place?
No. It is extremely disconcerting. Nothing good will come of this, unless it becomes the catalyst needed for action.
Terrifying.
What a wide open invitation for our adversaries to do some real harm. Like so many in this administration -- he is doing this to show that he can - even when it's a crazy and dangerous idea.
Stalin purged generals and impaired the Red Army.
The thing that sticks in my craw is the cowardice and lying by Mitch McConnell who was the leader of the republicans in the Senate. Before January 20th, 2021 when feelings and anger at Trump ran high in both parties, McConnell said that they should wait until after he was no longer in office to impeach him for the 2nd time. Then after Biden was inaugurated, McConnell said that he was no longer president and there really was no point to impeach him. McConnell was the snake (apologies to snakes. They do not deserve this.) that kept the old stinker in power and allowed him to continue. McConnell has not taken responsibility for his part in this. He probably knew about project 2025 and wanted to see it succeed.
Combine your words with McConnell's big part in packing the SCOTUS with neo-fascists who have abandoned the Constitution and anointed the convicted felon. He can easily be blamed for much of the mess we're in now. McConnell and McCarthy, two real lapdogs of Dictator Donnie.
History will not be kind to any of today’s Republicans, and rightfully so.
That's for sure. They will deserve their disgrace.
And his utter hypocrisy now acting as if he didn't expect to happen what's happening now - not believable considering he was the top-strategist - and very successful one has to give him - for the GOP.
Spot on!! Obama could have said that the democrats have review Garland and approved. He is now on the SCOTUS. RBG should have retired when Obama was president. McConnell does not keep his word. Yes. He was the architect as much as Jim Jordan et al was responsible for January 6th.
McConnell is indeed the architect of where we find ourselves today. He has a special place in hell awaiting.
spot on!
McConnell has never been known for consistency. He refused to consider letting Obama replace Scalia after his death in February 2016 - too close to the election in November, he claimed - but moved Heaven and earth to let Trump put Barrett on the Court after RBG died in mid-September 2020.
Make either of those moves consistent with the other, and the current 6-3 supermajority, along with its corrupt and ahistorical stream of shadow socket decisions, does not exist.
It was McConnell's corruption and hypocrisy in carrying out his responsibilities as a national leader that set the stage for almost everything that came after. He is the fulcrum on which our current arc of history turned.
Thank you, Dr. Richardson, for this enlightening background to the massacre at Wounded Knee. I was, of course aware of the massacre itself. But it really helps knowing the lead up and pointing out the fallibility of appointing 'Government' officials who have no knowledge of history or of the Constitution of the United States. This further enhances the need to take education away from at least 40 of the 50 States and replace with individualized education for each and every child educating them to the best of that child's intellectual ability, interests, talents, vocational goals, Instead of deliberately under educating masses of children to keep them less informed and therefor easier for sleazy politicians to manage.
I concur, Fay. I can't figure out which is worse—letting parents with a poor understanding of history and other important subjects "home school" their children or sending them to charter schools biased by right-wing ideology. The Republican agenda for education must be opposed at every opportunity.
Different flavors of unsatisfactory, progwoman. Thank you for the use of quotation marks around "home school". So little of what I have seen is anything approaching "school" as I know it.
After reading and absorbing this story, this history, how can one wonder that America's butcher's bill is finally coming due? Or that more blood with have to be shed?
Yes, it's the White Christian Nationalists with their diabolical delusions of Rapture and Messiah and End Of Days and their billions of dollars who are forcing us all into this hellish nightmare of the collapse of American democracy and the eventual collapse of a habitable Earth.
But they're a minority that have seized power. We are the majority, but until we're ready to put our bodies on the line for our children and grandchildren we're only paying lip service to that fact.
Their version of Christianity is heretical and the Catholic church and most Protestnat scts are complicit for not calling them on it. Pope Bob and his college of cardinals should excommunicate all MAGATs.
As a retired military officer, my blood boils every time I see Pete Hegseth’s name in the news! A more vile, incompetent person in such a position of authority is hard to imagine!
I have a good band friend who is a retired USMC JAG. Her blood boils over this appointment and his actions.
As well it should. I can’t imagine what real professional military folk must feel about him.
It is interesting, ICCT. Speaking for my generation, and very globally, my former work cohort made up of enlisted men, many of whom either went to the Sandbox as reservists or who left the department and enlisted are all in for what Hegseth stands for. A few of the career reservists are very opposed. Most of the ones I know that were officers are horrified.
It says something positive about our officer corps and their training.
Hello Ally… Pete Hegseth, former Army?… I would suspect that those went to West Point are appalled… Contrast Hegseth with Lloyd Austin…
Exactly so. No comparison at all.
Appalled… Probably like the English Monarchy does around DJT…
A sad chapter in the history of America.
What’s worse is that this group of incompetent sycophants seems determined to write an even sadder epilogue.
Hitler would marvel at the breakneck pace of the unraveling of American democratic institutions. It’s an autocratic blitzkrieg!
That's what I'm always thinking - it's whiplash inducing, you have to give the bastards kudos for preparedness.
Project 2025 was not a secret; maybe in the future, voters will pay attention to politics every day and stay involved.