Republicans cannot govern and McCarthy cannot lead. McCarthy won't keep his promise. It's fairly pathetic to watch them and yes, the public will blame them.
Republicans cannot govern and McCarthy cannot lead. McCarthy won't keep his promise. It's fairly pathetic to watch them and yes, the public will blame them.
If we don’t get out and vote, and get everyone we know out to vote, we are going to lose in ‘24. There’s no telling how the GQP-Trumpublicans are going to try to win this next election. But, no matter. We have to overpower their schemes. We can’t slack up like we did at midterms. We screwed the pooch allowing them to take the gavel in the House of Representatives, and win some key states in the legislative and governors races. We must fight back and get people to the polls to vote these morons out of office at the local, state and federal levels.
Daniel, hopefully the states with gerrymandered maps having cases before the Supreme Court will be forced to redraw in plenty of time to run Democrats for those seats. So much depends on having a substantial majority in both houses. McCarthy has shown just how skilled Pelosi is—she showed what could be accomplished with a small majority.
Pelosi ran that House with a firm gavel. I remember numerous times even she wanted something done, and it needed to be done, she let it be known that there wasn’t anyone leaving until everything was done. Several times they were there all weekend without leaving.
Mary Hardt, according to a new law passed here in NC the Repugnants are “redistricting” (gerrymandering) the maps WITHOUT HAVING TO MAKE THEM PUBLIC and there’s not a thing we can do about it. I volunteer, canvass and do all I can along with a lot of very concerned Dems. It is horrible.
Wishing you good luck. Having lived 10 years in Chapel Hill when Graham was the revered name and the state was a sane purple, I grieve for the current politics there.
It makes me very sad. UNC-CH is the oldest public university in America. Attacked by Art Pope, friend of Kochs, (see “Starving the Beast”), it is no longer the academic giant it once was. The failure to give tenure to the writer of the 1619 Project, still hurts this alum.
Yes, Virginia, I lived for 20 years in the Raleigh area - moved to Mexico in retirement. It was purple then and I was hopeful. Still trying to stay hopeful.
Until I hear the venom and the lies (just heard Bob Goode (R-VA) with Andrea Davis on MSNBC), I too am hopeful. Just keep writing GOTV postcards and getting as much exercise as I can take at 89.
The NC Repugnants seem to be perfectly OK with some forms of dirty politics out in the bright light of day. Last week Rep. Terence Everitt (D) received notice from House Speaker Tim Moore that his legislative office had been MOVED TO A BASEMENT CLOSET. While he was waiting to vote on the new budget, someone boxed up his things in his old office. Everitt said it was likely due to a retaliation by Moore because of his request to the Wake County District Attorney to investigate Moore over a salary increase given to a state employee with whom he was having an affair. Disgusting people.
Forgive my outsider view. I'm a native Californian who spent 40 years in Maine before semi-retiring in my hometown.
NC politics cannot be that "horrible" if there's a bill introduced in your legislature calling for Ranked-Choice-Voting. Find the legislator who introduced it and learn how to help. Lately, it seems RCV is our last hope.
Your NC House bill is called H851, "Improving our Democracy." RCV is something to work for, especially since most people regardless of party, once they understand it, appreciate its logic and its inherent ability to avoid the Hold-Your-Nose-And-Vote, or Spoiled-By-One-Kook election experience of the last four and a half decades. Maine had the latter for two gubernatorial elections in a row and have had RCV ever since.
Every comparable nation on earth uses RCV or some version of it.
Fingers crossed North Carolina can join the list of states using it.
I appreciate your attempt to help NC and that sounds like a great idea, but wonder if you understand the extent of the Republican super-majority chokehold on the NC General Assembly and bought-and-paid-for NC Supreme Court? They control everything will not consider passing anything that might threaten their power. I do volunteer and intend to keep trying to fight this.
Having never lived in the South, I’m sure I have zero idea of what you’re up against. Still, I’d be curious to know what the sponsor of the RCV bill has to say about it.
If you don’t call to ask, my own nosiness may get the best of me – not that I can do more than spread the RCV love. ☺️
My experience is that RCV is under the radar enough that once people who ever thought of themselves as moderate or centrist understand the concept, they climb aboard, regardless of party.
That means that they can gerrymander in a way that districts won’t have to be connected or continuous. They want to rid the state of the few Dems left in the legislature.
Yes. It is all about turnout. There are way more of us than the MAGA maniacs. Especially when you survey younger people. They are angry about women's rights, the climate calamity and the gun crisis. We have the numbers on the above issues! Recent special elections confirm this.
We can whine all day about McCarthy and his crazy crew. The pain they are about to cause millions of Americans with their insane shutdown of the government will ripple through the nation. It will be awful. And it will be a campaign gift of epic proportions. We will be hard pressed not to know someone who will be needlessly hurt.
It will also be a campaign gift that will keep on giving for more than just this election cycle. It will add speed to the spiral dive of a political party that is terrified of its rapidly evolving irrelevance. The GQP is committing mass suicide.
All that really matters is getting people to vote. And are they going to vote for a party that wants to control a woman's body, exacerbate the flooding, wild fires and destruction of the oceans? Are they going to vote for a party that sends out Holiday cards with the candidate holding an assault rifle?
Of course we should work on gerrymandering if it's an issue in our state. But we can't fix GQP government shutdowns and we can't get the Trumps in jail fast enough.
However we can vote and we can get nonvoters motivated. I am optimistic that the GQP and their mentality disintegrating cult boss are setting themselves up for defeat. Who goes to a non union shop and talks to them as if they were union members?
Also, as I drink my optimistic coffee today, I recall with elation the fact that the judge in NY is effectively shutting down the Trump Mafia in that state. And big fines ahead! There is good news all around us and much more to come. Vote Blue!
I seem to recall one of Professor Timothy Snyder's rules about avoiding tyranny is "Do not obey in advance". Keep up the optimism, the hard work, and fight the good fight.
Bill, you have said a mouthful. You bet, this shutdown fear has already rippled across this country. The antics this Supreme Court has pulled will never be forgotten, especially since 5 of them were appointed by the 🍓💩🤡!!! We will never forget how they have moved women’s rights back to pre-Civil War, women’s reproductive rights are back even further. Gerrymandering the voting precincts, or trying to. All this is burned into our minds. Now, we have to vote, vote, vote. These next 4 or 6 elections and all special ejections in between. Blue 🧢🧢🧢🧢 is the new color of the decade!
Agree but it will be extremely difficult because so much is being done to screw up the economy; e.g. shutdown and oil prices which are up over $4 a barrel in past two days. If the trend continues there will be a heavy recession by October 2024.
Most voters have only a myopic view of the economy and their future using the prices at the pump and in the grocery store. They don’t have the time or energy to research and study causes and manipulations of what effects their everyday lives.
You are very correct, Rally Guy. This is why we need to make sure that they know that this bunch of Republicans has caused this. They’re fight against President Biden, and his economic plan has slowed this economy return. If you recall, the plan he submitted to Congress was cut drastically by the Republicans. Even though we had a slight majority at the time in both chambers, there were not enough votes to get the full thing passed without giving concessions (cuts to portions of the plan). So, here we sit, with things easing back up, as they always do just prior to the holidays, and upcoming election year. This has been going on as long as I can remember. Every year, in the Fall the prices start upward, the holiday advertising hits the airwaves, and gas prices start back up. Never fails.
We may have already had our last real election. Note the states that have passed voter suppression laws, and given states the right to overturn voter choices. Republicans have been busy.
Yes, they have! But we have Marc Elias and Democracy Docket. They are fighting back in many states, and often winning. I support them with a monthly donation and believe supporting them is an important tool in saving free and fair elections. It is something we can do in addition to voting.
Not to mention Putin with his hackers, and Xi with his. Then there’s always North Korea. Trump is in bed with that bastard too! If it’s a Communist country then the 🍓💩🤡 is buddy, buddy with them. Including Saudi Arabia!!!
As much as we are out trying to “get everyone we know to vote”, we are being undermined by gop support of new voter suppression tactics, both technological (with voter roll algorithmic searches allowing auto challenge paperwork to be filled out and timed to show up for review 10 before an election) and grassroots ( ex: a group in NY “accused of impersonating election officials and going door-to-door in 13 counties where they confronted voters regarding their registration status and incorrectly accused voters of committing a crime”) more on this effort in : Domeocracy Docket article. https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/the-rights-dangerous-and-unreliable-alternative-to-eric/
Well, I will not dispute the need to get people to the polls so I write postcards to voters.
However, I have no faith whatsoever that the fascists will acknowledge the outcome if it doesn’t go their way. They have already demonstrated their determination in that regard.
Brian, it’s become an expected thing. We know the loser will not concede, if they’re Republican. If the loser is Democrat, then it’s a sure thing that they will do what’s required and be the “adult in the room”, so to speak.
Absolutely. But that will involve lengthy legal battles, I expect. Case in point. Look at Florida and Alabama. They still arguing with the Supreme Court about their redistricting maps.
"It's fairly pathetic to watch them and yes, the public will blame them."
Patricia, there is a famous phrase: "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people", attributed to H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) .
I am not so sure the "American People's" critical thinking apparatus is up to the task of discerning the reality around Trump and the Republicans. Not only that, huge numbers of those Americans are watching news feeds and websites that are feeding what they DO want to believe (that Democrats are evil and Republicans will save them from that communist government in DC).
HCR has a large readership here, but, that is still a TINY fraction of the "American People".
Based on an assumed large 2 million readership here at substack, about 99.4% of Americans are NOT reading HCR.
So, while I HOPE Americans are discerning reality, even my own daughter is tired of migrants spitting on her in New York and recently texted me to say "she is thinking of becoming a Republican", like that would matter and Republicans can stop world migration patterns.
"I am not so sure the 'American People's' critical thinking apparatus is up to the task of discerning the reality around Trump and the Republicans." Absolutely, Michael. It leads me to believe that Shawn Fain is not quite correct when he says that 45 doesn't get it. I think he very much gets it and is leading his followers down the path he wants them to go.
Shawn Fain IS plugged into a reality that I became aware when I first read the GLOWING review of Jack Welch in the Harvard Business Journal in roughly 1988 in the University of Texas Library.
That reality? Republicans (and Harvard) have supported the destruction of the American workforce and given even half a chance, will continue to do that. Unfortunately, Democrats were well on board with that strategy with Bill Clinton and NAFTA even though Ross Perot made the consequences of NAFTA clear to everyone ("That sucking sound you hear will be American jobs going to MEXICO"). Perot, a guy everyone made fun of but me, was right (yes, I voted for him).
So, the UAW is highly unlikely to buy the BS that Trump is handing out AND
TRUMP DID NOT EVEN VISIT WORKERS WHO ARE UNION MEMBERS.
He visited non union members and spewed some nonsensical stuff to them and left.
And not one of the mainstream newsreaders made mention that Trump visited a NON-UNION machine shop which employed at most, about 150 people. Most of the people there and holding signs were NOT union members, they were Trump supporters bussed in for the event. Staged theater, as usual.
Your grasp of this history is strong, Michael! My comment was intended to highlight that IMO 45 was speaking to his base who will back whatever he says and spread his lies.
Yes, I hope my comment was on topic? I thought I understood your point but, hey, its early!
My grasp of history is extremely poor. I was always interested in history, but, I pursued engineering in college and a Phd in Engineering and, honestly, have enjoyed a high energy career in technology mostly never having learned ANYTHING about history. Zero.
So, now I am trying to catch up.
At UT Austin, (five years of PhD work), I would read the Harvard Business Review every time it came out because another grad student, who had worked for a while, got me interested in the stock market.
No, I never bought GE stock. That was a good thing too. Jack Welch made a lot of money for himself destroying that company and the stock has languished since. NOBODY ever reports that fact though.
Just how great he was (at getting huge bonuses on poor performance I guess). The American way. A heist.
Yes, Lynell(VA by way of MD&DC), trump is using optics. Reagan’s presidency was the first I remember really understanding that the substance/truth doesn’t matter. The optics are ALL. trump in MI with auto workers, with a woman with a “Union Workers for Trump” sign (or what ever nonsense it says) is what the watch sees and makes the unthinking leap. Eeazy-Peezy. We spend ink and keyboard clicks pointing out the rouse, but he achieved what he wanted. Visual manipulation.
A voting story: My dear friend Mary had sent a text, and asked if I turned in my ballot yet. I had not received one, and after I finished the task I was working on started to look (we are bad about picking up our mail.) I had been unaware of a special election. She texted a bit later and said that perhaps it was because it was a (stupid, grandstanding) recall election against one of our staunchest union supporting Democratic State Representatives, and perhaps he was not my Representative. That was it (even though we only live about a mile apart, we are in different districts at both the state and county level; oddly, not for the city...)
Morning, Ally! Remind me, is Oregon a state where you automatically receive ballots by mail? This year, I have been receiving "invites" to vote by mail...a first for VA...even from the Republican camp who tells me "If you don't vote, Virginia Democrats win"! I'm tempted not to vote, LOL!
Yes, Oregon is a vote by mail state, and registers people as they get their drivers' license. We've had that on the books for about 20 years, and if I recall, our "fraudulent" voter rate is .043%.
Oregon was the first State to Vote By Mail for every election!
We started experimenting with universal vote by mail for special elections in 1981 and went totally vote by mail after Measure 60 passed in 1998. Oregon's voter turnout is usually the highest in the nation and as you pointed out, election fraud is all but nonexistent. In fact the last time it happened it was done by a republican.
My daughter works for JP Morgan in NY City. She leaves work around 9:30pm and arrives around 7:00 am six days a week.
The hotel where the migrants are housed is right across the street. The migrants are always outside milling around all over the street. My daughter walks home to her apartment and walks back. It is her exercise. Sometimes she phones my wife and I while walking.
One evening she phoned me and said she is sick of being spit on by migrants because they hate folks who are dressed nice and spit on them and she had just been spit on.
I explained that migrant entry has DECLINED since Trump and Republicans did NOT stop migration. But, hey, the Republicans talk a good party about stopping migration and the Democrats are more muted.
Anyway, yes, she has been spit on multiple times as she walks away from the area. I tell her to take a cab but the cabbies are avoiding pickups in that area.
So sorry to hear of your daughter's difficult experience. I am hopeful an effort to allow migrants to work will get them out of hotels and allow them something else to do. We hosted an exchange student from Venezuela and keep in contact with her family. Conditions there are really dreadful so people are leaving by the trainload. Ideal would be to improve things in that country, but otherwise immigration reform here to revitalize the process might be accomplished if we had a congress that could get something done.
It would be an interesting thought experiment to ask her what she would do if the situation was reversed. She was the migrant (with the associated life experience/mental baggage) housed outside one of the greatest examples of power-mongering in the USA (JP MorganChase), and someone well dressed ignores you as they walk by. You would feel like the world’s trash. This is not saying your daughter is not understandably upset by being spit on. The migrants would not like to be spit on either. Yet the are, in a way, each day, being spit on by a world unwilling to recognize its role in their plight. JP Morgan has some pretty powerful people in its NYC offices that could put pressure on gop legislators (especially the ones they own) to work with the Dems to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I wonder if Mayor Adams put this immigrant housing exactly there for that reason.
Do they use their words at all to express their anger or just their spit? I would like to know what they are expressing. Poor choice of who to be frustrated with. Wonder who’s brainwashing them.
Agree Patricia; that exactly how I read the tea leaves. McCarthy is 'not' a leader and will not keep any promises in conflict with his hold on speakership; all so sadly farcical.
These twenty or so members of the 'Freedom Caucus' not only put 'party over country,' they put their 'caucus over party.' They are as great a threat to our representative democracy as were Tories in 1776, Sessessionists in 1861, and American supporters of the Nazis during the Second World War. That they were legitimately elected to Congress identifies the problem, the ignorance of a large segment of the American people. To work effectively, democracy requires a level of knowlege too many Americans lack.
All of what your write is true, but most German people and the politicians they elected thought Hitler and his followers were buffoons and it was probably pathetic to watch them in the early days.
Sounds like exactly what most people here and the politicians they elected thought of #45. If I had a dollar for every time I saw or heard someone say he is a buffoon, I would be a millionaire
Republicans cannot govern and McCarthy cannot lead. McCarthy won't keep his promise. It's fairly pathetic to watch them and yes, the public will blame them.
If we don’t get out and vote, and get everyone we know out to vote, we are going to lose in ‘24. There’s no telling how the GQP-Trumpublicans are going to try to win this next election. But, no matter. We have to overpower their schemes. We can’t slack up like we did at midterms. We screwed the pooch allowing them to take the gavel in the House of Representatives, and win some key states in the legislative and governors races. We must fight back and get people to the polls to vote these morons out of office at the local, state and federal levels.
Daniel, hopefully the states with gerrymandered maps having cases before the Supreme Court will be forced to redraw in plenty of time to run Democrats for those seats. So much depends on having a substantial majority in both houses. McCarthy has shown just how skilled Pelosi is—she showed what could be accomplished with a small majority.
Pelosi ran that House with a firm gavel. I remember numerous times even she wanted something done, and it needed to be done, she let it be known that there wasn’t anyone leaving until everything was done. Several times they were there all weekend without leaving.
Pelosi used her mother of five voice.
Mary Hardt, according to a new law passed here in NC the Repugnants are “redistricting” (gerrymandering) the maps WITHOUT HAVING TO MAKE THEM PUBLIC and there’s not a thing we can do about it. I volunteer, canvass and do all I can along with a lot of very concerned Dems. It is horrible.
Contact the ACLU to make sure that they’re on top of this. I’ll bet that they can bring suit to make them public.
Wishing you good luck. Having lived 10 years in Chapel Hill when Graham was the revered name and the state was a sane purple, I grieve for the current politics there.
Thank you Virginia. We moved here from CA four years ago. It’s been downhill ever since - really dirty politics. No shame.
It makes me very sad. UNC-CH is the oldest public university in America. Attacked by Art Pope, friend of Kochs, (see “Starving the Beast”), it is no longer the academic giant it once was. The failure to give tenure to the writer of the 1619 Project, still hurts this alum.
Yes, Virginia, I lived for 20 years in the Raleigh area - moved to Mexico in retirement. It was purple then and I was hopeful. Still trying to stay hopeful.
Until I hear the venom and the lies (just heard Bob Goode (R-VA) with Andrea Davis on MSNBC), I too am hopeful. Just keep writing GOTV postcards and getting as much exercise as I can take at 89.
Damn, I thought they were proud of their machinations.
The NC Repugnants seem to be perfectly OK with some forms of dirty politics out in the bright light of day. Last week Rep. Terence Everitt (D) received notice from House Speaker Tim Moore that his legislative office had been MOVED TO A BASEMENT CLOSET. While he was waiting to vote on the new budget, someone boxed up his things in his old office. Everitt said it was likely due to a retaliation by Moore because of his request to the Wake County District Attorney to investigate Moore over a salary increase given to a state employee with whom he was having an affair. Disgusting people.
Oh, for Pete's sake.
And the sake of all the Petes.
Betcha they are sitting on the front row pew every Sunday. Such Pharisees and hypocrites
Forgive my outsider view. I'm a native Californian who spent 40 years in Maine before semi-retiring in my hometown.
NC politics cannot be that "horrible" if there's a bill introduced in your legislature calling for Ranked-Choice-Voting. Find the legislator who introduced it and learn how to help. Lately, it seems RCV is our last hope.
Your NC House bill is called H851, "Improving our Democracy." RCV is something to work for, especially since most people regardless of party, once they understand it, appreciate its logic and its inherent ability to avoid the Hold-Your-Nose-And-Vote, or Spoiled-By-One-Kook election experience of the last four and a half decades. Maine had the latter for two gubernatorial elections in a row and have had RCV ever since.
Every comparable nation on earth uses RCV or some version of it.
Fingers crossed North Carolina can join the list of states using it.
https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV)#State_legislation
I appreciate your attempt to help NC and that sounds like a great idea, but wonder if you understand the extent of the Republican super-majority chokehold on the NC General Assembly and bought-and-paid-for NC Supreme Court? They control everything will not consider passing anything that might threaten their power. I do volunteer and intend to keep trying to fight this.
Having never lived in the South, I’m sure I have zero idea of what you’re up against. Still, I’d be curious to know what the sponsor of the RCV bill has to say about it.
If you don’t call to ask, my own nosiness may get the best of me – not that I can do more than spread the RCV love. ☺️
My experience is that RCV is under the radar enough that once people who ever thought of themselves as moderate or centrist understand the concept, they climb aboard, regardless of party.
That means that they can gerrymander in a way that districts won’t have to be connected or continuous. They want to rid the state of the few Dems left in the legislature.
Yes
She didnt have a lunatic asylum to deal with
That is true.
lol
Yes. It is all about turnout. There are way more of us than the MAGA maniacs. Especially when you survey younger people. They are angry about women's rights, the climate calamity and the gun crisis. We have the numbers on the above issues! Recent special elections confirm this.
We can whine all day about McCarthy and his crazy crew. The pain they are about to cause millions of Americans with their insane shutdown of the government will ripple through the nation. It will be awful. And it will be a campaign gift of epic proportions. We will be hard pressed not to know someone who will be needlessly hurt.
It will also be a campaign gift that will keep on giving for more than just this election cycle. It will add speed to the spiral dive of a political party that is terrified of its rapidly evolving irrelevance. The GQP is committing mass suicide.
All that really matters is getting people to vote. And are they going to vote for a party that wants to control a woman's body, exacerbate the flooding, wild fires and destruction of the oceans? Are they going to vote for a party that sends out Holiday cards with the candidate holding an assault rifle?
Of course we should work on gerrymandering if it's an issue in our state. But we can't fix GQP government shutdowns and we can't get the Trumps in jail fast enough.
However we can vote and we can get nonvoters motivated. I am optimistic that the GQP and their mentality disintegrating cult boss are setting themselves up for defeat. Who goes to a non union shop and talks to them as if they were union members?
Also, as I drink my optimistic coffee today, I recall with elation the fact that the judge in NY is effectively shutting down the Trump Mafia in that state. And big fines ahead! There is good news all around us and much more to come. Vote Blue!
On optimism
Abraham Lincoln once said, “I am an optimist because I don’t see the point in being anything else.”
Winston Churchill agreed, “I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”
We gave to be optimistic because if we succumb to pessimism, we won't do anything to help change the situation. And if that happens, they win!
I seem to recall one of Professor Timothy Snyder's rules about avoiding tyranny is "Do not obey in advance". Keep up the optimism, the hard work, and fight the good fight.
Amen!!
When the opponent controls your happiness, he has already won.
👏👍
OK, the five or six of you just gave me my pep talk for the day. Optimism wins.
Bill, you have said a mouthful. You bet, this shutdown fear has already rippled across this country. The antics this Supreme Court has pulled will never be forgotten, especially since 5 of them were appointed by the 🍓💩🤡!!! We will never forget how they have moved women’s rights back to pre-Civil War, women’s reproductive rights are back even further. Gerrymandering the voting precincts, or trying to. All this is burned into our minds. Now, we have to vote, vote, vote. These next 4 or 6 elections and all special ejections in between. Blue 🧢🧢🧢🧢 is the new color of the decade!
Agree but it will be extremely difficult because so much is being done to screw up the economy; e.g. shutdown and oil prices which are up over $4 a barrel in past two days. If the trend continues there will be a heavy recession by October 2024.
Most voters have only a myopic view of the economy and their future using the prices at the pump and in the grocery store. They don’t have the time or energy to research and study causes and manipulations of what effects their everyday lives.
And they listen to and watch crap. Including at church
You are very correct, Rally Guy. This is why we need to make sure that they know that this bunch of Republicans has caused this. They’re fight against President Biden, and his economic plan has slowed this economy return. If you recall, the plan he submitted to Congress was cut drastically by the Republicans. Even though we had a slight majority at the time in both chambers, there were not enough votes to get the full thing passed without giving concessions (cuts to portions of the plan). So, here we sit, with things easing back up, as they always do just prior to the holidays, and upcoming election year. This has been going on as long as I can remember. Every year, in the Fall the prices start upward, the holiday advertising hits the airwaves, and gas prices start back up. Never fails.
They also rely on the propaganda they are fed.
We may have already had our last real election. Note the states that have passed voter suppression laws, and given states the right to overturn voter choices. Republicans have been busy.
Yes, they have! But we have Marc Elias and Democracy Docket. They are fighting back in many states, and often winning. I support them with a monthly donation and believe supporting them is an important tool in saving free and fair elections. It is something we can do in addition to voting.
I can if my civil service check doesn't disappear
You said it! We have a lot, a LOT of work ahead of us!
Absolutely Daniel.
We have to remember the gerrymandering that will screw up the vote too!
Not to mention Putin with his hackers, and Xi with his. Then there’s always North Korea. Trump is in bed with that bastard too! If it’s a Communist country then the 🍓💩🤡 is buddy, buddy with them. Including Saudi Arabia!!!
As much as we are out trying to “get everyone we know to vote”, we are being undermined by gop support of new voter suppression tactics, both technological (with voter roll algorithmic searches allowing auto challenge paperwork to be filled out and timed to show up for review 10 before an election) and grassroots ( ex: a group in NY “accused of impersonating election officials and going door-to-door in 13 counties where they confronted voters regarding their registration status and incorrectly accused voters of committing a crime”) more on this effort in : Domeocracy Docket article. https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/the-rights-dangerous-and-unreliable-alternative-to-eric/
Well, I will not dispute the need to get people to the polls so I write postcards to voters.
However, I have no faith whatsoever that the fascists will acknowledge the outcome if it doesn’t go their way. They have already demonstrated their determination in that regard.
Brian, it’s become an expected thing. We know the loser will not concede, if they’re Republican. If the loser is Democrat, then it’s a sure thing that they will do what’s required and be the “adult in the room”, so to speak.
Maybe there can be some progress on redistricting to help swing the balance....plus all other efforts of course.
Absolutely. But that will involve lengthy legal battles, I expect. Case in point. Look at Florida and Alabama. They still arguing with the Supreme Court about their redistricting maps.
Alabama lost their case in SCOTUS
AGAIN!!!
👏👏👏
"It's fairly pathetic to watch them and yes, the public will blame them."
Patricia, there is a famous phrase: "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people", attributed to H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) .
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nobody_ever_went_broke_underestimating_the_intelligence_of_the_American_people
I am not so sure the "American People's" critical thinking apparatus is up to the task of discerning the reality around Trump and the Republicans. Not only that, huge numbers of those Americans are watching news feeds and websites that are feeding what they DO want to believe (that Democrats are evil and Republicans will save them from that communist government in DC).
HCR has a large readership here, but, that is still a TINY fraction of the "American People".
Based on an assumed large 2 million readership here at substack, about 99.4% of Americans are NOT reading HCR.
So, while I HOPE Americans are discerning reality, even my own daughter is tired of migrants spitting on her in New York and recently texted me to say "she is thinking of becoming a Republican", like that would matter and Republicans can stop world migration patterns.
Anyway, I applaud optimism. Including yours.
"I am not so sure the 'American People's' critical thinking apparatus is up to the task of discerning the reality around Trump and the Republicans." Absolutely, Michael. It leads me to believe that Shawn Fain is not quite correct when he says that 45 doesn't get it. I think he very much gets it and is leading his followers down the path he wants them to go.
Vote, everybody!
Shawn Fain IS plugged into a reality that I became aware when I first read the GLOWING review of Jack Welch in the Harvard Business Journal in roughly 1988 in the University of Texas Library.
That reality? Republicans (and Harvard) have supported the destruction of the American workforce and given even half a chance, will continue to do that. Unfortunately, Democrats were well on board with that strategy with Bill Clinton and NAFTA even though Ross Perot made the consequences of NAFTA clear to everyone ("That sucking sound you hear will be American jobs going to MEXICO"). Perot, a guy everyone made fun of but me, was right (yes, I voted for him).
So, the UAW is highly unlikely to buy the BS that Trump is handing out AND
TRUMP DID NOT EVEN VISIT WORKERS WHO ARE UNION MEMBERS.
He visited non union members and spewed some nonsensical stuff to them and left.
I worked for Jack Welch back in the 80s and 90s. He single-handedly destroyed GE. Him and his hand-picked successor, Jeff Immelt.
Those of us who were there back then are still bitter about it. Not for nothing was he known as Neutron Jack.
And not one of the mainstream newsreaders made mention that Trump visited a NON-UNION machine shop which employed at most, about 150 people. Most of the people there and holding signs were NOT union members, they were Trump supporters bussed in for the event. Staged theater, as usual.
Your grasp of this history is strong, Michael! My comment was intended to highlight that IMO 45 was speaking to his base who will back whatever he says and spread his lies.
Yes, I hope my comment was on topic? I thought I understood your point but, hey, its early!
My grasp of history is extremely poor. I was always interested in history, but, I pursued engineering in college and a Phd in Engineering and, honestly, have enjoyed a high energy career in technology mostly never having learned ANYTHING about history. Zero.
So, now I am trying to catch up.
At UT Austin, (five years of PhD work), I would read the Harvard Business Review every time it came out because another grad student, who had worked for a while, got me interested in the stock market.
No, I never bought GE stock. That was a good thing too. Jack Welch made a lot of money for himself destroying that company and the stock has languished since. NOBODY ever reports that fact though.
Just how great he was (at getting huge bonuses on poor performance I guess). The American way. A heist.
Welch was proud of his evil deeds. You have him pegged right
Yes, Lynell(VA by way of MD&DC), trump is using optics. Reagan’s presidency was the first I remember really understanding that the substance/truth doesn’t matter. The optics are ALL. trump in MI with auto workers, with a woman with a “Union Workers for Trump” sign (or what ever nonsense it says) is what the watch sees and makes the unthinking leap. Eeazy-Peezy. We spend ink and keyboard clicks pointing out the rouse, but he achieved what he wanted. Visual manipulation.
You lay it out very clearly, ML. Optics!
Perot was a spoiler, just like all third parties under our current system.
Chump does get it. It’s another film flam and his have worked his whole life.
Morning, Lynell. Your assessment is spot on.
A voting story: My dear friend Mary had sent a text, and asked if I turned in my ballot yet. I had not received one, and after I finished the task I was working on started to look (we are bad about picking up our mail.) I had been unaware of a special election. She texted a bit later and said that perhaps it was because it was a (stupid, grandstanding) recall election against one of our staunchest union supporting Democratic State Representatives, and perhaps he was not my Representative. That was it (even though we only live about a mile apart, we are in different districts at both the state and county level; oddly, not for the city...)
Morning, Ally! Remind me, is Oregon a state where you automatically receive ballots by mail? This year, I have been receiving "invites" to vote by mail...a first for VA...even from the Republican camp who tells me "If you don't vote, Virginia Democrats win"! I'm tempted not to vote, LOL!
Yes, Oregon is a vote by mail state, and registers people as they get their drivers' license. We've had that on the books for about 20 years, and if I recall, our "fraudulent" voter rate is .043%.
Edit: Just looked it up. Rate is .00006%
Oregon was the first State to Vote By Mail for every election!
We started experimenting with universal vote by mail for special elections in 1981 and went totally vote by mail after Measure 60 passed in 1998. Oregon's voter turnout is usually the highest in the nation and as you pointed out, election fraud is all but nonexistent. In fact the last time it happened it was done by a republican.
I’m hoping your daughter was being frustratedly facetious
Hate is the Republican mantra, immigration is the albatross that repubs hang around Dems neck. They will never agree to immigration reform.
Migrant’s literally spit on her?
Yes, Lisa.
My daughter works for JP Morgan in NY City. She leaves work around 9:30pm and arrives around 7:00 am six days a week.
The hotel where the migrants are housed is right across the street. The migrants are always outside milling around all over the street. My daughter walks home to her apartment and walks back. It is her exercise. Sometimes she phones my wife and I while walking.
One evening she phoned me and said she is sick of being spit on by migrants because they hate folks who are dressed nice and spit on them and she had just been spit on.
I explained that migrant entry has DECLINED since Trump and Republicans did NOT stop migration. But, hey, the Republicans talk a good party about stopping migration and the Democrats are more muted.
Anyway, yes, she has been spit on multiple times as she walks away from the area. I tell her to take a cab but the cabbies are avoiding pickups in that area.
So sorry to hear of your daughter's difficult experience. I am hopeful an effort to allow migrants to work will get them out of hotels and allow them something else to do. We hosted an exchange student from Venezuela and keep in contact with her family. Conditions there are really dreadful so people are leaving by the trainload. Ideal would be to improve things in that country, but otherwise immigration reform here to revitalize the process might be accomplished if we had a congress that could get something done.
It would be an interesting thought experiment to ask her what she would do if the situation was reversed. She was the migrant (with the associated life experience/mental baggage) housed outside one of the greatest examples of power-mongering in the USA (JP MorganChase), and someone well dressed ignores you as they walk by. You would feel like the world’s trash. This is not saying your daughter is not understandably upset by being spit on. The migrants would not like to be spit on either. Yet the are, in a way, each day, being spit on by a world unwilling to recognize its role in their plight. JP Morgan has some pretty powerful people in its NYC offices that could put pressure on gop legislators (especially the ones they own) to work with the Dems to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I wonder if Mayor Adams put this immigrant housing exactly there for that reason.
I’m sorry your daughter is having to experience that. Too bad such behavior doesn’t earn them the boot.
Ewww. 🤢 she has my sympathies.
Do they use their words at all to express their anger or just their spit? I would like to know what they are expressing. Poor choice of who to be frustrated with. Wonder who’s brainwashing them.
Sounds like it’s time she get ‘southern’ with them. Spit back!
Agree Patricia; that exactly how I read the tea leaves. McCarthy is 'not' a leader and will not keep any promises in conflict with his hold on speakership; all so sadly farcical.
I hope the public will blame them and that they don’t succeed is shifting blame.
Shine enough light and rats and roaches scurry.
These twenty or so members of the 'Freedom Caucus' not only put 'party over country,' they put their 'caucus over party.' They are as great a threat to our representative democracy as were Tories in 1776, Sessessionists in 1861, and American supporters of the Nazis during the Second World War. That they were legitimately elected to Congress identifies the problem, the ignorance of a large segment of the American people. To work effectively, democracy requires a level of knowlege too many Americans lack.
Great assessment, Jack.
All of what your write is true, but most German people and the politicians they elected thought Hitler and his followers were buffoons and it was probably pathetic to watch them in the early days.
Sounds like exactly what most people here and the politicians they elected thought of #45. If I had a dollar for every time I saw or heard someone say he is a buffoon, I would be a millionaire
And they deserve the blame!!
I recently saw a poll where the results indicated that the Democrats would be held responsible for the government shutdown.
Patricia Jaeger: What public will blame them?