While we should all be deeply concerned about propaganda and disinformation, whether State-sponsored from the criminal Putin or elsewhere, I'm far more concerned about those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside.
From https://electiondeniers.org/, there are 171 members of Congress who are election deniers. Why are they still in Congress? At a minimum they have betrayed their Oath of Office and have betrayed the trust of every citizen of the United States.
Good, George, you prioritize "those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside."
Merrick Garland and DOJ to remedy this? Don't think so. The malignancy goes deeper.
The malignancy comes, I think, George, from the tens of millions who've all so gotten such totally dehumanized educations that, through no fault of their own, they can only reduce life to abstractions, sensationalized (but most simple-minded) scenarios.
America could have good schools. It does not. Thus so many abysmally educated.
The GOP has undermined public education for many years! I might add intentionally to that! Now, book banning, curriculum rewriting & private school vouchers are their goals. Poor kids are left in overcrowded, underfunded & understaffed schools!
Anthony, yes, Trump was just trying to cover for his own inadequacy. He is and was a fool, wasted his education, and it was private, supposedly in good schools. It didn't help Trump one bit, except maybe expose him to the ways very rich people wash each other's hands so they can stay in power, supposedly with clean hands in all the crap they dealt out to everyone they encountered. He knows public education is where he can double down on producing ignorant young people because he believes public schools contain only kids of those lower classes who are only useful when they do what he and his rich friends tell them to do, for whatever pittance they are willing to pay. Why anyone would want that for their kids is beyond comprehension. Or, maybe the more well-off don't think that will happen to THEIR schools.
Ruth, i just read an article about a school librarian in, I think, a small town in LA where she was born and raised. She spoke out against censorship in school libraries in a school board meeting and was then targeted by some state group with the usual death threats and accusations of being a groomer. She has decided to stand up against this and filed a libel suit, but it was thrown out because it just opinions that this group posted. Among other things, she has her grocery delivered because she can't even go to the grocery store. This kind of intimidation goes all over the place. And what exactly are libel laws for.
Ruth, I don’t believe Trump is cognitively intact enough to have and control a master plan for dumbing down the youth - or anything else. When we listen to him or read a transcript of his “press conferences” or rallies, it’s clear that the man is well into dementia. And the stress of his legal situation, the fear of jail, etc is only hastening the downward spiral. He can read a teleprompter, albeit poorly, but as soon as he goes off-script his speech degenerates into tangential thinking, word salad, paranoia and repetition. The idea that he is capable of being the mastermind of an autocratic takeover is laughable.
Which means there are others setting the goals and crafting the strategies. We have to beat the pants off trump at the ballot box (there’s a nasty image for you on a Saturday morning!), because he’s the front man. But the evil that lurks behind him is made up of sociopaths and malignant narcissists, too. They have money and functioning brains. They scare the shite out of me and unless we beat their puppet soundly, they will not crawl back into their closets.
mlbrown, of course Trump loves the poorly educated; he can understand what they are saying because depending on where they were "poorly educated" he would have about the same level of vocabulary.
Francine, I can tell you, as a retired public school teacher of 26 years, in a very disadvantaged school district, the teachers are often amazing and do incredible work with children who often come to school shadowed by the pains of poverty, community neglect, and fear that their lives will never get better. Our Republican governors over the years cut school funding by billions of dollars and the state is struggling to catch up. I received a decent salary, but purchased or found all the materials for my students, made sure they regularly had books of their own, and did other things for them I thought could give them hope in a brighter future. Other teachers in my district did the same. I know there are teachers in some cases who are racist, homo/transphobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic and proudly display that, but I saw very little of that among my colleagues and I served in between 5 and 9 schools each year for 19 years. Maybe extra efforts should be placed on recruiting future educators, high-quality positive training for teachers in our colleges and universities and treating teachers as the professionals they are, more knowledgeable about teaching subjects like reading, math, science, social studies, and the arts than most parents, despite what Republicans would have us all believe. The fact that Tim Walz was a public school teacher and understands the challenges schools and their inhabitants face, should position him and Harris well to work toward improving our public schools for the benefit of all, helping our young people to be the best-educated, most talented, most creative most wonderfully diverse work force we have ever had.
Ruth, I also spent years in education at the public school in a small community that was very Catholic, so we had the private school next door. That was a problem in itself in terms of passing school budgets and up the canyon (North Santiam Canyon) people believed some story that we discriminated against their students. So they didn't vote for the budget either. Now the state pays for most school budgets and local budget votes usually have to do with bond measures. I was the librarian as well as teaching some classes, often individual or small, and I spent my own money and time on the library including buying paint and hiring a student to paint the area where my aides sat. Many of our teachers helped students in many ways including taking them in. We did have all the negative things you mentioned and usually, it resided in what i call the coaching corner. The district hired some teachers because they could coach and the booster club hired the football coach and we had some real doozies there. I saw many student teachers including one who should have never received a teaching certificate because our female students complained about him. But he passed muster anyway and was hired at a nearby district where it didn't take long for him to get in trouble.
Michele, a librarian, Oh how I wish we had a librarian in our district. We have no libraries, minimal art and music programs, a good sports program, and a few after school projects that help. People have no clue that librarians are essential as are the arts, government/civics classes, and personal finance courses. It's just so sad our kids are so poorly regarded. When I hear Republicans claim to love children, I know they are lying through their teeth, unless they mean just their own children and even then, I am not so sure.
You are a hero. Your message is so important. Yes, I have hopes for the Democrats winning the Presidency and Congress and Senate. And I think you are right that having Walz in the administration will be very helpful. I was shocked this year that the Ann Arbor Public Schools are dropping Art and Music. That is shocking to me. It’s a money issue they say. Thank you for all you did is a teacher and for documenting it.
Francine, thank you. I, like so many other teachers, think I had the best students in the world. I like the idea of having a former teacher (OK, once a teacher always a teacher) as VP. I know he cares about kids and equity, two critical elements in our lives.
Thank you so much Ruth. I watched one republican governor after another destroy Special Ed. They cut funding and services. My classroom budget for one year was $80.00, divided into half at the begging of the year and the other $40.00 after Christmas. Guess who bought what was needed.
My husband once said to me at tax time, “it’s a good thing I have a good job, or we couldn’t afford for you to teach”. We both laughed.
Phyllis, people have no idea what teachers do for their kids, but they sure can support loud-mouthed oafs like Vance and Trump who insult and denigrate teachers. Maybe if they would vote for Democrats who actually care about their kids, better teachers would be recruited and hired and better future teachers would be given aid to attend college. It is most of the red states' schools, often private and religious as well, that suck. Value children and the public schools will improve.
...and let's not forget ALEC, one of the sources for these school voucher programs that have been diverting tax payer funded public school funds to private/religious/home schooling formats. I know because this has been happening in NH and has had little if any oversight as to how much is being diverted. The Commissioned of Education doesn't believe in public education-he's never attended one and attended Hilllsdale College, a private conservative Christian colllege in MI. The potential financial impact is enormous since this format is W-A-Y over the initial budget allocation and has been mushrooming. NH has had a long standing problem for over 30 years regarding the way public schools have been underfunded, aggravated by the core process of the funding of public schools being based on property taxes, despite Court ordered changes being mandated.
Barbara, we face that same situation in PA and also have few controls on "charter schools," which have been set up supposedly to help disadvantaged kids. Private corporations have moved in to control those schools when they were supposed to be fully public schools with a mandate to try new education methods that could be quickly passed to regular public schools if they worked. That never worked out and charters have been sucking up huge amounts of money off the top, so the regular public schools get whatever money is left over after the charters get their brand new schools, tons of resources, and pay enormous salaries to their "CEOs and CFOs." Why they need either is never explained. The students in charters do not do as well as in the regular public schools on the whole and yet, parents send their kids to them, hoping things are better. The schools are newer, so that is a drawing card. Vouchers are doing enormous damage to our state's budget too and there are few controls on those either. It is not clear who is benefiting but I suspect it is religious schools. We need to do better and I am hoping Harris-Walz will make this a priority along with the many other priorities we need addressed.
Any association with Hillsdale and especially its Project 1776 version of history is an automatic dis-qualifier for me for reliable or ethical information.
Their involvement with Project 2025 just makes it worse and deserving of more careful and continued watch for the political pollution they spill on the public.
For some unknown reason, Hillsdale sends me their publications. Last week, I mailed a cease and desist letter stating that I will never agree to their viewpoints.
In Texas Governor Abbott is on a warpath to destroy public education (placing Mike Miles in charge of H(ouston) ISD after ruining D(allas) ISD) and pushing for school vouchers to take away public funding in order to subsidize private schools.
Mark, I honestly don't understand how anyone could vote for someone as hateful and rude as Abbott. He must have something people see that is well, worthy of something. I have not experienced it, just that he is an ignorant ass who cares for no one but himself. He matches Trump, which is probably Texans went for him. Then, there's the criminal Paston in office. Gag!
The General Court (legislature) created an entitlement in the voucher program. It is aimed at appealing to parents who don’t like the public schools where they live, have objections to what is taught in public schools, and/or and generally dissatisfied with public education. Of these, there are more than a few in NH, and so it was intended and understood that this program responded to a popular demand, and would be taken advantage of by many. But the program was sold on the basis of being something of a social experiment, or pilot project that would not cost taxpayers much. Consequently, it was foreseen by many in and out of government that it was underfunded, and would result in a categorical budget deficit. That in turn would naturally lead to pressure to increase spending and has. And that, foreseeably, has been by diverting Department of Education revenues that would otherwise be available to support public schools. This, though the State has a constitutional duty to provide public schools, and is once again being sued for having fallen short in the performance thereof. As has been widely observed, and indeed intended by some, if allowed to exist and grow, this voucher program, given NH’s legendary aversion to public spending at all levels, can not help but to undermine public education and lead to its collapse.
(With exceptions noted for Winnecunet (Hampton), Portsmouth, Durham (Oyster River), Lakes Region, Waterville Valley, Kearsarge Regional, Sunapee, and Dresden (Hanover and Lyme, plus Thetford and Norwich in VT.). Ie, the property rich districts.
Reliance on property taxes is a big part of the problem, but is historic. After VT, NH taxpayers have the second highest relative property tax burden in the nation. Last I heard. And there are wide disparities. And it is understandable that families of limited means with high property tax burdens would be unhappy with public education, in addition to those with no children. A different way of raising revenue for education is needed.
Tyler, another problem is that there is little evidence that the schools parents move their kids to are any better, often worse, but parents don't want to admit it and like the prestige they often get by not having their kids in public schools. What a racket this has become. Let's face it vouchers has been a disaster for states, taxpayers, and particularly for students, but alas, students are usually the last to be considered.
Barbara, property taxes are a horrible way to fund schools. The idea of paying taxes on the size and value of your property made sense in times where properties generated income via crops, livestock, etc. More property made more money so it was roughly aligned with income. No more. The tax is tied to market value and keeps growing without producing income. The tax keeps growing regardless of the owner’s income. People who retire, become disabled, or just can’t find work are taxed at higher and higher levels. I don’t have children but still vote for school levies, but as a retired person living alone my property taxes have increased to be 40% of my Social Security. I do understand why people vote against school levies!
Still have to believe they (his primary sponsors) will, or will try to, rid themselves of him as soon as he is no longer useful to them. I still believe Putin has recently given up on expecting him to be elected, to me by the prisoner swap he did with Biden instead of imagining an advantage of letting Trump get the credit.
Any student, no matter what their economic status, who does not live near a private voucher school ( and there are huge numbers of them) gets hurt when education funds are privatized over public education for all.
Anthony, and Project 2025 would stop federal funding of schools, including Head Start and school lunches. So states and local school systems have to make sure that children aren’t too hungry to learn. Since Texas’ school systems don’t have enough money to hire trained teachers (school systems in Europe pay their teachers as much as they pay engineers), where are they going to find the money for free school breakfasts and lunches?
Mary, that's the point; cruelty is the point. Republicans in Texas and in most other places are OK with keeping poor people poor and children suffering. They can blame them for whatever the issue of the day is: crime, laziness, being takers, and on and on. People who have been well-educated and prepared for the world don't need to harm others which is why I wonder about what is going on in the schools Republicans in power came from and how they didn't learn to be better people.
Yes. And higher education is no longer accessible unless you are very bright, wealthy or willing to expose yourself to predatory lending. And colleges focus less on quality education which actively engages and challenges and more on frills like luxury dorms. Will Bunch, from the Philadelphia Inquire , wrote The Fall of The Ivory Tower which addresses this so well
Gjay, you are right about higher education. My niece was accepted to a school in NYC. She is enormously talented, but she had to take out a 20+ year loan of $43,000 for the first year to do it. She couldn't afford to return because the extreme tuition + $3,000 a month rent was impossible. She wants a job in the performing arts, and would never be able to repay the loan. The loan for the first year is going to take her whole family to help pay it. It is outrageous, but as long as there are enough rich kids to pay those enormous prices, they will continue to be too high for most people.
I am so sorry to hear this about your niece. It does not have to be this way. I know of a young woman who is working in public service as an attorney in order to have some of her college loan forgiven. She had been assigned the most difficult and frustrating cases and yet she feels helpless to move to a better paying position due to her loan agreement. And she in an attorney.
What the Russians know as a fact is what Pres. G.W. Bush said at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 3/31/2001: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." This fact has been known by American Oligarchs and Right Wing Think Tanks (Heritage Society, Hoover Institute, etc.) since the early 1980's. They've used wedge issues to persuade average Americans to vote for Republicans and against their own best economic interests since Reagan's presidency, when the wealthy commenced the war on America's Middle Class, which it won. Beginning with Reagan's term, Republican administrations and Congresses have given massive tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations, resulting in a $35 trillion national debt and a nation where 806 individuals now have the accumulated wealth equal to that of one-half of the American population (806 vs 163,000,000.) That makes the U.S. an oligarchy where the wealthy control politics (propaganda) and the economy (low taxes, if any at all.) Russia understands the gullibility of some Americans and have jumped in to influence the upcoming Nov. election. What to do? Start teaching critical thinking skills as early as the 6th grade and reform our instruction on government and history. A vote for Trump is a vote for Fascism, a system that Trump's supporters do not know how detrimental to them it will be because they never learned about it. Sadly, Bush was right.
The other entities that have engaged in fooling the people are many parasitic religious institutions, who despite the requirement that they stay out of politics, do so regularly and at the taxpayers' expense,
Might they not be mistakenly described as 'religious' when their only god is the golden calf and/or fascism? The term 'religious' seems too loosely ascribed to many....
I disagree with starting in 6th grade. I would start in preschool. That way, teachers up to 5th grade can focus on imparting knowledge, and 6th grade teachers can focus on ensuring that their students are consistently applying that knowledge.
What's the knowledge? Good question. The knowledge is the moral "treat every other human being the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot" principle.
BTW, the "moral principle" is also the 1st scientific principle. So, then we can get those 6th graders to teach science to grownups who, although they have science degrees, lack that elementary school level understanding of the concept.
Happily, JFK was right. I propose someone make an example of Bush by suspending his elementary school graduation certificate.
Yes! Preschool! Critical thinking is the most important skill as it organizes an open mind, the greatest asset to learning. Some learn the skill from their parents. Others must be taught the skill as early as possible. Maybe liberal arts and sciences can be restored to assist. If Harris’s plans are not killed by Republicans, there is hope.
Fortunately, the moral principle is also the 1st principle of art. I say that based on Seth Godin's definition: "Art is what we call it when what we do might connect us."
And we did art in first grade, wrote rhymes, sang songs, read aloud in groups, and learned to print on lined paper. I began piano lessons in second grade and took Latin and French simultaneously in ninth. All in the poorest smallest school in Eastern Henrico County VA.
The discipline of art (liberal arts education is, after all, an art form) has given me a richer life than a 6-year old knitting squares for WWII soldiers’ afghans, could ever have imagined. My teachers had been to Notmal School or Westhampton College (U of Richmond).
That would be nice, JD, but realistically, we must improve our schools' curricula and start teaching critical thinking skills, history and civics (government systems) as early as the 6th grade, IMO. We have a nation filled with gullible folks.
Apocalypse Now !!! Russian culture has a different understanding of how Time progresses rooted in Russian Orthodox Christianity. Theirs is to see and embodying Time as a non progressivist continuum and eternal returning, not a journey to a final end. The US Puritan Final Days progressivism is a gift for their propaganda teams. Playing upon it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
All of which is designed to reassure people that death is not the end as well as helping people manage life's uncertainties by providing absolutist explanations. Accepting religion means giving up the right to think for oneself.
It was prescient then. It seems quaint now - compared to the MAGA madness. They were drinking Gatorade and watering their crops with it. We drink PFAs and micro plastics and fertilize our fields with the toxins.
I will always defend the First Amendment, even though as an adult, organized religion has never been my thing. That said, so called Christian Nationalism is a dangerous thing because it ignores the fact that while our country was based on religious freedom, the majority of the founders intended for our government to be protected by the idea of separation of church and state. You could look it up. See Thomas Jefferson. Also see Thomas Paine.
I understand that. But those institutions shouldn't be given a blank slate. And these rules were made when religion was accepted as credible by many. When most of us can see the absurdity of giving a superstition this kind of authority, what then? Religion is the only socially sanctioned delusion.
I understand where you're coming from. Blank slate? No. Authority? No. Freedom? Yes. Socially sanctioned? Why not? Delusion? Who's to say? We are mere humans, and our best philosophers cannot solve or agree on the one question that it always comes down to. Does God exist? It seems that you and I have reached different conclusions. Those are personal decisions. However, I would be happy to see an admitted atheist win in a national election. That would be real progress.
Exactly, Phil. In that sense, the ReThuglicans played the long game well: wenn they set out to destroy democracy, they started in the schools, replacing school board members with loyalists and hollowing out the school system from the inside out. Uneducated people are easily brought to fear, anger and hate and are thus easy to control. That’s exactly what the Rump Party wants.
I frequently think of Trump's comment that he "loves the uneducated". No wonder. And with the ridiculous sanitizing of American history and the lack of real Civics teaching in schools that's just going to get worse.
Their education was so flawed, so long ago, I don't know how they can be rehabilitated. As it's said, ignorance is thinking you know and being so certain you won't consider new information .
So we vote. We register the kids. We talk to our neighbors who have tuned out.
Voting will help, right now, by this November, yes, Jen.
But beyond that, the real key is to return to the schools everything that standardized testing destroyed.
The Powell memo in 1971, Jen, organized the billionaires to gin up the far right foundations first to remove humanities from schools. The billionaires hated back then how youth got so much energy from novels, songs, films, and other arts.
The new Heritage Foundation, an enlarged Hoover Institute, and new ALEC got all the states to reduce funding to higher ed -- crippling, changing it irretrievably. They introduced standardized testing so the humanities would disappear and a new fear factor arrive. Everyone needed to learn to think only in terms of the linear, chronological, categorical, and abstracted.
We need to put back the humanities. And essay writing. Kick out the standardized testers. As Finland did to reform their education and make it the best in the world.
See individuals. Complications. The odd, the inconsistent, the surprises and subtle patterns in humanity and nature. Write essays. Quote others as people in the room, people with their human and social issues. Quote, refer to humanities. Reference others in other groups (neighboring nationalities, or sects, or skin colors, anyone?) as if they were individuals, not just units in abstractions.
Hire only the best as teachers and then leave them alone, well enough funded to do their job.
I think that the two go hand in hand, Phil. The machinations of the election subverters are fed, fueled, and funded by the very same people that are feeding the disinformation to those who are susceptible (for a variety of reasons, "standardized and rote" education being one) to believe the utter garbage they are fed.
Yes I agree educating ourselves and our children is vital to democracy. Our parents who came of age before the 1950’s who had little “ formal “ education made the most of what education they had and built on it by reading newspapers papers and being active in their communities. My own father had only an eighth grade education but he and my mother subscribed to four local newspapers and on Sunday picked up two New York newspapers. My father spoke English and Lebanese (my grandparents immigrated from Lebanon) and since he grew up with Italians he spoke their language. Education is vital and to be effective it has to be quality education- actively learning and questioning.
George, Considering Garland’s reticence, despite ample predication, to initiate criminal investigations of Trump and his sycophants for their complicity in the J6 assault on the Capitol, I expect we need to look elsewhere if we’re to preserve our constitutional republic. I would note, while Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias is on the job 24/7, he also has urged all his subscribers to become increasingly more mindful within their respective communities of voter suppression tactics enacted both at the front end (the casting of votes) and at the back end (their tabulation).
Our Secretary of State in Ohio, Frank LaRose, is trying to require proof of citizenship to vote in state elections and to narrow use of drop boxes. He’s also back at his dirty tricks at providing a dishonest summary of our ballot initiative to dismantle Republican gerrymandering of Ohio. He also pulled this trick with his initiative that would make it harder to pass initiatives, and Issue 1 at recognizing state constitutional rights to abortions. The voters weren’t fooled and we voted down LaRose’s attempt to impair initiative passage and passed Issue 1. LaRose was hoping to get the initiative on voting passed in order to defeat Issue 1.
LaRose also tried to get on the ballot as a candidate to run against our current senator Sherrod Brown. LaRose came in third in the primary and the winner was Trump endorsed car salesman Bernie Moreno. The GQP has run Ohio for over 30 years and has helped to wreck the state in the process.
Anne-Louise, You’re right that initiatives either are in place or underway to create sufficient chaos to move the presidential election either to SCOTUS with its 6 conservative justices or to the U.S. House where Republicans control 26 delegations, democrats 23, with each getting 1 vote. Still, I won’t ever count out the will of the American people nor the public servants alongside with whom we fight to preserve our cherished, albeit flawed, American experiment.
I am moving back to Texas this month after a 64-year absence to be close to my remaining siblings (94, 90 and 81.) From the frying pan (Florida) into the fire (Texas.) But, hope springs eternal.
Save travels and I hope you can find a "Blue Oasis" in Texas. I am also drinking my optimistic coffee today and will predict that both states will be purple by the end of the year.
It will be women who drive that change of color. Dobbs did it.
Solar and Batteries, actually even just batteries with or without solar, wind, hydro, or a fossil fuel generator, depending upon where each can be used. Have to start looking myself as the Inverters and surplus batteries from EVs become more realistic.
Friends that bought 20 years ago have had to adapt as old designs are too inefficient and no longer produced, and there seem to be too few solar panel recyclers that can provide used panels of similar types.
More important if at all possible is the defeat off Ted Cruz. I am fairly confident that Harris will win the election even in the Electoral College, but fear the loss of Manchin's seat in West Virginia (virtually assured) and probably Jon Testers seat in Montana will leave us with a 51-49 deficit in the Senate. I actually think Cruz' seat is vulnerable, given how close Beto o'Rourke got 6 years ago and so many people in Texas hate the guy, even Republicans in Texas. Get us THAT win in Texas and the country will be forever grateful to Texas!
George, I hope you are right....but fear the wheels of justice are slow for a reason. I know all of this is uncharted territory and that a move against DT is risky...
I know we all, on this substack....but many out there are so busy just making every day work ...it is hard to get their attention. I fear (the task) it is bigger than we imagine.
True Barbara -and grateful for Marc Elias’ continuing and vital efforts. Nevertheless, you could almost read between the lines on Marc’s comment -while we should always be vigilant, without the support of our institutions, he’s (kind of) saying justice and democracy have already failed.
George, To the contrary, in one of Elias’s webinars, he specifically expressed confidence, if everyday people join in the fight, that we would emerge from this election cycle with a free and fair outcome.
As for my personal perspective, while I won’t deny that we could be on the cusp of a near-fatal weakening of our democratic institutions, I would submit, despite the yearning for the experts to carry the weight and solve our problems, it’s us that also have to become engaged, working to make democracy real here at home.
Marc's urging to become involved had my husband sign up to be an election judge. His training is next week. I wish I could do it as well, but I can't do it mentally or emotionally. He is a very calm man, slow to anger, but I am a bit concerned as he doesn't suffer fools. I have a close friend (registered Republican but very centrist in judgement) who was an election judge for decades--and she quit after the last election. Too many angry people and she's a rather timid woman.
She cited too many instances of having to tell people to remove political articles of clothing who fought her. I suspect red hats, but did not push it. She had been a Trump voter, and in the last year, I've subtly been moving her left. I am pretty certain she won't vote for him, based on his reproductive rights stance. She is a childless bird lady (not cat lady).
Merrick Garland's "reticence"? What are you talking about? He was certainly slow to act, but the DoJ has already sent over 1000 people to jail/ federal prison for their acts on J6, and has filed, through Jack Smith, a major indictment of Trump for his actions which was, of course, overturned by the Supreme Court (via Trump's appointees) and is now being refiled to confirm to the SCOTUS decision. I am no Garland "fan" but I don't like to see him maligned unjustly. You make it sound like he is to blame rather than Trump and the SCOTUS which definitely seems to be coming down on a "lawless Presidency" concept which is scary for the future of the United States. Let's try to stick to facts, please, rather than encouraging new attempts to skirt the legal process. Garland's no prize, for sure, but he is on our side, not Trump's.
That's just it though - this propaganda IS attacking and subverting our elections from the inside. One thing I've learned knocking on doors this year: campaign volunteers would have a much easier job and far greater effect were it not for rampant disinformation. The justice department has waited too long on so many fronts here. We've known about foreign influence for at least 8 years. With regard to bad actors within our elected officials and our bureaucracy, they've been too cautious about appearing partisan or infringing on 1st amendment rights.
Marc Elias and an army of similarly-minded attorneys are on the ground fighting systemic election denialism on a case by case basis, unencumbered by the extensive bureaucracy of the JD. But that legal army has no power to go after foreign influence. For that we need the clout of our Federal government. At this late date it might be tactically better to keep the Feds focused on foreign interference, which is an arguably more non-partisan project. Meanwhile we on the ground should provide all the grassroots support we can muster to organizations like Democracy Docket and the ACLU. Then after the election we can retool and hopefully the JD become more assertive and proactive on all fronts.
You’re correct Helga, however, a multi-pronged approach is what I advocate for. While we must combat foreign interference (we actually do similar, and worse in attempting to subvert democracy elsewhere) my overriding concern is with election “officials” who will refuse to certify elections, create chaos, confusion, and delay -which Trump and his criminal organization will use to claim a “Constitutional Crisis” that he will pursue up to what is in effect, his Supremely Corrupted Court.
“Meanwhile we on the ground should provide all the grassroots support we can muster to organizations like Democracy Docket and the ACLU.”
A multi-pronged approach includes working to GOTV for a blue 🌊. While disinformation and concerns about election subversion can be disheartening,action is the best remedy.
I also support Marc Elias/Democracy Docket and CREW:
This election will be attacked....we know that for sure. I hope we have enough election officials with the brilliance and patriotism to watch the details as we choose to vote for our candidates of choice.
Yes it will. We should expect anything. The difference, this time, is that we have a president who will not hesitate to bring out the National Guard to protect the Capitol.
Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. The risk of losing our democracy is awakening America. I expect anything but our history has been loaded with threats like this. And yet...here we stand.
Interesting, that if we have need for "a president who will not hesitate to bring out the National Guard to protect the Capitol" that the VP and the hopefully newly elected P (one and the same) will also be fully and wisely engaged!
I wish merrick Garland would sit for an interview with Heather Cox Richardson. I believe she would get him to answer the question that’s been on my mind since he first got the job… “Are you going to indict those members of Congress who tried to overthrow the government?” For the history of the United States to be complete, we need an answer to that question. We need to find out WTF is going on in that man’s mind!
But 171 election deniers are still in Congress, despite their betrayal of the Constitution, because they are the ones running the place. Instead of performing the peoples business like holding hearings on 25% of our bridges ready to collapse, they are having "show hearings" to affect the elections. Instead of boosting the economy and helping families by passing a CTC (child tax credit), they try to impeach Biden. Instead of passing a border bill, they blame Biden for failing at the border - despite the fact that he has reduced the flow of immigrants.
It is simple. Democrats want to do stuff - solve problems, help Americans thrive. MAGAs want to regain total power in order to line the pockets of the morbidly rich and squelch personal liberties - the right of a religion free education, a right to choose when to have children...
Maybe, once we regain complete control of the House, there can be a vote to expel those traitors.
Side note/question: Does anyone remember a time when if a candidate or party lost an election, they would do a "post mortem" and ask why? Actually take responsibility? Actually admit: "Gee, I guess some of our ideas are not popular"...? Actually adjust and adapt to better reflect the values and desires of their constituencies?
Indeed Bill. I do suspect the GOP does a post-mortem and concludes they aren’t suppressing enough voters, or sufficiently gerrymandered a district to force the D’s to earn 60% of the vote or more to be elected. If it was truly based upon policy, imagine running on “we’re going to give more of your money to the already wealthy while taking away your health coverage and raising the normal social security retirement age to 75” GOP platform.
To your side note: Those were the normal times. Now, we've got someone who has admitted "we don't win if we don't cheat" and is running for President for the third time.
I can only hope that if there is a Harris Administration, they appoint a well-qualified AG who will fiercely defend the Constitution, Democracy, and pursues facts, evidence, indictments, and convictions -wherever they may lead.
However, Terry, Garland did appoint Jack Smith, which is not something a Republican would have wanted. I think history will show that he has accomplished a lot during the Biden years, though not nearly quickly enough for many of us, but I'm assuming he is doing way more than we know behind the scenes, as it isn't appropriate for him to outline everything he is prosecuting. In my view, we should reserve judgement.
George, you are right that there are too many election deniers or rather, "election liars" serving in our legislatures. I figure if they can lie about something as obvious as the 2020 election declared the safest in history, they will lie about anything and often do. We do not need so many liars in office; a few we can handle, A WHOLE NEST OF THEM, NOT SO MUCH. We need our media to start calling what comes from their mouths that is not true, "lies."
Of course we are wise to be "concerned about those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside"! Was is Abe Lincoln or Ben Franklin who warned that our nation's biggest threat would come from within our government? However, please, read Judd Legum's substack in Popular Information this morning to get details on how Trump is trumpeting this Russian inspired information and succeeding in AZ, NV, and PA, very important states for D's to win.
"about propaganda and disinformation, whether State-sponsored from the criminal Putin or elsewhere, I'm far more concerned about those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside."
These are the same. There is no longer Russia way over there doing bad things. The are a significant number of politicians, media pundits, and journalists and everyday citizens who are repeating and most importantly believing Russian propaganda. In other words, we have been overtaken in a segment of our Country by Russia.
George, I think that Mr. Garland has brought a judge's perspective to an attorney's position. The moves he has made are judicially and procedurally rock solid; he has not moved forward with the prosecutorial fire that was (IMO, and that and $3.09* will get you a cup of coffee) expected by most of us, and I think necessary for us to deal with the election denial 1.0 that we saw in 2020. His glacial speed has led us to the brink of election denial 2.0, and we do not have a balanced SCOTUS; rather, a $COTUS bought and paid for by the oligarchs that want to ruin the US.
* Professor Richardson did the research: $3.09 is the average cost of a cup of coffee in the US.
Thanks Ally … (and my bloodstream is at least 50% fair trade, shade grown, organic, espresso.)
I think of Garland as the equivalent of a police officer who witnesses a dangerous-looking cargo van, driven by someone who looks like a sociopathic clown, driving in the midst of a biker gang -all speeding, and a station wagon with mom, dad, and a couple of kids in the back, also speeding -and he pursues the station wagon. It’s low risk and an easy win.
As you say -I want that prosecutorial fire. I want an AG who will pursue justice with the same passion and skill that Bill Barr has for obstructing justice.
Citizens need to be vigilant election poll watchers and the Democrats need to deploy an army of lawyers to push back on this type of election interference in the battleground states. The framers of our Constitution have saddled us with this Electoral College curse that we must overcome for democracy to prevail.
Long day yes but as always pure substance! We need to repeat the economic talking points, especially the Goldman Sachs report, the 16 Nobel prize winners for economics and the clear point that Bill Clinton made at the Convention on the difference between Democratic versus GOP job creation. Thanks Heather!
>>>Similarly, Trump on Friday said at a right-wing Moms for Liberty event that public schools in America kidnap children and operate on them to change their sex. This is bonkers, but it is bonkers in a way that deliberately demonizes Trump’s opponents.<<<
What's even more bonkers is that Moms For Liberty and so many far right groups in the MAGAsphere believe this kind of nonsense; are terrified at the thought of this happening in the U S. They are completely unable to discern the truth for themselves. How can they ever be expected to vote responsibly, if their grip on reality is so tenuous?
"How can they ever be expected to vote responsibly, if their grip on reality is so tenuous?" Michael, I just got back from a conference in Nashville and was saying that all weekend. Gift shops in our very mainstream hotel had whole shelves of books spouting completely superstitious fantasy like "Preparing for the Rapture." It's pure insanity.
Trump inserts "Hannibal Lecter," sharks, "cutting off a child's breasts, after a few months in a new school," etc. because those kinds of thoughts take brain functions from rational thinking to the lower brain functions of survival for self and family. It is a strategy that conservatives have used in this way since they inserted "dead babies" into the rhetoric the way Trump keeps repeating that babies are aborted until and after birth.
Some people are more resistant to this tactic than others, but most recoil and are distracted, at least momentarily.
I had a former sergeant argue that point with me. (His wife is a former DA). I asked him the homicide definition, which he knew. I said that if a child that was born alive it met the criteria for a person (it does, and he agreed). I then asked why that was not a homicide and not an abortion. He had no answer. I asked if he had any source material on that statement. He did not. I then bit my tongue in two (or whatever the keyboard version is of that) and asked well, how many homicide prosecutions have arisen from these events? His reply: None; they're abortions. SMH.
How many living people were saved due to the medical abortion. And if you're religious, the perform soul gets to go to heaven. Once you're born your chances of getting to heaven drop off precipitously.
I actually had an old friend tell me that one a year ago while we were on a walk a year ago. That was the same friend who announced that she had reputable information that”Hillary was a bigger womanizer than Bill.” Another friend, who can’t stand Donald, said she has friends who are convinced Donald was”saved by angels “ during the assassination attempt . I’m not sure we can talk sense to these. Folks but I am sure we need to know what we’re up against.
Replying to myself here to add to the thread... Thanks everybody for weighing in.
Trae Crowder (the "liberal redneck" on YouTube) did a piece about three weeks ago - less funny than usual - tackling the MAGA people who still STILL lap up everything that Trump and his maga minions, including Fox, say publicly, with no discernment. Especially that whole "Trump was saved by angels" meme.
Another thing which astounds me about Fox is that so many military bases have it playing on TVs in public places, like the PX and cafeterias and other stores and of course in a lot of barracks areas and on ships. It's not news, it's propaganda! And a lot of it is anti-government propaganda which has radicalized a lot of service members. When I did telecom data-related field work back in the early 90s, and would go out to Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, I would always see Fox up on the TVs at the cafeteria where I would get lunch... so I have seen firsthand what I would see later in news reports about Fox and military bases. Made my jaw clench to see young soldiers, sitting at lunch tables, nodding in agreement and raising their fists.. It's really problematic. There have been efforts in more recent years at the Defense Department to curb that. But it goes back to First Amendment rights and censorship, and Murdoch knows that all too well. I'm sure that he has paid big money to DoD, especially back in the predominant cable TV days, to get Fox News playing on bases and on ships. Just sickening.
I am thrilled with this news. As a Bernie bro, and staunch supporter of AOC, I nevertheless have been thoroughly disappointed in their failures to reach out to small business owners and entrepreneurs. Their messaging has been constant "workers' rights", which is absolutely necessary, but not to the exclusion of small business owners. Seeing these initiatives from Harris gives me hope that support can be won from this group. They should be a natural Democratic constituency. After all, Republican policies consistently favor the corporate behemoths, who are the death of small business owners and the anti-competitive beasts who have eliminated so much of our once great mom-and-pop enterprise system. Like most progressives, I believe in individual private enterprise, which should be supported by the state, not crushed by the monopolistic might of predatory giants.
I also support Bernie and AOC, both of whom have spoken eloquently in support of Harris. I have nixed feelings about political correctness, but I think we as a society muddle our communication, and perhaps our own thinking by the use of poisoned phases like "business friendly" and "Free Market". As you and HCR are pointing out, there is a great chasm between the opportunities and impacts between monopolistic mega corporations and genuinely small business, Yet since Reagan, there has been a myth that being pro-business means ALL forms of business, if not outright biased toward increasing the power of huge conglomerates. "Free Market" seems more often cited to justify anti-anti-trust; not a more level playing field of broadened, responsible, business opportunities. The word "freedom" is all but meaningless if it applies only to a few.
I also think that free enterprise fits right into the complement of freedoms appropriate to a free society. So does a rule of law with the aggregate consent of the governed, applied to behaviors corporations as well as citizens, in other words, the "R" word, "Reg*lation". And there is also room and need for a robust public sector. If we make the rules, we have a right to such options.
My father and I were both put out of business by the unrestrained power of “capitalists”. In my father’s case in the 70’s, by the pre-cursors of Wal-Mart building suburban shopping centers and destroying downtowns. In my case, by the robber baron financial manipulators who caused the Great Recession. We’ve lost so much as a country to the mega-chains and monsters who have swallowed up our retail, restaurant, and service sectors, taking away the local ownership and community involvement of millions of citizens.
You said it well. As a small business owner selling custom picture framing services and art, I closed my shop in 1994 and work from home and I use the free services of google which allows customers to give feedback and since I can compete with the chain stores, I have greater feedback than they do and just as many customers as when I had a bricks an mortar. And I try as much as possible to patronize other single proprietors even if I need to pay more.
The loss that gets to me is the closing of the local pharmacy that cared about it's customers! They just couldn't make it anymore. Now we are stuck with Walmart, Walgreens and RiteAid.
Wal-Mart went into small towns with predatory practices to wipe out the small businesses - the hardware stores and drug stores and others. Now those profit dollars that were once recycled into the community are being sent into the pockets of billionaires.
Many thoughts on small business over regulation burdens vs big business under regulation. Avoided Walmart for nearly 30 years for their impact on small businesses, getting eminent domain of a student's family's dairy farm at way below market cost, and cases where they wiped out small businesses for miles around with their store then shut it down leaving nothing but buildings that according to an unverified source often seemed used for other government purposes like holding areas for detained immigrants.
Though never an independent business person, I did notice Mitt Romney's term as Gov of Massachusetts and what I saw as good things like Romney care, but also counter-productive things like the state tax cuts that forced local communities to increase fees for everything else so much (including much more got-cha fines that were more revenue gathering than problem solving).
The most inspiring persons to me personally in actually solving problems were ones (I had several one-on-one conversations with 5 to 8 years ago), like Dr Tom English and Robert F. Hemphill Jr.
"...He has directed major environmental programs for IBM, GE, JPL, EPS, and the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group. He led the Manufacturing Group's effort to voluntarily reduce toxic environmental releases by 86%. William Reilly, former Administrator of the U.S. EPA, stated that, "This reduction led the entire world." He was the architect of the California Clean Air Act, which resulted in bringing California much cleaner air while saving several billion dollars.
Dr. English managed high-level nuclear waste programs for President Carter's Office of Science and Technology Policy; the Government of Sweden; NASA; and the California Energy Commission. At the U.S. EPA, he directed an $80 million per year Energy & Environment Program. He also directed an epidemiological study of 40,000 people. He managed the recovery program to fix the F-111 fighter/bomber after the wings fell off the aircraft. His academic background includes a postdoctoral MS in environmental engineering with a minor in preventitive medicine, a Ph.D. and MS in electrical engineering, and a BS in physics. He taught environmental courses at six universities. He and his wife, Jan, live in San Diego, California. They have four adult children and eight grandchildren..."
Though he made great improvements in recycling valuable metals while cleaning up the waste, California still has, to me, too many crippling requirements for small businesses to pay fees to support the inspectors. They also had economically difficult requirements for people repairing auto air conditioning, such that many just quit doing it. To me the state or federal government needs to at least subsidize enough of the cost to make it practical for business owners to really support the effective recycling.
"...For much of his career, R.F. Hemphill, author of Dust Tea, Dingoes & Dragons, was employed at AES, a highly regarded global electric power generating and distribution company, where he served as Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff to the CEO. Hemphill was one of the three executives who began the company in 1981, growing it from a million dollar six person start up. AES owns and operates 38,000 MW of power plants in 21 countries around the globe, is publicly listed on the NYSE, and had approximately $18 billion of revenues in 2013.
Recently, Robert Hemphill was the founder and CEO of AES Solar Power Ltd from its inception until his retirement in December 2013. The company, formed in March 2008, is a joint venture of the AES Corporation and Riverstone LLC, an energy focused private equity fund. AES Solar is a leading developer, owner and operator of utility-scale photovoltaic solar plants connected to the electric power grid. These installations, ranging in size from less than 2 MW to more than 250 MW, consist of large arrays of land-based solar photovoltaic panels that directly convert sunlight to electricity. Under his leadership, the company designed, permitted and constructed fifty-one solar plants (526 MW) in seven countries: Spain, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, India and the US.
He has also been a senior policy official at the Department of Energy and Deputy Manager of Power at the Tennessee Valley Authority..."
His and his mentor's TVA sensibilities in recommendations for restoring the Puerto Rico power infrastructure with much more resilient distribution, with a lot more solar and battery backup and peak load capability, made so much sense to me. None of the power plants went down, just the obsolete power line infrastructure. FEMA regulations didn't allow replacement with newer technology and initially required recreating the old designs that had been out of production for many decades.
"None of the power plants went down, just the obsolete power line infrastructure. FEMA regulations didn't allow replacement with newer technology and initially required recreating the old designs that had been out of production for many decades."
I appreciate your comment about free enterprise. Free enterprise has to be better understood as something other than control by mega corporations. They are clearly not the same thing. Thanks.
Anything dominate by a powerful few isn't free; an economy or a country;. The first condition is a subset of the of the second, but they intertwine. A free society is an environment that encourages and protects diverse, responsible choices for all. "Responsible" means that you don't impinge on the same rights offered to others. E Pluribus Unum.
Free enterprise is a term recently misused by the ravenous corporate elites to justify their assaults, unending, on government regulation to protect health and competition. I believe in its original meaning, to reward invention and encourage a "market" that promotes the common good without undue and artificial restrictions or injurious taxation.
It's the "square deal". Reasonably equitable exchange. You grow apples and I make baskets, so we trade. Money facilitate trade. Regulation resists collapse into monopolistic ripoffs. We learned that lesson more than once in our nation's history, and yet it still does not sit well with those who would be kings.
I do wish that Bernie and AOL would stop using the term, "Democratic Socialists" because that is not what they are. They are not Socialists and they do not advocate for Socialism. What they are, in fact, are pragmatic capitalists, as exists in the Scandinavian countries where the majority of workers belong to labor unions.
Exactly. We as a party and as progressives have just been lousy about messaging. Example: You can make the case that "socialized medicine", as Medicare for all, would be a huge godsend to businesses, which would be freed from the need to devote their time and money to dealing with the health care coverage of employees. Why do companies need to do that stuff? Or state and local governments? It's absurd. The American people are not sophisticated enough to understand the meaning of "socialism" as it is practiced in Europe today, nor do they care enough to find out. Red-baiting is such an integral organ of American politics that you have to work around it to get at the truth. Same as dog-whistling racism.
I agree completely. The Scandinavian models are pragmatic. These are not utopian societies. Everyone is expected to work and pay taxes in ways that might surprise those who use “creeping socialism “ to rile up a crowds.
I spent three weeks in Sweden and noticed free enterprise was thriving. I think "socialist" has more than one meaning, but it is pejorative here, and I agree, what Bernie actually supports should probably be relabeled.
I actually got burned by thinking "Democratic Socialist" was the definition of what Bernie Sanders and AOC are putting forward. I signed up for membership in the Democratic Socialist party, and then started getting emails and invitations to meetings. These people DO NOT SUPPORT OUR CURRENT FORM OF DEMOCRACY. The government they want leans closer to Communism, and the Chinese government. I mistakenly thought they were more like the Scandinavian or Dutch. They don't support any Democratic candidates.
Too often their arguments feel think a college student sitting in class…at least AOC gets out and works with real folks…and yes, along with generational wealth, we need more classes for entrepreneurs!
Thank you Professor! I hope the news about small businesses and entrepreneurs becomes a reality. Our daughter has a small business (a one woman letterpress business). She designs, prints and sells "snarky, sophisticated" greeting cards to 300 stores across America. EVERY card is hand printed, scored, and put into its own envelope. She loves her business but she pays 37% income tax! To me, it just seems outrageous that a small business, such as hers, would pay a higher percentage than a corporation or a millionaire/billionaire!
You are right, Collette! It is outrageous that your daughter's business pays a significantly higher tax rate than mega corporations. I am voting blue with the understanding that there is no perfect party, but that the Democrats do still champion the small guys.
Your daughter is pulling in a pretty good gross income to be in that tax bracket. Sounds like she needs to get a better tax accountant who can suggest some legal and ‘useful to her situation’ expense deductions. That said, so sick of the extremely rich who don’t pay their fair share in taxes.
Yes. She does well most of the time but in her business it is either feast or famine. Letterpress printing is dying art. It's a lot of labor but she truly loves what she does. If she could find a competent person to employ that would be great then she could concentrate on design and interacting with her customers more. You can see her cards online. Her business is called: Ladypilotletterpress.com.
Oh yes, those are lovely, and very funny! Good work! Thanks for the link- I am far from civilization, and have not seen these in person ever! I will order some!
I was an 11 year old boy (military dependent) when I 1st met a "Lady Pilot," married to one of my dad's friends, an Air Force Tech Sgt , Jerry Tucker, who had saved a KC-97 Tanker over Greenland, as described in a Readers Digest story. As they talked about Pursuit, Fighter, or other aircraft they had worked on, I noticed she seemed to know a lot about each type, and tried to come up with a type she didn't know about (and wondering how a person, I had no clue about being a pilot, would know about).
It turned out she was a WWII WASP pilot and actually flew more types of aircraft than I could name. Her nickname was Dot but I never found out her maiden name. Since then, I've met many women pilots and have had young women in our A&P classes not only become pilots, but also rebuild old aircraft, new ones, and help build replica classic air racers.
I believe she described having to take over from a male instructor pilot in her military training, since she had many more hours as a licensed private pilot (though that might have been a description of one of her classmates).
They have lobbyists ad nauseam and zip taxes. I paid a ton last year as a recent widow. It is rigged by Elon and his ilk. Chump would probably put him in charge of Tax Reform.
I've been a small business owner my entire 50 year career. The most full time employees I've ever had was 4. I've hired as many as 12 free lance people at one time for projects. I REALLY appreciate this small business initiative. If you can survive the first 2 years, you stand a good chance of making it. The banks don't really appreciate us, especially folks in the creative and/or gig economy. It's hard to convince them of your value and taking risks that are thought out...even after years of staying alive. Bravo and thank you...that's something for a lot of us to campaign for.
Thanks HCR, I am so grateful on your details about Kamala Harris's series of proposals to help entrepreneurs create small businesses - even if some of the structure was present in a Republican project years ago. It would be more progressive if the current Republican party had more common ground with the Democrats -- this extremist Republican agenda is draining our resources just by fighting to make sure it doesn't win in the November election.
Your substack is world-class everyday, but today's story about Small Business was a fresh vibe of cheering for more of a community Blue Zone neighborhood (especially after the Pandemic crushed so many of our small businesses).
Thank you Dr. Cox Richardson for all you do for America and Americans. I have faith that your hard work will pay off with continued democracy in our beloved country!
So many of the Hump cult have called for, alluding to their pious biblical connection, the curtains to be drawn back, to reveal the true controllers of our country. Well folks, they got their wish. We’ve seen the enemy and the GOPutin hump cult.
I’m happy to report that some preachers have. Faithful America is stepping up. There is also a very interesting pastor who just joined Substack who is calling out Christian Nationalism. The right wing fundamentalists have had the megaphone on this one for way too long. Other groups are stepping up and speaking out.
Some clearly have but it seems that few (and there are a few) who seem to be vocal about it. Seems to me the silence allows charlatans to speak for the faith, cause great harm, and repel many.
JL-Yesterday on MSNBC a pastor said Trump has to win 80% of the white evangelical votes or he can’t win. He said Kamala needs to pull 25-35% of them to the Ds to guarantee a win. I’m praying that Jesus (or somebody/something) will touch their hearts and minds so they can recognize that the Rs are not about faith, hope and love for democracy. They’re the epitome of malice, hate and violent extremism. Most white evangelicals are being fed not just through Fox and schools but through homes and churches. God help us as we work to save ourselves from evil.
Check out Faithful America. They are progressive, ecumenical, and open to all. I don’t go to church myself, but I do have a spiritual base and a moral compass. I know what the Christian Nationalists are doing is wrong and unchristian. Faithful America explains why. We need to punch back against this blasphemy from every angle.
Here’s a link to yesterday’s MSNBC interview with Paola Ramos who was the journalist that interviewed the “pastor” et. al. I watched this too and it is very scary and sad to see those hardworking Latinos being scammed.
I'm very pleased with the direction being taken by Harris and Walz. But at the same time it feels like Putin and Carlson are living in our back yard, and that Mueller's report and warning has been forgotten.
Thank you. Lots of ground to cover, across a wide range of topics. I hope the DOJ's efforts to prosecute the Russian Troll effort gets some publicity in the mass media, but I fear it will get buried.
Heather's done good work today, but she started by apologizing for not getting to newest shooting.
So I take that as not that she had too much else to cover, but as a certain helplessness to parallel the helplessness of the U.S. as its Republicans keep to their mission of, as Lawrence O'Donnell has often said, being sure to keep America's mass murderers the best armed mass murderers in the world.
Kamala says, also today, also in exasperation, “It does not have to be this way.”
Wrong. U.S. schools have to have mass murderers ever entering and killing. As the U.S. must have its billionaires with no values for life, and as schools must succumb to standardized testers’ conceits of the living dead.
Ban the AR-15? Yes.
But to get even there, we need a different way of thinking. If Americans hired the best teachers, then let them be, we’d have more essay writing, humanities. Schools would have human life as central, not the insane repetitions of mass murderers, nor the dehumanized reduction of all life to units, numbers, abstractions, categories, and all such linear “rationality” only.
If the U.S. had schools with essay writing and humanities key to them, we’d no longer have that country where, as Lawrence O’Donnell has put it, U.S. mass murderers continue to be the best-armed mass murderers in all the world.
I read a sample Substack from Hamish Mackenzie on how social media has become a singular experience, the new city of Babel, where everyone gathers, but nobody speaks the same language. He talks about the older media outlets, and how they are pulled by their audiences’ ideologies, instead of fact-based reporting. I believe these problems are spreading worldwide, and I believe that the host sites must bear some responsibility in the collective psychosis they inflict on their consumers. THAT is something I would like to see addressed very soon.
Thank you, Dr,. Richardson for all this information. I cannot understand why the FCC can't seriously fine any social media company operating under license to OUR airwaves that allows Russian operatives, even those operating in the United States, to post lies and/or propaganda. Those same social media outlets sure as hell jump on Americans. I wrote and article briefly summarizing the 7 Articles and 25 Amendments (18 and 21 cancel each other) for my Substack column and posted it on Facebook. It was taken down immediately because "you are just looking for likes". But it's okay for Russian operatives to post lies and disinformation supporting trump because good ol' markie baby, supports trump.
Also since these Russian operatives are known by name where is the FBI? Last I heard Russia is considered an adversary. So why aren't these Russian operatives being investigated and charged.?
I found it really insulting that the governor of Georgia had the nerve to offer his condolences on the tragic high school shooting yesterday! He and his legislature are totally responsible hypocrites for the LACK of any common sense gun laws in that state.
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. The thing that gets me is the kid was red flagged in 2023, and ended up having access to a gun the week that school started for most across the country.
Saw a great meme yesterday: Drawing of a schoolhouse ridden with bullet holes, with a sign in front saying "This school protected from drag queens and dirty books"
Thank you Professor Richardson.
While we should all be deeply concerned about propaganda and disinformation, whether State-sponsored from the criminal Putin or elsewhere, I'm far more concerned about those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside.
In the battleground State of Pennsylvania, there are reports that almost 90 state lawmakers are election deniers: https://penncapital-star.com/government-politics/report-classifies-pennsylvania-lawmakers-as-election-deniers/
From https://electiondeniers.org/, there are 171 members of Congress who are election deniers. Why are they still in Congress? At a minimum they have betrayed their Oath of Office and have betrayed the trust of every citizen of the United States.
https://www.brennancenter.org/series/election-denial-races-election-administration-positions
Paging Merrick Garland. AG Garland? Democracy is waiting for you.
Good, George, you prioritize "those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside."
Merrick Garland and DOJ to remedy this? Don't think so. The malignancy goes deeper.
The malignancy comes, I think, George, from the tens of millions who've all so gotten such totally dehumanized educations that, through no fault of their own, they can only reduce life to abstractions, sensationalized (but most simple-minded) scenarios.
America could have good schools. It does not. Thus so many abysmally educated.
The GOP has undermined public education for many years! I might add intentionally to that! Now, book banning, curriculum rewriting & private school vouchers are their goals. Poor kids are left in overcrowded, underfunded & understaffed schools!
Republicans know that the uneducated are easier to rule. They’ve been starving the public schools for decades.
Trump actually said as much! “I like uneducated people!”
Anthony, yes, Trump was just trying to cover for his own inadequacy. He is and was a fool, wasted his education, and it was private, supposedly in good schools. It didn't help Trump one bit, except maybe expose him to the ways very rich people wash each other's hands so they can stay in power, supposedly with clean hands in all the crap they dealt out to everyone they encountered. He knows public education is where he can double down on producing ignorant young people because he believes public schools contain only kids of those lower classes who are only useful when they do what he and his rich friends tell them to do, for whatever pittance they are willing to pay. Why anyone would want that for their kids is beyond comprehension. Or, maybe the more well-off don't think that will happen to THEIR schools.
Ruth, i just read an article about a school librarian in, I think, a small town in LA where she was born and raised. She spoke out against censorship in school libraries in a school board meeting and was then targeted by some state group with the usual death threats and accusations of being a groomer. She has decided to stand up against this and filed a libel suit, but it was thrown out because it just opinions that this group posted. Among other things, she has her grocery delivered because she can't even go to the grocery store. This kind of intimidation goes all over the place. And what exactly are libel laws for.
You’re exactly right!
Ruth, I don’t believe Trump is cognitively intact enough to have and control a master plan for dumbing down the youth - or anything else. When we listen to him or read a transcript of his “press conferences” or rallies, it’s clear that the man is well into dementia. And the stress of his legal situation, the fear of jail, etc is only hastening the downward spiral. He can read a teleprompter, albeit poorly, but as soon as he goes off-script his speech degenerates into tangential thinking, word salad, paranoia and repetition. The idea that he is capable of being the mastermind of an autocratic takeover is laughable.
Which means there are others setting the goals and crafting the strategies. We have to beat the pants off trump at the ballot box (there’s a nasty image for you on a Saturday morning!), because he’s the front man. But the evil that lurks behind him is made up of sociopaths and malignant narcissists, too. They have money and functioning brains. They scare the shite out of me and unless we beat their puppet soundly, they will not crawl back into their closets.
At the victory rally on November 23, 2016, what TFG said (reported by Reuters) was this:
"We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated."
mlbrown, of course Trump loves the poorly educated; he can understand what they are saying because depending on where they were "poorly educated" he would have about the same level of vocabulary.
I remember that.
Francine, I can tell you, as a retired public school teacher of 26 years, in a very disadvantaged school district, the teachers are often amazing and do incredible work with children who often come to school shadowed by the pains of poverty, community neglect, and fear that their lives will never get better. Our Republican governors over the years cut school funding by billions of dollars and the state is struggling to catch up. I received a decent salary, but purchased or found all the materials for my students, made sure they regularly had books of their own, and did other things for them I thought could give them hope in a brighter future. Other teachers in my district did the same. I know there are teachers in some cases who are racist, homo/transphobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic and proudly display that, but I saw very little of that among my colleagues and I served in between 5 and 9 schools each year for 19 years. Maybe extra efforts should be placed on recruiting future educators, high-quality positive training for teachers in our colleges and universities and treating teachers as the professionals they are, more knowledgeable about teaching subjects like reading, math, science, social studies, and the arts than most parents, despite what Republicans would have us all believe. The fact that Tim Walz was a public school teacher and understands the challenges schools and their inhabitants face, should position him and Harris well to work toward improving our public schools for the benefit of all, helping our young people to be the best-educated, most talented, most creative most wonderfully diverse work force we have ever had.
Ruth, I also spent years in education at the public school in a small community that was very Catholic, so we had the private school next door. That was a problem in itself in terms of passing school budgets and up the canyon (North Santiam Canyon) people believed some story that we discriminated against their students. So they didn't vote for the budget either. Now the state pays for most school budgets and local budget votes usually have to do with bond measures. I was the librarian as well as teaching some classes, often individual or small, and I spent my own money and time on the library including buying paint and hiring a student to paint the area where my aides sat. Many of our teachers helped students in many ways including taking them in. We did have all the negative things you mentioned and usually, it resided in what i call the coaching corner. The district hired some teachers because they could coach and the booster club hired the football coach and we had some real doozies there. I saw many student teachers including one who should have never received a teaching certificate because our female students complained about him. But he passed muster anyway and was hired at a nearby district where it didn't take long for him to get in trouble.
Michele, a librarian, Oh how I wish we had a librarian in our district. We have no libraries, minimal art and music programs, a good sports program, and a few after school projects that help. People have no clue that librarians are essential as are the arts, government/civics classes, and personal finance courses. It's just so sad our kids are so poorly regarded. When I hear Republicans claim to love children, I know they are lying through their teeth, unless they mean just their own children and even then, I am not so sure.
You are a hero. Your message is so important. Yes, I have hopes for the Democrats winning the Presidency and Congress and Senate. And I think you are right that having Walz in the administration will be very helpful. I was shocked this year that the Ann Arbor Public Schools are dropping Art and Music. That is shocking to me. It’s a money issue they say. Thank you for all you did is a teacher and for documenting it.
Francine, thank you. I, like so many other teachers, think I had the best students in the world. I like the idea of having a former teacher (OK, once a teacher always a teacher) as VP. I know he cares about kids and equity, two critical elements in our lives.
Thank you so much Ruth. I watched one republican governor after another destroy Special Ed. They cut funding and services. My classroom budget for one year was $80.00, divided into half at the begging of the year and the other $40.00 after Christmas. Guess who bought what was needed.
My husband once said to me at tax time, “it’s a good thing I have a good job, or we couldn’t afford for you to teach”. We both laughed.
Phyllis, people have no idea what teachers do for their kids, but they sure can support loud-mouthed oafs like Vance and Trump who insult and denigrate teachers. Maybe if they would vote for Democrats who actually care about their kids, better teachers would be recruited and hired and better future teachers would be given aid to attend college. It is most of the red states' schools, often private and religious as well, that suck. Value children and the public schools will improve.
...and let's not forget ALEC, one of the sources for these school voucher programs that have been diverting tax payer funded public school funds to private/religious/home schooling formats. I know because this has been happening in NH and has had little if any oversight as to how much is being diverted. The Commissioned of Education doesn't believe in public education-he's never attended one and attended Hilllsdale College, a private conservative Christian colllege in MI. The potential financial impact is enormous since this format is W-A-Y over the initial budget allocation and has been mushrooming. NH has had a long standing problem for over 30 years regarding the way public schools have been underfunded, aggravated by the core process of the funding of public schools being based on property taxes, despite Court ordered changes being mandated.
Barbara, we face that same situation in PA and also have few controls on "charter schools," which have been set up supposedly to help disadvantaged kids. Private corporations have moved in to control those schools when they were supposed to be fully public schools with a mandate to try new education methods that could be quickly passed to regular public schools if they worked. That never worked out and charters have been sucking up huge amounts of money off the top, so the regular public schools get whatever money is left over after the charters get their brand new schools, tons of resources, and pay enormous salaries to their "CEOs and CFOs." Why they need either is never explained. The students in charters do not do as well as in the regular public schools on the whole and yet, parents send their kids to them, hoping things are better. The schools are newer, so that is a drawing card. Vouchers are doing enormous damage to our state's budget too and there are few controls on those either. It is not clear who is benefiting but I suspect it is religious schools. We need to do better and I am hoping Harris-Walz will make this a priority along with the many other priorities we need addressed.
Think of the evil Betsy DeVos.
Any association with Hillsdale and especially its Project 1776 version of history is an automatic dis-qualifier for me for reliable or ethical information.
Their involvement with Project 2025 just makes it worse and deserving of more careful and continued watch for the political pollution they spill on the public.
For some unknown reason, Hillsdale sends me their publications. Last week, I mailed a cease and desist letter stating that I will never agree to their viewpoints.
In Texas Governor Abbott is on a warpath to destroy public education (placing Mike Miles in charge of H(ouston) ISD after ruining D(allas) ISD) and pushing for school vouchers to take away public funding in order to subsidize private schools.
Mark, I honestly don't understand how anyone could vote for someone as hateful and rude as Abbott. He must have something people see that is well, worthy of something. I have not experienced it, just that he is an ignorant ass who cares for no one but himself. He matches Trump, which is probably Texans went for him. Then, there's the criminal Paston in office. Gag!
Same thing has been happening in NC-private schols are not accountable to anyone!
The General Court (legislature) created an entitlement in the voucher program. It is aimed at appealing to parents who don’t like the public schools where they live, have objections to what is taught in public schools, and/or and generally dissatisfied with public education. Of these, there are more than a few in NH, and so it was intended and understood that this program responded to a popular demand, and would be taken advantage of by many. But the program was sold on the basis of being something of a social experiment, or pilot project that would not cost taxpayers much. Consequently, it was foreseen by many in and out of government that it was underfunded, and would result in a categorical budget deficit. That in turn would naturally lead to pressure to increase spending and has. And that, foreseeably, has been by diverting Department of Education revenues that would otherwise be available to support public schools. This, though the State has a constitutional duty to provide public schools, and is once again being sued for having fallen short in the performance thereof. As has been widely observed, and indeed intended by some, if allowed to exist and grow, this voucher program, given NH’s legendary aversion to public spending at all levels, can not help but to undermine public education and lead to its collapse.
(With exceptions noted for Winnecunet (Hampton), Portsmouth, Durham (Oyster River), Lakes Region, Waterville Valley, Kearsarge Regional, Sunapee, and Dresden (Hanover and Lyme, plus Thetford and Norwich in VT.). Ie, the property rich districts.
Reliance on property taxes is a big part of the problem, but is historic. After VT, NH taxpayers have the second highest relative property tax burden in the nation. Last I heard. And there are wide disparities. And it is understandable that families of limited means with high property tax burdens would be unhappy with public education, in addition to those with no children. A different way of raising revenue for education is needed.
Tyler, another problem is that there is little evidence that the schools parents move their kids to are any better, often worse, but parents don't want to admit it and like the prestige they often get by not having their kids in public schools. What a racket this has become. Let's face it vouchers has been a disaster for states, taxpayers, and particularly for students, but alas, students are usually the last to be considered.
Barbara, property taxes are a horrible way to fund schools. The idea of paying taxes on the size and value of your property made sense in times where properties generated income via crops, livestock, etc. More property made more money so it was roughly aligned with income. No more. The tax is tied to market value and keeps growing without producing income. The tax keeps growing regardless of the owner’s income. People who retire, become disabled, or just can’t find work are taxed at higher and higher levels. I don’t have children but still vote for school levies, but as a retired person living alone my property taxes have increased to be 40% of my Social Security. I do understand why people vote against school levies!
Anthony, I would add schools where students' very lives are endangered.
Just so! They knew exactly what they were doing, preparing the people and the system for the coming of the Orange Messiah…
Still have to believe they (his primary sponsors) will, or will try to, rid themselves of him as soon as he is no longer useful to them. I still believe Putin has recently given up on expecting him to be elected, to me by the prisoner swap he did with Biden instead of imagining an advantage of letting Trump get the credit.
Any student, no matter what their economic status, who does not live near a private voucher school ( and there are huge numbers of them) gets hurt when education funds are privatized over public education for all.
Anthony, and Project 2025 would stop federal funding of schools, including Head Start and school lunches. So states and local school systems have to make sure that children aren’t too hungry to learn. Since Texas’ school systems don’t have enough money to hire trained teachers (school systems in Europe pay their teachers as much as they pay engineers), where are they going to find the money for free school breakfasts and lunches?
Mary, that's the point; cruelty is the point. Republicans in Texas and in most other places are OK with keeping poor people poor and children suffering. They can blame them for whatever the issue of the day is: crime, laziness, being takers, and on and on. People who have been well-educated and prepared for the world don't need to harm others which is why I wonder about what is going on in the schools Republicans in power came from and how they didn't learn to be better people.
Yes. And higher education is no longer accessible unless you are very bright, wealthy or willing to expose yourself to predatory lending. And colleges focus less on quality education which actively engages and challenges and more on frills like luxury dorms. Will Bunch, from the Philadelphia Inquire , wrote The Fall of The Ivory Tower which addresses this so well
Gjay, you are right about higher education. My niece was accepted to a school in NYC. She is enormously talented, but she had to take out a 20+ year loan of $43,000 for the first year to do it. She couldn't afford to return because the extreme tuition + $3,000 a month rent was impossible. She wants a job in the performing arts, and would never be able to repay the loan. The loan for the first year is going to take her whole family to help pay it. It is outrageous, but as long as there are enough rich kids to pay those enormous prices, they will continue to be too high for most people.
I am so sorry to hear this about your niece. It does not have to be this way. I know of a young woman who is working in public service as an attorney in order to have some of her college loan forgiven. She had been assigned the most difficult and frustrating cases and yet she feels helpless to move to a better paying position due to her loan agreement. And she in an attorney.
What the Russians know as a fact is what Pres. G.W. Bush said at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 3/31/2001: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." This fact has been known by American Oligarchs and Right Wing Think Tanks (Heritage Society, Hoover Institute, etc.) since the early 1980's. They've used wedge issues to persuade average Americans to vote for Republicans and against their own best economic interests since Reagan's presidency, when the wealthy commenced the war on America's Middle Class, which it won. Beginning with Reagan's term, Republican administrations and Congresses have given massive tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations, resulting in a $35 trillion national debt and a nation where 806 individuals now have the accumulated wealth equal to that of one-half of the American population (806 vs 163,000,000.) That makes the U.S. an oligarchy where the wealthy control politics (propaganda) and the economy (low taxes, if any at all.) Russia understands the gullibility of some Americans and have jumped in to influence the upcoming Nov. election. What to do? Start teaching critical thinking skills as early as the 6th grade and reform our instruction on government and history. A vote for Trump is a vote for Fascism, a system that Trump's supporters do not know how detrimental to them it will be because they never learned about it. Sadly, Bush was right.
The other entities that have engaged in fooling the people are many parasitic religious institutions, who despite the requirement that they stay out of politics, do so regularly and at the taxpayers' expense,
Might they not be mistakenly described as 'religious' when their only god is the golden calf and/or fascism? The term 'religious' seems too loosely ascribed to many....
Amen to that J. Nol.
I disagree with starting in 6th grade. I would start in preschool. That way, teachers up to 5th grade can focus on imparting knowledge, and 6th grade teachers can focus on ensuring that their students are consistently applying that knowledge.
What's the knowledge? Good question. The knowledge is the moral "treat every other human being the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot" principle.
BTW, the "moral principle" is also the 1st scientific principle. So, then we can get those 6th graders to teach science to grownups who, although they have science degrees, lack that elementary school level understanding of the concept.
Happily, JFK was right. I propose someone make an example of Bush by suspending his elementary school graduation certificate.
Start with the parents.
Yes! Preschool! Critical thinking is the most important skill as it organizes an open mind, the greatest asset to learning. Some learn the skill from their parents. Others must be taught the skill as early as possible. Maybe liberal arts and sciences can be restored to assist. If Harris’s plans are not killed by Republicans, there is hope.
Fortunately, the moral principle is also the 1st principle of art. I say that based on Seth Godin's definition: "Art is what we call it when what we do might connect us."
There is hope.
And we did art in first grade, wrote rhymes, sang songs, read aloud in groups, and learned to print on lined paper. I began piano lessons in second grade and took Latin and French simultaneously in ninth. All in the poorest smallest school in Eastern Henrico County VA.
The discipline of art (liberal arts education is, after all, an art form) has given me a richer life than a 6-year old knitting squares for WWII soldiers’ afghans, could ever have imagined. My teachers had been to Notmal School or Westhampton College (U of Richmond).
Well stated, Richard!!
Sadly Phil I must agree. Reality TV and memes are a very poor substitute for an education.
Alexandra's report of the Nashville hotel bookshop with shelves of "Preparing for the Rapture" makes me feel sick.
I wish the rapture would hurry up and swoop these bastards up and spare us their nonsense.
That would be nice, JD, but realistically, we must improve our schools' curricula and start teaching critical thinking skills, history and civics (government systems) as early as the 6th grade, IMO. We have a nation filled with gullible folks.
This has to include completely overhauling how teachers are trained as well.
All around me, immersed in gullible weaponized Imbeciles, sad to say
Apocalypse Now !!! Russian culture has a different understanding of how Time progresses rooted in Russian Orthodox Christianity. Theirs is to see and embodying Time as a non progressivist continuum and eternal returning, not a journey to a final end. The US Puritan Final Days progressivism is a gift for their propaganda teams. Playing upon it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
That's very interesting. Similar to Buddhism?
All of which is designed to reassure people that death is not the end as well as helping people manage life's uncertainties by providing absolutist explanations. Accepting religion means giving up the right to think for oneself.
Then we'd all be happy.
I certainly would, good riddance to fools
Just finished watching on YouTube - interview with Sarah McCammon
author of
'Exvangelicals' - in depth look at both the painful process of leaving those groups and that a great many are doing it...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sarah+mccammon+interview+utune&t=iphone&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPzP5v7v7vzs
They prepare for the "rapture"; we're preparing for any possible "rupture." That's been the real issue in today's political climate.
Watch the movie “Idiocracy”. It went from a silly comedy in 2006 to a harbinger in 2024.
It was prescient then. It seems quaint now - compared to the MAGA madness. They were drinking Gatorade and watering their crops with it. We drink PFAs and micro plastics and fertilize our fields with the toxins.
Let's include religious institutions bent on discouraging critical thinking.
I will always defend the First Amendment, even though as an adult, organized religion has never been my thing. That said, so called Christian Nationalism is a dangerous thing because it ignores the fact that while our country was based on religious freedom, the majority of the founders intended for our government to be protected by the idea of separation of church and state. You could look it up. See Thomas Jefferson. Also see Thomas Paine.
I understand that. But those institutions shouldn't be given a blank slate. And these rules were made when religion was accepted as credible by many. When most of us can see the absurdity of giving a superstition this kind of authority, what then? Religion is the only socially sanctioned delusion.
I understand where you're coming from. Blank slate? No. Authority? No. Freedom? Yes. Socially sanctioned? Why not? Delusion? Who's to say? We are mere humans, and our best philosophers cannot solve or agree on the one question that it always comes down to. Does God exist? It seems that you and I have reached different conclusions. Those are personal decisions. However, I would be happy to see an admitted atheist win in a national election. That would be real progress.
Exactly, Phil. In that sense, the ReThuglicans played the long game well: wenn they set out to destroy democracy, they started in the schools, replacing school board members with loyalists and hollowing out the school system from the inside out. Uneducated people are easily brought to fear, anger and hate and are thus easy to control. That’s exactly what the Rump Party wants.
I frequently think of Trump's comment that he "loves the uneducated". No wonder. And with the ridiculous sanitizing of American history and the lack of real Civics teaching in schools that's just going to get worse.
I agree, but what do we do?
Their education was so flawed, so long ago, I don't know how they can be rehabilitated. As it's said, ignorance is thinking you know and being so certain you won't consider new information .
So we vote. We register the kids. We talk to our neighbors who have tuned out.
You can't fix stupid. But you can out-vote it.
Spot on Jen!!!!
Voting will help, right now, by this November, yes, Jen.
But beyond that, the real key is to return to the schools everything that standardized testing destroyed.
The Powell memo in 1971, Jen, organized the billionaires to gin up the far right foundations first to remove humanities from schools. The billionaires hated back then how youth got so much energy from novels, songs, films, and other arts.
The new Heritage Foundation, an enlarged Hoover Institute, and new ALEC got all the states to reduce funding to higher ed -- crippling, changing it irretrievably. They introduced standardized testing so the humanities would disappear and a new fear factor arrive. Everyone needed to learn to think only in terms of the linear, chronological, categorical, and abstracted.
We need to put back the humanities. And essay writing. Kick out the standardized testers. As Finland did to reform their education and make it the best in the world.
See individuals. Complications. The odd, the inconsistent, the surprises and subtle patterns in humanity and nature. Write essays. Quote others as people in the room, people with their human and social issues. Quote, refer to humanities. Reference others in other groups (neighboring nationalities, or sects, or skin colors, anyone?) as if they were individuals, not just units in abstractions.
Hire only the best as teachers and then leave them alone, well enough funded to do their job.
More: www.EssayingDifferences.com .
If we had an educated public the Republicans as the exist today would never get elected.
I think that the two go hand in hand, Phil. The machinations of the election subverters are fed, fueled, and funded by the very same people that are feeding the disinformation to those who are susceptible (for a variety of reasons, "standardized and rote" education being one) to believe the utter garbage they are fed.
Sad but oh so true.
Yes I agree educating ourselves and our children is vital to democracy. Our parents who came of age before the 1950’s who had little “ formal “ education made the most of what education they had and built on it by reading newspapers papers and being active in their communities. My own father had only an eighth grade education but he and my mother subscribed to four local newspapers and on Sunday picked up two New York newspapers. My father spoke English and Lebanese (my grandparents immigrated from Lebanon) and since he grew up with Italians he spoke their language. Education is vital and to be effective it has to be quality education- actively learning and questioning.
If we had an educated public the Republicans would never get elected as the existing today.
AI ?
Rachel, in my mind AI is the doomsday machine.
Once upon a time there was an Orange Useful Idiot. Now there is a growing party of Useful Idiots, formerly known as the Republican Party/MAGA Branch.
😞😡
George, Considering Garland’s reticence, despite ample predication, to initiate criminal investigations of Trump and his sycophants for their complicity in the J6 assault on the Capitol, I expect we need to look elsewhere if we’re to preserve our constitutional republic. I would note, while Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias is on the job 24/7, he also has urged all his subscribers to become increasingly more mindful within their respective communities of voter suppression tactics enacted both at the front end (the casting of votes) and at the back end (their tabulation).
It seems to me the voter suppression machination is a very clear and present danger.
Our Secretary of State in Ohio, Frank LaRose, is trying to require proof of citizenship to vote in state elections and to narrow use of drop boxes. He’s also back at his dirty tricks at providing a dishonest summary of our ballot initiative to dismantle Republican gerrymandering of Ohio. He also pulled this trick with his initiative that would make it harder to pass initiatives, and Issue 1 at recognizing state constitutional rights to abortions. The voters weren’t fooled and we voted down LaRose’s attempt to impair initiative passage and passed Issue 1. LaRose was hoping to get the initiative on voting passed in order to defeat Issue 1.
LaRose also tried to get on the ballot as a candidate to run against our current senator Sherrod Brown. LaRose came in third in the primary and the winner was Trump endorsed car salesman Bernie Moreno. The GQP has run Ohio for over 30 years and has helped to wreck the state in the process.
It's maddening, and heartbreaking.
Anne-Louise, You’re right that initiatives either are in place or underway to create sufficient chaos to move the presidential election either to SCOTUS with its 6 conservative justices or to the U.S. House where Republicans control 26 delegations, democrats 23, with each getting 1 vote. Still, I won’t ever count out the will of the American people nor the public servants alongside with whom we fight to preserve our cherished, albeit flawed, American experiment.
In Texas it’s a given
I am moving back to Texas this month after a 64-year absence to be close to my remaining siblings (94, 90 and 81.) From the frying pan (Florida) into the fire (Texas.) But, hope springs eternal.
Save travels and I hope you can find a "Blue Oasis" in Texas. I am also drinking my optimistic coffee today and will predict that both states will be purple by the end of the year.
It will be women who drive that change of color. Dobbs did it.
Wherever you go to live, Richard, make sure you have a back-up generator!
And are well versed in warming/cooling techniques that don't rely on power...
Solar and Batteries, actually even just batteries with or without solar, wind, hydro, or a fossil fuel generator, depending upon where each can be used. Have to start looking myself as the Inverters and surplus batteries from EVs become more realistic.
Friends that bought 20 years ago have had to adapt as old designs are too inefficient and no longer produced, and there seem to be too few solar panel recyclers that can provide used panels of similar types.
Richard, best wishes!
Depends on where you live. Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio are blue; rural & exurbia are red; suburbs are in play.
We split 12m votes in 2020 52% Trump and 47% Biden, a difference of 600,000 in a state of 18 million voters!
Register by Oct 7th. Educate, Support, VOTE!
https://vrapp.sos.state.tx.us/index.asp
Fill out online, PRINT, SIGN, MAIL.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml - you probably qualify for vote by mail, if not VOTE EARLY...
More important if at all possible is the defeat off Ted Cruz. I am fairly confident that Harris will win the election even in the Electoral College, but fear the loss of Manchin's seat in West Virginia (virtually assured) and probably Jon Testers seat in Montana will leave us with a 51-49 deficit in the Senate. I actually think Cruz' seat is vulnerable, given how close Beto o'Rourke got 6 years ago and so many people in Texas hate the guy, even Republicans in Texas. Get us THAT win in Texas and the country will be forever grateful to Texas!
I recommend Austin. Any city with the motto “keep Austin weird” has a lot to live up to!
Where in Texas, there are pockets of sanity.
Barbara, I need to think that the DOJ is holding back until the election is over. Even then the Supreme Court needs to be reformed and re formed.
George, I hope you are right....but fear the wheels of justice are slow for a reason. I know all of this is uncharted territory and that a move against DT is risky...
Time for us all to be warriors?
We all are warriors. Some of us on the front lines, others behind us in support.
I know we all, on this substack....but many out there are so busy just making every day work ...it is hard to get their attention. I fear (the task) it is bigger than we imagine.
True Barbara -and grateful for Marc Elias’ continuing and vital efforts. Nevertheless, you could almost read between the lines on Marc’s comment -while we should always be vigilant, without the support of our institutions, he’s (kind of) saying justice and democracy have already failed.
George, To the contrary, in one of Elias’s webinars, he specifically expressed confidence, if everyday people join in the fight, that we would emerge from this election cycle with a free and fair outcome.
As for my personal perspective, while I won’t deny that we could be on the cusp of a near-fatal weakening of our democratic institutions, I would submit, despite the yearning for the experts to carry the weight and solve our problems, it’s us that also have to become engaged, working to make democracy real here at home.
You’re correct. If we are to save the country, we must do it ourselves.
Through a blue tsunami.
Need volunteers. Register new Democrats.
https://www.mobilize.us/ft6/event/632594/
Phone bank Thursdays
Florida 2 – 4pm EDT Pennsylvania 4- 6 pm EDT
Thank you for this, Daniel. Just shared with Lakeland, FL Democrats.
Marc's urging to become involved had my husband sign up to be an election judge. His training is next week. I wish I could do it as well, but I can't do it mentally or emotionally. He is a very calm man, slow to anger, but I am a bit concerned as he doesn't suffer fools. I have a close friend (registered Republican but very centrist in judgement) who was an election judge for decades--and she quit after the last election. Too many angry people and she's a rather timid woman.
That is sad to hear.
She cited too many instances of having to tell people to remove political articles of clothing who fought her. I suspect red hats, but did not push it. She had been a Trump voter, and in the last year, I've subtly been moving her left. I am pretty certain she won't vote for him, based on his reproductive rights stance. She is a childless bird lady (not cat lady).
❤️
And then we have the Texas AG Paxton openly intimidating LULAC! Despicable and how do we stop that unlawful behavior.
Admidst all of this ANOTHER school shooting!
Merrick Garland's "reticence"? What are you talking about? He was certainly slow to act, but the DoJ has already sent over 1000 people to jail/ federal prison for their acts on J6, and has filed, through Jack Smith, a major indictment of Trump for his actions which was, of course, overturned by the Supreme Court (via Trump's appointees) and is now being refiled to confirm to the SCOTUS decision. I am no Garland "fan" but I don't like to see him maligned unjustly. You make it sound like he is to blame rather than Trump and the SCOTUS which definitely seems to be coming down on a "lawless Presidency" concept which is scary for the future of the United States. Let's try to stick to facts, please, rather than encouraging new attempts to skirt the legal process. Garland's no prize, for sure, but he is on our side, not Trump's.
That's just it though - this propaganda IS attacking and subverting our elections from the inside. One thing I've learned knocking on doors this year: campaign volunteers would have a much easier job and far greater effect were it not for rampant disinformation. The justice department has waited too long on so many fronts here. We've known about foreign influence for at least 8 years. With regard to bad actors within our elected officials and our bureaucracy, they've been too cautious about appearing partisan or infringing on 1st amendment rights.
Marc Elias and an army of similarly-minded attorneys are on the ground fighting systemic election denialism on a case by case basis, unencumbered by the extensive bureaucracy of the JD. But that legal army has no power to go after foreign influence. For that we need the clout of our Federal government. At this late date it might be tactically better to keep the Feds focused on foreign interference, which is an arguably more non-partisan project. Meanwhile we on the ground should provide all the grassroots support we can muster to organizations like Democracy Docket and the ACLU. Then after the election we can retool and hopefully the JD become more assertive and proactive on all fronts.
You’re correct Helga, however, a multi-pronged approach is what I advocate for. While we must combat foreign interference (we actually do similar, and worse in attempting to subvert democracy elsewhere) my overriding concern is with election “officials” who will refuse to certify elections, create chaos, confusion, and delay -which Trump and his criminal organization will use to claim a “Constitutional Crisis” that he will pursue up to what is in effect, his Supremely Corrupted Court.
Thanks, Helga!
“Meanwhile we on the ground should provide all the grassroots support we can muster to organizations like Democracy Docket and the ACLU.”
A multi-pronged approach includes working to GOTV for a blue 🌊. While disinformation and concerns about election subversion can be disheartening,action is the best remedy.
I also support Marc Elias/Democracy Docket and CREW:
https://www.democracydocket.com/
https://www.citizensforethics.org/
✍️📲💲🚶♀️👕🛒
George A. Polisner.
This election will be attacked....we know that for sure. I hope we have enough election officials with the brilliance and patriotism to watch the details as we choose to vote for our candidates of choice.
Merrick Garland?????
Thanks to everyone on the "FreedomTrain"!!!!
Yes it will. We should expect anything. The difference, this time, is that we have a president who will not hesitate to bring out the National Guard to protect the Capitol.
Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. The risk of losing our democracy is awakening America. I expect anything but our history has been loaded with threats like this. And yet...here we stand.
MAGA and the Confederacy - same same.
Interesting, that if we have need for "a president who will not hesitate to bring out the National Guard to protect the Capitol" that the VP and the hopefully newly elected P (one and the same) will also be fully and wisely engaged!
I wish merrick Garland would sit for an interview with Heather Cox Richardson. I believe she would get him to answer the question that’s been on my mind since he first got the job… “Are you going to indict those members of Congress who tried to overthrow the government?” For the history of the United States to be complete, we need an answer to that question. We need to find out WTF is going on in that man’s mind!
Well said George,
But 171 election deniers are still in Congress, despite their betrayal of the Constitution, because they are the ones running the place. Instead of performing the peoples business like holding hearings on 25% of our bridges ready to collapse, they are having "show hearings" to affect the elections. Instead of boosting the economy and helping families by passing a CTC (child tax credit), they try to impeach Biden. Instead of passing a border bill, they blame Biden for failing at the border - despite the fact that he has reduced the flow of immigrants.
It is simple. Democrats want to do stuff - solve problems, help Americans thrive. MAGAs want to regain total power in order to line the pockets of the morbidly rich and squelch personal liberties - the right of a religion free education, a right to choose when to have children...
Maybe, once we regain complete control of the House, there can be a vote to expel those traitors.
Side note/question: Does anyone remember a time when if a candidate or party lost an election, they would do a "post mortem" and ask why? Actually take responsibility? Actually admit: "Gee, I guess some of our ideas are not popular"...? Actually adjust and adapt to better reflect the values and desires of their constituencies?
Indeed Bill. I do suspect the GOP does a post-mortem and concludes they aren’t suppressing enough voters, or sufficiently gerrymandered a district to force the D’s to earn 60% of the vote or more to be elected. If it was truly based upon policy, imagine running on “we’re going to give more of your money to the already wealthy while taking away your health coverage and raising the normal social security retirement age to 75” GOP platform.
To your side note: Those were the normal times. Now, we've got someone who has admitted "we don't win if we don't cheat" and is running for President for the third time.
Merrick Garland was first and still is a Republican. Should we expect anything better from him?
I can only hope that if there is a Harris Administration, they appoint a well-qualified AG who will fiercely defend the Constitution, Democracy, and pursues facts, evidence, indictments, and convictions -wherever they may lead.
Jack Smith for AG, perhaps? Alvin Bragg? No wait. Letitia James...
Jamie Raskin? I've heard his name mentioned.
New York wants to keep Letitia James for ourselves. 🙂
How wonderful to have such people! And, probably more that we don't know yet.
However, Terry, Garland did appoint Jack Smith, which is not something a Republican would have wanted. I think history will show that he has accomplished a lot during the Biden years, though not nearly quickly enough for many of us, but I'm assuming he is doing way more than we know behind the scenes, as it isn't appropriate for him to outline everything he is prosecuting. In my view, we should reserve judgement.
My head agrees. My heart is stomping its feet with impatience.
Agreed, George, on every point
George, you are right that there are too many election deniers or rather, "election liars" serving in our legislatures. I figure if they can lie about something as obvious as the 2020 election declared the safest in history, they will lie about anything and often do. We do not need so many liars in office; a few we can handle, A WHOLE NEST OF THEM, NOT SO MUCH. We need our media to start calling what comes from their mouths that is not true, "lies."
Thank you Ruth. The media almost seems to be participating in the unfolding tragedy instead of reporting on the reality and the danger.
Of course we are wise to be "concerned about those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside"! Was is Abe Lincoln or Ben Franklin who warned that our nation's biggest threat would come from within our government? However, please, read Judd Legum's substack in Popular Information this morning to get details on how Trump is trumpeting this Russian inspired information and succeeding in AZ, NV, and PA, very important states for D's to win.
"about propaganda and disinformation, whether State-sponsored from the criminal Putin or elsewhere, I'm far more concerned about those working to attack and subvert the elections from inside."
These are the same. There is no longer Russia way over there doing bad things. The are a significant number of politicians, media pundits, and journalists and everyday citizens who are repeating and most importantly believing Russian propaganda. In other words, we have been overtaken in a segment of our Country by Russia.
Why are they still in Congress? Because their electorate are similarly election deniers. The right wing media has done its job, sadly.
George, I think that Mr. Garland has brought a judge's perspective to an attorney's position. The moves he has made are judicially and procedurally rock solid; he has not moved forward with the prosecutorial fire that was (IMO, and that and $3.09* will get you a cup of coffee) expected by most of us, and I think necessary for us to deal with the election denial 1.0 that we saw in 2020. His glacial speed has led us to the brink of election denial 2.0, and we do not have a balanced SCOTUS; rather, a $COTUS bought and paid for by the oligarchs that want to ruin the US.
* Professor Richardson did the research: $3.09 is the average cost of a cup of coffee in the US.
Thanks Ally … (and my bloodstream is at least 50% fair trade, shade grown, organic, espresso.)
I think of Garland as the equivalent of a police officer who witnesses a dangerous-looking cargo van, driven by someone who looks like a sociopathic clown, driving in the midst of a biker gang -all speeding, and a station wagon with mom, dad, and a couple of kids in the back, also speeding -and he pursues the station wagon. It’s low risk and an easy win.
As you say -I want that prosecutorial fire. I want an AG who will pursue justice with the same passion and skill that Bill Barr has for obstructing justice.
Good job George; thank you
Thank you Ira.
Citizens need to be vigilant election poll watchers and the Democrats need to deploy an army of lawyers to push back on this type of election interference in the battleground states. The framers of our Constitution have saddled us with this Electoral College curse that we must overcome for democracy to prevail.
Very true Dr. Gasic. There are some entities that will help such as: https://866ourvote.org/.
I propose that voters vote as a group, never an individual.
I think it would be good to vote with a group of friends -especially those who embrace justice, democracy, equality, and fairness.
Long day yes but as always pure substance! We need to repeat the economic talking points, especially the Goldman Sachs report, the 16 Nobel prize winners for economics and the clear point that Bill Clinton made at the Convention on the difference between Democratic versus GOP job creation. Thanks Heather!
>>>Similarly, Trump on Friday said at a right-wing Moms for Liberty event that public schools in America kidnap children and operate on them to change their sex. This is bonkers, but it is bonkers in a way that deliberately demonizes Trump’s opponents.<<<
What's even more bonkers is that Moms For Liberty and so many far right groups in the MAGAsphere believe this kind of nonsense; are terrified at the thought of this happening in the U S. They are completely unable to discern the truth for themselves. How can they ever be expected to vote responsibly, if their grip on reality is so tenuous?
"How can they ever be expected to vote responsibly, if their grip on reality is so tenuous?" Michael, I just got back from a conference in Nashville and was saying that all weekend. Gift shops in our very mainstream hotel had whole shelves of books spouting completely superstitious fantasy like "Preparing for the Rapture." It's pure insanity.
Trump inserts "Hannibal Lecter," sharks, "cutting off a child's breasts, after a few months in a new school," etc. because those kinds of thoughts take brain functions from rational thinking to the lower brain functions of survival for self and family. It is a strategy that conservatives have used in this way since they inserted "dead babies" into the rhetoric the way Trump keeps repeating that babies are aborted until and after birth.
Some people are more resistant to this tactic than others, but most recoil and are distracted, at least momentarily.
Straight out of Mein Kampf section on the big lie.
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! The great and powerful Oz has spoken!"
Cult logic, thank Rupert
And then there's the claim the "left" wants to "abort babies after they're born".
That's called murder, numbnuts
I had a former sergeant argue that point with me. (His wife is a former DA). I asked him the homicide definition, which he knew. I said that if a child that was born alive it met the criteria for a person (it does, and he agreed). I then asked why that was not a homicide and not an abortion. He had no answer. I asked if he had any source material on that statement. He did not. I then bit my tongue in two (or whatever the keyboard version is of that) and asked well, how many homicide prosecutions have arisen from these events? His reply: None; they're abortions. SMH.
How many living people were saved due to the medical abortion. And if you're religious, the perform soul gets to go to heaven. Once you're born your chances of getting to heaven drop off precipitously.
I actually had an old friend tell me that one a year ago while we were on a walk a year ago. That was the same friend who announced that she had reputable information that”Hillary was a bigger womanizer than Bill.” Another friend, who can’t stand Donald, said she has friends who are convinced Donald was”saved by angels “ during the assassination attempt . I’m not sure we can talk sense to these. Folks but I am sure we need to know what we’re up against.
You cannot reason with unreasonable people.
Replying to myself here to add to the thread... Thanks everybody for weighing in.
Trae Crowder (the "liberal redneck" on YouTube) did a piece about three weeks ago - less funny than usual - tackling the MAGA people who still STILL lap up everything that Trump and his maga minions, including Fox, say publicly, with no discernment. Especially that whole "Trump was saved by angels" meme.
Another thing which astounds me about Fox is that so many military bases have it playing on TVs in public places, like the PX and cafeterias and other stores and of course in a lot of barracks areas and on ships. It's not news, it's propaganda! And a lot of it is anti-government propaganda which has radicalized a lot of service members. When I did telecom data-related field work back in the early 90s, and would go out to Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, I would always see Fox up on the TVs at the cafeteria where I would get lunch... so I have seen firsthand what I would see later in news reports about Fox and military bases. Made my jaw clench to see young soldiers, sitting at lunch tables, nodding in agreement and raising their fists.. It's really problematic. There have been efforts in more recent years at the Defense Department to curb that. But it goes back to First Amendment rights and censorship, and Murdoch knows that all too well. I'm sure that he has paid big money to DoD, especially back in the predominant cable TV days, to get Fox News playing on bases and on ships. Just sickening.
Pure insanity
I am thrilled with this news. As a Bernie bro, and staunch supporter of AOC, I nevertheless have been thoroughly disappointed in their failures to reach out to small business owners and entrepreneurs. Their messaging has been constant "workers' rights", which is absolutely necessary, but not to the exclusion of small business owners. Seeing these initiatives from Harris gives me hope that support can be won from this group. They should be a natural Democratic constituency. After all, Republican policies consistently favor the corporate behemoths, who are the death of small business owners and the anti-competitive beasts who have eliminated so much of our once great mom-and-pop enterprise system. Like most progressives, I believe in individual private enterprise, which should be supported by the state, not crushed by the monopolistic might of predatory giants.
I also support Bernie and AOC, both of whom have spoken eloquently in support of Harris. I have nixed feelings about political correctness, but I think we as a society muddle our communication, and perhaps our own thinking by the use of poisoned phases like "business friendly" and "Free Market". As you and HCR are pointing out, there is a great chasm between the opportunities and impacts between monopolistic mega corporations and genuinely small business, Yet since Reagan, there has been a myth that being pro-business means ALL forms of business, if not outright biased toward increasing the power of huge conglomerates. "Free Market" seems more often cited to justify anti-anti-trust; not a more level playing field of broadened, responsible, business opportunities. The word "freedom" is all but meaningless if it applies only to a few.
I also think that free enterprise fits right into the complement of freedoms appropriate to a free society. So does a rule of law with the aggregate consent of the governed, applied to behaviors corporations as well as citizens, in other words, the "R" word, "Reg*lation". And there is also room and need for a robust public sector. If we make the rules, we have a right to such options.
My father and I were both put out of business by the unrestrained power of “capitalists”. In my father’s case in the 70’s, by the pre-cursors of Wal-Mart building suburban shopping centers and destroying downtowns. In my case, by the robber baron financial manipulators who caused the Great Recession. We’ve lost so much as a country to the mega-chains and monsters who have swallowed up our retail, restaurant, and service sectors, taking away the local ownership and community involvement of millions of citizens.
You said it well. As a small business owner selling custom picture framing services and art, I closed my shop in 1994 and work from home and I use the free services of google which allows customers to give feedback and since I can compete with the chain stores, I have greater feedback than they do and just as many customers as when I had a bricks an mortar. And I try as much as possible to patronize other single proprietors even if I need to pay more.
The loss that gets to me is the closing of the local pharmacy that cared about it's customers! They just couldn't make it anymore. Now we are stuck with Walmart, Walgreens and RiteAid.
Wal-Mart went into small towns with predatory practices to wipe out the small businesses - the hardware stores and drug stores and others. Now those profit dollars that were once recycled into the community are being sent into the pockets of billionaires.
Many thoughts on small business over regulation burdens vs big business under regulation. Avoided Walmart for nearly 30 years for their impact on small businesses, getting eminent domain of a student's family's dairy farm at way below market cost, and cases where they wiped out small businesses for miles around with their store then shut it down leaving nothing but buildings that according to an unverified source often seemed used for other government purposes like holding areas for detained immigrants.
Though never an independent business person, I did notice Mitt Romney's term as Gov of Massachusetts and what I saw as good things like Romney care, but also counter-productive things like the state tax cuts that forced local communities to increase fees for everything else so much (including much more got-cha fines that were more revenue gathering than problem solving).
The most inspiring persons to me personally in actually solving problems were ones (I had several one-on-one conversations with 5 to 8 years ago), like Dr Tom English and Robert F. Hemphill Jr.
See https://www.earthrestorationteam.com/about-5
"...He has directed major environmental programs for IBM, GE, JPL, EPS, and the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group. He led the Manufacturing Group's effort to voluntarily reduce toxic environmental releases by 86%. William Reilly, former Administrator of the U.S. EPA, stated that, "This reduction led the entire world." He was the architect of the California Clean Air Act, which resulted in bringing California much cleaner air while saving several billion dollars.
Dr. English managed high-level nuclear waste programs for President Carter's Office of Science and Technology Policy; the Government of Sweden; NASA; and the California Energy Commission. At the U.S. EPA, he directed an $80 million per year Energy & Environment Program. He also directed an epidemiological study of 40,000 people. He managed the recovery program to fix the F-111 fighter/bomber after the wings fell off the aircraft. His academic background includes a postdoctoral MS in environmental engineering with a minor in preventitive medicine, a Ph.D. and MS in electrical engineering, and a BS in physics. He taught environmental courses at six universities. He and his wife, Jan, live in San Diego, California. They have four adult children and eight grandchildren..."
Though he made great improvements in recycling valuable metals while cleaning up the waste, California still has, to me, too many crippling requirements for small businesses to pay fees to support the inspectors. They also had economically difficult requirements for people repairing auto air conditioning, such that many just quit doing it. To me the state or federal government needs to at least subsidize enough of the cost to make it practical for business owners to really support the effective recycling.
See https://worldfootprints.com/guest/robert-hemphill/
"...For much of his career, R.F. Hemphill, author of Dust Tea, Dingoes & Dragons, was employed at AES, a highly regarded global electric power generating and distribution company, where he served as Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff to the CEO. Hemphill was one of the three executives who began the company in 1981, growing it from a million dollar six person start up. AES owns and operates 38,000 MW of power plants in 21 countries around the globe, is publicly listed on the NYSE, and had approximately $18 billion of revenues in 2013.
Recently, Robert Hemphill was the founder and CEO of AES Solar Power Ltd from its inception until his retirement in December 2013. The company, formed in March 2008, is a joint venture of the AES Corporation and Riverstone LLC, an energy focused private equity fund. AES Solar is a leading developer, owner and operator of utility-scale photovoltaic solar plants connected to the electric power grid. These installations, ranging in size from less than 2 MW to more than 250 MW, consist of large arrays of land-based solar photovoltaic panels that directly convert sunlight to electricity. Under his leadership, the company designed, permitted and constructed fifty-one solar plants (526 MW) in seven countries: Spain, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, India and the US.
He has also been a senior policy official at the Department of Energy and Deputy Manager of Power at the Tennessee Valley Authority..."
His and his mentor's TVA sensibilities in recommendations for restoring the Puerto Rico power infrastructure with much more resilient distribution, with a lot more solar and battery backup and peak load capability, made so much sense to me. None of the power plants went down, just the obsolete power line infrastructure. FEMA regulations didn't allow replacement with newer technology and initially required recreating the old designs that had been out of production for many decades.
"None of the power plants went down, just the obsolete power line infrastructure. FEMA regulations didn't allow replacement with newer technology and initially required recreating the old designs that had been out of production for many decades."
??
That happened here a couple years back.
I appreciate your comment about free enterprise. Free enterprise has to be better understood as something other than control by mega corporations. They are clearly not the same thing. Thanks.
Anything dominate by a powerful few isn't free; an economy or a country;. The first condition is a subset of the of the second, but they intertwine. A free society is an environment that encourages and protects diverse, responsible choices for all. "Responsible" means that you don't impinge on the same rights offered to others. E Pluribus Unum.
Free enterprise is a term recently misused by the ravenous corporate elites to justify their assaults, unending, on government regulation to protect health and competition. I believe in its original meaning, to reward invention and encourage a "market" that promotes the common good without undue and artificial restrictions or injurious taxation.
It's the "square deal". Reasonably equitable exchange. You grow apples and I make baskets, so we trade. Money facilitate trade. Regulation resists collapse into monopolistic ripoffs. We learned that lesson more than once in our nation's history, and yet it still does not sit well with those who would be kings.
Bravo, JL, spoken like a true American.
It’s NOTHING like a level playing field with the fiends in charge of capital…state and community banks are a good start.
Investing…Maui has a whole new agriculture business model due to a Canadian pension fund! Check it out!
I do wish that Bernie and AOL would stop using the term, "Democratic Socialists" because that is not what they are. They are not Socialists and they do not advocate for Socialism. What they are, in fact, are pragmatic capitalists, as exists in the Scandinavian countries where the majority of workers belong to labor unions.
Exactly. We as a party and as progressives have just been lousy about messaging. Example: You can make the case that "socialized medicine", as Medicare for all, would be a huge godsend to businesses, which would be freed from the need to devote their time and money to dealing with the health care coverage of employees. Why do companies need to do that stuff? Or state and local governments? It's absurd. The American people are not sophisticated enough to understand the meaning of "socialism" as it is practiced in Europe today, nor do they care enough to find out. Red-baiting is such an integral organ of American politics that you have to work around it to get at the truth. Same as dog-whistling racism.
Its not really “socialized medicine”, but “socialized medical insurance”.
Thus the quotation marks.
I would not want to get rid of Social as a bad word base, but maybe change to Democratically Balanced Social/Capitalism.
Some words carry so much baggage.
So much of the MAGA MO is an Orwellian war on meaningful language.
Should we add as much baggage to Republican as they have added to Democratic Socialism?
True to their Orwellian bent, today's "Republicans" are anti-republic. They support a self-proclaimed wannabee dictator.
Actually, perhaps I should have said Trump Republicanism.
I agree completely. The Scandinavian models are pragmatic. These are not utopian societies. Everyone is expected to work and pay taxes in ways that might surprise those who use “creeping socialism “ to rile up a crowds.
I spent three weeks in Sweden and noticed free enterprise was thriving. I think "socialist" has more than one meaning, but it is pejorative here, and I agree, what Bernie actually supports should probably be relabeled.
I actually got burned by thinking "Democratic Socialist" was the definition of what Bernie Sanders and AOC are putting forward. I signed up for membership in the Democratic Socialist party, and then started getting emails and invitations to meetings. These people DO NOT SUPPORT OUR CURRENT FORM OF DEMOCRACY. The government they want leans closer to Communism, and the Chinese government. I mistakenly thought they were more like the Scandinavian or Dutch. They don't support any Democratic candidates.
I'm at a loss to square what I thought was the differences between Democratic Social and Social Democrat lines of thought. I tried https://www.britannica.com/topic/democratic-socialism
Not much help found there as far as which word combinations produce the most backlash (deserved or not).
100%
Too often their arguments feel think a college student sitting in class…at least AOC gets out and works with real folks…and yes, along with generational wealth, we need more classes for entrepreneurs!
Thank you Professor! I hope the news about small businesses and entrepreneurs becomes a reality. Our daughter has a small business (a one woman letterpress business). She designs, prints and sells "snarky, sophisticated" greeting cards to 300 stores across America. EVERY card is hand printed, scored, and put into its own envelope. She loves her business but she pays 37% income tax! To me, it just seems outrageous that a small business, such as hers, would pay a higher percentage than a corporation or a millionaire/billionaire!
You are right, Collette! It is outrageous that your daughter's business pays a significantly higher tax rate than mega corporations. I am voting blue with the understanding that there is no perfect party, but that the Democrats do still champion the small guys.
I think and hope we are getting better at it.
Your daughter is pulling in a pretty good gross income to be in that tax bracket. Sounds like she needs to get a better tax accountant who can suggest some legal and ‘useful to her situation’ expense deductions. That said, so sick of the extremely rich who don’t pay their fair share in taxes.
Yes. She does well most of the time but in her business it is either feast or famine. Letterpress printing is dying art. It's a lot of labor but she truly loves what she does. If she could find a competent person to employ that would be great then she could concentrate on design and interacting with her customers more. You can see her cards online. Her business is called: Ladypilotletterpress.com.
Oh yes, those are lovely, and very funny! Good work! Thanks for the link- I am far from civilization, and have not seen these in person ever! I will order some!
I was an 11 year old boy (military dependent) when I 1st met a "Lady Pilot," married to one of my dad's friends, an Air Force Tech Sgt , Jerry Tucker, who had saved a KC-97 Tanker over Greenland, as described in a Readers Digest story. As they talked about Pursuit, Fighter, or other aircraft they had worked on, I noticed she seemed to know a lot about each type, and tried to come up with a type she didn't know about (and wondering how a person, I had no clue about being a pilot, would know about).
It turned out she was a WWII WASP pilot and actually flew more types of aircraft than I could name. Her nickname was Dot but I never found out her maiden name. Since then, I've met many women pilots and have had young women in our A&P classes not only become pilots, but also rebuild old aircraft, new ones, and help build replica classic air racers.
I believe she described having to take over from a male instructor pilot in her military training, since she had many more hours as a licensed private pilot (though that might have been a description of one of her classmates).
With two women pilots in my family, I MUST order some of these!!!
Me too. It’s completely wrong.
They have lobbyists ad nauseam and zip taxes. I paid a ton last year as a recent widow. It is rigged by Elon and his ilk. Chump would probably put him in charge of Tax Reform.
JD-I saw a report yesterday that Trump wants Musk to “audit” every government department. Musk said he’d like to do it. Crazy!
I think both Donald and Musk are both dangerous and crazy. They represent the Party of Putin and neither look like they’re having fun.
They must have a contest to determine who can destroy the fastest... only explanation
Liked for your first sentence, dismayed by your second. Agreed with the third and fourth.
Bravo to your daughter! Bravo!
I'd love to see what your daughter produces. Is there no legal tax knowledge to help her write off more expenses?
Her business is: Ladypilotletterpress.com
It is not only outrageous, it is obscene and wrong.
Sadly we must fight against both Russian disinformation and MAGA, which usually is the same thing. Also kudos to Liz Cheney.
I've been a small business owner my entire 50 year career. The most full time employees I've ever had was 4. I've hired as many as 12 free lance people at one time for projects. I REALLY appreciate this small business initiative. If you can survive the first 2 years, you stand a good chance of making it. The banks don't really appreciate us, especially folks in the creative and/or gig economy. It's hard to convince them of your value and taking risks that are thought out...even after years of staying alive. Bravo and thank you...that's something for a lot of us to campaign for.
Thanks HCR, I am so grateful on your details about Kamala Harris's series of proposals to help entrepreneurs create small businesses - even if some of the structure was present in a Republican project years ago. It would be more progressive if the current Republican party had more common ground with the Democrats -- this extremist Republican agenda is draining our resources just by fighting to make sure it doesn't win in the November election.
Your substack is world-class everyday, but today's story about Small Business was a fresh vibe of cheering for more of a community Blue Zone neighborhood (especially after the Pandemic crushed so many of our small businesses).
I heard Harris' speech. First rate, good response.
Well said 😊
Thank you Dr. Cox Richardson for all you do for America and Americans. I have faith that your hard work will pay off with continued democracy in our beloved country!
So many of the Hump cult have called for, alluding to their pious biblical connection, the curtains to be drawn back, to reveal the true controllers of our country. Well folks, they got their wish. We’ve seen the enemy and the GOPutin hump cult.
Strange how the cult claims ownership of Jesus, while promoting pretty much the opposites of the what Jesus advised.
You would think some preacher would have noticed.
JD, given the dearth of critical thinking skills among these folks, would it be accurate to say that they don't know what they don't know?
Knowing how much we don't know appears to me to be the beginning of wisdom. SATs do nothing to measure that.
Truer of the magats than any who try. They are proud of their skewed view of well, everything....
They make more money if they go with the flow.
I'd say some are in it for that, especially some of the Tee Vee preachers.
I also think that many of the super-rich passionately promote a self-aggrandizing, self-centered brand of "religion".
I call that anything but religion, but then religion has traveled many paths.
I’m happy to report that some preachers have. Faithful America is stepping up. There is also a very interesting pastor who just joined Substack who is calling out Christian Nationalism. The right wing fundamentalists have had the megaphone on this one for way too long. Other groups are stepping up and speaking out.
My gratitude to them, and more need to hurry.
I hope it's not too late. I know some real Christians whom I respect. They are in a minority.
Made me laugh!
Some clearly have but it seems that few (and there are a few) who seem to be vocal about it. Seems to me the silence allows charlatans to speak for the faith, cause great harm, and repel many.
JL-Yesterday on MSNBC a pastor said Trump has to win 80% of the white evangelical votes or he can’t win. He said Kamala needs to pull 25-35% of them to the Ds to guarantee a win. I’m praying that Jesus (or somebody/something) will touch their hearts and minds so they can recognize that the Rs are not about faith, hope and love for democracy. They’re the epitome of malice, hate and violent extremism. Most white evangelicals are being fed not just through Fox and schools but through homes and churches. God help us as we work to save ourselves from evil.
Check out Faithful America. They are progressive, ecumenical, and open to all. I don’t go to church myself, but I do have a spiritual base and a moral compass. I know what the Christian Nationalists are doing is wrong and unchristian. Faithful America explains why. We need to punch back against this blasphemy from every angle.
My UU church is has a moral compass that I so admire.
Here’s a link to yesterday’s MSNBC interview with Paola Ramos who was the journalist that interviewed the “pastor” et. al. I watched this too and it is very scary and sad to see those hardworking Latinos being scammed.
There money to be made promoting God.
Rarely does God get a whiff
I'm very pleased with the direction being taken by Harris and Walz. But at the same time it feels like Putin and Carlson are living in our back yard, and that Mueller's report and warning has been forgotten.
Thank you. Lots of ground to cover, across a wide range of topics. I hope the DOJ's efforts to prosecute the Russian Troll effort gets some publicity in the mass media, but I fear it will get buried.
Heather's done good work today, but she started by apologizing for not getting to newest shooting.
So I take that as not that she had too much else to cover, but as a certain helplessness to parallel the helplessness of the U.S. as its Republicans keep to their mission of, as Lawrence O'Donnell has often said, being sure to keep America's mass murderers the best armed mass murderers in the world.
Kamala says, also today, also in exasperation, “It does not have to be this way.”
Wrong. U.S. schools have to have mass murderers ever entering and killing. As the U.S. must have its billionaires with no values for life, and as schools must succumb to standardized testers’ conceits of the living dead.
Ban the AR-15? Yes.
But to get even there, we need a different way of thinking. If Americans hired the best teachers, then let them be, we’d have more essay writing, humanities. Schools would have human life as central, not the insane repetitions of mass murderers, nor the dehumanized reduction of all life to units, numbers, abstractions, categories, and all such linear “rationality” only.
If the U.S. had schools with essay writing and humanities key to them, we’d no longer have that country where, as Lawrence O’Donnell has put it, U.S. mass murderers continue to be the best-armed mass murderers in all the world.
I read a sample Substack from Hamish Mackenzie on how social media has become a singular experience, the new city of Babel, where everyone gathers, but nobody speaks the same language. He talks about the older media outlets, and how they are pulled by their audiences’ ideologies, instead of fact-based reporting. I believe these problems are spreading worldwide, and I believe that the host sites must bear some responsibility in the collective psychosis they inflict on their consumers. THAT is something I would like to see addressed very soon.
So true. Tower of Babel indeed
Thank you, Dr,. Richardson for all this information. I cannot understand why the FCC can't seriously fine any social media company operating under license to OUR airwaves that allows Russian operatives, even those operating in the United States, to post lies and/or propaganda. Those same social media outlets sure as hell jump on Americans. I wrote and article briefly summarizing the 7 Articles and 25 Amendments (18 and 21 cancel each other) for my Substack column and posted it on Facebook. It was taken down immediately because "you are just looking for likes". But it's okay for Russian operatives to post lies and disinformation supporting trump because good ol' markie baby, supports trump.
Also since these Russian operatives are known by name where is the FBI? Last I heard Russia is considered an adversary. So why aren't these Russian operatives being investigated and charged.?
Thank you. I missed all that today and am so glad you keep me informed.
ALL media are covering the heinous catastrophe in Georgia all the while the country is on shaky ground.
I found it really insulting that the governor of Georgia had the nerve to offer his condolences on the tragic high school shooting yesterday! He and his legislature are totally responsible hypocrites for the LACK of any common sense gun laws in that state.
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. The thing that gets me is the kid was red flagged in 2023, and ended up having access to a gun the week that school started for most across the country.
Saw a great meme yesterday: Drawing of a schoolhouse ridden with bullet holes, with a sign in front saying "This school protected from drag queens and dirty books"
Great meme. THEIR HYPOCRISY KNOWS NO BOUNDS.
No magat or chumpster is short on gall. They have no shame, and no route to God anyway.