Today, President Joe Biden’s administration released an “economic blueprint” to show how the new laws and policies it has put in place “are rebuilding an economy that works for working families.” The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint notes that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in the midst of unprecedented crises, including “an economy that for many decades had been failing to deliver for working families—with workers and middle-class families left behind, stagnating wages and accelerating costs, crumbling infrastructure, U.S. manufacturing in decline, and persistent racial disparities.” In the past year and a half, it says, the Democrats have set the nation “on a new course,” investing in a historic economic recovery based on a long-term strategy to make lasting changes to the economy that will carry the nation into the future, making sure that no one is left behind.
I've thought often recently about what it must be like to be a delusional MAGA zealot. Someone who has no clue that they live in an utterly false reality. They only know the extremes of blind love for Trump and burning hate for Biden and all Democrats. Information to the contrary never penetrates their programmed, single-minded thinking.
In other words, they have no idea that President Biden and Democrats in Congress, whom they despise and disparage with the heat of a thousand suns, have accomplished so many things that are improving their lives now and long into the future.
Could there be a sadder, more tragic irony in America?
Think of Wiley Coyote, pursuing the roadrunner off cliffs, running into walls with painted tunnels, then being run over by a train or truck or bus coming out of the painted tunnel. Cognitive dissonance is ringing like a bell for the MAGAts, and it makes them angry and uncertain and very, very dangerous.
AG, I think your metaphor of "Wiley" comes very close, manic to the point of confusion over reality, unable to reason deductively, easily manipulated to the point of destroying family bonds. Very dangerous to others as you said.
If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?
James Madison
"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." - James Baldwin
We have a lot to overcome in todays politics and self deception is probably the hardest to overcome. Whether it is credulity or cultivated contempt for law and order, we have problems.
MAGAs are not tragic figures, and they aren’t honestly delusional. They are willfully delusional. They have a specific goal: ensuring that white Christians control government at all levels in the United States. It’s definitely ironic but much worse than sad.
It's a shame that the vast number of real Christians are invisible in the face of the Zealots who claim the mantle but fail to comprehend and practice the very basic tenants of the faith they claim to protect. If they have their way, it won't be white Christians, or any Christian for that matter, who end up in the halls of power.
I belong to a Presbyterian church that leans liberal in both its membership and pastoral leadership. Never has our pastor preached anything remotely political from the pulpit. But using the words of Bible and employing both metaphors and lived experiences, she has made the case that as believers in God - or a higher power, or a spirit greater than ourselves - we have a shared responsibility in doing good in this world; that we must hold our elected officials, or anyone who claims a role in any leadership, to be honest and respect the rule of law.
I am able to separate my faith from my politics, though it is my faith that in some way has shaped my politics. I believe that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That we care for our fellow beings and for our earth. I believe that we are all entitled to practice the faith that calls to our spirit and beliefs.
That so many have usurped “religion” for their own political benefit is anathema to me.
I'm an atheist, and I believe exactly the same things about doing good, loving my neighbors, caring for them and our earth. Why do people think that only religion can foster these ideas & goals?
It may be harsh to say but I believe religion, that is particularly formal dogmatic religion, has made people too often look in the wrong direction and fail to simply direct focus on supporting a kind, loving, inclusive society.
If you were to choose a hundred atheists at random and also a hundred random people who count themselves as Christians, I’m confident that you would find several times as many people with admirable values among the atheists than among the Christians.
I don't agree, because "some" and it may not be many do believe in helping their fellow man. For most they are simply following the leadership or "church going" is part of the regional culture.
The real evil is the leadership who are in it just for the power and money.
I grew up in that world but left it behind more than a half century ago.
Our church has also avoided the politics, however enough members support trump as their choice of leader causes me to think twice about their understanding of the Gospel
There are many clerics from different denominations that have been drawn into political debate. Archbishop Cordileone openly condemned Speaker Pelosi. Appalling! Franklin Graham runs ads on TV that basically reinforce MAGA thinking. There is much twisting of what Chritianity means. As even religious leaders are drawn into the fray, they reinforce the perversion of scripture. And most importantly, they most definitely do not separate their faith from their politics. They do not accept the separation of church and state.
If you haven't read.... Jesus and John Wayne.... please get a copy and read it! I was in shock! All in the name of Christianity! Actually, filling their pockets at the expense of their flock!
Yes and they are loudly praying in the Temple. I know people whose faith does inform their social conscious and they work to make the world a better place. But they don't usually capture headlines.
Marg, you have beautifully described how faith in a God leads us "to love our neighbors as we love ourselves." Hell will freeze over before the "politicians" who claim their faith leads them actually live and lead by that faith.
We’re on the same wavelength on this matter, but the people you and I put in the zealot category would classify themselves as real Christans and put us in the zealot category. There’s no general agreement on definitions. Pretty much everyone agrees on who the white evangelicals are, though, and 80% of them voted for Trump. Twice. If the white evangelical electorate were no worse (as human beings), on the average, than the white electorate generally (“only” 60% of whom voted for Trump), the orange clown wouldn’t have become president. To me (and maybe you, too) this is ironic, tragic, and bad in many other ways, but to them it’s the best possble outcome (or “God’s will” as they like to put it).
that may be...what's important is that YOU can tell the difference. I can tell you there are MANY evangelicals who don't view TFG as the second coming of Christ.
Here's what's REALLY hard about it all...they are our neighbors, and our mandate is clear; we're supposed to love them like we do ourselves. Like loving your teenager who's spitting in your eye. The big tent is supposed to have room for them too. That's enough to keep me completely occupied, just trying to live by the two greatest commandments. I can't love them while I'm throttling them until they stop breathing...
A misunderstanding, I fear, of love, which runs deeper than our sentimental conception of it and its demands.
Think of the Inuit hunter who asks forgiveness of the beast he kills and wishes it a happier rebirth.
That's not a perfect analogy, but you are doing something awful that must be done, not only to protect many but to prevent the enemy from doing worse and, in so doing, harming himself even more deeply.
It is easier to think of self-sacrifice than of this awful duty imposed by the need to protect ourselves and others, but there is an element of self-sacrifice, for whoever takes a life will pay for the deed.
These are awful things to write or think about but we have to face the demands of a deeper commitment.
That’s a tough assignment you’ve taken on. I admire you for that but think your efforts would be more efficiently invested in working with well-organized projects to get Dem-leaning voters to the polls than in struggling to love your MAGA neighbors. Maybe you could redirect, just for the next couple months, then get back to the hard stuff.
point well delivered...good thing you can try to love someone while spanking them at the polls!
no sense in trying to change their minds, convince them of a different version of reality. It's the disillusioned, disaffected, "checked out" folks on the sidelines that will make the difference in this cycle. Those who see the foundations of democracy on trial will be there. It's those who have tuned out who we need to reach.
But the father didn't chase after his son and force fatted calf upon him as he walked away; no, he let the boy go and threw him a party after he returned.
Their's is a distinction between the sinners among them and the sins of the other, outside of the faith? The former shall be given (deserving of?) our forgiveness, while the later we must wage against for were they to pursue the sins ( policies, goals, duplicity) they promote, our believe system (christianity) would be destroyed. The sins (named communism, socialis, secularism, abortion, welfare, democrat, questioning establish mythology, preferring lentils to whole wheat) are studied and enumerated and appraised not as ideas or options but as weapons of evil. IMHO
True. I know that there are "real Christians" who are tolerant, loving and generous. But their leaders are very quiet. Is it a fear of alienating already shrinking congregations? I would think if there is a future for "Christianity" it would be if it stood for the right values - LOUDLY. Pavlovitz is perhaps a positive example. https://johnpavlovitz.com/
How to sort a "good Christian" from a "bad Christian"? The good one respects and honors the faiths of others. The bad one says their faith is the "only righteous one". He is really not practicing a faith but is part of a cult of exclusion. Therefore by definition, a "bad Christian" is no Christian at all.
When the preacher or leader of one's religion says that his religion is the "only true faith", please find one's self a new church or join the millions (young people in particular) who simply don't need the nonsense of hate, exclusion and hypocrisy within an antique hierarchy. That "only true faith" is built for control, not love.
Those “Leaders” are focusing on not losing the money each seat represents in that congregation. Organized religion is the opposite of what that guy from Nazareth modeled. Quiet equals complicity.
I don’t think they’re Christians either, but they think they’re Christians, and they believe that as fervently as you believe they’re wrong. I don’t give a damn about the Christian label. What I believe is that there are 74 million US voters that the country, and the planet for that matter, would be better off without. Unfortunately, we can’t rid ours of them (what would we do with the corpses?), but if we’re lucky, we might be able to outvote them, just barely, and begin the decades-long process of forming some reasonable kind of US body politic.
Please take note-they are NOT Christians. The term Christian means “Christ follower” and there is nothing of Jesus the Christ found in them. Jesus’ call was that we are to love one another. They have hijacked the name and distorted the message for their own purposes. It’s sick and sad and an abomination to Christianity, not to mention an affront to true patriots and adherents to our Constitution who value freedom of religion and the right to vote among all the other gifts that document ensures.
Okay, that’s your definition, but there is no generally agreed upon definition of what it means to be a Christian. Anybody can claim the mantel. Slave owners did, for example, and they not only justified their ownership of other human beings as a basic tenet of their faith but also believed that anyone who disagreed with them on that point could not rightly call themselves Christians. It’s not much different today. So much for progress, eh?
It is true that anyone can make fraudulent claims and get away with it, especially if people don't take the trouble to check the matter out thoroughly.
My job as a translator recently brought me into contact with the four gospels plus a key document, the Gospel of Thomas, found in Egypt in 1945. I think I can claim to be a dispassionate reader.
All I can say is that, while the last-named text is demanding, when it comes to interpretation, the teaching is a radical work of liberation. Yet, for most of the history of the religion, ever since it became the official religion of the Roman empire, political considerations have weighed heavily on ecclesiastical interpretation of the Gospels and this has been skewed in such a way as to give priority to hierarchies and social control at the expense of spiritual content.
What is most curious is how Protestant Evangelicals have allied themselves with the most retrograde Roman Catholic circles and gone to extreme lengths to transform the work of liberation into one of oppression and imprisonment, as well as engaging in the most horrendous missionary activity, all in the name of Jesus. Part of this is a consequence of failed far-right politicians finding themselves a profitable tax-free niche as all-powerful "ministers of religion", loading their congregations with chains of guilt, the better to control them...
Centuries of crude literalist misinterpretation of the teaching have put a heavy lid on the essential message, which shows us, not what we should be but what we essentially are. "The kingdom of God is within you".
Mike Flynn, working in the highest echelons of US intelligence, had a front row seat to how “faith” can be used to create jihadists. “Then one of JSOC’s Special Forces strike teams raided an AQI safe house and captured 12 men who were unlike the typical brutish Al Qaeda thugs. These older men were the senior managers and vice presidents of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The network they had established was sophisticated far beyond the early reckoning of U.S. commanders, with interlinked logistics, transportation, information, money management and strike operations, all of it worthy of a multinational conglomerate.
As JSOC’s director of intelligence, Flynn interrogated the senior Al Qaeda commanders at length. Sitting across from them at the detainee screening facility at Balad Air Base, Iraq, Flynn wondered why such obviously educated and intelligent people were devoting themselves to tearing their country apart, regardless of the horrendous toll in innocent lives. Some of the men had electrical engineering and other advanced degrees, but instead of building a bridge or helping establish a functioning government, they applied their talents to attacking vulnerable governing institutions in order to terrorize and intimidate civilians. He could understand their hatred of American interlopers, but the vast majority of their tens of thousands of victims were fellow Iraqis.”
If you'd made this all up as fiction 25 years ago wouldn't you, the writer, have been in danger of being locked up in a psychiatric hospital? No work of the imagination could ever dream up anything to match real-life American lunacy...
Not sure I agree, Rex, about willfully delusional. Your run-of-the-mill MAGA type is typically under educated, indoctrinated by right-wing propaganda, and raised to be racist.
That said, the big monied interests that manipulate them are indeed intent on establishing "Christian" control of government.
As a renegade pastor, I simply cannot get around the silly irony of the word Christian. Jesus (Jaschuah ben Josef) was a brown-skinned Jewish rabbi who spoke Aramaic and who basically refused to be so arrogant as to call himself "Christ."
Sure, but test that against Luke 4:18-21 and Luke 9:20. And it sounds potentially misleading to speak of "a Jewish rabbi" at a time when Temple Judaism was still in existence.
I don't want to engage in arguments about the identity or characteristics of Yeshua, the teacher, let's stick to what he taught. And throw out the mass of accretions concerning what he did not teach. Or inveighed against.
Why do I say this? I personally have no axe to grind but there is still Life buried under the dead misunderstandings and misinterpretations of many centuries. This is not a dead religion, despite all the efforts of generations of whited sepulchers to contain it, generations of fat dogs-in-the-manger to sit on it... Neither is it a stupid religion, despite constant efforts to make it look worse than stupid, oppressive and manipulative into the bargain.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
I couldn't make head or tail of what I was taught from 7 to 17. Indoctrination, more indoctrination, getting nowhere. I guess I kept on knocking, in the sense that I questioned everything I heard and kept the main questions open. Doing that, answers come when the time's ripe.... even to skeptics like me (yes, I'm serious) who keep on questioning and take nothing for granted.
I am in complete agreement with you, Peter. I am just sick and tired of hearing Jesus turned into a white Christ. Yesterday (Saturday) evening, I had the privilege of listening to a 96-year-old woman - then a young concert pianist who was rounded up and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the very last days, when the Nazis knew the jig was up, she was online to the gas chambers. One of the most poignant things she said was that the Roma and Senti (the Gypsies) made her ashamed: they went into the gas chambers with anger, spitting and throwing rocks instead of using their last bit of energy walking nicely to their death.
During the Q&A, a man asked her if she didn't see the justice in the killing the Jews, seeing as they killed Jesus, which is a grotesque perversion of the might of Rome. Starting with Constantine's coopting of the little christian cohorts, to which he made a bureaucracy, the christians proceeded to persecute the Jews, and are doing so today in their untrue and dangerous recitation of "the Jews killed Jesus."
By the way, Eva Fahidi, whose book is titled "Love and be loved: My life after Auschwitz-Birkenau," refused to respond to the ignorant question of the man who, like so many others in this white christian world.
My theological education included the history of religions along with the dark side of what grew to be the Christian religions of many, if not most, which espoused the evil myth that Jesus was killed by the Jews, who were relatively powerless within the roman empire. It was Christians who fired the pogroms and Christians (Martin Luther included) who cleared the way for the Nazis to nationalize the church. I happened to land in the only "resistance" church in the state capitol of Hessen when I was sent by the UCC-NY in 2013 as a partner theologian and pastor.
Also, as you know, all of the Gospels were oral tradition and were written some time between around 65 and 110ad or so and then were tinkered with for a few hundred years. That means we are talking about oral tradition - no eye-witnesses.
I totally agree with "Ask...you." Simple and profound. Very glad to pursue this current discussion. Although evidently I clicked on the profile and was then told to sign in -- So often I have to ask to be given comprehension of tech processes.
Okay, you give them more credit for decency than I do, and I give them more credit for competence than you do. Probably no way to resolve that point on objective evidence, but the outcome is the same. I agree with you about the primary beneficiaries, but I think white people generally, including run-of-the-mill MAGAs, accrue enormous, unearned benefits from systemic white advantages, and I think think they know that, at a deep level, even if they refuse to admit it. Maybe we could agree that.
I don't give them credit for decency — they are not decent. But I try — maybe too much — to understand why they view the world as they do. It's murky.
Then there's the subset of educated Trump supporters, who aren't rabidly racist, but for some reason gravitate to him. Maybe I'm being defensive on their behalf because people I love fall into this group. But I believe they're essentially clueless about what's really happening in the U.S. And clueless about the country's history. Most of us here are seriously zealous in following the news, and from legitimate sources.
I've met plenty of people who cringe at his personal behavior but felt his policies were sound. Personally, I can't separate the man from the message, and never saw cohesive policy under any of it. I'm thrilled to have a mature individual in the White House, one whose focus is giving a leg up to those without leverage in the current system. My underlying feeling of dread won't pass until we get past the midterms, if even then, however.
Instead of obsessing about the Second Amendment, I truly wish Trump-supporting, so-called “Christians” would actually honor the Second Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Tyranny was ever thus. It seems to be our tragic flaw as a species to empower our own oppressors. I believe we need to take a much closer look at the personal and mass psychology of this. We are running out of time to fight these battles again and again.
we'll continue fighting them as the seas rise, the atmosphere becomes one big hot-house canopy, the permafrost all melts, as do the ice caps and glaciers, the deserts encroach on what remains of arable land and corn, wheat and farm animals are all that's left of the biodiversity we once enjoyed. I'm not optimistic for humanity. I'm deeply sad for my son, my nieces, nephews and their children and all the others who will live to see the year 2100. There's nothing in history to lend optimism about the possibility that we might rise above our chronic grievances and do something collectively to save ourselves from the apocalypse that's already emerging all around us.
I can't "heart" your comment because of Substack's maddening limitations.
But you capture so much. We're collectively Nero as Rome burns. Every young person should loathe the generations that have doomed the planet. Is "doomed" too strong? Let's just say life as we've known it is vanishing, and unimaginable hardship awaits.
I absolutely hope that there are studies and research at this moment to learn about the brain and psychological profiles of those who willingly become fodder for the oppressor.
Haven’t Nazi methods been studied enough. As Milton Mayer wrote in “They Thought They We’re Free, The Germans, 1933-45” “You have accepted Things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father never could have imagined.” What has become of our politics is hard for me to imagine although I have watched it materialize for half of my long life. The Republican Party as the enemy is a fact and hard for me to wrap my head around, and for my republican sisters.
Americans have not had the same experiences as Europeans regarding political turmoil. We have lived in a cocoon never believing that it could happen here. It is happening here. Few are prepared.
Michael, there is a great story before us and it is for all of the American people.
There is nothing better to do this weekend than to read ‘The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint'. Nothing Better! Go to the link HCR provided at the end of the Letter’s Notes or begin right here:
Then look at the Blueprint’s Table of Contents. From ‘Empowering Workers’, ‘Building it in America’, ‘security of middle-class families', ‘reducing costs of housing’ to ‘Lower Prices, Raise Wages, and Boost Innovation and Resilience’ -- we have 58 pages before us from which to learn and absorb THE BIDEN - HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT.
‘The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint details how the Administration’s economic policies will, over time, allow the United States to tackle the longstanding economic challenges that President Biden ran for office to address. It lays out a policy vision that is being implemented in a fiscally responsible manner, with over $1 trillion in deficit reduction this year—the most in any year on record—and substantial deficit reduction associated with the Administration’s long-term investments. While it will take time and there is more work to do—including immediate work to support the U.S. economy’s transition from historic recovery to stable, steady, growth with lower inflation—the Biden-Harris Administration has laid the foundation to begin tackling these decades-long economic challenges and finally deliver an economy that works for working families. With this Blueprint in place, not only will more people have a chance to contribute to our nation’s prosperity, but they will finally and fairly reap the benefits of their work.’(THE BIDEN-HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT)
Students/subscribers of Letter from an American there can be no better reading this weekend than THE BIDEN - HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT. And WHAT A LETTER we received! Thank you, BIDEN – HARRIS and Heather Cox Richardson.
Just read most of it. Thanks, Fern. I probably wouldn't have if you hadn't made it so easy.
It's a good read, as they say: clearly written and more interesting than I expected. Highly recommend, even if you don't get through the whole 58 pages. I got to p. 35 and intend to get back to the rest later.
Yes, MaryB, THE BIDEN - HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT is a crucial offering, and I hope it helps with a significant turning of the ship of state -- as well as uplifting OUR LIVES. I will withhold my opinion of taking time to 'psychoanalyze' people belonging to MAGA, except to ask whether it is a understandable and natural psychological defense reflecting our fear and frustration? There is documentary evidence concerning their general economic, racial, religious, age, gender, interests and charitable characteristics. I'll return to the subject in the the near future. Knowing who we are as a people -- and there are a good number of factors -- will determine, in great measure, our course. Salud, MaryB.
Thanks for giving the link again, Fern. Yes, a fresh vision of the USA is here---but as I said elsewhere on this list, it all depends on the undependable media to get this before all the people (even those unwilling to hear the news).
Am reading "American Massacre" by Sally Denton first published in 2003. It's about the Mormon Church. It starts out with recent events concerning the Mountain Meadows massacre that had been covered up. It reviews the Founding of the Mormon Church with Joseph Smith and several other key players inside and outside the Church, who defined it's beliefs and character, and protected it, as it moved across the country from NYS to Utah. The Mormon story relates directly to many of the comments here about MAGA.
History is incredibly reflective. This book written in 2000+ could have been written anytime after 2015 and we would understand the author meant her book to draw parallels about Trump and MAGA. Those drawn to Smith and his supernatural Book of Mormon, along with his pronouncements and edicts were no different than those drawn to Trump. The chosen few close to Smith acted on their opportunities very much like those cl ok se to Trump.
The leaders and followers with Smith created the same hysterical feedback loop of threatening those who they claimed threatened them until this vicious cycle led to abuse and violence that both communities suffered from. However, Smith created literal militia and armies of ruthless men who believed that killing outsiders would "save them" according to Mormon declarations, or so they said. It's never quite clear h oh w much is believed and how much is just a tool for domination.
The Mormon story is also instructive about how a movement, as adversarial or contrary as it might be to majority common interests, can develop political power that draws support or reliation from the wealthiest, most powerful and political people. American leadership, politics and mobs were no less abusive, corrupt, or violent then.
Yes, that through their threats of violence, many dedicated long term election workers have and will quit before midterms and presidential and be reolaced by extremists who will intimidate voters. And so, no matter how many, many things Joe has and will accomplish, republican legislatures will call any election that doesn't turn out in their favor into question and, with their new legislation, overturn any vote. I find it terrifying that America will be governed by extremists and not by the will of the people.
In the early 1930's, Carl Jung wrote that western civilization was experiencing a shift in its collective unconscious, one that would lead to peril. We are at that same point once again.
We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the biosphere and we are still breeding. Our economy has shifted wealth to the elite, creating economic struggle and intense resentment among the majority. We are experiencing the very beginnings of the negative consequences of climate change which will include massive droughts and floods, catastrophic storms, the spread of diseases, famine, water wars, and the elimination of 50% of the species. Experts tell us we may have but 10 years max to turn the Titanic around with regard to the most devastating aspects of climate change, and we are not taking the appropriate action.
And to put it a lot more simply I believe these are the dark times that were predicted—it’s hard to see how we’re getting out of this in 10 years unfortunately.
I am not sure there could be a more ironic situation. To have been bamboozled by a con man into destroying democracy in the name of "murica and MAGA(t) just flummoxes me.
“But those who hate you don’t win, especially if your new Vice President remembers his promise to give you a full pardon. Then laugh all the way to the grave. The Libs were Owned!”
The irony is that so far as I can tell, for the most part their bottom line struggles, below all the decoys that the "GOP" puts forward to hate, is the degree to which ongoing "Reaganomics" reduces them to serfs.
We have to look to the dynamics of addiction to understand Magats. Once you are addicted the only thing that matters is the next fix. Trump is the heroin supplier (while being addicted himself). Those beneath him do all they can to support their habits. Their world becomes narrow and totally focused on the next fix. You can’t love your neighbor while in the grip of needing the next fix.
Meanwhile what is Bill Barr up to??? If he is advising the DOJ to appeal and doing it on Fox, what does that mean? Can anyone interpret what this slime ball is up to and why Fox has him on?
There are many similarities to drug addiction. One of the factors in addiction is a longing for solidarity; looking to find those who share your walk in life... who are, like you, suffering.
He’s exonerating and distancing Bill Barr from the disaster that is Trump and earlier hit jobs. I don’t think he realizes how far back our memories go (though admittedly, mine needs a frequent push.)
That's a very good description of how I feel about Donald, whom I",despise and disparage with the heat of...well...more like cool distain of a cat over a dish of spoiled fish.
Or any other carefully-chosen perfectly good food it doesn't fancy...a cat sniffs at it delicately, turns right round and "buries" it with long purposeful scratches on the floor, then sits down and looks up at you reproachfully.
I live in Brooklyn, New York, now the MAGA world's number one target as a hive of evil liberals. Our cleanng lady, an intelligent immigrant from Hungary, is convinced that the economy and life in general was much better when Trump was president and that Biden has destroyed it all. A repairman was here the other day with a truck with "Let's Go Brandon" painted on it. He is a very smart and charming Israeli immigrant. They both seem to be enthralled by Fox or worse. And they will not listen to anything else.
I don'r get it. Well, OK, I sort of get it: Many, many people pay little attention to day-to-day political events, and if they ever had any civics education, they've long since forgotten it. They get their information about the outside world from a single source and don't have the tools to evaluate it. All that I get. What I don't get is what to do about it.
Barney, help! I can't find your comment on Leo's plan to destroy the court system. There is so much good distractions, plus 4 cats, that I lost my place and can't find it. Please hel? me find it?
Incredible how people are duped. All kinds of factors & influences. But a book written in the 1970s described our technological & social trend toward media & information as "entertainment" rather than facts and intelligence. Wish I could remember the book. Still available on Thrift Books. Com. So many predictors of this behavior. George Orwell's 1984. And Animal Farm.
Biden cleverly takes the wind out the GOP's sails. The Republicans have wanted to make the election about the economy, and if that economy is recovering, jobs continue to be created, gas prices have dropped significantly, what can they accuse him of, how is he failing? Sure hope this gains lots of traction!
It all depends on how the media (NYT and WaP0) handle and publicize this (or not). They have a hard time celebrating Biden's accomplishments. There are massive capital invenstments in projects in NC and elsewhere. The word has to get out.......
Is the Fed being rigidly obtuse, or do they simply want to push down wages and harm Biden so the owning class can be ever richer in an ever poorer country?
given that there are more jobs now than ever before (10 million in 2 years), pushing down inflation so $100,000 houses cost $250,000 instead of $400,000 doesn't seem undesirable, especially as contract work start dates are 3 years out at the moment.
Biden has been pushing down inflation by successful steps to lower gas prices and by fostering competition so that meat packers, for example, do not have 4 companies controlling the whole market.
The Fed raising interest rates, in contrast, is meant to keep wages down. Since wages are not the drivers of inflation, that will harm workers without helping anyone else, other than owners of large companies who are already doing very well.
This election and probably the 2024 election are going to be referendums one one overarching topic: the fundamental rights of American citizens, individually and collectively. Democrats especially tend to thrill at the intricate policies they propose to accomplish their dreams while Republicans focus on the emotions that can be generated with a focus on moral attitudes and behaviors. Biden won the nomination and the election becaused he recognized that we as a nation are at a crossroads in settling the issue of the role of democracy in our federal republic. This is THE issue.
As someone who worked with the administration of classified information—storage, classification downgrading, and declassification—at the Division level and below in the US Army, I need to have someone explain to me how the stash of classified documents at Mara Lago, clearly extracted from required protected storage are not considered compromised and in need of immediate harm-prevention counter-measures. Outside of secure channels, those documents could have been photographed, scanned, hand-copied, and whatever, and, as such, have lost their value as intelligence information; the information is not fixed to the paper once the rules of use—proper security clearance and need-to-know—are compromised. All sensitive documents (those found and those not yet found) need to be recovered and returned to protected status for precautionary reasons since possible further leakage must be prevented, but what is of utmost importance is getting the former president and anyone with access to the information contained in those documents into functioning thumb-screws and under oath in order to try to find out how those documents were moved about and shared. Until serious accountability for those documents can be assured, anyone with the information from those documents in his or her brain needs to be kept in preventative detention to keep further damage from being done, and until counter-measures can be taken to limit further compromising use. For those of us tasked with safeguarding defense information in our principle command entities and in their subordinate units, we were trained to understand implicitly we had the personal responsibility to protect the effectiveness and survival of our command with our own lives. Trump is no longer President, he should never have been trusted with life or death decisions bearing on the durability of our country as a citizen-community of mutual trust, his ability to do further harm must be neutralized—NOW.
Having served as a classified material control officer myself, unless something has changed, there’s a chain of custody. A written record of who checked out what, and when. With names on it. I want the names.
Every piece of paper ever viewed/handled by trump lost its chain of command the moment he obtained it. Trump has no respect for any precedent, rule or requirement.
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knew this the moment he invited to the WH and shared intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak just 2 months after taking office.
It is bizarre the degree to which politics is able to thumb its nose at national interest, again and again, and again, from evidence of Russian intrusion into our electoral process, evidence that COVID and poor preventative actions kills people, evidence that antropogenic climate unbalancing is threatening populations, evidence that extremely grave national security risks have been made extremely vulnerable, if not badly compromised. I keep waiting for checks and balances to take hold. That is seeming more likely at this point, but Trump and his party continue to make the situation worse. So yes, surely some decisive proactive action now.
Your comment to my remark on the mishandling of classified information at Mara Lago is welcome. I find it a good sign, not a bad one, that you are deeply bothered by the list you gave of what amounts to governance failure. It's a sign of good health to be bothered about what you might believe failed the "good of the people" accountability test. As messy and alarming as the open struggle of "thinking outloud" (a market place of ideas is a noisy place like any living market) probably has to be in an open, free society like ours, the differences we have benefit by exposure to the sunlight of public scrutiny and dinner-table debate. Experience as a form of living matter requires constant up-keep and restructuring so that often painful changes to our familiar environment, which amount to occasional up-grade and rebirth, can occur in a beneficial way. The "American Experiment" with popular rule began with the rejection of authoritarian rule indifferent to public opinion, and especially negative opinion. Think of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny being "disappeared" in a prison cell out of hearing distance. The collective effort of the American people to rapidly come together as the factory of war materials for the eminently successful Allied effort in World War II to respond to the cynical rise of animal brutishness and the pyrrhic urges of third-rate minds to burn down the house and dance in the ashes. The worthy "opposition" conservative party in our two-party system is crumbling and working on hidden, dirty money to put off political death as long as possible. The obstructionism presently practiced by increasingly degenerate selfie-loving factions in combat costume, at social-media organized photo-ready Rambo actions, is not attracting the rising new generations of increasingly educated US Americans who can see the value of what the US did to found and promote the postwar rule based extra-national order we are still building on today. It is a positive affirmation of what I am saying that self-styled authoritarian "traditionalists" (since last week) like Trump, Orban, Putin and Bolsonaro are so incredibly LAUGHABLE. As a modern community of proud "ordinary citizens" capable of forming our own opinions to sell in the idea market-place, I wish our Midis former president good-golden riddance. I'll throw in a muffler to show I'm happy to see the back-end of this sick-joke.
Yes, they need to be recovered and properly safe-guarded, but anyone who thinks any other nation with a competent intelligence-gathering organization (that is, even halfway competent spies) and an interest in knowing what’s in those documents doesn’t already have copies of the documents (or the originals) in their posession is just whistlin’ Dixie. The horse has been out of the barn and on the lam since somewhere around February, 2017.
A vainglorious fool with access to our nation's state secrets would hardly escape the notice of any self-repecting spy, especially at his semi-public club.
I have been wondering if this security breach can be prosecuted by the USMCJ, do you know about that? As our commander in chief at the time of the breach, it seem this could be handled in military court. He’d have a harder time with those career military justices. And Leavenworth seems like an appropriate result for such a breach.
Thanks for this report. It's a mystery why things are proceeding as they have been reported. Let's hope there's another story that we don't know about.
When on Facebook, I frequently read comments left on posts that tout this administration’s achievements. Invariably, there are comments left by MAGA Republicans that spew Fox “News” talking points about the evils this Democratic administration has perpetuated. This saddens, infuriates and frustrates me no end. We can shout from the rooftops everything Joe Biden and the Democrats have done for the middle class, for the economy, for foreign affairs, but the MAGAt’s don’t hear, or don’t absorb any of it. The Lincoln Project has managed to buy advertising time on Fox, and has run clever and scathing ads about DT; would it be possible for ad time to be purchased on Fox News that talks about all of the good things that have been accomplished by Joe Biden and the Democrats? And could this maybe cause even the slightest fissure to form in some closed minds? (Hope springs eternal 😁)
I read something that the other day that struck a chord (and a funny bone) with me, it said something to the effect: “Using Fox News as a source in an argument is like claiming to be a Marine Biologist because you watch SpongeBob Squarepants. 🤣🤣
On a happier note, Michigan’s ballot in November will include both an initiative for women’s reproductive rights, and one for expanded voting rights. The MI Supreme Court overruled the Board of Canvassers ruling that neither could be on the ballot due to minor technicalities (like font size and word spacing on the petitions). 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
As a native Michigander who has watched the militias march through the capitol in Lansing with fear and loathing, I am oh so glad to see my home state showing some modicum of common sense. Vote!
As for Facebook, liking and replying to posts will raise them in the rankings and make them more visible. So respond accordingly - raise worthwhile posts only. To reply to problem posts, write a new top-level comment, so your added material does not raise up bad stuff by replying under it.
Within the comments on a particular article, write a new comment disagreeing with whatever, rather than a reply to the negative comment. A reply would elevate the post you don't like in facebook's rankings, causing more people to see it.
For the same reason, 'like' or 'care' or whatever on comments you want more people to see, and reply to them if you can, even only to say "Agreed" or "exactly right".
There's actually a set of Facebook groups - the US one is named IAmHereUS - whose members actively find controversial posts and add comments/likes so that respectful conversation floats to the top and fewer people are subjected to hateful comments.
Thank you! I always wanted THAT person to know he/she were wrong or misguided, but wasn’t aware of what that would mean. Who knew social media could be so complicated ( or skewed)
Very well said Cathy. I too hear about what Trump did that conservatives like and try to figure out what they're talking about. Trump turned over governance to special interests in dark smoke-filled rooms while he campaigned and Tweeted while Rome burned. Give me a break. Turning Stephen Miller loose on helpless people on our southern border is like turning your daughter over to a rapist with an attitude. Blowing up the nuclear treaty with Iran: it makes for a good show, but don't send me the bill for what that cost. And, would Putin have been so ready to turn to made-for-tv butchery if he had been encouraged to think the US was not going Trump? His negligent response to Covid—it's a states-rights issue—is border-line crime against humanity, in this case fellow Americans. Let's see, is bullying China, in a go-to-the-nuke-mat manner (for the cameras) a good long run policy. Today's China is a "never-again" product of failure to protect itself from trade predators in Imperial times, and its failure to defend itself against Japanese barbary that you have to bite into, if you have the stomach, to answer "What's the beef?". I guess he showed Queen Elizabeth, bless her memory, what it means to be a rule-bashing USAmerican by taking his whole family to a no-guests Royal dinner. And winning Kim Jong II over to denuclearization with a big kiss has proven to be less successful than its dress rehearsal in The Apprentice theater. And, not least, Trump did make a place in the political right family for proud insurrectionists, wannabe thugs, tasteless sillies, and serious goof-balls; just the sort jawbreakers you invite to a righteous, intelligent exchange of competing opinions—and bring your own tikka torch and the dynamite to light it with. Discouraging immigrants from "shit-hole" countries is not really in the American Spirit as written on the Statue of Liberty, but what can one expect from a dude whose dad kept postwar sponsored Levit-town houses out of the red-line hands of black and brown veterans. And what about impromptu grass-roots, unannounced public executions with military-style assault rifles. When I was in the military, the assault rifles where stored under triple lock and key in the unit armory, in constant view of the day-duty staff and the night Charge of Quarters. When arms are issued in the military, soldiers are trained to point them away from each other if at all possible. So, explain where the tax cuts for the wealthy trickled away too. Great job, Donald.
Trump's attempt to "reverse reality" with his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and all the others he claimed had conspired against him is literally his "Gaslighting Greatest Hits". I truly wish someone would write a Big Picture account of Trump as having "a life built on gaslighting". There is such a thing as saying great things about yourself to pump up your ego (Muhammad Ali famously did that before every fight). But that was in service of achieving a "recognized good" in the world: winning a boxing match. Trump has used similar language in service of achieving a "recognized bad" in the world: not paying his taxes... not paying for goods received... conning his way into being POTUS so he could use that position to get rich... and more.
His life long "gaslighting game" deserves to be exposed separate from all the accounts of his individual crimes.
It’s been exposed, re-exposed, double-exposed, and exposed every which way including loose. The problem is that at least 74 million voters think it’s just fine.
With all due respect, it's been exposed one incident at a time... because the news industry has a lot of trouble telling big picture / over time stories. I wish the real author of "The Art of the Deal" (who has acknowledge his key role in making Trump seem like a real leader) would write the book I'm thinking needs to be written. Just my opinion of course.
Judge Middlebrooks trashes Trump and his lawyers! My favorite part of opinion is on the last page. "I reserve jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions." Ha ha LMAO!
"suggesting that Trump has no grounds to assert executive privilege over the classified information seized."
In other words, you don't retain the privileges of a job you no longer have, especially if you are doing something that has potential to do harm to your former employer. You don't get to drive the company car, you don't get to take home company laptops, you don't get speak as a company representative, or remove the contents of the company safe.
How can a President run the country if a prior President did things about which the current President is not allowed to know? It is an absolute joke, so much so that maybe MAYBE even the 11th Cir. will have to agree?
But if you've never actually been an employee, in the great world of business, you wouldn't know all that. On "The Apprentice", there was a script. Let's be fair. (Sarc.)
Oh frabjous day! One frivolous suit tossed, one incompetent, half-assed judge given a lesson in the law, and the President gets to give good news to the people. Huzzah!
Two investigations, one by an independent investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and another by the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed that Russia had attacked the U.S. presidential election in 2020 -- wasn't it the 2016 election that was investigated? It's so hard to keep all the investigations straight.
We started a Tending to Democracy Giving Circle inspired by Heather when she says we all have to speak up for democracy. You can make a donation in honor of Heather for her wedding and post your comment on the site! Helping to save democracy--can we imagine her wanting anything else as a gift? Note your intention in the Giving Circle survey. We will tie a big proverbial bow around this gift to present to her!
Ellie. Please mention to her that some substantial donations already made by those joining the Giving Circle during this past week. And that those, too, honor her dedication to democracy.
Good morning from India!, Carol, I think with 45’s help and his relationship with Putin, BOTH elections were interfered with by Russia and perhaps others. Look at all the MAGA allies with ties to Russia, to Turkey (another dictatorship), with “investments” in those countries and advice being given to the governments by Flynn and Guiliani. Let them investigate into the wild blue yonder….Because of vigilance by our poll watchers and others who care about democracy, it is a sheer miracle the votes got counted correctly and Biden-Harris won!
"While Biden and Harris are focused on the economy and the future, the Department of Justice is still handling crises created by the former president."
Yup, we're 18 months and counting, and the Justice Department and House Select Committee are working overtime to expose and begin to clean up the monumental mess left by the would-be Orange Emperor of MAG-A-Lago. I think it's a reasonable guess that all the wealth he might have won't be enough to cover the cost of the judicial hazmat operation(s) required to adjudicate his misdeeds, and the subsequent legislative efforts to erect more guardrails so his minions can't pull of similar stunts in the future.
The real truth of the matter, as we all know, is that there is no "happy place" where we can relax into the assurance that we're safe from what we have experienced dating all the way back to Newt and the "Contract with America". Perhaps we are only now becoming fully aware that ETERNAL VIGILANCE is the only protector of democracy. It can only be divine providence that the articles and amendments to the constitution prevent us from putting a bounty on Trolls. Freedom of speech will guarantee that they'll always be with us. What will it take to send them back to the caves and under the rocks from whence they emerged? Zero tolerance. Historically high participation at the ballot box. Engagement with the media in ways that punish the Echo Chambers of Hatred. Can you even imagine an America where 90%+ eligable voters participate in EVERY national election? I don't think it's exaggerating to say that the vast majority of us want reasonable things from our Government, at all levels. Service, not Stardom. Cooperation, not gladiators in the Roman Coliseum. Courage, not cowardice. Humility, not hubris and hyperbole. Debate, not dunking on one another. Kindness? Decorum? Statesmanship? Do these things exist anymore?
Nathan, did these last things ever exist in American democracy? During the Washington administration, Secretary of State Jefferson tried to convince GW that his Sec. of Treasury Hamilton was planning a coup with King of England! Remember that Hamilton was essentially an orphan and GW was a father to Hamilton was GW's Chief of Staff during the war. Jefferson also helped draft a secessionist document for the Virginia legislature. In more recent times, Diane Rehm's podcast today for WAMU titled 'Drawing A Line From McCarthyism To January 6th' explains how GOP was so desperate that they tried to smear FDR by holding hearings claiming that FDR knew of the impending attack at Pearl Harbor but allowed it to transpire so he could get the country into WWII. So besides the question 'will our democracy survive current MAGAs', another question is how has it survived soooo long? I have no idea.
Tyranny ebbs and flows, and while human rights progress may be advancing for one sector of society, it may be lacking or receding for another. That said, I think some eras and cultures as a whole a collectively better than others, and, it has been argued, as you look back in to the history of culture, the overall trend has been one of less violence and despair. That's not to say we can't blow it utterly. McCarthy used lies and smears to build his hold on power, but got smacked down. We had a two term black president and a female presidential candidate received the most votes, which I don't think was possible 50 years ago, but 40 years ago, even prominent Republicans thought, after "Watergate", that Nixon was out of line. The WAPO was the public's champion. It seems that a party-wide embrace of winning by treachery was launched with Reagan. The scale of current "GOP" corruption now dwarfs Watergate and its coverup. I think we have been letting a whole lot slip.
" ETERNAL VIGILANCE is the only protector of democracy. "
Vigilance, engagement, compassion, and preponderant good faith. It's not just a game, it is our quality of life and our future, and our children's, children', children's future at stake.
90%? How hard would it be to activate government of the people, by the people, for the people, all of the people, if we collectively decided that was the way?
Every time TFG gets close to being caught in one of his illegal schemes, he gets his lawyers to flood the courts with demands, delays and distractions. This special master nonsense
Cheryl P. - "Every time TFG gets close to being caught in one of his illegal schemes, he gets his lawyers to flood the courts with demands, delays and distractions."
Adapted from (perhaps) "A thousand and One Nights" -- IIRC, it goes something like this:
Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: "𝘐𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸?" To which he replied: "𝘖𝘩, 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳! 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘩 𝘕𝘢𝘴𝘳𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯, 𝘢𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘥𝘰𝘮, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘚𝘰 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘮 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘵." The king was amused, and said: "𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘸𝘦'𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶."
As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: "𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘺." Nasrudin's response: "𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘦. 𝘐 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘦."
Trump lies. And the entire Republican apparatus spins his bad impulses into worse facts on the ground.'Reversing reality' did not start with Trump.
Smugly, smirkingly, and sanctimoniously turning things on their head - the specious rhetoric of saying things are exactly what they are not, perverting language to pervert history - has been the modus operandi of the GOP since the Southern Strategy. It was the hallmark of the slave states after the failed Confederacy to metamorphose defeated traitors into heritage heroes. It is the hallmark of the racist right wing religious extremists who style themselves 'originalists' and 'textualists' - the only truth of it being that they want to elide the Founders' and Framers' revolutionary message of radical equality and remove every reform which has made progress to that goal, in order to reinstate a dystopia of economic injustice as their New Jerusalem. Elevated by Federalist Society honcho, dark money impresario, and Opus Dei acolyte Leonard Leo living out his arriviste wet dreams as a flash oenophile - turning the holy sacraments of the church into the blood sport of the unrepentant pedophile priests and unreconstructed nazi popes of his youth.
This is what Biden and the Democratic Party are up against. The Progressive Caucus understands the need for unity, compromise, and step by step advances.. The old unionist Left and the leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement understood voting as political strategy rather than personal expression. It didn't give us Eden but it kept the snakes away.
Has anybody read Aileen Cannon's answers to the Questionnaire for Judicial nominees? Go to page 12 bottom.
"I have tried six cases to verdict, 4 as an Assistant United States Attorney, and two before Administrative agencies as an associate at Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher LIP. Of the four cases I tried as an AUSA, I was chief counsel in two and Associate Council in two. Of the two administrative proceedings of which I participated; I served as the Associate Counsel. "https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Cannon%20SJQ%20-%20PUBLIC.pdf
That is the extent of her lawyering. Maybe that is enough?
'Associate Counsel' means she made no decisions but was given cameo appearances on tangential portions of the case. Cases before administrative agencies are essentially merely evidentiary hearings around a conference table, no jury, lax rules of evidence. Of the 4 as AUSA, we do not know if criminal or civil, jury or Bench, misdemeanor or felony. So exclude the 2 administrative 'hearings', exclude the 2 'cameo' appearances as AUSA, she may have tried 2 small cases of civil or misdemeanor variety against a Public Defender, we do not know. She probably jumped onto these trivial matters I would guess so she could say she had 'trial experience', LMAO! Sort of like HW Bush saying Clarence Thomas was the most qualified lawyer in America to be a Justice, a guy who practiced law for one year in state government before becoming an administrator. The qualifications to be a GOP judicial appointment are 1-ideological purity and 2-young of age, 3-maybe a side promises on future rulings would not surprise me, but we have no evidence of it other than coincidence that they all decide exactly as GOP ideology demands.
There is no need to guess. Follow the link and you can see each event she participated in as an attorney. Start at page 12 at the bottom, so you can see why I wrote what I did. There is more than the six she enumerated on page 12. You can decide what you want. A brief description of each case is there. starting on page 13.
Saw it, tells us nothing about magnitude of cases. Still could be civil or criminal misdemeanor cases, these could trival nothing cases. BUT something makes no sense. She claims 67% of trials were jury, 33% Bench. She claims 4 Federal trials. BUT WAIT, 67% of 4 = 2.68 trials, it does not divide evenly. Thus either her percentages are wrong or number of trials is wrong...ha ha or both. Bottom line, she has virtually NO TRIAL EXPERIENCE! There are kids coming out of law school clinics with that amount of trial experience.
Maybe she is claiming 4 jury trials in court, 2 administrative trials thus 4/6 =2/3? Administrative hearings in front of an ALJ are not trials to real lawyers.
Which is what I implied and had hope you would grasp without my detailing it for you. There are some things I will not break down as I believe they are self evident to the reader. Perhaps she listed her most important cases? I am satisfied the judge is out of the element needed to make a decision on this issue.
Something I heard yesterday was that the tfg people preferred candidates with little or no experience—I guess so they could be sure they learned to think and adjudicate properly.
LOL! Maybe the cart is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang driven by Mary Poppins disguised as a judge who has yet to reveal her graduating maga-zoom-loudly with a degree in Special Mastering from Hogwarts Academy.
Taking the entire country on a trip down this rabbit hole leaves all of us screaming to wake up from our nightmare spent under the orange shadow of Mordor a Lago.
Just playing with the weak preparation of Judge Cannon, considering she weighs in to the most significant corruption and potential national security case of our time. Not even open to amicus briefs.
I was astounded when she denied the amicus briefs. She has ruined her standing with this case. I hope it has consequences but I fear it won’t. At least the Fox in the henhouse has been exposed.
To start, I expect that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, though not sufficient, was necessary for Americans overall to galvanize around Democratic messaging, wherein we also find a much tougher, much stronger Biden who, in the past few weeks, is connecting far better with audiences relative to both Democratic accomplishments and also the need to engage now in the necessary actions to protect our democracy. Additionally, there is no doubt, in a country that historically has gained rights over time, that taking away a women’s constitutional right to legal access to abortion care has mobilized women and men to an unprecedented degree that I imagine greatly will impact local, state, and federal elections.
Simply put, I expect the conflation of each of the foregoing factors, combined with a DOJ astutely stitching together a blueprint of all the criminal offenses seemingly committed by a command structure up to and including Trump, have precipitated a nationwide shift in momentum to Democrats that conceivably could defy decades of midterm wins for the party not in power.
Gail, As I’ve posted in the past, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, “Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.” Here I would add that at few points prior to victory could activists have proved that their individual efforts mattered. Hence, we persist because we believe our cause is right and just and moral.
We started a Tending to Democracy Giving Circle inspired by Heather when she says we all have to speak up for democracy. You can make a donation in honor of Heather for her wedding and post your comment on the site! Helping to save democracy--can we imagine her wanting anything else as a gift? Note your intention in the Giving Circle survey. We will tie a big proverbial bow around this gift to present to her!
There is a conservative claim that the $400,000 minimum for people to be audited by the IRS has now been lowered to $200,000. I have not seen this actually verified, by any trustworthy source, yet it is being spread about by wealthy residents in our area, as a way to discredit the Biden Administration's efforts.
Once again, the conservatives have mixed up the taxation portion of Biden’s plan (taxes do not go up on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year) and the fact that the IRS is restaffing to levels pre-Trump (getting the phone answered will be nice). Past records show that fewer than 1% of tax returns with $200,000 or less in income are audited, with the number going up to 10% of returns with income above $1,000,000.
Of course they are. They have no platform of their own, except for “tell lies about the opposition ad nauseam”
It occurs to me that there is some serious cognitive dissonance, considering that TFG was ready to pull us out of NATO because he was incensed that the other countries were not paying their fair share. Yet here at home, the wealthy don’t pay even close to their fair share in taxes, but he didn’t seem to care and didn’t see it as a problem that needed to be addressed. (And in fact gave them even more tax breaks to the detriment of every other taxpayer in the country.)
Lie, obfuscate, dangle a shiny faux gold plated carrot in one hand, and steal everything with the other. That’s their playbook.
I've thought often recently about what it must be like to be a delusional MAGA zealot. Someone who has no clue that they live in an utterly false reality. They only know the extremes of blind love for Trump and burning hate for Biden and all Democrats. Information to the contrary never penetrates their programmed, single-minded thinking.
In other words, they have no idea that President Biden and Democrats in Congress, whom they despise and disparage with the heat of a thousand suns, have accomplished so many things that are improving their lives now and long into the future.
Could there be a sadder, more tragic irony in America?
Think of Wiley Coyote, pursuing the roadrunner off cliffs, running into walls with painted tunnels, then being run over by a train or truck or bus coming out of the painted tunnel. Cognitive dissonance is ringing like a bell for the MAGAts, and it makes them angry and uncertain and very, very dangerous.
AG, I think your metaphor of "Wiley" comes very close, manic to the point of confusion over reality, unable to reason deductively, easily manipulated to the point of destroying family bonds. Very dangerous to others as you said.
If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?
James Madison
"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." - James Baldwin
We have a lot to overcome in todays politics and self deception is probably the hardest to overcome. Whether it is credulity or cultivated contempt for law and order, we have problems.
100%
MAGAs are not tragic figures, and they aren’t honestly delusional. They are willfully delusional. They have a specific goal: ensuring that white Christians control government at all levels in the United States. It’s definitely ironic but much worse than sad.
It's a shame that the vast number of real Christians are invisible in the face of the Zealots who claim the mantle but fail to comprehend and practice the very basic tenants of the faith they claim to protect. If they have their way, it won't be white Christians, or any Christian for that matter, who end up in the halls of power.
I belong to a Presbyterian church that leans liberal in both its membership and pastoral leadership. Never has our pastor preached anything remotely political from the pulpit. But using the words of Bible and employing both metaphors and lived experiences, she has made the case that as believers in God - or a higher power, or a spirit greater than ourselves - we have a shared responsibility in doing good in this world; that we must hold our elected officials, or anyone who claims a role in any leadership, to be honest and respect the rule of law.
I am able to separate my faith from my politics, though it is my faith that in some way has shaped my politics. I believe that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That we care for our fellow beings and for our earth. I believe that we are all entitled to practice the faith that calls to our spirit and beliefs.
That so many have usurped “religion” for their own political benefit is anathema to me.
I'm an atheist, and I believe exactly the same things about doing good, loving my neighbors, caring for them and our earth. Why do people think that only religion can foster these ideas & goals?
It may be harsh to say but I believe religion, that is particularly formal dogmatic religion, has made people too often look in the wrong direction and fail to simply direct focus on supporting a kind, loving, inclusive society.
If you were to choose a hundred atheists at random and also a hundred random people who count themselves as Christians, I’m confident that you would find several times as many people with admirable values among the atheists than among the Christians.
You are correct, I know many not believers of a number of cultures who strongly believe as you do.
They are no doubt brainwashed!
No white evangelical Trump voter has beliefs anywhere near as admirable as yours. That’s the crux of the problem.
I don't agree, because "some" and it may not be many do believe in helping their fellow man. For most they are simply following the leadership or "church going" is part of the regional culture.
The real evil is the leadership who are in it just for the power and money.
I grew up in that world but left it behind more than a half century ago.
Couldn’t be more true, Pharisees rule the fools
It’s sad, I know. Thank you
Our church has also avoided the politics, however enough members support trump as their choice of leader causes me to think twice about their understanding of the Gospel
Its a reality of “what can you be thinking?”
They probably swear to FOX for their fake news! I know one!
Update, today’s message extolled the virtues of the Samaritan that helped the robbery victim; to the Chagrin of the Pharisees
There are many clerics from different denominations that have been drawn into political debate. Archbishop Cordileone openly condemned Speaker Pelosi. Appalling! Franklin Graham runs ads on TV that basically reinforce MAGA thinking. There is much twisting of what Chritianity means. As even religious leaders are drawn into the fray, they reinforce the perversion of scripture. And most importantly, they most definitely do not separate their faith from their politics. They do not accept the separation of church and state.
If you haven't read.... Jesus and John Wayne.... please get a copy and read it! I was in shock! All in the name of Christianity! Actually, filling their pockets at the expense of their flock!
And Franklin's father must be spinning in his grave. I've only seen Franklin on the news once or twice, and it made me ill each time.
Yes and they are loudly praying in the Temple. I know people whose faith does inform their social conscious and they work to make the world a better place. But they don't usually capture headlines.
Praying, preying, money changing...
A pity that good news is no news.
And the Good News, even when heard, is often not understood.
Marg, you have beautifully described how faith in a God leads us "to love our neighbors as we love ourselves." Hell will freeze over before the "politicians" who claim their faith leads them actually live and lead by that faith.
...faith in a God leads us "to love our neighbors as we love ourselves." As I said before, we atheists also love our neighbors and our planet.
I too am a Presbyterian. Your words are so true. However, we in our church have a few that bought the "Big Lie".
We’re on the same wavelength on this matter, but the people you and I put in the zealot category would classify themselves as real Christans and put us in the zealot category. There’s no general agreement on definitions. Pretty much everyone agrees on who the white evangelicals are, though, and 80% of them voted for Trump. Twice. If the white evangelical electorate were no worse (as human beings), on the average, than the white electorate generally (“only” 60% of whom voted for Trump), the orange clown wouldn’t have become president. To me (and maybe you, too) this is ironic, tragic, and bad in many other ways, but to them it’s the best possble outcome (or “God’s will” as they like to put it).
that may be...what's important is that YOU can tell the difference. I can tell you there are MANY evangelicals who don't view TFG as the second coming of Christ.
Here's what's REALLY hard about it all...they are our neighbors, and our mandate is clear; we're supposed to love them like we do ourselves. Like loving your teenager who's spitting in your eye. The big tent is supposed to have room for them too. That's enough to keep me completely occupied, just trying to live by the two greatest commandments. I can't love them while I'm throttling them until they stop breathing...
A misunderstanding, I fear, of love, which runs deeper than our sentimental conception of it and its demands.
Think of the Inuit hunter who asks forgiveness of the beast he kills and wishes it a happier rebirth.
That's not a perfect analogy, but you are doing something awful that must be done, not only to protect many but to prevent the enemy from doing worse and, in so doing, harming himself even more deeply.
It is easier to think of self-sacrifice than of this awful duty imposed by the need to protect ourselves and others, but there is an element of self-sacrifice, for whoever takes a life will pay for the deed.
These are awful things to write or think about but we have to face the demands of a deeper commitment.
Yes to every syllable
In a nutshell. Yes.
That is my corundum, I love my MAGAt nephews, but stopped respecting them long ago. Deliberate ignorance is way worse than stupidity.
That’s a tough assignment you’ve taken on. I admire you for that but think your efforts would be more efficiently invested in working with well-organized projects to get Dem-leaning voters to the polls than in struggling to love your MAGA neighbors. Maybe you could redirect, just for the next couple months, then get back to the hard stuff.
point well delivered...good thing you can try to love someone while spanking them at the polls!
no sense in trying to change their minds, convince them of a different version of reality. It's the disillusioned, disaffected, "checked out" folks on the sidelines that will make the difference in this cycle. Those who see the foundations of democracy on trial will be there. It's those who have tuned out who we need to reach.
But the father didn't chase after his son and force fatted calf upon him as he walked away; no, he let the boy go and threw him a party after he returned.
Their's is a distinction between the sinners among them and the sins of the other, outside of the faith? The former shall be given (deserving of?) our forgiveness, while the later we must wage against for were they to pursue the sins ( policies, goals, duplicity) they promote, our believe system (christianity) would be destroyed. The sins (named communism, socialis, secularism, abortion, welfare, democrat, questioning establish mythology, preferring lentils to whole wheat) are studied and enumerated and appraised not as ideas or options but as weapons of evil. IMHO
True. I know that there are "real Christians" who are tolerant, loving and generous. But their leaders are very quiet. Is it a fear of alienating already shrinking congregations? I would think if there is a future for "Christianity" it would be if it stood for the right values - LOUDLY. Pavlovitz is perhaps a positive example. https://johnpavlovitz.com/
How to sort a "good Christian" from a "bad Christian"? The good one respects and honors the faiths of others. The bad one says their faith is the "only righteous one". He is really not practicing a faith but is part of a cult of exclusion. Therefore by definition, a "bad Christian" is no Christian at all.
When the preacher or leader of one's religion says that his religion is the "only true faith", please find one's self a new church or join the millions (young people in particular) who simply don't need the nonsense of hate, exclusion and hypocrisy within an antique hierarchy. That "only true faith" is built for control, not love.
Those “Leaders” are focusing on not losing the money each seat represents in that congregation. Organized religion is the opposite of what that guy from Nazareth modeled. Quiet equals complicity.
DJT for one, who I don't think has any religion except power and money.
And ego
And a total lack of any moral compass.
Amen!
Rex, the Christianity to which you refer is no Christianity at all.
It stands for everything Christ denounced and died for denouncing.
I don’t think they’re Christians either, but they think they’re Christians, and they believe that as fervently as you believe they’re wrong. I don’t give a damn about the Christian label. What I believe is that there are 74 million US voters that the country, and the planet for that matter, would be better off without. Unfortunately, we can’t rid ours of them (what would we do with the corpses?), but if we’re lucky, we might be able to outvote them, just barely, and begin the decades-long process of forming some reasonable kind of US body politic.
Please take note-they are NOT Christians. The term Christian means “Christ follower” and there is nothing of Jesus the Christ found in them. Jesus’ call was that we are to love one another. They have hijacked the name and distorted the message for their own purposes. It’s sick and sad and an abomination to Christianity, not to mention an affront to true patriots and adherents to our Constitution who value freedom of religion and the right to vote among all the other gifts that document ensures.
Okay, that’s your definition, but there is no generally agreed upon definition of what it means to be a Christian. Anybody can claim the mantel. Slave owners did, for example, and they not only justified their ownership of other human beings as a basic tenet of their faith but also believed that anyone who disagreed with them on that point could not rightly call themselves Christians. It’s not much different today. So much for progress, eh?
It is true that anyone can make fraudulent claims and get away with it, especially if people don't take the trouble to check the matter out thoroughly.
My job as a translator recently brought me into contact with the four gospels plus a key document, the Gospel of Thomas, found in Egypt in 1945. I think I can claim to be a dispassionate reader.
All I can say is that, while the last-named text is demanding, when it comes to interpretation, the teaching is a radical work of liberation. Yet, for most of the history of the religion, ever since it became the official religion of the Roman empire, political considerations have weighed heavily on ecclesiastical interpretation of the Gospels and this has been skewed in such a way as to give priority to hierarchies and social control at the expense of spiritual content.
What is most curious is how Protestant Evangelicals have allied themselves with the most retrograde Roman Catholic circles and gone to extreme lengths to transform the work of liberation into one of oppression and imprisonment, as well as engaging in the most horrendous missionary activity, all in the name of Jesus. Part of this is a consequence of failed far-right politicians finding themselves a profitable tax-free niche as all-powerful "ministers of religion", loading their congregations with chains of guilt, the better to control them...
Centuries of crude literalist misinterpretation of the teaching have put a heavy lid on the essential message, which shows us, not what we should be but what we essentially are. "The kingdom of God is within you".
Mike Flynn, working in the highest echelons of US intelligence, had a front row seat to how “faith” can be used to create jihadists. “Then one of JSOC’s Special Forces strike teams raided an AQI safe house and captured 12 men who were unlike the typical brutish Al Qaeda thugs. These older men were the senior managers and vice presidents of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The network they had established was sophisticated far beyond the early reckoning of U.S. commanders, with interlinked logistics, transportation, information, money management and strike operations, all of it worthy of a multinational conglomerate.
As JSOC’s director of intelligence, Flynn interrogated the senior Al Qaeda commanders at length. Sitting across from them at the detainee screening facility at Balad Air Base, Iraq, Flynn wondered why such obviously educated and intelligent people were devoting themselves to tearing their country apart, regardless of the horrendous toll in innocent lives. Some of the men had electrical engineering and other advanced degrees, but instead of building a bridge or helping establish a functioning government, they applied their talents to attacking vulnerable governing institutions in order to terrorize and intimidate civilians. He could understand their hatred of American interlopers, but the vast majority of their tens of thousands of victims were fellow Iraqis.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362/
M
That which we don’t know can hurt us. I am suspicious of corporate owned media failing to give us “real news”.
https://buckscountybeacon.com/2022/08/underreported-and-massive-theocratic-movement-joins-forces-with-michael-flynn-and-roger-stone/
Shades of General Jack D. Ripper...
If you'd made this all up as fiction 25 years ago wouldn't you, the writer, have been in danger of being locked up in a psychiatric hospital? No work of the imagination could ever dream up anything to match real-life American lunacy...
Heaven help us!
Thanks for one of the most interesting comments I've ever read ! Another rabbit hole!
How right you are, Christianity has been useful to zealots as much as any religion. I used to think such was in the past. Silly me.
Not sure I agree, Rex, about willfully delusional. Your run-of-the-mill MAGA type is typically under educated, indoctrinated by right-wing propaganda, and raised to be racist.
That said, the big monied interests that manipulate them are indeed intent on establishing "Christian" control of government.
As a renegade pastor, I simply cannot get around the silly irony of the word Christian. Jesus (Jaschuah ben Josef) was a brown-skinned Jewish rabbi who spoke Aramaic and who basically refused to be so arrogant as to call himself "Christ."
Sure, but test that against Luke 4:18-21 and Luke 9:20. And it sounds potentially misleading to speak of "a Jewish rabbi" at a time when Temple Judaism was still in existence.
I don't want to engage in arguments about the identity or characteristics of Yeshua, the teacher, let's stick to what he taught. And throw out the mass of accretions concerning what he did not teach. Or inveighed against.
Why do I say this? I personally have no axe to grind but there is still Life buried under the dead misunderstandings and misinterpretations of many centuries. This is not a dead religion, despite all the efforts of generations of whited sepulchers to contain it, generations of fat dogs-in-the-manger to sit on it... Neither is it a stupid religion, despite constant efforts to make it look worse than stupid, oppressive and manipulative into the bargain.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
I couldn't make head or tail of what I was taught from 7 to 17. Indoctrination, more indoctrination, getting nowhere. I guess I kept on knocking, in the sense that I questioned everything I heard and kept the main questions open. Doing that, answers come when the time's ripe.... even to skeptics like me (yes, I'm serious) who keep on questioning and take nothing for granted.
I am in complete agreement with you, Peter. I am just sick and tired of hearing Jesus turned into a white Christ. Yesterday (Saturday) evening, I had the privilege of listening to a 96-year-old woman - then a young concert pianist who was rounded up and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the very last days, when the Nazis knew the jig was up, she was online to the gas chambers. One of the most poignant things she said was that the Roma and Senti (the Gypsies) made her ashamed: they went into the gas chambers with anger, spitting and throwing rocks instead of using their last bit of energy walking nicely to their death.
During the Q&A, a man asked her if she didn't see the justice in the killing the Jews, seeing as they killed Jesus, which is a grotesque perversion of the might of Rome. Starting with Constantine's coopting of the little christian cohorts, to which he made a bureaucracy, the christians proceeded to persecute the Jews, and are doing so today in their untrue and dangerous recitation of "the Jews killed Jesus."
By the way, Eva Fahidi, whose book is titled "Love and be loved: My life after Auschwitz-Birkenau," refused to respond to the ignorant question of the man who, like so many others in this white christian world.
My theological education included the history of religions along with the dark side of what grew to be the Christian religions of many, if not most, which espoused the evil myth that Jesus was killed by the Jews, who were relatively powerless within the roman empire. It was Christians who fired the pogroms and Christians (Martin Luther included) who cleared the way for the Nazis to nationalize the church. I happened to land in the only "resistance" church in the state capitol of Hessen when I was sent by the UCC-NY in 2013 as a partner theologian and pastor.
Also, as you know, all of the Gospels were oral tradition and were written some time between around 65 and 110ad or so and then were tinkered with for a few hundred years. That means we are talking about oral tradition - no eye-witnesses.
And by the way, Jesus was called Rabbi - teacher - more than once in the gospel texts.
I totally agree with "Ask...you." Simple and profound. Very glad to pursue this current discussion. Although evidently I clicked on the profile and was then told to sign in -- So often I have to ask to be given comprehension of tech processes.
Agree, Rosalind!
Okay, you give them more credit for decency than I do, and I give them more credit for competence than you do. Probably no way to resolve that point on objective evidence, but the outcome is the same. I agree with you about the primary beneficiaries, but I think white people generally, including run-of-the-mill MAGAs, accrue enormous, unearned benefits from systemic white advantages, and I think think they know that, at a deep level, even if they refuse to admit it. Maybe we could agree that.
We agree on your latter point. No doubt.
I don't give them credit for decency — they are not decent. But I try — maybe too much — to understand why they view the world as they do. It's murky.
Then there's the subset of educated Trump supporters, who aren't rabidly racist, but for some reason gravitate to him. Maybe I'm being defensive on their behalf because people I love fall into this group. But I believe they're essentially clueless about what's really happening in the U.S. And clueless about the country's history. Most of us here are seriously zealous in following the news, and from legitimate sources.
Propaganda has ruined us.
“Propaganda has ruined us,” yet Rupert is rarely called out for the brain-washing
I've met plenty of people who cringe at his personal behavior but felt his policies were sound. Personally, I can't separate the man from the message, and never saw cohesive policy under any of it. I'm thrilled to have a mature individual in the White House, one whose focus is giving a leg up to those without leverage in the current system. My underlying feeling of dread won't pass until we get past the midterms, if even then, however.
I am amazed by the well educated and well heeled folks there are that are devoted Trumpers.
They must be in it for the money...
Willfully delusional still applies, or stupid. Take your pick. My nephews are not stupid. But brain-washed nonetheless
Excellent description.
Instead of obsessing about the Second Amendment, I truly wish Trump-supporting, so-called “Christians” would actually honor the Second Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Very good point. 😞
And let's define christian.
Tyranny was ever thus. It seems to be our tragic flaw as a species to empower our own oppressors. I believe we need to take a much closer look at the personal and mass psychology of this. We are running out of time to fight these battles again and again.
we'll continue fighting them as the seas rise, the atmosphere becomes one big hot-house canopy, the permafrost all melts, as do the ice caps and glaciers, the deserts encroach on what remains of arable land and corn, wheat and farm animals are all that's left of the biodiversity we once enjoyed. I'm not optimistic for humanity. I'm deeply sad for my son, my nieces, nephews and their children and all the others who will live to see the year 2100. There's nothing in history to lend optimism about the possibility that we might rise above our chronic grievances and do something collectively to save ourselves from the apocalypse that's already emerging all around us.
I can't "heart" your comment because of Substack's maddening limitations.
But you capture so much. We're collectively Nero as Rome burns. Every young person should loathe the generations that have doomed the planet. Is "doomed" too strong? Let's just say life as we've known it is vanishing, and unimaginable hardship awaits.
I'm hearting away regardless. Sooner or later it has a spasm and vivifies all those parched hearts that had seemed untouched. Moral in that somewhere.
“Every young person should loathe the generations that have doomed the planet.”
Believe me, they do.
Here "like" means "concur", nothing else.
Gailee Walker Wells has expressed perfectly understanding of what you yourself could not have spelled out better or more succinctly.
God created us for relationship but also for stewardship of God's good creation. How are we doing with that, and why?
we seem to be destined to make a hash of both...
💔💔💔💔broken
I have hope, still.
Don’t like but have to agree
I absolutely hope that there are studies and research at this moment to learn about the brain and psychological profiles of those who willingly become fodder for the oppressor.
Haven’t Nazi methods been studied enough. As Milton Mayer wrote in “They Thought They We’re Free, The Germans, 1933-45” “You have accepted Things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father never could have imagined.” What has become of our politics is hard for me to imagine although I have watched it materialize for half of my long life. The Republican Party as the enemy is a fact and hard for me to wrap my head around, and for my republican sisters.
Americans have not had the same experiences as Europeans regarding political turmoil. We have lived in a cocoon never believing that it could happen here. It is happening here. Few are prepared.
Few are prepared and it seems as though more are engaging in it freely and voluntarily.
Apocalypse Now seems a fitting generational name for the kids born today.
we've had Generation X, Y, Z; perhaps it's time for AA, as in "ante-apocalypse"
Michael, there is a great story before us and it is for all of the American people.
There is nothing better to do this weekend than to read ‘The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint'. Nothing Better! Go to the link HCR provided at the end of the Letter’s Notes or begin right here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Biden-Economic-Blueprint-Report-720PM-MASTER-DOC.pdf
Then look at the Blueprint’s Table of Contents. From ‘Empowering Workers’, ‘Building it in America’, ‘security of middle-class families', ‘reducing costs of housing’ to ‘Lower Prices, Raise Wages, and Boost Innovation and Resilience’ -- we have 58 pages before us from which to learn and absorb THE BIDEN - HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT.
‘The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint details how the Administration’s economic policies will, over time, allow the United States to tackle the longstanding economic challenges that President Biden ran for office to address. It lays out a policy vision that is being implemented in a fiscally responsible manner, with over $1 trillion in deficit reduction this year—the most in any year on record—and substantial deficit reduction associated with the Administration’s long-term investments. While it will take time and there is more work to do—including immediate work to support the U.S. economy’s transition from historic recovery to stable, steady, growth with lower inflation—the Biden-Harris Administration has laid the foundation to begin tackling these decades-long economic challenges and finally deliver an economy that works for working families. With this Blueprint in place, not only will more people have a chance to contribute to our nation’s prosperity, but they will finally and fairly reap the benefits of their work.’(THE BIDEN-HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT)
Students/subscribers of Letter from an American there can be no better reading this weekend than THE BIDEN - HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT. And WHAT A LETTER we received! Thank you, BIDEN – HARRIS and Heather Cox Richardson.
A fresh vision of the USA is before us.
Thanks for this incentive, Fern.
Just read most of it. Thanks, Fern. I probably wouldn't have if you hadn't made it so easy.
It's a good read, as they say: clearly written and more interesting than I expected. Highly recommend, even if you don't get through the whole 58 pages. I got to p. 35 and intend to get back to the rest later.
Yes, MaryB, THE BIDEN - HARRIS ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT is a crucial offering, and I hope it helps with a significant turning of the ship of state -- as well as uplifting OUR LIVES. I will withhold my opinion of taking time to 'psychoanalyze' people belonging to MAGA, except to ask whether it is a understandable and natural psychological defense reflecting our fear and frustration? There is documentary evidence concerning their general economic, racial, religious, age, gender, interests and charitable characteristics. I'll return to the subject in the the near future. Knowing who we are as a people -- and there are a good number of factors -- will determine, in great measure, our course. Salud, MaryB.
Thank you!!!
Thanks for giving the link again, Fern. Yes, a fresh vision of the USA is here---but as I said elsewhere on this list, it all depends on the undependable media to get this before all the people (even those unwilling to hear the news).
Am reading "American Massacre" by Sally Denton first published in 2003. It's about the Mormon Church. It starts out with recent events concerning the Mountain Meadows massacre that had been covered up. It reviews the Founding of the Mormon Church with Joseph Smith and several other key players inside and outside the Church, who defined it's beliefs and character, and protected it, as it moved across the country from NYS to Utah. The Mormon story relates directly to many of the comments here about MAGA.
History is incredibly reflective. This book written in 2000+ could have been written anytime after 2015 and we would understand the author meant her book to draw parallels about Trump and MAGA. Those drawn to Smith and his supernatural Book of Mormon, along with his pronouncements and edicts were no different than those drawn to Trump. The chosen few close to Smith acted on their opportunities very much like those cl ok se to Trump.
The leaders and followers with Smith created the same hysterical feedback loop of threatening those who they claimed threatened them until this vicious cycle led to abuse and violence that both communities suffered from. However, Smith created literal militia and armies of ruthless men who believed that killing outsiders would "save them" according to Mormon declarations, or so they said. It's never quite clear h oh w much is believed and how much is just a tool for domination.
The Mormon story is also instructive about how a movement, as adversarial or contrary as it might be to majority common interests, can develop political power that draws support or reliation from the wealthiest, most powerful and political people. American leadership, politics and mobs were no less abusive, corrupt, or violent then.
Organized religion is a form of organized crime.
harsh...
They are as corrupt as any group. Proof that we are all pathetically flawed
Thanks for this insight.
Yes, that through their threats of violence, many dedicated long term election workers have and will quit before midterms and presidential and be reolaced by extremists who will intimidate voters. And so, no matter how many, many things Joe has and will accomplish, republican legislatures will call any election that doesn't turn out in their favor into question and, with their new legislation, overturn any vote. I find it terrifying that America will be governed by extremists and not by the will of the people.
LOCK HIM UP!!!!!!!!!
Yes! LOCK HIM UP--- NOW!!!!
To envision their world, I 'tip my hat' to you for trying as 'we are all in this together' as Obama said, I would need psychedelics.
Or that they hail a man who would take away their freedom and their treasure all because the “he gets me” racist and xenophobic dog whistles.
They have no clue that if the Republicans ever get complete power again, Social Security and Medicare will be on the block. Fools!
In the early 1930's, Carl Jung wrote that western civilization was experiencing a shift in its collective unconscious, one that would lead to peril. We are at that same point once again.
We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the biosphere and we are still breeding. Our economy has shifted wealth to the elite, creating economic struggle and intense resentment among the majority. We are experiencing the very beginnings of the negative consequences of climate change which will include massive droughts and floods, catastrophic storms, the spread of diseases, famine, water wars, and the elimination of 50% of the species. Experts tell us we may have but 10 years max to turn the Titanic around with regard to the most devastating aspects of climate change, and we are not taking the appropriate action.
https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/~cpa/explorations/papers/75-a-jungian-perspective-on-the-most-important-issue-of-our-time-climate-change
And to put it a lot more simply I believe these are the dark times that were predicted—it’s hard to see how we’re getting out of this in 10 years unfortunately.
I am not sure there could be a more ironic situation. To have been bamboozled by a con man into destroying democracy in the name of "murica and MAGA(t) just flummoxes me.
Amen, Ally. Amen!
“Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
― Richard Nixon
“But those who hate you don’t win, especially if your new Vice President remembers his promise to give you a full pardon. Then laugh all the way to the grave. The Libs were Owned!”
too true.
Do we really win with Nixon???
👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋
Michael, anything that contradicts their delusional mindset just makes them angrier. I have no idea what can be done about it.
Nothing can be done. A work around is the only option.
The irony is that so far as I can tell, for the most part their bottom line struggles, below all the decoys that the "GOP" puts forward to hate, is the degree to which ongoing "Reaganomics" reduces them to serfs.
I do my best not to converse with them, but one that I most recently talked with used the "welfare Cadillac" trope. Reagan, for sure.
We have to look to the dynamics of addiction to understand Magats. Once you are addicted the only thing that matters is the next fix. Trump is the heroin supplier (while being addicted himself). Those beneath him do all they can to support their habits. Their world becomes narrow and totally focused on the next fix. You can’t love your neighbor while in the grip of needing the next fix.
Meanwhile what is Bill Barr up to??? If he is advising the DOJ to appeal and doing it on Fox, what does that mean? Can anyone interpret what this slime ball is up to and why Fox has him on?
There are many similarities to drug addiction. One of the factors in addiction is a longing for solidarity; looking to find those who share your walk in life... who are, like you, suffering.
He’s exonerating and distancing Bill Barr from the disaster that is Trump and earlier hit jobs. I don’t think he realizes how far back our memories go (though admittedly, mine needs a frequent push.)
That's a very good description of how I feel about Donald, whom I",despise and disparage with the heat of...well...more like cool distain of a cat over a dish of spoiled fish.
Or any other carefully-chosen perfectly good food it doesn't fancy...a cat sniffs at it delicately, turns right round and "buries" it with long purposeful scratches on the floor, then sits down and looks up at you reproachfully.
I live in Brooklyn, New York, now the MAGA world's number one target as a hive of evil liberals. Our cleanng lady, an intelligent immigrant from Hungary, is convinced that the economy and life in general was much better when Trump was president and that Biden has destroyed it all. A repairman was here the other day with a truck with "Let's Go Brandon" painted on it. He is a very smart and charming Israeli immigrant. They both seem to be enthralled by Fox or worse. And they will not listen to anything else.
I don'r get it. Well, OK, I sort of get it: Many, many people pay little attention to day-to-day political events, and if they ever had any civics education, they've long since forgotten it. They get their information about the outside world from a single source and don't have the tools to evaluate it. All that I get. What I don't get is what to do about it.
Sounds perfectly awful!
Barney, help! I can't find your comment on Leo's plan to destroy the court system. There is so much good distractions, plus 4 cats, that I lost my place and can't find it. Please hel? me find it?
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-9-2022/comment/8986199
That is a sad state of affairs.
Very sad.
Incredible how people are duped. All kinds of factors & influences. But a book written in the 1970s described our technological & social trend toward media & information as "entertainment" rather than facts and intelligence. Wish I could remember the book. Still available on Thrift Books. Com. So many predictors of this behavior. George Orwell's 1984. And Animal Farm.
Biden cleverly takes the wind out the GOP's sails. The Republicans have wanted to make the election about the economy, and if that economy is recovering, jobs continue to be created, gas prices have dropped significantly, what can they accuse him of, how is he failing? Sure hope this gains lots of traction!
It all depends on how the media (NYT and WaP0) handle and publicize this (or not). They have a hard time celebrating Biden's accomplishments. There are massive capital invenstments in projects in NC and elsewhere. The word has to get out.......
Also the Fed is deliberately planning to increase unemployment by raising interest rates in order to end inflation.
Is the Fed being rigidly obtuse, or do they simply want to push down wages and harm Biden so the owning class can be ever richer in an ever poorer country?
given that there are more jobs now than ever before (10 million in 2 years), pushing down inflation so $100,000 houses cost $250,000 instead of $400,000 doesn't seem undesirable, especially as contract work start dates are 3 years out at the moment.
Biden has been pushing down inflation by successful steps to lower gas prices and by fostering competition so that meat packers, for example, do not have 4 companies controlling the whole market.
The Fed raising interest rates, in contrast, is meant to keep wages down. Since wages are not the drivers of inflation, that will harm workers without helping anyone else, other than owners of large companies who are already doing very well.
If each of us makes that point to at least one friend... :)
This election and probably the 2024 election are going to be referendums one one overarching topic: the fundamental rights of American citizens, individually and collectively. Democrats especially tend to thrill at the intricate policies they propose to accomplish their dreams while Republicans focus on the emotions that can be generated with a focus on moral attitudes and behaviors. Biden won the nomination and the election becaused he recognized that we as a nation are at a crossroads in settling the issue of the role of democracy in our federal republic. This is THE issue.
Only if the MSM allow it. I doubt it will sell ads as well as trump tweets. He’s their cash cow, and the sun around which all ad dollars rotate.
As someone who worked with the administration of classified information—storage, classification downgrading, and declassification—at the Division level and below in the US Army, I need to have someone explain to me how the stash of classified documents at Mara Lago, clearly extracted from required protected storage are not considered compromised and in need of immediate harm-prevention counter-measures. Outside of secure channels, those documents could have been photographed, scanned, hand-copied, and whatever, and, as such, have lost their value as intelligence information; the information is not fixed to the paper once the rules of use—proper security clearance and need-to-know—are compromised. All sensitive documents (those found and those not yet found) need to be recovered and returned to protected status for precautionary reasons since possible further leakage must be prevented, but what is of utmost importance is getting the former president and anyone with access to the information contained in those documents into functioning thumb-screws and under oath in order to try to find out how those documents were moved about and shared. Until serious accountability for those documents can be assured, anyone with the information from those documents in his or her brain needs to be kept in preventative detention to keep further damage from being done, and until counter-measures can be taken to limit further compromising use. For those of us tasked with safeguarding defense information in our principle command entities and in their subordinate units, we were trained to understand implicitly we had the personal responsibility to protect the effectiveness and survival of our command with our own lives. Trump is no longer President, he should never have been trusted with life or death decisions bearing on the durability of our country as a citizen-community of mutual trust, his ability to do further harm must be neutralized—NOW.
Having served as a classified material control officer myself, unless something has changed, there’s a chain of custody. A written record of who checked out what, and when. With names on it. I want the names.
Every piece of paper ever viewed/handled by trump lost its chain of command the moment he obtained it. Trump has no respect for any precedent, rule or requirement.
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knew this the moment he invited to the WH and shared intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak just 2 months after taking office.
It is bizarre the degree to which politics is able to thumb its nose at national interest, again and again, and again, from evidence of Russian intrusion into our electoral process, evidence that COVID and poor preventative actions kills people, evidence that antropogenic climate unbalancing is threatening populations, evidence that extremely grave national security risks have been made extremely vulnerable, if not badly compromised. I keep waiting for checks and balances to take hold. That is seeming more likely at this point, but Trump and his party continue to make the situation worse. So yes, surely some decisive proactive action now.
Your comment to my remark on the mishandling of classified information at Mara Lago is welcome. I find it a good sign, not a bad one, that you are deeply bothered by the list you gave of what amounts to governance failure. It's a sign of good health to be bothered about what you might believe failed the "good of the people" accountability test. As messy and alarming as the open struggle of "thinking outloud" (a market place of ideas is a noisy place like any living market) probably has to be in an open, free society like ours, the differences we have benefit by exposure to the sunlight of public scrutiny and dinner-table debate. Experience as a form of living matter requires constant up-keep and restructuring so that often painful changes to our familiar environment, which amount to occasional up-grade and rebirth, can occur in a beneficial way. The "American Experiment" with popular rule began with the rejection of authoritarian rule indifferent to public opinion, and especially negative opinion. Think of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny being "disappeared" in a prison cell out of hearing distance. The collective effort of the American people to rapidly come together as the factory of war materials for the eminently successful Allied effort in World War II to respond to the cynical rise of animal brutishness and the pyrrhic urges of third-rate minds to burn down the house and dance in the ashes. The worthy "opposition" conservative party in our two-party system is crumbling and working on hidden, dirty money to put off political death as long as possible. The obstructionism presently practiced by increasingly degenerate selfie-loving factions in combat costume, at social-media organized photo-ready Rambo actions, is not attracting the rising new generations of increasingly educated US Americans who can see the value of what the US did to found and promote the postwar rule based extra-national order we are still building on today. It is a positive affirmation of what I am saying that self-styled authoritarian "traditionalists" (since last week) like Trump, Orban, Putin and Bolsonaro are so incredibly LAUGHABLE. As a modern community of proud "ordinary citizens" capable of forming our own opinions to sell in the idea market-place, I wish our Midis former president good-golden riddance. I'll throw in a muffler to show I'm happy to see the back-end of this sick-joke.
And everyone should learn: "Don't mess with an archivist!"
Yes, they need to be recovered and properly safe-guarded, but anyone who thinks any other nation with a competent intelligence-gathering organization (that is, even halfway competent spies) and an interest in knowing what’s in those documents doesn’t already have copies of the documents (or the originals) in their posession is just whistlin’ Dixie. The horse has been out of the barn and on the lam since somewhere around February, 2017.
A vainglorious fool with access to our nation's state secrets would hardly escape the notice of any self-repecting spy, especially at his semi-public club.
I have been wondering if this security breach can be prosecuted by the USMCJ, do you know about that? As our commander in chief at the time of the breach, it seem this could be handled in military court. He’d have a harder time with those career military justices. And Leavenworth seems like an appropriate result for such a breach.
Wrong tribunal. Sadly, McConnell has stacked the appropriate tribunals with unqualified lackeys (see "Judge" Cannon).
❤️
Even though CINC he’s considered a civilian and not subject to military justice.
👍🏼
Thanks for this report. It's a mystery why things are proceeding as they have been reported. Let's hope there's another story that we don't know about.
Exactly so.
When on Facebook, I frequently read comments left on posts that tout this administration’s achievements. Invariably, there are comments left by MAGA Republicans that spew Fox “News” talking points about the evils this Democratic administration has perpetuated. This saddens, infuriates and frustrates me no end. We can shout from the rooftops everything Joe Biden and the Democrats have done for the middle class, for the economy, for foreign affairs, but the MAGAt’s don’t hear, or don’t absorb any of it. The Lincoln Project has managed to buy advertising time on Fox, and has run clever and scathing ads about DT; would it be possible for ad time to be purchased on Fox News that talks about all of the good things that have been accomplished by Joe Biden and the Democrats? And could this maybe cause even the slightest fissure to form in some closed minds? (Hope springs eternal 😁)
I read something that the other day that struck a chord (and a funny bone) with me, it said something to the effect: “Using Fox News as a source in an argument is like claiming to be a Marine Biologist because you watch SpongeBob Squarepants. 🤣🤣
On a happier note, Michigan’s ballot in November will include both an initiative for women’s reproductive rights, and one for expanded voting rights. The MI Supreme Court overruled the Board of Canvassers ruling that neither could be on the ballot due to minor technicalities (like font size and word spacing on the petitions). 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
We must keep the faith!!
Bravo to the Michigan Supreme Court!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
As a native Michigander who has watched the militias march through the capitol in Lansing with fear and loathing, I am oh so glad to see my home state showing some modicum of common sense. Vote!
Cathy I cheered out loud when I read that yesterday! Common sense at last!
As for Facebook, liking and replying to posts will raise them in the rankings and make them more visible. So respond accordingly - raise worthwhile posts only. To reply to problem posts, write a new top-level comment, so your added material does not raise up bad stuff by replying under it.
“Write a new top level comment “...pardon my ignorance but can you explain further? I understand not liking or replying ..?? At least I thought I did!
Within the comments on a particular article, write a new comment disagreeing with whatever, rather than a reply to the negative comment. A reply would elevate the post you don't like in facebook's rankings, causing more people to see it.
For the same reason, 'like' or 'care' or whatever on comments you want more people to see, and reply to them if you can, even only to say "Agreed" or "exactly right".
There's actually a set of Facebook groups - the US one is named IAmHereUS - whose members actively find controversial posts and add comments/likes so that respectful conversation floats to the top and fewer people are subjected to hateful comments.
Thank you! I always wanted THAT person to know he/she were wrong or misguided, but wasn’t aware of what that would mean. Who knew social media could be so complicated ( or skewed)
I'm guessing what she means is just creating your own post instead of replying or liking someone else's whose post you don't agree with?
That makes sense if it’s true that any comment in the thread elevates it’s status …more work, although less knee-jerk reaction!
Very well said Cathy. I too hear about what Trump did that conservatives like and try to figure out what they're talking about. Trump turned over governance to special interests in dark smoke-filled rooms while he campaigned and Tweeted while Rome burned. Give me a break. Turning Stephen Miller loose on helpless people on our southern border is like turning your daughter over to a rapist with an attitude. Blowing up the nuclear treaty with Iran: it makes for a good show, but don't send me the bill for what that cost. And, would Putin have been so ready to turn to made-for-tv butchery if he had been encouraged to think the US was not going Trump? His negligent response to Covid—it's a states-rights issue—is border-line crime against humanity, in this case fellow Americans. Let's see, is bullying China, in a go-to-the-nuke-mat manner (for the cameras) a good long run policy. Today's China is a "never-again" product of failure to protect itself from trade predators in Imperial times, and its failure to defend itself against Japanese barbary that you have to bite into, if you have the stomach, to answer "What's the beef?". I guess he showed Queen Elizabeth, bless her memory, what it means to be a rule-bashing USAmerican by taking his whole family to a no-guests Royal dinner. And winning Kim Jong II over to denuclearization with a big kiss has proven to be less successful than its dress rehearsal in The Apprentice theater. And, not least, Trump did make a place in the political right family for proud insurrectionists, wannabe thugs, tasteless sillies, and serious goof-balls; just the sort jawbreakers you invite to a righteous, intelligent exchange of competing opinions—and bring your own tikka torch and the dynamite to light it with. Discouraging immigrants from "shit-hole" countries is not really in the American Spirit as written on the Statue of Liberty, but what can one expect from a dude whose dad kept postwar sponsored Levit-town houses out of the red-line hands of black and brown veterans. And what about impromptu grass-roots, unannounced public executions with military-style assault rifles. When I was in the military, the assault rifles where stored under triple lock and key in the unit armory, in constant view of the day-duty staff and the night Charge of Quarters. When arms are issued in the military, soldiers are trained to point them away from each other if at all possible. So, explain where the tax cuts for the wealthy trickled away too. Great job, Donald.
Dang. You have an excellent way with words. May I quote you? What a nutshell.
Gail, if we are speaking the same thoughts, they belong to both of us, and anyone else who finds hope in them as well. Thanks.
Why, you summed things up quite nicely!👏🏼👏🏼
I'm as happy with this as I would be making your Christmas card list. I'm not dissing Christmas lists, I quickly add.
Trump's attempt to "reverse reality" with his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and all the others he claimed had conspired against him is literally his "Gaslighting Greatest Hits". I truly wish someone would write a Big Picture account of Trump as having "a life built on gaslighting". There is such a thing as saying great things about yourself to pump up your ego (Muhammad Ali famously did that before every fight). But that was in service of achieving a "recognized good" in the world: winning a boxing match. Trump has used similar language in service of achieving a "recognized bad" in the world: not paying his taxes... not paying for goods received... conning his way into being POTUS so he could use that position to get rich... and more.
His life long "gaslighting game" deserves to be exposed separate from all the accounts of his individual crimes.
It’s been exposed, re-exposed, double-exposed, and exposed every which way including loose. The problem is that at least 74 million voters think it’s just fine.
With all due respect, it's been exposed one incident at a time... because the news industry has a lot of trouble telling big picture / over time stories. I wish the real author of "The Art of the Deal" (who has acknowledge his key role in making Trump seem like a real leader) would write the book I'm thinking needs to be written. Just my opinion of course.
would that be "the Art of the Scam"?
❤️
zackly
There is much about Trump that conjures many images with the word "gas."
So true! And - at the risk of offending some - there's much about him that relates to Steve Bannon's macro-philosophy that his side would win if it would "Flood the zone with shit". https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation
And Schitt it is
🤣🤣👏👏👏
Judge Middlebrooks trashes Trump and his lawyers! My favorite part of opinion is on the last page. "I reserve jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions." Ha ha LMAO!
That was certainly a pleasure to read!
"suggesting that Trump has no grounds to assert executive privilege over the classified information seized."
In other words, you don't retain the privileges of a job you no longer have, especially if you are doing something that has potential to do harm to your former employer. You don't get to drive the company car, you don't get to take home company laptops, you don't get speak as a company representative, or remove the contents of the company safe.
How can a President run the country if a prior President did things about which the current President is not allowed to know? It is an absolute joke, so much so that maybe MAYBE even the 11th Cir. will have to agree?
But if you've never actually been an employee, in the great world of business, you wouldn't know all that. On "The Apprentice", there was a script. Let's be fair. (Sarc.)
Oh frabjous day! One frivolous suit tossed, one incompetent, half-assed judge given a lesson in the law, and the President gets to give good news to the people. Huzzah!
Hallooo! Hallay. I’m chortling with joy! 😊
Huzzah!
Two investigations, one by an independent investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and another by the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed that Russia had attacked the U.S. presidential election in 2020 -- wasn't it the 2016 election that was investigated? It's so hard to keep all the investigations straight.
According to her Facebook editor, HCR has a bit of a distraction thinking of tomorrow:
🥂
Connecting the dots, last August her partner Buddy Poland posted on his Facebook, “She said yes!”
This is fantastic.
OHHHHH...she did say she was making wedding plans but I assumed it was one of her children! How exciting!!
Flash idea! 💡
We started a Tending to Democracy Giving Circle inspired by Heather when she says we all have to speak up for democracy. You can make a donation in honor of Heather for her wedding and post your comment on the site! Helping to save democracy--can we imagine her wanting anything else as a gift? Note your intention in the Giving Circle survey. We will tie a big proverbial bow around this gift to present to her!
https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/1XQhnyD/Tending-to-Democracy
💙🇺🇸🗽
Ellie. Please mention to her that some substantial donations already made by those joining the Giving Circle during this past week. And that those, too, honor her dedication to democracy.
Salud! 🥂🗽
Yes, please do.
Thanks
Absolutely! Thank you!
She had mentioned during one of her chats that she is getting married in September.
Is something big happening tomorrow?
Good morning from India!, Carol, I think with 45’s help and his relationship with Putin, BOTH elections were interfered with by Russia and perhaps others. Look at all the MAGA allies with ties to Russia, to Turkey (another dictatorship), with “investments” in those countries and advice being given to the governments by Flynn and Guiliani. Let them investigate into the wild blue yonder….Because of vigilance by our poll watchers and others who care about democracy, it is a sheer miracle the votes got counted correctly and Biden-Harris won!
Yes, I stumbled on that date, too. It's a very rare LFAA error. Even the best make a mistake now and then.
"While Biden and Harris are focused on the economy and the future, the Department of Justice is still handling crises created by the former president."
Yup, we're 18 months and counting, and the Justice Department and House Select Committee are working overtime to expose and begin to clean up the monumental mess left by the would-be Orange Emperor of MAG-A-Lago. I think it's a reasonable guess that all the wealth he might have won't be enough to cover the cost of the judicial hazmat operation(s) required to adjudicate his misdeeds, and the subsequent legislative efforts to erect more guardrails so his minions can't pull of similar stunts in the future.
The real truth of the matter, as we all know, is that there is no "happy place" where we can relax into the assurance that we're safe from what we have experienced dating all the way back to Newt and the "Contract with America". Perhaps we are only now becoming fully aware that ETERNAL VIGILANCE is the only protector of democracy. It can only be divine providence that the articles and amendments to the constitution prevent us from putting a bounty on Trolls. Freedom of speech will guarantee that they'll always be with us. What will it take to send them back to the caves and under the rocks from whence they emerged? Zero tolerance. Historically high participation at the ballot box. Engagement with the media in ways that punish the Echo Chambers of Hatred. Can you even imagine an America where 90%+ eligable voters participate in EVERY national election? I don't think it's exaggerating to say that the vast majority of us want reasonable things from our Government, at all levels. Service, not Stardom. Cooperation, not gladiators in the Roman Coliseum. Courage, not cowardice. Humility, not hubris and hyperbole. Debate, not dunking on one another. Kindness? Decorum? Statesmanship? Do these things exist anymore?
Nathan, did these last things ever exist in American democracy? During the Washington administration, Secretary of State Jefferson tried to convince GW that his Sec. of Treasury Hamilton was planning a coup with King of England! Remember that Hamilton was essentially an orphan and GW was a father to Hamilton was GW's Chief of Staff during the war. Jefferson also helped draft a secessionist document for the Virginia legislature. In more recent times, Diane Rehm's podcast today for WAMU titled 'Drawing A Line From McCarthyism To January 6th' explains how GOP was so desperate that they tried to smear FDR by holding hearings claiming that FDR knew of the impending attack at Pearl Harbor but allowed it to transpire so he could get the country into WWII. So besides the question 'will our democracy survive current MAGAs', another question is how has it survived soooo long? I have no idea.
Tyranny ebbs and flows, and while human rights progress may be advancing for one sector of society, it may be lacking or receding for another. That said, I think some eras and cultures as a whole a collectively better than others, and, it has been argued, as you look back in to the history of culture, the overall trend has been one of less violence and despair. That's not to say we can't blow it utterly. McCarthy used lies and smears to build his hold on power, but got smacked down. We had a two term black president and a female presidential candidate received the most votes, which I don't think was possible 50 years ago, but 40 years ago, even prominent Republicans thought, after "Watergate", that Nixon was out of line. The WAPO was the public's champion. It seems that a party-wide embrace of winning by treachery was launched with Reagan. The scale of current "GOP" corruption now dwarfs Watergate and its coverup. I think we have been letting a whole lot slip.
" ETERNAL VIGILANCE is the only protector of democracy. "
Vigilance, engagement, compassion, and preponderant good faith. It's not just a game, it is our quality of life and our future, and our children's, children', children's future at stake.
90%? How hard would it be to activate government of the people, by the people, for the people, all of the people, if we collectively decided that was the way?
“Judicial hazmat operations.” Great visual!
Every time TFG gets close to being caught in one of his illegal schemes, he gets his lawyers to flood the courts with demands, delays and distractions. This special master nonsense
Cheryl P. - "Every time TFG gets close to being caught in one of his illegal schemes, he gets his lawyers to flood the courts with demands, delays and distractions."
Adapted from (perhaps) "A thousand and One Nights" -- IIRC, it goes something like this:
Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: "𝘐𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸?" To which he replied: "𝘖𝘩, 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳! 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘩 𝘕𝘢𝘴𝘳𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯, 𝘢𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘥𝘰𝘮, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘚𝘰 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘮 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘵." The king was amused, and said: "𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘸𝘦'𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶."
As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: "𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘺." Nasrudin's response: "𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘦. 𝘐 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘦."
"𝘼𝙣𝙙, 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙨? 𝙈𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜."
Or pigs will fly...
(Buying time is his specialty.)
"Trump reversed reality ..."
Trump lies. And the entire Republican apparatus spins his bad impulses into worse facts on the ground.'Reversing reality' did not start with Trump.
Smugly, smirkingly, and sanctimoniously turning things on their head - the specious rhetoric of saying things are exactly what they are not, perverting language to pervert history - has been the modus operandi of the GOP since the Southern Strategy. It was the hallmark of the slave states after the failed Confederacy to metamorphose defeated traitors into heritage heroes. It is the hallmark of the racist right wing religious extremists who style themselves 'originalists' and 'textualists' - the only truth of it being that they want to elide the Founders' and Framers' revolutionary message of radical equality and remove every reform which has made progress to that goal, in order to reinstate a dystopia of economic injustice as their New Jerusalem. Elevated by Federalist Society honcho, dark money impresario, and Opus Dei acolyte Leonard Leo living out his arriviste wet dreams as a flash oenophile - turning the holy sacraments of the church into the blood sport of the unrepentant pedophile priests and unreconstructed nazi popes of his youth.
This is what Biden and the Democratic Party are up against. The Progressive Caucus understands the need for unity, compromise, and step by step advances.. The old unionist Left and the leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement understood voting as political strategy rather than personal expression. It didn't give us Eden but it kept the snakes away.
Beautifully said.
Nice.
Has anybody read Aileen Cannon's answers to the Questionnaire for Judicial nominees? Go to page 12 bottom.
"I have tried six cases to verdict, 4 as an Assistant United States Attorney, and two before Administrative agencies as an associate at Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher LIP. Of the four cases I tried as an AUSA, I was chief counsel in two and Associate Council in two. Of the two administrative proceedings of which I participated; I served as the Associate Counsel. "https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Cannon%20SJQ%20-%20PUBLIC.pdf
That is the extent of her lawyering. Maybe that is enough?
'Associate Counsel' means she made no decisions but was given cameo appearances on tangential portions of the case. Cases before administrative agencies are essentially merely evidentiary hearings around a conference table, no jury, lax rules of evidence. Of the 4 as AUSA, we do not know if criminal or civil, jury or Bench, misdemeanor or felony. So exclude the 2 administrative 'hearings', exclude the 2 'cameo' appearances as AUSA, she may have tried 2 small cases of civil or misdemeanor variety against a Public Defender, we do not know. She probably jumped onto these trivial matters I would guess so she could say she had 'trial experience', LMAO! Sort of like HW Bush saying Clarence Thomas was the most qualified lawyer in America to be a Justice, a guy who practiced law for one year in state government before becoming an administrator. The qualifications to be a GOP judicial appointment are 1-ideological purity and 2-young of age, 3-maybe a side promises on future rulings would not surprise me, but we have no evidence of it other than coincidence that they all decide exactly as GOP ideology demands.
Judge Cannon (41) has big brown eyes, straight black hair and a round, open face. I see a resemblance to Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
100Panthers:
There is no need to guess. Follow the link and you can see each event she participated in as an attorney. Start at page 12 at the bottom, so you can see why I wrote what I did. There is more than the six she enumerated on page 12. You can decide what you want. A brief description of each case is there. starting on page 13.
I gave the link for a reason.
Saw it, tells us nothing about magnitude of cases. Still could be civil or criminal misdemeanor cases, these could trival nothing cases. BUT something makes no sense. She claims 67% of trials were jury, 33% Bench. She claims 4 Federal trials. BUT WAIT, 67% of 4 = 2.68 trials, it does not divide evenly. Thus either her percentages are wrong or number of trials is wrong...ha ha or both. Bottom line, she has virtually NO TRIAL EXPERIENCE! There are kids coming out of law school clinics with that amount of trial experience.
Maybe she is claiming 4 jury trials in court, 2 administrative trials thus 4/6 =2/3? Administrative hearings in front of an ALJ are not trials to real lawyers.
How ‘bout we just stipulate she’s an inexperienced boob. Good ‘nuff?
100Panthers
Which is what I implied and had hope you would grasp without my detailing it for you. There are some things I will not break down as I believe they are self evident to the reader. Perhaps she listed her most important cases? I am satisfied the judge is out of the element needed to make a decision on this issue.
Something I heard yesterday was that the tfg people preferred candidates with little or no experience—I guess so they could be sure they learned to think and adjudicate properly.
Career hope for all young law students, then?
But do you want the person trained for driving the luggage cart flying the plane?
LOL! Maybe the cart is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang driven by Mary Poppins disguised as a judge who has yet to reveal her graduating maga-zoom-loudly with a degree in Special Mastering from Hogwarts Academy.
Taking the entire country on a trip down this rabbit hole leaves all of us screaming to wake up from our nightmare spent under the orange shadow of Mordor a Lago.
No, No! the terrifying Nasdaqs circling the tower on their swooping steeds! Please, no!
Is it possible she really didn’t know what executive privilege is, and its crime-fraud exception?
Er, no.
Just playing with the weak preparation of Judge Cannon, considering she weighs in to the most significant corruption and potential national security case of our time. Not even open to amicus briefs.
I saw that too. "No one is going to tell me what I should be doing!"
And nothing will dissuade me from my MAGA mission.
I was astounded when she denied the amicus briefs. She has ruined her standing with this case. I hope it has consequences but I fear it won’t. At least the Fox in the henhouse has been exposed.
Somebody, Mr. McConnell, should own up to this
I had to check. But she actually spelled “counsel” correctly. It’s not “council.” Just to be fair.
William:
Very correct and I did fix both. I am three hours behind you (east coast?) and when I see these, I am pretty tired so I miss things,
Ah, but is that what she meant?
To start, I expect that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, though not sufficient, was necessary for Americans overall to galvanize around Democratic messaging, wherein we also find a much tougher, much stronger Biden who, in the past few weeks, is connecting far better with audiences relative to both Democratic accomplishments and also the need to engage now in the necessary actions to protect our democracy. Additionally, there is no doubt, in a country that historically has gained rights over time, that taking away a women’s constitutional right to legal access to abortion care has mobilized women and men to an unprecedented degree that I imagine greatly will impact local, state, and federal elections.
Simply put, I expect the conflation of each of the foregoing factors, combined with a DOJ astutely stitching together a blueprint of all the criminal offenses seemingly committed by a command structure up to and including Trump, have precipitated a nationwide shift in momentum to Democrats that conceivably could defy decades of midterm wins for the party not in power.
From your lips… I hope the polls have gotten it wrong and the Blue Wave 🌊 is stronger than it appears!
Gail, As I’ve posted in the past, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, “Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.” Here I would add that at few points prior to victory could activists have proved that their individual efforts mattered. Hence, we persist because we believe our cause is right and just and moral.
They're wrong, it is.
In paragraph 13, don’t you mean the 2016 election? 🤔 Just trying to keep things straight in my mind.
Relayed by her editor on Facebook, noting HCR reportedly has a big day tomorrow!
🥂
I believe her editor is alluding to this post by HCR’s partner, Buddy Poland, on his Facebook last August: “She said yes!”
Yes, she & Buddy are getting married today!
Flash idea! 💡
We started a Tending to Democracy Giving Circle inspired by Heather when she says we all have to speak up for democracy. You can make a donation in honor of Heather for her wedding and post your comment on the site! Helping to save democracy--can we imagine her wanting anything else as a gift? Note your intention in the Giving Circle survey. We will tie a big proverbial bow around this gift to present to her!
https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/1XQhnyD/Tending-to-Democracy
💙🇺🇸🗽
Done
Done.
Curiosity piqued!
I agree... HCR must be distracted...
Shouldn't TFG have been subject to the consequences of filing frivolous lawsuits by now?
There is a conservative claim that the $400,000 minimum for people to be audited by the IRS has now been lowered to $200,000. I have not seen this actually verified, by any trustworthy source, yet it is being spread about by wealthy residents in our area, as a way to discredit the Biden Administration's efforts.
Gary Boivin,
Once again, the conservatives have mixed up the taxation portion of Biden’s plan (taxes do not go up on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year) and the fact that the IRS is restaffing to levels pre-Trump (getting the phone answered will be nice). Past records show that fewer than 1% of tax returns with $200,000 or less in income are audited, with the number going up to 10% of returns with income above $1,000,000.
https://www.personalcapital.com/blog/taxes-insurance/10-irs-audit-triggers/amp/
Of course they are. They have no platform of their own, except for “tell lies about the opposition ad nauseam”
It occurs to me that there is some serious cognitive dissonance, considering that TFG was ready to pull us out of NATO because he was incensed that the other countries were not paying their fair share. Yet here at home, the wealthy don’t pay even close to their fair share in taxes, but he didn’t seem to care and didn’t see it as a problem that needed to be addressed. (And in fact gave them even more tax breaks to the detriment of every other taxpayer in the country.)
Lie, obfuscate, dangle a shiny faux gold plated carrot in one hand, and steal everything with the other. That’s their playbook.
Such BS.
Who lowered it?