Your well-documented and truly horrific facts will be ignored by the MAGAts as “fake news” or, worse, celebrated because Putin is helping their orange god, the greatest President in American history, to reclaim the office only voting fraud prevented him from retaining in the first place. They do not know, or do not care, that they will be sacrificing Ukraine, NATO, possibly much of Europe, maybe Taiwan, maybe even Israel. They do not know, or apparently care, that their own personal social safety nets will likely be gutted to make the morbidly rich even more obscenely wealthy. They do not care, may even welcome, the end of our nation, fearing that is letting too many uppity non-white people have a small share in the vaunted “American Dream”.
They must be suffocated at the polls, and Putin must pay in the most painful way possible for his crimes against not just this country and Ukraine, but against humanity.
Vote blue in November, for every office at every level. Or be ready for this country to die what will, in the end, be a self-inflicted wound.
When I was a kid, I thought the national anthem was "In Heaven there is No Beer" because everyone stood up when it played. Although Polish Americans constitute only about 3% of the population, add in people in a similar situation.
Given his support for Putin, IMHO now there should be virtually no Polish American Trump support. Key states like MI, WI, Oh, PA have large Polish American populations.
It’s astounding the damage Putin via our MSM & Trump have done against our country. This is a thorough synopsis of the sequence of events, especially since 2015.
Thanks, Thom, for yet another insightful and well written take down of DJT and Co. I believe the key to understanding the Trump phenomenon cannot be found in the "rational" brain, but, rather, in the mid-brain or "survival brain", so well described in Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". So, all that dictators have to do, so well presented in Orwell's classic "1984", is focus the popular attention/media on existential threats, which causes a "downshift" from rational thinking to survival emotional "thinking". Rational cognition follows the lead of the survival/emotional brain's direction and makes the unsuspecting "follower" putty in the hands of autocrats/dictators. History is filled with examples, and Our Mad King (wannabe) Donald is a prime example. Putin is masterful at playing the existential crisis card, and DJT has learned to follow his lead.
My inexpert model has been the amygdala vs the pre frontal cortex, but yours works as well, although more unwieldy
You are quite correct about Trump and Putin playing the existential crisis card, but what is being threatened, that is the question?
One can determine that by considering what is perceived as a threat. Abortion, (control over sex), LGBT (sex again). non white migration (sex again via reproduction and threatening of white supremacy which includes non white reproduction (great replacement theory). religious control and domination. And what one thing all religions have in common. they are patriarchal, male dominated and why? Again sexual superiority and control.
Sexual control and domination are deep seated, in all species. They are the foundation of religions.
The higher order brain, which is what the Democrats try to appeal to, is concerned with fairness, fraternity, equality, invoking every one from Krshna, Ghandi, to Jesus and Lincoln.
But those higher order qualities don't win elections, or control over government and peoples.
In Poland, the PiS or Law and Justice Party, is a fascist right wing Catholic party, and ruled Poland for Years, until Putin invaded Ukraine, perhaps the people could see the result of a quasi theocratic country which is Russia and was Poland under the PiS, and voted for a liberal secular democracy while they still had the chance.
We are saying the same thing about the two brain levels, PFC vs Mid-brain/limbic survival brain or "R Complex" for its reptilian heritage. However, you then contradict yourself by elucidating what is being "perceived as a threat" and at what level, as you lay out a number of rationalized examples. All communication happens at two distinct levels: process (emotion) and content (rationalization, words, ideas, etc.), so dictators and their Propaganda Ministers (FOX NEWS) focus on the threatening emotional process to the exclusion of the intellectual content. Triggering the fight-flight response demands attention and guarantees an avid viewership. DJT operates at his events like a carnival barker and his emotional process always supersedes the near irrelevant often delusional content. Most of the rest of your critique is right on and I agree.
They all started out as liars and most are religious hypocrites, Trump and Putin and all the thugs all throughout history and future thugs will be raised by, the lower brain parents.
The GOP are anarchists. Hardly a political party they are just useful idiots on a quest for a.) money and b.) power.
Watchfully waiting for the GOP and FOX to become American, is like watching a metastatic tumor spreading and watchfully waiting for it to reverse its spread.
Sir Okie: "Watchfully waiting for the GOP and FOX to become American, is like watching a metastatic tumor spreading and watchfully waiting for it to reverse its spread."
A great campaign slogan, if only it could be made shorter for a bumper sticker.
Everyday that goes by is another unveiling of the desperate despots corrupt machinations to overthrow our Democracy .
Everyday the Trump toadies become more steeped in Trump serving ignorance. That’s a tremendous pile of ignorance. Tucker Carlson is on that pile of garbage . And the Republican House is definitely part of the pile.
They have gone through every ignorance meter to date.
Everyone has known for months that Jim Jordan and James Comer have been lying .
The alleged impeachments of Joe Biden and Mayorkas are shams directed by the Cheeto himself .
As well he and his tools have blocked money to Ukraine refused to fix the border etc etc.
Anything reasonable is a no.
Remember these clowns represent a minority in this country.
There is no “ representation” of Americans anymore , not in this crooked mobsters mess.
Democrats and any voter that believes in Democracy must vote in numbers too big to ignore.
This Putin loving party has done far too much to Democracy . Democracy needs Representation. Vote that way .
It looks like America's oligarchs of war can't slop at the trough of Ukrainian aid until Putin and his alliance of oligarchs tell Comrade Trump that it's OK.
One country's useful idiot/asset is another country's traitor.
Ah Russia, the largest country in the world by area, but with one of the smaller populations, and run by the antichrist who has stolen all their money.
The Republican Party of today (this is not the GOP) is blinded by the love of money and power. Any notion of "conserving" has been thrown out the window. Following an idiotic criminal psychopath like Trump-no problem! Following a Russian murdering psychopathic dictator-no problem! I've always hated their social agenda, but now I must say I despise the traitors among them.
We said the Pledge of Allegiance at a county meeting the other day---I haven't said it that loud in a long time. I am feeling more American every time I see what is being done by this cadre of Republican Russian operatives now working for Putin in the open.
This Report says it all. My heart is with the dissidents in Russia and those everywhere trying to free themselves from Putin. We know some of what they feel!
Carolyn, Paul had Jesus sacrificed so he could indoctrinate people like you. Churches have preached the hatred of Jews for millennia. You are a poster child for his teachings!
Give me a break! He was starting a new religion. He condemned the followers of Jesus for not hearing him. Jews have been persecuted ever since. Am I imagining the dogma preached in every Christian church for thousands of years? You fail to see propaganda when it's plain to see if you don't have blinders on. Talk to any Christian and I've talked to many, not only in this country. I haven't found anyone who disagreed some quite vehemently and others not so much. You surprise me!
Carolyn, it is difficult to engage with you because in all of your comments I've read with William Farrar and others, you always have a zinger like Zionists are terrorists, not your exact words, they are mine. I also am sensitive to your comments because I see that the poison you're spreading is having untold hardship and violence on Jewish youth attending high school and our elite colleges. Antisemitism is the order of the day and an Atlantic article today confirmed this. It is analogous to what tRump did to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.
Although, I am far from a religious scholar, I believe Apostle Paul a Jew, not unlike Bernie Sanders or Robert Reich, in his quest to be accepted by the Gooyim (Christians) found Jesus a well known Rabbi for christians and Jews alike, a useful friend that could raise his own self worth. In seeking a new movement that absolved non Jews from sin and Jewish law, he read the bible out of context and changed the bible's meaning ever so slightly to support his claim that God had always intended to include non Jews into his fold, whether they sinned or not, whether they accepted Jewish law or not. Paul read scripture in odd ways and accepted those that came before him that read it in odd ways. Paul said that a rock that gave Jews water in their 40 years of wandering the desert accompanied them wherever they went. This is truly what I would expect from tRump today. I don't care how you read the bible, you will never find a rock or a pebble in there. Paul pitted one verse in the bible against another, where both versus say essentially the same thing, Paul found a way to put them in conflict. Instead of realizing they are saying to be a righteous Jew, you must obey the law God sets forth, Paul says you must have faith in Christ instead. "For Paul, scripture was about Jesus and getting the bible right was about Jesus." Huffington Post. Paul had a vision on his way to Damascus that revealed Jesus as the son of God and the Messiah. The blinding light Paul saw changed his life. Paul wrote a good portion of the New Testament. Paul became the principal Apostle to Gentiles and Peter became the principal Apostle to Jews. Paul is known to Jews as the grandfather of antisemitism. My sources: the Tablet-https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/who-was-paul Britanica-https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle Huffington Post-no link.
The Republican mask of patriotism has been stripped away, finally. Democrats should make the most of it during the election season.
On the other hand the words paternal, patriotism, patriarch all share the same root..Pater or father, as in Augustus Caesar's law of Pater Familia, meaning male supremacy, in the form of Father of the Family., with family being extended to the concept of nation.
That is where MAGAt, Republican, loyalty lies. there concept of patriotism has nothing to do at all with the nation. They admire Putin because Russia is the epitomy of patriarchal, paternalistic, patriotism, with women knowing their place, peasant women wear the Christian version of the hijab, the babushka, The Federal Assembly has cracked down on the LGBTQ community, passing legislation outlawing gender-affirming surgeries and banning “gay propaganda”.
And Russia has moved towards banning abortion, and outlawing contraception
There are hardly any Africans in Russia, and that is why Tucker and the right love Putin so much
Migration from African countries to Russia is still insignificant in scale and its main channel is educational migration.
In 2022, according to the official estimates of the Main Department of Migration Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 38,885 Africans were legally staying in Russia: 1,338 of them had valid temporary residence permits, 1,994 had valid residence permits at the end of the reporting period, 319 had valid work permits, 874 had received citizenship, and 34,360 Africans studied in Russia (the largest contingents are from Egypt (15,668 people), Morocco (3,438 people), Nigeria (1,754 people), Algeria (1,458 people) and Zimbabwe (1,262 people). https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/african-migration-to-russia-what-changes/
I cannot imagine the outcry if the shoe was on the other foot. The daily outcry would be repeated, constant, and never ending. So the question is what is going on that this does not occur for the Dem party and media in general. The lacks are known but the media non action is all telling. The failure of the response of the press shows just how prejudice the industry owners political view and desires are.
James The corporate media is biased. Biased towards profits, profits means advertising and de regulation
Corporations, many of which have shares in the corporate media, are the source of advertising revenue, and corporations are profit engines, interested in maximizing profits. To achieve that they advocate no taxes and de regulation. Some, maybe many corporations have major shareholders who have a social (patriarchal) agenda manifest through religion and/or ideology.
One cannot expect a corporation to do anything but operate in it's own best financial interests.
And that is why you can't rely on or trust the media.
There is no such thing as a liberal media, that is a right wing concoction, designed to keep what media there is on the back foot, and to rally the right against the "enemy"
Take "Liberal" MSNBC. First it's audience is almost exclusively old folk like me, and we are dying off, you can tell that from their ads, almost all are PhRMA, Life and Heatlh Insurance.
Are millenials, and Gen X,y,Z interested in such products? Nope.
The TV hosts know to stay on script, and have ear buds, with producers warning them or telling them to change the subject or stop
Yesterday on Ari Melber, a guest analyst, came on heavy blaming the media, including MSNBC for Trump and the current situation, Ari rushed trying to disrupt him and change the subject, failing that he interruped and called on other "expert" with a different question.
If you overstep on "liberal" MSNBC you find yourself unemployed just ask Keith Olbermann and Tiffany Cross. IMO Chris Matthews got a big head, overblown ego, and sexual harassment.
People are lazy, they want easy answers, especially from someone in their echo chamber.
Google is your friend, all you need to be is curious, and ask it properly worded questions.
Start with who owns MSNBC, or CNN, or ABC, or CBS etc. then right down the list of owners (most of them corporations) and do the same for each corporation and drill down .
Do the same for Who is on the Board of Directors of MSNBC, etc and drill down on each person that shows up in the bio, some even show up on Wikipedia.
And you will find a lot of corporate incest and nepotism.
William, I found that to be more true of CNN with John Malone and Zaslov, his lap dog, who is a legend in the TV business and a majority shareholder in Discovery and also member of the Federalist Society. I like Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow. Their guests are experts in their field i.e. Neal Katyal, Andrew Wiseman. and Luttig. Am I wrong?
They don't know that they're doing Putin's bidding - useful idiots never do. But they are clear about their devotion to trump, and for most of them there's literally nothing that's off the table when it comes to doing his bidding.
Biden gave the Congress and the supreme Court to the GOP by not firing Garland within the first week!
We have to vote for Biden and hope that he's a socialist fascist and not a capitalist fascist.
It would be very wise if you contact friends or relatives with lots of ground, where you could live off the grid! In the event America goes back into the dark ages and fulfill the prophecies in the Bible of a living hell on Earth! Courtesy of The reptilian brains.
Garland let the obstruction of justice counts from the Mueller Report lapse.
I was tracking the escapades of Igor Deripaska who was mentioned in the Mueller report. He had been a donor to the 2016 Senate campaign and Mitch McConnell who was accused of giving him a special deal on an aluminum mill. Rachel Maddow recounted “Here’s a story. Or here’s at least a series of events that may or may not be connected, but I’m trying to wrap my head around them” .She started her story when the federal government put sanctions on Deripaska, who she pointed out “used to do a bunch of work with Paul Manafort.” The sanctions also impacted his company Rusal, which is the second largest aluminum company in the world. Maddow explained how Deripaska ran a “robust and very expensive campaign by lobbyists” that resulted in the Trump administration relaxing the sanctions. https://www.salon.com/2019/05/22/rachel-maddow-connects-the-dots-on-an-epic-financial-scandal-involving-mitch-mcconnell-and-russia_partner/
Deripaska bought himself Cypriot citizenship (and therefore EU citizenship) in 2017. He was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2018 for reasons relating to the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia. Deripaska was sanctioned by the UK Government in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he publicly condemned.
According to the internet, "in February 2018, Alexei Navalny published a video about a meeting between Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Eduardovich Prikhodko on a yacht traveling near Norway. According to Navalny, Deripaska probably served as a middle man between the Russian government represented by Prikhodko and Paul Manafort during Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Prikhodko denied the allegations, accusing Navalny of "mixing the facts" about his "friend" Deripaska, Trump and Manafort, while also voicing his wish to have talk with Navalny as a "man with a man".
"A day after the video was published the Roskomnadzor added the video to the Federal List of Extremist Materials, thus making accessing the video illegal for all Russian citizens. It also ordered YouTube to remove seven videos and Instagram to take down 14 points that were cited in the investigation; neither YouTube nor Instagram had responded as of 12 February 2018. According to a Roskomnadzor representative who spoke to Vedomosti, a "court injunction of this sort against content hosted on Instagram and YouTube is unprecedented for Russia". The New York Times noted that this may presage a "more aggressive approach by the Russian government" to control online activities."
In March 2018, fearing her own death while incarcerated in Bangkok, Anastasia Vashukevich, a Belarusian escort who claimed to have over 16 hours of audio recordings she said could shed light on possible Russian interference in American elections. She offered the recordings to American authorities in exchange for asylum, but was deported and arrested in a Russian airport. Vashukevich said the recordings from August 2016 include Deripaska discussing the United States presidential election with three English-speakers who Vashukevich believed were American. "Deripaska had a plan about elections", Vashukevich said. In court, Vashukevich apologized to Deripaska, and said Russian agents visited her in jail to urge her to cease public statements about him. The New York Times argued that her claims might be easily dismissed were it not for the Navalny video. Deripaska denies an intimate history with Vashukevich.
Informative and passionate post. Thanks. I have been enraged by Russia’s IRA stoking of race conflict in the US over these years to create social chaos that Trump and his global criminal cartel are using to grab power and profiteer. The IRA are experts in US political history and its societal iniquities and are using this knowledge to incite violence amongst the socially excluded and vulnerable to deepen US cultural divisions with the aid of bought politicians and pundits.
The population of Russia has shrunk about 5 million people the last 30 years. Putin does not have to worry about creating jobs for his people. Putin and his buddies are living quite well on all of the Russian citizens natural resources, especially oil.
The reason I bring this up is because America is following in Russia's footsteps. America will never have a labor shortage as long as they have a bunch of hungry Catholics in South America and ban abortions and contraceptives in America. Even if Trump and his ilk create no jobs, they will be able to sustain the American economy with force. Anyone who objects gets replaced by a new baby or immigrant, or too many people, send them off to war.
Since America is 30 trillion dollars in debt and doesn't have that much natural resources left, it will be necessary to dispose of all the useless eaters. China, will be the new world reserve currency and America will look like Haiti. In my research, I found that Russian people have about the same standard of living as the Haitians.
Trickle up FDR gave us prosperity and trickle down Reagan gave us poverty. That is a slogan that I like.
One has to be careful with such suggestions, from a legal standpoint. However, training and arming a group of Ukrainians with Ben Laden type Seal Team 6 capabilities might not be a bad policy?
The need to keep pathological leaders like Trump & Putin away from civilized society is why I think AI research, overseen by rational people of high moral value, needs to be encouraged, because if monsters like Putin or Trump gain control of it first, they would turn society into a Gulag hell hole. Psychopaths, such as these, go through life without empathy.
Your well-documented and truly horrific facts will be ignored by the MAGAts as “fake news” or, worse, celebrated because Putin is helping their orange god, the greatest President in American history, to reclaim the office only voting fraud prevented him from retaining in the first place. They do not know, or do not care, that they will be sacrificing Ukraine, NATO, possibly much of Europe, maybe Taiwan, maybe even Israel. They do not know, or apparently care, that their own personal social safety nets will likely be gutted to make the morbidly rich even more obscenely wealthy. They do not care, may even welcome, the end of our nation, fearing that is letting too many uppity non-white people have a small share in the vaunted “American Dream”.
They must be suffocated at the polls, and Putin must pay in the most painful way possible for his crimes against not just this country and Ukraine, but against humanity.
Vote blue in November, for every office at every level. Or be ready for this country to die what will, in the end, be a self-inflicted wound.
Putin is an all purpose hater. He denies that the Ukraine is a sovereign country and expresses hatred for Poland and other countries. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ally-warns-enemy-poland-you-risk-losing-your-statehood-2023-11-02/
When I was a kid, I thought the national anthem was "In Heaven there is No Beer" because everyone stood up when it played. Although Polish Americans constitute only about 3% of the population, add in people in a similar situation.
Although many are registered Democrats, anecdotally many Polish Americans identified with Trump. Before the 2020 election, he targeted them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/11/trump-is-moving-secure-polish-american-vote-heres-how/
Given his support for Putin, IMHO now there should be virtually no Polish American Trump support. Key states like MI, WI, Oh, PA have large Polish American populations.
It’s astounding the damage Putin via our MSM & Trump have done against our country. This is a thorough synopsis of the sequence of events, especially since 2015.
Thanks, Thom, for yet another insightful and well written take down of DJT and Co. I believe the key to understanding the Trump phenomenon cannot be found in the "rational" brain, but, rather, in the mid-brain or "survival brain", so well described in Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". So, all that dictators have to do, so well presented in Orwell's classic "1984", is focus the popular attention/media on existential threats, which causes a "downshift" from rational thinking to survival emotional "thinking". Rational cognition follows the lead of the survival/emotional brain's direction and makes the unsuspecting "follower" putty in the hands of autocrats/dictators. History is filled with examples, and Our Mad King (wannabe) Donald is a prime example. Putin is masterful at playing the existential crisis card, and DJT has learned to follow his lead.
My inexpert model has been the amygdala vs the pre frontal cortex, but yours works as well, although more unwieldy
You are quite correct about Trump and Putin playing the existential crisis card, but what is being threatened, that is the question?
One can determine that by considering what is perceived as a threat. Abortion, (control over sex), LGBT (sex again). non white migration (sex again via reproduction and threatening of white supremacy which includes non white reproduction (great replacement theory). religious control and domination. And what one thing all religions have in common. they are patriarchal, male dominated and why? Again sexual superiority and control.
Sexual control and domination are deep seated, in all species. They are the foundation of religions.
The higher order brain, which is what the Democrats try to appeal to, is concerned with fairness, fraternity, equality, invoking every one from Krshna, Ghandi, to Jesus and Lincoln.
But those higher order qualities don't win elections, or control over government and peoples.
In Poland, the PiS or Law and Justice Party, is a fascist right wing Catholic party, and ruled Poland for Years, until Putin invaded Ukraine, perhaps the people could see the result of a quasi theocratic country which is Russia and was Poland under the PiS, and voted for a liberal secular democracy while they still had the chance.
We are saying the same thing about the two brain levels, PFC vs Mid-brain/limbic survival brain or "R Complex" for its reptilian heritage. However, you then contradict yourself by elucidating what is being "perceived as a threat" and at what level, as you lay out a number of rationalized examples. All communication happens at two distinct levels: process (emotion) and content (rationalization, words, ideas, etc.), so dictators and their Propaganda Ministers (FOX NEWS) focus on the threatening emotional process to the exclusion of the intellectual content. Triggering the fight-flight response demands attention and guarantees an avid viewership. DJT operates at his events like a carnival barker and his emotional process always supersedes the near irrelevant often delusional content. Most of the rest of your critique is right on and I agree.
They all started out as liars and most are religious hypocrites, Trump and Putin and all the thugs all throughout history and future thugs will be raised by, the lower brain parents.
The GOP are anarchists. Hardly a political party they are just useful idiots on a quest for a.) money and b.) power.
Watchfully waiting for the GOP and FOX to become American, is like watching a metastatic tumor spreading and watchfully waiting for it to reverse its spread.
What could possibly go wrong?
Sir Okie: "Watchfully waiting for the GOP and FOX to become American, is like watching a metastatic tumor spreading and watchfully waiting for it to reverse its spread."
A great campaign slogan, if only it could be made shorter for a bumper sticker.
Everyday that goes by is another unveiling of the desperate despots corrupt machinations to overthrow our Democracy .
Everyday the Trump toadies become more steeped in Trump serving ignorance. That’s a tremendous pile of ignorance. Tucker Carlson is on that pile of garbage . And the Republican House is definitely part of the pile.
They have gone through every ignorance meter to date.
Everyone has known for months that Jim Jordan and James Comer have been lying .
The alleged impeachments of Joe Biden and Mayorkas are shams directed by the Cheeto himself .
As well he and his tools have blocked money to Ukraine refused to fix the border etc etc.
Anything reasonable is a no.
Remember these clowns represent a minority in this country.
There is no “ representation” of Americans anymore , not in this crooked mobsters mess.
Democrats and any voter that believes in Democracy must vote in numbers too big to ignore.
This Putin loving party has done far too much to Democracy . Democracy needs Representation. Vote that way .
WELL SAID, Patricia!
It looks like America's oligarchs of war can't slop at the trough of Ukrainian aid until Putin and his alliance of oligarchs tell Comrade Trump that it's OK.
One country's useful idiot/asset is another country's traitor.
Ah Russia, the largest country in the world by area, but with one of the smaller populations, and run by the antichrist who has stolen all their money.
The Republican Party of today (this is not the GOP) is blinded by the love of money and power. Any notion of "conserving" has been thrown out the window. Following an idiotic criminal psychopath like Trump-no problem! Following a Russian murdering psychopathic dictator-no problem! I've always hated their social agenda, but now I must say I despise the traitors among them.
We said the Pledge of Allegiance at a county meeting the other day---I haven't said it that loud in a long time. I am feeling more American every time I see what is being done by this cadre of Republican Russian operatives now working for Putin in the open.
This Report says it all. My heart is with the dissidents in Russia and those everywhere trying to free themselves from Putin. We know some of what they feel!
Carolyn, Paul had Jesus sacrificed so he could indoctrinate people like you. Churches have preached the hatred of Jews for millennia. You are a poster child for his teachings!
Give me a break! He was starting a new religion. He condemned the followers of Jesus for not hearing him. Jews have been persecuted ever since. Am I imagining the dogma preached in every Christian church for thousands of years? You fail to see propaganda when it's plain to see if you don't have blinders on. Talk to any Christian and I've talked to many, not only in this country. I haven't found anyone who disagreed some quite vehemently and others not so much. You surprise me!
Carolyn, it is difficult to engage with you because in all of your comments I've read with William Farrar and others, you always have a zinger like Zionists are terrorists, not your exact words, they are mine. I also am sensitive to your comments because I see that the poison you're spreading is having untold hardship and violence on Jewish youth attending high school and our elite colleges. Antisemitism is the order of the day and an Atlantic article today confirmed this. It is analogous to what tRump did to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.
Although, I am far from a religious scholar, I believe Apostle Paul a Jew, not unlike Bernie Sanders or Robert Reich, in his quest to be accepted by the Gooyim (Christians) found Jesus a well known Rabbi for christians and Jews alike, a useful friend that could raise his own self worth. In seeking a new movement that absolved non Jews from sin and Jewish law, he read the bible out of context and changed the bible's meaning ever so slightly to support his claim that God had always intended to include non Jews into his fold, whether they sinned or not, whether they accepted Jewish law or not. Paul read scripture in odd ways and accepted those that came before him that read it in odd ways. Paul said that a rock that gave Jews water in their 40 years of wandering the desert accompanied them wherever they went. This is truly what I would expect from tRump today. I don't care how you read the bible, you will never find a rock or a pebble in there. Paul pitted one verse in the bible against another, where both versus say essentially the same thing, Paul found a way to put them in conflict. Instead of realizing they are saying to be a righteous Jew, you must obey the law God sets forth, Paul says you must have faith in Christ instead. "For Paul, scripture was about Jesus and getting the bible right was about Jesus." Huffington Post. Paul had a vision on his way to Damascus that revealed Jesus as the son of God and the Messiah. The blinding light Paul saw changed his life. Paul wrote a good portion of the New Testament. Paul became the principal Apostle to Gentiles and Peter became the principal Apostle to Jews. Paul is known to Jews as the grandfather of antisemitism. My sources: the Tablet-https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/who-was-paul Britanica-https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle Huffington Post-no link.
The Republican mask of patriotism has been stripped away, finally. Democrats should make the most of it during the election season.
On the other hand the words paternal, patriotism, patriarch all share the same root..Pater or father, as in Augustus Caesar's law of Pater Familia, meaning male supremacy, in the form of Father of the Family., with family being extended to the concept of nation.
That is where MAGAt, Republican, loyalty lies. there concept of patriotism has nothing to do at all with the nation. They admire Putin because Russia is the epitomy of patriarchal, paternalistic, patriotism, with women knowing their place, peasant women wear the Christian version of the hijab, the babushka, The Federal Assembly has cracked down on the LGBTQ community, passing legislation outlawing gender-affirming surgeries and banning “gay propaganda”.
And Russia has moved towards banning abortion, and outlawing contraception
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/28/russia-limits-womens-access-to-abortion-citing-demographic-changes
There are hardly any Africans in Russia, and that is why Tucker and the right love Putin so much
Migration from African countries to Russia is still insignificant in scale and its main channel is educational migration.
In 2022, according to the official estimates of the Main Department of Migration Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 38,885 Africans were legally staying in Russia: 1,338 of them had valid temporary residence permits, 1,994 had valid residence permits at the end of the reporting period, 319 had valid work permits, 874 had received citizenship, and 34,360 Africans studied in Russia (the largest contingents are from Egypt (15,668 people), Morocco (3,438 people), Nigeria (1,754 people), Algeria (1,458 people) and Zimbabwe (1,262 people). https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/african-migration-to-russia-what-changes/
The entire House hierarchy, especially Gym Jordan are Russian agents or willing idiots.
There is definitely a MAGA-Putin nexus.
William, you are a wealth of information. Thank you!
One thing has nothing to do with the other. Thanks for letting us know that you are a Putinist.
Childish retort Carolyn, but exactly what I expect from you.
Laughs out loud, trying to condescend to me. Sorry, you have such an impoverished mind.
I cannot imagine the outcry if the shoe was on the other foot. The daily outcry would be repeated, constant, and never ending. So the question is what is going on that this does not occur for the Dem party and media in general. The lacks are known but the media non action is all telling. The failure of the response of the press shows just how prejudice the industry owners political view and desires are.
James The corporate media is biased. Biased towards profits, profits means advertising and de regulation
Corporations, many of which have shares in the corporate media, are the source of advertising revenue, and corporations are profit engines, interested in maximizing profits. To achieve that they advocate no taxes and de regulation. Some, maybe many corporations have major shareholders who have a social (patriarchal) agenda manifest through religion and/or ideology.
One cannot expect a corporation to do anything but operate in it's own best financial interests.
And that is why you can't rely on or trust the media.
There is no such thing as a liberal media, that is a right wing concoction, designed to keep what media there is on the back foot, and to rally the right against the "enemy"
Take "Liberal" MSNBC. First it's audience is almost exclusively old folk like me, and we are dying off, you can tell that from their ads, almost all are PhRMA, Life and Heatlh Insurance.
Are millenials, and Gen X,y,Z interested in such products? Nope.
The TV hosts know to stay on script, and have ear buds, with producers warning them or telling them to change the subject or stop
Yesterday on Ari Melber, a guest analyst, came on heavy blaming the media, including MSNBC for Trump and the current situation, Ari rushed trying to disrupt him and change the subject, failing that he interruped and called on other "expert" with a different question.
If you overstep on "liberal" MSNBC you find yourself unemployed just ask Keith Olbermann and Tiffany Cross. IMO Chris Matthews got a big head, overblown ego, and sexual harassment.
I also think that the rich own the media and are steering the nation to a dictatorship.
People are lazy, they want easy answers, especially from someone in their echo chamber.
Google is your friend, all you need to be is curious, and ask it properly worded questions.
Start with who owns MSNBC, or CNN, or ABC, or CBS etc. then right down the list of owners (most of them corporations) and do the same for each corporation and drill down .
Do the same for Who is on the Board of Directors of MSNBC, etc and drill down on each person that shows up in the bio, some even show up on Wikipedia.
And you will find a lot of corporate incest and nepotism.
William, I found that to be more true of CNN with John Malone and Zaslov, his lap dog, who is a legend in the TV business and a majority shareholder in Discovery and also member of the Federalist Society. I like Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow. Their guests are experts in their field i.e. Neal Katyal, Andrew Wiseman. and Luttig. Am I wrong?
They don't know that they're doing Putin's bidding - useful idiots never do. But they are clear about their devotion to trump, and for most of them there's literally nothing that's off the table when it comes to doing his bidding.
Biden gave the Congress and the supreme Court to the GOP by not firing Garland within the first week!
We have to vote for Biden and hope that he's a socialist fascist and not a capitalist fascist.
It would be very wise if you contact friends or relatives with lots of ground, where you could live off the grid! In the event America goes back into the dark ages and fulfill the prophecies in the Bible of a living hell on Earth! Courtesy of The reptilian brains.
Garland let the obstruction of justice counts from the Mueller Report lapse.
I was tracking the escapades of Igor Deripaska who was mentioned in the Mueller report. He had been a donor to the 2016 Senate campaign and Mitch McConnell who was accused of giving him a special deal on an aluminum mill. Rachel Maddow recounted “Here’s a story. Or here’s at least a series of events that may or may not be connected, but I’m trying to wrap my head around them” .She started her story when the federal government put sanctions on Deripaska, who she pointed out “used to do a bunch of work with Paul Manafort.” The sanctions also impacted his company Rusal, which is the second largest aluminum company in the world. Maddow explained how Deripaska ran a “robust and very expensive campaign by lobbyists” that resulted in the Trump administration relaxing the sanctions. https://www.salon.com/2019/05/22/rachel-maddow-connects-the-dots-on-an-epic-financial-scandal-involving-mitch-mcconnell-and-russia_partner/
Deripaska bought himself Cypriot citizenship (and therefore EU citizenship) in 2017. He was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2018 for reasons relating to the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia. Deripaska was sanctioned by the UK Government in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he publicly condemned.
Deripaska and 2 others are charged with one count of conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/russian-oligarch-oleg-vladimirovich-deripaska-and-associates-indicted-sanctions-evasion-and#:~:text=Deripaska%2C%20Bardakova%20and%20Shriki%2C%20are,of%2020%20years%20in%20prison.
According to the internet, "in February 2018, Alexei Navalny published a video about a meeting between Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Eduardovich Prikhodko on a yacht traveling near Norway. According to Navalny, Deripaska probably served as a middle man between the Russian government represented by Prikhodko and Paul Manafort during Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Prikhodko denied the allegations, accusing Navalny of "mixing the facts" about his "friend" Deripaska, Trump and Manafort, while also voicing his wish to have talk with Navalny as a "man with a man".
"A day after the video was published the Roskomnadzor added the video to the Federal List of Extremist Materials, thus making accessing the video illegal for all Russian citizens. It also ordered YouTube to remove seven videos and Instagram to take down 14 points that were cited in the investigation; neither YouTube nor Instagram had responded as of 12 February 2018. According to a Roskomnadzor representative who spoke to Vedomosti, a "court injunction of this sort against content hosted on Instagram and YouTube is unprecedented for Russia". The New York Times noted that this may presage a "more aggressive approach by the Russian government" to control online activities."
In March 2018, fearing her own death while incarcerated in Bangkok, Anastasia Vashukevich, a Belarusian escort who claimed to have over 16 hours of audio recordings she said could shed light on possible Russian interference in American elections. She offered the recordings to American authorities in exchange for asylum, but was deported and arrested in a Russian airport. Vashukevich said the recordings from August 2016 include Deripaska discussing the United States presidential election with three English-speakers who Vashukevich believed were American. "Deripaska had a plan about elections", Vashukevich said. In court, Vashukevich apologized to Deripaska, and said Russian agents visited her in jail to urge her to cease public statements about him. The New York Times argued that her claims might be easily dismissed were it not for the Navalny video. Deripaska denies an intimate history with Vashukevich.
So far these are Russian sanctions. https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/russia-related-sanctions Further Russian sanctions will be announced tomorrow. .
Garland did bring war crimes charges against four Russia-affiliated military personnel that include torture, inhuman treatment, and unlawful confinement of a U.S. national in Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-russia-affiliated-military-personnel-charged-war-crimes-connection-russias-invasion#:~:text=War%20crimes%20charges%20against%20four,of%20Ukraine%20in%20February%202022.
Informative and passionate post. Thanks. I have been enraged by Russia’s IRA stoking of race conflict in the US over these years to create social chaos that Trump and his global criminal cartel are using to grab power and profiteer. The IRA are experts in US political history and its societal iniquities and are using this knowledge to incite violence amongst the socially excluded and vulnerable to deepen US cultural divisions with the aid of bought politicians and pundits.
Thom, I hope that your talk today with Phil Ittner can go viral! It was an excellent talk about how Russia is influencing the US.
How far? All the way if we let them….
The population of Russia has shrunk about 5 million people the last 30 years. Putin does not have to worry about creating jobs for his people. Putin and his buddies are living quite well on all of the Russian citizens natural resources, especially oil.
The reason I bring this up is because America is following in Russia's footsteps. America will never have a labor shortage as long as they have a bunch of hungry Catholics in South America and ban abortions and contraceptives in America. Even if Trump and his ilk create no jobs, they will be able to sustain the American economy with force. Anyone who objects gets replaced by a new baby or immigrant, or too many people, send them off to war.
Since America is 30 trillion dollars in debt and doesn't have that much natural resources left, it will be necessary to dispose of all the useless eaters. China, will be the new world reserve currency and America will look like Haiti. In my research, I found that Russian people have about the same standard of living as the Haitians.
Trickle up FDR gave us prosperity and trickle down Reagan gave us poverty. That is a slogan that I like.
One has to be careful with such suggestions, from a legal standpoint. However, training and arming a group of Ukrainians with Ben Laden type Seal Team 6 capabilities might not be a bad policy?
The need to keep pathological leaders like Trump & Putin away from civilized society is why I think AI research, overseen by rational people of high moral value, needs to be encouraged, because if monsters like Putin or Trump gain control of it first, they would turn society into a Gulag hell hole. Psychopaths, such as these, go through life without empathy.