That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...."
TV talking heads this morning are jabbering on about trump's "testing boundaries." Bullshit! He has blasted through and obliterated them. We are entering the age of the ignoble savage.
Yup. That's the size of it. The founders sowed the seeds of our own destruction with the ideas of semi-sovereign states, the 2A, and the Electoral College. How ironic it is that the morons who believe the 2A exists to give them the power to resist a tyranny voted for it.
Pave paradise put up a parking lot. How long can what's left of our system of government run at this level of stress? The entire Civil Service is redlining. Maybe the woman and men of the FBI, CIA, are looking over their shoulders and not as much at the threats foreign and domestic. People break systems break. How long can the Trump Musk madness go on before we have a disaster or multiple disasters?
TV talking heads annoy me, even the best of them. They bloviate and kevetch over the latest outrage. It is too late, damage done, it can't be reversed, if Trump and Musk were to evaporate today, the egg has been broken and can't be put back together again.
Enough of the jabber, enough of the complaining, it is time for only one thing... action to save what little we have left.
To the barricades, and I don't mean marching in the street,holding signs and chanting, those are pressure relief valves and "they" fear them not,in fact they welcome them, so long as the protestors don't haul out the guillotine.. but first we have to get the military slaves (armed forces, sheriff, cops) on our side.
Over a year ago Thom did a satirical take on what it would look like if Trump won. It had Trump arresting house members. I thought it was extreme at the time and now I’m thinking it was probably accurate.
It's coming. And not just in the House. "Read-only" access to Treasury Department data will allow DOJ and FBI to manufacture prosecutable evidence against any major opposition from Democrats, academia, or journalists.
"He will remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white, male supremacist worldview and the new authoritarianism."
This actually began decades ago. Republicans have been underfunding and dumbing down education every opportunity they've gotten since, at least, Reagan. Texas is, as we speak, pushing through a voucher program that provides $10K/yr for private school tuition and $2k/yr for home schooling. The home school funding is particularly obscene because NO ONE oversees what home schooled children are taught. Ignoramuses teaching their children is very much a reason why we are where we are today. That is, of course, hunky dory for fascists. Ignoramuses are very easily brainwashed.
Check this out: The only Constitutional remedy is impeachment.
Statements expressing outrage and calls for investigations are important, as is the filing of lawsuits challenging illegal actions being undertaken by the President. Likewise, the renewed activism of grassroots organizations suggests an ever more widespread reaction to the President’s attacks. But so far, these are essentially defensive moves of limited effectiveness. Alone, they are insufficient responses at a moment that calls for an aggressive counter-attack.....
We the people must target this serpent at its head.
Have to persist. Republicans here are at each others' throats.
Yesterday, "Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of a resolution by Commissioner René Garcia, a former Miami-Dade GOP chair, that urged the Trump administration to maintain all TPS designations currently in place for people from countries like Venezuela, Haiti and others. (Commissioners Kevin Marino Cabrera, named by Trump to be the ambassador to Panama, and Roberto Gonzalez, a vocal Trump supporter, stepped away before the vote)."
For the Speaker of the House to accept a bill or motion, it must be introduced by a House member, referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker, and then brought to the House floor for consideration where the Speaker determines when and if it will be debated and voted on; essentially, the Speaker has significant discretion in scheduling legislation, but cannot unilaterally block a bill from being considered if it has been properly introduced and reported by a committee.
The bill to impeach was brought up by a Democratic congressman, who obviously knew that it would go nowhere, but he could point to it and claim he had done something.
There is not a house committee that would consider a bill to impeach, not one controlled by Republicans.
Republicants are at each others throats because that's what their cult leader demands. He wants to see who will show him the most support and favor. That's what they are fighting over, Trumps blessings. Hitler used the same tactic. He reveled in his underlings fighting one another to see who would prevail.
As regards your second subject: Mixed emotions here. I would not at all mind deporting the Cubanos and Venezualans, after all they are or appear to be the driving force behind the Trump and DeSantis base in Florida.
Pretty sad, isn't it. They fled from a dictator, only to help create one here. I mentioned this to a Latino friend, and he said the kids and grandchildren of those immigrants don't even know who Castro was ! Or any of the South American dictators. Is this even possible?
It is the same with Gen x, y, and z blacks, especially the males. They have no knowledge or appreciation of what their parents and grandparents had to endure, and worse yet they have no idea of what is in store for them now.They are like most of the present generation, they don't pay attention, Rhonda Santis and the war on woke and CRT goes over their head.
Thom Hartmann has said many times, that it takes about 80 years for historical memory to disappear and the cycle to repeat itself., actually it is less than 80 years it is every other generation.
Multiply this by Cubans, Hatians, and now Republican federal employees. 69.1% of Miami-Dade County's population is Hispanic or Latino, making it the most populated majority-Hispanic county in the United States.
Many state and local government agencies will be defunded by anti DEI discrimination. We havea Democratic Party majority.
A whole lot of buyers remorse in Miami Dade County Daniel. Same thing with Muslims and other groups.
Day late and dollar short.
This tractor we are riding doesn't seem to have a reverse, and the ground it has torn up, can't be put together again.
Best bet is that the enablers, now seeing the wreckage they sowed, can come together and prevent anymore.
I don't think that they can rebuild and undo the damage done by the stupidity of shutting down USAID. Watching a great discussion of it on Nicole Wallace at the moment.. the damage done to the FBI and Treasury Dept can't be undone either.
It appears that the whole game plan is to turn the US into a vulnerable third world country.
I've written to my reps to stop the takeover by unelected government contractor Musk, who is tied to China and Russia and has a conflict of interests.
I reminded them that Miami is the de-facto financial capitol of Venezuela and that hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on our international banking industry. Yesterday, Trump sent deportees to concentration camps in Git-mo. He has plans to denaturalize US citizens and deport them. Rep Carlos Gimenez was born in Cuba. Was a Democrat until 2020, when he switched parties. Was elected as a Democratic mayor. As # 45 Trump started the process. https://immpolicytracking.org/media/documents/ACLU_Fact_Sheet_on_Denaturalization.pdf Now, they will seek to denaturalize and deport people who made errors in their initial applications. https://immigrationforum.org/article/trumps-first-100-days-potential-immigration-actions/
Many voters here have dual citizenship -- like several Canadians in my building.
I would like to see some numbers on the protests in various states. Some protests looked strong and others not so much but it is hard to tell from the videos. What is needed more than marches is aggressive action from our legislative representatives. The effect of marches tends to wear off quickly unless they are for an extended period of time. Buckle up.
The 3 Batistiano House MAGATS here are very sympathetic to the Cubans and Venezuelans here on cancelled humantarian visas. I posted the letter from my rep to the Trump administration asking "no mas."
All of those visas were sponsored. I don't know this as a fact, but I expect there are over a million, and most sponsors are in Baghdad By the Sea and were also supporters of the 3 amigos.
I'm hoping that thousands of minority fed employees here who lost their jobs or were threatened here complain loudly. Today is the drop dead date for the Fork in the Road Musk campaign.
I am reminded of the birthright citizen who voted for Trump because he was only going to deport "the bad guys"
What the left don't get, because in their own way they are as reactionary as the right (in response to the right) and thus easily manipulated via reverse psychology, and their liberal values are used against them is that the Hispanic migrants are fodder for the right wing.
Tradiional "family" values, i.e. misogynist, patriarchal, homophobic, once they become citizens they and their children become the Nicholas Fuentes, Enrique Tarrio's and Joe Arpaio's.
Even now there are in Texas to culture war Democrats , Cuellar and Gonzales, and there is a 1st Generation, Republican Trump Humper, newly elected Democrat of the 32nd District name of Mayra Flores.
Not too long ago, Abbot of Texas and DeSantis financed a scheme to sent Venezuelas to the northern sanctuary cities.
This was not new, it harks back to the old reverse freedom rides, when the governors of the south chartered greyhound buses, and gave poor blacks documents promising nice homes and jobs and sent them north.
Occupy movement was an extended period of time and it petered out. The last gasp were a group that claimed a street in Seattle, elected their own mayor, Police put up barricades at the top and bottom of the street, and it lasted maybe two weeks, then everyone went home.
Take a look at the civil service in DOJ and FBI, an acting director sent out an email, and told people to resign and take a buyout, or....
40,000 have taken him up, the whole gambit is illgal, there is no money appropriated to buy them out, yet these highly educated people took the deal, and I guarantee they will not get the 8 months pay they were promised.
Whistle blowers, poor whistle blowers, if I were them I would be looking for a residency visa in Belize.
In normal times Daniel. This is not normal times. Trump has staffed his cabinet and their offices with ideological loyalists, who are also afraid of retribution.
\The age of whistleblowers in government is over, nay the age of whistleblowers is over.
Perhaps Biden can be the hero who will save American Democracy, if he can be scooped up off the floor often enough or pimped-slapped out of his trances. Nah, he could have done something long ago, instead of aiding the coup's cause by an incredible inactivity and reticence to even alarm the public. Appointing barely manifested Merrick ensured any meaningful and quick legal remedy to stop the coup would not materialize, which seemed suspiciously compliant. Maybe Pelosi? Nah, too busy adding to her $272 million by her strangely precocious stock trading. Her real job has been to make sure real democrats like AOC stay trivialized and corralled. Anybody not infested with the political virus of unyielding loyalty to the Democratic Party--rivalling the MAGAites in their concrete loyalty--actually listen to AOC? Her fiery responces and germaine demands are exactly the committment and courage that so many Democrats are looking for in ridiculouly wrong places. Blind loyalty is a deadly virus. Hope is not a tactic.
Less than 20 years!!! As soon as the Marines hit the beaches in Greenland, Panama, Mexico or the beaches of Canada on any of 4 of the Great Lakes. Within 4 years at the most.
While we were chasing the newest bright shiny object, very quietly Trump appointed Rubia acting head of the National Archives.
Now why is that relevant? Because the archives hold the record of his crimes, especially the classified documents, and the FBI investigation and Jack Smiths records of investigation and indictiments.
Certainly, legal action is a valid pathway. In the present situation I feel it will be too little, and perhaps too late.
One, the judicial system has been corrupted by big money and is not a reliable source of true justice;
Two, even when a judge rules against the executive branch action, someone has to EXECUTE the decision... and that would be the executive branch: Local, State or Federal.
We can kiss goodbye any Federal Executive Branch action against itself. So we are back to lining up local and state officials. And that puts us back in the streets again.
I am writing here in NY. The only way the governor of this state is going to stand up to DT and his clown car of administrators is if she knows the people of NY state are on fire.
You nailed it, Thom. And people have to stop thinking Trump is stupid. You don't get to be president twice by being stupid. Sociopaths are smart because they have the advantage of not having their thinking slowed down by empathy and ethics. They are consummate actors and can act stupid to appeal to marks who pride themselves on being anti-intellectual. Resistance protests are starting, so we are thinking he will be defeated. Don't you think Trump has thought that there would be resistance protests, is planning for, and even hoping for them? If he can send his goons to attack and cause violence, he'll be able to declare Martial Law, arrest his enemies, and cancel elections. Of course, we have to resist, and there will and must be protests, but only two things can insure us success: Nonviolence; and a massive outpouring. If we can remain nonviolent, the publics sympathy will remain with the victims and the blame will be laid on the perpetrators. Otherwise it will only be mayhem. And our protests must be so large and so constant that no amount of goons is going to upset them. Think North Korea. Keep in mind also, that with the data of the Treasury department at their disposal, Trump will be able to threaten people with cutting off Social Security, etc., in order to discipline the masses. We are going to have to set up systems for providing support to people. But fear not. In spite of everything, we still have the blood in our veins of all those who went before and fought and died for freedom, and if we remain smart and united, we will prevail and not only defeat Trump, but end up with a better world.
You are correct. The people who call Trump stupid are stupid themselves.
As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put the words into the mouth of Sherlock Holmes, when he was scoffed at because he didn't know geography. He replied, how is geography going to help me solve a crime?
Trump is street smart, he knows that people have weaknesses, soft spots, and he identifies them, mostly it is money, he moves in charms and exploits them.
Serial killers, con men are sociopaths, so are successful businessmen and antrepreneurs.
What will be our Boston Tea Party? We can send emails and make phone calls all day long. Do they matter? Sure. But enough? No. The Dems can show some backbone. The courts can issue stays. But the takeover marches on. Pauses are not reversals. The largest demonstration of my life time was the Woman's March in 2017. We need something larger—much larger. We need a national strike. We need that leadership to show up NOW.
Yes, it is a game of distractions by Trump setting up $ trillions for theft by Musk. It is rather simple. I did say $ trillions and I identity what I can see. In just one instance, if they kill the Education Department, states will clamor for privatization. Education is $853 billion per year. Yes $BILLION. Ohhh. The 10-year contract(s), think $9 trillion. One graft pie. There are many. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/watch-the-treasury?r=3m1bs
All true. Scary and sobering. But there it is again. Why is it so hard to see?
"He will remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white, male supremacist worldview and the new authoritarianism."
I repeat for the one-millionth time. Where have you been for the last century? Trump does not have to remake our schools. They have long been indoctrination factories for a white, male supremacist, predatory capitalistic, super-moralistic right-wing worldview. Arbitrary authority is in their veins and is carved into their bark. Lesson one on day one is obey or pay dearly. Where do you think the recruits for those militias are coming from? They were the good students and the ones who didn't get the nuances and finer points of democracy because their experience was one of compliance, filling in the blanks, depending on the leader/teacher/anonymous directors making up the rules to provide their security and their worldview, and punishing anyone who dared to ask why or deigned to resist the program and the conditioning in any significant way. The Supreme Court has decreed that it must be that way because order and structure are essential to perpetuate the status quo. Now, stop complaining. You wouldn't complain before. You accepted the party line. You were in the school cult. It's part of the grand plan and it's working as designed.
So you repeat for the one millonth time Robert. So fucking what. The deed is done, you can't reverse the past. This is your obsession and you so badly need validation that you constantly bore is with your obession.
We know what the fuck is wrong, now what the fuck are we going to do about it.
We are being herded into cattle cars, so what utility is there in bitching about the Verasille Treaty or anything.
There is only one objective moving forward, to reverse course, if it isn't tooo late.
Cannot disagree with most of what you point out. Latest version of Rome. I assume you have been anarchistic about this ancient trend, as have I, for a very long time. But as with so many lessons on autocratic history, one thing is certain, despots always fall, either from within or without. Rome was not a monolithic empire, nor was Persia. Later ones lasted for short periods, but these abortions of logic and cooperative nature begin to fall apart as soon as they form. I do not use hope in my vocabulary. The many strings of the quantum field and its steady diet of stability, entropy, uncertainty, collapse, experimentation, adjustment, adaptation, evolution, creativity and back to stability will prevail, but we will be long into dust before this latest scenario plays out. My wish - specifically placed asteroids. Dark humor.
I am skeptical about comparisons to Rome, although some are very valid, and we may follow the pattern whether we like it or not. But I believe cycles can be interrupted, patterns changed or reversed, and mistakes corrected on a path that is optimal. My issue is that there is little recognition of the one primary and profound error which has led us to this point and denial and false assurances are not helpful. Democracy depends on public knowledge, information, and engagement. Education is the only way to get there. Our schools defeat the purpose precisely because they are undemocratic and have been influenced from before compulsory laws were established by reactionary and anti-science, anti-democracy, anti-equality people and organizations. The reason law has been applied is because those right-wing individuals knew that they could guarantee perpetual power and control once power was denied the individual and education was officially defined (by the state, no less!) rather than defined by the student, parent, and teacher. School can never BE education or promise education. Education is ineffable. I want to believe that science and research will have their day and that these things will be learned by enough people. But our leaders have let us down, so far. Happy talk and false hope get us nowhere. If we can't get truth here, where are we supposed to go?
In July 2017 I briefly joined FB so I could learn how to use its biz page for a job I took. I said I only wanted civil dialogue on major issues. Charlottesville was happening then. I quickly observed these events and the fallouts from them in the rumpfk 1.0 regime. Then I said online that a slow-moving coupe was in play to take down the govt. and install a police state autocracy. The blowback was enormous, people calling me a traitor, threatening my life, really pathetic insults and threats of all kinds. I now know it was my Warning they were upset with, because these grievance types Wanted the Coupe very badly. I left FB shortly after. The same weaknesses that the Roman Empire exhibited, hierarchical, top-down leadership propagandizing god-like emperors and Caesars, was carried forward into the 'murkan Constitution and its Rights and Amendments. 'murka is a Republic, not a democracy - it Never Was a democracy. The largest line items in state , city, county and federal budgets are for Military/Law Enforcement, including jails and prisons, Judiciaries, and Economic stratification that excludes any real power for 90 percent of the citizenry.
That 90 percent includes Most of Us right now. We are financially strapped, must work even into our 70s and 80s, have adult children or young children who need us to help them out, so we cannot be very mobile, or very meaningful in pushing back against the nihilist/Nazi 2.0 tsunami. This playbook is as old as the Hills, and our only real chances lie in the absolute stupidity of this regime of toxic narcissists, playboys, wannabe cowboys, coquettes/dominatrix females, sadistic drunks, megalomaniacs and religious perverts. The other big power in our favor is that the climate and ecology is crashing, big time, which will crash the corporate consumerism economy. Many of us will no doubt perish from one thing or another. We are 90 percent overpopulated anyway on this planet. But many of us are wiley and resilient, and we recognize what monsters do not - strength in numbers, not globally, but locally, one small action after another, multiplied millions of times over.
Asymmetrical, guerilla warfare, working in the shadows, in the cracks of very weak armor of TGF and its inmates in the Marat de Saude, will create both time and energy to salvage something. What that will look like, I do not know. If you want some insights, study the history of the French resistance in WW2, or how Black folks and First Nations folks have endured the savagery of white 'murka for 400 years. The devils are in the details, and we need to shake the final scales from our eyes and get very real, maybe for the first time in our lives. Strength and honor.
William, Thank you for adding your comment to my post--someone who gets sociopathy--the charisma, the ability to spot and corrupt weakness, the genius for seeing and exploiting loopholes in systems, their affinity for business, law, and politics. I don't know if it is purely the acquisition of wealth that attracts them. I suspect it is more an addiction to power and the power money gives. Sociopaths are incapable of living for love like regular humans, so they live for power. I know it is hard for normal people to have a sense of sociopathic psychology because we are wired for empathy and ethics and imagining the brain without them is like imagining the world without the color green. I only know as much as I do because I spent ten years in a maximum security prison as a teacher and did a study of them, but I hope to God people are beginning get the idea because it may soon be too late.
Sorry. Too late. To quote Joni Mitchell:
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...."
TV talking heads this morning are jabbering on about trump's "testing boundaries." Bullshit! He has blasted through and obliterated them. We are entering the age of the ignoble savage.
These are corporate media whitewashers. They reared the cowardly heads all throughout the 2024 election.
What can we do?
No one in charge is treating this as an emergency.
We are so fucked.
Yup. That's the size of it. The founders sowed the seeds of our own destruction with the ideas of semi-sovereign states, the 2A, and the Electoral College. How ironic it is that the morons who believe the 2A exists to give them the power to resist a tyranny voted for it.
Pave paradise put up a parking lot. How long can what's left of our system of government run at this level of stress? The entire Civil Service is redlining. Maybe the woman and men of the FBI, CIA, are looking over their shoulders and not as much at the threats foreign and domestic. People break systems break. How long can the Trump Musk madness go on before we have a disaster or multiple disasters?
TV talking heads annoy me, even the best of them. They bloviate and kevetch over the latest outrage. It is too late, damage done, it can't be reversed, if Trump and Musk were to evaporate today, the egg has been broken and can't be put back together again.
Enough of the jabber, enough of the complaining, it is time for only one thing... action to save what little we have left.
To the barricades, and I don't mean marching in the street,holding signs and chanting, those are pressure relief valves and "they" fear them not,in fact they welcome them, so long as the protestors don't haul out the guillotine.. but first we have to get the military slaves (armed forces, sheriff, cops) on our side.
Over a year ago Thom did a satirical take on what it would look like if Trump won. It had Trump arresting house members. I thought it was extreme at the time and now I’m thinking it was probably accurate.
It's coming. And not just in the House. "Read-only" access to Treasury Department data will allow DOJ and FBI to manufacture prosecutable evidence against any major opposition from Democrats, academia, or journalists.
"He will remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white, male supremacist worldview and the new authoritarianism."
This actually began decades ago. Republicans have been underfunding and dumbing down education every opportunity they've gotten since, at least, Reagan. Texas is, as we speak, pushing through a voucher program that provides $10K/yr for private school tuition and $2k/yr for home schooling. The home school funding is particularly obscene because NO ONE oversees what home schooled children are taught. Ignoramuses teaching their children is very much a reason why we are where we are today. That is, of course, hunky dory for fascists. Ignoramuses are very easily brainwashed.
Other than a massive general strike, it’s hard to imagine what we can do to stop these madmen (and women).
General strike is a great idea but extremely difficult to organize. Another reason why the Cons have been so monomaniacal in their war on unions.
Protest at members of Congress offices, homes. Some people are filing claims against Musk at state AG offices re: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/552a
Check this out: The only Constitutional remedy is impeachment.
Statements expressing outrage and calls for investigations are important, as is the filing of lawsuits challenging illegal actions being undertaken by the President. Likewise, the renewed activism of grassroots organizations suggests an ever more widespread reaction to the President’s attacks. But so far, these are essentially defensive moves of limited effectiveness. Alone, they are insufficient responses at a moment that calls for an aggressive counter-attack.....
We the people must target this serpent at its head.
https://jerryweiss.substack.com/p/resistance-is-not-enough?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=zc69i&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
WE CAN PRESSURE HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO FLIP.
Pursue impeachment.
At least 20 Republican House members are from districts Harris won or have Dem majorities.
1. Minority ethic Republicans. How can women, Blacks, Hispanics support discrimination?
2. Those who support Ukraine.
3. Those who oppose acquiescence to Musk.
4. Those whose dictricts will be killed by tariffs.
5. Those who have been physically threatened by MAGATs.
Cowards all, Daniel. They wouldn't complain even if they were being rounded up by Trump's Brownshirts.
It stalls everything. Gets the facts on the record. Can investigate stuff like insurrection, treason.
Historians say that failed impeachments lead to flipping the subsequent election. 13 -0.
A Congressman just today, or was it yesterday, tried to file impeachment papers but Mike Johnson wouldn't allow it.
Takes 2 votes to flip MAGA Mike.
Have to persist. Republicans here are at each others' throats.
Yesterday, "Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of a resolution by Commissioner René Garcia, a former Miami-Dade GOP chair, that urged the Trump administration to maintain all TPS designations currently in place for people from countries like Venezuela, Haiti and others. (Commissioners Kevin Marino Cabrera, named by Trump to be the ambassador to Panama, and Roberto Gonzalez, a vocal Trump supporter, stepped away before the vote)."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article299727919.html#storylink=cpy
For the Speaker of the House to accept a bill or motion, it must be introduced by a House member, referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker, and then brought to the House floor for consideration where the Speaker determines when and if it will be debated and voted on; essentially, the Speaker has significant discretion in scheduling legislation, but cannot unilaterally block a bill from being considered if it has been properly introduced and reported by a committee.
The bill to impeach was brought up by a Democratic congressman, who obviously knew that it would go nowhere, but he could point to it and claim he had done something.
There is not a house committee that would consider a bill to impeach, not one controlled by Republicans.
Like I say, gotta persist. Just takes 2 votes to flip the entire House.
Republicants are at each others throats because that's what their cult leader demands. He wants to see who will show him the most support and favor. That's what they are fighting over, Trumps blessings. Hitler used the same tactic. He reveled in his underlings fighting one another to see who would prevail.
I gave you evidence.
It's up to us to attack pressure points.
As regards your second subject: Mixed emotions here. I would not at all mind deporting the Cubanos and Venezualans, after all they are or appear to be the driving force behind the Trump and DeSantis base in Florida.
Pretty sad, isn't it. They fled from a dictator, only to help create one here. I mentioned this to a Latino friend, and he said the kids and grandchildren of those immigrants don't even know who Castro was ! Or any of the South American dictators. Is this even possible?
It is the same with Gen x, y, and z blacks, especially the males. They have no knowledge or appreciation of what their parents and grandparents had to endure, and worse yet they have no idea of what is in store for them now.They are like most of the present generation, they don't pay attention, Rhonda Santis and the war on woke and CRT goes over their head.
Thom Hartmann has said many times, that it takes about 80 years for historical memory to disappear and the cycle to repeat itself., actually it is less than 80 years it is every other generation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTdx_jUKLd8
Divide and conquer.
Multiply this by Cubans, Hatians, and now Republican federal employees. 69.1% of Miami-Dade County's population is Hispanic or Latino, making it the most populated majority-Hispanic county in the United States.
Many state and local government agencies will be defunded by anti DEI discrimination. We havea Democratic Party majority.
A whole lot of buyers remorse in Miami Dade County Daniel. Same thing with Muslims and other groups.
Day late and dollar short.
This tractor we are riding doesn't seem to have a reverse, and the ground it has torn up, can't be put together again.
Best bet is that the enablers, now seeing the wreckage they sowed, can come together and prevent anymore.
I don't think that they can rebuild and undo the damage done by the stupidity of shutting down USAID. Watching a great discussion of it on Nicole Wallace at the moment.. the damage done to the FBI and Treasury Dept can't be undone either.
It appears that the whole game plan is to turn the US into a vulnerable third world country.
Are you supporting Trump -- or what?
Who are you discouraging?
Of course I am not supporting Trump, but I am seething at those whose obstinacy and idiocy are responsible for electing him.
Yeh I know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but when that battle is one, he is still my enemy., and it is wise not forget that.
It was Uncle Joe until May 5,1945 then Churchill acknowledged that Uncle Joe was in fact the enemy.
I've written to my reps to stop the takeover by unelected government contractor Musk, who is tied to China and Russia and has a conflict of interests.
I reminded them that Miami is the de-facto financial capitol of Venezuela and that hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on our international banking industry. Yesterday, Trump sent deportees to concentration camps in Git-mo. He has plans to denaturalize US citizens and deport them. Rep Carlos Gimenez was born in Cuba. Was a Democrat until 2020, when he switched parties. Was elected as a Democratic mayor. As # 45 Trump started the process. https://immpolicytracking.org/media/documents/ACLU_Fact_Sheet_on_Denaturalization.pdf Now, they will seek to denaturalize and deport people who made errors in their initial applications. https://immigrationforum.org/article/trumps-first-100-days-potential-immigration-actions/
Many voters here have dual citizenship -- like several Canadians in my building.
I would like to see some numbers on the protests in various states. Some protests looked strong and others not so much but it is hard to tell from the videos. What is needed more than marches is aggressive action from our legislative representatives. The effect of marches tends to wear off quickly unless they are for an extended period of time. Buckle up.
In Texas, a whole 500 people showed up.
Pathetic
Protests are pressure relief valves and achieve nothing. What is needed is action.
Protests to people who can empathicize work.
The 3 Batistiano House MAGATS here are very sympathetic to the Cubans and Venezuelans here on cancelled humantarian visas. I posted the letter from my rep to the Trump administration asking "no mas."
All of those visas were sponsored. I don't know this as a fact, but I expect there are over a million, and most sponsors are in Baghdad By the Sea and were also supporters of the 3 amigos.
I'm hoping that thousands of minority fed employees here who lost their jobs or were threatened here complain loudly. Today is the drop dead date for the Fork in the Road Musk campaign.
I am reminded of the birthright citizen who voted for Trump because he was only going to deport "the bad guys"
What the left don't get, because in their own way they are as reactionary as the right (in response to the right) and thus easily manipulated via reverse psychology, and their liberal values are used against them is that the Hispanic migrants are fodder for the right wing.
Tradiional "family" values, i.e. misogynist, patriarchal, homophobic, once they become citizens they and their children become the Nicholas Fuentes, Enrique Tarrio's and Joe Arpaio's.
Even now there are in Texas to culture war Democrats , Cuellar and Gonzales, and there is a 1st Generation, Republican Trump Humper, newly elected Democrat of the 32nd District name of Mayra Flores.
Not too long ago, Abbot of Texas and DeSantis financed a scheme to sent Venezuelas to the northern sanctuary cities.
This was not new, it harks back to the old reverse freedom rides, when the governors of the south chartered greyhound buses, and gave poor blacks documents promising nice homes and jobs and sent them north.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/02/29/809740346/the-cruel-story-behind-the-reverse-freedom-rides
Occupy movement was an extended period of time and it petered out. The last gasp were a group that claimed a street in Seattle, elected their own mayor, Police put up barricades at the top and bottom of the street, and it lasted maybe two weeks, then everyone went home.
They failed to find allies who were insiders.
Because there are no allies on the inside.
Not true. They scared off any potential allies.
I heard whistleblower cases for 20 years.
If an ally is scared off, are they really allies?
Take a look at the civil service in DOJ and FBI, an acting director sent out an email, and told people to resign and take a buyout, or....
40,000 have taken him up, the whole gambit is illgal, there is no money appropriated to buy them out, yet these highly educated people took the deal, and I guarantee they will not get the 8 months pay they were promised.
Whistle blowers, poor whistle blowers, if I were them I would be looking for a residency visa in Belize.
I did Sarbanes Oxley, Dodd Frank cases. !st case we ever had the whistleblower was the chief financial officer of a bank.
Depends at DOJ if they fall under civil service. Supervisors aren't protected unless they're whistleblowers.
You have no idea-- a lot of them make double in the private sector.
In normal times Daniel. This is not normal times. Trump has staffed his cabinet and their offices with ideological loyalists, who are also afraid of retribution.
\The age of whistleblowers in government is over, nay the age of whistleblowers is over.
Perhaps Biden can be the hero who will save American Democracy, if he can be scooped up off the floor often enough or pimped-slapped out of his trances. Nah, he could have done something long ago, instead of aiding the coup's cause by an incredible inactivity and reticence to even alarm the public. Appointing barely manifested Merrick ensured any meaningful and quick legal remedy to stop the coup would not materialize, which seemed suspiciously compliant. Maybe Pelosi? Nah, too busy adding to her $272 million by her strangely precocious stock trading. Her real job has been to make sure real democrats like AOC stay trivialized and corralled. Anybody not infested with the political virus of unyielding loyalty to the Democratic Party--rivalling the MAGAites in their concrete loyalty--actually listen to AOC? Her fiery responces and germaine demands are exactly the committment and courage that so many Democrats are looking for in ridiculouly wrong places. Blind loyalty is a deadly virus. Hope is not a tactic.
All I know is, in 20 years Americans will be the bad guys in all the war movies.
Less than 20 years!!! As soon as the Marines hit the beaches in Greenland, Panama, Mexico or the beaches of Canada on any of 4 of the Great Lakes. Within 4 years at the most.
Not inside the "dis"United States.
If one lived abroad for a number of decades one might think this transition began before 1970. The Ugly American came out in 1963 (Marlon Brando).
While we were chasing the newest bright shiny object, very quietly Trump appointed Rubia acting head of the National Archives.
Now why is that relevant? Because the archives hold the record of his crimes, especially the classified documents, and the FBI investigation and Jack Smiths records of investigation and indictiments.
So, what's the plan?
Somebody? Anybody?
I'm too old to do the organizing again... I will follow if someone is going to lead in an organized way.
I would suggest to act where it hurts the bad guys but where the action is less likely to be crushed violently.
Shut down Wall Street.
Thousands, every day M-Fr blocking business as usual.
That will create REAL PAIN in a matter of days.
Reach out to NYS and NYC key officials to negotiate NOT letting the National Guard come out...
Create a Consitutional Crisis... NY Governor refusing Federal order.... Expose DT's weakness.
Focus on NYPD not over reacting.
Shut down FOX HQ on 6th Ave.
Again... seek support -- or at least inaction -- of NYS & NYC officials.
Where are the young people? If they are not ready to organize, too busy with their podcasts and resume's, we are done.
Litigation tracker today. https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-legal-challenges-trump-administration-actions/
Certainly, legal action is a valid pathway. In the present situation I feel it will be too little, and perhaps too late.
One, the judicial system has been corrupted by big money and is not a reliable source of true justice;
Two, even when a judge rules against the executive branch action, someone has to EXECUTE the decision... and that would be the executive branch: Local, State or Federal.
We can kiss goodbye any Federal Executive Branch action against itself. So we are back to lining up local and state officials. And that puts us back in the streets again.
I am writing here in NY. The only way the governor of this state is going to stand up to DT and his clown car of administrators is if she knows the people of NY state are on fire.
US Marshalls Service is part of the court system. Can execute on judgments. Sue them into oblivion.
Also try to flip Republicans.
You nailed it, Thom. And people have to stop thinking Trump is stupid. You don't get to be president twice by being stupid. Sociopaths are smart because they have the advantage of not having their thinking slowed down by empathy and ethics. They are consummate actors and can act stupid to appeal to marks who pride themselves on being anti-intellectual. Resistance protests are starting, so we are thinking he will be defeated. Don't you think Trump has thought that there would be resistance protests, is planning for, and even hoping for them? If he can send his goons to attack and cause violence, he'll be able to declare Martial Law, arrest his enemies, and cancel elections. Of course, we have to resist, and there will and must be protests, but only two things can insure us success: Nonviolence; and a massive outpouring. If we can remain nonviolent, the publics sympathy will remain with the victims and the blame will be laid on the perpetrators. Otherwise it will only be mayhem. And our protests must be so large and so constant that no amount of goons is going to upset them. Think North Korea. Keep in mind also, that with the data of the Treasury department at their disposal, Trump will be able to threaten people with cutting off Social Security, etc., in order to discipline the masses. We are going to have to set up systems for providing support to people. But fear not. In spite of everything, we still have the blood in our veins of all those who went before and fought and died for freedom, and if we remain smart and united, we will prevail and not only defeat Trump, but end up with a better world.
You are correct. The people who call Trump stupid are stupid themselves.
As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put the words into the mouth of Sherlock Holmes, when he was scoffed at because he didn't know geography. He replied, how is geography going to help me solve a crime?
Trump is street smart, he knows that people have weaknesses, soft spots, and he identifies them, mostly it is money, he moves in charms and exploits them.
Serial killers, con men are sociopaths, so are successful businessmen and antrepreneurs.
I replied to your reply on the general post. Do you have a Substack. You seem like someone whose intelligence I could profit from
No, no substack and no interest. All I have is opinions and mine are as good as anyone elses.
What will be our Boston Tea Party? We can send emails and make phone calls all day long. Do they matter? Sure. But enough? No. The Dems can show some backbone. The courts can issue stays. But the takeover marches on. Pauses are not reversals. The largest demonstration of my life time was the Woman's March in 2017. We need something larger—much larger. We need a national strike. We need that leadership to show up NOW.
Yes, it is a game of distractions by Trump setting up $ trillions for theft by Musk. It is rather simple. I did say $ trillions and I identity what I can see. In just one instance, if they kill the Education Department, states will clamor for privatization. Education is $853 billion per year. Yes $BILLION. Ohhh. The 10-year contract(s), think $9 trillion. One graft pie. There are many. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/watch-the-treasury?r=3m1bs
All true. Scary and sobering. But there it is again. Why is it so hard to see?
"He will remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white, male supremacist worldview and the new authoritarianism."
I repeat for the one-millionth time. Where have you been for the last century? Trump does not have to remake our schools. They have long been indoctrination factories for a white, male supremacist, predatory capitalistic, super-moralistic right-wing worldview. Arbitrary authority is in their veins and is carved into their bark. Lesson one on day one is obey or pay dearly. Where do you think the recruits for those militias are coming from? They were the good students and the ones who didn't get the nuances and finer points of democracy because their experience was one of compliance, filling in the blanks, depending on the leader/teacher/anonymous directors making up the rules to provide their security and their worldview, and punishing anyone who dared to ask why or deigned to resist the program and the conditioning in any significant way. The Supreme Court has decreed that it must be that way because order and structure are essential to perpetuate the status quo. Now, stop complaining. You wouldn't complain before. You accepted the party line. You were in the school cult. It's part of the grand plan and it's working as designed.
So you repeat for the one millonth time Robert. So fucking what. The deed is done, you can't reverse the past. This is your obsession and you so badly need validation that you constantly bore is with your obession.
We know what the fuck is wrong, now what the fuck are we going to do about it.
We are being herded into cattle cars, so what utility is there in bitching about the Verasille Treaty or anything.
There is only one objective moving forward, to reverse course, if it isn't tooo late.
Cannot disagree with most of what you point out. Latest version of Rome. I assume you have been anarchistic about this ancient trend, as have I, for a very long time. But as with so many lessons on autocratic history, one thing is certain, despots always fall, either from within or without. Rome was not a monolithic empire, nor was Persia. Later ones lasted for short periods, but these abortions of logic and cooperative nature begin to fall apart as soon as they form. I do not use hope in my vocabulary. The many strings of the quantum field and its steady diet of stability, entropy, uncertainty, collapse, experimentation, adjustment, adaptation, evolution, creativity and back to stability will prevail, but we will be long into dust before this latest scenario plays out. My wish - specifically placed asteroids. Dark humor.
I am skeptical about comparisons to Rome, although some are very valid, and we may follow the pattern whether we like it or not. But I believe cycles can be interrupted, patterns changed or reversed, and mistakes corrected on a path that is optimal. My issue is that there is little recognition of the one primary and profound error which has led us to this point and denial and false assurances are not helpful. Democracy depends on public knowledge, information, and engagement. Education is the only way to get there. Our schools defeat the purpose precisely because they are undemocratic and have been influenced from before compulsory laws were established by reactionary and anti-science, anti-democracy, anti-equality people and organizations. The reason law has been applied is because those right-wing individuals knew that they could guarantee perpetual power and control once power was denied the individual and education was officially defined (by the state, no less!) rather than defined by the student, parent, and teacher. School can never BE education or promise education. Education is ineffable. I want to believe that science and research will have their day and that these things will be learned by enough people. But our leaders have let us down, so far. Happy talk and false hope get us nowhere. If we can't get truth here, where are we supposed to go?
In July 2017 I briefly joined FB so I could learn how to use its biz page for a job I took. I said I only wanted civil dialogue on major issues. Charlottesville was happening then. I quickly observed these events and the fallouts from them in the rumpfk 1.0 regime. Then I said online that a slow-moving coupe was in play to take down the govt. and install a police state autocracy. The blowback was enormous, people calling me a traitor, threatening my life, really pathetic insults and threats of all kinds. I now know it was my Warning they were upset with, because these grievance types Wanted the Coupe very badly. I left FB shortly after. The same weaknesses that the Roman Empire exhibited, hierarchical, top-down leadership propagandizing god-like emperors and Caesars, was carried forward into the 'murkan Constitution and its Rights and Amendments. 'murka is a Republic, not a democracy - it Never Was a democracy. The largest line items in state , city, county and federal budgets are for Military/Law Enforcement, including jails and prisons, Judiciaries, and Economic stratification that excludes any real power for 90 percent of the citizenry.
That 90 percent includes Most of Us right now. We are financially strapped, must work even into our 70s and 80s, have adult children or young children who need us to help them out, so we cannot be very mobile, or very meaningful in pushing back against the nihilist/Nazi 2.0 tsunami. This playbook is as old as the Hills, and our only real chances lie in the absolute stupidity of this regime of toxic narcissists, playboys, wannabe cowboys, coquettes/dominatrix females, sadistic drunks, megalomaniacs and religious perverts. The other big power in our favor is that the climate and ecology is crashing, big time, which will crash the corporate consumerism economy. Many of us will no doubt perish from one thing or another. We are 90 percent overpopulated anyway on this planet. But many of us are wiley and resilient, and we recognize what monsters do not - strength in numbers, not globally, but locally, one small action after another, multiplied millions of times over.
Asymmetrical, guerilla warfare, working in the shadows, in the cracks of very weak armor of TGF and its inmates in the Marat de Saude, will create both time and energy to salvage something. What that will look like, I do not know. If you want some insights, study the history of the French resistance in WW2, or how Black folks and First Nations folks have endured the savagery of white 'murka for 400 years. The devils are in the details, and we need to shake the final scales from our eyes and get very real, maybe for the first time in our lives. Strength and honor.
How do I as a single person fight this machine short of becoming a member of some organized resistance that doesn’t exist yet and may never ?
William, Thank you for adding your comment to my post--someone who gets sociopathy--the charisma, the ability to spot and corrupt weakness, the genius for seeing and exploiting loopholes in systems, their affinity for business, law, and politics. I don't know if it is purely the acquisition of wealth that attracts them. I suspect it is more an addiction to power and the power money gives. Sociopaths are incapable of living for love like regular humans, so they live for power. I know it is hard for normal people to have a sense of sociopathic psychology because we are wired for empathy and ethics and imagining the brain without them is like imagining the world without the color green. I only know as much as I do because I spent ten years in a maximum security prison as a teacher and did a study of them, but I hope to God people are beginning get the idea because it may soon be too late.