So when the going gets tough, the orange go golfing. He's still a businessman; he only does presidenting as a side-gig, and to legitimize his routine of criminality.
He is not a businessman. How the hell do you bankrupt a casino? It’s a gold mine. He has a total of six bankruptcies to his credit. And now as president he is working on his seventh. In the meantime he has enriched himself and his family and will undoubtedly need someday to take his booty to Mother Russia and spend his final days in the protection of Putin. That might not work out so good as he thinks.
I have to agree and disagree with both of you (Daniel too). The 'obviously' comment was not meant to disregard protest, but to question the function and success of 'checks and balances.' In other words, accountability in real time. William, who is a Nam vet, sees protest as ineffective. In Nam, that was absolutely not true. It may or may not be true now. It is location, cause and time dependent, if not including more agency factors. Nam shook 'murka to its bones, really. the 'protests' were much more than relief valves. They tested the rights in the First Amendment, and those grievances begging for redress put leadership across the world in the crosshairs of the beleaguered public. Kids my age were in body bags, their bodies full of holes and shrapnel. This would never have happened in a country without a strong public education system. Why do you think fascists decry public education? It is out of the hands of fascists, in spite of the power of the Texas Public School Publishing Div., who has worked feverishly for decades to corrupt public info into the public schools via propaganda and misdirection. These are hard facts. In this last struggle of humanity for its right to become wise, knowledge, wisdom and fury are paramount. Desperation is just a reflection of realization that oblivion is nearby.
Lecturing? Nah. Just stating realities you may not be familiar with. I am sorry you were a combat veteran, but you lived, so drop down on your anger. 58k did not make it, including some friends of mine. You provide no facts to back up your insults, so I can ignore them. Just disagree and demonstrate why you do so. Name calling and insults are passe. There are many viewpoints on Nam, and many stories. You have yours.
It is hard for those involved in the VN war protests to admit that their efforts were to no avail, just as many families who lost brothers and fathers, or Vets who served can face the fact that it was all a political conjob.
However the reason that Nixon ended the war was not because of demonstrations, but because the great middle class was sick and tired of seeing their brothers, cousins, fathers, nephews, uncles come home i aluminum caskets.
In fact that should be obvious, because George W Bush, prohibited reporter access to the flight line at Dover AFB, DE where caskets were unloaded, he prohibited pictures and the Pentagon did not announce, deaths and funerals, and the only way the media could keep count was by scouring the local papers for announcements of obits,
Bush didn't want a repeat of Vietnam era publicity.
In that regards it was the violence inflicted on protestors by cops at the Edmund Pettis bridge that did the job, that gave LBJ and congress the optics needed to pass Voting Rights legislation.
Were it not for the violence and optics, I fear not much would happen.
The only time protests work (or worked in the past) was when violence erupted.
The case of George Floyd is a current example, in this case it wasn't legislation but being charged with murder. Almost unheard of that a cop would be charged with murder for killing a suspect, especially if he was black.
The moment Trump signed the first executive order, the U.S of A ceased to be a democratic Republic, is now a theocratic dictatorship.
It is akin to someone allergic to bee stings getting stung. You feel the sting, but the anaphylactic shock takes time to set in.
The blood stream of the U.S. of A. is money, and the effects of money take longer to flow through the body politic, than does blood through the body human.
I'm on board today for the National protests in my area of WPB, FL....a stones' throw from tRUMP's mar-a-lago fleabag motel...at 3pm.....signs are at the ready....I'm hoping the fat orange, bloated gasbag drives by so I can give that unfit parasite POS criminal the 2 finger salute for insulting the 4 military soldiers & their families who lost their lives in a training exercise while serving our country, by not turning up to receive them at Dover....instead using taxpayer $ for another golf outing and also being funded by SA at another one of his run down golf club dumps in Miami.....if people don't read anything else, please read the incredible article you posted here today as a wakeup call to what this disgusting excuse of a human being and the entire GOP has done and are continuing to do to our entire country and its people in less than 80 days....even if tRUMP and all his enablers were eliminated and gone tomorrow, it would take a long time and lots of hard work to rectify the damage that they have caused all of us.....people need to stand tall, stand strong and shout out loud .....tRUMP, muskrat and the entire GOP need to be gone !
1. "Trump wrecked the economy with his trade wars — then went golfing while America burned and our dead soldiers were returned! "
Not only was he golfing, he was spending his time with Saudis --
Millions of us are protesting today. The Saudis have an embassy. So do Trump's allies, Russia, Hungary. Trump's allies, The Heritage Foundation. Trump's allies. The US Chamber of Commerce. The National Manufacturing Association.
2. AOC Crushes Schumer in Shocking Primary Poll. Please stop the division! What we need today are protests to Republicans. The senate is still in session. "Saturday's Senate vote instructs committees to craft legislation based on the parameters laid out in the budget resolution. It remains unclear whether the Senate and House will agree on the same budget before proceeding, or whether they'll pass separate "reconciliation" bills and seek to negotiate a single version." NBC News.
We are getting to them. Trump accessory Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Fox: "I'm certainly concerned about what's happening right now in the markets, and I hope the administration is looking at it as well. What's also indisputable is the markets are down about 8% in just two days, and I'm getting all kids of reactions from businesses, farmers in WI that are highly ...
Will Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul support Kentucky bourbon over Trump?
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he has “a big concern” about Medicaid cuts in the legislation, and said he only agreed to back the budget after Trump made an “unequivocal” promise to him that the bill won’t cut Medicaid benefits.
Hawley wasn't alone.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that cutting the health insurance program “would be very harmful to people in Maine and to our rural hospitals and other health care providers.”
Collins said the House-passed version of the budget “troubles me greatly, because I believe it inevitably would lead to significant cuts in Medicaid.” The two chambers will have to settle on one bill in order for it to land on Trump's desk.
The Saudi Trump relationship bears scrutiny and explanation, as does the relationship of what (I presume to be) extremist Jews with MAGA.
The Kingdom will not permit entry to anyone with an Israel stamp on their passport, yet have given millions to the Trump crime family.
Trump is given red carpet treatment in Saudi Arabia, while being best friends with Netanyahu .
It is no secret that MAGA is antisemitic, yet Laura Loomer and Stephen Miller, can almost direct immigration and national security policy.
Trump appointed Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel, Steve Witkoff,apparently a Zionist, as Mid East Envoy, is meeting with Netanyahu, has approved the shipment of 2,000 lb bombs to Israel yet is hunky dory with KIng Mohammad bin Salman.
It boggles the mind, Nothing accords with what one would expect./ Jews and antisemites in political fellowship. radical Muslims (the Wahhabiyyah of Saudi Arabia), in partnership with Zionists or at least Israeli supporting kuffars (unbelievers)
Nothing makes sense, nothing is as it appears. Predator and prey in alliance.
WTF is going on, there is obviously a greater game afoot, than meets the eye.
Part of a plan to carve up the world into 4 slices.?
Technostate of America, Eurasia led by Russia, East Asia led by China, Mid east and Africa by a Sultanate or Caliphate?
I have been fighting these battles since I was about 10. At one point, after a merger of the two synagogues in my home town, my uncle sued my brother, then the president after merger for use of the santuary. I am from a "mixed" family, part "conservative" and part "reform" and we were told we couldn't be buried in a "from" cemetary. Not to metion ultra orthodox.
The old joke is two jews on a desert island, three synagogues.
LOL. I have heard similar, but it isn't just Jews in the company of enemies.
Look at the Saudi's, the Emirates, Qatar
The Saudi's, and Sheiks, send their sons and those of Palestinians and Syrians to American universities, to learn the skills necessary to destroying the hated Kuffar.
My problem is that I am obviously white, male,formerly Christian, of Irish, English, Scottish and German Jew (Schuam is the name of my great great grandmother) I find it impossible to identify with any of that.
Identity is the problem, all of these identities competing for a resource, too many pegs only one hole.
I stand aside the fray, look on at the madness,and do my best to assess the situation and survive.
Let's assume that there are sentient beings in those UAP's or UFO's, What do they think of us.? We are an interdimensional Serengeti. families take their kids here on a family outing, point to us and say "look it at these creatures, torturing and killing each other, mind your manners,learn a lesson or you will wind up like them", and from time to time a group of scientists will capture one, probe, sample, insert a tracker and release, just like we do critters we monitor, are we really any different than they.?
I also grew up with a lot of Arabs, mostly Maronite, but some Moslem. My dad was preceptor. sponsor, to the first Arab lawyer in my hometown...begat several others..... I knew the lawyer who brought many "Palestinians" (they don't call themselves that) after the '67 war.
The Saudis would consider them as infidel as Jews. That includes the Syrian othodox and the Syrian alawites. My uncle now deceased, was sent to Saudi to appraise US property several times....
One of my favorite writers -- Williamn Goldman -- had a character -- Wrongway Goldberg, who would up in Saudi by mistake... Wrongway Solomon.
The entire Abaham Accords was mysterious, but the "negotiator," Kushner wound up with 1. a loan from Oman and 2. $ 2 billion from the Saudis to manage, although his track record was almost as dismal as Trump's.
I've told you many times that they have been undermining our economy since 1973. Control many "US" companies, own "our" largest oil refineries. Also 9/11 -- they frefused to let us investigate. The Saudi ambassador's wife was the sponor of some of the murderers.
Arab is not Muslim, Muslim is not Arab. Arab is an ethnicity based upon one's native language. There be Christian Arabs, Druz Arabs. Yazudi Arabs and mostly Muslim Arabs.
There are black Arabs, blond hair, blue eyed Arabs, brown Arabs and every race and color in between.
By the same token Jew is not a religion, a race,it is an ethnicity based on tradition and self identification.
As with Arabs, the same with Jews, every race and color under the sun.
There is a difference between Druz and Christian Arabs, namely the Christians have lived as dhimmi's, second class citizens under Arab rule
Druz, to my knowledge, are Jews who became Muslim under the Umayyad Caliphate to escape dhimmi status and the jizzyah (poll tax) but retained Jewish traditions, and as such are so acknowledged by the state of Israel and are not exempt from conscription into the IDF
As regards Saudi's undermining our economy. I knew that before you even told me many times Daniel.
The Saudi's are the biggest threat to western civilization, along with the UAE and Qatar, unless one wishes to be Muslim and is a misogynist and homophobe.
Islamic culture and western culture are oil and water, and there is no emulsifier.
Islam took science, technology and philosophy from the west and left the rest, the west returned the favor starting with the crusades when they took back crucible steel and castle architecture. (and nothing more)
Today Islam is taking science and technology from the west, and nothing more.
And the west is buying oil and nothing more
But that is irrelevant to the conversation and the questions I raised.
Why would anyone, including Rs, believe a word coming from the POS mouth. POS made quite a few promises to his wives. Did he keep them? Hawley as others are deluded idiots.
Really like the new artwork which I assume is AI. I just use the free Perchance program.
Today will be quite a day. We're are going to one near where we live in our Portland, OR suburb.
Threre are lots of suggestions offered for protesters who want to make signs. We thought we’d make “HandsOff! our Constitution” and “HandsOff! our Democracy.”
Because we are in a Portland suburb we worry that this may attract counter-protesters from the Proud Boys. Portland, because it is so progressive, has seen protests where the Proud Boys and Antifa squared off against each other.
We have new friends we met yesterday (shoutout - they know who they are) who are going to a rally in Vancouver, Washington, and an old friend going to one on the waterfront in Plymouth, MA. with her teenaged daughter.
I expect to see a large law enforcement presence at the Hands Off! protest and the more of our police I see the more reassured I will be. Oregon law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE, but I will be keeping an eye out for ICE thugs roaming the crowd demanding brown-skinned people prove they are citizens.
Thom has discussed that Turmp is lookign for an excuse to declare martial law. On MSNBC this morning Michael Steele said that there here are bad actors out there who want to cause trouble. He cautioned us to be smart and not “mess up” because Trump wants nothing more than an excuse to use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.
I hope millions of us will be protesting while the Destroyer of the Free World has the worst golf game ever in front of his friends the Saudis. I will be.
I'm sure I read it somewhere. Hatred brings with it the seeds of its own destruction. Things will be brought back into some degree of balance. It is inevitable. You and I may not have anything to do with it and we may not acknowledge that we wished for it or willed it, but the thing will happen. Still. we cannot stand by and wait for it, either. We have to speak our minds and stand our ground and not for just one day. The collective effort and awareness are how it gets accomplished.
Yes Robert, Hatred does bring the seeds of it's own destruction, but the come upance moves at a snails pace, and meanwhile millions suffer and die.
And I agree we have to stand our ground, rise up and resist, not for one day, not for a demonstration but day to day, resist, sabotage, do not cooperate, do not obey in advance.
Protestors need to be dutifully alert to the cops on hand and watch for proud boy types who, pretending to be protestors, will foment trouble, just as the CIA did so with planted loud mouths in the sixties. During the sixties, I participated in countless protests, arrested and tuned up by cops, etc, and never witnessed a single time when cops were not completely against the protestors. Times have changed--there is more general anti-protest messaging, calls for laws making protests illegal (see DeSantis, Florida) and today is the test. There will be blood.
You are correct Gerald. I knew an agent provacateur, his job was infiltrating right wing groups, The American NAZI party, and John Birch Society, only he did it as a hobby.
The other inflitrated AIM, but after Wounded Knee 2, he dropped out became a Muslim.
Some might recall the Umbrella Man, dressed in black and walked through Minneapolis, breaking windows, encouraging looting and disappeared, then there were the men in black, first seen in Seattle during the WTO riots, they too broke windows and started looting, then showed up in Portland during the BLM marches, doing the same,only this time one was seen jumping into a police van that drove up.
One has to assume that every meeting or protest there are FBI or police agents present and taking notes.
The guy who inflitrated right wing groups, also did the same with the left. He asked me to attended a meeting of the Communist party in 1980 when Carrol Marx was running for President, one would call it a rally, but the attendance was so sparse, John (that was his name) told me to look around at the audience,he said that 1/5t of the audience was FBI.
I agree with your description of the Gilded Age (gilded for the rich - though I do like that TV series) but not totally comfortable of your criticism of Clinton and Obama. They were certainly not perfect but Americans were better off than they had been under previous administrations I think.
The Gilded Age was centered on two obnoxious classes. Old Money, the descendants of the Dutch who settled New Amsterdam, and the new money, the Rail Road Barons and Trusts.
This was not the usual good guy vs bad guy plot, although the series tried to tilt sympathy towards the new money , even the minor hero's heroines and servants had a touch of self serving villany.
You are right Bob, we were better off under Clinton and Obama, than subsequent administrations, and that isn't saying much like a Yakuza war lord taking only the pinkie instead of the trigger finger.
Thorsen Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, introduced the term “conspicuous consumption” (referring to consumption undertaken to make a statement to others about one's class or accomplishments).
In Pennsyltucky, we had Hamiltonians (as opposed to Lincolnians) who were sure their shit didnt stink. But those who espoused the "social gospel" came from "thrifty" Presbyterian stock.
This is a bit off topic, but it continues to perplex me:
Federal agencies are created solely by congress. Prez appoints agency heads subject to senate confirmation. Prez has zero authority to create an agency. There really is no such thing as a federal agency DOGE; it has no legal authority of any kind; and it cannot be an employee of, nor have employees of an agency that does not exist. So, given the failure of Dems to block DOGE initially at the offices of USAID, why can't it be ruled in court that DOGE does not exist, never has existed, has no legal authority to do anything, and that all actions taken in the name of DOGE are null and void? That would allow for piecing the system back together and undoing as much as possible of the destruction already done. The lack of action by congressional Dems is dumfounding and borders on collusion. Kudos to those few, led by Bernie and AOL, who are brave enough to keep up the challenge. Fine speeches on the floors of congress get us nowhere in this struggle for political survival.
Many thousand peaceful protestors of all ages showed up in San Diego. The people do NOT like Trump, Musk or the Republican agenda! Stop destroying America!🇺🇸
We planned one in Memphis, TN but the rain came down so heavily that all the streets are flooded. At this moment it is difficult to get from point A to point B in the city.
I recently read of a comment made by Mike Tyson that, although his demeanor and profession pigeon-holed it, the reality is perhaps ubiquitous. It goes something like this: everybody thinks they are tough until they get punched in the face.
As this pertains to 'murka's latest bully, TFG parasite, many observations become verified as real and true. The first is that humans that receive shielding and protection from life's challenges and dangers never experience raw fear or pain. After years of avoiding this unpleasant aspect of human existence, persons like TFG acquire a particular kind of psychological leverage. Born into not only privilege but also advantage, this entity avoided being punched in the face after taking advantage of others, a skill learned from papa and Roy Cohn, among others.
This leverage further aided its transactional thinking, if thinking is even required in that process. A transaction is, in some fashion, an exchange, a trade, a negotiation. Given that humans have a degree of opportunism bred into them, any transaction has the potential to include an imbalance favoring one side over the other. No actual quid pro quo. This is made possible via leverage, where one side has advantage over the other, a favorable bias that can lead to a loss on one side and a gain on the other. Only ethical values and some form of enforced limits of advantage can lead to fairness and balance -- Rules, laws, parental/societal pressures, punches in the face.
Having this leveraged advantage renders balance and fairness vulnerable to extortion. Extortion is always viewed ethically or morally as undesirable, evil, damaging. In a real sense, this exchange is a metaphorical punch in the face for one party. TFG was taught early on to throw the first punch, but only when leverage yielded advantage, and that advantage was its protection via acquired wealth, insulation via legal and economic manipulations, and a two-dimensional view of life that precluded empathy, sensitivity, fair play, and most importantly, any experience where fear/pain/suffering/humiliation would be experienced by TFG. Protection. Insulation. Isolation from shared experiences or reality.
This results in victimization, and real victims. Those who are punched, bruised, bleeding, injured, humiliated. In the psychological profile of psychopaths there is most always a bio-chemical reward for exacting pain/damage upon some victim. Some psychos actually do their own punching, with little or no leverage, a person to be avoided because they are most likely brutal criminals.
Then there are the leveraged ones, like TFG, who punch out from behind their privilege, their advantage, and avoid the possible damage of being punched back. Any of us, which is most of us, have witnessed or experienced observations or encounters with both types of psychos. We all know how this works. Yet it is bizarre to the point of incredulity that TFG has baffled the likes of MSM, the legal system, the political system, the religious system, the economic system into avoiding major punch back. It makes no sense, unless one other reality exists - all those who could bring TFG down are also guilty of the same extortion transactions.
Simply, this is known as lying, deception, gaslighting, falsification, propagandizing, denying.
All of us do this from time to time. No one can be perfect; that is an impossibility. But it is obvious that most of us prefer to attempt transactions that favor fairness, honesty, balance. And that more of us do this, more often, creates an environment of trust, cooperation, dignity, community and progress toward peaceful co-existence, and above all, respect, responsibility and reverence for our time on this planet to be something more than a parasite.
Probably lost in the many paragraphs about Dump's continued rotten and illegal behavior is the illustration at the top. Whoever whipped that bad boy up clearly knows as much about golf as the Dumper does. Which is precious little.
So when the going gets tough, the orange go golfing. He's still a businessman; he only does presidenting as a side-gig, and to legitimize his routine of criminality.
The Trump family, the cabinet and all of his business relations should be scrutinized for shorts.....
The other day I reported how he eliminated in investigative office in the SEC...just before "Liberation Day".
He is not a businessman. How the hell do you bankrupt a casino? It’s a gold mine. He has a total of six bankruptcies to his credit. And now as president he is working on his seventh. In the meantime he has enriched himself and his family and will undoubtedly need someday to take his booty to Mother Russia and spend his final days in the protection of Putin. That might not work out so good as he thinks.
Businessman. The only course he would have excelled in would have been Failure 101.
So much for checks & balances, eh? Obviously, not robust enough to stop this crazed lunatic.
"Obviously?" Millions are protesting.
Think Feathers of Hope.
Protests don't hack it, never did,pressure relief valve, needed is an uprising, a revolt, overthrow the dictatorship -1789
Targeted protests sometimes work on enough to make a difference.
E. G. local car dealers, other Republican donors.
I have to agree and disagree with both of you (Daniel too). The 'obviously' comment was not meant to disregard protest, but to question the function and success of 'checks and balances.' In other words, accountability in real time. William, who is a Nam vet, sees protest as ineffective. In Nam, that was absolutely not true. It may or may not be true now. It is location, cause and time dependent, if not including more agency factors. Nam shook 'murka to its bones, really. the 'protests' were much more than relief valves. They tested the rights in the First Amendment, and those grievances begging for redress put leadership across the world in the crosshairs of the beleaguered public. Kids my age were in body bags, their bodies full of holes and shrapnel. This would never have happened in a country without a strong public education system. Why do you think fascists decry public education? It is out of the hands of fascists, in spite of the power of the Texas Public School Publishing Div., who has worked feverishly for decades to corrupt public info into the public schools via propaganda and misdirection. These are hard facts. In this last struggle of humanity for its right to become wise, knowledge, wisdom and fury are paramount. Desperation is just a reflection of realization that oblivion is nearby.
In case you missed it, I am a combat veteran, asshole. 1966-1967. You d fuck are you lecturing? You ares o full of shit.
Lecturing? Nah. Just stating realities you may not be familiar with. I am sorry you were a combat veteran, but you lived, so drop down on your anger. 58k did not make it, including some friends of mine. You provide no facts to back up your insults, so I can ignore them. Just disagree and demonstrate why you do so. Name calling and insults are passe. There are many viewpoints on Nam, and many stories. You have yours.
Worked during the Vietnam era. Though it took the deaths at Kent State to wake people up. I fear that may be our fate as well.
It is hard for those involved in the VN war protests to admit that their efforts were to no avail, just as many families who lost brothers and fathers, or Vets who served can face the fact that it was all a political conjob.
However the reason that Nixon ended the war was not because of demonstrations, but because the great middle class was sick and tired of seeing their brothers, cousins, fathers, nephews, uncles come home i aluminum caskets.
In fact that should be obvious, because George W Bush, prohibited reporter access to the flight line at Dover AFB, DE where caskets were unloaded, he prohibited pictures and the Pentagon did not announce, deaths and funerals, and the only way the media could keep count was by scouring the local papers for announcements of obits,
Bush didn't want a repeat of Vietnam era publicity.
Sadly, I think you're right about Vietnam protests. A stronger case could be made for the Civil Rights protests.
In that regards it was the violence inflicted on protestors by cops at the Edmund Pettis bridge that did the job, that gave LBJ and congress the optics needed to pass Voting Rights legislation.
Were it not for the violence and optics, I fear not much would happen.
The only time protests work (or worked in the past) was when violence erupted.
The case of George Floyd is a current example, in this case it wasn't legislation but being charged with murder. Almost unheard of that a cop would be charged with murder for killing a suspect, especially if he was black.
The moment Trump signed the first executive order, the U.S of A ceased to be a democratic Republic, is now a theocratic dictatorship.
It is akin to someone allergic to bee stings getting stung. You feel the sting, but the anaphylactic shock takes time to set in.
The blood stream of the U.S. of A. is money, and the effects of money take longer to flow through the body politic, than does blood through the body human.
I'm on board today for the National protests in my area of WPB, FL....a stones' throw from tRUMP's mar-a-lago fleabag motel...at 3pm.....signs are at the ready....I'm hoping the fat orange, bloated gasbag drives by so I can give that unfit parasite POS criminal the 2 finger salute for insulting the 4 military soldiers & their families who lost their lives in a training exercise while serving our country, by not turning up to receive them at Dover....instead using taxpayer $ for another golf outing and also being funded by SA at another one of his run down golf club dumps in Miami.....if people don't read anything else, please read the incredible article you posted here today as a wakeup call to what this disgusting excuse of a human being and the entire GOP has done and are continuing to do to our entire country and its people in less than 80 days....even if tRUMP and all his enablers were eliminated and gone tomorrow, it would take a long time and lots of hard work to rectify the damage that they have caused all of us.....people need to stand tall, stand strong and shout out loud .....tRUMP, muskrat and the entire GOP need to be gone !
1. "Trump wrecked the economy with his trade wars — then went golfing while America burned and our dead soldiers were returned! "
Not only was he golfing, he was spending his time with Saudis --
Millions of us are protesting today. The Saudis have an embassy. So do Trump's allies, Russia, Hungary. Trump's allies, The Heritage Foundation. Trump's allies. The US Chamber of Commerce. The National Manufacturing Association.
2. AOC Crushes Schumer in Shocking Primary Poll. Please stop the division! What we need today are protests to Republicans. The senate is still in session. "Saturday's Senate vote instructs committees to craft legislation based on the parameters laid out in the budget resolution. It remains unclear whether the Senate and House will agree on the same budget before proceeding, or whether they'll pass separate "reconciliation" bills and seek to negotiate a single version." NBC News.
We are getting to them. Trump accessory Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Fox: "I'm certainly concerned about what's happening right now in the markets, and I hope the administration is looking at it as well. What's also indisputable is the markets are down about 8% in just two days, and I'm getting all kids of reactions from businesses, farmers in WI that are highly ...
Will Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul support Kentucky bourbon over Trump?
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he has “a big concern” about Medicaid cuts in the legislation, and said he only agreed to back the budget after Trump made an “unequivocal” promise to him that the bill won’t cut Medicaid benefits.
Hawley wasn't alone.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that cutting the health insurance program “would be very harmful to people in Maine and to our rural hospitals and other health care providers.”
Collins said the House-passed version of the budget “troubles me greatly, because I believe it inevitably would lead to significant cuts in Medicaid.” The two chambers will have to settle on one bill in order for it to land on Trump's desk.
3. In the House, we need 3 Republicans. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
The Saudi Trump relationship bears scrutiny and explanation, as does the relationship of what (I presume to be) extremist Jews with MAGA.
The Kingdom will not permit entry to anyone with an Israel stamp on their passport, yet have given millions to the Trump crime family.
Trump is given red carpet treatment in Saudi Arabia, while being best friends with Netanyahu .
It is no secret that MAGA is antisemitic, yet Laura Loomer and Stephen Miller, can almost direct immigration and national security policy.
Trump appointed Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel, Steve Witkoff,apparently a Zionist, as Mid East Envoy, is meeting with Netanyahu, has approved the shipment of 2,000 lb bombs to Israel yet is hunky dory with KIng Mohammad bin Salman.
It boggles the mind, Nothing accords with what one would expect./ Jews and antisemites in political fellowship. radical Muslims (the Wahhabiyyah of Saudi Arabia), in partnership with Zionists or at least Israeli supporting kuffars (unbelievers)
Nothing makes sense, nothing is as it appears. Predator and prey in alliance.
WTF is going on, there is obviously a greater game afoot, than meets the eye.
Part of a plan to carve up the world into 4 slices.?
Technostate of America, Eurasia led by Russia, East Asia led by China, Mid east and Africa by a Sultanate or Caliphate?
I have been fighting these battles since I was about 10. At one point, after a merger of the two synagogues in my home town, my uncle sued my brother, then the president after merger for use of the santuary. I am from a "mixed" family, part "conservative" and part "reform" and we were told we couldn't be buried in a "from" cemetary. Not to metion ultra orthodox.
The old joke is two jews on a desert island, three synagogues.
LOL. I have heard similar, but it isn't just Jews in the company of enemies.
Look at the Saudi's, the Emirates, Qatar
The Saudi's, and Sheiks, send their sons and those of Palestinians and Syrians to American universities, to learn the skills necessary to destroying the hated Kuffar.
My problem is that I am obviously white, male,formerly Christian, of Irish, English, Scottish and German Jew (Schuam is the name of my great great grandmother) I find it impossible to identify with any of that.
Identity is the problem, all of these identities competing for a resource, too many pegs only one hole.
I stand aside the fray, look on at the madness,and do my best to assess the situation and survive.
Let's assume that there are sentient beings in those UAP's or UFO's, What do they think of us.? We are an interdimensional Serengeti. families take their kids here on a family outing, point to us and say "look it at these creatures, torturing and killing each other, mind your manners,learn a lesson or you will wind up like them", and from time to time a group of scientists will capture one, probe, sample, insert a tracker and release, just like we do critters we monitor, are we really any different than they.?
I also grew up with a lot of Arabs, mostly Maronite, but some Moslem. My dad was preceptor. sponsor, to the first Arab lawyer in my hometown...begat several others..... I knew the lawyer who brought many "Palestinians" (they don't call themselves that) after the '67 war.
The Saudis would consider them as infidel as Jews. That includes the Syrian othodox and the Syrian alawites. My uncle now deceased, was sent to Saudi to appraise US property several times....
One of my favorite writers -- Williamn Goldman -- had a character -- Wrongway Goldberg, who would up in Saudi by mistake... Wrongway Solomon.
The entire Abaham Accords was mysterious, but the "negotiator," Kushner wound up with 1. a loan from Oman and 2. $ 2 billion from the Saudis to manage, although his track record was almost as dismal as Trump's.
I've told you many times that they have been undermining our economy since 1973. Control many "US" companies, own "our" largest oil refineries. Also 9/11 -- they frefused to let us investigate. The Saudi ambassador's wife was the sponor of some of the murderers.
Trump can be seen as their agent. https://democracyforward.org/work/uncovering-trumps-ties-to-saudi-investment-funds/
Arab is not Muslim, Muslim is not Arab. Arab is an ethnicity based upon one's native language. There be Christian Arabs, Druz Arabs. Yazudi Arabs and mostly Muslim Arabs.
There are black Arabs, blond hair, blue eyed Arabs, brown Arabs and every race and color in between.
By the same token Jew is not a religion, a race,it is an ethnicity based on tradition and self identification.
As with Arabs, the same with Jews, every race and color under the sun.
There is a difference between Druz and Christian Arabs, namely the Christians have lived as dhimmi's, second class citizens under Arab rule
Druz, to my knowledge, are Jews who became Muslim under the Umayyad Caliphate to escape dhimmi status and the jizzyah (poll tax) but retained Jewish traditions, and as such are so acknowledged by the state of Israel and are not exempt from conscription into the IDF
As regards Saudi's undermining our economy. I knew that before you even told me many times Daniel.
The Saudi's are the biggest threat to western civilization, along with the UAE and Qatar, unless one wishes to be Muslim and is a misogynist and homophobe.
Islamic culture and western culture are oil and water, and there is no emulsifier.
Islam took science, technology and philosophy from the west and left the rest, the west returned the favor starting with the crusades when they took back crucible steel and castle architecture. (and nothing more)
Today Islam is taking science and technology from the west, and nothing more.
And the west is buying oil and nothing more
But that is irrelevant to the conversation and the questions I raised.
Why would anyone, including Rs, believe a word coming from the POS mouth. POS made quite a few promises to his wives. Did he keep them? Hawley as others are deluded idiots.
That doesn't mean we can't take advantage of the situation.
I likve in Florida. Our senators are rhe worst. But Rick Scott sent me a letter,. in essence, calling Trump a liar vis a vis Ukraine.
So there is one issue Scott seems to care about. So, what's he doing about it?
He's a Republican, it's up to us to get to a vote on Ukraine/Putin.Please check out Feathers of Hope.
22 Republican senators and dozens of Republican House members voted to fund Ukraine.
Really like the new artwork which I assume is AI. I just use the free Perchance program.
Today will be quite a day. We're are going to one near where we live in our Portland, OR suburb.
Threre are lots of suggestions offered for protesters who want to make signs. We thought we’d make “HandsOff! our Constitution” and “HandsOff! our Democracy.”
Because we are in a Portland suburb we worry that this may attract counter-protesters from the Proud Boys. Portland, because it is so progressive, has seen protests where the Proud Boys and Antifa squared off against each other.
We have new friends we met yesterday (shoutout - they know who they are) who are going to a rally in Vancouver, Washington, and an old friend going to one on the waterfront in Plymouth, MA. with her teenaged daughter.
I expect to see a large law enforcement presence at the Hands Off! protest and the more of our police I see the more reassured I will be. Oregon law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE, but I will be keeping an eye out for ICE thugs roaming the crowd demanding brown-skinned people prove they are citizens.
Thom has discussed that Turmp is lookign for an excuse to declare martial law. On MSNBC this morning Michael Steele said that there here are bad actors out there who want to cause trouble. He cautioned us to be smart and not “mess up” because Trump wants nothing more than an excuse to use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.
I hope millions of us will be protesting while the Destroyer of the Free World has the worst golf game ever in front of his friends the Saudis. I will be.
I'm sure I read it somewhere. Hatred brings with it the seeds of its own destruction. Things will be brought back into some degree of balance. It is inevitable. You and I may not have anything to do with it and we may not acknowledge that we wished for it or willed it, but the thing will happen. Still. we cannot stand by and wait for it, either. We have to speak our minds and stand our ground and not for just one day. The collective effort and awareness are how it gets accomplished.
Yes Robert, Hatred does bring the seeds of it's own destruction, but the come upance moves at a snails pace, and meanwhile millions suffer and die.
And I agree we have to stand our ground, rise up and resist, not for one day, not for a demonstration but day to day, resist, sabotage, do not cooperate, do not obey in advance.
Protestors need to be dutifully alert to the cops on hand and watch for proud boy types who, pretending to be protestors, will foment trouble, just as the CIA did so with planted loud mouths in the sixties. During the sixties, I participated in countless protests, arrested and tuned up by cops, etc, and never witnessed a single time when cops were not completely against the protestors. Times have changed--there is more general anti-protest messaging, calls for laws making protests illegal (see DeSantis, Florida) and today is the test. There will be blood.
You are correct Gerald. I knew an agent provacateur, his job was infiltrating right wing groups, The American NAZI party, and John Birch Society, only he did it as a hobby.
The other inflitrated AIM, but after Wounded Knee 2, he dropped out became a Muslim.
Some might recall the Umbrella Man, dressed in black and walked through Minneapolis, breaking windows, encouraging looting and disappeared, then there were the men in black, first seen in Seattle during the WTO riots, they too broke windows and started looting, then showed up in Portland during the BLM marches, doing the same,only this time one was seen jumping into a police van that drove up.
One has to assume that every meeting or protest there are FBI or police agents present and taking notes.
The guy who inflitrated right wing groups, also did the same with the left. He asked me to attended a meeting of the Communist party in 1980 when Carrol Marx was running for President, one would call it a rally, but the attendance was so sparse, John (that was his name) told me to look around at the audience,he said that 1/5t of the audience was FBI.
I agree with your description of the Gilded Age (gilded for the rich - though I do like that TV series) but not totally comfortable of your criticism of Clinton and Obama. They were certainly not perfect but Americans were better off than they had been under previous administrations I think.
The Gilded Age was centered on two obnoxious classes. Old Money, the descendants of the Dutch who settled New Amsterdam, and the new money, the Rail Road Barons and Trusts.
This was not the usual good guy vs bad guy plot, although the series tried to tilt sympathy towards the new money , even the minor hero's heroines and servants had a touch of self serving villany.
You are right Bob, we were better off under Clinton and Obama, than subsequent administrations, and that isn't saying much like a Yakuza war lord taking only the pinkie instead of the trigger finger.
Thorsen Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, introduced the term “conspicuous consumption” (referring to consumption undertaken to make a statement to others about one's class or accomplishments).
In Pennsyltucky, we had Hamiltonians (as opposed to Lincolnians) who were sure their shit didnt stink. But those who espoused the "social gospel" came from "thrifty" Presbyterian stock.
This is a bit off topic, but it continues to perplex me:
Federal agencies are created solely by congress. Prez appoints agency heads subject to senate confirmation. Prez has zero authority to create an agency. There really is no such thing as a federal agency DOGE; it has no legal authority of any kind; and it cannot be an employee of, nor have employees of an agency that does not exist. So, given the failure of Dems to block DOGE initially at the offices of USAID, why can't it be ruled in court that DOGE does not exist, never has existed, has no legal authority to do anything, and that all actions taken in the name of DOGE are null and void? That would allow for piecing the system back together and undoing as much as possible of the destruction already done. The lack of action by congressional Dems is dumfounding and borders on collusion. Kudos to those few, led by Bernie and AOL, who are brave enough to keep up the challenge. Fine speeches on the floors of congress get us nowhere in this struggle for political survival.
To correct an omission: Cory Booker's outstanding filibuster is a noble exception to a "nothing to see here" congress.
Ds are suing to get Skum from dismantling agencies. Ditto others. If memory serves me, there's at least one judge who said it was illegal.
Many thousand peaceful protestors of all ages showed up in San Diego. The people do NOT like Trump, Musk or the Republican agenda! Stop destroying America!🇺🇸
We planned one in Memphis, TN but the rain came down so heavily that all the streets are flooded. At this moment it is difficult to get from point A to point B in the city.
Thom, all this in honor of mister bone spurs himself. Thom!
I recently read of a comment made by Mike Tyson that, although his demeanor and profession pigeon-holed it, the reality is perhaps ubiquitous. It goes something like this: everybody thinks they are tough until they get punched in the face.
As this pertains to 'murka's latest bully, TFG parasite, many observations become verified as real and true. The first is that humans that receive shielding and protection from life's challenges and dangers never experience raw fear or pain. After years of avoiding this unpleasant aspect of human existence, persons like TFG acquire a particular kind of psychological leverage. Born into not only privilege but also advantage, this entity avoided being punched in the face after taking advantage of others, a skill learned from papa and Roy Cohn, among others.
This leverage further aided its transactional thinking, if thinking is even required in that process. A transaction is, in some fashion, an exchange, a trade, a negotiation. Given that humans have a degree of opportunism bred into them, any transaction has the potential to include an imbalance favoring one side over the other. No actual quid pro quo. This is made possible via leverage, where one side has advantage over the other, a favorable bias that can lead to a loss on one side and a gain on the other. Only ethical values and some form of enforced limits of advantage can lead to fairness and balance -- Rules, laws, parental/societal pressures, punches in the face.
Having this leveraged advantage renders balance and fairness vulnerable to extortion. Extortion is always viewed ethically or morally as undesirable, evil, damaging. In a real sense, this exchange is a metaphorical punch in the face for one party. TFG was taught early on to throw the first punch, but only when leverage yielded advantage, and that advantage was its protection via acquired wealth, insulation via legal and economic manipulations, and a two-dimensional view of life that precluded empathy, sensitivity, fair play, and most importantly, any experience where fear/pain/suffering/humiliation would be experienced by TFG. Protection. Insulation. Isolation from shared experiences or reality.
This results in victimization, and real victims. Those who are punched, bruised, bleeding, injured, humiliated. In the psychological profile of psychopaths there is most always a bio-chemical reward for exacting pain/damage upon some victim. Some psychos actually do their own punching, with little or no leverage, a person to be avoided because they are most likely brutal criminals.
Then there are the leveraged ones, like TFG, who punch out from behind their privilege, their advantage, and avoid the possible damage of being punched back. Any of us, which is most of us, have witnessed or experienced observations or encounters with both types of psychos. We all know how this works. Yet it is bizarre to the point of incredulity that TFG has baffled the likes of MSM, the legal system, the political system, the religious system, the economic system into avoiding major punch back. It makes no sense, unless one other reality exists - all those who could bring TFG down are also guilty of the same extortion transactions.
Simply, this is known as lying, deception, gaslighting, falsification, propagandizing, denying.
All of us do this from time to time. No one can be perfect; that is an impossibility. But it is obvious that most of us prefer to attempt transactions that favor fairness, honesty, balance. And that more of us do this, more often, creates an environment of trust, cooperation, dignity, community and progress toward peaceful co-existence, and above all, respect, responsibility and reverence for our time on this planet to be something more than a parasite.
Just sayin.'
Did George Washington turn his farm over to someone else to operate while he was president so there would be not impropriety.
Probably lost in the many paragraphs about Dump's continued rotten and illegal behavior is the illustration at the top. Whoever whipped that bad boy up clearly knows as much about golf as the Dumper does. Which is precious little.