This recounting of what is going on in the GOP is consistent with previous histories I have read about how conservatives have behaved since the infamous Powell memo. Everyone should read this piece. Best description of the stakes of the 2024 election that I have seen.
I got mine and screw you! There is nothing new about that. The rich have used it for thousands of years, it goes well with their torture chambers in their dungeons.
It will not take long for the rich to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. After they have stolen everything from their sheep, like the state of Mississippi does then , there will be no use for those pesky humans.
The trickle up theory works a lot better than the trickle down theory. Just ask any third world nation. I can't see the GOP robber barons giving a penny to the poor. Die of a toothache you worthless sack of manure!
Anyone who would vote for these narcissistic greedy lunatics, deserves a dictatorship. It will be their own darn fault! The only way Putin and Saudi Arabia and Orban can stay afloat is by stealing all of their victims natural resources, especially oil.
"I got mine and screw you!" Boy, what a Pandora's box of reflections of mine you blasted open there, of my malignant authoritarian mother's "code!" Born a Bircher and died a Birther, she never used it: and it was a common slogan of hers: against the rich. She used it against me, as a warning I must not be selfish. A version was used against students of hers who didn't think they deserved to be graded so hard: "I made it with my two hands!" Definitely against "dirty, lazy hippies." But the rich (aristocrats) were the source of all the great things: palaces and commerce and jobs.... In the common meme now, she always "punched down." Thanks for the memories, sort of....
But even if Dems win the 2024 elections, Repubs will keep working to advance their agenda. What can we do to stop it from happening as soon as the next Repubs are in office. The Supreme Court seems ready to go along with Repubs.
Pay attention to the down ballot. Vote straight for the Democratic Party all the way down to dog catcher, school board members and union representatives.
If Democrats do as they promise, restoring all that has been stolen from us by these dirty bastards by having a large Democratic majority in congress and the senate. Codifying voting rights, restoring human rights, establishing federal gun ownership responsibilities, impeaching corrupt members of SCOTUS, restoring antitrust laws, The Fairness Doctrine, outlawing gerrymandering, getting rid of the Electoral College. That’s quite a list and only the tip of the iceberg of the damage the Traitors to our Constitutional Rights movement have done to us. Yes, YOU and I. Our families, friends and fellow Americans.
Put Steve Bannon in prison where he should be sitting at this moment.
No more MSM propaganda, restore dignity to journalism by revealing facts, not opinions. This sowing the addiction of hate and distrust is effectively tearing apart our culture, and that is the Traitors of Our Constitution’s purpose.
We’re all going to suffer at the hands of these criminals, legally if we don’t stand up for ourselves. Like Lindsay Graham said: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we’ll deserve it” Take that to the bank. Look what’s been destroyed by Republicans during the Trump administration and vote it all out. Full rejection of the Republican Party is just the start.
I HAVE been voting Dem all along. I harangue my friends who all vote Dem. I would have locked up Bannon (& trump & all his “friends” in Congress) long ago. I live in Florida & was appalled when Rubio won, not to mention Rick Scott (8 years!) governor, then Senate, or even worse DeSatan, & still Repubs continue the descent into hell. I rejected the Repub party long ago. I rejected FOX, CNN, even the NYTIMES & Washington Post (Although i do read them selectively from time to time until my blood boils). Still the fight seems more & more desperate.
The same socially destructive, tyrannical transnational reactionary corporate forces have already successfully hijacked the UK state via Brexit. Each day sees more legislation passed to erode hardwon health and environmental protections and human rights.
The only present block remaining to a successful implementation of their plan of a full destruction of all public governing structures, the UK judiciary and the replacing of them with shady private companies and wealthy exploitative overseers are the international legal commitments enshrined in Northern Ireland’s Belfast Agreement.
So they are attempting to get out of Northern Ireland but without delivering on their legal (false ?) promises on Troubles era truth, reconciliation and justice without creating an international crisis demanding NATO intervention.
These ersatz strongmen and women are a dangerous bunch of carpetbagging wreckers.
It's hard to keep up with the international picture along with everything else: thanks. The little I heard implied that there was significant "buyers' remorse" in the British electorate, but you seem to imply the "rot" is already too advanced institutionally for mere citizens to turn much around. (?) How ironic that a contract with Ireland would be the forlorn hope. In 1964, I had my appendix out in Blackpool, and my parents always told how bewildered they were, offering their American health insurance to pay, and there was no bureaucracy to even generate a bill!
Schedule F was created by EO 13957, and Biden killed it with EO14003, the first executive action of his administration. However Schedule F was used to reclassify the positions tha Trump's appointees would occupy, and vacate them so that his appointees could take their place. Thus DOJ, DHS, NSA, DOD are chock full of Trump appointees now protected civil servants.
My complaint with Biden, is that he could have used the same EO, to replace Trump's appoiintees, but instead he tied a hand behind his back and revoked Trump's EO.
What a fool, or has he been advised by a Trump advocate or a compromiser.
The next Republican president can just as easily restore Schedule F by an EO>
I really don't think most Americans can comprehend what the the right wing oligarchy is about. Since most Americans, especially the right wing type, have never gone hungry or without healthcare or shelter, a day in their life thanks to FDR, who they hate! It is pretty obvious to me that Biden and Garland did not prosecute the GOP traitors, why would they replace the chosen GOP traitors? As you know, Biden already gave the GOP the house and the supreme Court. I suspect the GOP will have another October surprise right before the next presidential election. And the elected GOP president will pardon Biden, or not have his attorney general prosecute Biden. Trying to get the GOP Cult to understand why Medicare shouldn't have to pay so much money for drugs shouldn't be so hard. If Trump did it, they would all get on board. Religion and party before country, is not very patriotic to the country.
I agree with you, except in that Biden gave the GOP congress and the Supreme Court.
The voters gave the Republicans the House, not Biden, and the Senate as well, and the Senate did the biding of the oligarchs by stacking the supreme court with religious fascists, and it was Trump that nominated them to a Republican control senate.
On the other hand the Democrats in the Senate did nothing to stop them, like Tuberville is doing to the Dept of Defense.
Then again I fault the Democrats for being spineless wooses, they still SEEM to live on the fantasy of compromise and bipartisan ship, as if a prize fighter went into the ring with one armed tied behind his back.
My only question is cowardliness, complicity or compromised.
Forget not that Biden had a chance to put Democrats in control of the USPS, but choose a Republican, and has failed to fill the two vacancies that have existed since December 2022
Purdue Pharma was not at all hesitant to hire Guiliani as an attorney to fight the law suit against them for promoting and selling oxycotin, knowing full well it was addictive and deadly.
However Guiliana called his patron Trump, then President, and he direct the DOJ, to drop the charges in favor of a lesser misdemeanor with only a fine and no admission of gult.
Trump has set precedents, like directing the DOJ to follow his orders, to appointing Acting this or that to positions, and Biden won't even follow those precedents he is willing to turn this country over to racist, religious, homophobic,, misogynistic fascists,
For what his legacy, to prove to America 40% of which could care less, that he was a even handed and an ameliorator. If the Republicans take the government again, Biden will become a non entity in their history books and media., except maybe a villain.
That is if he and all "liberals" survive the purge. Trump has already promised revenge, and the m effer is not talking though his sleeve either, he is if nothing else an insecure, narcisst that can only feel safe if he exacts revenge, for damaging his insecurity and public image.
Why not prosecuting about 300 GOP Representatives for sedition, that allowed them to run and get reelected and it also turned a lot of leftists against Biden but not for Trump. I would be Biden's biggest fan if he would have prosecuted the insurrectionist who were responsible for the coup, not just the little guys. By giving the GOP control of the Congress, who are now threatening to bankrupt the country, again. If the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, more supreme Court justices could have been added ,and the supreme Court could have been taken back from the right wing lunatics. Biden lost a lot of future voters for the Democrats.
I share your frustrations; The Democrats controlled congress when Obama was president
The Democrats initially controlled Congress during the Obama administration, but the Republicans would win the House and Senate in 2010. Obama came into office in 2009 with a supermajority in the U.S. House and Senate and set about passing his agenda including his reform of the health care industry.
However, the Senate supermajority only lasted for a period of 72 working days while the Senate was actually in session. . He did not take advantage of this majority, except to
congress when Obama was in charge and as you recall Mitch would not approve Garland as an associate justice of SCOTUS, and just as well,, if he had then liberals would have been very upset with Obama appointing and ultra conservative (Marrick Garland) to the Supreme Court
I can't think of anything that Obama achieved in his eight years, not even for American Descendants of Slaves, Which he wasn't. His father was a Kenyan and his mother an American Descendant of slave owners.
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party won the majority in the House of Representatives. While the Democrats kept their Senate majority, it was reduced from the previous Congress.
What I am saying is that Biden did no give control of Congress to the Republicans, it actually held on to the Senate, but without a 60 vote majority to overcome the filibuster, and for that I blame Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer because both could have retired the filibuster and didn't.
Then came the Trump wave in 2016. A "red wave" was expected (by the effin media) in 2020, and it didn't materialize because the public was fed up with crooked, perverted Trump, and as you know it isn't over, because the Republicans have passed voter suppression and voter negation laws meant to make Trump president again, and to disenfranchise the Democratic base. And Biden and Trump's DOJ sits there like a stone wall. Doing nothing.
Yep, it is frustrating all right. Ignorance is bliss until it isn't, then it is too late. You are right though, the Democrats had the opportunity to initiate single-payer or Medicare for all or socialized healthcare for all and failed to do so also. So many failures, it is hard to keep track.
And then there the likes of Sen Menendez of NJ. The man is corrupt and is being investigated, he is also PhRMA's slave in the Senate. PhRMA has been his biggest megadonor.
Problem is money and the idea that money is speech, and corporations are people.
But why? From my petty used-to-be-middle-class perspective, I cannot relate to what skin it is off their noses to live and let live a little bit. Seems bizarre. I seem to remember an interview years ago with maybe the richest man (oil) in Norway. The American business media asked, why didn't he relocate to some place where his taxes would be so much lower, and he said: because I like living in a country where people are happy. Sorry: long since lost the cite: sure it's not apocryphal.....
Because since FDR “business people” have fought against everything that would limit their right to amass more wealth. They don’t want “their” tax dollars paying for anything that doesn’t enrich themselves personally. They can afford a doctor when sick, or tutors for home schooling their children, so they don’t want to subsidize those things for people that can’t afford them - nor do they want the workers to unite & demand better pay. Unlike what we were led to believe (at least I was), Americans are not one big happy family. As times get more difficult we’ve become unhappy & looking for someone to blame.
Anyone who has bothered to roll out of bed in the past 40+ years shouldn't be shocked. Nonetheless, "shouldn't" has proven to be elusive within our contemporary American ethos.
I believe most of us have a good sense of the currents swirling about, but Thom's documentation and citing are unrivaled in bringing those insights into verifiable fact. "Project 2025" reminds us that EVERY day is exactly the right time to be an active participant in life and to not hold the illusion that our presence is mere spectatorship.
Project 2025, if successful, will guarantee - for We, the Serfs - the following lyrics immutable...
Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word
And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude:
“Good luck, you’re on your own”
Blessed are the fornicates
May we bend down to be their whores
Blessed are the rich
May we labor, deliver them more
Blessed are the envious
Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain
Blessed are the gluttonous
May they feast us to famine and war
What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
All doomed
All doomed
Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word
And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude: “Good luck”
What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
What of the righteous? What of the charitable?
What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent?
Doomed are the poor
Doomed are the peaceful
Doomed are the meek
Doomed are the merciful
For the word is now death
And the word is now without light
The new beatitude:
“Fuck the doomed, you’re on your own”
-A Perfect Circle. 2018. [The Doomed]. On "Eat The Elephant". BMG
A sort of "love/hate" like. I had to Google "A Perfect Circle." 2018. Jeese, what a Zeitgeist even before Covid. I won't even try to listen to it. Falling back on Floyd "Comfortably Numb."
It is without question the most devious, evil plan .
The fact that these wealthiest people have decided to go completely morally bankrupt in order to seize all power, is reprehensible.
Its a tragic sequence by which these greedy men seek to rule and forever demolish those less well off which will be at least ninety percent of the American populace
This article and many in the recent chain makes it seem like this all came from a political party - the GOP, but we should question whether a political party filled with people who have won elections would want someone to run under who has never won an election. Something drastic changed because that was not the gop before trump was able to dispose of Jed. This is a media game which contorts reality. Now, instead of business interests exerting power and pressure over govt, the idea is now - let's just get an untested private business person to run the entire govt. And they can do that only if the media does much if the work, for which it's greatly rewarded.
As noted, the recipient of the Powell memo was the chamber of commerce, not either political party.
When the rules for expanding hedge funds and limiting regulation of their advisers were addressed in court (2000s), the chamber of commerce was heavily involved in the litigation, although the relevant laws barely affected corporations - just wealthy and institutional investors and those who manage their concentrated money.
In oct 2015, ny times published info on the largest early donors to 2016 campaign and identified trend of nouvelle riche from private hedge funds (and also fracking) dominating the 400 or so families who dominate all political spending. Ny times emphasized how deeply involved in politics some of them, and we get glimpses from time to time.
Now you see them on fishing trips with Sam alito.
Private companies means no independent board, no public reporting / updating under sec standards or stock exchange rules, no independent audit committee with internal controls/compliance reporting to it.
Trump organization was/is such a private company. Think about what's going on with Raviswamy.
The biggest boldest lie put out in front of everyone's face is this - that people like this have ANY qualification whatsoever to be president of us when they
-never won any election
- no public service
- no military experience
- no foreign policy or educational expertise about world affairs,
Etc
To me, this is absolutely the single worst thing the media has done to us. To have people accept this idea that these people have any business as candidates.
Yes, of course this is more of a gop thing, but democrats also have their cia people, hedge funders too.
The point is the gop was bad, right wing, militaristic, business owned before.... but at least wanted people with experience running the federal government, sheeeesh this situation now is right on the cusp of a complete business takeover of government not by public corporations but by PRIVATE untested and unqualified people.
It was just so nice to be home a little this week this way I could see some of msnbc which just puts on raviswamy in the day annd lets him bullshit annd lie away. Always legitimating, always going along, the role of mainstream media - to normalize this in a country where the tradition was you had to be Secretary of State or governor of a state first or have comparable experience to be the frickin president. It seems like these cats have really captured the gop, and so much outside of it (with Elon and everything else in the media).
In any event it doesn't seem fully accurate to describe this as coming from the gop when the gop appears to have morphed from a legitimate political party with legitimate candidates into more of a dull, blunt (and not that hard to purchase) tool.
It turns out there's no such thing officially called the "McCain-feingold act" although that's what it was called. We have to go back what, TWO entire presidents from gop to see campaign finAnce reform as bipartisan. The official name of the act was the Bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002. It's amazing what a watershed moment it was when Supreme Court overturned it and morphed the law into something diametrically opposed to what was bipartisan - into the citizens United decision, but the basic point to note is that pres George w bush signed this into law only two gop presidencies ago! And of course McCain was a leading Republican. This shows how much things have changed even from a fairly right wing president gw bush. As well as the enormous power of people like Moscow Mitch McConnell and shady Sammy alito.
First of all, I am humbled by the important research and history that must not be lost. Hope there are copies distributed to the ends of the universe. I recently revisited "I, Claudius" on VHS, of all things, and the very end is evocative, well, there it is. The "Great Erasure" is being attempted as we weep. What is bothering me today is the Clarence Thomas news. How he has no sense of dignity or history, to make such a show of himself as a black man bought by the white oligarchs. That painting of him being buttered-up by his white groomers: it's excruciating!
It's amazing how hard the Republicans will work to create a third world nation that runs on filthy fossil fuel. AND they seem to be loud and proud about their Project 2025. A more apt name would be Project 1925 with the stock market crash, depression, and dust bowl looming in the future.
Despite the horrible plans and ideology, how the hell, why the hell do they think they should be able to succeed with a psychopath in charge? Not a brilliant, charismatic, focused psychopath, they have chosen to stick with their old, ugly, dense grifter. They better be organized if they hope to get this agenda done, because he is going to stab each of them in the back and ruin whatever he touches if it enriches him.
The GOP is literally playing with fire---fire, floods, financial ruin, and wide-scale deaths from the climate crisis. Most of us don't want to hate and disrespect them, but.....
Thanks. Yes, it is a deep irony that the British state’s historical ties with Northern Ireland are presently the only legal barrier to a full reversal of 300 years battle to win hardwon egalitarian human rights.
The British have no written constitution and have upheld their democracy (in their home counties: never in their economic or geographic colonies) through a unassailable network of a ruling upper class that, before Thatcher’s neo liberal revolution, adhered to an unwritten Good Chaps code of conduct. That is long gone.
This present cartel have already begun buying up vast tracts of land to turn them in Charter Cities given over to private corporate rule, an experiment they most recently tried in Costa Rica. They have overturned the right to protest and brought in laws that allow agents of the state full amnesty to rape and murder their citizens without recourse to a court order. Most individuals are seemingly unaware or caught like rabbits in headlights. It’s grim.
Of course, casual cruel and violent abuse of citizens by untouchable state agents remains an everyday reality here in Northern Ireland. This makes folk here both more war hardened and harder to read. Which in the face of these ‘burn all rule of law save Ours and Our chosen Tyrant’ mobsters onslaught is proving protective.🐈⬛
This recounting of what is going on in the GOP is consistent with previous histories I have read about how conservatives have behaved since the infamous Powell memo. Everyone should read this piece. Best description of the stakes of the 2024 election that I have seen.
I hear what you are saying Thom and am motivated and in the heat of the battle as I was in the late 60's early 70's
This post needs to be shared far and wide!
I got mine and screw you! There is nothing new about that. The rich have used it for thousands of years, it goes well with their torture chambers in their dungeons.
It will not take long for the rich to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. After they have stolen everything from their sheep, like the state of Mississippi does then , there will be no use for those pesky humans.
The trickle up theory works a lot better than the trickle down theory. Just ask any third world nation. I can't see the GOP robber barons giving a penny to the poor. Die of a toothache you worthless sack of manure!
Anyone who would vote for these narcissistic greedy lunatics, deserves a dictatorship. It will be their own darn fault! The only way Putin and Saudi Arabia and Orban can stay afloat is by stealing all of their victims natural resources, especially oil.
"I got mine and screw you!" Boy, what a Pandora's box of reflections of mine you blasted open there, of my malignant authoritarian mother's "code!" Born a Bircher and died a Birther, she never used it: and it was a common slogan of hers: against the rich. She used it against me, as a warning I must not be selfish. A version was used against students of hers who didn't think they deserved to be graded so hard: "I made it with my two hands!" Definitely against "dirty, lazy hippies." But the rich (aristocrats) were the source of all the great things: palaces and commerce and jobs.... In the common meme now, she always "punched down." Thanks for the memories, sort of....
But even if Dems win the 2024 elections, Repubs will keep working to advance their agenda. What can we do to stop it from happening as soon as the next Repubs are in office. The Supreme Court seems ready to go along with Repubs.
Pay attention to the down ballot. Vote straight for the Democratic Party all the way down to dog catcher, school board members and union representatives.
If Democrats do as they promise, restoring all that has been stolen from us by these dirty bastards by having a large Democratic majority in congress and the senate. Codifying voting rights, restoring human rights, establishing federal gun ownership responsibilities, impeaching corrupt members of SCOTUS, restoring antitrust laws, The Fairness Doctrine, outlawing gerrymandering, getting rid of the Electoral College. That’s quite a list and only the tip of the iceberg of the damage the Traitors to our Constitutional Rights movement have done to us. Yes, YOU and I. Our families, friends and fellow Americans.
Put Steve Bannon in prison where he should be sitting at this moment.
No more MSM propaganda, restore dignity to journalism by revealing facts, not opinions. This sowing the addiction of hate and distrust is effectively tearing apart our culture, and that is the Traitors of Our Constitution’s purpose.
We’re all going to suffer at the hands of these criminals, legally if we don’t stand up for ourselves. Like Lindsay Graham said: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we’ll deserve it” Take that to the bank. Look what’s been destroyed by Republicans during the Trump administration and vote it all out. Full rejection of the Republican Party is just the start.
I HAVE been voting Dem all along. I harangue my friends who all vote Dem. I would have locked up Bannon (& trump & all his “friends” in Congress) long ago. I live in Florida & was appalled when Rubio won, not to mention Rick Scott (8 years!) governor, then Senate, or even worse DeSatan, & still Repubs continue the descent into hell. I rejected the Repub party long ago. I rejected FOX, CNN, even the NYTIMES & Washington Post (Although i do read them selectively from time to time until my blood boils). Still the fight seems more & more desperate.
The same socially destructive, tyrannical transnational reactionary corporate forces have already successfully hijacked the UK state via Brexit. Each day sees more legislation passed to erode hardwon health and environmental protections and human rights.
The only present block remaining to a successful implementation of their plan of a full destruction of all public governing structures, the UK judiciary and the replacing of them with shady private companies and wealthy exploitative overseers are the international legal commitments enshrined in Northern Ireland’s Belfast Agreement.
So they are attempting to get out of Northern Ireland but without delivering on their legal (false ?) promises on Troubles era truth, reconciliation and justice without creating an international crisis demanding NATO intervention.
These ersatz strongmen and women are a dangerous bunch of carpetbagging wreckers.
It's hard to keep up with the international picture along with everything else: thanks. The little I heard implied that there was significant "buyers' remorse" in the British electorate, but you seem to imply the "rot" is already too advanced institutionally for mere citizens to turn much around. (?) How ironic that a contract with Ireland would be the forlorn hope. In 1964, I had my appendix out in Blackpool, and my parents always told how bewildered they were, offering their American health insurance to pay, and there was no bureaucracy to even generate a bill!
Schedule F was created by EO 13957, and Biden killed it with EO14003, the first executive action of his administration. However Schedule F was used to reclassify the positions tha Trump's appointees would occupy, and vacate them so that his appointees could take their place. Thus DOJ, DHS, NSA, DOD are chock full of Trump appointees now protected civil servants.
My complaint with Biden, is that he could have used the same EO, to replace Trump's appoiintees, but instead he tied a hand behind his back and revoked Trump's EO.
What a fool, or has he been advised by a Trump advocate or a compromiser.
The next Republican president can just as easily restore Schedule F by an EO>
I really don't think most Americans can comprehend what the the right wing oligarchy is about. Since most Americans, especially the right wing type, have never gone hungry or without healthcare or shelter, a day in their life thanks to FDR, who they hate! It is pretty obvious to me that Biden and Garland did not prosecute the GOP traitors, why would they replace the chosen GOP traitors? As you know, Biden already gave the GOP the house and the supreme Court. I suspect the GOP will have another October surprise right before the next presidential election. And the elected GOP president will pardon Biden, or not have his attorney general prosecute Biden. Trying to get the GOP Cult to understand why Medicare shouldn't have to pay so much money for drugs shouldn't be so hard. If Trump did it, they would all get on board. Religion and party before country, is not very patriotic to the country.
I agree with you, except in that Biden gave the GOP congress and the Supreme Court.
The voters gave the Republicans the House, not Biden, and the Senate as well, and the Senate did the biding of the oligarchs by stacking the supreme court with religious fascists, and it was Trump that nominated them to a Republican control senate.
On the other hand the Democrats in the Senate did nothing to stop them, like Tuberville is doing to the Dept of Defense.
Then again I fault the Democrats for being spineless wooses, they still SEEM to live on the fantasy of compromise and bipartisan ship, as if a prize fighter went into the ring with one armed tied behind his back.
My only question is cowardliness, complicity or compromised.
Forget not that Biden had a chance to put Democrats in control of the USPS, but choose a Republican, and has failed to fill the two vacancies that have existed since December 2022
Purdue Pharma was not at all hesitant to hire Guiliani as an attorney to fight the law suit against them for promoting and selling oxycotin, knowing full well it was addictive and deadly.
However Guiliana called his patron Trump, then President, and he direct the DOJ, to drop the charges in favor of a lesser misdemeanor with only a fine and no admission of gult.
Trump has set precedents, like directing the DOJ to follow his orders, to appointing Acting this or that to positions, and Biden won't even follow those precedents he is willing to turn this country over to racist, religious, homophobic,, misogynistic fascists,
For what his legacy, to prove to America 40% of which could care less, that he was a even handed and an ameliorator. If the Republicans take the government again, Biden will become a non entity in their history books and media., except maybe a villain.
That is if he and all "liberals" survive the purge. Trump has already promised revenge, and the m effer is not talking though his sleeve either, he is if nothing else an insecure, narcisst that can only feel safe if he exacts revenge, for damaging his insecurity and public image.
Why not prosecuting about 300 GOP Representatives for sedition, that allowed them to run and get reelected and it also turned a lot of leftists against Biden but not for Trump. I would be Biden's biggest fan if he would have prosecuted the insurrectionist who were responsible for the coup, not just the little guys. By giving the GOP control of the Congress, who are now threatening to bankrupt the country, again. If the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, more supreme Court justices could have been added ,and the supreme Court could have been taken back from the right wing lunatics. Biden lost a lot of future voters for the Democrats.
I share your frustrations; The Democrats controlled congress when Obama was president
The Democrats initially controlled Congress during the Obama administration, but the Republicans would win the House and Senate in 2010. Obama came into office in 2009 with a supermajority in the U.S. House and Senate and set about passing his agenda including his reform of the health care industry.
However, the Senate supermajority only lasted for a period of 72 working days while the Senate was actually in session. . He did not take advantage of this majority, except to
congress when Obama was in charge and as you recall Mitch would not approve Garland as an associate justice of SCOTUS, and just as well,, if he had then liberals would have been very upset with Obama appointing and ultra conservative (Marrick Garland) to the Supreme Court
I can't think of anything that Obama achieved in his eight years, not even for American Descendants of Slaves, Which he wasn't. His father was a Kenyan and his mother an American Descendant of slave owners.
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party won the majority in the House of Representatives. While the Democrats kept their Senate majority, it was reduced from the previous Congress.
What I am saying is that Biden did no give control of Congress to the Republicans, it actually held on to the Senate, but without a 60 vote majority to overcome the filibuster, and for that I blame Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer because both could have retired the filibuster and didn't.
Then came the Trump wave in 2016. A "red wave" was expected (by the effin media) in 2020, and it didn't materialize because the public was fed up with crooked, perverted Trump, and as you know it isn't over, because the Republicans have passed voter suppression and voter negation laws meant to make Trump president again, and to disenfranchise the Democratic base. And Biden and Trump's DOJ sits there like a stone wall. Doing nothing.
Yep, it is frustrating all right. Ignorance is bliss until it isn't, then it is too late. You are right though, the Democrats had the opportunity to initiate single-payer or Medicare for all or socialized healthcare for all and failed to do so also. So many failures, it is hard to keep track.
They are afraid of antagonizing the oil cabal.
And then there the likes of Sen Menendez of NJ. The man is corrupt and is being investigated, he is also PhRMA's slave in the Senate. PhRMA has been his biggest megadonor.
Problem is money and the idea that money is speech, and corporations are people.
We do have the best government money can buy.
Billionaires for jingoism and citizens united. Billionaires love SCOTUS. Billionaires for Trump.
But why? From my petty used-to-be-middle-class perspective, I cannot relate to what skin it is off their noses to live and let live a little bit. Seems bizarre. I seem to remember an interview years ago with maybe the richest man (oil) in Norway. The American business media asked, why didn't he relocate to some place where his taxes would be so much lower, and he said: because I like living in a country where people are happy. Sorry: long since lost the cite: sure it's not apocryphal.....
Because since FDR “business people” have fought against everything that would limit their right to amass more wealth. They don’t want “their” tax dollars paying for anything that doesn’t enrich themselves personally. They can afford a doctor when sick, or tutors for home schooling their children, so they don’t want to subsidize those things for people that can’t afford them - nor do they want the workers to unite & demand better pay. Unlike what we were led to believe (at least I was), Americans are not one big happy family. As times get more difficult we’ve become unhappy & looking for someone to blame.
Anyone who has bothered to roll out of bed in the past 40+ years shouldn't be shocked. Nonetheless, "shouldn't" has proven to be elusive within our contemporary American ethos.
I believe most of us have a good sense of the currents swirling about, but Thom's documentation and citing are unrivaled in bringing those insights into verifiable fact. "Project 2025" reminds us that EVERY day is exactly the right time to be an active participant in life and to not hold the illusion that our presence is mere spectatorship.
Project 2025, if successful, will guarantee - for We, the Serfs - the following lyrics immutable...
Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word
And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude:
“Good luck, you’re on your own”
Blessed are the fornicates
May we bend down to be their whores
Blessed are the rich
May we labor, deliver them more
Blessed are the envious
Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain
Blessed are the gluttonous
May they feast us to famine and war
What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
All doomed
All doomed
Behold a new Christ
Behold the same old horde
Gather at the altering
New beginning, new word
And the word was death
And the word was without light
The new beatitude: “Good luck”
What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
What of the righteous? What of the charitable?
What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent?
Doomed are the poor
Doomed are the peaceful
Doomed are the meek
Doomed are the merciful
For the word is now death
And the word is now without light
The new beatitude:
“Fuck the doomed, you’re on your own”
-A Perfect Circle. 2018. [The Doomed]. On "Eat The Elephant". BMG
A sort of "love/hate" like. I had to Google "A Perfect Circle." 2018. Jeese, what a Zeitgeist even before Covid. I won't even try to listen to it. Falling back on Floyd "Comfortably Numb."
It is without question the most devious, evil plan .
The fact that these wealthiest people have decided to go completely morally bankrupt in order to seize all power, is reprehensible.
Its a tragic sequence by which these greedy men seek to rule and forever demolish those less well off which will be at least ninety percent of the American populace
This article and many in the recent chain makes it seem like this all came from a political party - the GOP, but we should question whether a political party filled with people who have won elections would want someone to run under who has never won an election. Something drastic changed because that was not the gop before trump was able to dispose of Jed. This is a media game which contorts reality. Now, instead of business interests exerting power and pressure over govt, the idea is now - let's just get an untested private business person to run the entire govt. And they can do that only if the media does much if the work, for which it's greatly rewarded.
As noted, the recipient of the Powell memo was the chamber of commerce, not either political party.
When the rules for expanding hedge funds and limiting regulation of their advisers were addressed in court (2000s), the chamber of commerce was heavily involved in the litigation, although the relevant laws barely affected corporations - just wealthy and institutional investors and those who manage their concentrated money.
In oct 2015, ny times published info on the largest early donors to 2016 campaign and identified trend of nouvelle riche from private hedge funds (and also fracking) dominating the 400 or so families who dominate all political spending. Ny times emphasized how deeply involved in politics some of them, and we get glimpses from time to time.
Now you see them on fishing trips with Sam alito.
Private companies means no independent board, no public reporting / updating under sec standards or stock exchange rules, no independent audit committee with internal controls/compliance reporting to it.
Trump organization was/is such a private company. Think about what's going on with Raviswamy.
The biggest boldest lie put out in front of everyone's face is this - that people like this have ANY qualification whatsoever to be president of us when they
-never won any election
- no public service
- no military experience
- no foreign policy or educational expertise about world affairs,
Etc
To me, this is absolutely the single worst thing the media has done to us. To have people accept this idea that these people have any business as candidates.
Yes, of course this is more of a gop thing, but democrats also have their cia people, hedge funders too.
The point is the gop was bad, right wing, militaristic, business owned before.... but at least wanted people with experience running the federal government, sheeeesh this situation now is right on the cusp of a complete business takeover of government not by public corporations but by PRIVATE untested and unqualified people.
It was just so nice to be home a little this week this way I could see some of msnbc which just puts on raviswamy in the day annd lets him bullshit annd lie away. Always legitimating, always going along, the role of mainstream media - to normalize this in a country where the tradition was you had to be Secretary of State or governor of a state first or have comparable experience to be the frickin president. It seems like these cats have really captured the gop, and so much outside of it (with Elon and everything else in the media).
In any event it doesn't seem fully accurate to describe this as coming from the gop when the gop appears to have morphed from a legitimate political party with legitimate candidates into more of a dull, blunt (and not that hard to purchase) tool.
It turns out there's no such thing officially called the "McCain-feingold act" although that's what it was called. We have to go back what, TWO entire presidents from gop to see campaign finAnce reform as bipartisan. The official name of the act was the Bipartisan campaign reform act of 2002. It's amazing what a watershed moment it was when Supreme Court overturned it and morphed the law into something diametrically opposed to what was bipartisan - into the citizens United decision, but the basic point to note is that pres George w bush signed this into law only two gop presidencies ago! And of course McCain was a leading Republican. This shows how much things have changed even from a fairly right wing president gw bush. As well as the enormous power of people like Moscow Mitch McConnell and shady Sammy alito.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act
First of all, I am humbled by the important research and history that must not be lost. Hope there are copies distributed to the ends of the universe. I recently revisited "I, Claudius" on VHS, of all things, and the very end is evocative, well, there it is. The "Great Erasure" is being attempted as we weep. What is bothering me today is the Clarence Thomas news. How he has no sense of dignity or history, to make such a show of himself as a black man bought by the white oligarchs. That painting of him being buttered-up by his white groomers: it's excruciating!
This article has been removed from my page on Facebook and Meta is punishing me for posting it! I guess they don't like attacks on Fascism....
M. E. Kabay, PhD
That's grim. Both Zuck and Elon appear to have gone hard right and are getting ready for the 2024 election...
The real problem?
That some 74.2 million voters want a blithering vulgarian for their absolutist monarch.
Then he can handle BLM et al, same as they handle protests in the Congo. Or Iran.
It's amazing how hard the Republicans will work to create a third world nation that runs on filthy fossil fuel. AND they seem to be loud and proud about their Project 2025. A more apt name would be Project 1925 with the stock market crash, depression, and dust bowl looming in the future.
Despite the horrible plans and ideology, how the hell, why the hell do they think they should be able to succeed with a psychopath in charge? Not a brilliant, charismatic, focused psychopath, they have chosen to stick with their old, ugly, dense grifter. They better be organized if they hope to get this agenda done, because he is going to stab each of them in the back and ruin whatever he touches if it enriches him.
The GOP is literally playing with fire---fire, floods, financial ruin, and wide-scale deaths from the climate crisis. Most of us don't want to hate and disrespect them, but.....
Thanks. Yes, it is a deep irony that the British state’s historical ties with Northern Ireland are presently the only legal barrier to a full reversal of 300 years battle to win hardwon egalitarian human rights.
The British have no written constitution and have upheld their democracy (in their home counties: never in their economic or geographic colonies) through a unassailable network of a ruling upper class that, before Thatcher’s neo liberal revolution, adhered to an unwritten Good Chaps code of conduct. That is long gone.
This present cartel have already begun buying up vast tracts of land to turn them in Charter Cities given over to private corporate rule, an experiment they most recently tried in Costa Rica. They have overturned the right to protest and brought in laws that allow agents of the state full amnesty to rape and murder their citizens without recourse to a court order. Most individuals are seemingly unaware or caught like rabbits in headlights. It’s grim.
Of course, casual cruel and violent abuse of citizens by untouchable state agents remains an everyday reality here in Northern Ireland. This makes folk here both more war hardened and harder to read. Which in the face of these ‘burn all rule of law save Ours and Our chosen Tyrant’ mobsters onslaught is proving protective.🐈⬛