Trump's Republicans use the four F's--fear, force, fraud, finance--to affect policy in their favor. There's nothing in their modus operandi about reason or debate. They already know they can't win a fair democratic fight; so they have to cheat, because they have to win. They are at war with the world.
Thom's portrait of Trump seems very accurate. The one mystery in MAGAdum is how so many Americans are blind to that portrait. Even now it is rather clear that Trump appointed incompetent toadies for every administration role so he could rule unobstructed. We now have the most incompetent government in history, and even it has been vandalized by incompetent "efficiency experts" right out of HS or college who were armed only with chainsaws.
A number of journalists and political strategists (Thom included) are beginning to see that 2026 is America's Reichstag fire. We either turn the government blue in 26 or start practicing our stiff-arm salutes, because, like Carville said this week, I too do not think there will be a 2028 election unless by 2027 Trump is impeached, Citizens United is castrated by Congress, taxes rein in our oligarch billionaires, and several other laws are passed to rein in our bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court.
While technically, the MSM has been referring to Muskness as a 3rd Party, that seems to overlook that we have been a 1-party nation for some time. The DNC has shown itself to be incapable of change and accepting that young ideas should at least be take seriously. David Hogg was correct. If the Democrats do not offload their geezer legislators, they risk turning off a lot of young voters. The reaction to Mamdani is disgusting. My entire life, the Democratic Party has only offered presidential candidates who were the lesser of two lousy options. Half the time, enough liberal voters chose an alternative to give us Republican presidents who gave us stupid wars and recessions.
My opinion Tom. Trump's cabinet was purposefully chosen, to do the job they are doing, to deconstruct America, that it can be rebuilt.
Since Trump is a Russian asset named Krasnov, I thought that it was for Putin.
I suspect that there is a global plan afoot.
A managed democracy (inverted totalitarian) Technate of America. A Eurasia under Putin or a successor, East Asia under China, and a caliphate or sultanate in the Mid east and north Africa. But first disassemble and reassemble America.
One thing is for sure the world as we knew it in Dec 2024, no longer exists.
That we haven't yet felt the full affects can be analogized like a cancer cell.
It starts as a single cell, then it grows, multiplies and you don't feel it or realize it is there, until you feel the pain, as it affects other organs.
I never knew I had lung cancer, until I developed left side blindness, and my doctor sent me down for a CT Scan, they found a brain tumor depressing my right occipital, they took out the tumor, did a biopsy, and discovered that it was metastasized from my lung.
I never knew I had lung cancer, not even spitting up blood.
The body politic is huge, stretches 2,000 miles coast to coast. It is going to take time for people to feel pain, if they ever do, the frog is being boiled and we see it, and yet no one is jumping because we think we still have time, or something or someone will save us, that is what hope does.
Immunotherapy not chemo. Doing fine, 2 years of therapy and free and clear for six years. Oncologist calls it a miracle. Doing fine, just regular old age problems, but I don't let them get me down, power of positive thinking (strange to hear that from me, but mind over matter) Diet and exercise goes a long way also.
Never mope,never feel sorry for yourself,no self pity, and don't take no for an answer with the doctors tell you something.
I'm doing good Eadie, but thanks for the thoughts.
We are being played for fools, the only country in the world where heathcare is not a human right. You are scammed day-in and day-out by insurance companies and big pharma. Insurance premiums paid monthly only for you to see Claim Denied. Drug costs that are 2-3 times the cost for the same drug in the next country. It is carnage on the American stage. You accept all that. ?????? https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/claim-denied?r=3m1bs
BOTH cartel parties are in lock step in eternal playing of keepaway ball of universal health care from the American people.
Dare to mention it, and the partisan stooges assigned cheer leading for "finger-pointing as governance' that has kept citizens hostage to this system will try to silence talking about the fact with shrill screams of "both parties are not the same!!!"
On this particular issue, they are EXACTLY the same. It's small wonder that a decade of data shows both parties losing membership and recent polls show a majority of Americans want an additional party or parties to vote for as a way to break this cartel system no longer taking care of the nation and its people. The stooges are trying to silence discussion of that too.
A third party is not interesting to anybody. I put that out there months ago and it received 1 donation that I will refund this month. We need a platform that sells promoted by candidates that are not shills. That is doable.
The largest "party" are registered Independent voters. These are not non-voters, and both cartel parties are scared s--tless that the Independents will organize and start primarying the cartels' corrupt legacy candidates. BOTH cartel parties have tried to take Independent Bernie Sanders out as the mayor of Burlington and later as Senator. Vermonters have kicked their butts at every attempt. That is what the operatives of the Republican and Democratic parties are scared of. They should be. A movement is occurring through the Hands Off and No Kings protests. The mainstream news and the cartel operatives are trying to get these stopped by force by calling them "riots."
Neither can you make a pseudo-party of flip-flopping independents (as they are not a party), nor can you make a cartel (a term of economic and trade pseudo-groups only) out of a political party. The inflammatory and non constructive nature of your dialogue leaves much to be developed that is helpful. .
Did you follow the 2016 Democratic Party convention and the rigging of the primary? In the lawsuit that resulted from the rigging, the court agreed with what Wasserman-Schultz lawyers argued: that parties ARE corporations. They owe their members nothing and operatives can even pick the candidates in a "smoke-filled back room." See a bit below, although it's better to read the entire case transcript.
"Cartel" indeed fits the current situation of maintaining a controlled or monopolistic partisan system designed to limit choice, prevent change, and even to stifle democracy.
The consummate Independent is Bernie Sanders. There is no comparable example of consistence, openness, or clarity in what one is FOR to be found from any elected rep from within the Democratic Party.
That is why, when you consult the WWW for "most popular politician," it is Sanders' name that overwhelmingly appears. The major reason that the Democratic Party has an approval rating in the low to mid 20 percents is that few trust the party, and the biggest reason is that this party cannot commit with consistence to what it is FOR. Heck, it cannot even commit to holding its own accountable.
Its candidates' solicitation for support look like they all came out of the same boring consultant's cookie cutter: Outraged finger-pointing→Trrrummmpp!! → RUSH! DONATE HERE!! Nothing about what they and their party are FOR; nothing about commitment to SPECIFIC governance, and thus nothing to inspire voters to get behind. The main message? "money-money-money."
This Party must either change or it will go extinct with the nation that it helped bring to this end.
For more on "cartel political parties" see "Best Democracy" group site on either Facebook or Blue Sky. I eventually saw the wisdom of using that term after learning from the scholars in the group who produce that site.
Trump has been a Russian asset since the KGB recruited him in 1986. The goal of Putin is to turn the world into spheres of influence, just as the colonial powers did three hundred years ago, and Trump is an integral part of that plan. The plan is that the world's three largest authoritarian countries would jointly rule the word; with Russia in charge of Europe, Xi Jinping in charge of Asia and Trump in charge of Greenland and the Americas. But for it to work, the US must become authoritarian. https://sdraymond.substack.com/p/fascism
I see cracks emerging between trump and his envied autocrats. He's finally getting it that Putin was playing him all along and in retaliation has resumed shipment of arms to Ukraine. Kim Jong Un is not accepting his letter to resume dialogue. Let's see how this ends up....
Is Trump getting it Sophia or is it misdirection,? all for show. He is mercurial, loves one moment, condemns the next, and then loves again.
Why would anyone believe Trump on anything?
He spends hours on the phone with Putin, then declares that he is upset with him. Who is to say that it isn't a ploy, that they cooked up.
Hegseth cuts shipments of defense equipment to Ukraine, then Trump acts like he did it without his authority, but Hegseth is not fired, while Trump fires everyone else who does somthing without his authority. Trump says he will send some Patriot Missiles to Ukraine, Trump says a lot of things, then reverses himself.
This is Putin's second act of defiance and a direct slap in trump's face that is humiliating enough that trump will retaliate with sending weapons to Ukraine. The question is, will he up the ante and impose economic sanctions....
Is it defiance or is it purposeful misdirection. Anyway Krasnov won't stray too far from the man that has him on a leash.
I don't take what I hear or see for granted as the truth. People believe what they are inclined to believe. If they want to hear there is friction between Trump and Putin they will believe it, if they want to believe there is friction between Trump and Musk then they will believe it.
I judge a pudding by it's taste, not it's appearance. I am a perpetual skeptic and one from Missouri. It takes more than words, actions speak louder.
Magicians are not the only ones that deceive, don't trust your eyes nor your ears.
As with all things Trumpian, the news you’re basing your comments on is what Trump wants the news to report and what he wants people to believe. The limited arms and Patriot Missiles that he just released were just a small portion of those that had previously been approved by congress and that he held up from being sent to Ukraine. He wants people to think that he’s the hero who is saving Ukraine because of the pressure that he’s receiving from the Republican hawks. Putin is aware of this. If Trump were really free of Putin’s influence, he would be sending all of the missiles that he held back previously, but he’s doing what he always does by just giving them some so that people like you will be fooled into thinking that Putin does not pull his strings.
If we have an election, we might have a chance. Thom mentions Mexico, Brazil, Chile Greece and Spain. South Korea is a work in progress.
I think Chile made a complete reversal. Chile became a democracy on March 11, 1990, with the inauguration of Patricio Aylwin as president, marking the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. This transition followed a period of military rule and included a plebiscite in 1988 where a majority voted against Pinochet continuing as president.
My office was a liason with the democratic government, re due process in administrative adjudication.
AI breakdown:
1973-1990: Chile was under military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet.
1988: A plebiscite was held where 56% of voters rejected Pinochet's continuation as president, paving the way for democratic elections.
1989: Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat, was elected president.
1990: Aylwin assumed the presidency on March 11, officially marking the start of Chile's democratic period.
Big difference between Chile and America Daniel, The difference is in the structure of government.
Chile's constitution or form of government, provided for a plebiscite, ours doesn't.
Evidently Pinochet didn't have total control, and thus, he either permitted or even ordered a plebiscite (as Hitler did in 1933).
In America Trump, or rather the factions that support him, control all branches of the government, and it is all propped up by a slavish, theocratic, Supreme Court.
Congress has 16 months to push through more legislation, besides the SAVE Act, to thwart the voice of the people, and then there is psyops, election interference on top of the damage already done, by voter caging, election suppression, MAGAt election officials, hacking physical threats and then there are the 100 or so election restriction laws passed in the last year.
I can only hope that you are correct Daniel, the only other alternative is a pissed off population and direct action.
The American Catholic Bishops have defied the Pope
Dogma doesn't matter.
Save for a few really true believers, religion is really just a means to an end, if they con't like what they hear in one venue, the change the venue.
I spent 7 years a Catholic, and a rad trad one at that, a member of Catholic Truth, we pamphleted and tried to subvert Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle, as we considered him a heretic. Catholics don't read, much less the bible, they go to church and listen to the priest give his homily, and that is the extent of it. I was also a Knight of Columbus, probably still am, as I never resigned.
A friend of mine, who got me involved with the rad trads, found the Latin church too liberal and so we shopped at a Greek Orthodox Church. Didn't suit me much though, too many ridiculous rituals.
Basically Catholics are brainwashed ignorants. They know nothing about the social gospel, or social justice.. Just have lots of babies, don't get divorced
The last Republican president with honor was Ike. Every single one since then has worked for Charles Koch and his fellow greedy billionaires to dismantle the New Deal and the Great Society programs that got us to a point where more than 60% of us were in the middle class.
Nixon, who betrayed us in Vietnam in 1968, was stopped after his Watergate fiasco. BTW, that betrayal got an additional 22,000 American boys killed and another countless Vietnamese deaths.
Reagan really began the assault on the middle class with his trickle down bullshit and imposing taxes on Social Security for the first time to help pay for that tax cut, along with raising taxes and fees 10 more times. Reagan also committed treason by screwing Carter’s efforts to get the Iran embassy hostages back. His attack on Grenada was just an effort to distract us from his agenda. GHW Bush was just the third Reagan administration.
GW Bush gave us the second massive tax cut for the obscenely wealthy and additionally illegally invaded Iraq, killing ~8,000 Americans and a quarter million Iraqis while hiding the cost by borrowing the money instead of adding it to the Defense budget.
It boggles the mind that Americans sent this decrepit dictator wannabe back to the WH after his disastrous first term. He has no intention of leaving the office while still breathing because he knows what awaits him if he does. He is desparate and will do everything to stay in power.
July 17th is the next day of national action. We need to double the number of people we had out on the previous day. Go to 50501, Indivisible to find a protest near you!
The Democratic Party has to clean up it's own house first.
The former governor of New York, David Paterson, told Salon that he thinks elected Democrats in New York may be preparing to back a candidate other than state Rep. Zohran Mamdani, who won the party’s primary election last month.
Mamdani is the bane of the corporations and plutocrats that fill the trough that the DNC slops at, and of outfits like AIPAC and ADL.
I just received email from the Contrarian, in it they urge that we welcome, temporarily, the enemy of our enemy (Musk), as he is creating a party which will fracture the MAGA alliance.
This centrism of which the Democrats are so enamored is why we are in such deep shit.
Biden didn't win in 2020 because he was a centrist, he won because he was an alternative to Trump. the Democratic party lost in 2024, because Biden was a centrist, enamored of bipartisanship, he brought the fox (Garland) into the hen house, and revoked Trumps Schedule F executive order, which he could have and should have used to flush all of the Trump humpers, that Trump embedded in DOJ, NSA, HSA, in his final two weeks as protected civil servants.
Garland protected the insurrectionists in Congress, Garland chose to move the Trump document trial to Florida, when the crime actually occurred in DC, then he chose to appoint Ailene Cannon as judge.
Biden is the instrument of his own destruction and that of America as well. Things would have been different with a different AG and Biden not sitting back and letting the AG do as he wished, and I am not talking about using the AG as his personal lawyer like Trump is, but telling the AG to investigate and prosecute the insurrectionists in congress, and trying Trump in DC and not Florida
Biden is not a leader, Senators are not leaders, that is not their training and experience. The Democratic party needs leaders, people with character, personal strength, fortitude who aren't begging for approval by the corporate media.
But when a leader like AOC or Mamdani pops up, they take a scythe and cut off their head.
I am disgusted. Tired of these Demopubs and Republicrats,mealy mouthed, milquetoast centrists.
We need ass kicking progressives, to hell with the corporate media, and the donor class. Bernie proved that they were not necessary, people will vote for the genuine thing, an authentic candidate, not one that parses their words,
TRump called "bullshit" on Putin yesterday concerning all the deaths in Ukraine. Unbelievable. He is THE most inconsistent person on the planet anyway, but it might have been an Epstein diversion. Of course, Psycho Putin bombs the crap out of Ukraine every time his friend Donald talks tough.
Let's hope those missiles and Patriots are being shipped today! Pete was told something, then TRump denies he said it. Psychopaths. Hegseth is going to go out with tread-marks from that bus he is under, and he deserves it.
The demonstrations are the means we have to show the world that America is still with them. It's also a way to message the Cult that they are losers---we are coming for them. Good trouble to honor John Lewis on the 17th. See you in the streets!
Do you really believe anything that Trump says? Have we not learned yet?
I do not for one second believe that Krasnov is at odds with his boss or blackmailer.
I am waiting to see if Hegseth actually ships those missiles.
Hegseth canceled support and Trump pretended that he did it without authorization, yet Hegseth still sits in his chair, while anyone else who defied Trump or did something without his OK gets fired.
What policies have Trump changed or backed off from because of demonstrations.?
Are demonstrations being given full media coverage?
The only place I have seen them is on Rachel Maddow and she does a whole hour of split screens. Nicolle Wallace mentions them, but does not linger. I don't watch Fox, but doubt if Fox is giving them any coverage other than calling them insurrections.
Trump only watches Fox. I doubt seriously he knows what is going on in the world or the country, other than what his staff tells him, and they don't tell him bad news or things he doesn't want to hear.
TRump is a psychopath making things up on the fly. He has the attention span of a gnat. That's why I started with the word "Surprise". Sarcasm.
I also wish I could convey to you, William, what the demonstrations are doing. It helps bring solidarity to the people in them, the people passing by, and people all over the world. There have been demonstrations against the TRump regime EVERYWHERE. It is extraordinary. It has nothing to do with getting TRump to change---not going to happen. We can only change ourselves and encourage each other to bring change.
I understand alis, There is catharsis in demonstrations, in joining others in misery, protesting, but unless the protests bring change, then all that is accomplished is a form of therapy. We don't need therapy we need change, and I honestly don't see any change coming from these protests, on the contrary Trump is using them to ramp up his goal of taking over the cities and states and if given an excuse declaring martial law. I am sure that something will happen and Trump will declare martial law anyway.
Changing ourselves? To what? We don't need change, we have to change the regime, and the only way to do that is by direct action, not protests. Bolivia had Bolsinaro, then had an election and changed direction. Chile had Pinochet, then Pinochet had a plebescite, he lost, there was an election and he was replace.
But America is not Bolivia or Chile, or any other fledgling democracy that has ousted, democratically, a dictator.
We are unique and our Constitution is flawed,it was written for elite, well educated, property owning men, not for women, not for the farmer, the plow boy, the potter, the skinner, the candle stick maker, the butcher, the baker it was written by and for propertied men, and not white either, free (not enslaved) blacks actually voted in the first two elections, until state laws restricted women and blacks from voting.
Chief Justice John Marshall, in 1803, took it upon himself in Madison v Marbury, to abrogate to the Supreme Court the authority of Judicial review, and from that has emanated the likes of Belotti v 1st National Bank of Boston, Veleo, and finally Citizens United, and the Supreme Court has wound up as the most powerful body in the land, and then turned their power over to Trump. Now the Congress is superfluous, as is the Supreme Court.
So where to now, We have no legal recourse, If Trump doesn't like the ruling he ignores it, if it is appealed to SCOTUS, and they don't like the ruling of a lower court (which is always against Trump) they send it back to the lower court for review via the Shadow Docket, if they take the case then be sure they will rule for Trump.Congress is nothing more than a bunch of parasites sucking off the public teat, rubber stamping Trump's desires.
If by some miracle he House changes hands in 2026, what can the Democrats do? With a Republican senate and Trump who will veto all legislation that he doesn't like.
I would sure like to see some direct action, something that will actually stop this runaway train in it's tracks
I see this country as being infected by cancer, the cancer is metastasizing,and demonstrations are little more than palliative care.
What we need is surgical intervention, a cure not palliative care. We don't need change, and the only change that can happen, to the individual, at this juncture is to change to acceptance and submission.
The people need to get pissed off and go on strike, an uprising.
Thought experiment. We are Germany 1933, Hindenberg just appointed Trump Chancellor. What now, We have the fortune of hindsight, but even with that how could they have stopped Hitler.?
Sitting down, shutting-up, and staying home is not an option for us. Because you do not see the change, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Once again, the protest of TRump is not confined to America. It is a show of solidarity here and with other parts of the world. Who knows, they may even welcome us back some day.
Since you love history, I learned the killing never stopped after WWI, neither did Hitler as the Nazis and his elimination plans were forming. Good read is "Canada's Greatest Spy". He tried to tell them.....
Elon just turned his AI into a Nazi---these stupid f*ckers just do not know when to quit. How long before he does the same to the America Party?
Watch the Lincoln Project's newest ad about Alligator Alcatraz. They want to keep it open in the future for some people that just visited it.
I said nothing about sitting down, shutting up and staying home. What I have been saying is that protests alone will not move the needle, they never have, they never will, it is action that follows or is in conjunction with protests that do the job.
I know that Grok, Musk's AI, had been turned into a NAZI, and Alligator Alcatraz is a test run for what Miller intends to build across the country, and it won't be just immigrants it will hold denaturalized people, and SCOTUS has given the regime the authority to denaturalize anyone, and that includes people like me who have roots going back to 1610. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecily_Jordan_Farrar
I have a question about trump's beloved billionaires and non-tax-paying corporations. If the rest of the people constitute the foundation of a house and these wealthiest of entities are the actual structure, then what happens to their existence if the foundation is eroded? If the foundation becomes sicker, poorer, and dumber, what supports the structure?
Ans, Im not supposed to know this but: Matthew 7:24-29. "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Catholics don't read the bible Daniel, nor is it preached, in fact I doubt that Matthew is preached or taught even to Protestants, certainly not in the prosperity doctrine.
You are essentially describing a feudal society, populated by a King,or Unitary executive, a nobility that supports the king, serfs and freemen who are merchants and tradesmen
Unfortunately, we are fast approaching a point where the structure can be self-contained at which time a majority of the population is going to be superfluous and therefore readily ignored. The masses may well rise up; in any properly dystopian brave, new world, they should have no problem being summarily dealt with. Peasant revolts are rarely successful and at this time the vast majority of the population lives in urban areas — they no longer live on — and off of — the land so 1) their food can easily be cut off; 2) their power shut down; 3) their access to fresh water blocked; 4) their sewage no longer removed.
Interesting. So all the manufacturing, food production, construction, etc., will just be done just for this elite group? How can this perpetuate? Sounds like things are going back to the Middle Ages....
This time around, no need for the peasantry. Already a large number of tasks can be accomplished without human interaction. Actually, it is when one gets down toward the "bottom" rung, agriculture, that humans will be needed in any large number. But then again, get the population back down below a billion, and that should not be a problem. Plus, the environment will be so much nicer!
How many tasks can not be completed by AI now, and how many in 10-15 years?
I hope you realize I'm being sardonic. At the same time, the people up at the apex — just ask them — are not particularly stupid. I firmly believe they know what's coming, in re the partial collapse of the biosphere, the rapid rising of sea level, etc, and are considering future options, many of which would not include riff raffle such as ourselves.
At some point krasnov will overplay his hand, it’s his style. Perhaps he might send in his goons to crush a massive protest resulting in death and injury and finally awakening the sleeping public. Something like Kent State is bound to happen.
They most certainly know Daniel, but don't care because he has given them what they really want social power, rule of the roost. Augustus Caesars law of Pater Familia brought back and updated.. No more threat to male hegemony. The deportation of brown people is only the warm up, a training exercise
Trump now has the fifth largest army in the world, budget wise. Personnel wise, with the additional 10,000 ICE agents and 8,500 CBP agents, a paramilitary force greater than the Army of Jordan, not to mention the National Guard and DOD at his service.
There are still US Marines standing guard in the parking lot of the Federal Courthouse in LA, and there will be Marines guarding the prisoners at Alligator Alcatraz.
L.A. is a command and control exercise, where kinks are ironed out.
Mr. Brodin, I am old enough to remember Kent State. I am a retired professor. The press and T.V. networks were upset about Kent State because White kids were killed by the government. The Kent state story was blasted out for a long time on all three networks, as it should have been. But those same networks gave short shrift to the Black kids shot dead by the government at South Carolina State at about the same time. Virtually no coverage. After all, those kids were Black, not White. In the end those horrible events and the public splash about Kent State changed nothing. A Large minority of Americans hate college students and consider them to be cosseted punks. America has never been short on anti-intellectualism, at least, during my lifetime. Our problems run deep.
For sure racism runs deep in the USA and it could easily be its demise unless we adequately address the problem. I remember well the screaming of white trash (sorry but they are) as young black students were being integrated into southern schools. Things have become a little better in terms of racism but not much so it will take an attack on whites to get media attention. It’s time for the privileged class to step up.
So Thom, in brief, the ultimate goal is mass suicide, carried out via one genocide at a time. Only a stable of nukes can make it a lump-sum Jim Jones event.
As all of us watch this clown car of sadistic, perverse psychopaths carem about like ping pong balls in a wind tunnel, we try to make any sense of a madness that has to sense. TFG is the Marquis de Saude, gathering up both inmates and quisling guards for the great spectacle of assassinations to come.
Creativity itself is the victim, art for art's sake, unfettered expression of observations on the QF history of living matter, much larger than humanity alone. Psychology has numerous takes on this perversion of biological existence. Human behaviors are the subject matter. Kill all others, murders, then kill yourself, suicide.
The only 'escape' from this nitwitted madness is 'rapture,' the immense delusion of the dualistic mind that must create a fictional paradise managed by a savior who forgives even the worst sins of the mad beings who created both via terrorized imagination.
Dante would be impressed, Machiavelli depressed. Oppenheimer frustrated, perhaps, depending upon the final weapon of choice. Nothing greater than the sound of one hand clapping, huh?
Virtually no Repugnicans, too few citizens, and damned little of the M$M, seem at all invested in what for centuries we thought was the American ideal. Corporate Democrats pine for “moderate” candidates with the inspiring energy, but for heaven’s sake not the policies, of a Zorhan Mamdani. Democrats may well win back the House in ‘26 in the traditional mid-term sort of way; I dearly hope enough liberals are elected that centrist inclinations are also marginalized, else a crucial opportunity will have been wasted, a lesson lost. Speaking of Mamdani, the aforementioned M$M continues to posit that what’s good for AIPAC is necessary for an acceptable candidate. I disagree, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Corporate media is a better and more accurate description than MSM. The corporate Democrats hate progressives. Pelosi did and does,, she even championed a "centrist" Joseph Kennedy II or Jr to run for Senate agaainst a real progressive Sen Markey of Mass.She backed a homophobic candidate for congress against a gay, She hates AOC, all establishment Dems do, from politicians to strategists and all the other parasites that cling like ticks to the periphery of partisan politics.
The establishment Dems are lining up against Mamdani, they would rather lose than have a progressive win, The donors don't approve.
A stampede of idiots, led from the rear by an orange-colored buffoon, and one of the noblest attempts (it never did succeed) at self-governance falls without a struggle. They do have an advantage that we don't: They actually have commonly-shared unifying beliefs, cult-like though they may be. At best, we form a coalition, the dominant centrality arising from a rejection of their values rather than a manifestation of our own. Derision is not going to win the battle, only coherent action will.
The "we" in "We the people" includes millions who get only the information which is fed to them and who have little or no ability to discern truth from fiction and reality from unreality. They spent their entire youth being dumbed-down, infantalized, indoctrinated, and behavior-modified. They are not exposed to these words and would probably not accept them as truth if they were. It's a little late for education. But a significant number of those people will have to finally get the full picture and figure out who is on their side and who is and is not trustworthy for we the people to reverse the course we are on. I am still hopeful. Maybe someone will drop leaflets from planes with our information and propaganda as we have done in war zones and communist bloc countries to inform the ignorant and confused victims of authoritarian propaganda.
Trump's Republicans use the four F's--fear, force, fraud, finance--to affect policy in their favor. There's nothing in their modus operandi about reason or debate. They already know they can't win a fair democratic fight; so they have to cheat, because they have to win. They are at war with the world.
Thom's portrait of Trump seems very accurate. The one mystery in MAGAdum is how so many Americans are blind to that portrait. Even now it is rather clear that Trump appointed incompetent toadies for every administration role so he could rule unobstructed. We now have the most incompetent government in history, and even it has been vandalized by incompetent "efficiency experts" right out of HS or college who were armed only with chainsaws.
A number of journalists and political strategists (Thom included) are beginning to see that 2026 is America's Reichstag fire. We either turn the government blue in 26 or start practicing our stiff-arm salutes, because, like Carville said this week, I too do not think there will be a 2028 election unless by 2027 Trump is impeached, Citizens United is castrated by Congress, taxes rein in our oligarch billionaires, and several other laws are passed to rein in our bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court.
While technically, the MSM has been referring to Muskness as a 3rd Party, that seems to overlook that we have been a 1-party nation for some time. The DNC has shown itself to be incapable of change and accepting that young ideas should at least be take seriously. David Hogg was correct. If the Democrats do not offload their geezer legislators, they risk turning off a lot of young voters. The reaction to Mamdani is disgusting. My entire life, the Democratic Party has only offered presidential candidates who were the lesser of two lousy options. Half the time, enough liberal voters chose an alternative to give us Republican presidents who gave us stupid wars and recessions.
My opinion Tom. Trump's cabinet was purposefully chosen, to do the job they are doing, to deconstruct America, that it can be rebuilt.
Since Trump is a Russian asset named Krasnov, I thought that it was for Putin.
I suspect that there is a global plan afoot.
A managed democracy (inverted totalitarian) Technate of America. A Eurasia under Putin or a successor, East Asia under China, and a caliphate or sultanate in the Mid east and north Africa. But first disassemble and reassemble America.
One thing is for sure the world as we knew it in Dec 2024, no longer exists.
That we haven't yet felt the full affects can be analogized like a cancer cell.
It starts as a single cell, then it grows, multiplies and you don't feel it or realize it is there, until you feel the pain, as it affects other organs.
I never knew I had lung cancer, until I developed left side blindness, and my doctor sent me down for a CT Scan, they found a brain tumor depressing my right occipital, they took out the tumor, did a biopsy, and discovered that it was metastasized from my lung.
I never knew I had lung cancer, not even spitting up blood.
The body politic is huge, stretches 2,000 miles coast to coast. It is going to take time for people to feel pain, if they ever do, the frog is being boiled and we see it, and yet no one is jumping because we think we still have time, or something or someone will save us, that is what hope does.
Wealth doesn't trickledown, but pain does.
William, so sorry to hear this. How are you feeling now? Are you on chemotherapy, and if so is it helping?
Immunotherapy not chemo. Doing fine, 2 years of therapy and free and clear for six years. Oncologist calls it a miracle. Doing fine, just regular old age problems, but I don't let them get me down, power of positive thinking (strange to hear that from me, but mind over matter) Diet and exercise goes a long way also.
Never mope,never feel sorry for yourself,no self pity, and don't take no for an answer with the doctors tell you something.
I'm doing good Eadie, but thanks for the thoughts.
So happy to hear that. You are truly oe of a kind.
We are being played for fools, the only country in the world where heathcare is not a human right. You are scammed day-in and day-out by insurance companies and big pharma. Insurance premiums paid monthly only for you to see Claim Denied. Drug costs that are 2-3 times the cost for the same drug in the next country. It is carnage on the American stage. You accept all that. ?????? https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/claim-denied?r=3m1bs
BOTH cartel parties are in lock step in eternal playing of keepaway ball of universal health care from the American people.
Dare to mention it, and the partisan stooges assigned cheer leading for "finger-pointing as governance' that has kept citizens hostage to this system will try to silence talking about the fact with shrill screams of "both parties are not the same!!!"
On this particular issue, they are EXACTLY the same. It's small wonder that a decade of data shows both parties losing membership and recent polls show a majority of Americans want an additional party or parties to vote for as a way to break this cartel system no longer taking care of the nation and its people. The stooges are trying to silence discussion of that too.
A third party is not interesting to anybody. I put that out there months ago and it received 1 donation that I will refund this month. We need a platform that sells promoted by candidates that are not shills. That is doable.
The largest "party" are registered Independent voters. These are not non-voters, and both cartel parties are scared s--tless that the Independents will organize and start primarying the cartels' corrupt legacy candidates. BOTH cartel parties have tried to take Independent Bernie Sanders out as the mayor of Burlington and later as Senator. Vermonters have kicked their butts at every attempt. That is what the operatives of the Republican and Democratic parties are scared of. They should be. A movement is occurring through the Hands Off and No Kings protests. The mainstream news and the cartel operatives are trying to get these stopped by force by calling them "riots."
Neither can you make a pseudo-party of flip-flopping independents (as they are not a party), nor can you make a cartel (a term of economic and trade pseudo-groups only) out of a political party. The inflammatory and non constructive nature of your dialogue leaves much to be developed that is helpful. .
Did you follow the 2016 Democratic Party convention and the rigging of the primary? In the lawsuit that resulted from the rigging, the court agreed with what Wasserman-Schultz lawyers argued: that parties ARE corporations. They owe their members nothing and operatives can even pick the candidates in a "smoke-filled back room." See a bit below, although it's better to read the entire case transcript.
https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules
"Cartel" indeed fits the current situation of maintaining a controlled or monopolistic partisan system designed to limit choice, prevent change, and even to stifle democracy.
The consummate Independent is Bernie Sanders. There is no comparable example of consistence, openness, or clarity in what one is FOR to be found from any elected rep from within the Democratic Party.
That is why, when you consult the WWW for "most popular politician," it is Sanders' name that overwhelmingly appears. The major reason that the Democratic Party has an approval rating in the low to mid 20 percents is that few trust the party, and the biggest reason is that this party cannot commit with consistence to what it is FOR. Heck, it cannot even commit to holding its own accountable.
Its candidates' solicitation for support look like they all came out of the same boring consultant's cookie cutter: Outraged finger-pointing→Trrrummmpp!! → RUSH! DONATE HERE!! Nothing about what they and their party are FOR; nothing about commitment to SPECIFIC governance, and thus nothing to inspire voters to get behind. The main message? "money-money-money."
This Party must either change or it will go extinct with the nation that it helped bring to this end.
For more on "cartel political parties" see "Best Democracy" group site on either Facebook or Blue Sky. I eventually saw the wisdom of using that term after learning from the scholars in the group who produce that site.
Trump has been a Russian asset since the KGB recruited him in 1986. The goal of Putin is to turn the world into spheres of influence, just as the colonial powers did three hundred years ago, and Trump is an integral part of that plan. The plan is that the world's three largest authoritarian countries would jointly rule the word; with Russia in charge of Europe, Xi Jinping in charge of Asia and Trump in charge of Greenland and the Americas. But for it to work, the US must become authoritarian. https://sdraymond.substack.com/p/fascism
I see cracks emerging between trump and his envied autocrats. He's finally getting it that Putin was playing him all along and in retaliation has resumed shipment of arms to Ukraine. Kim Jong Un is not accepting his letter to resume dialogue. Let's see how this ends up....
Is Trump getting it Sophia or is it misdirection,? all for show. He is mercurial, loves one moment, condemns the next, and then loves again.
Why would anyone believe Trump on anything?
He spends hours on the phone with Putin, then declares that he is upset with him. Who is to say that it isn't a ploy, that they cooked up.
Hegseth cuts shipments of defense equipment to Ukraine, then Trump acts like he did it without his authority, but Hegseth is not fired, while Trump fires everyone else who does somthing without his authority. Trump says he will send some Patriot Missiles to Ukraine, Trump says a lot of things, then reverses himself.
This is Putin's second act of defiance and a direct slap in trump's face that is humiliating enough that trump will retaliate with sending weapons to Ukraine. The question is, will he up the ante and impose economic sanctions....
Is it defiance or is it purposeful misdirection. Anyway Krasnov won't stray too far from the man that has him on a leash.
I don't take what I hear or see for granted as the truth. People believe what they are inclined to believe. If they want to hear there is friction between Trump and Putin they will believe it, if they want to believe there is friction between Trump and Musk then they will believe it.
I judge a pudding by it's taste, not it's appearance. I am a perpetual skeptic and one from Missouri. It takes more than words, actions speak louder.
Magicians are not the only ones that deceive, don't trust your eyes nor your ears.
As with all things Trumpian, the news you’re basing your comments on is what Trump wants the news to report and what he wants people to believe. The limited arms and Patriot Missiles that he just released were just a small portion of those that had previously been approved by congress and that he held up from being sent to Ukraine. He wants people to think that he’s the hero who is saving Ukraine because of the pressure that he’s receiving from the Republican hawks. Putin is aware of this. If Trump were really free of Putin’s influence, he would be sending all of the missiles that he held back previously, but he’s doing what he always does by just giving them some so that people like you will be fooled into thinking that Putin does not pull his strings.
If we have an election, we might have a chance. Thom mentions Mexico, Brazil, Chile Greece and Spain. South Korea is a work in progress.
I think Chile made a complete reversal. Chile became a democracy on March 11, 1990, with the inauguration of Patricio Aylwin as president, marking the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. This transition followed a period of military rule and included a plebiscite in 1988 where a majority voted against Pinochet continuing as president.
My office was a liason with the democratic government, re due process in administrative adjudication.
AI breakdown:
1973-1990: Chile was under military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet.
1988: A plebiscite was held where 56% of voters rejected Pinochet's continuation as president, paving the way for democratic elections.
1989: Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat, was elected president.
1990: Aylwin assumed the presidency on March 11, officially marking the start of Chile's democratic period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_transition_to_democracy
Big difference between Chile and America Daniel, The difference is in the structure of government.
Chile's constitution or form of government, provided for a plebiscite, ours doesn't.
Evidently Pinochet didn't have total control, and thus, he either permitted or even ordered a plebiscite (as Hitler did in 1933).
In America Trump, or rather the factions that support him, control all branches of the government, and it is all propped up by a slavish, theocratic, Supreme Court.
As we are living now,in a managed democracy https://www.mind-war.com/p/late-stage-inverted-totalitarianism?utm_source=publication-search, what is to stop them.
Congress has 16 months to push through more legislation, besides the SAVE Act, to thwart the voice of the people, and then there is psyops, election interference on top of the damage already done, by voter caging, election suppression, MAGAt election officials, hacking physical threats and then there are the 100 or so election restriction laws passed in the last year.
I can only hope that you are correct Daniel, the only other alternative is a pissed off population and direct action.
As usual, I say it's possible.
Yesterday, the IRS ruled that it will allow houses of worship to endorse candidates for political office without losing their tax-exempt status.
What if Pope Bob says vote for Democrats?
Is it possible? Dogma supports immigration. Social justice.
58% of Catholics supported the SOB. What if support for Trump = excommunication?
The American Catholic Bishops have defied the Pope
Dogma doesn't matter.
Save for a few really true believers, religion is really just a means to an end, if they con't like what they hear in one venue, the change the venue.
I spent 7 years a Catholic, and a rad trad one at that, a member of Catholic Truth, we pamphleted and tried to subvert Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle, as we considered him a heretic. Catholics don't read, much less the bible, they go to church and listen to the priest give his homily, and that is the extent of it. I was also a Knight of Columbus, probably still am, as I never resigned.
A friend of mine, who got me involved with the rad trads, found the Latin church too liberal and so we shopped at a Greek Orthodox Church. Didn't suit me much though, too many ridiculous rituals.
Basically Catholics are brainwashed ignorants. They know nothing about the social gospel, or social justice.. Just have lots of babies, don't get divorced
got to confession and take the eucharist.
It's possible that Pope Bob will make it clear that voting for Republicans is satanic.
"If we have an election..." NO guarantees in 2026.
The last Republican president with honor was Ike. Every single one since then has worked for Charles Koch and his fellow greedy billionaires to dismantle the New Deal and the Great Society programs that got us to a point where more than 60% of us were in the middle class.
Nixon, who betrayed us in Vietnam in 1968, was stopped after his Watergate fiasco. BTW, that betrayal got an additional 22,000 American boys killed and another countless Vietnamese deaths.
Reagan really began the assault on the middle class with his trickle down bullshit and imposing taxes on Social Security for the first time to help pay for that tax cut, along with raising taxes and fees 10 more times. Reagan also committed treason by screwing Carter’s efforts to get the Iran embassy hostages back. His attack on Grenada was just an effort to distract us from his agenda. GHW Bush was just the third Reagan administration.
GW Bush gave us the second massive tax cut for the obscenely wealthy and additionally illegally invaded Iraq, killing ~8,000 Americans and a quarter million Iraqis while hiding the cost by borrowing the money instead of adding it to the Defense budget.
It boggles the mind that Americans sent this decrepit dictator wannabe back to the WH after his disastrous first term. He has no intention of leaving the office while still breathing because he knows what awaits him if he does. He is desparate and will do everything to stay in power.
July 17th is the next day of national action. We need to double the number of people we had out on the previous day. Go to 50501, Indivisible to find a protest near you!
You didn't know Ike. Up to now, held the record more time on the golf course than governing. Had a heart attack in office and let Nixon reign.
Despite propaganda otherwise, Ike lost Cuba.
Most overtly "religious" president of all time. Added "under God" under duress by the John Birch Society and was baptised while in the White House.
Eisenhower recession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1958
OH!
The Democratic Party has to clean up it's own house first.
The former governor of New York, David Paterson, told Salon that he thinks elected Democrats in New York may be preparing to back a candidate other than state Rep. Zohran Mamdani, who won the party’s primary election last month.
Mamdani is the bane of the corporations and plutocrats that fill the trough that the DNC slops at, and of outfits like AIPAC and ADL.
I just received email from the Contrarian, in it they urge that we welcome, temporarily, the enemy of our enemy (Musk), as he is creating a party which will fracture the MAGA alliance.
This centrism of which the Democrats are so enamored is why we are in such deep shit.
Biden didn't win in 2020 because he was a centrist, he won because he was an alternative to Trump. the Democratic party lost in 2024, because Biden was a centrist, enamored of bipartisanship, he brought the fox (Garland) into the hen house, and revoked Trumps Schedule F executive order, which he could have and should have used to flush all of the Trump humpers, that Trump embedded in DOJ, NSA, HSA, in his final two weeks as protected civil servants.
Garland protected the insurrectionists in Congress, Garland chose to move the Trump document trial to Florida, when the crime actually occurred in DC, then he chose to appoint Ailene Cannon as judge.
Biden is the instrument of his own destruction and that of America as well. Things would have been different with a different AG and Biden not sitting back and letting the AG do as he wished, and I am not talking about using the AG as his personal lawyer like Trump is, but telling the AG to investigate and prosecute the insurrectionists in congress, and trying Trump in DC and not Florida
Biden is not a leader, Senators are not leaders, that is not their training and experience. The Democratic party needs leaders, people with character, personal strength, fortitude who aren't begging for approval by the corporate media.
But when a leader like AOC or Mamdani pops up, they take a scythe and cut off their head.
I am disgusted. Tired of these Demopubs and Republicrats,mealy mouthed, milquetoast centrists.
We need ass kicking progressives, to hell with the corporate media, and the donor class. Bernie proved that they were not necessary, people will vote for the genuine thing, an authentic candidate, not one that parses their words,
YES!!!!
Surprise!
TRump called "bullshit" on Putin yesterday concerning all the deaths in Ukraine. Unbelievable. He is THE most inconsistent person on the planet anyway, but it might have been an Epstein diversion. Of course, Psycho Putin bombs the crap out of Ukraine every time his friend Donald talks tough.
Let's hope those missiles and Patriots are being shipped today! Pete was told something, then TRump denies he said it. Psychopaths. Hegseth is going to go out with tread-marks from that bus he is under, and he deserves it.
The demonstrations are the means we have to show the world that America is still with them. It's also a way to message the Cult that they are losers---we are coming for them. Good trouble to honor John Lewis on the 17th. See you in the streets!
Do you really believe anything that Trump says? Have we not learned yet?
I do not for one second believe that Krasnov is at odds with his boss or blackmailer.
I am waiting to see if Hegseth actually ships those missiles.
Hegseth canceled support and Trump pretended that he did it without authorization, yet Hegseth still sits in his chair, while anyone else who defied Trump or did something without his OK gets fired.
What policies have Trump changed or backed off from because of demonstrations.?
Are demonstrations being given full media coverage?
The only place I have seen them is on Rachel Maddow and she does a whole hour of split screens. Nicolle Wallace mentions them, but does not linger. I don't watch Fox, but doubt if Fox is giving them any coverage other than calling them insurrections.
Trump only watches Fox. I doubt seriously he knows what is going on in the world or the country, other than what his staff tells him, and they don't tell him bad news or things he doesn't want to hear.
TRump is a psychopath making things up on the fly. He has the attention span of a gnat. That's why I started with the word "Surprise". Sarcasm.
I also wish I could convey to you, William, what the demonstrations are doing. It helps bring solidarity to the people in them, the people passing by, and people all over the world. There have been demonstrations against the TRump regime EVERYWHERE. It is extraordinary. It has nothing to do with getting TRump to change---not going to happen. We can only change ourselves and encourage each other to bring change.
I understand alis, There is catharsis in demonstrations, in joining others in misery, protesting, but unless the protests bring change, then all that is accomplished is a form of therapy. We don't need therapy we need change, and I honestly don't see any change coming from these protests, on the contrary Trump is using them to ramp up his goal of taking over the cities and states and if given an excuse declaring martial law. I am sure that something will happen and Trump will declare martial law anyway.
Changing ourselves? To what? We don't need change, we have to change the regime, and the only way to do that is by direct action, not protests. Bolivia had Bolsinaro, then had an election and changed direction. Chile had Pinochet, then Pinochet had a plebescite, he lost, there was an election and he was replace.
But America is not Bolivia or Chile, or any other fledgling democracy that has ousted, democratically, a dictator.
We are unique and our Constitution is flawed,it was written for elite, well educated, property owning men, not for women, not for the farmer, the plow boy, the potter, the skinner, the candle stick maker, the butcher, the baker it was written by and for propertied men, and not white either, free (not enslaved) blacks actually voted in the first two elections, until state laws restricted women and blacks from voting.
Chief Justice John Marshall, in 1803, took it upon himself in Madison v Marbury, to abrogate to the Supreme Court the authority of Judicial review, and from that has emanated the likes of Belotti v 1st National Bank of Boston, Veleo, and finally Citizens United, and the Supreme Court has wound up as the most powerful body in the land, and then turned their power over to Trump. Now the Congress is superfluous, as is the Supreme Court.
So where to now, We have no legal recourse, If Trump doesn't like the ruling he ignores it, if it is appealed to SCOTUS, and they don't like the ruling of a lower court (which is always against Trump) they send it back to the lower court for review via the Shadow Docket, if they take the case then be sure they will rule for Trump.Congress is nothing more than a bunch of parasites sucking off the public teat, rubber stamping Trump's desires.
If by some miracle he House changes hands in 2026, what can the Democrats do? With a Republican senate and Trump who will veto all legislation that he doesn't like.
I would sure like to see some direct action, something that will actually stop this runaway train in it's tracks
I see this country as being infected by cancer, the cancer is metastasizing,and demonstrations are little more than palliative care.
What we need is surgical intervention, a cure not palliative care. We don't need change, and the only change that can happen, to the individual, at this juncture is to change to acceptance and submission.
The people need to get pissed off and go on strike, an uprising.
Thought experiment. We are Germany 1933, Hindenberg just appointed Trump Chancellor. What now, We have the fortune of hindsight, but even with that how could they have stopped Hitler.?
Sitting down, shutting-up, and staying home is not an option for us. Because you do not see the change, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Once again, the protest of TRump is not confined to America. It is a show of solidarity here and with other parts of the world. Who knows, they may even welcome us back some day.
Since you love history, I learned the killing never stopped after WWI, neither did Hitler as the Nazis and his elimination plans were forming. Good read is "Canada's Greatest Spy". He tried to tell them.....
Elon just turned his AI into a Nazi---these stupid f*ckers just do not know when to quit. How long before he does the same to the America Party?
Watch the Lincoln Project's newest ad about Alligator Alcatraz. They want to keep it open in the future for some people that just visited it.
I said nothing about sitting down, shutting up and staying home. What I have been saying is that protests alone will not move the needle, they never have, they never will, it is action that follows or is in conjunction with protests that do the job.
I know that Grok, Musk's AI, had been turned into a NAZI, and Alligator Alcatraz is a test run for what Miller intends to build across the country, and it won't be just immigrants it will hold denaturalized people, and SCOTUS has given the regime the authority to denaturalize anyone, and that includes people like me who have roots going back to 1610. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecily_Jordan_Farrar
"It might have been an Epstein diversion."
When Laura Loomer wants Pam Bondi impeached, Trump is caught in a run down.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/epstein-files-laura-loomer-pam-bondi-b2784126.html
Hard to figure out which of them is crazier or more creepy. They are sickening.
I have a question about trump's beloved billionaires and non-tax-paying corporations. If the rest of the people constitute the foundation of a house and these wealthiest of entities are the actual structure, then what happens to their existence if the foundation is eroded? If the foundation becomes sicker, poorer, and dumber, what supports the structure?
Ans, Im not supposed to know this but: Matthew 7:24-29. "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Catholics don't read the bible Daniel, nor is it preached, in fact I doubt that Matthew is preached or taught even to Protestants, certainly not in the prosperity doctrine.
Good one!
You are essentially describing a feudal society, populated by a King,or Unitary executive, a nobility that supports the king, serfs and freemen who are merchants and tradesmen
Yep....
Unfortunately, we are fast approaching a point where the structure can be self-contained at which time a majority of the population is going to be superfluous and therefore readily ignored. The masses may well rise up; in any properly dystopian brave, new world, they should have no problem being summarily dealt with. Peasant revolts are rarely successful and at this time the vast majority of the population lives in urban areas — they no longer live on — and off of — the land so 1) their food can easily be cut off; 2) their power shut down; 3) their access to fresh water blocked; 4) their sewage no longer removed.
Interesting. So all the manufacturing, food production, construction, etc., will just be done just for this elite group? How can this perpetuate? Sounds like things are going back to the Middle Ages....
This time around, no need for the peasantry. Already a large number of tasks can be accomplished without human interaction. Actually, it is when one gets down toward the "bottom" rung, agriculture, that humans will be needed in any large number. But then again, get the population back down below a billion, and that should not be a problem. Plus, the environment will be so much nicer!
How many tasks can not be completed by AI now, and how many in 10-15 years?
I hope you realize I'm being sardonic. At the same time, the people up at the apex — just ask them — are not particularly stupid. I firmly believe they know what's coming, in re the partial collapse of the biosphere, the rapid rising of sea level, etc, and are considering future options, many of which would not include riff raffle such as ourselves.
Terrifying....
At some point krasnov will overplay his hand, it’s his style. Perhaps he might send in his goons to crush a massive protest resulting in death and injury and finally awakening the sleeping public. Something like Kent State is bound to happen.
IMHO he has but SCOTUS approves. He's a convicted felon. He supported an insurrection. We shudda had a 14th Amendment solution.
You'd think that when his cult and acolytes discover he's been stealing from them, they'd have an epiphany.
They most certainly know Daniel, but don't care because he has given them what they really want social power, rule of the roost. Augustus Caesars law of Pater Familia brought back and updated.. No more threat to male hegemony. The deportation of brown people is only the warm up, a training exercise
Trump now has the fifth largest army in the world, budget wise. Personnel wise, with the additional 10,000 ICE agents and 8,500 CBP agents, a paramilitary force greater than the Army of Jordan, not to mention the National Guard and DOD at his service.
There are still US Marines standing guard in the parking lot of the Federal Courthouse in LA, and there will be Marines guarding the prisoners at Alligator Alcatraz.
L.A. is a command and control exercise, where kinks are ironed out.
As soon as pigs can fly.
You missed the Muppets, Pigs in Space.
Mr. Brodin, I am old enough to remember Kent State. I am a retired professor. The press and T.V. networks were upset about Kent State because White kids were killed by the government. The Kent state story was blasted out for a long time on all three networks, as it should have been. But those same networks gave short shrift to the Black kids shot dead by the government at South Carolina State at about the same time. Virtually no coverage. After all, those kids were Black, not White. In the end those horrible events and the public splash about Kent State changed nothing. A Large minority of Americans hate college students and consider them to be cosseted punks. America has never been short on anti-intellectualism, at least, during my lifetime. Our problems run deep.
For sure racism runs deep in the USA and it could easily be its demise unless we adequately address the problem. I remember well the screaming of white trash (sorry but they are) as young black students were being integrated into southern schools. Things have become a little better in terms of racism but not much so it will take an attack on whites to get media attention. It’s time for the privileged class to step up.
So Thom, in brief, the ultimate goal is mass suicide, carried out via one genocide at a time. Only a stable of nukes can make it a lump-sum Jim Jones event.
As all of us watch this clown car of sadistic, perverse psychopaths carem about like ping pong balls in a wind tunnel, we try to make any sense of a madness that has to sense. TFG is the Marquis de Saude, gathering up both inmates and quisling guards for the great spectacle of assassinations to come.
Creativity itself is the victim, art for art's sake, unfettered expression of observations on the QF history of living matter, much larger than humanity alone. Psychology has numerous takes on this perversion of biological existence. Human behaviors are the subject matter. Kill all others, murders, then kill yourself, suicide.
The only 'escape' from this nitwitted madness is 'rapture,' the immense delusion of the dualistic mind that must create a fictional paradise managed by a savior who forgives even the worst sins of the mad beings who created both via terrorized imagination.
Dante would be impressed, Machiavelli depressed. Oppenheimer frustrated, perhaps, depending upon the final weapon of choice. Nothing greater than the sound of one hand clapping, huh?
This.
Krasnov is winning.
Virtually no Repugnicans, too few citizens, and damned little of the M$M, seem at all invested in what for centuries we thought was the American ideal. Corporate Democrats pine for “moderate” candidates with the inspiring energy, but for heaven’s sake not the policies, of a Zorhan Mamdani. Democrats may well win back the House in ‘26 in the traditional mid-term sort of way; I dearly hope enough liberals are elected that centrist inclinations are also marginalized, else a crucial opportunity will have been wasted, a lesson lost. Speaking of Mamdani, the aforementioned M$M continues to posit that what’s good for AIPAC is necessary for an acceptable candidate. I disagree, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Corporate media is a better and more accurate description than MSM. The corporate Democrats hate progressives. Pelosi did and does,, she even championed a "centrist" Joseph Kennedy II or Jr to run for Senate agaainst a real progressive Sen Markey of Mass.She backed a homophobic candidate for congress against a gay, She hates AOC, all establishment Dems do, from politicians to strategists and all the other parasites that cling like ticks to the periphery of partisan politics.
The establishment Dems are lining up against Mamdani, they would rather lose than have a progressive win, The donors don't approve.
https://www.salon.com/2025/07/08/mamdanis-democratic-critics-want-to-ruin-his-shot-at-winning/
Mr. Farrar, "cling like ticks" poetry. Use it often. Perhaps it will catch on.
A stampede of idiots, led from the rear by an orange-colored buffoon, and one of the noblest attempts (it never did succeed) at self-governance falls without a struggle. They do have an advantage that we don't: They actually have commonly-shared unifying beliefs, cult-like though they may be. At best, we form a coalition, the dominant centrality arising from a rejection of their values rather than a manifestation of our own. Derision is not going to win the battle, only coherent action will.
The "we" in "We the people" includes millions who get only the information which is fed to them and who have little or no ability to discern truth from fiction and reality from unreality. They spent their entire youth being dumbed-down, infantalized, indoctrinated, and behavior-modified. They are not exposed to these words and would probably not accept them as truth if they were. It's a little late for education. But a significant number of those people will have to finally get the full picture and figure out who is on their side and who is and is not trustworthy for we the people to reverse the course we are on. I am still hopeful. Maybe someone will drop leaflets from planes with our information and propaganda as we have done in war zones and communist bloc countries to inform the ignorant and confused victims of authoritarian propaganda.
John Adams said, "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
Joseph Goebbels: “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction.”
Osama bin Laden "We will use your democracy, your freedoms to destroy you"
It seems that the populi never grow up, always looking for a father to protect them.
Said the guy who intitiated the Alien Sedition acts.