I found your piece, enlightening to say the least. I have learned so much history that I wasn't aware of in your blog. And how you pulled all this history together into one very readable piece on the foremost problem today is a tribute to your talents. However....
It does no good to preach to the choir. Why isn't this on billboards in Kansas? Why aren't these quotes on the pages of a well-respected newspaper? Why aren't these ideas put into full page ads? You have the ideas. Publish them, not in a book, or a blog, but put them in the eye of those who are truly the serfs. It won't be long before Trump shuts down the ability to do this. And then we're cooked geese ready for the eating.
That's not what he does. If you know a group who can invest in getting this down to the public, by all means share it with them and work to disseminate this to the people in power
He has contacts just by virtue of this blog. He has followers more powerful than me. He converses with people more powerful than us. Many of those followers also have friends in high places. By writing, though while I don't have the contacts to do what you suggest, someone who does will see my comment as you have and get something started with my ideas. Perhaps you. My concern is that while enlightening myself and others, it's still the "choir" no matter how many times I forward it. The simple truth is that the writings need to get to people with power. Think Thomas Payne and the American Revolution. Not many of us gentle readers are him.
The problem with the Constitution is not the Constitution itself. The founders were geniuses, erudite philosophers who, using wisdom from the ancient Greeks, employed the three branches of government that we are now so familiar with to avert usurpation of power by a king like figure. The problem is that over 250 years sufficient rules and laws have not been put in place clearly to close loopholes. And now the founders’ intentions have been circumvented. One example among many - while impeachment is perfectly reasonable, it does not work if the Congress majority supports a corrupt President. And the SCOTUS now supports a lack of accountability for the President. Rather than checks and balances to protect democracy, we have checks and balances to ensure that democracy CANNOT be maintained.
Practically the first act after the Consitution was ratified was the Bill of Rights -- the first 10 Amendments.
Republicans attack statutes like the Voting Rights Act, the Administrative Procedujre Act on the basis of stuff like originalism, "natural law," which are bullshit.
Considering that those who rant about "natural" law are religious believers, what they mean by natural is Biblical. In the Mideast it would be Quranic or Sharia.
Aside from the wisdom of the ancient Greeks they also examined other nations, cultures and societies including Native American societies to see what they might have to offer in a constitution of a new nation.
Perhaps the fundamental flaw in the American system of governance is the lack of a mechanism between elections to dissolve a government. Nearly all parliamentary systems have this feature through votes of no confidence. Even the de Gaulle 5th Republic in France kept this feature.
Such a feature is definitely needed and should be a high priority. Addressing the need through the recission of ratification of the Constitution by 5 of the original States may be a way, but one to be followed cautiously. It needs to be in discussion at the very least.
Another alternative would be to increase the size of the House by perhaps 5 or even 10 times. That would dilute party strength as caucuses would naturally form into voting blocks. Not quite a parliamentary democracy, but party leaders would have to build coalitions and support compromise bills rather than push for single block positions like the Republicans now do. Similarly the president would have to deal with many different groups to get the votes for desired legislation. And Representatives would also come closer to citizens again since districts would be smaller. That would also make Gerrymandering harder to achieve.
The nation could start by giving full representation to the District of Columbia which has a larger population than several deep red States, the though of which terrifies Republicons. In addition if supported by the population in Puerto Rico it should be admitted as the 51st State, which also would terrify Republicons.
That makes too much good sense. Democratic Hawaii was balanced by Republic Alaska, but I doubt if the GOP could find another territory to match the two places you mentioned.
No doubt Trump is a fascist and a convicted criminal. Last night a commentator said he patted Chief Justice Roberts on the shoulder just as a crime boss would. That's because he's a crime boss. I don't think we have to dig deep to figure out what he's doing. He's making money, that's what he does. He doesn't know how to do anything else. There is no deeper meaning to the man. I have to give credit where credit is due, he is running the greatest con job in American history. He sells bibles, gold tennis shoes, national secrets, and whatever else to the highest bidder. He's the most successful criminal in American history.
When will trump be signing his version of the Enabling Act? The Executive Order that will castrate what is left of the Legislative Branch. With the reception he received from his adoring Republican sycophants it can't be too far off! I wonder if at that point he will just dissolve both houses of Congress & take their combined salaries to line his pockets? What do you think Thune & Johnson will say should that be attempted? When it's their salaries & benefits on the line? I wonder if at that point they'll wake up & realize that they created a monster that is now devouring them. It was fine when he & Musk went after all the Federal Employees, they don't work anyway, right? But they are critical employees until they're NOT! You reap what you sow Republicans!!!
Musk says that old folks need to just die. Called SS a "ponzi scheme." As Thom documented the other day, Trump/Musk have a scheme to disrupt SS, to enrage the public.
According to Pew,
Among voters ages 60 and older, the GOP holds a clear advantage:
Republican alignment is 10 percentage points higher than Democratic alignment (53% vs. 43%) among voters in their 60s.
Voters ages 70 to 79 are slightly more likely to be aligned with the GOP (51%) than the Democratic Party (46%).
About six-in-ten voters 80 and older (58%) identify with or lean toward the GOP, while 39% associate with the Democratic Party.
Older voters overwhelmingly identify with a party; among younger voters, substantial numbers lean.
Therefore Musk and Trump are targeting their own supporters. Maybe this will light a fire.
Surely some Congressional Republican can feel the heat.
I'm 85 and with the exception of many substack readers. I agree, these folk are stuck in their ways., and in their mindset which includes prejudices and bias.
Not many folk are capable of shifting 180 degrees. I was a conservative, to right wing extremist, until 1989, when I saw the light and still it took a decade to shed the skin entirely.
In my case I made a geographic. A bad relationship, alcohol abuse, I relocated from Tacoma, WA to Santa Cruz, CA and fell in with a crowd of former Hippies, SDS, Weathermen, Unionists queers, artists, non comformists and that exposure changed my whole outlook on things.
They sure were, I never felt so comfortable being around other people, and damn if I didn't have fun, and I was in recovery from alcoholism and I never did, and still don't do drugs. A few years ago when I was in rehab from a craniotomy I tried a thc gummy, I got dizzy crashed and that was it. never again. I don't like the feeling.
An off topic comment: After typing that response I sat down to watch pre recorded Stephen Colbert for Mar 4, 25. But instead of Colbert I had to watch (actually fast forward) though 30 minutes of the local News (Ch 7, Seattle)
Colbert didn't come on until the Pete Buttigeg interview.
I went to youtube, searched Stephen Colbert Mar 4, 2025 and know why.
the show roasted Musk and Trump, really roasted and ridiculed them
Locally Ch 7 is owned by Cox Media, as right wing as Sinclair.
Glad to hear it isn't just me. My wife has fibromyalgia, and other problems, so uses medical marijuana. I don't care, she smokes in a back smoking room or on the porch so I don't have to smell it. Smells like skunk cabbage
My guess is he will keep Congress around, so they can cheer for him during senseless diatribes diatribes per last night and lend a veneer of legitimacy for him. Plus, many of them are part his criminal enterprise. His tutor, Vladimir Putin taught him how to turn our country into a Russian type kleptocracy.
The U.S. version of Hitler's Enabling Act in conjunction with the "temporary suspension" of the Bill or Rights looms on the horizon. Look for these at the first opportunity that presents itself, most likely the result of a spontaneous incident or more likely a "manufactured" incident orchestrated by the GQP in league with the authors of "Project 2025" and carried out by the private right wing militias.
We need an uprising and I’m hoping there are some powerful anti Trump coalitions that will com together and be throw out this illegal government. I’m 82 y/o and can’t do much but give money, hope and cry about the future of my children and grandchildren.
Tis an exercise in futility to expect "the left" to come together, each cause is it's own celebrity, each cause believes it is paramount, each cause wants primacy, and the causes are absolutist.
And to a large degree this absolutism has fueled the rise of the right, in reaction, that is why Trump ran on, won and harped on last night, trans and immigration.
Don't get me wrong, I am trans and immigration adjacent, but they must be dealt with, with common sense and judiciously.
Any uprising that will come, will have to come from within the ranks of the right, as the full force of what they have wrought, the dense fog of buyers remorse settles around them.
For one thing, they, not us have personal armories and stores of ammo, which many of them are just itching to use on us libs.
They are standing back and standing by just waiting for the go signal from Trump.
"A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down a request by the Trump administration to lift an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that had directed the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid reimbursements for work that has already been done.
"In a brief unsigned opinion, the court noted that the Feb. 26 deadline for the government to make the payments had already passed. It instructed U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to “clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance” with the temporary restraining order that Ali has entered in the case, paying attention to how feasible it is for the government to comply with those timelines.
"Ali is expected to hold a hearing on the aid groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction – which, if granted, would suspend the freeze on foreign-assistance funding going forward – on Thursday, March 6. This means that the dispute could return to the Supreme Court as an emergency appeal again soon.
'Four of the court’s conservative justices would have granted the government’s request to put the order on hold. Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, described himself as “stunned” by the ruling, calling it “a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”'
That singular ruling against Trump is not a harbringer of things to come.
I draw your attention to conract law, and the fact that the court told Trump that he was going to have to pay for work already done.
The rest of the attack on USAID was left in place. USAID has been undone, like Humpty Dumpty it can't be put back together again, and so it is with every cabinet, every function of government it has all been undone.
I doubt that I will get my tax refund, and I am waiting to see if I get my March Social Security Check. My wife filed for Social Security two months ago, still haven't heard a thing, probably never will.
Our local Social Security office is a one hour ferry wait (if you make an appointment first, an hour and a half ride, an hour drive to the Social Security office and then all of that to come home, provided you the local social security office can get to you in time, if not you might miss your return reservation and have to spend the night in a motel.
So she applied on line and that turned into a phone call. The point is that with cuts in social security I d oubt that her claim will ever be processed.
If Roberts stood for judicial authority, then he screwed himself, because giving Trump basically a blank check for immunity,he propelled the unitary executive.
Roberts has to be oblivious, assuming good faith, but isn't the real power behind the robes The Law clerks. After all it was a law clerk that wrote the head note in Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific, that has led to the precedent that corporations are people and entitled to constitutional protection and free speech
"Liberty … is the great parent of science and of virtue; and … a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free." —Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Willard, 1789
Thom's description of Neo-Fascism is dead on. Yesterday, Trump's heartless attorney, Haba, said regarding DOGE-fired veterans - “I really don’t feel sorry for them,” she said. “They should get back to work for the American people, like President Trump.” Get back to work? What does she think they do all day, play video games? No. They regulate the infrastructure of our government to enable well-regulated commerce that sustains a high standard of living for all.
Government does not manufacture or sell anything for profit, so the Habs and MTGs in Washington promote a myth that government is useless if it does not work like a business. That misunderstanding is why the myth that businessmen make the best presidents has always resulted in crappy administrations. Their bottom line is making money; not governing. It is Ironic that so many presidents of both parties in US history came from the oligarchy class - Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, Trump, ...
Most Americans do not understand how monopolies happen - vulture capitalism. Amazon and Walmart did not just happen. The competition that they could not starve out of business by underpricing them, they just purchased. Gates excelled at buying small tech companies just for their patents so he could then resell them as upgrades to existing products like MS Word. That is how Musk got so rich, and Zuckerberg, and Bezos- kill the competition or consume it - whichever works.
The unanswered question is - what are we going to do about it? As 1930's Germany demonstrated, time is running out.
The Habs, the MTG's all of them are engaging in self condemnation, they don't contribute anything towards the economy, they d on't work, they suck at the teat of the cow they are trying to kill.
As an Atlantic article says today, Democrats are acting too normal. Just one Congressman was thrown out. Good for him. There was no reason to continue a dignified and restrained show of resistance. Holding up signs did almost nothing to counter the barrage of lies that poured out us. Democratic politicians provided no example of how tyranny needs to be resisted. Please show some imagination. There should have been an uproar of one kind or another. Who cares about being censured? That should be worn as a badge of honor. The British House of Commons has had a long history of being loud and confrontive. And yet we can't do that here? Any time Elon Musk was mentioned there should have been loud boos from ALL the Democrats with shouts of "He's unaccountable" "what he is doing is illegal" etc. The progressive public needs more from the Party leaders. When Biden was declared the worst President in history this should have created outrage. But no, nothing, no pushback at all. Democrats are wimps when compared to Republicans. Though a former Trump Republican, Michael Cohen now becomes extremely emotional lambasting Trump in nis podcasts. It is good to watch and cathartic. We need more like him on our side.
There is only one leader in the Democratic Congress and he got thrown out last night.
I am sending email to my Senators, Murray and Cantwell) and rep Rick Larson, letting them know that are betraying their constituents and country by being silent and compliant.
Before Thom's program airs in 40 minutes, we need to make sure this gets discussed, about the Musk punks putting our government DC buildings up for sale yesterday, and then today, removing them:
Terry, let me ask you a question: Do you wish you were never born? Because if things had not transpired in our history, exactly as they had, you and I, and the rest of us would not have been born, and there probably would not have been a United States of America.
I for one am glad that I have been allowed to visit this planet, and bemoan the fact that it is only for such a short period time.
My presence on earth the result of thousands of people facing their own trials, tribulations, suffering and exaltation's
In 1606 a group of merchants and lesser nobility, anxious to exploit the wealth of the new world as Spain was doing, pooled their money, gambled and prevailed upon King James I, to grant them a monopoly charter as a corporation called the London Company of Virginia.
In 1607 it sailed to this country and settled at the mouth of a river, which they named James, that emptied into a bay they named for the clams found there, Chesapeake
They were called adventurers as were the stockholders, adventurers of purse or person.
They weren't successful, and the whole adventure almost came to an end, were it for for a man named John Rolfe, who carried in his pouch some seeds he had acquired in Turkey, called Tobacco.
Growing tobacco as a cash crop, sufficient to sustain a man and his family, requires land, lots of it, 200 acres of good arable land
A A 200 acre plantation if a square is 1309 ft on each side, much more than one man can plow, seed and reap. He needs help. He breeds is own help, but has to feed, clothe, educate and entertain them, and hopefully not lose them to smallpox, until they are old enough, about age 16, the other is to hire the help.
But hiring means that 1. there has to be a labor pool, 2. that you have money to pay them enough for the help to live, which is generally not the case.
The solution was indentured servants. recruited from the counties around London, particularly Surrey, from whence we get the southern drawl. or from debtors prisons, like Bridewell, (from which one Thomas Farrar, not an ancestor) was sentenced in 1620 to Jamestown.
In 1619 an English Privateer, the White Lion, captured a Portuguese slaver and it's 20 Africans, which it then sold on the quay at Elizabeth City as indentured servants, not as slaves, because in 1620 Slavery had not yet come to Virginia, that didn't happen until the House of Burgess passed a law in 1661, but it was legalized in 1653 in a case named Johnson v Casor. Anthony Johnson,, himself a former indentured servant, had managed to acquire enough wealth to build his own plantation and on it he had black indentured servants.
One servant, name of John Casor, suffered mightily from his brutality, and ran off to a neighboring plantation run by a white who was kindlier.
Johson sued for the return of Casor, on the basis that Casor was his property. He won the suit, and this is the first time it was adjudicated in America that a man could own another human.
The point is that America grew because it was able to export tobacco, cotton, rice, lumber (in the North, and shipbuilding in New England was a huge trade)
Tobacco, Cotton and rice are labor intensive and take huge amounts of land, if the land is poor then more land is needed, and because mono culture depletes the soil of nutrients within a generation (and takes another to recover) this families of planters had to constantly move on, unless they were wealthy like the Custis and Jefferson's and could afford to buy guano and manure and spread it over the land
Jefferson could have manumitted his slaves, but then they would walk off and build their own fortune elsewhere'
It is not as simply as some make it out to be.
In fact it can equally be said that if it weren't for slave holders, and planters there would have been no United States of America, no rebellion and you and I would not have been born.
It is so easy to pass self righteous judgement from a distance.
What will the future have to say about you and I, and the fact that we elected a greasy, rapist, thief, conman, traitor for president.?
Your very thorough article is enlightening and clearly shows the horrific parallels to today’s fascist government. I love your work, you are masterful. I did not know about the wise Vice President Wallace who served with FDR. I’m with the woman who said your knowledge needs to be sent out over the airwaves somehow. If only we could seize Fox and blast it there. Thank you so much for your excellent lessons. I’m going to call you Professor.
The continual class war is accurately catalogued and described here from Madison and Montesquieu through Sinclair Lewis, Henry Wallace, and Franklin Roosevelt, to Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader today. There must be a separation of business and state, like there is a separation of church and state (nominally at least), seeing as how both religion and business are undemocratic hierarchical organizations that take every opportunity to poison our preferred form of government.
An overnight rally in stock futures largely fizzled out on Wednesday morning after ADP’s private payroll data showed another worrying sign for the economy. Private sector job creation slowed to a crawl in February, fueling concerns of an economic slowdown, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.
Companies added just 77,000 new workers for the month, well off the upwardly revised 186,000 in January and below the 148,000 Dow Jones consensus estimate, according to seasonally adjusted figures from ADP.
Dan, it is strange that so few people seem to realize that we are IN a recession right now. We have been since the 24th of Feb when the NYSE numbers went red. That was the day I liquidated and got out of the market. Now with Trump declaring global tariff war, in addition to the Ukraine war, things will only get worse and worse faster.
Thanks Thom, for providing the clarity from some very foresighted people in our history. Also, I believe a real Renaissance man, who was perhaps way ahead of his time, Henry A. Wallace.
The question is, just how far will Trump need to go—just what will it take for the American People, or at least their so-called representatives, to stand up and collectively say, “enough”?
Just what are we as a people willing to turn a blind eye to and further enable? Surely, we’re waiving goodbye to basic criminal behavior. He’s “buggered the Bursar” and sold us to the highest bidder, already. Does he have to shoot someone in his cabinet before we collectively demand his impeachment or even arrest (can the SOB even be arrested, anymore?)
His fragile ego can’t stand much more criticism. What will he do, next? Attempt to dismiss Congress? Will he try and call out the troops to mow down demonstrators? And who will they be loyal to, the people they are suppose to protect or their so-called Commander in Chief? Cause by that time, it’ll be too late. The American people will be reduced to victims of extortion. Another few months of this and we will have lost most of our infrastructure and credibility and elections won’t even save us then.
I found your piece, enlightening to say the least. I have learned so much history that I wasn't aware of in your blog. And how you pulled all this history together into one very readable piece on the foremost problem today is a tribute to your talents. However....
It does no good to preach to the choir. Why isn't this on billboards in Kansas? Why aren't these quotes on the pages of a well-respected newspaper? Why aren't these ideas put into full page ads? You have the ideas. Publish them, not in a book, or a blog, but put them in the eye of those who are truly the serfs. It won't be long before Trump shuts down the ability to do this. And then we're cooked geese ready for the eating.
I agree!
I vehemently agree!
That's not what he does. If you know a group who can invest in getting this down to the public, by all means share it with them and work to disseminate this to the people in power
He has contacts just by virtue of this blog. He has followers more powerful than me. He converses with people more powerful than us. Many of those followers also have friends in high places. By writing, though while I don't have the contacts to do what you suggest, someone who does will see my comment as you have and get something started with my ideas. Perhaps you. My concern is that while enlightening myself and others, it's still the "choir" no matter how many times I forward it. The simple truth is that the writings need to get to people with power. Think Thomas Payne and the American Revolution. Not many of us gentle readers are him.
The problem with the Constitution is not the Constitution itself. The founders were geniuses, erudite philosophers who, using wisdom from the ancient Greeks, employed the three branches of government that we are now so familiar with to avert usurpation of power by a king like figure. The problem is that over 250 years sufficient rules and laws have not been put in place clearly to close loopholes. And now the founders’ intentions have been circumvented. One example among many - while impeachment is perfectly reasonable, it does not work if the Congress majority supports a corrupt President. And the SCOTUS now supports a lack of accountability for the President. Rather than checks and balances to protect democracy, we have checks and balances to ensure that democracy CANNOT be maintained.
Practically the first act after the Consitution was ratified was the Bill of Rights -- the first 10 Amendments.
Republicans attack statutes like the Voting Rights Act, the Administrative Procedujre Act on the basis of stuff like originalism, "natural law," which are bullshit.
Considering that those who rant about "natural" law are religious believers, what they mean by natural is Biblical. In the Mideast it would be Quranic or Sharia.
Aside from the wisdom of the ancient Greeks they also examined other nations, cultures and societies including Native American societies to see what they might have to offer in a constitution of a new nation.
Very well stated!
Ability to dissolve a government needed!
Perhaps the fundamental flaw in the American system of governance is the lack of a mechanism between elections to dissolve a government. Nearly all parliamentary systems have this feature through votes of no confidence. Even the de Gaulle 5th Republic in France kept this feature.
Such a feature is definitely needed and should be a high priority. Addressing the need through the recission of ratification of the Constitution by 5 of the original States may be a way, but one to be followed cautiously. It needs to be in discussion at the very least.
Another alternative would be to increase the size of the House by perhaps 5 or even 10 times. That would dilute party strength as caucuses would naturally form into voting blocks. Not quite a parliamentary democracy, but party leaders would have to build coalitions and support compromise bills rather than push for single block positions like the Republicans now do. Similarly the president would have to deal with many different groups to get the votes for desired legislation. And Representatives would also come closer to citizens again since districts would be smaller. That would also make Gerrymandering harder to achieve.
The nation could start by giving full representation to the District of Columbia which has a larger population than several deep red States, the though of which terrifies Republicons. In addition if supported by the population in Puerto Rico it should be admitted as the 51st State, which also would terrify Republicons.
That makes too much good sense. Democratic Hawaii was balanced by Republic Alaska, but I doubt if the GOP could find another territory to match the two places you mentioned.
Check out Feathers of Hope.
No doubt Trump is a fascist and a convicted criminal. Last night a commentator said he patted Chief Justice Roberts on the shoulder just as a crime boss would. That's because he's a crime boss. I don't think we have to dig deep to figure out what he's doing. He's making money, that's what he does. He doesn't know how to do anything else. There is no deeper meaning to the man. I have to give credit where credit is due, he is running the greatest con job in American history. He sells bibles, gold tennis shoes, national secrets, and whatever else to the highest bidder. He's the most successful criminal in American history.
It took many failed ventures before he finally found his true calling.
When will trump be signing his version of the Enabling Act? The Executive Order that will castrate what is left of the Legislative Branch. With the reception he received from his adoring Republican sycophants it can't be too far off! I wonder if at that point he will just dissolve both houses of Congress & take their combined salaries to line his pockets? What do you think Thune & Johnson will say should that be attempted? When it's their salaries & benefits on the line? I wonder if at that point they'll wake up & realize that they created a monster that is now devouring them. It was fine when he & Musk went after all the Federal Employees, they don't work anyway, right? But they are critical employees until they're NOT! You reap what you sow Republicans!!!
Monsters.
Musk says that old folks need to just die. Called SS a "ponzi scheme." As Thom documented the other day, Trump/Musk have a scheme to disrupt SS, to enrage the public.
According to Pew,
Among voters ages 60 and older, the GOP holds a clear advantage:
Republican alignment is 10 percentage points higher than Democratic alignment (53% vs. 43%) among voters in their 60s.
Voters ages 70 to 79 are slightly more likely to be aligned with the GOP (51%) than the Democratic Party (46%).
About six-in-ten voters 80 and older (58%) identify with or lean toward the GOP, while 39% associate with the Democratic Party.
Older voters overwhelmingly identify with a party; among younger voters, substantial numbers lean.
Therefore Musk and Trump are targeting their own supporters. Maybe this will light a fire.
Surely some Congressional Republican can feel the heat.
I'm 85 and with the exception of many substack readers. I agree, these folk are stuck in their ways., and in their mindset which includes prejudices and bias.
Not many folk are capable of shifting 180 degrees. I was a conservative, to right wing extremist, until 1989, when I saw the light and still it took a decade to shed the skin entirely.
Only takes a few. Won't need them to flip....
In your case, it was revelation, epi[phany....
In my case I made a geographic. A bad relationship, alcohol abuse, I relocated from Tacoma, WA to Santa Cruz, CA and fell in with a crowd of former Hippies, SDS, Weathermen, Unionists queers, artists, non comformists and that exposure changed my whole outlook on things.
Now those are "some of the best people"!
They sure were, I never felt so comfortable being around other people, and damn if I didn't have fun, and I was in recovery from alcoholism and I never did, and still don't do drugs. A few years ago when I was in rehab from a craniotomy I tried a thc gummy, I got dizzy crashed and that was it. never again. I don't like the feeling.
I too had a bad experience with a thc gummy, dizzy and nauseated. Haven't done them since. Take care William!
An off topic comment: After typing that response I sat down to watch pre recorded Stephen Colbert for Mar 4, 25. But instead of Colbert I had to watch (actually fast forward) though 30 minutes of the local News (Ch 7, Seattle)
Colbert didn't come on until the Pete Buttigeg interview.
I went to youtube, searched Stephen Colbert Mar 4, 2025 and know why.
the show roasted Musk and Trump, really roasted and ridiculed them
Locally Ch 7 is owned by Cox Media, as right wing as Sinclair.
Glad to hear it isn't just me. My wife has fibromyalgia, and other problems, so uses medical marijuana. I don't care, she smokes in a back smoking room or on the porch so I don't have to smell it. Smells like skunk cabbage
My guess is he will keep Congress around, so they can cheer for him during senseless diatribes diatribes per last night and lend a veneer of legitimacy for him. Plus, many of them are part his criminal enterprise. His tutor, Vladimir Putin taught him how to turn our country into a Russian type kleptocracy.
The U.S. version of Hitler's Enabling Act in conjunction with the "temporary suspension" of the Bill or Rights looms on the horizon. Look for these at the first opportunity that presents itself, most likely the result of a spontaneous incident or more likely a "manufactured" incident orchestrated by the GQP in league with the authors of "Project 2025" and carried out by the private right wing militias.
We need an uprising and I’m hoping there are some powerful anti Trump coalitions that will com together and be throw out this illegal government. I’m 82 y/o and can’t do much but give money, hope and cry about the future of my children and grandchildren.
Tis an exercise in futility to expect "the left" to come together, each cause is it's own celebrity, each cause believes it is paramount, each cause wants primacy, and the causes are absolutist.
And to a large degree this absolutism has fueled the rise of the right, in reaction, that is why Trump ran on, won and harped on last night, trans and immigration.
Don't get me wrong, I am trans and immigration adjacent, but they must be dealt with, with common sense and judiciously.
Any uprising that will come, will have to come from within the ranks of the right, as the full force of what they have wrought, the dense fog of buyers remorse settles around them.
For one thing, they, not us have personal armories and stores of ammo, which many of them are just itching to use on us libs.
They are standing back and standing by just waiting for the go signal from Trump.
Most are patriotic. Some are lawyers first, political appointees second. Many of the Trump appointees rule agianst him.
Supreme Court denies Trump request to block $2 billion foreign-aid payment
By Amy Howe https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/03/supreme-court-denies-trump-request-to-block-2-billion-foreign-aid-payment/
"A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down a request by the Trump administration to lift an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that had directed the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign-aid reimbursements for work that has already been done.
"In a brief unsigned opinion, the court noted that the Feb. 26 deadline for the government to make the payments had already passed. It instructed U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to “clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance” with the temporary restraining order that Ali has entered in the case, paying attention to how feasible it is for the government to comply with those timelines.
"Ali is expected to hold a hearing on the aid groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction – which, if granted, would suspend the freeze on foreign-assistance funding going forward – on Thursday, March 6. This means that the dispute could return to the Supreme Court as an emergency appeal again soon.
'Four of the court’s conservative justices would have granted the government’s request to put the order on hold. Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, described himself as “stunned” by the ruling, calling it “a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”'
That singular ruling against Trump is not a harbringer of things to come.
I draw your attention to conract law, and the fact that the court told Trump that he was going to have to pay for work already done.
The rest of the attack on USAID was left in place. USAID has been undone, like Humpty Dumpty it can't be put back together again, and so it is with every cabinet, every function of government it has all been undone.
I doubt that I will get my tax refund, and I am waiting to see if I get my March Social Security Check. My wife filed for Social Security two months ago, still haven't heard a thing, probably never will.
1. The moral is Roberts stood for judicial authority rather than the unitary executive.
2. We had an appointment at SS and the checks were cut within 2 weeks. Did she make an appointment?
Our local Social Security office is a one hour ferry wait (if you make an appointment first, an hour and a half ride, an hour drive to the Social Security office and then all of that to come home, provided you the local social security office can get to you in time, if not you might miss your return reservation and have to spend the night in a motel.
So she applied on line and that turned into a phone call. The point is that with cuts in social security I d oubt that her claim will ever be processed.
If Roberts stood for judicial authority, then he screwed himself, because giving Trump basically a blank check for immunity,he propelled the unitary executive.
Roberts has to be oblivious, assuming good faith, but isn't the real power behind the robes The Law clerks. After all it was a law clerk that wrote the head note in Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific, that has led to the precedent that corporations are people and entitled to constitutional protection and free speech
https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/first-national-bank-of-boston-v-bellotti/
https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/buckley-v-valeo/
Citizens United v FEC https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205
Feathers of Hope.
"Liberty … is the great parent of science and of virtue; and … a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free." —Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Willard, 1789
Under Trump . . . RIP science and virtue.
Thom's description of Neo-Fascism is dead on. Yesterday, Trump's heartless attorney, Haba, said regarding DOGE-fired veterans - “I really don’t feel sorry for them,” she said. “They should get back to work for the American people, like President Trump.” Get back to work? What does she think they do all day, play video games? No. They regulate the infrastructure of our government to enable well-regulated commerce that sustains a high standard of living for all.
Government does not manufacture or sell anything for profit, so the Habs and MTGs in Washington promote a myth that government is useless if it does not work like a business. That misunderstanding is why the myth that businessmen make the best presidents has always resulted in crappy administrations. Their bottom line is making money; not governing. It is Ironic that so many presidents of both parties in US history came from the oligarchy class - Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, Trump, ...
Most Americans do not understand how monopolies happen - vulture capitalism. Amazon and Walmart did not just happen. The competition that they could not starve out of business by underpricing them, they just purchased. Gates excelled at buying small tech companies just for their patents so he could then resell them as upgrades to existing products like MS Word. That is how Musk got so rich, and Zuckerberg, and Bezos- kill the competition or consume it - whichever works.
The unanswered question is - what are we going to do about it? As 1930's Germany demonstrated, time is running out.
The Habs, the MTG's all of them are engaging in self condemnation, they don't contribute anything towards the economy, they d on't work, they suck at the teat of the cow they are trying to kill.
Just an aside - Trump seems to surround himself with hateful smug & sexy women like Haba, Leavitt, Melania, Greene, Boobert (sic)...
MTG is sexy? But I get your drift, no really ordinary women in sight. I wonder if he grabs them by the pussy. At least hand job Boebert.
Haha - she thinks she is. She does have blond hair and can press 110lbs.
But can you jack off two men at once, Trump sure can. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofhFjsazeY
As an Atlantic article says today, Democrats are acting too normal. Just one Congressman was thrown out. Good for him. There was no reason to continue a dignified and restrained show of resistance. Holding up signs did almost nothing to counter the barrage of lies that poured out us. Democratic politicians provided no example of how tyranny needs to be resisted. Please show some imagination. There should have been an uproar of one kind or another. Who cares about being censured? That should be worn as a badge of honor. The British House of Commons has had a long history of being loud and confrontive. And yet we can't do that here? Any time Elon Musk was mentioned there should have been loud boos from ALL the Democrats with shouts of "He's unaccountable" "what he is doing is illegal" etc. The progressive public needs more from the Party leaders. When Biden was declared the worst President in history this should have created outrage. But no, nothing, no pushback at all. Democrats are wimps when compared to Republicans. Though a former Trump Republican, Michael Cohen now becomes extremely emotional lambasting Trump in nis podcasts. It is good to watch and cathartic. We need more like him on our side.
There is only one leader in the Democratic Congress and he got thrown out last night.
I am sending email to my Senators, Murray and Cantwell) and rep Rick Larson, letting them know that are betraying their constituents and country by being silent and compliant.
Send them Feathers of Hope.
Before Thom's program airs in 40 minutes, we need to make sure this gets discussed, about the Musk punks putting our government DC buildings up for sale yesterday, and then today, removing them:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/looting-watch
Airs in 40 minutes, what time zone or you in. I'm PST it airs 9 -12 ante meridiem
All nice words, but James Madison was a slave holder, who didn't free his slaves during his lifetime nor after his death in his will.
Therefore, none of the 'founders' have anything to say to me.
The Federalist Papers are a primer on hypocrisy.
That's all they are.
Terry, let me ask you a question: Do you wish you were never born? Because if things had not transpired in our history, exactly as they had, you and I, and the rest of us would not have been born, and there probably would not have been a United States of America.
I for one am glad that I have been allowed to visit this planet, and bemoan the fact that it is only for such a short period time.
My presence on earth the result of thousands of people facing their own trials, tribulations, suffering and exaltation's
In 1606 a group of merchants and lesser nobility, anxious to exploit the wealth of the new world as Spain was doing, pooled their money, gambled and prevailed upon King James I, to grant them a monopoly charter as a corporation called the London Company of Virginia.
In 1607 it sailed to this country and settled at the mouth of a river, which they named James, that emptied into a bay they named for the clams found there, Chesapeake
They were called adventurers as were the stockholders, adventurers of purse or person.
They weren't successful, and the whole adventure almost came to an end, were it for for a man named John Rolfe, who carried in his pouch some seeds he had acquired in Turkey, called Tobacco.
Growing tobacco as a cash crop, sufficient to sustain a man and his family, requires land, lots of it, 200 acres of good arable land
A A 200 acre plantation if a square is 1309 ft on each side, much more than one man can plow, seed and reap. He needs help. He breeds is own help, but has to feed, clothe, educate and entertain them, and hopefully not lose them to smallpox, until they are old enough, about age 16, the other is to hire the help.
But hiring means that 1. there has to be a labor pool, 2. that you have money to pay them enough for the help to live, which is generally not the case.
The solution was indentured servants. recruited from the counties around London, particularly Surrey, from whence we get the southern drawl. or from debtors prisons, like Bridewell, (from which one Thomas Farrar, not an ancestor) was sentenced in 1620 to Jamestown.
In 1619 an English Privateer, the White Lion, captured a Portuguese slaver and it's 20 Africans, which it then sold on the quay at Elizabeth City as indentured servants, not as slaves, because in 1620 Slavery had not yet come to Virginia, that didn't happen until the House of Burgess passed a law in 1661, but it was legalized in 1653 in a case named Johnson v Casor. Anthony Johnson,, himself a former indentured servant, had managed to acquire enough wealth to build his own plantation and on it he had black indentured servants.
One servant, name of John Casor, suffered mightily from his brutality, and ran off to a neighboring plantation run by a white who was kindlier.
Johson sued for the return of Casor, on the basis that Casor was his property. He won the suit, and this is the first time it was adjudicated in America that a man could own another human.
Until 1661 though black indentured servants were freed, given a musket, a mule and a sack of seed corn and sent on their way. The story of one such is The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, https://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Pantico-Run-African-Descendants/dp/1451627483
The point is that America grew because it was able to export tobacco, cotton, rice, lumber (in the North, and shipbuilding in New England was a huge trade)
Tobacco, Cotton and rice are labor intensive and take huge amounts of land, if the land is poor then more land is needed, and because mono culture depletes the soil of nutrients within a generation (and takes another to recover) this families of planters had to constantly move on, unless they were wealthy like the Custis and Jefferson's and could afford to buy guano and manure and spread it over the land
Jefferson could have manumitted his slaves, but then they would walk off and build their own fortune elsewhere'
It is not as simply as some make it out to be.
In fact it can equally be said that if it weren't for slave holders, and planters there would have been no United States of America, no rebellion and you and I would not have been born.
It is so easy to pass self righteous judgement from a distance.
What will the future have to say about you and I, and the fact that we elected a greasy, rapist, thief, conman, traitor for president.?
.
Your very thorough article is enlightening and clearly shows the horrific parallels to today’s fascist government. I love your work, you are masterful. I did not know about the wise Vice President Wallace who served with FDR. I’m with the woman who said your knowledge needs to be sent out over the airwaves somehow. If only we could seize Fox and blast it there. Thank you so much for your excellent lessons. I’m going to call you Professor.
When our Artists come out of the PTSD we are all experiencing they will tell the truth loudly and everyone will HEAR....soon I hope ??!!
The continual class war is accurately catalogued and described here from Madison and Montesquieu through Sinclair Lewis, Henry Wallace, and Franklin Roosevelt, to Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader today. There must be a separation of business and state, like there is a separation of church and state (nominally at least), seeing as how both religion and business are undemocratic hierarchical organizations that take every opportunity to poison our preferred form of government.
https://open.substack.com/pub/longmemo/p/the-great-american-fire-sale-tonights?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1wbr1r
An overnight rally in stock futures largely fizzled out on Wednesday morning after ADP’s private payroll data showed another worrying sign for the economy. Private sector job creation slowed to a crawl in February, fueling concerns of an economic slowdown, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.
Companies added just 77,000 new workers for the month, well off the upwardly revised 186,000 in January and below the 148,000 Dow Jones consensus estimate, according to seasonally adjusted figures from ADP.
Dan, it is strange that so few people seem to realize that we are IN a recession right now. We have been since the 24th of Feb when the NYSE numbers went red. That was the day I liquidated and got out of the market. Now with Trump declaring global tariff war, in addition to the Ukraine war, things will only get worse and worse faster.
IMHO Thom, if you (and the Media) would concentrate on Feathers of Hope, we could get rid of the fascists and the band of thieves. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/p/to-stop-the-coup-impeach-the-traitor
Thanks Thom, for providing the clarity from some very foresighted people in our history. Also, I believe a real Renaissance man, who was perhaps way ahead of his time, Henry A. Wallace.
The question is, just how far will Trump need to go—just what will it take for the American People, or at least their so-called representatives, to stand up and collectively say, “enough”?
Just what are we as a people willing to turn a blind eye to and further enable? Surely, we’re waiving goodbye to basic criminal behavior. He’s “buggered the Bursar” and sold us to the highest bidder, already. Does he have to shoot someone in his cabinet before we collectively demand his impeachment or even arrest (can the SOB even be arrested, anymore?)
His fragile ego can’t stand much more criticism. What will he do, next? Attempt to dismiss Congress? Will he try and call out the troops to mow down demonstrators? And who will they be loyal to, the people they are suppose to protect or their so-called Commander in Chief? Cause by that time, it’ll be too late. The American people will be reduced to victims of extortion. Another few months of this and we will have lost most of our infrastructure and credibility and elections won’t even save us then.