Yes, his administration is full of incompetent dunces. What’s concerning is that as the administration begins to crumble, they still have their hands on the levers of power. What havoc will they cause as the ship begins to sink. Desperate people can be dsngerous.
Isn't that the point? I am looking at this as a foreigner from the outside, but those people are so cartoonishly opposed to their job descriptions (the abusive alcoholic as the war guy, the brain damaged heroin addict for health etc.) that I broadly assumed Trump knew how idiotic these appointments were and just did it anyhow because he detests the US populace so much that he thinks this is the best they deserve. I am not under the impression that he wants the US to outlast him.
Trump is a scorpion. He stings because it's his nature.
Stephen Harper was our prime minister for nine years, and it was clear he hated this country and intended to do us harm for perceived grievances. (He was from Alberta and wanted to make Ontario pay for being the largest and richest province.)
He's the only head of government here ever to hold that distinction, and we still haven't fully recovered.
I am no fan of Harper, but I think his politics was the product of his ideology and not a hatred of Canada. He's a smart guy, just very blinkered (and yes, a bit unduly pro-Alberta and thus con-central-Canada). But nothing like as destructive as Trump, and not personally corrupt, and not demented. Not a fair comparison at all (and nothing like his pea-brained nasty successor as leader of that party.)
Harper got away with what he could and no more. Canadians are not as naive and gullible as Americans. If they were, I would expect the far right in Canada to inflict more damage on the working class.
I agree that Canadians have a much stronger sense of community and its mutual obligations and that gives us a tremendous advantage. We tend to bounce back.
I only mean to illustrate the point that there are those who seek elected office not to serve the people but to do them harm.
The fools in America are the Democrats who controlled the federal government from 2021 to 2025 and failed to enforce the law against insurrection to put Trump in jail and prevent him from being elected. Trump, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on the Supreme Court are following the carefully designed plans in PROJECT 2025 to continue an insurrection in 2025 that began on January 6, 2021, and dismember the federal government beginning in 2025 to harm 99% of Americans but transfer wealth to the richest 1%.
Democracy cannot exist when people can elect a criminal felon to be president who is an insurrectionist committed to continuing the insurrection to build a lawless fascist autocracy enforced by a massive federal police force that violates the Constitution by overriding state legal authority, and the news media ignores the ongoing insurrection.
Biden failed to stop Trump after the insurrection on Jan 6 which continued in the 2024 election. All votes for Trump were illegal. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump was an insurrectionist. But the US Supreme Court violated federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) by (1) supporting Trump, who was a committed insurrectionist, to get elected in 2024 and become dictator on Day One, as he had said he would. And (2) ruling that states cannot enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment which banned Trump as an insurrectionist from holding office. The SCOTUS decision incorrectly said that a law from Congress was needed to define the criteria for enforcing the law against an insurrectionist when a law did exist (18 U.S. Code § 2383) which was passed by Congress. The SCOTUS decision was an act by criminal felons (6 justices on SCOTUS appointed by Republican presidents) which supported Trump’s insurrection. As mentioned, the insurrection continued during the 2024 election, but Biden failed to invoke the Insurrection Act and reject all votes for Trump which were illegal.
Federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) defines the criminal actions of insurrection in language that is clear and easy to understand:
“Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
Democracy requires “we the people” educate themselves on the federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) that makes insurrection a felony crime and demand Democrats in control of 15 states enforce a new state law to written modeled after the federal law against the ongoing insurrection.
Now that Trump is in office and the insurrection has continued, Democrats in control of states must begin to enforce the law against insurrection to save democracy. Read my post.
I think Canadians would've turned towards the far-right for the worst had it not been for Trump's re-election and ensuing buffonary. He was a cautionary take for Canada who riled them up and rallied them against the Canadian Trump: Pierre Poilievre. He was poised to become the next PM without the Trump factor.
I think he had contempt for the values of the majority of Canadians, which even under the old Progressive Conservatives, are communitarian with a strong social safety net. His successor is worse, but the ideology remains and has evolved into something uglier, as it has in the US. It worries me when the Conservatives are normalized as a soft version of the Republicans. In Nova Scotia they have passed and attempted to pass some pretty troubling legislation, limiting public oversight, the bureaucracy, and media access. The latest was strong mayor powers and rifles for twelve year olds. They should be political pariahs, but they are the official opposition. Over 30 percent of us voted for them just like Americans, so not sure we should be congratulating ourselves. Libertarianism , and this new darker version, has not proven a success for any country that has embraced it. It has been disastrous for the UK and the US. We have been lucky to get off as easily as we did, and we’re not out of the woods yet.
Just in general, or the Conservatives aren’t too bad there? Ours seem to be inspired by the American version. It’s pathetic how they ape their positions. What bothers me is that they consistently undermine good governance. They removed the tolls on both our bridges in an insane attempt to relieve traffic congestion. They have worsened it while putting the responsibility for maintenance and replacement on the whole province. They are pushing resource extraction while weakening oversight environmentally and financially. They are a disaster. They broke their own fixed election date to call a snap election in the middle of a postal strike and won a majority with the worst turnout in history. I’ll give them credit for a school lunch program and wind turbines, but the governance stuff is really worrying. They also breed resentment between rural and urban areas and suburban and urban areas. They took over the boards of our universities. During their first term the lawyer to the premiers chief executive, a local developer, was put on the board of our art college where he pressured the college president to sell valuable college property to “guess who”. Oh and they hired a bunch of these “travelling nurses” that cost a fortune. They followed the New Brunswick Conservatives on this one. I suspect the company is owned by a donor.
To be clear, Harper had hatred- of Ottawa, of public servants, of Toronto business elites, of Toronto private school elites, of his father, of Liberals. He was/is brilliant though. Luckily his minions were (usually) able to keep him in check as were the guardrails of the Westminster government system.
I've always held that it would take a series of disasters to penetrate the American consciousness and with these buffoons in charge it is only a matter of time. What we have had so far is just a taste of what could go wrong.
Every Republican administration is a disaster from Nixon on.
And it's not linear. It's exponential.
Immiserated white Americans are second to none in voting against their own interests.
CIA director William Casey to Ronald Reagan in 1981: "“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Harper doesn't even come close (he's also from Leaside, not Alberta). He's maybe comparable to somebody like Boris Johnson or Ted Cruz who apes aspects of right wing populism for votes. And the Harper years were genuinely not that bad (we weathered the 2008 recession better than the US because the liberals had avoided bank deregulation).
First, Harper moved to Alberta because he preferred it there.
Second, the Harper years were worse than you remember.
Third, we weathered the 2008 recession because Obama went Keynesian and Harper was forced to follow suit. Harper -- you have probably forgotten -- wanted to go the austerity route, like the Brits, who are still struggling as a result.
We dodged a bullet at best.
The man was corrupt and full of hatred.
He's not as bad as Trump because, c'mon, who is?
But the principle is the same.
He governed with contempt for the people and the country.
I can think of no other American leader worse than Donny-John, who has a very long history of fraud, predation, and stupidity…I do think there is a lesson here for us to learn…
The US loves fake celebrity and silly/stupid and the NewYuck press, and then NBC, saw an opportunity to make easy money…why? I know he was the “it’s well past your deadline, your head hurts, easy quote for many…don’t have news, ‘Call DT.’” It’s why Stern had so much fun with him.
Carney's a cosmopolitan, went to Harvard and Oxford and had an internationally successful career as both the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the first non-British Governor of the Bank of England.
Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, had to skitter off to Alberta to win a seat in parliament.
This administration has one guiding principle – pleasing Trump, making him look good. In service of that principle, it uses three tools, cruelty, corruption and incompetence. Cruelty to cow. Its critics. Corruption to reward its supporters. And incompetence as a requirement of its hires, to hire only those who are weak and unable to oppose their Master lest they be banished
I"m not so sure he's smart enough to realize how idiotic his appointments are. He's only aware of their fealty. His obsession with loyalty is but one of his many characteristics that blind him to reality.
Trump appears to believe that reality TV is reality. The guy has no clue about anything beyond his circle of grifters. He couldn't care less about the country, or really anything beyond lining his own pockets. It's really weird actually. He's only got a few years left, at best, and he's still scrambling to grab a few more dollars. Maybe he's under the mistaken impression that St Peter can be bribed?
In these you can see the rules, celebrity, saw them on TV, other people of TV like them, and he still think he ‘created’ the greatest show ever…so tell him that and get a job. Of course this fits with hiring his defense attorneys…
Maybe donald doesn’t realize how stupid his appointments are but rest assured that those pulling the strings behind the scenes (heritage foundation ) are fully aware and they applaud the use of people in those positions that allows them to make the less obvious and more structural changes to our government while the fools distract us
How could some who is completely incompetent even recognize incompetence in others? What he is afraid of are those who are competent. He will abuse them much less hire them.
Makes sense. The relevance of Trump being mentally incompetent is probably overrated anyway. I am German, our governing coalition has instituted illegal performative racism as central pillar of their politics, is about to axe benefits claiming the poor have to easy a life (but does nothing to address multibillion Euro tax evasion), rants against windmills and pushes towards fossil fuels (even if that is hurting the industries they purportedly want to strengthen) and so on and so on (if you make a list of what US progressives like about Europe it is the list of things German conservatives have tried to destroy since at least the 80s, but made headway only when the Social Democrates joined them), but since they wear well fitting suits and speak in complete sentences people refuse to accept these are crazy radicals not completetly matching (yet), but also not unlike the Trumpian, camp. Maybe having a visibly compromised guy in charge actually helps to organize resistance. Please liberate your country soon, so you can liberate mine should it become necessary (again).
Yes, I wrote the Republican senator in our state and the reply I got was: I believe presidents have the right to chose anyone they want for their cabinet. 😳 While also claiming he took his advise and consent role seriously.🤯
That is the same answer that I got from the lesser MAGA senator (Todd Young) to whom I wrote. He also had a visit from J.D. Vance to keep him in line, as well as an organized text campaign to pressure him. (For some reason, those texts kept showing up, unwanted, on my phone, to which I do not give out the number.) My other senator drank the Kool-Aid as a representative. I am still angry that the Indiana Democratic party could not muster a strong candidate to run against Jim Banks in the 2024 election for an OPEN seat.
True, and Project 2025 has been years in the making. Don't expect the people behind the project to give up the battle so easily. And don't expect a change of heart of the business leaders who smelled the opportunity to get lower taxes and fewer regulations and donated millions to the Trump campaign.
Trump has some super-powers and that's his charisma, ability to read and respond to his loyal viewers, and lie without any guilt or shame.
However, I think he's a useful tool for the Christian Nationalists- Project 2025 and the tech oligarchs. They're making common cause because they want autocracy so they can rule. Each faction in their own way things they have "humanities" best interest at heart.
Trump “thinks” that he is competent and therefore his choices are competent just as he is. He mounts to the cabin and drives full steam ahead! They stoke the fire and pull the whistle for him. Too bad the bridge is out. Makes me recall Mr. Toad.
He's sabotaging our country, aligning with our enemies, eliminating security, cyber, etc etc -- and wants to carve up the world, as written in the Network States description (See Gil Duran & Dave Troy among others) -- we take the western hemisphere, Putin, the eastern, Ukraine. of course & Europe - not sure how China fits in but of course they take Taiwan -- the Ethno-Fascists (Christian Nationalists or Fascist Nationalist - not sure what to call these guys anymore) -- it's happening every day, right in front of us. How to govern a country when folks have no services, safety net is beyond me. But if the military doesn't push back in a big way, how do we get out of this?
Our calls and daily protests are not enough.
I would love to see a day (or longer) of MUSIC - every symphony, musician, tambourine man, school band get out onto the streets and march everywhere, throughout the country -- screaming into the void at a specific time - or out of windows might also wake people up.
And of course Portland is organizing Naked Bike Ride in protest. Can you imagine if that caught on??
Eike, you're assuming that he knows that they were idiotic appointments. He's an idiot, in the throws of dementia who thinks that he should get the Nobel peace prize, a malignant narcissist. He appointed them because they do and say what he wants. Ergo, in his so-called brain, they are good appointments.
I don't believe this at all. Trump's probably slowing down with age and he's never been that interested in the details of governing. But I pretty sure he's across the principles of project 2025 and generally agrees. He remains able to bedazzle his followers. His talks were always crazy and are always aimed at his base. To them, even if things don't make sense, at least they annoy the "elites".
We just saw 800 of the chief holders of power respond stonily to the antics of years-long rapist, fraud, criminal Donald and life-long drunken Hegseth.
These generals, admirals, and their enlisted and other staff together have centuries of dedicated, skilled, honorable experience. That's our watershed, our Rubicon, our demarcation from the flimsy antics of wannabe dictators with no literacy, no humanity, no honor.
Well, let’s see what they do. I thought Harvard would stand up against trump. And the Supreme Court. And the National Guard. So many honorable people seem to crumble when their jobs are at risk. I hope our military leaders aren’t among them.
Trump over the last ten years has blown many of our assumptions about people and institutions sky high. We now see the true face of many of our fellow Americans, including our former friends. We now see how many institutions--universities, corporations, media, Congress--are just full of cowardly careerists and opportunists. These people need to be purged somehow. We can't go back to the status quo ante Trump knowing what we now know. We need reform across the board. A reset. A reconstruction.
There’s a big difference between reform/reconstruction and purge. We’re living in the purge era of bigotry and racism where the worst side of humanity is let out unchecked.
The problem is that Trump &Co know perfectly well how the show/entertainment works and prevents any reflection or thought. Slogans replace assessments, lies prevent the search for truth, and greed replaces the common good.
Yes, Trump has permitted bigots and racists to act unchecked. And so we have learned who they are, such as former friends and family members. Being out in the open makes them vulnerable to our opposition.
My point about purging is directed at those careerists and opportunists who have exposed themselves as cowards, greedy or selfish, or all of these things. They give up their power to Trump for career or opportunity. They need to be purged and then reform and reconstruction can occur.
Chomsky best described these careerists/opportunists as people who "would make wonderful gas chamber attendants". Killing others in cold blood in record numbers would not be beyond them. We should never forget that.
And, as Orwell explained in "Politics and the English Language," "slogans" of your triumvirate "Slogans . . . lies . . . and greed" comes first, as you say.
The careerists one might forgive, but not the billionaires. The US ended up with Trump mostly because the upper 0.1% have siphoned off the majority of the country's wealth while their corporate media stooges stoked infighting amongst the proles as a distraction. When Trump is driven out, the oligarch class needs to be dismembered. Never again can the US tolerate having the best government that money can buy.
The military is sworn to protect American citizens, not make war on them. Trump blatantly told them to be ready to make war on American citizens. Everyone knows that Trump's goal is martial law, guns on the sidewalks, tanks on the streets for authoritarianism, not protection. There is no national emergency, no war on our soil to warrant such a command.
That is an unconstitutional, immoral and illegal command they do not have to follow.
But I'm like you; what they do next is anybody's guess. They could save the country if they wanted. Is there anyone but people like you and me who wants to save us?
I lived and worked in Turkey for a few years. The surprise I got was up until Erdogan, for decades the Turkish public relied on their military to deal with unacceptable political leadership. They actively did which is why Erdogan went after the military quite quickly upon his rise.
That is THE question now. Given the challenge how will the Generals, Admirals and other Leaders respond. This is not as easy as it seems: "We can't break our Oaths, fuck Off Asshole". When to do what is always so dependent on so many factors...I wonder if they have had anyone competent "Wargame" the scenarios for them. I used to hate it, but sometimes deferral of a definite response is the best solution. I especially hate it at this time, because we all need to know if this idiocy does stop anywhere. I think and hope that Trumpolini and Kegstand made a strategic error in putting "the question" to the military leaders at this time.
Publicly, "responding stonily" was probably the right move. What we have to hope is that the generals and colonels who are loyal to the Constitution are finding each other and preparing for actual, on-the-ground resistance to illegal orders. And that Congressional Democrats, especially those with military expertise, are in touch with them. We the public won't know the answer until it is, or isn't, too late.
If the military gets rid of the women, gets rid of non-white and gets rid of Latinos how many are left? The military is a very multi-cultural working class institution. This may be MAGA's biggest mistake. Lots of magas have military backgrounds and what Hegseth did was very unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.
I grew up as a Vietnam era liberal, but the older I'm getting and the more I'm seeing of our military as an institution the more I like it. They tried to keep us out of Iraq, knowing it would be a disaster.
I am proud of our military leaders and their honorable resistance to shit on their oath they took to our country.
Thanks, Phil. What do you think about the possibility of a military resistance or pushback being treated by trump as a coup, with chaos to follow(?). His greed and graft and pathological lack of empathy drive us to precipices we never thought we’d see….
As likely I would wish it I just don’t think it will happen but if it did I would expect them to March into the the White House and escort him out . The issue is who do they place in charge ( assuming JD Vance has disappeared to the hills ) because the house leader is a moron too. So they would have to announce an election. But that takes time. Meanwhile some MAGA supporters will be running around with guns shouting but I am pretty sure they can be sorted. Now question - where does the police and national guard sit . Let’s assume they tuck in behind the coup that leaves ICE 🧊 who I think will be running for their lives from mobs now emblazoned by the coup. Of course what that might kick off is an emboldened putin , who attacks Europe , China moves on Taiwan and the Middle East rises against Israel. 🤦🏻♂️
That sounds great. But members of the military FOLLOWED Trump's illegal orders to blow up "drug boats" (carrying "water drugs" lol) off the coast of Venezuela. Why did they do that? They must have known the orders were illegal. The problem is that when the generals and admirals are all in a room together they can sit stonily and appear not to be responding to Trump and Hegseth's crazed antics. But when they are back at their posts and are ordered individually to do something illegal, how many of them will refuse? Very few. Those that do will be removed from their posts. They will be replaced by cult members (there are plenty in the military). Little by little, step by step, they are drawn into increasingly illegal territory until eventually they follow orders with little second thought. That is how the fascists disarm the military leadership and take over our military.
Thankfully, Frau, we know perfectly well the insanely fool "leaders" they saw.
All 800 men and women of superior training, highest standards, we know they saw their two "leaders" technically in chain of command above them both manifestly display first-class incompetence, unpreparedness, lack of discipline, ignorance, and foppery.
So far, so good. They've been fired, demoted, or retired because of staying honorable rather than kowtowing to the deplorable, despicable, corrupt, dangerous, unpatriotic morons.
There were some tough conversations that night as they tried to figure out what to do to save the constitution they took an oath to protect and defend.
1) is it under attack? Yup
2) is this a real threat or just yapping? Yup
3) what are the paths forward? Removal or ‘temporary military’ leadership?
4) just wait for the sled-district and a rise in the American people? 70 million sat it out
Perhaps Pete Hegseth inadvertently gave a large gift to the Republic. Pulling in the top brass from around globe was probably a troubling enough signal to the admirals and generals. But the speeches themselves provided our military leaders with an up-close-and-personal look at the caliber of men purportedly leading them and how little grasp they have of our history, their Constitutional role, and their limits.
Hegseth and Trump should have these conferences monthly - their mental stupidity, their lack of support for ALL the American people, and their attempts to destroy the Constitution are so obvious...
The resulting sun of common sense will surely shine into the minds of all but the most extreme cultists.
I dunno. Trump still enjoys an 80% approval rate among Republicans. I posted on Facebook about Trump's incoherent speech and a MAGA friend commented that he saw "nothing wrong with it." These people exist in another dimension.
tRump has shit-canned the lamentable Antoni nomination, so there's that. And the 161-page opinion by federal district Judge Wm. Young finding against tRump's foreign aid cuts, but also included much, much more...in fact a bright clarion call for democrats and constitutionalists across the country to hold firm against tRumpian/Project 2025 depredations and outright fascistic actions.
Bit by bit, one by one, a resistance wall is building, and because of rank incompetence from top to bottom of tRump 2.0, we the people can in fact overcome the unprecedented attacks upon our way of life, as dismal a prospect as that may appear, especially in light of stories coming out of Chicago concerning late-at-night urban warfare raids on an apartment building that was reminiscent of IDF commando assaults throughout Gaza.
You assume that the destruction caused by Putin’s Apprentice and his cabal is unintentional and due to stupidity. An alternative explanation is that the destruction is intentional on behalf of America’s enemies and private interests allied with them. Our billionaires identify more with Putin and his fascist dictatorship and oligarchs than with America’s democratic republic. Peter Thiel has made it clear he supports Curtis Yarvin’s pathological fascination with dictatorships and desire to do away with our democracy.
Corporatists were the drivers for Chile, Uraguay, Brazil and Argentina's economic collapse with repression, imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of dissidents and the "disappearing" of thousands. The regime, of which Trump is the titular leader, is using Shock Doctrine to collapse the economy so they can implement "emergency measures" - privatize everything ( look at what they have done to the military during Iraq and Afghanistan - everything but war fighting done by contractors at HUGE expense) and shrink the government, privatizing SSA, Education, and eliminating everything i.e.EPA etc...
It won't be long before the MAGA factions turn on each other. The MAGA coalition of plutocracts, racists, grifters, and religious fanatics have nothing in common. It's very likely they'll try to get the US into a war to distract the proles. If they fail to do this, as the economy implodes, they will turn on eachother. They will drag the entire country down with them.
Marjorie Taylor Green (who is pretty odd) is breaking with Trump over Epstein and Gaza.
From NYT:
“The cost of health care is killing people,” she said. “That should be the top issue. Cost of living, electrical bills haven’t gone down, they’ve gone up. They’re dramatically higher, cost of food has gone up.”
She added: “In Congress, I don’t think these are the things we are prioritizing. It’s been border, immigration. Democrat candidates are talking about those things.”
They have something sadly, pathetically in common, Chris.
Testing.
All their kids must attend schools where the only measure of that of the system, devised by neutered elites, to neuter their own kids, too. Turn them all into depersonalized automatons to serve the corporate predators without question, ever.
Remember, Chris, in testing none of the subjects may ever ask a human, personal, or any other type of question. Only the faraway, anonymous, corporate elites may do that. Testing promotes a world where everything neatly fits in groups other elites manage or demagogue. All activity follows myths of linear-simple 1-2-3 causality. Again, all the more suitable for predator elites to package us.
I believe Biden had ability to control the DOJ and remove Garland for delaying prosecutions. He should have put Trump in jail. Lincoln made a mistake not to prosecute but the 14th Amendment was intended to block insurrectionists from holding office. Agree that SCOTUS is corrupt and makes totally political decisions that destroy the rule of law.
Clearly some of the rats will jump ship and run, so who will be the
New’ leaders, same as the old, RP Stevie Miller the wormtongue of America is mostly in charge at this point, as all decision go through Donny-John and he is the gate-keeper, and the nexus of evil.
I actually think who is in charge is divided up. Steven Miller is in charge of immigration and ICE. RFK is in charge of HHS. Russel Vaught is in charge of undermining government institutions. Trump and his billionaire buddies are in charge of the economy and finance.
If the Epstein files ever come close to being released, expect ultimate chaos in this administration distraction, invading cities, potential threats of war
It is more than unambiguous that Hegseth and Trump are preparing us for a 20th century battle, when in fact, the next wars will be fought by drones, AI, and cyber capabilities.
We don’t need men doing pushups, pull-ups, while clean shaven and using steroids. We need PhD’s, computer scientists, engineers, and other soldiers with other cerebral skill sets.
As for the Hatch Act, that’s the least of our worries; especially since they been breaking this law and well as Emoluments and others since his first term.
“Last Thursday, President Donald Trump issued National Security
and Organized Political Violence.” It creates a national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and dismantle organized political violence and domestic terrorism, identifying indicators of a potential domestic terrorist as the expression of “anti-Christian” or “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views. NSPM-7 directs the federal government to disrupt groups “before” they result in violent political acts. In other words, pre-crime.”—Ken Klippenstein
This memorandum could be used as a pressure point against democrats, and their supporters as Trump doubles or triples the Terrorist Watch List with people who are not terrorists, but meet Trump’s nefarious definition of people of interest or targets of his “war from within.”
Bottom line: No one has been talking about this issue except Miles Taylor and Ken Klippenstein. However, Trump could easily target anyone he considers a threat, and under the current laws, he could easily get away with it, making democrats, and democratic supporters fear for their lives. IMHO…:)
I'm also looking at the timing of this address to the military. The last big NO KINGS march, attended by ~5 million protesters, overshadowed trump's abysmal military parade and created an embarrassment for the administration. The next NO KINGS rally is expected to be bigger and it's odd that hegseth/trump's address came just a few weeks before the planned October 18 date for that rally.
The "next wars" will be fought with disinformation on social media. Except it's not "next", it's now, and the US lost. Post cold war, absent the real threat from the USSR, the very wealthy no longer had a gun held to their heads, so to speak. They realized that there was nothing stopping them from dropping their fake embrace of democratic values. So they resumed their plan to dismantle the "New Deal" and return the bulk of the population to 1890s style serfdom.
Capitalism and Christianity are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, so grouping them with "American" is beyond bizarre. One can fervently believe in and advocate for tightly fettered capitalism and separation of church and state while being perfectly patriotic and loyal to the Constitution.
Thank you! This should have already been frontpage news as well as being amplified on broadcast and cable news. A few more folks than you mentioned have been discussing it here on SubStack.
Trump being an imbecile is the natural end-point of a Republican Party that has spent half a century deriding science, expertise, and knowledge while elevating ignorance and superstition. From the 1980s push to teach creationism to RFK Jr.'s wiping out medical research in favor of woo-based "healing," Republicans have done everything they can to make America dumber--and Donald Trump is the avatar of that, the acme of their ambition.
And Trump's own personality flaws mean he must always be the smartest person in the room. So he surrounds himself with people who are demonstrably dumber than he is (bonus points of the person was a Fox News personality!). The results are what we now have in Washington, and plain as day in the White House and the Republican Congress. (The Rightwing Supreme Court justices are too smart to be dumb, so they're doing what they need to to ensure Trump is triumphant over the dreaded liberals.)
Actually, I'm reminded of the old Rodney Dangerfield flick "Back to School." Near the beginning of the movie, we see Rodney (who is rich) presiding over a board meeting. All of the board members are grossly obese. Rodney crows, "One way to be thin is to surround yourself with fat people!"
Trump surrounding himself with morons strikes me as similar.
That's a good point about how the smartest guy in the room, when given real power, will prefer to surround himself with imbeciles - and not just any imbecile, only ass-kissing imbeciles.
But there is some real cunning that has gone into Project 2025, and no one anticipated that MAGA hatred of America (the America that actually exists, vs the one they imagine) would manage to fire in so many directions all at once. Every day is a new outrage, and that's part of why it becomes so difficult to make a stand against any particular one.
Yes- we’ve got to follow both the comic clown car and the armored SUV w tinted windows ferrying the cunning clowns. The cunning ones in the SUV must really hate most of America. They want to make us poorer, sicker, and less informed.
It is best to keep their definition of 'merit' in mind. 'Merit' to them means straight, white, male, christian nationalist. But we need to consider why they are in office at all. We have a part of the polity (about 22.5% of the American population voted for this clown show) who are incurious - the low information voters. Learning useful stuff is hard work and they would rather not. Since they don't know anything useful, they seek leaders who are the same way. tRump is barely literate - I have seen a quote attributed to Neil Casler that tRump couldn't read his cue cards on The Apprentice. In tRump 1, he shot from the hip but had real experts in the administration to pull on the reins. Now he is surrounded by morons loaded with personality disorders whose only qualification is they will follow blindly. Only if he hurts enough of his base and the non-voters do we stand a chance of ridding ourselves of him.
Hard agree. Based on the election work I've done since I retired I've come to the unhappy conclusion that personal suffering is the only way to reach low information voters or non-voters. Otherwise they are simply not interested.
It's excruciating to watch (and experience), but I think that we as a nation have to face the hard consequences of our choices.
You’re so right Chelsea Girl especially when it comes to gun safety. Until MAGA loses a child their mother or their beloved neighbor to gun violence we will never see the end. Millions of Americans do everything they can to protect their right to stockpile their guns to protect themselves not understanding that one day someone they love is going to be a victim of gun violence. Make that make sense.
Trump is only a likely stage in a far bigger PROBLEM for our beloved, highly functional (or used to be) American democratic republic. We The People clearly did not reckon with the effects of our own complacency and sloth. Whether through ignorance or disinterest, ignoring the destruction and devastation that is inevitable in an inadequately regulated capitalist economy has permitted today's emergent crises. Far too many of us have taken a mostly non-participatory attitude, when we know that NO democracy can survive that. We have grossly neglected good -- No! EXCELLENT!! -- education and a host of civic duties (like voting, active support for candidates, consistent feedback to public officials, service on advisory groups and volunteer organizations, working on elections at all levels, marching and demonstrating, writing thoughtful letters to officials and news media...and MORE!). We have permitted a decades-long infiltration of fascistic, pseudochristo-fanatical kleptocrats to infiltrate our government at every level, rewrite our legal frameworks, to operate with impunity outside of the law, to abuse The People and to disrupt wantonly our international relationships.
Democracy takes work, commitment and stamina. We've been asleep at the switches, and slow to awake.
Yes as well delve the depth of incompetence…sort of like turning over the compost heap, we find ever more worms. But in their place worms are good…even useful. Feeding on shit and turning it into soil is useful work. Just not as our leaders…
Russell Vought is also on my last nerve. In my opinion Heritage Foundation is a terrorist organization. It becomes clearer&clearer that 6 conservative SC justices work for Heritage vs US Constitution&American people.
Stephen Miller apparently ordered the destroying non violent boats, killing people in international waters. Isn’t this a war crime?
It’s not a crime on American soil. It was a military attack, even though it was ordered extrajudicially by someone who didn’t have the power to order it. Vietnam for instance was not a declared war.
Lt Calley was tried by the military. I’m just asking how do we deal with civilian Stephen Miller in these circumstances, not about semantics.
Not sure what an illegal military act in international waters ordered by someone who doesn’t have that power is called?
Lt. Calley was tried and convicted of murder. The only difference here would be that Calley was tried by the military, since he was part of it at the time. Miller should be tried in a civilian court.
I’m not saying I know how this would be handled. I’m saying murder on foreign soil is more complex. See Amanda Knox.
Stephen Miller, who does not have authority, using U.S. military to attack noncombatants in open water, or in a foreign country’s territorial waters, probably not something American civilian court can address.
That is the tragedy here. Republicans have become totally disconnected from the citizens they represent in favor of the interests which line their pockets. Disgusting.
That's okay--the citizens Republicans represent have become totally disconnected from their own interests. Those citizens will vote vote vote to slash the very programs they rely on to survive because Republicans in general--and Trump in particular--give them permission to be their worst possible selves.
Many of these people were not voting at all. Only the 24 hr hate fest on social media, which has become one long Trump indoctrination, is motivating them. They're wrapped up in hate and fear, with a good dose of gun culture. This group is producing lots of mass killers.
TV news has a gloss of reality that Fox uses to indoctrinate. They run stories stimulating fear with maga politicians citing fake statistics, attack dog snippets of maga opposition, lots of violence run on repeat, interspersed with human interest cuteness.
The reason those public welfare programs are so needed, and need to be so huge, is the gaping maw of inequitable wealth in the USA. Our capitalist economy, like a fine, powerful thoroughbred racehorse without adequate restraints and handling, has become dangerous and destructive, bringing tyranny, lawlessness, oppression and regression to savagery ever closer.
We get the government and the society that we EARN.
They were the very creators and primary funders of The Heritage Foundation and the so called "Tea Party". The remaining one, Charles, ought to be tried for treason, right along with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.
I don't think it is clear how the generals meeting came about. I suspect Stephen Miller. My guess is that Stephen Miller understands that some generals will balk at using their troops against Americans in cities and / or to deport immigrants and thus, initiated this meeting to let them know the generals would be fired if they balk. Yes, Hegseth implemented, maybe even thinks the idea was his, and thinks he is in a movie.
Their oath gives them right and responsibility to refuse illegal orders, those that go against the Constitution and to protect citizens and homeland.
They take this oath very seriously, and it is part of their core military culture. Hegseth clearly missed that part, but their oath is not to the imbeciles in office but to We the People.
It's important to note that the VERY first people purged were all the JAG officers (Judge Advocate Generals). They're the folk who advise commanders what is legal & what is not -- both according to the Constitution AND the Unified Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
The UCMJ is thorough & certainly conforms to precedent (unlike the current Supine Court). The regime & its actors have already violated it (frequently).
As far back as January, SOMEONE (Miller? Flynn? Vought?) was planning for this moment. That same fascist (no, there IS no other word) has plotted out the endgame. Whatever happens, there will be blood.
I cannot think of enough curses to rain down on their heads. I default to my "long & painful end."
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
I believe Miller is behind 90% of Trump’s actions. Trump is too demented to come up w these plans and strategies. MSM is too naive or distracted to investigate seriously Miller and his tactics and impact.
Yes, serious and sophisticated journalists would investigate the specific roles of Vought, Miller, and others who are likely involved. As I said, MSM seems dead despite the obvious signs of a seriously ill or demented president who seems unable to complete a sentence much less destroy so many critical departments in less than a year!! We need another pair like Bernstein and Woodward
I can imagine Scalia objecting to DJT frequently and often. Indeed I can imagine Ginsberg and Scalia being on common ground when it comes to DJT, and the lunacy of many of the kakistocratic members of the DJT administration. Their pairing is more likely to my mind than Scalia paired with Gorsuch, Alito or Kavanagh despite Scalia's and the latter group's common ground about the Unitary Executive. When Ginsberg and Scalia were alive they were often scheduled to be together at seminars and lectures. Both wrote of their respect for each other as people and as Justices despite cavernous differences in legal philosophy.
It will be instructive to see how many ACA enrollees will be forced to drop their coverage because of the loss of tax credits will make keeping their insurance coverage untenable.
It will likely mean insurance companies will take a hit to their bottom line at the loss of revenue, hospitals will be burdened with more uninsured patients arriving at their emergency rooms, businesses seeing more absenteeism due to employee illnesses, more sick children reducing payments to schools as well as a host of other foreseeable results.
The damage to the economy for just those reasons will be considerable. How many other, unforeseen consequences will there be? What kind of fool would want to put the country through that?
In any population the 5% highest cost ppl account for 50% of the total cost.
Insurance works best when it's universal or at least covers almost all ppl at risk.
When it doesn't, as you note, the lowest risk ppl drop out, which leaves the higher cost ppl, so premiums have to rise, but this means the lower risk ppl will drop out, leaving the more expensive ppl, so premiums have to rise, but this means the lower risk ppl will drop out...until you're left with the people with catastrophic costs that 99.9% of ppl can't afford.
It's a vicious cycle ending in no one covered because insurance is prohibitively expensive.
Removing subsidies for healthy ppl creates a vicious cycle of premium increases ending in collapse.
When health care insurance is voluntary and expensive, ppl at low risk will drop out, but sick ppl will stay in.
That means the average cost of care/person in the insured group goes up, so premiums have to rise, which makes more low risk ppl drop out, which raises the average cost of care/person, so premiums have to rise, which makes more low risk ppl drop out...
In any population, 5% of the ppl account for 50% of the cost, and 10% account for 2/3 of the cost.
Making insurance affordable requires covering everybody, and only covering everybody makes insurance affordable.
This, plus keeping private insurance out (it seeks to increase costs bc their profit is merely a % of total costs) is why universal public health care insurance saves money overall.
The incompetence of our leadership feels like a very thin reed to find hope for our country.
Even Hannah Arendt would agree that the incompetence of Hitler's minions did not prevent authoritarianism to take hold in Nazi Germany with horrific consequences.
That it stimulates pushback on the margins is encouraging, but we cannot rely on them to drop the football on the 10-yard line without a stout defense and some of their players to wake up and switch sides.
Not enough though: the daily destruction goes on almost unnoticed while we focus on the shenanigans of Hegseth and Trump. Beware of the costs of reconstruction if nothing is done to stop the madness.
I'm afraid your country is in for decades of pain and suffering caused by these fools. They are devoid of class, integrity and empathy, while being utterly incompetent and the rot is is almost incomprehensibly deep. If you even get another administration, reversing the damage they've inflicted will be a colossal cost over many years. Regaining your former allies trust may take even longer.
Spot on and the best part is that it shows a way for every American to participate. Don’t buy anything you don’t have to buy. Sure groceries, gas, whatever. But avoid big business, buy small. It doesn’t sound like much but it gets the attention of corporate chieftains just as the Disney boycott did. Maybe it’s not sexy but it beats having a political party ask for money. This can be very real.
Professor Krugman: you asked (rhetorically, i know) why the rethuglicans and why the orange rapist never saw the dramatic cuts to ACA subsidies coming? it's because they don't read: either they don't want to read something as big and boring as the ugly bill, or they are unable to read.
They have their own primo health care... "Many People Are Saying" that IF Congress & the Administration were enrolled themselves in the ACA, or if the entire Nation had Universal Healthcare a la Sweden & most every European nation, Canada, Japan, etc., we just wouldn't have these grave problems.
The overall plan seems akin to the old boiling frogs analogy. Americans just don't seem to be reacting adequately to increasingly massive hits to norms, morals and basic truths.
That's absolutely the right analogy. With each day just a little dumber than the day before, it's almost like we have to hope for them to ratchet things up so quickly it becomes unbearable. That seems to be the strategy behind forcing a government shutdown; they want to destroy government (the deep state beast), so tempt them to do it BEFORE the mid-terms, and see how people like "the real thing."
Yes, his administration is full of incompetent dunces. What’s concerning is that as the administration begins to crumble, they still have their hands on the levers of power. What havoc will they cause as the ship begins to sink. Desperate people can be dsngerous.
Isn't that the point? I am looking at this as a foreigner from the outside, but those people are so cartoonishly opposed to their job descriptions (the abusive alcoholic as the war guy, the brain damaged heroin addict for health etc.) that I broadly assumed Trump knew how idiotic these appointments were and just did it anyhow because he detests the US populace so much that he thinks this is the best they deserve. I am not under the impression that he wants the US to outlast him.
Look, I agree.
Trump is a scorpion. He stings because it's his nature.
Stephen Harper was our prime minister for nine years, and it was clear he hated this country and intended to do us harm for perceived grievances. (He was from Alberta and wanted to make Ontario pay for being the largest and richest province.)
He's the only head of government here ever to hold that distinction, and we still haven't fully recovered.
I am no fan of Harper, but I think his politics was the product of his ideology and not a hatred of Canada. He's a smart guy, just very blinkered (and yes, a bit unduly pro-Alberta and thus con-central-Canada). But nothing like as destructive as Trump, and not personally corrupt, and not demented. Not a fair comparison at all (and nothing like his pea-brained nasty successor as leader of that party.)
Harper got away with what he could and no more. Canadians are not as naive and gullible as Americans. If they were, I would expect the far right in Canada to inflict more damage on the working class.
I agree that Canadians have a much stronger sense of community and its mutual obligations and that gives us a tremendous advantage. We tend to bounce back.
I only mean to illustrate the point that there are those who seek elected office not to serve the people but to do them harm.
For spite.
The fools in America are the Democrats who controlled the federal government from 2021 to 2025 and failed to enforce the law against insurrection to put Trump in jail and prevent him from being elected. Trump, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on the Supreme Court are following the carefully designed plans in PROJECT 2025 to continue an insurrection in 2025 that began on January 6, 2021, and dismember the federal government beginning in 2025 to harm 99% of Americans but transfer wealth to the richest 1%.
Democracy cannot exist when people can elect a criminal felon to be president who is an insurrectionist committed to continuing the insurrection to build a lawless fascist autocracy enforced by a massive federal police force that violates the Constitution by overriding state legal authority, and the news media ignores the ongoing insurrection.
Biden failed to stop Trump after the insurrection on Jan 6 which continued in the 2024 election. All votes for Trump were illegal. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump was an insurrectionist. But the US Supreme Court violated federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) by (1) supporting Trump, who was a committed insurrectionist, to get elected in 2024 and become dictator on Day One, as he had said he would. And (2) ruling that states cannot enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment which banned Trump as an insurrectionist from holding office. The SCOTUS decision incorrectly said that a law from Congress was needed to define the criteria for enforcing the law against an insurrectionist when a law did exist (18 U.S. Code § 2383) which was passed by Congress. The SCOTUS decision was an act by criminal felons (6 justices on SCOTUS appointed by Republican presidents) which supported Trump’s insurrection. As mentioned, the insurrection continued during the 2024 election, but Biden failed to invoke the Insurrection Act and reject all votes for Trump which were illegal.
Federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) defines the criminal actions of insurrection in language that is clear and easy to understand:
“Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
Democracy requires “we the people” educate themselves on the federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) that makes insurrection a felony crime and demand Democrats in control of 15 states enforce a new state law to written modeled after the federal law against the ongoing insurrection.
Now that Trump is in office and the insurrection has continued, Democrats in control of states must begin to enforce the law against insurrection to save democracy. Read my post.
https://williamlmiller.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-trump-republicans-and
I think Canadians would've turned towards the far-right for the worst had it not been for Trump's re-election and ensuing buffonary. He was a cautionary take for Canada who riled them up and rallied them against the Canadian Trump: Pierre Poilievre. He was poised to become the next PM without the Trump factor.
We lack the strong evangelical base.
Consider yourself lucky!
I think he had contempt for the values of the majority of Canadians, which even under the old Progressive Conservatives, are communitarian with a strong social safety net. His successor is worse, but the ideology remains and has evolved into something uglier, as it has in the US. It worries me when the Conservatives are normalized as a soft version of the Republicans. In Nova Scotia they have passed and attempted to pass some pretty troubling legislation, limiting public oversight, the bureaucracy, and media access. The latest was strong mayor powers and rifles for twelve year olds. They should be political pariahs, but they are the official opposition. Over 30 percent of us voted for them just like Americans, so not sure we should be congratulating ourselves. Libertarianism , and this new darker version, has not proven a success for any country that has embraced it. It has been disastrous for the UK and the US. We have been lucky to get off as easily as we did, and we’re not out of the woods yet.
I live in BC. It’s not too bad here.
Just in general, or the Conservatives aren’t too bad there? Ours seem to be inspired by the American version. It’s pathetic how they ape their positions. What bothers me is that they consistently undermine good governance. They removed the tolls on both our bridges in an insane attempt to relieve traffic congestion. They have worsened it while putting the responsibility for maintenance and replacement on the whole province. They are pushing resource extraction while weakening oversight environmentally and financially. They are a disaster. They broke their own fixed election date to call a snap election in the middle of a postal strike and won a majority with the worst turnout in history. I’ll give them credit for a school lunch program and wind turbines, but the governance stuff is really worrying. They also breed resentment between rural and urban areas and suburban and urban areas. They took over the boards of our universities. During their first term the lawyer to the premiers chief executive, a local developer, was put on the board of our art college where he pressured the college president to sell valuable college property to “guess who”. Oh and they hired a bunch of these “travelling nurses” that cost a fortune. They followed the New Brunswick Conservatives on this one. I suspect the company is owned by a donor.
I guess this is a "tomato/tomato" situation then.
To be clear, Harper had hatred- of Ottawa, of public servants, of Toronto business elites, of Toronto private school elites, of his father, of Liberals. He was/is brilliant though. Luckily his minions were (usually) able to keep him in check as were the guardrails of the Westminster government system.
I saw and see no evidence of his brilliance.
I saw plenty of evidence of evil, however.
Seriously? Not even a link but the text of a link. Dumbest spam bot yet. Reported.
I've always held that it would take a series of disasters to penetrate the American consciousness and with these buffoons in charge it is only a matter of time. What we have had so far is just a taste of what could go wrong.
Every Republican administration is a disaster from Nixon on.
And it's not linear. It's exponential.
Immiserated white Americans are second to none in voting against their own interests.
CIA director William Casey to Ronald Reagan in 1981: "“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Harper doesn't even come close (he's also from Leaside, not Alberta). He's maybe comparable to somebody like Boris Johnson or Ted Cruz who apes aspects of right wing populism for votes. And the Harper years were genuinely not that bad (we weathered the 2008 recession better than the US because the liberals had avoided bank deregulation).
First, Harper moved to Alberta because he preferred it there.
Second, the Harper years were worse than you remember.
Third, we weathered the 2008 recession because Obama went Keynesian and Harper was forced to follow suit. Harper -- you have probably forgotten -- wanted to go the austerity route, like the Brits, who are still struggling as a result.
We dodged a bullet at best.
The man was corrupt and full of hatred.
He's not as bad as Trump because, c'mon, who is?
But the principle is the same.
He governed with contempt for the people and the country.
I can think of no other American leader worse than Donny-John, who has a very long history of fraud, predation, and stupidity…I do think there is a lesson here for us to learn…
The US loves fake celebrity and silly/stupid and the NewYuck press, and then NBC, saw an opportunity to make easy money…why? I know he was the “it’s well past your deadline, your head hurts, easy quote for many…don’t have news, ‘Call DT.’” It’s why Stern had so much fun with him.
Now we all suffer…
It’s almost a religion…Rush! Faux!
Subprime mortgages caused the 2008 crash. They never caught on in Canada.
Yeah, that's true, Frau. Our banks are too well-regulated.
But the recession was world wide, thanks to the collapse of the financial market.
Mark Carney grew up in Edmonton, so also an Albertan.
So's Danielle Smith.
What's your point?
Carney's a cosmopolitan, went to Harvard and Oxford and had an internationally successful career as both the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the first non-British Governor of the Bank of England.
Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, had to skitter off to Alberta to win a seat in parliament.
Anything else?
I live in one of the redder parts of the U.S., but that doesn't make me a Republican.
I'm not trying to speak for Norman here, but I think he might be trying to point out that one can paint with too broad a brush.
YMMV.
This administration has one guiding principle – pleasing Trump, making him look good. In service of that principle, it uses three tools, cruelty, corruption and incompetence. Cruelty to cow. Its critics. Corruption to reward its supporters. And incompetence as a requirement of its hires, to hire only those who are weak and unable to oppose their Master lest they be banished
Yes.
This is known, technically, as a "dictatorship".
For Chump it has always been about the grift,and he's grabbing everything he can,and too many are just giving in. We are sinking fast into the abyss.
I"m not so sure he's smart enough to realize how idiotic his appointments are. He's only aware of their fealty. His obsession with loyalty is but one of his many characteristics that blind him to reality.
Trump appears to believe that reality TV is reality. The guy has no clue about anything beyond his circle of grifters. He couldn't care less about the country, or really anything beyond lining his own pockets. It's really weird actually. He's only got a few years left, at best, and he's still scrambling to grab a few more dollars. Maybe he's under the mistaken impression that St Peter can be bribed?
Yeah, that seems to be his pathology.
His kids are all in on the grifting.
In these you can see the rules, celebrity, saw them on TV, other people of TV like them, and he still think he ‘created’ the greatest show ever…so tell him that and get a job. Of course this fits with hiring his defense attorneys…
Maybe donald doesn’t realize how stupid his appointments are but rest assured that those pulling the strings behind the scenes (heritage foundation ) are fully aware and they applaud the use of people in those positions that allows them to make the less obvious and more structural changes to our government while the fools distract us
He knows and that’s why they are there. Idiots are always more loyal than thinkers.
Russell Vought seems to be using Trump to push his Project 2025 ideas. I don’t think he’s an idiot unfortunately.
He knows that smart people don't like him.
How could some who is completely incompetent even recognize incompetence in others? What he is afraid of are those who are competent. He will abuse them much less hire them.
Trump could not have done it alone. He had the help of the Republican Senators who voted to confirm obviously incompetent cabinet members.
Makes sense. The relevance of Trump being mentally incompetent is probably overrated anyway. I am German, our governing coalition has instituted illegal performative racism as central pillar of their politics, is about to axe benefits claiming the poor have to easy a life (but does nothing to address multibillion Euro tax evasion), rants against windmills and pushes towards fossil fuels (even if that is hurting the industries they purportedly want to strengthen) and so on and so on (if you make a list of what US progressives like about Europe it is the list of things German conservatives have tried to destroy since at least the 80s, but made headway only when the Social Democrates joined them), but since they wear well fitting suits and speak in complete sentences people refuse to accept these are crazy radicals not completetly matching (yet), but also not unlike the Trumpian, camp. Maybe having a visibly compromised guy in charge actually helps to organize resistance. Please liberate your country soon, so you can liberate mine should it become necessary (again).
We must never forget, vote every one of them out…if we ever vote again.
Yes, I wrote the Republican senator in our state and the reply I got was: I believe presidents have the right to chose anyone they want for their cabinet. 😳 While also claiming he took his advise and consent role seriously.🤯
That is the same answer that I got from the lesser MAGA senator (Todd Young) to whom I wrote. He also had a visit from J.D. Vance to keep him in line, as well as an organized text campaign to pressure him. (For some reason, those texts kept showing up, unwanted, on my phone, to which I do not give out the number.) My other senator drank the Kool-Aid as a representative. I am still angry that the Indiana Democratic party could not muster a strong candidate to run against Jim Banks in the 2024 election for an OPEN seat.
True, and Project 2025 has been years in the making. Don't expect the people behind the project to give up the battle so easily. And don't expect a change of heart of the business leaders who smelled the opportunity to get lower taxes and fewer regulations and donated millions to the Trump campaign.
Trump has some super-powers and that's his charisma, ability to read and respond to his loyal viewers, and lie without any guilt or shame.
However, I think he's a useful tool for the Christian Nationalists- Project 2025 and the tech oligarchs. They're making common cause because they want autocracy so they can rule. Each faction in their own way things they have "humanities" best interest at heart.
A recent article said "“Wrestling with Donald Trump: Why We Ignore the Wrestling Connection at Our Peril” from Philosophy Unleashed (October 2024). This piece provides an extensive analysis of how Trump’s political style mirrors professional wrestling techniques. There are others. You can only create KAYFABE with idiots and idiots watching is my answer to you, Eike. The article also appeared in the Guardian. Please read to understand what is going on. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/14/donald-trump-us-politics-world-wrestling-entertainment. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/24/donald-trump-wwe-wrestling-linda-mcmahon.
and other articles and papers have been written: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/socf.13024
KAYFABE!
Trump craves admiration and loyalty and lacks all empathy. As the epitomic narcissist, he does not care about much else.
Trump “thinks” that he is competent and therefore his choices are competent just as he is. He mounts to the cabin and drives full steam ahead! They stoke the fire and pull the whistle for him. Too bad the bridge is out. Makes me recall Mr. Toad.
He's sabotaging our country, aligning with our enemies, eliminating security, cyber, etc etc -- and wants to carve up the world, as written in the Network States description (See Gil Duran & Dave Troy among others) -- we take the western hemisphere, Putin, the eastern, Ukraine. of course & Europe - not sure how China fits in but of course they take Taiwan -- the Ethno-Fascists (Christian Nationalists or Fascist Nationalist - not sure what to call these guys anymore) -- it's happening every day, right in front of us. How to govern a country when folks have no services, safety net is beyond me. But if the military doesn't push back in a big way, how do we get out of this?
Our calls and daily protests are not enough.
I would love to see a day (or longer) of MUSIC - every symphony, musician, tambourine man, school band get out onto the streets and march everywhere, throughout the country -- screaming into the void at a specific time - or out of windows might also wake people up.
And of course Portland is organizing Naked Bike Ride in protest. Can you imagine if that caught on??
In solidarity and toward together everyone!
I think the naked bike riders will be a bust -- they'll just be arrested for indecent exposure.
Eike, Trump does not know how idiotic his appointed Cabinet members are.
I think Trump is dependant on his handlers, who have ulterior motives. (Autocratic govt for the rich, maybe.)
They want incompetants in place to avoid opposition to their plans.
Trump himself is after the "glory", of being the centre of attention, & grifting so many.
Eike, you're assuming that he knows that they were idiotic appointments. He's an idiot, in the throws of dementia who thinks that he should get the Nobel peace prize, a malignant narcissist. He appointed them because they do and say what he wants. Ergo, in his so-called brain, they are good appointments.
I don't believe this at all. Trump's probably slowing down with age and he's never been that interested in the details of governing. But I pretty sure he's across the principles of project 2025 and generally agrees. He remains able to bedazzle his followers. His talks were always crazy and are always aimed at his base. To them, even if things don't make sense, at least they annoy the "elites".
Bingo!
The "levers of power," pkidd?
We just saw 800 of the chief holders of power respond stonily to the antics of years-long rapist, fraud, criminal Donald and life-long drunken Hegseth.
These generals, admirals, and their enlisted and other staff together have centuries of dedicated, skilled, honorable experience. That's our watershed, our Rubicon, our demarcation from the flimsy antics of wannabe dictators with no literacy, no humanity, no honor.
Well, let’s see what they do. I thought Harvard would stand up against trump. And the Supreme Court. And the National Guard. So many honorable people seem to crumble when their jobs are at risk. I hope our military leaders aren’t among them.
Trump over the last ten years has blown many of our assumptions about people and institutions sky high. We now see the true face of many of our fellow Americans, including our former friends. We now see how many institutions--universities, corporations, media, Congress--are just full of cowardly careerists and opportunists. These people need to be purged somehow. We can't go back to the status quo ante Trump knowing what we now know. We need reform across the board. A reset. A reconstruction.
There’s a big difference between reform/reconstruction and purge. We’re living in the purge era of bigotry and racism where the worst side of humanity is let out unchecked.
The problem is that Trump &Co know perfectly well how the show/entertainment works and prevents any reflection or thought. Slogans replace assessments, lies prevent the search for truth, and greed replaces the common good.
Yes, Trump has permitted bigots and racists to act unchecked. And so we have learned who they are, such as former friends and family members. Being out in the open makes them vulnerable to our opposition.
My point about purging is directed at those careerists and opportunists who have exposed themselves as cowards, greedy or selfish, or all of these things. They give up their power to Trump for career or opportunity. They need to be purged and then reform and reconstruction can occur.
Chomsky best described these careerists/opportunists as people who "would make wonderful gas chamber attendants". Killing others in cold blood in record numbers would not be beyond them. We should never forget that.
You know, Schmiegelow, those three run together.
And, as Orwell explained in "Politics and the English Language," "slogans" of your triumvirate "Slogans . . . lies . . . and greed" comes first, as you say.
Kayfabe at its worst
Could mafioso-style threats explain the quick surrenders? And could flat-out vote cheating explain the surprise election results?
The careerists one might forgive, but not the billionaires. The US ended up with Trump mostly because the upper 0.1% have siphoned off the majority of the country's wealth while their corporate media stooges stoked infighting amongst the proles as a distraction. When Trump is driven out, the oligarch class needs to be dismembered. Never again can the US tolerate having the best government that money can buy.
Family members, too. I can't help but wonder how many marriages have ended because of MAGA.
The military is sworn to protect American citizens, not make war on them. Trump blatantly told them to be ready to make war on American citizens. Everyone knows that Trump's goal is martial law, guns on the sidewalks, tanks on the streets for authoritarianism, not protection. There is no national emergency, no war on our soil to warrant such a command.
That is an unconstitutional, immoral and illegal command they do not have to follow.
But I'm like you; what they do next is anybody's guess. They could save the country if they wanted. Is there anyone but people like you and me who wants to save us?
I lived and worked in Turkey for a few years. The surprise I got was up until Erdogan, for decades the Turkish public relied on their military to deal with unacceptable political leadership. They actively did which is why Erdogan went after the military quite quickly upon his rise.
That is THE question now. Given the challenge how will the Generals, Admirals and other Leaders respond. This is not as easy as it seems: "We can't break our Oaths, fuck Off Asshole". When to do what is always so dependent on so many factors...I wonder if they have had anyone competent "Wargame" the scenarios for them. I used to hate it, but sometimes deferral of a definite response is the best solution. I especially hate it at this time, because we all need to know if this idiocy does stop anywhere. I think and hope that Trumpolini and Kegstand made a strategic error in putting "the question" to the military leaders at this time.
Yes! Either you have the courage of your convictions or you don’t. Harkens back to compliance to & appeasement of Nazis.
🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞
Publicly, "responding stonily" was probably the right move. What we have to hope is that the generals and colonels who are loyal to the Constitution are finding each other and preparing for actual, on-the-ground resistance to illegal orders. And that Congressional Democrats, especially those with military expertise, are in touch with them. We the public won't know the answer until it is, or isn't, too late.
If the military gets rid of the women, gets rid of non-white and gets rid of Latinos how many are left? The military is a very multi-cultural working class institution. This may be MAGA's biggest mistake. Lots of magas have military backgrounds and what Hegseth did was very unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.
I grew up as a Vietnam era liberal, but the older I'm getting and the more I'm seeing of our military as an institution the more I like it. They tried to keep us out of Iraq, knowing it would be a disaster.
I am proud of our military leaders and their honorable resistance to shit on their oath they took to our country.
Sending the military into American cities IS an illegal order and they went
I share your sentiments.
But it's admittedly a thin thread of hope.
The Rubicon, after all, was crossed -- by an army that fell into line behind a dictator.
Thanks, Phil. What do you think about the possibility of a military resistance or pushback being treated by trump as a coup, with chaos to follow(?). His greed and graft and pathological lack of empathy drive us to precipices we never thought we’d see….
As likely I would wish it I just don’t think it will happen but if it did I would expect them to March into the the White House and escort him out . The issue is who do they place in charge ( assuming JD Vance has disappeared to the hills ) because the house leader is a moron too. So they would have to announce an election. But that takes time. Meanwhile some MAGA supporters will be running around with guns shouting but I am pretty sure they can be sorted. Now question - where does the police and national guard sit . Let’s assume they tuck in behind the coup that leaves ICE 🧊 who I think will be running for their lives from mobs now emblazoned by the coup. Of course what that might kick off is an emboldened putin , who attacks Europe , China moves on Taiwan and the Middle East rises against Israel. 🤦🏻♂️
That sounds great. But members of the military FOLLOWED Trump's illegal orders to blow up "drug boats" (carrying "water drugs" lol) off the coast of Venezuela. Why did they do that? They must have known the orders were illegal. The problem is that when the generals and admirals are all in a room together they can sit stonily and appear not to be responding to Trump and Hegseth's crazed antics. But when they are back at their posts and are ordered individually to do something illegal, how many of them will refuse? Very few. Those that do will be removed from their posts. They will be replaced by cult members (there are plenty in the military). Little by little, step by step, they are drawn into increasingly illegal territory until eventually they follow orders with little second thought. That is how the fascists disarm the military leadership and take over our military.
The military don’t applaud and cheer, it’s against protocol. Their silence tells us little of what they’re thinking.
Thankfully, Frau, we know perfectly well the insanely fool "leaders" they saw.
All 800 men and women of superior training, highest standards, we know they saw their two "leaders" technically in chain of command above them both manifestly display first-class incompetence, unpreparedness, lack of discipline, ignorance, and foppery.
I hope so. Pretty sure the military has lots of MAGAs.
And what do you think they’re gonna do to those generals? The purge has begun with the appointment of Anthony Tata.
So far, so good. They've been fired, demoted, or retired because of staying honorable rather than kowtowing to the deplorable, despicable, corrupt, dangerous, unpatriotic morons.
There were some tough conversations that night as they tried to figure out what to do to save the constitution they took an oath to protect and defend.
1) is it under attack? Yup
2) is this a real threat or just yapping? Yup
3) what are the paths forward? Removal or ‘temporary military’ leadership?
4) just wait for the sled-district and a rise in the American people? 70 million sat it out
5) who and how?
Perhaps Pete Hegseth inadvertently gave a large gift to the Republic. Pulling in the top brass from around globe was probably a troubling enough signal to the admirals and generals. But the speeches themselves provided our military leaders with an up-close-and-personal look at the caliber of men purportedly leading them and how little grasp they have of our history, their Constitutional role, and their limits.
He also gave the generals a chance for informal, unmonitored conversations.
Hegseth and Trump should have these conferences monthly - their mental stupidity, their lack of support for ALL the American people, and their attempts to destroy the Constitution are so obvious...
The resulting sun of common sense will surely shine into the minds of all but the most extreme cultists.
Please keep talking Mr. Felon.... early and often
I dunno. Trump still enjoys an 80% approval rate among Republicans. I posted on Facebook about Trump's incoherent speech and a MAGA friend commented that he saw "nothing wrong with it." These people exist in another dimension.
Again, I see gods’ hands, she is watching us to see what we do…
Or their sanity.
MAGA=Morons Are Governing America
I have a White tee shirt which has exactly that ...
people in the streets of Chicago love it!
There should be a “love” button in addition to “like.” Can I use this?
Agreed! One should be very mindful when poking bears as the reaction can go various ways.
Very true.
tRump has shit-canned the lamentable Antoni nomination, so there's that. And the 161-page opinion by federal district Judge Wm. Young finding against tRump's foreign aid cuts, but also included much, much more...in fact a bright clarion call for democrats and constitutionalists across the country to hold firm against tRumpian/Project 2025 depredations and outright fascistic actions.
Bit by bit, one by one, a resistance wall is building, and because of rank incompetence from top to bottom of tRump 2.0, we the people can in fact overcome the unprecedented attacks upon our way of life, as dismal a prospect as that may appear, especially in light of stories coming out of Chicago concerning late-at-night urban warfare raids on an apartment building that was reminiscent of IDF commando assaults throughout Gaza.
Anyone for "It's the darkest before the dawn"?
You assume that the destruction caused by Putin’s Apprentice and his cabal is unintentional and due to stupidity. An alternative explanation is that the destruction is intentional on behalf of America’s enemies and private interests allied with them. Our billionaires identify more with Putin and his fascist dictatorship and oligarchs than with America’s democratic republic. Peter Thiel has made it clear he supports Curtis Yarvin’s pathological fascination with dictatorships and desire to do away with our democracy.
Corporatists were the drivers for Chile, Uraguay, Brazil and Argentina's economic collapse with repression, imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of dissidents and the "disappearing" of thousands. The regime, of which Trump is the titular leader, is using Shock Doctrine to collapse the economy so they can implement "emergency measures" - privatize everything ( look at what they have done to the military during Iraq and Afghanistan - everything but war fighting done by contractors at HUGE expense) and shrink the government, privatizing SSA, Education, and eliminating everything i.e.EPA etc...
It won't be long before the MAGA factions turn on each other. The MAGA coalition of plutocracts, racists, grifters, and religious fanatics have nothing in common. It's very likely they'll try to get the US into a war to distract the proles. If they fail to do this, as the economy implodes, they will turn on eachother. They will drag the entire country down with them.
Marjorie Taylor Green (who is pretty odd) is breaking with Trump over Epstein and Gaza.
From NYT:
“The cost of health care is killing people,” she said. “That should be the top issue. Cost of living, electrical bills haven’t gone down, they’ve gone up. They’re dramatically higher, cost of food has gone up.”
She added: “In Congress, I don’t think these are the things we are prioritizing. It’s been border, immigration. Democrat candidates are talking about those things.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-maga-split.html
When the cult loses MTG, you know they're in trouble.
Indeed.
They have something sadly, pathetically in common, Chris.
Testing.
All their kids must attend schools where the only measure of that of the system, devised by neutered elites, to neuter their own kids, too. Turn them all into depersonalized automatons to serve the corporate predators without question, ever.
Remember, Chris, in testing none of the subjects may ever ask a human, personal, or any other type of question. Only the faraway, anonymous, corporate elites may do that. Testing promotes a world where everything neatly fits in groups other elites manage or demagogue. All activity follows myths of linear-simple 1-2-3 causality. Again, all the more suitable for predator elites to package us.
Our country has never faced this crisis. Citizens must come up with viable plans to save the country - our obligation to the founders.
Don't forget our obligation to the 418,000 Americans who died in WW2 fighting fascists like the current regime.
Of course, including those who gave their lives in Gettysburgh.
I believe Biden had ability to control the DOJ and remove Garland for delaying prosecutions. He should have put Trump in jail. Lincoln made a mistake not to prosecute but the 14th Amendment was intended to block insurrectionists from holding office. Agree that SCOTUS is corrupt and makes totally political decisions that destroy the rule of law.
Wait for when the troops in the Bronx call for air strikes for protection. And remember who has his finger on the nuclear button.
Clearly some of the rats will jump ship and run, so who will be the
New’ leaders, same as the old, RP Stevie Miller the wormtongue of America is mostly in charge at this point, as all decision go through Donny-John and he is the gate-keeper, and the nexus of evil.
I actually think who is in charge is divided up. Steven Miller is in charge of immigration and ICE. RFK is in charge of HHS. Russel Vaught is in charge of undermining government institutions. Trump and his billionaire buddies are in charge of the economy and finance.
And Pam Bondi, Kash Patel in charge of covering up for all Donald's fellow rapists.
Each is in charge of their areas of expertise...so
Stevie--Evil
RFK--Lies
Russel V.--Fascism
HegDeath--he just look the part, there is actual there there
"What havoc will they cause as the ship begins to sink."
I just had a mental picture of the captain of the Titanic, after hitting the iceberg, turning the ship around to hit it a second time.
Hegseth brought all the military brass in for a dick measuring contest and he came up short.
I am praying that the admirals and generals will put us out of our trump regime misery…
If the Epstein files ever come close to being released, expect ultimate chaos in this administration distraction, invading cities, potential threats of war
"Hackification", I hope, ends up the Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Year, 2025.
What about the word enshittification?
Why not both?
I stand corrected!
Right along with enshittification
or f*cktastrophy
Wh*t??
And kakistocracy.
How about fucktastrophy?
You mean like the fucktastrophy we live through now each day??
Yeah, that's one fucktastic word for sure!
Too hackneyed perhaps ??
It is more than unambiguous that Hegseth and Trump are preparing us for a 20th century battle, when in fact, the next wars will be fought by drones, AI, and cyber capabilities.
We don’t need men doing pushups, pull-ups, while clean shaven and using steroids. We need PhD’s, computer scientists, engineers, and other soldiers with other cerebral skill sets.
As for the Hatch Act, that’s the least of our worries; especially since they been breaking this law and well as Emoluments and others since his first term.
“Last Thursday, President Donald Trump issued National Security
Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism
and Organized Political Violence.” It creates a national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and dismantle organized political violence and domestic terrorism, identifying indicators of a potential domestic terrorist as the expression of “anti-Christian” or “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views. NSPM-7 directs the federal government to disrupt groups “before” they result in violent political acts. In other words, pre-crime.”—Ken Klippenstein
This memorandum could be used as a pressure point against democrats, and their supporters as Trump doubles or triples the Terrorist Watch List with people who are not terrorists, but meet Trump’s nefarious definition of people of interest or targets of his “war from within.”
Bottom line: No one has been talking about this issue except Miles Taylor and Ken Klippenstein. However, Trump could easily target anyone he considers a threat, and under the current laws, he could easily get away with it, making democrats, and democratic supporters fear for their lives. IMHO…:)
We are all terrorists now, for they are clearly terrified of us.
Good! Let's terrify them some more on October 18! https://www.nokings.org/
Thats been the point all thr long. The attack on immigrants and people of color is just the warm up act, straight from fascist playbook.
Exactly! I was just explaining another nefarious tool in their toolbox about to be unleashed…:)
I'm also looking at the timing of this address to the military. The last big NO KINGS march, attended by ~5 million protesters, overshadowed trump's abysmal military parade and created an embarrassment for the administration. The next NO KINGS rally is expected to be bigger and it's odd that hegseth/trump's address came just a few weeks before the planned October 18 date for that rally.
I was more concerned it was same timing as govt shut down. Wonder if the pulse check was not what they wanted to see.
And his targeting of "antifa" on top of all that. Who isn't "antifa"? Fascists!
Exactly the point!…:)
WTF, just WTF
I've been saying just that since Trumpkopf stole the election.
The "next wars" will be fought with disinformation on social media. Except it's not "next", it's now, and the US lost. Post cold war, absent the real threat from the USSR, the very wealthy no longer had a gun held to their heads, so to speak. They realized that there was nothing stopping them from dropping their fake embrace of democratic values. So they resumed their plan to dismantle the "New Deal" and return the bulk of the population to 1890s style serfdom.
Well said…:)
Trump is a nearly 80 year old man who has watched too many war movies and Hegseth is an ass kisser who knows he is on thin ice with the boss.
Capitalism and Christianity are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, so grouping them with "American" is beyond bizarre. One can fervently believe in and advocate for tightly fettered capitalism and separation of church and state while being perfectly patriotic and loyal to the Constitution.
A frightening, but plausible scenario.
Thank you! This should have already been frontpage news as well as being amplified on broadcast and cable news. A few more folks than you mentioned have been discussing it here on SubStack.
Trump being an imbecile is the natural end-point of a Republican Party that has spent half a century deriding science, expertise, and knowledge while elevating ignorance and superstition. From the 1980s push to teach creationism to RFK Jr.'s wiping out medical research in favor of woo-based "healing," Republicans have done everything they can to make America dumber--and Donald Trump is the avatar of that, the acme of their ambition.
And Trump's own personality flaws mean he must always be the smartest person in the room. So he surrounds himself with people who are demonstrably dumber than he is (bonus points of the person was a Fox News personality!). The results are what we now have in Washington, and plain as day in the White House and the Republican Congress. (The Rightwing Supreme Court justices are too smart to be dumb, so they're doing what they need to to ensure Trump is triumphant over the dreaded liberals.)
We're living in an "Idiocracy", or, for the more technically correct term, kakistocracy.
Actually, I'm reminded of the old Rodney Dangerfield flick "Back to School." Near the beginning of the movie, we see Rodney (who is rich) presiding over a board meeting. All of the board members are grossly obese. Rodney crows, "One way to be thin is to surround yourself with fat people!"
Trump surrounding himself with morons strikes me as similar.
an idiotic kakistocracy!
😂Somewhat redundant, albeit accurate.
Theo-klepto-kakistocracy
That works. It might not even need hyphenation. Lemme try it, let's see how it looks:
Theokleptokakistocracy.
I used the term, "Kakistocratic Kleptocracy" a year ago, & instantly realized it works flipped, "Kleptocratic Kakistocracy." 🤨🤬
I actually prefer that latter, it rolls off the tongue more easily.
That's a good point about how the smartest guy in the room, when given real power, will prefer to surround himself with imbeciles - and not just any imbecile, only ass-kissing imbeciles.
But there is some real cunning that has gone into Project 2025, and no one anticipated that MAGA hatred of America (the America that actually exists, vs the one they imagine) would manage to fire in so many directions all at once. Every day is a new outrage, and that's part of why it becomes so difficult to make a stand against any particular one.
Yes- we’ve got to follow both the comic clown car and the armored SUV w tinted windows ferrying the cunning clowns. The cunning ones in the SUV must really hate most of America. They want to make us poorer, sicker, and less informed.
Absolutely! And Stephen Miller and Russell Vought are NOT dunces.
Ironic they attack DEI ostensibly on the grounds it undermines merit based recruitment.
It is best to keep their definition of 'merit' in mind. 'Merit' to them means straight, white, male, christian nationalist. But we need to consider why they are in office at all. We have a part of the polity (about 22.5% of the American population voted for this clown show) who are incurious - the low information voters. Learning useful stuff is hard work and they would rather not. Since they don't know anything useful, they seek leaders who are the same way. tRump is barely literate - I have seen a quote attributed to Neil Casler that tRump couldn't read his cue cards on The Apprentice. In tRump 1, he shot from the hip but had real experts in the administration to pull on the reins. Now he is surrounded by morons loaded with personality disorders whose only qualification is they will follow blindly. Only if he hurts enough of his base and the non-voters do we stand a chance of ridding ourselves of him.
Hard agree. Based on the election work I've done since I retired I've come to the unhappy conclusion that personal suffering is the only way to reach low information voters or non-voters. Otherwise they are simply not interested.
It's excruciating to watch (and experience), but I think that we as a nation have to face the hard consequences of our choices.
You’re so right Chelsea Girl especially when it comes to gun safety. Until MAGA loses a child their mother or their beloved neighbor to gun violence we will never see the end. Millions of Americans do everything they can to protect their right to stockpile their guns to protect themselves not understanding that one day someone they love is going to be a victim of gun violence. Make that make sense.
Trump is only a likely stage in a far bigger PROBLEM for our beloved, highly functional (or used to be) American democratic republic. We The People clearly did not reckon with the effects of our own complacency and sloth. Whether through ignorance or disinterest, ignoring the destruction and devastation that is inevitable in an inadequately regulated capitalist economy has permitted today's emergent crises. Far too many of us have taken a mostly non-participatory attitude, when we know that NO democracy can survive that. We have grossly neglected good -- No! EXCELLENT!! -- education and a host of civic duties (like voting, active support for candidates, consistent feedback to public officials, service on advisory groups and volunteer organizations, working on elections at all levels, marching and demonstrating, writing thoughtful letters to officials and news media...and MORE!). We have permitted a decades-long infiltration of fascistic, pseudochristo-fanatical kleptocrats to infiltrate our government at every level, rewrite our legal frameworks, to operate with impunity outside of the law, to abuse The People and to disrupt wantonly our international relationships.
Democracy takes work, commitment and stamina. We've been asleep at the switches, and slow to awake.
Choose it and USE it
.....or lose it.
They prefer DUI hires.
Yes as well delve the depth of incompetence…sort of like turning over the compost heap, we find ever more worms. But in their place worms are good…even useful. Feeding on shit and turning it into soil is useful work. Just not as our leaders…
Really!
🙄
Russell Vought is also on my last nerve. In my opinion Heritage Foundation is a terrorist organization. It becomes clearer&clearer that 6 conservative SC justices work for Heritage vs US Constitution&American people.
Stephen Miller apparently ordered the destroying non violent boats, killing people in international waters. Isn’t this a war crime?
I look forward to the day, when we get through this,( because surely we will), that Miller is brought to justice.
I know America doesn’t belong to ICC, but how would/can American civilian courts deal with a crime like this?
Just send him to the ICC - in irons
I don’t know if that’s the correct thing to do, but in my opinion that is the right thing to do
Doesn’t there have to be a war for it to be a war crime? Isn’t it just mass murder?
Yes. Mass murder is what it is.
I don’t know. I’m not sure how an international attack is handled. Ordered by a person with no authority?
I think it's just a crime, because we are not at war with Venezuela. It is murder.
This is just a crime - not a war crime.
Why is this an argument?
It’s not a crime on American soil. It was a military attack, even though it was ordered extrajudicially by someone who didn’t have the power to order it. Vietnam for instance was not a declared war.
Lt Calley was tried by the military. I’m just asking how do we deal with civilian Stephen Miller in these circumstances, not about semantics.
Not sure what an illegal military act in international waters ordered by someone who doesn’t have that power is called?
It's called murder.
Lt. Calley was tried and convicted of murder. The only difference here would be that Calley was tried by the military, since he was part of it at the time. Miller should be tried in a civilian court.
I said that.
Stephen Miller is a civilian, who usurped authority , committed murder on noncombatant foreign nationals in international waters.
I’m not sure being tried for murder in an American civilian court quite covers it.
You don’t have to agree with me, but it’s a complex question I think some are playing word games.
A crime
I’m not saying I know how this would be handled. I’m saying murder on foreign soil is more complex. See Amanda Knox.
Stephen Miller, who does not have authority, using U.S. military to attack noncombatants in open water, or in a foreign country’s territorial waters, probably not something American civilian court can address.
Interesting, since he's not in the chain of command. He should seriously consider avoiding foreign travel.
✔️
YES.
Those two are the power behind the throne. Evil, yes. Dunces, no.
Biden era subsidies barely kept pace with premium hikes. I am sure the Republicans didn't notice that either.
That is the tragedy here. Republicans have become totally disconnected from the citizens they represent in favor of the interests which line their pockets. Disgusting.
That's okay--the citizens Republicans represent have become totally disconnected from their own interests. Those citizens will vote vote vote to slash the very programs they rely on to survive because Republicans in general--and Trump in particular--give them permission to be their worst possible selves.
Many of these people were not voting at all. Only the 24 hr hate fest on social media, which has become one long Trump indoctrination, is motivating them. They're wrapped up in hate and fear, with a good dose of gun culture. This group is producing lots of mass killers.
A lot of it emanates from Fox “News”.
TV news has a gloss of reality that Fox uses to indoctrinate. They run stories stimulating fear with maga politicians citing fake statistics, attack dog snippets of maga opposition, lots of violence run on repeat, interspersed with human interest cuteness.
No, it’s not okay. Because the entire country, even the people who do not directly use them, needs those programs. They keep the economy running.
Is joke! I guess I need to put the /s tag on that.
Oops! Sorry! /sincere 💜
The reason those public welfare programs are so needed, and need to be so huge, is the gaping maw of inequitable wealth in the USA. Our capitalist economy, like a fine, powerful thoroughbred racehorse without adequate restraints and handling, has become dangerous and destructive, bringing tyranny, lawlessness, oppression and regression to savagery ever closer.
We get the government and the society that we EARN.
I think it's more like the interests that line their pockets are the citizens they represent now, Jenn.
Corporations are people too, my friend!
Per Mitt Romney. Who would know.
Worst Supreme Court decision ever.
The horror compounds annually!
Daily!
If not quarterly.
That’s the moment I knew the USA was doomed.
My party the Democrats are not much better wall street sell outs almost every one.
🙄
They are well connected to the extremists that prop them up online, including russia's elaborate and long term psy ops
I really like your screen name as the original Koch Bros and Koch Industries were part and parcel of this debacle.
They were the very creators and primary funders of The Heritage Foundation and the so called "Tea Party". The remaining one, Charles, ought to be tried for treason, right along with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.
Welcome back! I haven't seen you around in a while.
I need a break every once in a while...
I hear ya. Especially with all this insanity going on around us.
I think, too, that they live in a right wing, self reinforcing media bubble. They are fooling themselves. And that is good for the rest of us.
And their constituents apparently don't care and will vote for them again because they're Republicans
And don't care.
I don't think it is clear how the generals meeting came about. I suspect Stephen Miller. My guess is that Stephen Miller understands that some generals will balk at using their troops against Americans in cities and / or to deport immigrants and thus, initiated this meeting to let them know the generals would be fired if they balk. Yes, Hegseth implemented, maybe even thinks the idea was his, and thinks he is in a movie.
Their oath gives them right and responsibility to refuse illegal orders, those that go against the Constitution and to protect citizens and homeland.
They take this oath very seriously, and it is part of their core military culture. Hegseth clearly missed that part, but their oath is not to the imbeciles in office but to We the People.
It's important to note that the VERY first people purged were all the JAG officers (Judge Advocate Generals). They're the folk who advise commanders what is legal & what is not -- both according to the Constitution AND the Unified Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
The UCMJ is thorough & certainly conforms to precedent (unlike the current Supine Court). The regime & its actors have already violated it (frequently).
As far back as January, SOMEONE (Miller? Flynn? Vought?) was planning for this moment. That same fascist (no, there IS no other word) has plotted out the endgame. Whatever happens, there will be blood.
I cannot think of enough curses to rain down on their heads. I default to my "long & painful end."
Their oath is to the constitution
The Oath of Enlistment (for enlisted):
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
I believe Miller is behind 90% of Trump’s actions. Trump is too demented to come up w these plans and strategies. MSM is too naive or distracted to investigate seriously Miller and his tactics and impact.
And Vought armed with his Project 2025 playbook
Yes, serious and sophisticated journalists would investigate the specific roles of Vought, Miller, and others who are likely involved. As I said, MSM seems dead despite the obvious signs of a seriously ill or demented president who seems unable to complete a sentence much less destroy so many critical departments in less than a year!! We need another pair like Bernstein and Woodward
Excellent analysis with a ray of hope..
Oops, you meant Alito.
I was searching the comments to see if someone else noted this, and there you were, Frank! Have a good day!
Ty, et tu
Did you mean to write “Alito” when you made reference to “Scalia and Thomas”?
Scalito !
🏆 congratulations on winning the internet today!
Good one. Twin peas in the pod.
Scalia standing up in any way right now would be a pretty major story.
I can imagine Scalia objecting to DJT frequently and often. Indeed I can imagine Ginsberg and Scalia being on common ground when it comes to DJT, and the lunacy of many of the kakistocratic members of the DJT administration. Their pairing is more likely to my mind than Scalia paired with Gorsuch, Alito or Kavanagh despite Scalia's and the latter group's common ground about the Unitary Executive. When Ginsberg and Scalia were alive they were often scheduled to be together at seminars and lectures. Both wrote of their respect for each other as people and as Justices despite cavernous differences in legal philosophy.
It will be instructive to see how many ACA enrollees will be forced to drop their coverage because of the loss of tax credits will make keeping their insurance coverage untenable.
It will likely mean insurance companies will take a hit to their bottom line at the loss of revenue, hospitals will be burdened with more uninsured patients arriving at their emergency rooms, businesses seeing more absenteeism due to employee illnesses, more sick children reducing payments to schools as well as a host of other foreseeable results.
The damage to the economy for just those reasons will be considerable. How many other, unforeseen consequences will there be? What kind of fool would want to put the country through that?
What kind of fool? Most of the Republican politicians.
It's worse than that.
In any population the 5% highest cost ppl account for 50% of the total cost.
Insurance works best when it's universal or at least covers almost all ppl at risk.
When it doesn't, as you note, the lowest risk ppl drop out, which leaves the higher cost ppl, so premiums have to rise, but this means the lower risk ppl will drop out, leaving the more expensive ppl, so premiums have to rise, but this means the lower risk ppl will drop out...until you're left with the people with catastrophic costs that 99.9% of ppl can't afford.
It's a vicious cycle ending in no one covered because insurance is prohibitively expensive.
(Similar to where the US is now.)
https://nihcm.org/publications/the-concentration-of-u-s-health-care-spending
It's actually worse.
Removing subsidies for healthy ppl creates a vicious cycle of premium increases ending in collapse.
When health care insurance is voluntary and expensive, ppl at low risk will drop out, but sick ppl will stay in.
That means the average cost of care/person in the insured group goes up, so premiums have to rise, which makes more low risk ppl drop out, which raises the average cost of care/person, so premiums have to rise, which makes more low risk ppl drop out...
In any population, 5% of the ppl account for 50% of the cost, and 10% account for 2/3 of the cost.
https://nihcm.org/publications/the-concentration-of-u-s-health-care-spending
Making insurance affordable requires covering everybody, and only covering everybody makes insurance affordable.
This, plus keeping private insurance out (it seeks to increase costs bc their profit is merely a % of total costs) is why universal public health care insurance saves money overall.
It's the Ayn Rand fallacy writ large.
Not to mention deaths
The incompetence of our leadership feels like a very thin reed to find hope for our country.
Even Hannah Arendt would agree that the incompetence of Hitler's minions did not prevent authoritarianism to take hold in Nazi Germany with horrific consequences.
That it stimulates pushback on the margins is encouraging, but we cannot rely on them to drop the football on the 10-yard line without a stout defense and some of their players to wake up and switch sides.
I dunno, this regime seems to have an amazing propensity for shooting itself in the foot.
Not enough though: the daily destruction goes on almost unnoticed while we focus on the shenanigans of Hegseth and Trump. Beware of the costs of reconstruction if nothing is done to stop the madness.
I'm afraid your country is in for decades of pain and suffering caused by these fools. They are devoid of class, integrity and empathy, while being utterly incompetent and the rot is is almost incomprehensibly deep. If you even get another administration, reversing the damage they've inflicted will be a colossal cost over many years. Regaining your former allies trust may take even longer.
Then isn't it incumbent upon those of us who are watching to share the news? Educate?
Hey did you you see the report on ...?
Plus Miller and Vought seem terrifyingly capable of carrying out their awful ideas.
Spot on and the best part is that it shows a way for every American to participate. Don’t buy anything you don’t have to buy. Sure groceries, gas, whatever. But avoid big business, buy small. It doesn’t sound like much but it gets the attention of corporate chieftains just as the Disney boycott did. Maybe it’s not sexy but it beats having a political party ask for money. This can be very real.
Professor Krugman: you asked (rhetorically, i know) why the rethuglicans and why the orange rapist never saw the dramatic cuts to ACA subsidies coming? it's because they don't read: either they don't want to read something as big and boring as the ugly bill, or they are unable to read.
They’re also opposed to the ACA in general. Why would they care if it gets more expensive?
They have their own primo health care... "Many People Are Saying" that IF Congress & the Administration were enrolled themselves in the ACA, or if the entire Nation had Universal Healthcare a la Sweden & most every European nation, Canada, Japan, etc., we just wouldn't have these grave problems.
The overall plan seems akin to the old boiling frogs analogy. Americans just don't seem to be reacting adequately to increasingly massive hits to norms, morals and basic truths.
That's absolutely the right analogy. With each day just a little dumber than the day before, it's almost like we have to hope for them to ratchet things up so quickly it becomes unbearable. That seems to be the strategy behind forcing a government shutdown; they want to destroy government (the deep state beast), so tempt them to do it BEFORE the mid-terms, and see how people like "the real thing."