You deceive yourself. White bigotry has never been ashamed of itself. Until the advent of the internet, it just lacked sufficient access to mainstream media to publicize its racist views. The internet has allowed those folks a megaphone and an amplifier to make their views seen more vividly and more frequently. I am 70 years old, and grew up mostly in the Deep South and Texas. Racial bigotry was always obviously present.
I've lived in the south all but six years of my life and I know racism has existed everywhere, and especially in the south. But I've been on the internet for over two decades and I read comments from all over the U.S. Trump's racism has metastasized like cancer. It's a zeitgeist that appeals to people who otherwise wouldn't inflict racism on another person with, "Come on in, the water's fine!".
And this isn't just about race; it's also about class. Most of the uneducated and under-employed MAGAs all over the country were thrilled when they believed they were going to achieve social and intellectual equality by "Owning the Libs".
Equality, indeed! They've managed to put an autocrat in the White House, and he's raising secret armies by diverting funds from everything the undereducated and under-employed need. They're going to be on the receiving end of their own hatred and unreason, I'm afraid.
In Canada, a narrow but very dense band of settlement runs along the border with the United States, interrupted only by a cordillera of mountains in the West. Nearly 80% of the country’s population lives less than 150 kilometres from the southern border. It is particularly concentrated along the Saint Lawrence river and around Lakes Erie and Ontario in the east, in the cities of Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia, and along an axis between Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta. The territories of the Canadian north are virtually uninhabited. This configuration results from both historical and geographic factors: the European colonists arrived by way of the country’s eastern ports or from the United States, moving progressively westwards to occupy new land while avoiding the northern regions with their challenging climatic conditions and mountainous terrain. The population is essentially concentrated in urban areas, and notably in the largest cities, while rural areas, currently home to fewer than one in five Canadians, are very sparsely populated. Four urban agglomerations make up more than a third of the country’s total population: Toronto (5.6 million in 2011), Montreal (3.8 million), Vancouver (2.3 million) and Ottawa (1.2 million).
So, Southern Canada means Pro-Confederacy? Man...you guys find an echo-chamber and really just go off deep end reinforcing this race-based worldview ... And most you all are white kids too! I bet few of you have spent much time in Black neighborhoods either... Is this some kind of weird masochistic exercise like self-flagellation? Does it make you feel less guilty for being born white? Where does this cool-aid get manufactured anyway ... racists masquerading as anti-racists obsessed with defining world by skin hue... SO WEIRD!
Learn to read for comprehension, Einstein. My point was that the tiki-torch bigots were all about racism, not some noble "heritage," since a Canadian would not have a CSA heritage to embrace.
BTW, I grew up in a black-majority city and attended a black-majority grade school (my high school drew from a much larger area). I don't feel guilty, just sick of the white supremacy attitude that says it's OK to disrespect or beat the shit out of non-whites. It doesn't help that the white supremacists that I know among my own relatives are WATB (whiny-ass titty baby) losers who listen to resentment radio for their political opinions.
Racism is a tactic. And has been the most incredibly useful tactic. Classcism is the strategy. The grand stategy is to take it all, "but we'll need somebody to shine our shoes."
That's why we want immigrants to subvert law, bypass normal processes, and walk-in undocumented... This is our Democrat core plan! We need fight ICE cause we can't afford landscaper, nanny, or house cleaner if had pay naturalized citizen rates or min wage... Down with ICE! Keep servants affordable! Keep farmworker slave access for agribiz! It keeps our Blue wheels rolling!
The billionaire class that runs this country, has made believers of a class longing for acceptance. Think they’ve been accepted into a class they’ll never belong through MAGA. Colour me disgusted Leigh!!
People don't realize that Wallace won 5 states' electoral college votes in 1968 as third party. That's astounding, and shows how very, very racist those states were (and largely still are).
It’s really difficult to recall the number of government initiatives under Biden, but I do recall that there were two government checks that went to most people. He quickly put money in people’s pockets. Also the Child Tax Credit lifted more children out of poverty. People receiving this tax credit often didn’t know who was providing it. The Tax Credit was not just a onetime credit, but money went out monthly. Biden realized that Obama had not done quite enough for the people, and that is why he asked for more money. Parts of his BBB bill would not show progress for some time because they were large infrastructure projects. Many are under construction now. The government provided free COVID testing and vaccines that brought an end to the epidemic. He inherited a broken economy and rebuilt our economy which is still holding up under the abuse of Trump and company. Biden could not control inflation quickly enough, but it was beginning to slow. Because of the complexity of that period, people had difficulty processing the economic situation. The Democrats worked hard to pass the legislation, but perhaps not hard enough in bringing clarity to what was happening.
lets all admit there are millions 0f really stupid americans. i do not know why this is so..but reality is a btich; i'm certainly not an intellectual, however, i do listen see what TRUMPF is all about...i live in FLORIDA, it used to be a reasonalby decent place to live, now it is rapdly becoming one f those s---hole places that TRUMPF refers to, and he lives here.mostly because of the tax code... and now he is onj his way to destroying our really lovely EVERGLADES with the help of our bobbing head..lip-sqishing governor. we are doomed! it would be great if the DEMOCRATS had a younger young person, with some grit, to run for potus.,but no,,i guess we are stuck with mealy mouthed shumar. i'm 94 yrs old and i've seen and heard them all.
Democrats have several wonderful younger but experienced politicians. For starters, both Cory Booker and Chris Murphy would be good candidates for president
The lockstep partisan voting in the U.S. Congress needs to stop. We need representation that is responsible and reasonable for the well being of the nation and our citizens.
Wow...the only sensible voice here .. Republicans only care about big biz and Democrats only care about keeping undoc slave access and watching rental homes they own soar and over-burden social systems with border anarchy and massive money printing to makes slaves of us all... I may be registered Dem, but I will ONLY vote 3rd party until they get message and change...only so far, they double down on killing middle class...
Dean Baker: "The public was largely willing to forgive Trump for the high unemployment created by the pandemic, if it’s not willing to forgive Biden for its negative impact on the economy that reflects something other than objective reality. In other words, the media is failing to point out the impact of the pandemic on inflation and growth."
Biden was just as bad with opening border and flooding already stressed market with 12,000,000 more bodies needing housing,food, jobs... Why you think a starter home is 500k? Eco 101 Supply/Demand ... Dems are elite landlords that profit immensely from sending their real estate values thru roof... They are selfish boomers who don't care a drop for next generation... they like a big government and slave class... Not like GOP cares either, just stating the facts... I'm a Registered Democrat that will vote 3rd party until they wake up...not voting for my own chains, sorry...
Biden removed or expelled 3.3 million border crossers—three times as many as Trump. Biden increased air removal flights by 55 % over 2020 levels. Illegal immigration hit a 21-year high before Biden entered office. Biden tripled interior detention and increased border detention 12-fold. Trump’s description of an America overrun by illegal aliens and criminal refugees is bogus. Your risk of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist incident is 1 in 3.6 billion per year. Undocumented immigrants paid federal and state taxes of $100 billion in 2022 using ITINs on filed returns.
Republicans refused to cooperate in early 2009 when Congress worked on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which meant a more expansive assistance package was impossible. Mitch McConnell and company said they wanted to make Obama a one term president, even if it hurt their own constituents. Unlike the voters of the 1930s, voters in 2010 were willing to return control of the House to the party that gave us the Great Recession, Afghanistan and Iraq. The interesting question is why voters in the 1930s behaved differently from voters in the past 25 years.
Republicans haven’t cared about their voters for a long time. They give superficial lip service to most of what would actually help them while at the same time blatantly lying about it and manipulating them to feel hate. A recipe for disaster—and here we are.
I'm nigh on your age, Robert, and have the same memories of growing up in the South. You're spot on about the Internet. It had, and still has, great potential for good. And like most powers for good, it has a dark side, allowing bigotry and viciousness to spread anonymously at first, and then boldly as accountability fell by the wayside in the onrush of shiny new technology. Take care.
I’m 70 and grew up and live in suburban NJ. I have always been astounded at the deep and widespread bigotry and racism. It is just under the surface here, not in your face, but quite matter-of-fact.
Lived all over the country as a military brat. Realized as a youngster that racism & classism in the still segregated South was just more overt than up North. It was just as present in the latter, but couched in more "polite" terms & appearances.
I lived in New England for about 10 years and was really surprised to find it wasn't different from where I grew up (TN), just somewhat more ... veiled, until 2015 came around and it got really bold.
I grew up in SC and lived in New England and the Midwest. There's racism everywhere. It just takes different forms, more open in the South when I was young, somewhat less so now.
I should modify that statement somewhat. My father's neighbor, only about 11 years ago, called the police after a Black man knocked on her door asking to do yard work. He had previously done yard work for my father and was totally harmless. He knocked on Dad's door that day, too. I simply said we had no work for him and he went away. He was just trying to earn some money.
Large swaths of the country sheathed their open bigotry. I grew up on the West Coast and places like Bakersfield didn't let their bigotry shine brightly. It was there, but suppressed. Most people my age 68, were not nearly as bigoted as their parents. They would angrily deny they are prejudiced, however, I've always sees glimmers of it. Those prejudices weren't passed along to the next generation.
It is very disheartening to see open racism coming out. I think MAGA may be overestimating American racism. I know there are regional differences.
I grew up thinking "live and let live" was the basic attitude of people in California and many other places, but MAGA reaction increased with the growth of garbage-talk radio and later the Internet social media and fed by the lies of Fox "News" and Trump. Still I think we have at present a reactionary phase that will pass if Trump and his minions do not succeed in setting up a self-perpetuating, continuing autocratic regime. I am hopeful, if presently dismayed.
Now that Sinclair "owns" or controls 95% of radio, excluding NPR, the conservative bilge to which the owners of Sinclair subscribe and promote, our moderate opinions have no air time. The FCC is to blame and the Sinclair monopoly should be broken up. We need to return to the fairness policy for all media, and the FCC can require it (as part of their licensing powers).
Interesting.... I will look that up; Thank you Cat. Somehow, though true, I doubt that it was anywhere near as widely spread as it has been these past few decades, and especially wider spread with the explosion of mass media, internet and the 24/7 news cycles.
Agreed, Robert. Racial and religious bigotry have been around for centuries, and is not going to be shamed out of existence. For one thing, shame comes from within, not without. DEI has never been about shaming; it's a false flag for unbridled bigotry.
With regard to social media, it may have done us a service by making it very clear who these people are and where they are. Unless one is delusional, it is impossible to ignore the clear signs of discrimination that have been baked into our government's policies, and continue to be today. By bringing it truly out into the open, citizens are able to call it out for what it is, and pressure legislators to hold people accountable for their actions. At least that's my hope.
Just a note: While racial bigotry is often associated with the former slavery states of the South (and for good reason), there are other—perhaps more vicious—pockets of racial hatred elsewhere in the US. Oregon, for example, used to be a "whites only" territory, then as a state (and it was brutally enforced). Klan groups and lynchings spread to northern states where white folks resented the number of black people who fled the South in large numbers.
Absolutely Robert, this isn’t the rebirth of bigotry in America… it’s never disappeared, needing only a mouthpiece and megaphone, to bring it from the veiled darkness where it remained. Until the doddering old drug addled career criminal, shed his blackened soulless being upon us!!
Robert, I likewise grew up in the deep south. I despised our bigotry and racism then, and do now more so. Do you think that our fellow Americans may not even completely understand the depth and breadth of it?
I grew up in coastal SC and returned almost 11 years ago. Bigotry is different now, though still here. And antisemitism is much more open than it was when I was a girl. But, interestingly, most of the interracial families whom I notice when I am shopping appear to be lower class, though not all.
This is a useful and interesting comment. I never took part in any DEI training during my career, so I can't testify as to whether or not it inculcated shame. I was trained as a historian, and in that process came to become aware of my own biases. But the main thing a historian has to do is get it right - get the facts right to the extent that such a thing is possible. And a lot of the more disturbing facts about our history are not generally taught K-12.
It seems to me that the point of teaching US history as accurately and fully as possible should not be to inculcate shame. That's one of the things that has helped trigger the huge backlash you correctly note. People are flawed creatures. They are shaped by their environment. They often make decisions that are seen as evil by observers of a later time, but which seemed to them in their own time to be what needed to be done. Sometimes their intentions were good, sometimes less so, and sometimes, indeed their intentions were also evil, even by the standards of their own time.
The point for our time is to tell the truth, to make sure we are allowed to tell the truth, so that we can be better people and do better things for our country. As you say, to ACT.
This was a terrific response. Writ large, it shows how progressive illiberalism can look to those who want to “own the libs”. The sort of people who were doing your training
I never had a DEI training either, but as far as popular books go, "White Fragility" was peak shame, right? There are/were plenty of serious thinkpieces about that book that one could go back and read.
I fat-finger posted this comment before I finished it. I was about to add something to the effect of
"would be just as bent on domination as those whom they oppose. They are not generally in positions of power nationwide but have strong influence in many institutions. And the disdain their militant moral certitude brings about in the general population is a shame, because we do need to make our government and institutions more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, to reflect our population.
The two questions are not nested. This is the great mistake of the Democrats. Highlight intersectionality rather than the different forms of exclusion and type where it hurts.
Yeah, I was debating with myself over the semantics. I decided I prefer iniquity because it implies a greater magnitude: gross injustice as opposed to mere injustice.
Honestly, nobody has looked at that data, but you are talking about a large swath of Americans, who hated the whole idea of voting, because aside from overt racists like Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, they never had a front line candidate that they could identify with, until Trump came along in 2015, and they swept him in like we've never seen in US History, and now we pay the price. What other evidence do you need?
What we have found out with after election polls is two major factors in the election outcome: Biden didn’t address the immigration issue satisfactorily and he didn’t address the inflation issue properly. Unfortunately, the Harris campaign supported the Biden administration policies. That’s what pushed the independents to Trump. The racists have always been with Trump from the beginning. I believe the democrats lost the election. We need new, young people that can excite the population towards a rejuvenated democracy, not just old politicians trying to remain in power.
But not to come out of the closet. They definitely don't want people to come out of the closet, especially bigots. There's too much ideological dissonance there. Roy Cohn, Trump's Svengali, recognized this.
And it was Donald Trump who gave the bigots permission and encouragement to be open, loud, and abrasive with their bigotry. We have to put that malevolent genie back in its bottle, a task that will be neither easily nor quickly accomplished.
And thus is illustrated the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it." Because WH Squatter No. 1 doesn't care where his and his coterie's cruelty and inhumanity deliberately or inadvertently fall. Farmers are already hurting; it's going to be a disaster for many; not all of them voted for him, either.
The ‘sweet strong smell of mendacity’ that characterized the South I grew up in (30s-50s) disappeared after Obama’s election. (Re: Big Daddy in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”.) Hypocrisy has not been necessary since then— long before social media became our primary mode of communication
As a white guy who grew up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, I remember that.
I thought the Civil Rights Movement, the resulting policies, and increasing interracial dating and marriage would shrink the number of racists to a handful of cranks.
At this point, the administration (including Jewish Stephen Miller) are focused on darker skinned people perceived to be illegal or espousing anti-Zionist views. Today, we find out gangster Trump & gangster Bukele from El Salvador have a little agreement worked out. Trump is just a retro-grade racist old man wannabe gangster, whose daughter married into a Jewish real estate family like daddy's. He doesn't have a problem with Blacks the likes of Tiger Woods dating his ex-daughter-in-law. Sounds like my old TX boyfriends' parents....anyone who's successful, such as Black pro athletes that can play golf, are a-ok. Not big on lower socio-economic minorities. Is it Alex Karp? Co-founder of Palantir with Thiel, who says that socio-economic class is more of a detriment today than race in getting ahead. His parents are also Black & Jewish and one, I think, is from Montreal, Canada--both highly educated professionals, probably retired by now.
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, as well as those in others. Use your voice and make some “good trouble” ❤️🩹🤍💙
Thank you! I've called several times before, but just now called all seven of my two Senators' offices again. Will also be going to the protest in Columbus on July 4.
Emailing is easy. Just go to your reps website. I get responses from my Senator’s offices that aren’t just form letters but even if that’s what you get they definitely pay attention when their constituents are freaking out. Volume of complaints matters.
Yes, I wanted to be able to email but was grumpy you had to go to every individual’s website to email…so I went to all of them and put the links on my spreadsheet to make it faster for others 🤣☺️
I get form letters, some which don't even address the issue I wrote about. Coward Hawley (my so called representative) and his buddies are arrogant, spineless little shits. There, I said it.
You’re welcome! Thanks for speaking up so much right now! Yes, I need to find a flyer for the protest on the 4th and add it to my spreadsheet. I put a note about the 17th but know the 4th is a big day too
I am so ashamed and frustrated with my congress person (Wittman) who is unwavering in his support of this administration’s actions and policies. I’ve called, emailed repeatedly. Doesn’t matter. And I hear from capitol interns that our concerns are frequently ignored.
Happy to see our two senators really standing up, but the house rep is a disgrace. What else can a person do?
I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently (if we get to vote again). I think we can cause ripples to push news organizations to be more honest and maybe even a bit accusatory about what’s happening. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃
Here's something that might work: get as many friends of yours as you can, but no more than 10 or 20, and show up the same day in the office in Washington of your senator or congress person. And let the staff know why you're there and why you care. That will get some attention.
Thank you Megan. Great resource. Don’t see Ruben Gallego on the sheet. Just sent an email to Lisa Murkowski urging her to oppose the measures in the OBBBA that would shatter the social safety net in our society.
I hear sending a fax can be effective. (This is not tongue in cheek- I actually heard this - emails are easier to ignore and delete than faxes - if you have their fax number, totally use it).
Yes! I heard the same thing and so I put in a fax number for each senator who had one. Then there’s a link to faxzero at the top of the sheet and you can send 5 free faxes/day. Easy because I can send them from my phone!
I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently. I think we can cause ripples to push news organizations to be more honest and maybe even a bit accusatory about what’s happening. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃
If you're resigned to failure, then why are you organizing?
Please, think bigger. Your country is opening concentration camps. A sternly worded letter to the manager is worse than nothing, it's the illusion of something
Sen. Tuberville should be reminded that red states are the ones living off of federal safety nets while blue states like NY pay more than they receive. That said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act might change that with all the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP...we'll see how quickly the Senator changes his tune about federal aid.
Absolutely this. Alabama is one of the biggest offenders, the second largest gap (at $41B!) between what they pay to federal coffers vs what they receive. New York, by contrast, pays $89B!! more than they receive. The "rats" are keeping your state afloat, Tuberville...
I was going to make the same point. In fact, New York was the largest net contributor to the federal government, while Alabama was the second highest net recipient after Virginia, which presumably is an anomaly due to its proximity to Washington.
No, facts don't matter. At all. Talk to any random Rightwinger and you'll learn all kinds of amazing "facts:"
There's a special "secret" welfare system for Black people that gives them thousands of dollars a month in cash benefits in addition to the regular benefits.
Democrats are bringing in tens of millions of illegal immigrants every year to throw elections with illegal voters.
Every illegal immigrant gets free healthcare, free housing, free food, free clothing, a free phone, a free car, free appliances and anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month cash walking-around money.
Of course, none of this is true. It's all grotesque fantasy. But for Rightwingers like Tuberville and Trump, these are established facts that liberal just won't acknowledge.
Indeed. But one thing most non-MAGA folks have trouble understanding is that the MAGA crowd lives in a completely different universe than the rest of us. Their world is filled with violent scary minorities who are just waiting for the chance to rape/rob/kill good White folks. Until the rest of us figure out how to counter-act the tidal waves of mal-information these people receive, it's going to be nearly impossible to get anything positive done.
Ah, now you are advocating for some kind of change, and that is the right way to look at this. You're absolutely right about how the MAGA get their "facts" - the biggest problem, as you say, is finding ways to counter this. Admittedly, I'm sitting on the outside looking on, but I really don't think there is any easy way to fix what is essentially broken by those who have sought for years to break it. The FCC's Fairness Doctrine helped in earlier years, but the FCC themselves removed the policy in 2011. MAGAts and the rabid right-wingers would never let the doctrine be re-established. It's an uphill battle against tidal waves of misinformation and outright lies to push their filthy agenda.
Thank you for both of your comments, Derelict. Of course I know that MAGAs are brainwashed cult-followers, but the particulars? No idea, because I live in my own progressive bubble. Not that I'll start watching FOX "News" now to educate myself, but it highlights the importance for forward-looking dems to modernize the way they get their message out. Like Zohran Mamdani, f.e. (and I know that die-hard MAGAs can't be reached.)
FWIW, a fair number of folks on the left also live in a different information universe. Many comments below call out Fox. While not quite as bad, MSNBC also routinely feeds its viewers false or at least misleading nonsense.
That's an important distinction. When Kellyanne first said that, I thought she just meant "other" facts and gave her a pass for a verbal faux pas. But now I think she really meant "alternative," as in an alternative universe. What a world we now live in. And that world is not an illusion.
Trump pitches the lies like softballs to the MAGA audience, knowing they'll think he's on their side. He doesn't necessarily believe any of it. Tuberville I can't speak for.
The "rats" in California are also supporting Alabama. California is also providing a large percentage of nutritious food - you know - those fruits and vegetables that help people be healthy. Lots of the food workers are undocumented immigrants. They work in the fields and orchards; they also work in packing and shipping. Taxes are withheld from their pay.
It is estimated that about 50% of the workers in AG etc. are undocumented. And probably half of them are under the legal working age.
Illegal immigrants pay taxes based on ITINs*. Which means they are not eligible for the Earned Income Credit. For children not born in the USA, they cannot claim the Child Credit either. These migrants often also pay Soc. Sec./Medicare taxes, despite the fact that they will never receive anything when they get old.
*promoted by IRS as "safe" but now used to find immigrants.
While you are not incorrect, it is not a coincidence that a lot of military infrastructure is in poorer states and spending flowing into states due to the presence of military infrastructure likely skews the figures.
There is military infrastructure in California, as well as in other coastal states for historic defense reasons. Also, there are aerospace companies that have federal contracts. That includes Space X.
States both send and receive money. Does the obbb reduce what blue states send? Yes I would think it does, to the extent the millionaires live in blue states and get tax deductions. I've always thought that blue states should replace any federal tax deduction with a state tax increase to fund any drop in federal help.
Of course, the red states have never taxed their wealthy citizens. The politicians have always hidden behind racist rhetoric to stay in power. When the subsidies go away, those voters will find the same old target, led by their churches and their white elite.
Some say wealthy blue states could cease sending money to Treasury. Why fund red state failure? If shoe was on other foot, you'd better believe the right wing would have already cut blue states off to make 'em suffer.
and Trump has blocked payment of federal funds to blue states that would have been entitled to them, e.g. for disaster relie. It's all political all the time for Trump and MAGA.
Not just blue states, either. I was shocked (really. I guess I'm still naive) at the way the Trump creatures have treated Asheville, NC. "Too bad about that storm damage. Sucks to be you!"
I thought a lot of western NC was affected by these floods. But I don’t know the area. I’m thinking our MAGAt administration would rather let hundreds of other MAGAts suffer than do anything that might benefit a few non-MAGAts
I asked my husband if we could stop paying our taxes so we aren’t funding this immoral lawless behavior from the government…he said he could lose his law licenses if he owes, so they government has ways to compel you to pay them. Guessing this is the same of any professional license in the states. Apparently we serve at their pleasure.
And that does not change the amount you have to pay in April; in fact, if you cut your withholding far enough, you'll have to pay penalties. IIRC, the Feds charge you 5% of the shortage.
Senator Tuberville himself is a recipient of government handouts. Where does he think his salary, benefits, per diem and codel (congressional delegation- the trips they take) funding comes from?
I agree. The same thing's happening in pregnancy enforcement states, which have stopped reporting (or very deeply hidden) the deaths of girls and women from all sorts of pregnancy complications including ectopics, miscarriages, and childbirth. (Especially the medical damage and death of girls and women there whose skin is darker than the lawmakers'.)
Like ALL (well, almost) Republicans, he lies just like the liar in chief. The MAGA Land folks believe the 'horse feathers' because they are TOO LAZY to do a google search...why let facts get in the way???
They want to keep their jobs, and they won't if they don't support this bill.
They also know that success MAY increase their power. And even if it's the thing that ends up destroying them, at least it's a good job for a few more years.
Nothing anyone can say will change Tuberville's comments or actions, he's a dumb, bigoted fool who is so in love with Trump he'll say or do anything to further the (lost) cause. The only positive development this year has been the news that he'll be leaving the Senate to run for governor of Alabama, where he can just inflict his stupidity on the residents of his own state should they be so dumb as to reward him with the job. Which I'm sure they will. Thankfully that means the rest of us can once again go back to ignoring this despicable person.
Alabama complaining about New Yorkers "living off the Federal Government".
Democrats need to stop pussy-footing around and speak up. it is very important for people to understand that New York subsidizes Alabama, not the other way around.
In the 1970s there was a lot of "kitchen table" talk in upstate New York that NYC should secede or be expelled from the state. (Including at my kitchen table.) But I remember my stepfather saying that he had changed his mind because he found out that NYC was sending more money upstate than the other way around.
Republicans promote these ridiculous myths every day and nobody pushes back.
Our country is so wonderfully comprised of many different ethnicities, I don't believe that this insane elimination of 'others' can be possible. Our diversity is present in our foods, our music, our shared cultures, even our sports. Do these racist dumbasses really want only a world of "whiteness"? Really? And do these dumbasses believe that women are going to stand for the misogyny turned against them by ignorant men? Ultimately, this total bullshit will not stand, we will resist and fight back. We are the majority, and it is time we started behaving like we are the majority. Fight back against evil stupid testicular men, dammit! I am a 70 year old woman and I personally will not stand for it. FIGHT!
Yes, they really do want to create a version of America in which every citizen has white skin. They're also planning on rooting out everyone who's not an evangelical Christian. They're also aiming to force women into the "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" role familiar from 1930s Germany (Children, Kitchen, Church).
No need to compare with '30ies Germany. Just look at your immigration regulation. Between 250-500,000 LEGAL well-educated immigrants are condemned to a Martha-life in the US Republic of Gilead. These are mostly women, mainly from India.
I vividly remember a discussion on PBS where a panel of women - a Dem politician included - decided that H-4 visa holders were despicable beings, who should not be given what they so desperately want: the right to work.
You cannot create a version of America anymore with white-skinned citizens. That ship has sailed. But you can and do punish women who migrate here with the husbands who contribute to the US economy - documented and all.
Look at your immigration regulation. The people of the US dislike work-bound immigrants - legal as well as illegal. I would call politicians and ask, desperate, why it had to be like this. The answer was always "this is what the voters want". And thus the cruelty continued, unabated.
Xenophobia is the MAGA mantra. I have never read a quote attributed to Tommy Tuberville that was anything but ignorant. I will always remember the quote where he stated that his father fought against "socialism" in WWII. His father was fighting the Nazis. Not sure what school system that was involved in his education but the last time I looked it was fascism that the United States fought in WWII. How do people this stupid get elected to the US Senate?
Folks it’s getting late we have to begin serious civil disobedience immediately. General strikes. Walk outs. Boycotts. This bill will literally begin to kill Americans. After that we are likely in a civil war. If I was NY and CA I would stop paying fed taxes.
In Illinois too. No need to pay taxes without representation (worse - the threat of livelihoods, loss of liberty and no paths to happiness). I see no need to pay federal taxes to these monsters.
To Stephen Miller: maybe we should have stopped your grandparents at the border when they applied after surviving the Holocaust.
Do you realize, wee Steevie, that many of the migrants under current attack by ICEstapo agents are fleeing economic devastation caused in large part by US policies affecting climate change, which in turn affects small farms, which contributes to the formation of gangs of unemployed young men and in turn to corrupt dictatorships?
They were fleeing the Russian empires anti Jewish pogroms- they came over in 1903- but your point still stands. I actually need to see if Miller is another Russia enabler & supporter like his fuhrer. If so, he’s betrayed his great grandparents memory even further. Good article written by his uncle- wish he had been the one to go into politics!
Gracias. Pogrom, Inquisition, Holocaust--rough equivalents, no? It's hard to grasp the reasons why a person with Jewish heritage could possibly be so hateful to others who've suffered privation and persecution, unless and until you have understood how, very often, a little boy who observes his mother being brutalized by his father, will resolve never to be weak, like her, and goes on to be an abusive male later. Works for me as one key to understanding him, anyway. Now we have to get the reins of power out of his hands.
It doesn’t matter why Miller is like he is; what matters is what he is. And that’s a Himmler-level fuck. Get the reins of power out of his hands? He shouldn’t be walking around period, unless it’s back and forth inside his solitary cell at the Supermax.
Also by subsidizing big US corn-growers, putting small farmers in Mexico etc. out of business. By siphoning water from the Rio Grande all over and diminishing options for Mexican fishers in the Gulf of whatever.
Wish they were right here in the Burgh, right now, where it's 90 degrees and humid as hell. I live in a flat roofed house with no attic and slate singles, and a sort of after the fact semi-effective but not nearly effective enough AC unit crammed awkwardly in next to the antediluvian furnace. It was built 86 years ago, and don't tell me they had this kind of weather then.
Thank you. That argument annoys me immensely. Those were different times, with different rules. The grandparents would probably not be allowed in under current regulation.
Prof. Krugman- Thank you for everything thing you do and putting words to the most depressing and outrageous thing I have ever witnessed in my 63 years on this planet. I am well beyond angry and embarrassed by the words and actions of our current elected leaders and their followers. I seek ways to be involved and to fight the march towards isolationism and a dictatorship.
People in power may think this is fine, but history proved that it leads to unrest and ultimately violence as the cycle reinforces itself. Ultimately we are all reduced to rats scrambling for whatever we can get and we will turn on each other as things get desperate.
I fear there are far too many weapons in this country with inadequate controls. We also have allowed drugs, alcohol, and untreated mental illness to run rampant. The idea that America is exceptional and immune from failure is both arrogant and naive.
So you know, rats are sociable beings. One study found that "Rather than competing for limited available food, the food-deprived rats socialized and coexisted peacefully." In another study it was found that when one rat was constantly rewarded a treat and another rat was not, rat #1 would share the treats with rat #2.
Rats doing research on humans, were not able to detect similar behavior. (This is meant as a joke.)
So? What is the poison holding together Trump's attack on America? And, it's not just Trump's attack., The whole of the GOP IS complicit in attacking America. The poisonous weapons they bring are hatred, racism, intolerance, fear and greed. Collectively, America is the wealthiest country in human history. But rather than continuing to build a better society, Trump and the GOP want to burn down our humane social programs, disrupt the best work of our educational institutions, cripple our healthcare system, deport as inhumanly as possible, hard working immigrants and attack our most vulnerable Americans. They manufacture hatred to gaslight liberal America. Everyday Trump finds new hateful ways to attack America and Americans. The GOP goose steps right behind him. Why? They hate Liberals. Liberals are their enemy. Liberals want to help the poor and the needy.. Liberals believe in equality. Liberals respect citizens who are not like them. The GOP hates kindness and will use government policy to stop it. At the end of the day, Trump and his GOP, in their greed, want to take the government funds for the poor and give it back to the rich in the form of tax cuts even if it swells our deficit We will defeat Trump's hatred and greed. We are rising up to return America to it's rightful mission of tolerance and equality. We will bring the sun out again
The poison is a toxic brew of racism, misogyny, greed, lust for power/control, grievance, lack of compassion, willful ignorance, Christian fascism, and other vile elements -
shaken, stirred.
Yes, the whole of the GOP is complicit - as are those who stand by silently or cheering on the fires being set. Edited to add those who are working very hard to excuse the atrocities - “how do you KNOW people being arrested aren’t illegals… “
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." LBJ
Boy, this rings true. A few months ago I started bugging to have my SIL carry her US passport. She's immigrated from Thailand and became a US citizen after marrying my brother.
Now I am bugging them to get a passport for their 7 yo daughter to carry as proof of citizenship. Hopefully it is not too late to get it for her, even though her mom was a citizen when she was born.
My wife insisted that I renew my decade plus expired passport. Not because we’re going to travel, but because, well, you never know could be coming next from these cretins. BTW, I’m an older WASP type guy - I had no say in that - but, why would that stop these guys after they’ve tasted blood?
I got an enhanced license for myself to prove i am el8gible to vote ... and may yet renew my old passport in case Canada starts to play hardball and no longer accept the enhanced license.
It's wise to get passports for the entire family, but it's not wise to have a 7-year-old carry one all the time. It will almost certainly be lost or stolen within a year.
Stephen Miller is the clearest example of what happens when self-hating Jewish kapos are put in positions of power. As a Jew, I am deeply ashamed he is (was) a member of our tribe.
I think the Blue states should form a Continental Congress to seek redress for their grievances. Maybe adopt that old Constitution we have lying around someplace. Maybe we could form a Continental Army, for old time’s sake…
That's not practical. With the exception of Alaska, the red States are all connected geographically and could certainly form a new country. The blue States form four distinct and widely separated groups. Perhaps the west coast and southwest could become part of Mexico and the rest become part of Canada. Then all we have to deal with is that fact that most of the military bases are in red States.
For a while, American bigotry was ashamed of itself. Or pretended to be. Now it runs the government.
You deceive yourself. White bigotry has never been ashamed of itself. Until the advent of the internet, it just lacked sufficient access to mainstream media to publicize its racist views. The internet has allowed those folks a megaphone and an amplifier to make their views seen more vividly and more frequently. I am 70 years old, and grew up mostly in the Deep South and Texas. Racial bigotry was always obviously present.
I've lived in the south all but six years of my life and I know racism has existed everywhere, and especially in the south. But I've been on the internet for over two decades and I read comments from all over the U.S. Trump's racism has metastasized like cancer. It's a zeitgeist that appeals to people who otherwise wouldn't inflict racism on another person with, "Come on in, the water's fine!".
And this isn't just about race; it's also about class. Most of the uneducated and under-employed MAGAs all over the country were thrilled when they believed they were going to achieve social and intellectual equality by "Owning the Libs".
Equality, indeed! They've managed to put an autocrat in the White House, and he's raising secret armies by diverting funds from everything the undereducated and under-employed need. They're going to be on the receiving end of their own hatred and unreason, I'm afraid.
The first pro-Confederacy protester (tiki torch group) that Vox interviewed in Charlottesville had driven in from *Canada*.
Southern Canada, no doubt.
Most of Canadian population lives near the US border.
link, please?
In Canada, a narrow but very dense band of settlement runs along the border with the United States, interrupted only by a cordillera of mountains in the West. Nearly 80% of the country’s population lives less than 150 kilometres from the southern border. It is particularly concentrated along the Saint Lawrence river and around Lakes Erie and Ontario in the east, in the cities of Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia, and along an axis between Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta. The territories of the Canadian north are virtually uninhabited. This configuration results from both historical and geographic factors: the European colonists arrived by way of the country’s eastern ports or from the United States, moving progressively westwards to occupy new land while avoiding the northern regions with their challenging climatic conditions and mountainous terrain. The population is essentially concentrated in urban areas, and notably in the largest cities, while rural areas, currently home to fewer than one in five Canadians, are very sparsely populated. Four urban agglomerations make up more than a third of the country’s total population: Toronto (5.6 million in 2011), Montreal (3.8 million), Vancouver (2.3 million) and Ottawa (1.2 million).
https://shs.cairn.info/journal-population-2012-2-page-177?lang=en&tab=texte-integral
Thanks !
English traduction just click :-)
So, Southern Canada means Pro-Confederacy? Man...you guys find an echo-chamber and really just go off deep end reinforcing this race-based worldview ... And most you all are white kids too! I bet few of you have spent much time in Black neighborhoods either... Is this some kind of weird masochistic exercise like self-flagellation? Does it make you feel less guilty for being born white? Where does this cool-aid get manufactured anyway ... racists masquerading as anti-racists obsessed with defining world by skin hue... SO WEIRD!
"So, Southern Canada means Pro-Confederacy?"
----
Learn to read for comprehension, Einstein. My point was that the tiki-torch bigots were all about racism, not some noble "heritage," since a Canadian would not have a CSA heritage to embrace.
BTW, I grew up in a black-majority city and attended a black-majority grade school (my high school drew from a much larger area). I don't feel guilty, just sick of the white supremacy attitude that says it's OK to disrespect or beat the shit out of non-whites. It doesn't help that the white supremacists that I know among my own relatives are WATB (whiny-ass titty baby) losers who listen to resentment radio for their political opinions.
Racism is a tactic. And has been the most incredibly useful tactic. Classcism is the strategy. The grand stategy is to take it all, "but we'll need somebody to shine our shoes."
That's why we want immigrants to subvert law, bypass normal processes, and walk-in undocumented... This is our Democrat core plan! We need fight ICE cause we can't afford landscaper, nanny, or house cleaner if had pay naturalized citizen rates or min wage... Down with ICE! Keep servants affordable! Keep farmworker slave access for agribiz! It keeps our Blue wheels rolling!
The billionaire class that runs this country, has made believers of a class longing for acceptance. Think they’ve been accepted into a class they’ll never belong through MAGA. Colour me disgusted Leigh!!
People don't realize that Wallace won 5 states' electoral college votes in 1968 as third party. That's astounding, and shows how very, very racist those states were (and largely still are).
Racism in America didn’t start in the 1960s. It just switched parties.
I obviously agree with you, just suggesting that you need to re-phrase your first sentence.
The Civil Rights Act that passed was far from the first attempt at a Civil Rights Act, too.
I don’t know the detailed history but it comes across very clearly if you read Robert Caro that this was a decades-long struggle.
It’s really difficult to recall the number of government initiatives under Biden, but I do recall that there were two government checks that went to most people. He quickly put money in people’s pockets. Also the Child Tax Credit lifted more children out of poverty. People receiving this tax credit often didn’t know who was providing it. The Tax Credit was not just a onetime credit, but money went out monthly. Biden realized that Obama had not done quite enough for the people, and that is why he asked for more money. Parts of his BBB bill would not show progress for some time because they were large infrastructure projects. Many are under construction now. The government provided free COVID testing and vaccines that brought an end to the epidemic. He inherited a broken economy and rebuilt our economy which is still holding up under the abuse of Trump and company. Biden could not control inflation quickly enough, but it was beginning to slow. Because of the complexity of that period, people had difficulty processing the economic situation. The Democrats worked hard to pass the legislation, but perhaps not hard enough in bringing clarity to what was happening.
Once again, the Republicans blocked everything the Democrats tried to do to help the working class, with the aid of one or two turncoat "Democrats",
and we get told that "the Democrats didn't really do anything."
It works EVERY TIME! That's why we can't win.
lets all admit there are millions 0f really stupid americans. i do not know why this is so..but reality is a btich; i'm certainly not an intellectual, however, i do listen see what TRUMPF is all about...i live in FLORIDA, it used to be a reasonalby decent place to live, now it is rapdly becoming one f those s---hole places that TRUMPF refers to, and he lives here.mostly because of the tax code... and now he is onj his way to destroying our really lovely EVERGLADES with the help of our bobbing head..lip-sqishing governor. we are doomed! it would be great if the DEMOCRATS had a younger young person, with some grit, to run for potus.,but no,,i guess we are stuck with mealy mouthed shumar. i'm 94 yrs old and i've seen and heard them all.
I have noted any number of times that we have been done in by the stupid vote.
Democrats have several wonderful younger but experienced politicians. For starters, both Cory Booker and Chris Murphy would be good candidates for president
The lockstep partisan voting in the U.S. Congress needs to stop. We need representation that is responsible and reasonable for the well being of the nation and our citizens.
Wow...the only sensible voice here .. Republicans only care about big biz and Democrats only care about keeping undoc slave access and watching rental homes they own soar and over-burden social systems with border anarchy and massive money printing to makes slaves of us all... I may be registered Dem, but I will ONLY vote 3rd party until they get message and change...only so far, they double down on killing middle class...
Dean Baker: "The public was largely willing to forgive Trump for the high unemployment created by the pandemic, if it’s not willing to forgive Biden for its negative impact on the economy that reflects something other than objective reality. In other words, the media is failing to point out the impact of the pandemic on inflation and growth."
Biden was just as bad with opening border and flooding already stressed market with 12,000,000 more bodies needing housing,food, jobs... Why you think a starter home is 500k? Eco 101 Supply/Demand ... Dems are elite landlords that profit immensely from sending their real estate values thru roof... They are selfish boomers who don't care a drop for next generation... they like a big government and slave class... Not like GOP cares either, just stating the facts... I'm a Registered Democrat that will vote 3rd party until they wake up...not voting for my own chains, sorry...
Biden removed or expelled 3.3 million border crossers—three times as many as Trump. Biden increased air removal flights by 55 % over 2020 levels. Illegal immigration hit a 21-year high before Biden entered office. Biden tripled interior detention and increased border detention 12-fold. Trump’s description of an America overrun by illegal aliens and criminal refugees is bogus. Your risk of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist incident is 1 in 3.6 billion per year. Undocumented immigrants paid federal and state taxes of $100 billion in 2022 using ITINs on filed returns.
Republicans refused to cooperate in early 2009 when Congress worked on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which meant a more expansive assistance package was impossible. Mitch McConnell and company said they wanted to make Obama a one term president, even if it hurt their own constituents. Unlike the voters of the 1930s, voters in 2010 were willing to return control of the House to the party that gave us the Great Recession, Afghanistan and Iraq. The interesting question is why voters in the 1930s behaved differently from voters in the past 25 years.
Republicans haven’t cared about their voters for a long time. They give superficial lip service to most of what would actually help them while at the same time blatantly lying about it and manipulating them to feel hate. A recipe for disaster—and here we are.
No matter how many times this bot posts this screed, it's still just as stupid as the first time.
I'm nigh on your age, Robert, and have the same memories of growing up in the South. You're spot on about the Internet. It had, and still has, great potential for good. And like most powers for good, it has a dark side, allowing bigotry and viciousness to spread anonymously at first, and then boldly as accountability fell by the wayside in the onrush of shiny new technology. Take care.
He grew up in the South? Then I guess he knows about Jim Crow, especially from his wife's family's experiences. OY!
Another damned spam bot. Reported.
More to the point I suppose... racists freely climbed out from under their rocks with Frump. Bigly sad.
They were never under the rocks; just under the radar.
They weren't under the radar in Georgia when I lived there in the seventies.
With Reagan.
Alternately, they just felt free to pull off their hoods....
What a surprise that the Grand Wizard of the KKK turned out to not be white, but Orange.
I’m 70 and grew up and live in suburban NJ. I have always been astounded at the deep and widespread bigotry and racism. It is just under the surface here, not in your face, but quite matter-of-fact.
Lived all over the country as a military brat. Realized as a youngster that racism & classism in the still segregated South was just more overt than up North. It was just as present in the latter, but couched in more "polite" terms & appearances.
I lived in New England for about 10 years and was really surprised to find it wasn't different from where I grew up (TN), just somewhat more ... veiled, until 2015 came around and it got really bold.
I grew up in SC and lived in New England and the Midwest. There's racism everywhere. It just takes different forms, more open in the South when I was young, somewhat less so now.
I should modify that statement somewhat. My father's neighbor, only about 11 years ago, called the police after a Black man knocked on her door asking to do yard work. He had previously done yard work for my father and was totally harmless. He knocked on Dad's door that day, too. I simply said we had no work for him and he went away. He was just trying to earn some money.
There will always be bigots like that neighbor.
Large swaths of the country sheathed their open bigotry. I grew up on the West Coast and places like Bakersfield didn't let their bigotry shine brightly. It was there, but suppressed. Most people my age 68, were not nearly as bigoted as their parents. They would angrily deny they are prejudiced, however, I've always sees glimmers of it. Those prejudices weren't passed along to the next generation.
It is very disheartening to see open racism coming out. I think MAGA may be overestimating American racism. I know there are regional differences.
I grew up thinking "live and let live" was the basic attitude of people in California and many other places, but MAGA reaction increased with the growth of garbage-talk radio and later the Internet social media and fed by the lies of Fox "News" and Trump. Still I think we have at present a reactionary phase that will pass if Trump and his minions do not succeed in setting up a self-perpetuating, continuing autocratic regime. I am hopeful, if presently dismayed.
AM and FM 'talk' radio shows started the hate mongering and continues.
Now that Sinclair "owns" or controls 95% of radio, excluding NPR, the conservative bilge to which the owners of Sinclair subscribe and promote, our moderate opinions have no air time. The FCC is to blame and the Sinclair monopoly should be broken up. We need to return to the fairness policy for all media, and the FCC can require it (as part of their licensing powers).
I agree. While we're at it we need improvements for the Fairness Doctrine that's updated for the 21st century, cable, internet, etc.
Yes on breaking up Sinclair. At 95% of radio, it is way too big. And it is biased and prejudiced to top it off.
Hate mongering via radio goes back to Father Coughlin, the 'radio priest' who broadcast out of the Detroit area in the 1930's.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/charles-e-coughlin
Interesting.... I will look that up; Thank you Cat. Somehow, though true, I doubt that it was anywhere near as widely spread as it has been these past few decades, and especially wider spread with the explosion of mass media, internet and the 24/7 news cycles.
Agreed, Robert. Racial and religious bigotry have been around for centuries, and is not going to be shamed out of existence. For one thing, shame comes from within, not without. DEI has never been about shaming; it's a false flag for unbridled bigotry.
With regard to social media, it may have done us a service by making it very clear who these people are and where they are. Unless one is delusional, it is impossible to ignore the clear signs of discrimination that have been baked into our government's policies, and continue to be today. By bringing it truly out into the open, citizens are able to call it out for what it is, and pressure legislators to hold people accountable for their actions. At least that's my hope.
Just a note: While racial bigotry is often associated with the former slavery states of the South (and for good reason), there are other—perhaps more vicious—pockets of racial hatred elsewhere in the US. Oregon, for example, used to be a "whites only" territory, then as a state (and it was brutally enforced). Klan groups and lynchings spread to northern states where white folks resented the number of black people who fled the South in large numbers.
These people used to be confined to low power AM radio at 3AM. Not anymore. Now, they're "running" the country.
Truth in pose.
Absolutely Robert, this isn’t the rebirth of bigotry in America… it’s never disappeared, needing only a mouthpiece and megaphone, to bring it from the veiled darkness where it remained. Until the doddering old drug addled career criminal, shed his blackened soulless being upon us!!
Robert, I likewise grew up in the deep south. I despised our bigotry and racism then, and do now more so. Do you think that our fellow Americans may not even completely understand the depth and breadth of it?
I grew up in coastal SC and returned almost 11 years ago. Bigotry is different now, though still here. And antisemitism is much more open than it was when I was a girl. But, interestingly, most of the interracial families whom I notice when I am shopping appear to be lower class, though not all.
This is a useful and interesting comment. I never took part in any DEI training during my career, so I can't testify as to whether or not it inculcated shame. I was trained as a historian, and in that process came to become aware of my own biases. But the main thing a historian has to do is get it right - get the facts right to the extent that such a thing is possible. And a lot of the more disturbing facts about our history are not generally taught K-12.
It seems to me that the point of teaching US history as accurately and fully as possible should not be to inculcate shame. That's one of the things that has helped trigger the huge backlash you correctly note. People are flawed creatures. They are shaped by their environment. They often make decisions that are seen as evil by observers of a later time, but which seemed to them in their own time to be what needed to be done. Sometimes their intentions were good, sometimes less so, and sometimes, indeed their intentions were also evil, even by the standards of their own time.
The point for our time is to tell the truth, to make sure we are allowed to tell the truth, so that we can be better people and do better things for our country. As you say, to ACT.
This was a terrific response. Writ large, it shows how progressive illiberalism can look to those who want to “own the libs”. The sort of people who were doing your training
I never had a DEI training either, but as far as popular books go, "White Fragility" was peak shame, right? There are/were plenty of serious thinkpieces about that book that one could go back and read.
I fat-finger posted this comment before I finished it. I was about to add something to the effect of
"would be just as bent on domination as those whom they oppose. They are not generally in positions of power nationwide but have strong influence in many institutions. And the disdain their militant moral certitude brings about in the general population is a shame, because we do need to make our government and institutions more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, to reflect our population.
How did DEI trainings cultivate shame?
Pointing out the truth to people raised that the US was perfect and beyond criticism.
The two questions are not nested. This is the great mistake of the Democrats. Highlight intersectionality rather than the different forms of exclusion and type where it hurts.
"Who kisses too much, hugs badly"
This, along with wealth iniquity, is the true legacy of the St. Reagan Revolution.
"Inequity," but your word also works well.
Yeah, I was debating with myself over the semantics. I decided I prefer iniquity because it implies a greater magnitude: gross injustice as opposed to mere injustice.
lol...
🎯🎯🎯
Well. There were millions who had never voted…Climbed out of their hate holes in 2016 to vote for trump. And we see them now.
Honestly, nobody has looked at that data, but you are talking about a large swath of Americans, who hated the whole idea of voting, because aside from overt racists like Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, they never had a front line candidate that they could identify with, until Trump came along in 2015, and they swept him in like we've never seen in US History, and now we pay the price. What other evidence do you need?
https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/51
Are you one of those contrarians that just like to object with the same question to everything they hear, "what is your source?"
My source is observation of where we are today. If you don't see what's happening, I cannot help you.
What we have found out with after election polls is two major factors in the election outcome: Biden didn’t address the immigration issue satisfactorily and he didn’t address the inflation issue properly. Unfortunately, the Harris campaign supported the Biden administration policies. That’s what pushed the independents to Trump. The racists have always been with Trump from the beginning. I believe the democrats lost the election. We need new, young people that can excite the population towards a rejuvenated democracy, not just old politicians trying to remain in power.
Trump and the Republican Party told bigots to come out.
Yes, they surely did.
remember in 2016 when we were screaming and folks said “well now we’ll know who the bigots are”? dumb motherfuckers.
But not to come out of the closet. They definitely don't want people to come out of the closet, especially bigots. There's too much ideological dissonance there. Roy Cohn, Trump's Svengali, recognized this.
Where I live it IS the government.
That's true for all of us now. Racism has now been "federalized".
😢😢😢
And it was Donald Trump who gave the bigots permission and encouragement to be open, loud, and abrasive with their bigotry. We have to put that malevolent genie back in its bottle, a task that will be neither easily nor quickly accomplished.
The Christian farmers of America voted for the orange rapist so he could be cruel and inhumane to those others.
Those Christian farmers didn’t vote for the orange rapist to inconvenience them while he was being cruel and inhumane to those people.
And thus is illustrated the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it." Because WH Squatter No. 1 doesn't care where his and his coterie's cruelty and inhumanity deliberately or inadvertently fall. Farmers are already hurting; it's going to be a disaster for many; not all of them voted for him, either.
The ‘sweet strong smell of mendacity’ that characterized the South I grew up in (30s-50s) disappeared after Obama’s election. (Re: Big Daddy in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”.) Hypocrisy has not been necessary since then— long before social media became our primary mode of communication
Why some of us asked - and asked and asked and asked and asked and asked and *asked* - for racism to be made illegal
Like Nazism was in Germany, like apartheid was in South Africa
But we never get to "Truth & Reconciliation" because America wants to rush people of color to "reconciliation" without going through the "Truth" part
And now it's worse
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/taking-away-your-citizenship/comment/130958784
As a white guy who grew up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, I remember that.
I thought the Civil Rights Movement, the resulting policies, and increasing interracial dating and marriage would shrink the number of racists to a handful of cranks.
But I was dead wrong.
that has to be one of the most miss guided statements ever posted
At this point, the administration (including Jewish Stephen Miller) are focused on darker skinned people perceived to be illegal or espousing anti-Zionist views. Today, we find out gangster Trump & gangster Bukele from El Salvador have a little agreement worked out. Trump is just a retro-grade racist old man wannabe gangster, whose daughter married into a Jewish real estate family like daddy's. He doesn't have a problem with Blacks the likes of Tiger Woods dating his ex-daughter-in-law. Sounds like my old TX boyfriends' parents....anyone who's successful, such as Black pro athletes that can play golf, are a-ok. Not big on lower socio-economic minorities. Is it Alex Karp? Co-founder of Palantir with Thiel, who says that socio-economic class is more of a detriment today than race in getting ahead. His parents are also Black & Jewish and one, I think, is from Montreal, Canada--both highly educated professionals, probably retired by now.
Take a stand -
Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to those in your own state, as well as those in others. Use your voice and make some “good trouble” ❤️🩹🤍💙
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit?usp=drivesdk
Thank you! I've called several times before, but just now called all seven of my two Senators' offices again. Will also be going to the protest in Columbus on July 4.
Emailing is easy. Just go to your reps website. I get responses from my Senator’s offices that aren’t just form letters but even if that’s what you get they definitely pay attention when their constituents are freaking out. Volume of complaints matters.
Yes, I wanted to be able to email but was grumpy you had to go to every individual’s website to email…so I went to all of them and put the links on my spreadsheet to make it faster for others 🤣☺️
I get form letters, some which don't even address the issue I wrote about. Coward Hawley (my so called representative) and his buddies are arrogant, spineless little shits. There, I said it.
You’re welcome! Thanks for speaking up so much right now! Yes, I need to find a flyer for the protest on the 4th and add it to my spreadsheet. I put a note about the 17th but know the 4th is a big day too
What about the 17th? Is it scheduled as a day of action or what?
Yes, I found information from https://www.fiftyfifty.one
July 4th: Free America
Weekend of Community Events
July 17th: Good Trouble Lives On
National Day of Action
Thanks.
I am so ashamed and frustrated with my congress person (Wittman) who is unwavering in his support of this administration’s actions and policies. I’ve called, emailed repeatedly. Doesn’t matter. And I hear from capitol interns that our concerns are frequently ignored.
Happy to see our two senators really standing up, but the house rep is a disgrace. What else can a person do?
Call & email your Representative again….
It’s so disheartening and frustrating I know.
I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently (if we get to vote again). I think we can cause ripples to push news organizations to be more honest and maybe even a bit accusatory about what’s happening. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃
Here's something that might work: get as many friends of yours as you can, but no more than 10 or 20, and show up the same day in the office in Washington of your senator or congress person. And let the staff know why you're there and why you care. That will get some attention.
Thanks for this Megan.
You’re welcome! Thanks for speaking up right now!
Super-helpful spreadsheet. Thank you!
You’re welcome! Thanks for speaking up right now!
Thank you Megan. Great resource. Don’t see Ruben Gallego on the sheet. Just sent an email to Lisa Murkowski urging her to oppose the measures in the OBBBA that would shatter the social safety net in our society.
Scroll over :) 2 per state listed in a row for senators
I hear sending a fax can be effective. (This is not tongue in cheek- I actually heard this - emails are easier to ignore and delete than faxes - if you have their fax number, totally use it).
Yes! I heard the same thing and so I put in a fax number for each senator who had one. Then there’s a link to faxzero at the top of the sheet and you can send 5 free faxes/day. Easy because I can send them from my phone!
I wrote to Coach Tuberville. His comments were despicable.
Did he respond individually to you?
Not yet. Not holding my breath!
Oh the email responses I get back are 😤
Thanks so much! Will share!
You’re welcome! Thanks for helping share!
You're well past that point.
Join the Socialist Rifle Association. Form mutual aid and defense networks with your neighbors.
I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently. I think we can cause ripples to push news organizations to be more honest and maybe even a bit accusatory about what’s happening. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃
If you're resigned to failure, then why are you organizing?
Please, think bigger. Your country is opening concentration camps. A sternly worded letter to the manager is worse than nothing, it's the illusion of something
P
I think your comment got cut off :)
Sen. Tuberville should be reminded that red states are the ones living off of federal safety nets while blue states like NY pay more than they receive. That said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act might change that with all the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP...we'll see how quickly the Senator changes his tune about federal aid.
Absolutely this. Alabama is one of the biggest offenders, the second largest gap (at $41B!) between what they pay to federal coffers vs what they receive. New York, by contrast, pays $89B!! more than they receive. The "rats" are keeping your state afloat, Tuberville...
Source: https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-most-and-least-to-federal-revenue/
I was going to make the same point. In fact, New York was the largest net contributor to the federal government, while Alabama was the second highest net recipient after Virginia, which presumably is an anomaly due to its proximity to Washington.
Well said, Ryan. Facts are important.
No, facts don't matter. At all. Talk to any random Rightwinger and you'll learn all kinds of amazing "facts:"
There's a special "secret" welfare system for Black people that gives them thousands of dollars a month in cash benefits in addition to the regular benefits.
Democrats are bringing in tens of millions of illegal immigrants every year to throw elections with illegal voters.
Every illegal immigrant gets free healthcare, free housing, free food, free clothing, a free phone, a free car, free appliances and anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month cash walking-around money.
Of course, none of this is true. It's all grotesque fantasy. But for Rightwingers like Tuberville and Trump, these are established facts that liberal just won't acknowledge.
Two words trigger MAGA brain shutdown...
"Fake news"
You make good points there. But I said facts, not "facts." Some of us know the difference, obviously...
Indeed. But one thing most non-MAGA folks have trouble understanding is that the MAGA crowd lives in a completely different universe than the rest of us. Their world is filled with violent scary minorities who are just waiting for the chance to rape/rob/kill good White folks. Until the rest of us figure out how to counter-act the tidal waves of mal-information these people receive, it's going to be nearly impossible to get anything positive done.
Ah, now you are advocating for some kind of change, and that is the right way to look at this. You're absolutely right about how the MAGA get their "facts" - the biggest problem, as you say, is finding ways to counter this. Admittedly, I'm sitting on the outside looking on, but I really don't think there is any easy way to fix what is essentially broken by those who have sought for years to break it. The FCC's Fairness Doctrine helped in earlier years, but the FCC themselves removed the policy in 2011. MAGAts and the rabid right-wingers would never let the doctrine be re-established. It's an uphill battle against tidal waves of misinformation and outright lies to push their filthy agenda.
Thank you for both of your comments, Derelict. Of course I know that MAGAs are brainwashed cult-followers, but the particulars? No idea, because I live in my own progressive bubble. Not that I'll start watching FOX "News" now to educate myself, but it highlights the importance for forward-looking dems to modernize the way they get their message out. Like Zohran Mamdani, f.e. (and I know that die-hard MAGAs can't be reached.)
We need a provision in the First Amendment that allows us to shut down the likes of Faux Newspeak, Snoozesmax, OAN, Breightbart, Infowars, etc., etc.
Propaganda masquerading as "News" should simply be disallowed.
FWIW, a fair number of folks on the left also live in a different information universe. Many comments below call out Fox. While not quite as bad, MSNBC also routinely feeds its viewers false or at least misleading nonsense.
Facts vs. "alternative facts".
That's an important distinction. When Kellyanne first said that, I thought she just meant "other" facts and gave her a pass for a verbal faux pas. But now I think she really meant "alternative," as in an alternative universe. What a world we now live in. And that world is not an illusion.
racism sure does make a person dumb
And vice versa. Being dumb can make a person racist.
🙄
I’ve heard a lot of that too.
And dead people are voting and collecting Social Security.
Trump pitches the lies like softballs to the MAGA audience, knowing they'll think he's on their side. He doesn't necessarily believe any of it. Tuberville I can't speak for.
CA is a net $90 billion contributor, according to Gov. Newsom.
The "rats" in California are also supporting Alabama. California is also providing a large percentage of nutritious food - you know - those fruits and vegetables that help people be healthy. Lots of the food workers are undocumented immigrants. They work in the fields and orchards; they also work in packing and shipping. Taxes are withheld from their pay.
It is estimated that about 50% of the workers in AG etc. are undocumented. And probably half of them are under the legal working age.
Illegal immigrants pay taxes based on ITINs*. Which means they are not eligible for the Earned Income Credit. For children not born in the USA, they cannot claim the Child Credit either. These migrants often also pay Soc. Sec./Medicare taxes, despite the fact that they will never receive anything when they get old.
*promoted by IRS as "safe" but now used to find immigrants.
Thanks for filling out the details.
Thank you for this reaction. I was a bit unsure when posting.
I like my neighbors no matter what country they are from. They are hard- working folks, friendly.
While you are not incorrect, it is not a coincidence that a lot of military infrastructure is in poorer states and spending flowing into states due to the presence of military infrastructure likely skews the figures.
There is military infrastructure in California, as well as in other coastal states for historic defense reasons. Also, there are aerospace companies that have federal contracts. That includes Space X.
I was thinking along these lines as well. Thank you for citing your source. It makes sharing legit and easy.
States both send and receive money. Does the obbb reduce what blue states send? Yes I would think it does, to the extent the millionaires live in blue states and get tax deductions. I've always thought that blue states should replace any federal tax deduction with a state tax increase to fund any drop in federal help.
Of course, the red states have never taxed their wealthy citizens. The politicians have always hidden behind racist rhetoric to stay in power. When the subsidies go away, those voters will find the same old target, led by their churches and their white elite.
Some say wealthy blue states could cease sending money to Treasury. Why fund red state failure? If shoe was on other foot, you'd better believe the right wing would have already cut blue states off to make 'em suffer.
and Trump has blocked payment of federal funds to blue states that would have been entitled to them, e.g. for disaster relie. It's all political all the time for Trump and MAGA.
Not just blue states, either. I was shocked (really. I guess I'm still naive) at the way the Trump creatures have treated Asheville, NC. "Too bad about that storm damage. Sucks to be you!"
I thought a lot of western NC was affected by these floods. But I don’t know the area. I’m thinking our MAGAt administration would rather let hundreds of other MAGAts suffer than do anything that might benefit a few non-MAGAts
I asked my husband if we could stop paying our taxes so we aren’t funding this immoral lawless behavior from the government…he said he could lose his law licenses if he owes, so they government has ways to compel you to pay them. Guessing this is the same of any professional license in the states. Apparently we serve at their pleasure.
Regrettably, the automated tax withholding systems employers use make this idea technically nearly impossible.
W-2 forms can be submitted to an employer anytime to alter withholding tax, but not Social Security tax.
And that does not change the amount you have to pay in April; in fact, if you cut your withholding far enough, you'll have to pay penalties. IIRC, the Feds charge you 5% of the shortage.
Senator Tuberville himself is a recipient of government handouts. Where does he think his salary, benefits, per diem and codel (congressional delegation- the trips they take) funding comes from?
Facts have no place in the current government.
Suspect the effect of the cuts simply won't be tracked.
I agree. The same thing's happening in pregnancy enforcement states, which have stopped reporting (or very deeply hidden) the deaths of girls and women from all sorts of pregnancy complications including ectopics, miscarriages, and childbirth. (Especially the medical damage and death of girls and women there whose skin is darker than the lawmakers'.)
I sure hate to click a heart on a horrible truth like what you wrote! I knew that was happening, but couldn't recall in which state(s?).
Tracking is all science-y, so, yeah...
Like ALL (well, almost) Republicans, he lies just like the liar in chief. The MAGA Land folks believe the 'horse feathers' because they are TOO LAZY to do a google search...why let facts get in the way???
They want to keep their jobs, and they won't if they don't support this bill.
They also know that success MAY increase their power. And even if it's the thing that ends up destroying them, at least it's a good job for a few more years.
He doesn't care. None of them do. Control the culture and the rest will sort out itself in their minds
I'm sure he knows. He just lies about it. Like the rest of the reichwing/MAGAnut cult.
Nothing anyone can say will change Tuberville's comments or actions, he's a dumb, bigoted fool who is so in love with Trump he'll say or do anything to further the (lost) cause. The only positive development this year has been the news that he'll be leaving the Senate to run for governor of Alabama, where he can just inflict his stupidity on the residents of his own state should they be so dumb as to reward him with the job. Which I'm sure they will. Thankfully that means the rest of us can once again go back to ignoring this despicable person.
Don't rely on the impact of the BBB act to change anybody's minds. The social services cuts don't kick in until THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL TERM.
The actual impact on the deficit over the next 4 years is much (MUCH!) larger than advertised.
AMEN World Without End!!!! NY is a big state and we pay LOTS of federal taxes.
Alabama complaining about New Yorkers "living off the Federal Government".
Democrats need to stop pussy-footing around and speak up. it is very important for people to understand that New York subsidizes Alabama, not the other way around.
In the 1970s there was a lot of "kitchen table" talk in upstate New York that NYC should secede or be expelled from the state. (Including at my kitchen table.) But I remember my stepfather saying that he had changed his mind because he found out that NYC was sending more money upstate than the other way around.
Republicans promote these ridiculous myths every day and nobody pushes back.
Our country is so wonderfully comprised of many different ethnicities, I don't believe that this insane elimination of 'others' can be possible. Our diversity is present in our foods, our music, our shared cultures, even our sports. Do these racist dumbasses really want only a world of "whiteness"? Really? And do these dumbasses believe that women are going to stand for the misogyny turned against them by ignorant men? Ultimately, this total bullshit will not stand, we will resist and fight back. We are the majority, and it is time we started behaving like we are the majority. Fight back against evil stupid testicular men, dammit! I am a 70 year old woman and I personally will not stand for it. FIGHT!
Yes, they really do want to create a version of America in which every citizen has white skin. They're also planning on rooting out everyone who's not an evangelical Christian. They're also aiming to force women into the "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" role familiar from 1930s Germany (Children, Kitchen, Church).
No need to compare with '30ies Germany. Just look at your immigration regulation. Between 250-500,000 LEGAL well-educated immigrants are condemned to a Martha-life in the US Republic of Gilead. These are mostly women, mainly from India.
I vividly remember a discussion on PBS where a panel of women - a Dem politician included - decided that H-4 visa holders were despicable beings, who should not be given what they so desperately want: the right to work.
You cannot create a version of America anymore with white-skinned citizens. That ship has sailed. But you can and do punish women who migrate here with the husbands who contribute to the US economy - documented and all.
Look at your immigration regulation. The people of the US dislike work-bound immigrants - legal as well as illegal. I would call politicians and ask, desperate, why it had to be like this. The answer was always "this is what the voters want". And thus the cruelty continued, unabated.
Hope springs eternal, D!
Xenophobia is the MAGA mantra. I have never read a quote attributed to Tommy Tuberville that was anything but ignorant. I will always remember the quote where he stated that his father fought against "socialism" in WWII. His father was fighting the Nazis. Not sure what school system that was involved in his education but the last time I looked it was fascism that the United States fought in WWII. How do people this stupid get elected to the US Senate?
Probably just looked at the name they used: National Socialist German Workers' Party and didn’t dive any deeper into their ideology.
Probably thinks that China is a republic. The People's Republic of China!
Technically, China *is* a republic, as there is no hereditary monarch as head of state.
Folks it’s getting late we have to begin serious civil disobedience immediately. General strikes. Walk outs. Boycotts. This bill will literally begin to kill Americans. After that we are likely in a civil war. If I was NY and CA I would stop paying fed taxes.
In Illinois too. No need to pay taxes without representation (worse - the threat of livelihoods, loss of liberty and no paths to happiness). I see no need to pay federal taxes to these monsters.
My apologies to the great state of Illinois and wonderful city Chicago. There monthly. Love it
Immigrants in the US pay taxes without having the right to vote - not even on a local level, as a number of other countries now allow.
Damn good article, Paul. Spot on.
To Stephen Miller: maybe we should have stopped your grandparents at the border when they applied after surviving the Holocaust.
Do you realize, wee Steevie, that many of the migrants under current attack by ICEstapo agents are fleeing economic devastation caused in large part by US policies affecting climate change, which in turn affects small farms, which contributes to the formation of gangs of unemployed young men and in turn to corrupt dictatorships?
They were fleeing the Russian empires anti Jewish pogroms- they came over in 1903- but your point still stands. I actually need to see if Miller is another Russia enabler & supporter like his fuhrer. If so, he’s betrayed his great grandparents memory even further. Good article written by his uncle- wish he had been the one to go into politics!
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351/
Gracias. Pogrom, Inquisition, Holocaust--rough equivalents, no? It's hard to grasp the reasons why a person with Jewish heritage could possibly be so hateful to others who've suffered privation and persecution, unless and until you have understood how, very often, a little boy who observes his mother being brutalized by his father, will resolve never to be weak, like her, and goes on to be an abusive male later. Works for me as one key to understanding him, anyway. Now we have to get the reins of power out of his hands.
It doesn’t matter why Miller is like he is; what matters is what he is. And that’s a Himmler-level fuck. Get the reins of power out of his hands? He shouldn’t be walking around period, unless it’s back and forth inside his solitary cell at the Supermax.
Don't we just wish!
Great article. Thank you.
Also by subsidizing big US corn-growers, putting small farmers in Mexico etc. out of business. By siphoning water from the Rio Grande all over and diminishing options for Mexican fishers in the Gulf of whatever.
I’ve seen this argument about grandparents migrating. They always reply: “But they came legally.”
Also, they think climate change is a hoax. It’s impossible to argue with these people.
Wish they were right here in the Burgh, right now, where it's 90 degrees and humid as hell. I live in a flat roofed house with no attic and slate singles, and a sort of after the fact semi-effective but not nearly effective enough AC unit crammed awkwardly in next to the antediluvian furnace. It was built 86 years ago, and don't tell me they had this kind of weather then.
Sounds awful. I’m old enough to remember cooler summers and colder winters. It’s also drier now (PNW).
We just gave up and bought a small window AC for our bedroom. I regret using more electricity, but I have to sleep!
I completely understand.
Thank you. That argument annoys me immensely. Those were different times, with different rules. The grandparents would probably not be allowed in under current regulation.
Exactly.
Prof. Krugman- Thank you for everything thing you do and putting words to the most depressing and outrageous thing I have ever witnessed in my 63 years on this planet. I am well beyond angry and embarrassed by the words and actions of our current elected leaders and their followers. I seek ways to be involved and to fight the march towards isolationism and a dictatorship.
People in power may think this is fine, but history proved that it leads to unrest and ultimately violence as the cycle reinforces itself. Ultimately we are all reduced to rats scrambling for whatever we can get and we will turn on each other as things get desperate.
I fear there are far too many weapons in this country with inadequate controls. We also have allowed drugs, alcohol, and untreated mental illness to run rampant. The idea that America is exceptional and immune from failure is both arrogant and naive.
So you know, rats are sociable beings. One study found that "Rather than competing for limited available food, the food-deprived rats socialized and coexisted peacefully." In another study it was found that when one rat was constantly rewarded a treat and another rat was not, rat #1 would share the treats with rat #2.
Rats doing research on humans, were not able to detect similar behavior. (This is meant as a joke.)
So? What is the poison holding together Trump's attack on America? And, it's not just Trump's attack., The whole of the GOP IS complicit in attacking America. The poisonous weapons they bring are hatred, racism, intolerance, fear and greed. Collectively, America is the wealthiest country in human history. But rather than continuing to build a better society, Trump and the GOP want to burn down our humane social programs, disrupt the best work of our educational institutions, cripple our healthcare system, deport as inhumanly as possible, hard working immigrants and attack our most vulnerable Americans. They manufacture hatred to gaslight liberal America. Everyday Trump finds new hateful ways to attack America and Americans. The GOP goose steps right behind him. Why? They hate Liberals. Liberals are their enemy. Liberals want to help the poor and the needy.. Liberals believe in equality. Liberals respect citizens who are not like them. The GOP hates kindness and will use government policy to stop it. At the end of the day, Trump and his GOP, in their greed, want to take the government funds for the poor and give it back to the rich in the form of tax cuts even if it swells our deficit We will defeat Trump's hatred and greed. We are rising up to return America to it's rightful mission of tolerance and equality. We will bring the sun out again
The poison is a toxic brew of racism, misogyny, greed, lust for power/control, grievance, lack of compassion, willful ignorance, Christian fascism, and other vile elements -
shaken, stirred.
Yes, the whole of the GOP is complicit - as are those who stand by silently or cheering on the fires being set. Edited to add those who are working very hard to excuse the atrocities - “how do you KNOW people being arrested aren’t illegals… “
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." LBJ
Boy, this rings true. A few months ago I started bugging to have my SIL carry her US passport. She's immigrated from Thailand and became a US citizen after marrying my brother.
Now I am bugging them to get a passport for their 7 yo daughter to carry as proof of citizenship. Hopefully it is not too late to get it for her, even though her mom was a citizen when she was born.
My wife insisted that I renew my decade plus expired passport. Not because we’re going to travel, but because, well, you never know could be coming next from these cretins. BTW, I’m an older WASP type guy - I had no say in that - but, why would that stop these guys after they’ve tasted blood?
I got an enhanced license for myself to prove i am el8gible to vote ... and may yet renew my old passport in case Canada starts to play hardball and no longer accept the enhanced license.
It's wise to get passports for the entire family, but it's not wise to have a 7-year-old carry one all the time. It will almost certainly be lost or stolen within a year.
Sad that a seven year old would have to carry one.
Make a copy of the page with personal information and put that in her back-pack.
Really glad you wrote this today. Couldn’t be more timely. Perfect musical coda, too.
I doubt that. There are many Jewish people who are not supportive of Israel.
Stephen Miller is the clearest example of what happens when self-hating Jewish kapos are put in positions of power. As a Jew, I am deeply ashamed he is (was) a member of our tribe.
May his name be blotted.
It's always worth mentioning that blue state america provides the funding for red state america. It's time to cut these red state lunatics loose.
I really would like to secede at this point.
Not quite there yet - but we need to be prepared for it.....
I think the Blue states should form a Continental Congress to seek redress for their grievances. Maybe adopt that old Constitution we have lying around someplace. Maybe we could form a Continental Army, for old time’s sake…
That's not practical. With the exception of Alaska, the red States are all connected geographically and could certainly form a new country. The blue States form four distinct and widely separated groups. Perhaps the west coast and southwest could become part of Mexico and the rest become part of Canada. Then all we have to deal with is that fact that most of the military bases are in red States.
The Constitution would apply to every part of the US. Or else.
Hey, it worked for Lincoln.
I’m open to a change. I’m tired of sending my tax dollars to red states who value fascism over freedom.
Californians that I know want to join with Oregon and Washington.
No facial hair is allowed, but all hateful tattoos are welcomed! What a joke.