There’s no comparison between the allegations against Hunter Biden and those against Trump, but the GOP will push the claim because it has no scruples.
How on Earth did Donald John Trump become our 45th President of the United States? There are many reasons and one of them is the fact that our society has fallen behind intellectually starting with education.
Even though the U.S. has the number one education system in the world, we rank just 14th among 38 countries according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. The intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice.
(From Wikipedia)
Is the United States number 1 in anything?
Sure, the United States is a global leader in some categories including international businesses, athletic endeavors, global innovation, military spending, billionaires and wine consumption. The U.S. also comes out on top in some not-so-desirable categories like obesity, incarceration rate and soda consumption.
What does it say about our society when 74 million Americans voted to give this knucklehead another 4 years?
Carolyn, yes, and isn't that interesting for a party that claims to just looooove children, so much that they want women to be forced to give birth to them. Hypocrisy is strong with this party.
And this, after Uvalde, where 375 armed-to-the-teeth LEOs milled around for too many minutes of precious time, until the 376th (a border patrol man) LEO arrives at breakneck speed & takes out mass murderer through window.
Yeah, 1 teacher “distracted” by teaching is going to realize there’s someone at the door with an assault rifle pointed at her students and her, go to her locked drawer for her gun (locked, b/c, you know, teachers would be responsible for any child getting ahold of gun), turn around, and shoot mass murderer dead.
The frightwing’s pretzel logic is not only mind-bogglingly stupid but also treacherous to our children’s and our health.
My friend survived chemotherapy for breast cancer and showed no sign of cancer in her body. She died a few months later of liver failure. So...isn't that about the same?
That is my idea of freedom ... Freedom to tote a heavy weapon everywhere I go because that is how we "protect" ourselves from the constant looming danger of mass shooters. Didn't you know that America is Great when you are free from violence only to the extent you are armed against it?
AGAIN, these fascists are overtly PROUD of, and belligerently LOUD about their abject hypocrisy.
It is now a main component of their very being, let alone platform (along with their outright projection of all of THEIR wrongs/crimes/anti-democracy on Dems), and soon will be a requisite 'pledge', just like the one they are forcing all of their POTUS candidates to take to support their criminal, putrid orange fuehrer (EXCEPT, of course SCUMp himself, if it is not him who gets the nomination).
David, in addition to their blatant hypocrisy (they don't even try to hide it), For Republicans, lying is the "coin of the realm" as I have frequently called it. When a political party lives on hypocrisy, lying, with a topping of cheating and manipulation, it is or should be impossible for people of integrity to support them. We keep hearing of supposed "good" people clinging to their false hope and belief in the Republican party of some past (although nonexistent) age. Hey guys, that is a fantasy! The Republican party has been starting down the long hill toward fascism since Nixon, although Nixon didn't come from nowhere. He was in league with people who did not value our democracy like Joe McCarthy and the band of brothers on HUAC. Trump is their grandchild. We must do better!! R.Sheets
The NRA, the Republican Party and Pox Noise are not healthy for children and other living things.
The NRA profits from gun violence because it makes people scared and scared people buy more guns.
The Republican Party profits from gun violence because it makes people scared and scared people vote for more Republicans.
Pox Noise profits from gun violence because it makes people scared and scared people watch (more) Pox Noise and that helps Pox Noise get higher ratings which means that Pox Noise can charge more to advertisers, thus bringing in more money.
Some Americans are voting for the Christo- fascist party. This is now an extremely strange cult-like phenomenon in this country. There are many fascists now in local, state and federal governments and even the so-called US supreme Court. We have six there right now. How can I tell? They all lied to get their jobs and are lying to us today. That's what fascism is all about the big lie and running black money to fascists (Citizens United) The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable. Are you one of them? Even if you voted for tRump are you really holding hands with one of the above?
The Democratic Party is now making a change. The Democratic Party has become the anti-fascist party. We stand for your rights. We stand for democracy. We stand for civil rights. We stand for women's rights. We stand for workers’ rights. We stand for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. How do we do this? By kicking out or keeping out fascists from government. We are the new anti-fascist party. Join us if you are a republican, conservative, democrat or independent in the fight against fascism. If you are a man, woman, rich or poor, voter or non-voter join us. Vote for a Democrat. Third parties are anathema right now. Don't vote third party. That is a vote for fascism.
As long as you want freedom you are anti-fascist already anyway so Vote blue because it is totally good for you and it is totally good for America. It is good for your children. It is good for your grandchildren. It is good for women and men. It is good for members of the LGBT communities. It is good for your dogs and your cats. It is good for all Americans black, white, brown, Indian, - every single American. Want to vote against Christo-fascism? Vote for a Democrat.
We can do this together. Whoever you are Vote for a democrat and change Americas current trajectory to Democracy.
The unfortunate trends you describe in your first paragraph are wishful thinking for the GOP. Most young Americans are definitely going in a different direction. It might not be what the Democrats stand for either, and that's their right. They're going to inherit this thing we've left them.
The Republican talking points have nothing to do with real positions on important issues. Instead, they simply rant on about "Democrats", "femocrats" ""Libtards" and worse words they use as swear-words with nothing of substance as to why they hate the left. Their last vain hope was to cling to self-righteousness on the abortion issue, but they are finding that they have to abandon that because of the extreme measures passed in right-wing state legislatures since the Supreme Court ended Roe.
It would be undignified if we started doing the same thing, rather than the well-reasoned issue positions that make Democratic Party attractive.
Mike I would like to agree with you and in a large sense I do agree. But, talk is getting us nowhere.We have to DO something more.
To make a long story short. On Feb 6th 1934 there was an insurrection in France. The fascist took over the government force and invited the Nazis over to France. The French democracy decided to fight back with an enormous anti-fascist campaign. They called out the fascists. The called themselves the anti- fascists They invited everyone to join the democratic push against fascism. They won France back.
There is no doubt for me that this is what is needed in the USA. We need to fight for our country , for democracy, or we will lose it
On a slight aside, your libtard reference reminded me if simething. I saw a right wing person posing as a vegan on Tiktok as an overly militant, extreme vegan. One thing that gave away that she was posing was her use if the word "meat-tard." She was sometimes almost funny, but she was just too overt the top.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by Robert Reich
What confounds me is what it says about our society's mentality, where the narrative portraying Biden as simultaneously a doddering, geriatrically impaired incompetent >as well as< the sinister, conniving head of a sophisticated crime family, responsible for all manner of international corruption, who is so clever he can manage to leave not a single scrap of evidence for all this wrongdoing, is a major party's political messaging strategy, rather than an absurdist segment uttered by a stand-up comic, is taken seriously! LOL!
UPDATE: I just heard on Democracy Now, where Alito wrote an op-ed today in denial of having violated any ethics rules, without bothering to mention "in an organization - the SCOTUS - that apparently >has no< ethics rules!" Haven't we been a'hollerin' out here for >months< about that lack of ethics rules ‽ LOL!
Yes, you have nailed it. It is stunning that your average mouth breathing knuckle dragging Republican base voter doesn't see that for the paradox that it is. Oh well, as I have stated before, I believe we are doomed.
I think part if the problem is that rural and urban voters live very different lives. Many rural areas are underserved and the more urbane liberal people do not understand and are unaware if their problems. So, a party hunting for power is able to pander to their concerns and misdirect the blame for their problems. For example, education is extremely underfunded in rural areas because most states fund it based on property taxes. Rich urban conservatives are partly responsible for these policies which unconcerned liberal voters can accept and go along with. However, when the economy takes a downturn, the rich conservatives do not talk about these policies. Instead they find easy scapegoats. Meanwhile, the left is talking about "knuckle-dragging" Republicans who are that way in part because nobody really cares to spend the time, attention and money to properly educate them to think for themselves.
A well-stated consideration. However, when >I< think of the "knuckle-dragging" Яepuблikan$, I'm thinking first and foremost of ol' Tweety and his entourage of sycophants and facilitators, where the worshipful cult of celebrity cannot be ignored. Don't forget to include all the neo-Confederates - Sons & Daughters of the Confederacy "preserving their heritage," for example - who, along with the Klan, have held a grudge for nearing 200 years, Nazis - their natural allies - who didn't get the message in The Great War, part II, along with the evangelical fundamentalists brandishing their full array of TV tent-revival heretics, neighborhood bunds - excuse me, fellowships - and schoolboard activists, who have been at it attempting to impose a "2nd Reawakening" since >at least< the early '70s - and are too deficient to know the difference, so long as supporting their half-assed doctrine is passed into law.
By the way, never forget the Яepuблikan$' great and good ally, Uncle Vlad, the Invader. I hear-tell that in the same way as ol' Tweety, he's the darling of the Russian Orthodox KGB confessors!
On Vlad, the best evidence that Trump had too many entanglements with Russia was his reluctance to go after Russia for interference in elections.
For decades, the Red-like Scare was just simmering to be tapped. He could so easily have demonized the resurgence of an aggressive Russia, and defensed democracy against outside interference, with the added bonus that he would seem extra heroic as that support was in his favor and he was fighting against it. Instead he went after every easy target except Russians. I guess that would have been too much like biting the hand that feeds you. Russia was the only place that would lend to him anymore, and was open to his laundering schemes!
As for the Confederate types, Nazis, etc. remember that in the South, the poor white people did not see much benefit either, It was easy for the rich in the south to place blame on minorities for their condition white perpetuating that same condition. The appeal to race was one reason why labor unions never thrived in the South. They associated the unions with black people, and then they were able to prevent both black and white workin class people to get any kind of fair benefits. The key point I am trying to make is that instead of demonizing lower class white people, I think that minorities and liberals could try to find common cause with them against a system perpetuated by conservative rich and/or powerful people. Less and less, there is nobody else but extremists reaching out to them to hear their concerns, and regardless of the past, they cote in a democracy, Their concerns should be given attention if only to redirect them to the proper targets. Black people and immigrants are not causing their misery, but the very people that supposedly lead them are. Yet, because we view them as stupid and lost causes, nobody is calmly and respectfully giving them a coherent countervailing view. Media does not as they live in a media bubble. The only voice that respects them enough to talk to them are the more extreme groups. It is stupid of us to expect that one of the least educated populations of the US, the least attended to, are going to see past the only people willing to engage with them and come to see how those same leaders perpetuate their own problems.
Oh, I completely agree. Note, the "knuckle-draggers" I'm identifying are upper middle class, or better. (C'mon, who do you think runs the likes of the Daughters of the Confederacy, for example. Look at the DAR for a mirror image!) In archaic Euro-speak: the bourgeoisie! And behind each of those more violent groups, you'll find the money egging them on. The folks you're referring to are the "mushrooms," who were "born one morning when the sun didn't shine," held hostage in the dark, and are continually fed a load of $#!7! by their "betters" - to use the kind of term they might use. "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich!" would be other language they might use. Those are who fall prey to all that "preyer." And the only thing they have to give is loyalty to the "friends" that feed on them.
Some Americans are voting for the Christo- fascist party. This is now an extremely strange cult-like phenomenon in this country. There are many fascists now in local, state and federal governments and even the so-called US supreme Court. We have six there right now. How can I tell? They all lied to get their jobs and are lying to us today. That's what fascism is all about the big lie and running black money to fascists (Citizens United) The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable. Are you one of them? Even if you voted for tRump are you really holding hands with one of the above?
The Democratic Party is now making a change. The Democratic Party has become the anti-fascist party. We stand for your rights. We stand for democracy. We stand for civil rights. We stand for women's rights. We stand for workers’ rights. We stand for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. How do we do this? By kicking out or keeping out fascists from government. We are the new anti-fascist party. Join us if you are a republican, conservative, democrat or independent in the fight against fascism. If you are a man, woman, rich or poor, voter or non-voter join us. Vote for a Democrat. Third parties are anathema right now. Don't vote third party. That is a vote for fascism.
As long as you want freedom you are anti-fascist already anyway so Vote blue because it is totally good for you and it is totally good for America. It is good for your children. It is good for your grandchildren. It is good for women and men. It is good for members of the LGBT communities. It is good for your dogs and your cats. It is good for all Americans black, white, brown, Indian, - every single American. Want to vote against Christo-fascism? Vote for a Democrat.
We can do this together. Whoever you are Vote for a democrat and change Americas current trajectory to Democracy.
Join us if you are a republican, conservative, democrat or independent in the fight against fascism. If you are a man, woman, rich or poor, voter or non-voter join us. Vote for a Democrat.
or this?
As long as you want freedom you are anti-fascist already
I am not sure that they do not look at politics as some kind if bait the liberal comedy. Either that, or I think maybe they think The Onion parodies are actually real news too.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by Robert Reich
Do you realise how ridiculously hubristic, not to mention silly, your statement “the US has the number 1 education system in the world”, when it’s followed by “we rank 14th … according to the OECD”..?
The reason Trump was elected isn’t because of how you patronisingly stated - because of a lack of intellectualism. It was due to the masses of working & middle class people getting left behind, betrayed by the deindustrialisation Clinton’s NAFTA deal caused, and the promises of neoliberalism coming to nothing. The wealth inequality widening, with the top 20% getting richer and everyone else losing their jobs or working for low wages. Then Obama failed to fulfil any of his “hope and change” promises, standing by and doing nothing while millions of American families were thrown out of their homes after the 2008 financial crises, yet bailing out the bankers who caused it. Life expectancy in the US began falling under Obama. I could go on, with many more egregious examples of why Americans felt betrayed by the Democrats, and rightly so. They were so desperate, along with Hilary being a terrible candidate and widely disliked, taking voters for granted and calling them names - “the deplorables” - that they voted for a racist, misogynistic game show host.
Sandy, how was Hilary Clinton wrong? She was a woman! That's it and our media permitted Trump to rant and posture against her in the most disrespectful ways. The fact that she won by 3 million votes is remarkable. Instead of that she was the wrong candidate, maybe the message is that we need to get rid of the electoral college and to call men (and women) out on their misogyny and racism when it shows up, pointing out just how the remarks or actions are racist or misogynistic. It's time men and their female surrogates are called for their actions and we stop blaming women for being women, just not good enough.
Agree about the electoral college - it is out of date and old fashioned and no longer appropriate - a true democracy is one person one vote, the popular vote. I believe that America was definitely not ready for a woman especially a democratic woman. Also she was not reaching out to working America in the same way as Bernie was. Trump was talking to the same people that Bernie was addressing - those that felt disenfranchised - the working Americans, but had a different way of dealing with the issues and is more authentic and compassionate - not a psychopath. I believe a lot of the Bernie supporters in the states that Trump won the electoral college stayed home. Now I worry about DeSantos!!
OK, but I have to ask, is America ready for a Jewish socialist either??
(And I am someone who FULLY supports Bernie and most of his platforms/ideas.)
Having experienced ANTI-SEMITISM first hand myself, I can tell you that it crosses ALL political divides, boundaries, and ideologies, yes even into centrist and even into some of the left leaning Dem electorate.
Sadly, it is NOT just the foaming at the mouth, knuckle dragging brown shirt peckerwoods who hate on/loathe 'the tribe', although theirs is the most fervent and violent of all haters.
Agree about HRC, Sandy. Add to your comments that she's a defiant hawk and a blatant Wall Street shill, and you have someone the likes of the t***p base would never vote for. Nor would many Progressives.
Well, as Obama told Biden, it was "her turn," not his. A sizable percentage of moderate voters thought that she deserved it (in part because of being done wrong by Bill) and because we have never had a woman president. I always thought that Bernie was a better antidote to Bill Clinton than Hillary, who mostly reinforced his worst neoliberal policies, but like most Sanders supporters, I voted for her and thought I'd wake up the next morning and find Trump's election was a mirage. What Democrats failed to recognize, IMO, is that there was (and is) a huge contingent who have not recovered from having a Black man in the White House. It's no surprise that DiSantis wants to erase any discussion of racism. Or even the legitimacy of Black voters.
Totally agree with you - I too was/am a Bernie supporter who voted for Hillary but really think he would have been a much better candidate against Trump!
Mostly agree, progwoman, especially about Bernie. I couldn't make myself vote for HRC, however. Too close to her husband's philosophies and deeds: NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, etc. Bernie was by far the better choice.
TRE45ON won, by Jill Stein siphoning off anti-45 & pro-women voters, & by Bernie voters sitting it out. It was so narrow, so close.
We learned our lesson years ago, voting for an alternative candidate out of fond hope combined with disgust, with the worst candidate then winning. So this time, we as Bernie supporters held our noses & voted for HR.
The one thing that you have failed to mention is the steady drumbeat of conservative media that has shaped, distorted, and distended the story of white victimization. And then, of course, there are evangelical church leaders who see dollar signs in the wealth philosophy of individual responsibility. For you to pin this exclusively on a failure of the democratic party is absurd. The Fox audience, the evangelical audience, they are complicit, and I'm tired of people excusing rabid, out of control hatred. While it's true that economic insecurity may underlie this political inflammation of their brains, it's also true that their attention had been reshaped and diverted by bad actors" -- and they, trumps base and affiliates -- have willingly given up discernment. To this extent. I think the OP is correct.
Susan, you are so right about conservative media, but not just them, mainstream media, including NPR/PBS have participated. Somehow they decided on a ridiculous "balanced" coverage bit where they were giving the same amount of time to climate deniers as to actual scientists, anti-baccers as to scientists, Trump liars as to those calling out the lies, and on and on. Because of Trump's childish behavior in 2016, the media in general gave hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity to Trump and the Trump clones, forgetting the "balance" when it came to that and the best they could do for Hillary was to keep bringing up her emails and Ben Gazi, neither of which more than 10 years later have been dropped by Republicans, despite no evidence of serious wrong-doing (a couple of messages labeled confidential were found among Clinton's emails, possibly called confidential after they were sent). Trump on the other hand stole boxes and boxes of papers, many of which were top secret, and left around where "anyone" just might find them. There is no comparison and for any media to even imply there is a similarity is criminal, but that's what happens when rich conservative white guys own media and use it for their own purposes.
I agree with you completely It was nit an act but a doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine from the Federal Communications Commission is what it was called, and yes, I think it kept things a lot more honest. It was made back in the days when radio bandwidth was a limited commodity that had to be licensed and regulated or people would broadcast over each other and no stations would reliably be heard. Their rules were governed by the idea if distributing this limited resources for the public good . Then cable came and some people felt like there was no linger a real justification for this limitation of broadcasters to broadcast whatever they wanted or not. So in the name of free speech, we made it easy to drown out the speech of those not privileged to own their own media source and not act in the interest of the public.
Yes, and the cable broadcasters were just as powerful as the radio and TV ones, and should have been held to the same standards...While not using the public airwaves, they were certainly using the public rights-of-way for their cables The same goes today for cable internet. Using public infrastructure, and should be regulated for the public good.
What's more, while cable companies are making a killing ($100/mo for just about every person in Amerika, they don't even put on good programming, usually depending on others to create content.
I received a phone call from one of them trying to sell me on a cable hookup...."You can get 40 channels for just under $160 a month...That's less than $4 each"
"OK", i said. "I'll take three."
Maybe I'm just different, but I can only watch one channel at a time . . .
Their 'economic anxiety' did NOT install that racist hatred, misogyny, xenophobia, ANTI-SEMITISM, and ferocious desire for fascism into their (diminished) collective cerebral cortexes, it was ALREADY THERE.
It was just amplified, exacerbated, and exploited by Goebbels Nooz (and the like), to get them fully whipped up into an apoplectic rightwingnut frenzy.
I don’t pin it solely on the Dems. But we are talking about why, after 8 years of Obama, did millions of working class Americans pick a bigoted game show host ?
Some people are indeed racist or couldn't get over the fact that Obama let the republican legislature stop him at every turn. The picked tRump because he was a populist/fascist wwho lied to them at every turn.
Also, I agree that Obama, like most recent Democrats, had a hard time taking a strong approach to dealing with the Republican legislature. Why he did not invoke the Constitutional requirement to pay debts when debt default was an issue, I will never know. That was really weak.
Well, you could say that he told us who he was at every turn, and people just did not take the hints seriously. As for the lies, they just do nit seem to care at all as long as their "team" is winning.
A round of applause any time the subject goes to the Murdoch devils and their spawn. Pragmatically, if you want to get to the bottom of our polarization, infighting, fear and domestic terrorism, most of it can be traced to that single source. Fox et al are the cheerleaders. Sure, there are systemic issues, and profound ones, that need addressed. But the United States doesn't need to go to our present extremes to have a serious discussion about reasonable reforms.
If I had one wish before I go, I would want the Murdochs stripped of their citizenship and thrown out of the country, as well as their media blocked here. We absolutely have to have a discussion about the limits of the First Amendment. Other countries have, without sacrificing their democratic principles.
I kind if think Rush Limbaugh deserves some credit for polarizing things. And maybe having cameras in al, the congressional proceedings made it difficult to make compromises with the other side since then you were seen to be "agreeing with the enemy." People like Rush would call out anybody who did not toe the line and try to compromise. I think compromises take strength, but uniformly, people like Rush saw them as weakness. Didn't Trump give Rush an award? He understood how much Rush did to oave the way for somebody like him: loud, brash, obnoxious, and detached from reality.
Absolutely. You make a good point. Limbaugh was one of the first. Fox took off on that, profiting from extremist speech. You may disagree, but I believe that Limbaugh would have faded away eventually, considering his singularity (at the time) and his drug dependence. Admittedly, Jen Senko spoke of her dad getting originally culted through his listening to Limbaugh traveling to and from his work ("The Brainwashing of My Dad"), so the guy had a powerful reach for sure. But she blames Fox for most of the damage.
Fox built up an enormous propaganda machine based on Limbaugh's extremism and they have ways of reaching and seducing the masses that are quite sophisticated.
J-Pat: Watch the deplorables attacking the US Capitol, and tell me Hillary was wrong. Oh, and by the way, Hillary was only 'widely disliked' by Republicans who got their news from a 'Show' ...not a factual News Broadcast ...a SHOW, from a company that slandered her for many years, then was forced to pay $737.5 MILLION for defamation to Dominion for Lying and slandering, and there are more law suits on the way.
Carmine, thank you for your accurate defense of Hilary Clinton. She has been maligned for decades, essentially for being a woman. On top of that, she can think, is smart, takes crap from nobody, and gives a damn. Sounds like a good/worthy Democrat to me
Agree with all you say - she is smart etc etc. But a large portion of America was not ready for her. I think Bernie would have been a better match for Trump. He appeals to the emotional passion not just the intellect. But this is all in the past. What to do now!?!
How many “ educated “ people would have swallowed that crap about the evils of Hillary.
You are very correct in pointing out the fact that Hillary won by millions of popular votes.-as did Biden in 2020.
Well, there’s an ass for every saddle, and the way things are going, we better start making a hell of a lot more saddles.
We really do need to turn our clocks back hundreds of years when just the idea of the Separation Of Church and State was a big No, No,and millions of people were murdered if anyone one of them even attempted to go against, and destroy that belief.🤔🤨
If after watching Trump supporters after the last seven years, you don't think the majority ARE deplorable, then you need to think some more. Or you don't see what the rest of us see.
That "terrible candidate" won the popular vote by a few million. She also BTW beat Bernie Sanders by 3M votes.
Women just didn't realize it doesn't really count as winning unless you beat a man by at least ten million.
If you don't remember Republicans taking both the House and Senate in 2010, you've got a Republican style memory. Where it's always Obama's fault -- and never the Republicans blocking and spending all their time trying to repeal Obamacare.
My favorite was when they claimed Obama's response to Katrina was inadequate.
Bridget, yes, Republicans do have a knack of making stuff up, then forgetting history. History has not been kind to Republicans lately, but somehow, they do keep getting their wonks elected. Hillary was right about the "basket of deplorables" and those deplorables are proving it every day. The antidote, Democrats must vote in huge numbers in every election. What's the chance of that!
Bridget, I hope the SC won't do that since there is no reason they should since it is supposed to be within the options of the President, but who knows hout the current Republican 6 will rule. They make up the Constitution to support whatever they are getting paid to rule. If they do it and some of the other just plain evil things they have the chance to do this term, I hope Gen Z will remember and I hope the rest of us will too, on their behalf if not on our own.
I personally thought that she was giving them way too much credit, and 'soft pedaling', even downplaying in the name of civility, their mentalities with that descriptor. ;)
Yup-I cringed too when she rolled out the "deplorables", but didn't she ever hit THAT nail on the head! 75 million of them. The wealth inequality is completely on the Repubs and their tax cuts and clinging to an economic theory that does not work. Even the architect of "Trickle Down", Dave Stockman, admitted it does not work. I could go on....
But, but their 'gold standard POTUS' Saint Ronnie RayGun ZAP! said it WILL work, so they must believe it, and cling to it, regardless of outcomes, for the direct benefit of their oligarchic trillionaire donor-bosses.
Maybe they had foresight, and were talking about what Donnie SCUMp was doing in that hotel room in Moscow, maybe?? (Yeah, EEWWWW!)
Yeah David, I was a Repub back in those days and thought Reagan was God. It took dimwit '43s invasion of Iraq (a 3 year old could foresee the outcome of that stupidity, that we're still witnessing today) combined with Mark Meadow's tea party to say buh-bye, along with endless tax cuts that have only resulted in declining revenues and increasing debt. Since President Biden's election I've learned through HCR and R Reich how FDR style government IS important for growth, not the lean, "you're on your own" Repub approach. And about that Moscow motel room...thanks, now I'm not going to sleep tonight!
Yes, looking back at that time, I sometimes think that I was the only single, even 'leftist' progressive Dem who did NOT pull the lever for that pompous, arrogant, self-righteous, sanctimonious, rightwing pruneface.
He duped this WHOLE nation about as much as the putrid orange SHITler did in the '16 race.
That white bread, Christianist asshole was a turn off for me no matter HOW MUCH 'prosperity' he promised with his POS economic theories <-(at BEST!)
Initially the public was taken with Bernie Sanders, who directly addressed concerns of the American people & described a much more people-oriented way of governance, but a concerted effort by the corporatist establishment of the Democratic Party shot him down. That's when too many people turned to the (by then) only other viable alternative to the unpopular Hillary, bringing us the disaster that was the Trump administration.
The reason the US has the best educational system but ranks14th is because the country doesn't have educational standards that are upheld in every state. Red states have used education money to balance budgets, saying that we don't need everyone to have a good education. Teachers are not allowed to teach, paid less than they deserve and villified by the right for everything they try to do for kids. Education in blue states is important but the GOP is afraid to let people get an education, because if they do they won't vote republican.
Apparently there are various factors to measure and sources to, well, source.
I'd bet contrasted with smaller nations, the US features lopsided, more heterogeneous statistics, depending on factors such as urban/rural, economic status, public/private/home schooled, etc. Of course the STEM courses are a part of the controversy here and likely are less so in, say, EU countries?
BTW, what source are you using for the decline in life expectancy begins in Obama's term?
Because all i can find is it dropping from 78.7 to 78.6 in 2016.
A fact which would not have been known in 2016 so could not have impacted voters.
It's currently 76.1.
My uneducated guess is that boomers are now in our sixties. Due to our sheer numbers, we're negatively impacting life expectancy.
Conversely, in ten years you may see it take a jump up. (Unhealthy or unlucky boomers are dying off in their sixties -- which is normal. After that initial danger period, your odds of living into your 80s increase.)
Trump didn't help by screwing up COVID and the Republicans aren't helping by increasing access to guns and refusing to take the Medicaid expansion, but boomers have been a spanner in the works for 70+ years and it's best to start with them.
Nearly all of the decline in longevity occurred during the Trump administration & was firmly established even before the pandemic. That blip in 2016 is statistically insignificant.
Bridget, maybe the decline in life expectancy is also because healthcare is so hard to get for so many people. Even the ACA costs far more than most families can afford. Being in ACA essentially wiped out my sister's savings and retirement because of her pre-existing conditions and what I think is also abuse within the medical system not making a proper diagnosis and over prescribing expensive treatments. When people are quite ill, they often will pay anything to feel better. That led to the opioid epidemic among working-class white people, the ones who never thought they would resort to such a thing. We the People must be OK with the declining life expectancy because we do so little to stop the needless dying of our people in overdoses, gun deaths, anti-vaccer insanity, and poor health care. Little has been done concerning poverty beyond the few months of relief during the pandemic. The rich who run things don't care much because they believe they can afford the best of everything and for that reason will live longer. Usually, they're right.
Ruth, I'm so sorry about your sister. I have relatives and friends with chronic health conditions and I know how draining they are - both to your bank account and your ability to navigate an unnecessarily complicated system.
So I agree with you that there are many factors.
But I think if boomers were younger - say in their thirties, all of those things could be true and life expectancy would still be rising. Because people in their thirties on average don't die from diabetes, heart attacks, etc. And we skew the numbers.
The death toll is the consequence of everything you said and policies which have failed us over the last 40 years coming home to roost. And late 50s-60s is the age group where people start getting sick & dying from poor health choices.
Boomers are also the first generation (correct me if I'm wrong) where their retirement is predominately 401k based and not pension/Social Security - leading to more financial instability. Financial instability is not good for life expectancy.
There's a crime wave in the late 1950s through the early 1990s. When I was at Penn in the 1970s, Jeremy Siegel predicted to all of us that rising crime would start to taper off in the 1980s and 90s.
Because crimes are predominately committed by young men between the ages of 16 and 30. So track that crime wave with when the first of the boomers hit sixteen and the last of them hit 30.
I think boomers are still a pig in a python and we rarely weight that when we look at national statistics.
Should we make better health care choices? Should we start looking at addiction prevention instead of criminalization? Should we try and break through vaccine and pandemic misinformation? Yes to all of that.
But we should also accept that we're going to have lousy numbers for the next ten years and fix things going forward.
It was the Pandemic. Longevity is measured by statistics of death. The pandemic brought us more senior deaths thus longevity drop. Pull out you pencil and you can figure it out easily by yourself.
But if the pandemic had hit in the 1980s, when boomers were in the 20-40 age group, overall life expectancy wouldn't have been as impacted. Because the generation in their 60s was so much smaller than ours.
Smarter people than me started predicting increased Alzheimer and dementia cases in the 1990s. But I don't remember them predicting the higher cases of type 2 diabetes which is also tied to age.
Most of what you say may be true, however, that does not excuse the undying support that he still receives from the rank and file. He offered hope to the working class, but what exactly did he do for them and what good did his presidency accomplish for the good of the country and the world? I ask these respectfully because i'm lost. And I do agree that many people who supported Trump the FIRST time were mis-labeled as deplorables. They didn't like Hillary, but they voted along party lines, and that lead to this current situation.
J-Pat, Obama led the way toward universal health care. John Boehner and the Republicans set out on a decade of war on this idea without ever proposing a sentence of their own as to how to provide for the health of the American people. Reasons: racism and corporate selfishness. Please watch the documentary film, The Brainwashing of My Dad, which you can view on YouTube.
“Obama-care” is not “universal healthcare”. In fact Obama got the entire thing from Mitt Romney’s Policy Centre. That’s right, it WAS a Republican policy. It was DEMOCRAT Senators who were the block on doing any better. Obama had a super-majority for the first two years.
Obama is insidious because he’s a smooth talker and he fools people, like yourself, into thinking he’s any different from the Corporate whores. He’s not. His entire staff was picked by Wall Street. He did their bidding, especially after the crash when voters expected him to come down hard on the criminal casino capitalist bankers…. because when campaigning he said he would do that. What happened? Not one prosecution followed. 5 million American families were evicted while he did nothing. Oh, except allowing the bankers bonuses to be paid out if the BAIL OUT cash. US Taxpayers cash! He also promised to the Women’s groups that “On day one in office my first act will be to codify Roe v Wade.” Hmm how did that go? When he was challenged about it he replied “It’s not one of my priorities”. THAT is your Saint Obama.
Dear J-Pat, now you have stopped commenting and started bullying. Wherever the ACA came from, Obama put it forward. Fact. Republicans disparaged it at every turn and failed to offer any form of health care legislation, no matter how flawed. Fact. The rest of your remarks may be true but are beside the point. The original thread was about why people could vote for a Trump. One of the answers is that many hated him because he is Black. This is relevant to the documentary I cited. I hope you watch.
You make some relevant points. Obama lost me several days in when he appointed Henry Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs CEO, to be Sec. of the Treasury. We weren't going to see any major economic reforms. "Business as usual" . . . we could have done worse recovering from the Great Recession, although the inequality has continued to climb since then.
You are right about the ACA too, although it has been a godsend to many Americans. We could have done so much better with a nationalized plan for all. Obama is a professorial sophisticate and being a millionaire, cannot help but lose some degree of popular trust in that regard.
He did serve a noble cause -- as our first black president. He mobilized many demoralized minorities who hadn't bothered to vote before. I'll leave it to them to judge his performance as vs. their expectations. But we needed a JFK, and we likely needed an Obama too. Need I add that, in contrast to Trump, he WAS "Saint Obama."
We all could ask him if he has regrets about not acting on Roe.
You're so bitter (as am l ; but towards #45 and the likes of you) but l hope you realize the Republicans wouldn't allow any legislation to pass during Obama's term. Republicans still don't smell too good to me.
Lmao you’ve been drinking the MSNBC kool-aid. Obama had a SUPER MAJORITY for the first TWO YEARS. Stop making excuses for politicians who promise so much but all they give is excuses.
The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable.
The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are "deplorable." Even if you voted for tRump are you really holding hands with one of the above?
I didn’t vote for Trump, or Biden. I have never voted for a right wing politician in my life. Both of them are right wing. But you’re making a huge mistake to classify 50-60 million americans as “nazis, white supremacists” etc. While undoubtedly there are some, the majority of Trump voters are normal, working class folk who are fed up with fake promises from mainstream politicians. Oh, and there’s the fact that Trump INCREASED his numbers with Black AND Hispanic voters. Are they “White Supremacists”…?
Sure they can be. White supremacy is an ideology not a race.
And no, not all Trump voters are white supremacists or Nazis but there is an old adage about sleeping with dogs.
If you sleep with dogs, you'll get up with fleas.
In this case, if they are sleeping with Nazis and white supremacists they at least like their ideas or they concur with their ideas or, even that they are accomplices to their tyranny.
Actually, no, Biden has never been Reich wing.
Now, if you believe that Dems and member of the former Republican party should interact with working class members of the Dems party (left vs right) I agree with you. Working class Americans (all Americans) should interact with each other respectfully. The problem is the right and religious rights idea that it's either their way or the highway or that they should own the libs is Christo- fascism and that is oppression.
Here is an example for you. I am pro-life. Pro a woman's life that is but not pro forced pregnancy or forced birth. I believe that a woman should have full autonomy in every respect. I firmly believe that a woman who does not want an abortion should never be forced to have one. I love children you see.
I also believe that if a woman needs that kind of medical intervention she should be able to have one. (We can quibble about details later.) Don't you agree ?
Now, the Christo-fascists disagrees with us lefties. They believe that all women should be oppressed and forced into making babies because they say so. Does that make any sense?
If your answer is yes then
consider a government that forces every woman to abort their 1st and 2nd pregnancies. If you are anti-women's rights you would go nuts about that wouldn't you? That's how religiously oppressed. Citizens in the USA feel about right wing demands.
There is only one way to fight the christo- fascists sickness and that is to confront it directly and completely.
The facts tend to suggest that the severe income inequality that is ruining the middle and working classes was and is being engineered by the republicans. Trickle down economics does not exist except as a means of gaslighting. Massive tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations allow them to keep billions and use it to make more and more. Once again the lack of education and critical thinking means the gaslighting by the fascistic right is working.
Part of the problem is that no matter what injustices of the past we may be trying to fix, a democracy has to have something in it for all the people. Rural America has terribly low educational funding, compared to urban areas thanks to property tax for funding education. That, combined with a general neglect and feeling that it is right that these Americans should not be heard and are "not intellectual," makes them vulnerable to anybody willing to give them attention. Rich, urban conservatives like Trump who have almost nothing in common with them are able to harness this feeling of neglect, amplify it, and misdirect it in all sorts of ways. So I get what you are saying.
Still, you have to remember that Obama did not exactly get his way as would have liked. Explicitly, the Congressional Republican leadership agreed to oppose all ideas put forward by the Obama administration regardless of merit. That was their no-compromise pledge, https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311
They largely stood by it, and once Obama lost the Senate majority, there was little he could do - he even failed to appoint a Supreme Court position during his last months in office. And just like any President, he inherited the problems of his successor, so, just like any President it is hard to lay all the blame on any of them unless they do take egregious action, particularly in the economic sphere where even more sources can influence the economy over which a President has no control. The Great Recession started under George Bush. The Housing Bubble was caused in large part due to deregulation by Republicans of the banking industry by repealing the Glass-Steagull Act, which kept more speculative investment practices away from your ordinary savings bank. Instead, they were allowed to create and trade in new and speculative financial instruments such as packaged sub-prine loans. When it came time to fix the crisis when Obama was elected, the package passed under his watch was already being put together. Because of the immediacy if the crisis, there was not a lot of time to renegotiate large portions of the package. And lets be clear, this package was fully supported by and created by Republicans. Should Obama have taken the time to overhaul the package and properly target the victims if the crisis? I cannot say if it would have been worth it at the time, if it would have turned things around (and they did turn around), or even if the actual package had much impact v all the other complicated variables that supported the turn-around. More like academic economists as opposed to political ones, I will humbly and truthfully say I do not and probably cannot know.
As for NAFTA, there is a lot of problems determining its exact impact.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/naftas-impact-u-s-economy-facts/ . "For every net job lost in this definition, the gains to the U.S. economy were about $450,000, owing to enhanced productivity of the workforce, a broader range of goods and services, and lower prices at the checkout counter for households.” That was in 2916. Our increase in exports to Mexico also made it hard to quantify the amount of jobs created v lost in NAFTA. And given that during NAFTA, jobs were being outsourced to Asiac countries anyway, it is impossible to quantify how many jobs that went to Mexico might have just gone to Asia instead. The Republican line concerning NAFTA, like most economic arguments made by politicians to their constituents was a vast simplification of a complex problem. I would not buy the party line of either party when they start making claims like this. If economics were that simple, centralized economies lime that of the USSR would have succeeded. A basic tenet of conservative economics is that economies are too complex for any government to really control, yet every political party thinks they know exactly what went wrong at any given time. I can say when bad policy obviously causes problems directly, but most of those claims you make cannot be "rightly" laid at the feet of the Democrats ... or Republicans often when so many different factors combine to cause them.
What it says is that about 60 million American voters are racist/religious knuckleheads, while 14 million Americans are just voting their 401Ks. The first group will never vote Democrat, the second just might - if the economic circumstances remain favorable.
America, this blessed plot, this precious stone set in the silver sea.....Love it or leave it.
"Racist/religious knuckleheads" are sheep who will vote for Democrats when they find out that behind the curtain are oligarchs and foreign wolves who would eat them.
I keep using examples like Republican diabetics who vote themselves unable to afford insulin. Republican seniors on fixed incomes who vote to sunset Social Security and Medicare.
What those racist/religious knuckleheads need is a "great awakening."
To find out what's behind the curtain, they'd have to actually LOOK behind the curtain. They either don't care enough to do that, or are afraid to lest they have their biases debunked.
Hmm.....it's difficult for me to think of anything that would awaken them, finally, after all this time. They have followed this pussy-grabbing lowbrow, even as he drove his truck through every one of the Ten Commandments. If he tells them he will look after them, they believe him.
They don't like black and brown people and they don't like Jews, even though, oddly, they expect a flying Jew to come save them at the End of Times.
"Trump's people" have become a cult, so hoping they will awaken is a bit like hoping that followers of Jim Jones could change their ways if informed that drinking Kool-Aid may not be in their best interests.
Dr. Hutchinson. Take a trip to bankruptcy court. To sentencing of the 1/6 defendants. To funerals of COVID victims.
I've been hoping that a Jimmy Carter/Billy Sunday evangelist will take the good news to the world, that God gave us benefits so we can tithe. First the benefits. Later the tithe.
I attended a funeral for a man who believed the right wing anti-vaxers and was a healthy motorcycle riding tough guy. He died of Covid after a long hospital stay. The funeral was heavily attended by his friends and family, non of which wore a mask in the middle of the worst of Covid. They all were so sorry he died at such an early age. The minister said “We don’t know why he was taken, but God had a plan”.
He was determined to “own the libs”. You can’t cure stupid.
Our friends and family need empathy, education and awakening. As Joe Biden says, they need “breathing room”. He has worked so hard to give folks this. I don’t like name calling. Whether we refer to people as “average”or “knuckleheads” or “sheep”, that doesn’t advance our case, IMHO. People are genuinely scared, bern through a lot. Lost a lot. And, many profit. Look at the news about Alito. Let’s talk about those elites. And look at the “Woman who bought a mountain” in the new Atlantic Monthly article. We have so much work to do!
100% correct. And Biden's plan worked for many Americans.
Except that giving folks in a cult "breathing room" is not going to work. They require extraction, which is almost impossible when they are addicted to extremist media and surrounded by insular reinforcement. It's a literal addiction, including a chemical aspect. When they're not kept in "fight or flight" mode, most harbor a simmering resentment, even rage. The Biden plan won't work for that.
Bob Altemeyer, the notable researcher of authoritarianism, said that one feature of those who score high in authoritarianism and submissive (most of the demographic -- the less common are the "high or double high dominants" like Trump) is that they are usually conformist. We see that with the GOP and it looks like cowardice to us. Point being, that one extraction method that seems to work for such cultists is that if enough of their peers shift, they feel uncomfortable and follow along. But it requires that first person having the courage or an exasperation in the status quo.
I sometimes wonder IF that 'great awakening' would be enough though.
EVEN IF their Goebbels Nooz, et al DID inform them (it does NOT!) about the Muricun NAZI Party's plans (STILL!) to obliterate Social Security and Medicare, (despite their loud false/staged protestations during Biden's address), that they will still vote their fascists into power and 'die for the 'cause'', as martyrs (or yes, as brain dead idiots).
No such thing as a liberal arts education anymore. Everyone "specializes" in business, taxes, real estate and all those things that help get you on the fast track to live the "ameriKKKan Dream??!??"
My wife works for a very proficient Dentist who laps up Faux News like it was the elixir of youth! He's THE MAN for your oral health, but can't tell the forest from the trees because he was NEVER exposed to the virtues and rigors of a real world education!
I am thankful every day that I was able to learn how to analyze, think critically and to "look behind the curtain" when facts don't add up... It undoubtedly continues to cause me serious consternation, but I am able to discern between a snake salesman and an empathetic human being. We are suffering as a nation and society because of the lack of THIS basic "skill set" that is essential to building community awareness and determining what is in everyone's best interest.
The unexamined life is STILL NOT worth living and is a NECESSITY FOR SURVIVAL!
I went to a famous London girls school. but I am not aware of being taught to be analytical, rather it was just a well rounded education in basic subjects until 16 when you started to specialize in your chosen subjects - mine were Geography, Art, Math & English, but none of those were about history & examining why who-did-what. But I never accept just anybody's opinion on anything without pondering the alternatives, so I do not think this is so much a problem with education in the schools, as possibly a problem of religious indoctrination from an early age giving people fixed minds, or is there just such a difference in the 'Conservative' brain that once they hold a belief they cannot accept anything outside of that because it requires the very thing - analysis- that their brains are not constructed - or willing - to do ! IOW I believe people tend to be who they are = Conservative in type or free thinking in type, not so much about education ! When we try to budge the Conservative from their carefully fostered beliefs we are basically threatening their feelings of safety - that is why they refuse to listen - while those who like discussion about ideas are always willing to engage on that, even if the opposite view is from a die-hard Conservative. Those conversations inevitably fizzle out rather quickly for the same 'discomfort' reasons !
It's hard to separate genetics from environment here, because most conservatives, like native authoritarians, grow up with a cultural lineage. Sometimes how we're reared, even from an early age, can imprint more strongly than all the verbal stuff we're taught later. "Do as I say, not as I do" is something most kids can see right through.
With money as speech, our votes are bought. "We in fact, do not elect the 'knucklehead.' Electoral College, bought off 'representatives' even if it came down to the 'Supreme' court, it's not looking good for the humans' votes! TV ads are not cheap! The average voter can't begin to match contributions from billionaires. What a travesty Citzens United is!
There are many fascists now in local, state and federal governments and even the so-called US supreme Court. We have six there right now. How can I tell? They all lied to get their jobs and are lying to us today. That's what fascism is all about the big lie and running black money to fascists (Citizens United) The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable.
There's a huge "left-behind" swath of the American population: places where education has been chronically de-funded and degraded for decades, where science has been replaced by religious indoctrination, and where working 2 or more jobs is still not enough to support a family. In these places there is neither time nor other necessary resources for "intellectuals" to develop or thrive.
It's really not a great mystery why people from these areas would gravitate to a vengeful, narcissistic con man who happens to be fluent in their language of grievance.
This is what the Democrats mostly fail to understand. Biden's policies have started to reverse some of the economic woes of the "left-behinds" — but it will take many years of such policies for most of those people to feel the effects.
I've read through the questions and replies. "How on Earth did Donald John Trump become our 45th President of the United States?"
Because -- face it -- Trump is America. As vile and deranged as he is, he reveals our national character like no other "celebrity." He's America's id on full display.
Trump could go out and shoot someone and would not lose any support. America goes into Indo-China and slaughters well over a million innocent people, and Americans still bring out the parades and banners. Because of Vietnam, Dr. King called America "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." And we all know it didn't stop with Vietnam.
Borrowing the words of another 60's icon: Trump is just an example of the chickens coming home to roost.
Due to a very progressive tax system, the advent of numerous social programs to help the public, the support of unions, a "can do" attitude, a widespread concern by both the public & government for social problems, & a national pride in the pillars of democracy: liberty, equality & justice, America improved in both moral authority & standard of living (at all economic levels) at its fastest in history during the era from FDR to LBJ to become #1 in the world in most measures of prosperity & well-being. Since 1980 & the growing corporatization & concomitant de-democratization of America, we've been in a steady decline relative to the rest of the world as other nations have passed us by.
My sister graduated from college cum laude in Engish literature, and yet with all her intelligence, she voted for Trump, twice. Her reason was she didn't want our country to become socialist. I guess she doesn't believe in publlic school, police departments, and social security. I didn't debate with her politics, but it goes to show you you don't have to be a deadbeat to be mislead.
Ivory tower, but insular. One reason most of the EU is ahead of us in many things is the contiguity of the countries. Easy to see, even experience, what others are doing, and compare/contrast w/ them. We are separated by two oceans from knowing the world better. Mexico just means a vacation in Cancun and Canada is for fishing trips. 🙄
That's all the rightwingnut fascists have to do, is drop the 'trigger words' socialist, commie, or even 'liberal policies', and it is enough for some (yes, sometimes regardless of education level) to react with vitriol.
The fascist Congressmicrobes (and of course, SCUMp himself) have learned this lesson quite well from their Goebbels Nooz type 'otlets'.
Keith Olson ; A whole lotta cheating going on! that's what it says! tfg may have succeeded in strong arming some higher level election officials! I don't believe 74 million votes for him for a second!
Yep! Republicans got us investigating over & over certain states they lost, but nobody examined states with suspicious results favoring Republicans whose electoral system were (still are) controlled by Republicans & which use the problematic, manipulable ES&S voting machines owned & managed by Trumpublican partisans. Virtually all of the dozen or so Senate races & over 2 dozen House races considered tossups went to Republicans. I calculated the odds of that happening randomly & it was something like (within a magnitude or 2 of) 1 in a quintillion.
Definitely something to think about and watch for for the future! The GOP are slide of hand artists. They’re ranting and waving in one direction while doing their dirty deed in the other. The question is, where are we looking?
The American Fascist party members in the house of representatives are now locking arms and doing the fascist lockstep for all to see and singing America über alles "above everyone else"
Keith, the best reply is to direct you to the documentary film, The Brainwashing of My Dad, which you can view entirely on YouTube. The failure of critical thinking is right on, but this cut across the educational spectrum. Some of the reasons are given in this documentary.
If anyone on here feels like watching "Shiny Happy People" you will then get a full understanding of how this happens. It's more about "gang" and "cult" mentality than intelligence.
"Jim Bob Duggar’s reality stardom stemmed from his political career. In 2002, after four years serving as Republican Arkansas state representative, he ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Though he didn’t win, he did grab the attention of Discovery Network, whose executives took notice of media images of his large family attending campaign events."
The 74 million are just gullible idiots that believe all the BS on Facebook & TikTok & would rather belong to the group of idiots than defend our society, help to change all our problems & learn how to think critically & how to evaluate candidates for office before going to the polls to vote! Our education system needs fixing but every President has tried & failed to institute changes that make a difference & improves the quality of HS graduates! It’s better left to local school districts to find ways to improve their curriculum & teacher engagement. The Country is stuck with all the idiots of Gen X & Millennials but there’s lots of hope for better voting outcomes & more engagement within the Gen Z generation!
It's the Greatest show on Earth! The GOP under the Big Top! There's a sucker born every minute! Now especially with forced birth and criminals controlling the schools!
The “Republicans” have all taken themselves down to scum level with trump and will stay there because none of them have any integrity or balls. They are such cowards and chose their own destiny when they did not hold trump accountable from day one. Biden, however does have integrity and class and loves his son more than they have the ability to recognize. They have no agenda, no policy and no party other than to hate and say no to everything and go after the Biden family. Most Americans see through this nonsense and know they have two choices. A sociopath or an old man who knows what the hell he is doing. Thank you Joe!
The system really is broken, but the cause is deeper. Any system that reverses the popular vote is broken. The Electoral College is an anachronism, and has no business being incorporated in the machinery of American Democracy.
With 'members' of Congress like George Santos allowed to remain in his seat, because those who illegitimately hold theirs need his votes! No wonder we lost! How many other frauds are there in 'the people's house' ? 'People' being corporate and even foreign interests? It would take too much time to investigate, wouldn't it? Divide us more?!? Bullshit!
Where I live 3 members are Republican Batisianos in Democratic majority districts, DNC abandoned us early on. In NY and CA, Republicans won at least 6 Democratic seats.
Democrats picked up 41 seats in 2018. They flipped the House.
They may have only done it with a slight majority but the number of seats flipping was still significant.
And while they may have had a slight majority, Democrats had two things Republicans don't.
A younger median age on the reps and Nancy Pelosi.
You will notice that Nancy Pelosi didn't need 16 votes to make her Speaker. You'll notice that Nancy Pelosi didn't have to give away everything except the kitchen sink to win her Speakership.
Nancy Pelosi ran rings around the Republicans when she was in the minority. Kevin McCarthy never had that kind of skill or clout.
We’ll get it back in 2024! We lost because the justices put it on hold but now they have ruled gerrymandering to be unconstitutional. So we will win back the House!
Yes, and nationally, the GOP got more votes in House races than the Democrats. We can blame them at our peril. Is it all voter suppression? Or is it also voter disapproval of Democratic candidates?
Yeah! The voters disapprove of Democrats so much that the last two elections were won by them.That does not make sense! The GOP sucks, and has little to offer workers and the middle class. All the court cases and now convictions do not help either, along with taking away basic rights, banning books and silencing Democrat legislators in some states.
My intent was that the DNC is backing many candidates too squeamish to garner the enthusiasm of disaffected voters. The DNC seems to believe that “centrist” is the sweet spot for Democrats to convince fence sitters…not full throated advocacy for Progressive goals like MFA, higher wages for workers, more equitable taxation of concentrated wealth, criminal justice reform, etc.
There is definitely a double standard in our justice system. Anyone else would already be in prison for all the crimes Trump has committed in his life. The rich and powerful seldom if ever go to prison in America.
I’m reminded of a story told by my favorite composer, Miklos Rozsa. In 1967 he was hired to write the music for an MGM film called “The Power,” and was told by studio executives that it was a very important picture (one you’ve likely never heard of, the reason for which is to come) because its star is engaged to the president’s daughter. The star was George Hamilton, and the president in question wasn’t the head of MGM, but Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States. The bride-to-be was his daughter, Lynda.
Rozsa then noted that, suddenly, the wedding was off, and “The Power” just as suddenly became much, much less important, so unimportant that the movie, a rather confusing tale of telekinetic mayhem, was given almost no advertising support and vanished soon after its release.
Well, it’s kind of like that with Hunter Biden: he’s important to Republicans only because they think he can be used to discredit his father, the 46th President of the United States (or 44th, if you care to dismiss George W. Bush and Trump as the equivalent of anti-popes, illegally occupying seats of power they never earned [see Bush v. Gore, and also the minutes of the recent trial convicting former NSA translator Reality Winner as to the contents of the classified document she retained and disseminated]; the moment Joe Biden leaves office, Hunter becomes an irrelevancy, especially since the Republicans are constantly ginning up fake conspiracies, controversies and crises to lay at the feet of Democrats, their own form of telekinetic mayhem, and just as bogus.
Democrats are trying to affect policy changes for the "general welfare" while Republicans have taken on a wartime posture and are practicing psyops. So extreme has the GOP become, that many view Biden as the enemy, while extolling their perceived virtues of V. Putin and other brutal dictators.
Goes back to the John Birch Society vilifying Eisenhower for having one brother who was a registered Socialist and in essence asked another, a liberal, to be his closest advisor. When it became clear that the internment of Japanese Americans was unjust, Milton resigned in protest. In 1943, he was appointed president of his alma mater, now Kansas State University. He went on to serve as president of both Pennsylvania State University and Johns Hopkins University. Milton was Ike's closest confidant during his presidency, and also served Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
There are no longer any 'average Americans'. Republicans will believe the allegations against Hunter Biden either because it suits their purposes or because it coddles their 'outrage'. Other Americans will hopeful see through this.
Yeah, what is an “average” American? I think it’s worth thinking about, especially if you’re planning to run for President. Or maybe the question is just what is an American (if there is such a thing anymore).
Regardless of whether or not we’d choose Hunter for a friend — & regardless of MAGA-Rs’ octane-fueled allegations to scrum for #45 since before the 2020 election — in Hunter’s court case this headline says it all: #45-appointed judge accepted a plea deal that’s >harsher than normal< for 1st offenders on the minor charges brought before this #45-appointed judge, according to legal experts in article.
And those minor charges themselves are rare in cases where it’s a first-time offender, & where the offender actually rectified the tax situation a long time ago, & sought help for his addiction a long time ago.
Were also points made on our local news last night by a local expert.
MAGA-Rs have been lying — & screaming to any journalists who would listen — about made-up crimes to not only damage now-President Biden, but also to divert attention from what #45/Giuliani/quiescent-Pence/etc., committed re Ukraine, attempting to rig the 2020 election. The verdict that Hunter committed minor transgressions, not major ones, means the situation’s the reverse of what MAGA-Rs are still claiming: because the truth is Hunter’s getting worse treatment than normal, not more lenient treatment.
Now, will MAGA-Rs turn their attention to another drug-addled son of a (former) president, Don Jr? A judge in one of the cases where his lifelong-criminal dad’s been charged has rebuked the son & warned the dad that Jr’s comments are treading on court rules.
I am a disabled combat veteran. I listened to this stuff for 50 years. I have relatives that were similarly affected. I can sing the lyrics to Sam Stone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLVWEYUqGew
But the resolution should have happened as soon as Weiss got the case. I know more about pretrial intervention than most people.
I was a judge for 30 years and I know the DSM and I know he probably shouldn't have been prosecuted.
But he was the son of a vice president and failed to act accordingly. His problems don't give him a license to be an asshole.
Nobody is in control of what their children do as adults. How many parents have to deliberately gag themselves rather than tell their off-the-rails progeny what the facts are ? Presidents are just humans after all, and what their offspring choose to do is not their fault !
Whatever their kids ages parents should aim to be responsible for and honest with their kids. Its not always convenient or productive to do so, but if the intentions are right thats felt by all. A dysfunctional or broken family is another matter. My parents lack of transparency and dishonesty and deceit and double standards caused alot of damage,
Sadly, Trump supporters and most right wing Republicans will believe the double standard charge. They have lost the ability to see Trump for what he truly is.
There is a double standard of justice in this country and Trump has been the beneficiary. Any other common thug who committed the array of crimes Trump has admitted to would have been tried, convicted and sent to Gitmo long ago. Yet this Orange Anus continues to walk free and spew poison.
If my memory is correct, Donny boy could have pled guilty but decided not to follow his lawyer’s advice. The nature of the crimes cannot be compared. The GOP is clutching at straws.
My thought exactly! The Democrats won’t point out that Biden did in fact hold over a trump appointed prosecutor so that he could continue his investigation into Biden’s own son or that if trump would have just cooperated with the National Archives in the first place or even the legal paperwork that came after his first couple of refusals then I am not even sure that they would have brought charges against him. Trump put himself in this predicament NOT Biden or the Justice Department. Maybe Biden doesn’t need to say it so he can remain impartial but all of the other Democrats in office should point it out. If the people who want to keep wasting their money on trump and want to continue to look up to the republicans who spew their hatred and lies (thankfully there’s hope since some republicans will stand up to the bullshit because they remember when they were a party that had a direction and not a dictator) don’t see that they are tearing Americans apart it is truly a very sad day. Republicans want to keep them poor and less educated so that they will continue to believe their lies so that they can stay in power. It’s the only reason (other than hate) that I can see for them to attack the systems that would help people to learn from history and try to go in the other direction. Power is all that they care about and not the people who gave it to them. On a side note: I would love to see if there are actually any “golf clothes” in the boxes that the DOJ took. When he was president I believe that I read an article that he spent more time golfing than actually in the office. I guess that he should have spent less time golfing and actually following the legal documents given to him. He profited off of the taxpayers while in office and bullied the other departments but now he is crying foul when all of his misdeeds are catching up to him and unfortunately his lackeys are still working to try to blame others for what he did (hello Jim Jordan and etc.).
The answer as to whether average Americans will accept the GOP claim of a double standard is both yes and no. There's too many ardent Trump supporters to argue they don't represent average American--or at least a large population within the general public. Many of them will openly accept the claims.
One of the powers of cult control is that in order to escape from the cult you have to admit you were duped. Most of those who would admit that have already done so. Those that haven't have swallowed years of lies. They wouldn't just have to admit to themselves they were duped, but duped at a staggering level. Leaving a cult means internally someone must self-incriminate themself as being deceived and that's a hard pill to swallow--particularly for people of a personality bend that tends to view things in oversimplified black and white terms.
Many American's won't fall for the GOP's claim. Unfortunately, this will likely just further splinter the country, because then you'll have two groups hardened on both sides of the issue. That's another power of a political cult. The ones that haven't been duped will take an I-told-you-so attitude with the ones who have been duped. That makes it even harder for the duped to admit they've been duped, because they face both an internal conflict as well as a potential loss of face.
You are spot on Brett, the corporate plutocracy presently in control of this nation loves this. Keep the masses feuding with themselves as they slowly constrict our Democracy.
We have known for years that Trump has two sets of ethics - one for everyone else that they have to obey the law, the other for Trump that he is so wonderful and such a gift to humanity that of course, nothing he does would be considered a crime [including shooting someone i broad daylight on fifth Avenue NYC] The only thing Hunter Biden did wrong was in not requesting an extension for filing his taxes. Since he did pay all that he owed (and probably the penalties and interest) I had a lady doing my taxes for twenty years, She too sick in 2022 and filed for an extension, so my taxes weren't filed until September that year. I am deeply sorry for the Biden family that Hunter turned to addictive chemicals to ease his pain. He lost his mother and sister when he was very young. He lost a beloved brother to brain cancer. I know from personal experience how devastating such tragedies can be for younger members of the family. I am proud of Joe and Jill Biden who released the statement that they love their son and will stand by him.
The party of Nixon, a clinical paranoid, and W, a shadow of a person, just do not like any democrat. The plumbers really tried to illegally steal a presidential election but somehow it is forgotten. A lifelong second rate human being like 45 remains popular by pandering to the paranoia of voters who don’t want to consider issues but who resonate to the dog whistles of their fears. Tell them that the country of their parents can actually become a fascist dictatorship and they do not have the ability to comprehend. Tell them that we can see returns of the robber barons or the McCarthyites and they probably don’t know what it means. They still expect wealth to trickle down from the untaxed. We have bounced back from the edge of the abyss in the past but that is certainly not a guarantee we can do it again.
How on Earth did Donald John Trump become our 45th President of the United States? There are many reasons and one of them is the fact that our society has fallen behind intellectually starting with education.
Even though the U.S. has the number one education system in the world, we rank just 14th among 38 countries according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. The intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice.
(From Wikipedia)
Is the United States number 1 in anything?
Sure, the United States is a global leader in some categories including international businesses, athletic endeavors, global innovation, military spending, billionaires and wine consumption. The U.S. also comes out on top in some not-so-desirable categories like obesity, incarceration rate and soda consumption.
What does it say about our society when 74 million Americans voted to give this knucklehead another 4 years?
You left out one statistic Keith, We are also number one in deaths by gun violence. That says a lot about our priorities.
Particularly, gun violence is the leading cause of death of children and teens. We are the only country in which that is the case.
Carolyn, yes, and isn't that interesting for a party that claims to just looooove children, so much that they want women to be forced to give birth to them. Hypocrisy is strong with this party.
I keep waiting to hear how many children drag queens shoot.
Their answer to protect kids is to arm teachers, administrators and even the custodians. So, more guns, rather than fewer guns.
And this, after Uvalde, where 375 armed-to-the-teeth LEOs milled around for too many minutes of precious time, until the 376th (a border patrol man) LEO arrives at breakneck speed & takes out mass murderer through window.
Yeah, 1 teacher “distracted” by teaching is going to realize there’s someone at the door with an assault rifle pointed at her students and her, go to her locked drawer for her gun (locked, b/c, you know, teachers would be responsible for any child getting ahold of gun), turn around, and shoot mass murderer dead.
The frightwing’s pretzel logic is not only mind-bogglingly stupid but also treacherous to our children’s and our health.
Exactly. It's like prescribing colon cancer to cure breast cancer.
...or nitromethane to put out a raging fire...
My friend survived chemotherapy for breast cancer and showed no sign of cancer in her body. She died a few months later of liver failure. So...isn't that about the same?
Oh, but we need more guns to protect the people with the more guns from the more people with more guns....
And where is the "well regulated militia"? Probably in formation as we speak.
That is my idea of freedom ... Freedom to tote a heavy weapon everywhere I go because that is how we "protect" ourselves from the constant looming danger of mass shooters. Didn't you know that America is Great when you are free from violence only to the extent you are armed against it?
AGAIN, these fascists are overtly PROUD of, and belligerently LOUD about their abject hypocrisy.
It is now a main component of their very being, let alone platform (along with their outright projection of all of THEIR wrongs/crimes/anti-democracy on Dems), and soon will be a requisite 'pledge', just like the one they are forcing all of their POTUS candidates to take to support their criminal, putrid orange fuehrer (EXCEPT, of course SCUMp himself, if it is not him who gets the nomination).
David, in addition to their blatant hypocrisy (they don't even try to hide it), For Republicans, lying is the "coin of the realm" as I have frequently called it. When a political party lives on hypocrisy, lying, with a topping of cheating and manipulation, it is or should be impossible for people of integrity to support them. We keep hearing of supposed "good" people clinging to their false hope and belief in the Republican party of some past (although nonexistent) age. Hey guys, that is a fantasy! The Republican party has been starting down the long hill toward fascism since Nixon, although Nixon didn't come from nowhere. He was in league with people who did not value our democracy like Joe McCarthy and the band of brothers on HUAC. Trump is their grandchild. We must do better!! R.Sheets
The NRA, the Republican Party and Pox Noise are not healthy for children and other living things.
The NRA profits from gun violence because it makes people scared and scared people buy more guns.
The Republican Party profits from gun violence because it makes people scared and scared people vote for more Republicans.
Pox Noise profits from gun violence because it makes people scared and scared people watch (more) Pox Noise and that helps Pox Noise get higher ratings which means that Pox Noise can charge more to advertisers, thus bringing in more money.
Some Americans are voting for the Christo- fascist party. This is now an extremely strange cult-like phenomenon in this country. There are many fascists now in local, state and federal governments and even the so-called US supreme Court. We have six there right now. How can I tell? They all lied to get their jobs and are lying to us today. That's what fascism is all about the big lie and running black money to fascists (Citizens United) The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable. Are you one of them? Even if you voted for tRump are you really holding hands with one of the above?
The Democratic Party is now making a change. The Democratic Party has become the anti-fascist party. We stand for your rights. We stand for democracy. We stand for civil rights. We stand for women's rights. We stand for workers’ rights. We stand for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. How do we do this? By kicking out or keeping out fascists from government. We are the new anti-fascist party. Join us if you are a republican, conservative, democrat or independent in the fight against fascism. If you are a man, woman, rich or poor, voter or non-voter join us. Vote for a Democrat. Third parties are anathema right now. Don't vote third party. That is a vote for fascism.
As long as you want freedom you are anti-fascist already anyway so Vote blue because it is totally good for you and it is totally good for America. It is good for your children. It is good for your grandchildren. It is good for women and men. It is good for members of the LGBT communities. It is good for your dogs and your cats. It is good for all Americans black, white, brown, Indian, - every single American. Want to vote against Christo-fascism? Vote for a Democrat.
We can do this together. Whoever you are Vote for a democrat and change Americas current trajectory to Democracy.
The unfortunate trends you describe in your first paragraph are wishful thinking for the GOP. Most young Americans are definitely going in a different direction. It might not be what the Democrats stand for either, and that's their right. They're going to inherit this thing we've left them.
The Republican talking points have nothing to do with real positions on important issues. Instead, they simply rant on about "Democrats", "femocrats" ""Libtards" and worse words they use as swear-words with nothing of substance as to why they hate the left. Their last vain hope was to cling to self-righteousness on the abortion issue, but they are finding that they have to abandon that because of the extreme measures passed in right-wing state legislatures since the Supreme Court ended Roe.
It would be undignified if we started doing the same thing, rather than the well-reasoned issue positions that make Democratic Party attractive.
Mike I would like to agree with you and in a large sense I do agree. But, talk is getting us nowhere.We have to DO something more.
To make a long story short. On Feb 6th 1934 there was an insurrection in France. The fascist took over the government force and invited the Nazis over to France. The French democracy decided to fight back with an enormous anti-fascist campaign. They called out the fascists. The called themselves the anti- fascists They invited everyone to join the democratic push against fascism. They won France back.
There is no doubt for me that this is what is needed in the USA. We need to fight for our country , for democracy, or we will lose it
On a slight aside, your libtard reference reminded me if simething. I saw a right wing person posing as a vegan on Tiktok as an overly militant, extreme vegan. One thing that gave away that she was posing was her use if the word "meat-tard." She was sometimes almost funny, but she was just too overt the top.
By far!
Fay, isn’t that sad?
AND maternal deaths...
Thank You. I should have added that for sure.
What confounds me is what it says about our society's mentality, where the narrative portraying Biden as simultaneously a doddering, geriatrically impaired incompetent >as well as< the sinister, conniving head of a sophisticated crime family, responsible for all manner of international corruption, who is so clever he can manage to leave not a single scrap of evidence for all this wrongdoing, is a major party's political messaging strategy, rather than an absurdist segment uttered by a stand-up comic, is taken seriously! LOL!
UPDATE: I just heard on Democracy Now, where Alito wrote an op-ed today in denial of having violated any ethics rules, without bothering to mention "in an organization - the SCOTUS - that apparently >has no< ethics rules!" Haven't we been a'hollerin' out here for >months< about that lack of ethics rules ‽ LOL!
Yes, you have nailed it. It is stunning that your average mouth breathing knuckle dragging Republican base voter doesn't see that for the paradox that it is. Oh well, as I have stated before, I believe we are doomed.
I think part if the problem is that rural and urban voters live very different lives. Many rural areas are underserved and the more urbane liberal people do not understand and are unaware if their problems. So, a party hunting for power is able to pander to their concerns and misdirect the blame for their problems. For example, education is extremely underfunded in rural areas because most states fund it based on property taxes. Rich urban conservatives are partly responsible for these policies which unconcerned liberal voters can accept and go along with. However, when the economy takes a downturn, the rich conservatives do not talk about these policies. Instead they find easy scapegoats. Meanwhile, the left is talking about "knuckle-dragging" Republicans who are that way in part because nobody really cares to spend the time, attention and money to properly educate them to think for themselves.
A well-stated consideration. However, when >I< think of the "knuckle-dragging" Яepuблikan$, I'm thinking first and foremost of ol' Tweety and his entourage of sycophants and facilitators, where the worshipful cult of celebrity cannot be ignored. Don't forget to include all the neo-Confederates - Sons & Daughters of the Confederacy "preserving their heritage," for example - who, along with the Klan, have held a grudge for nearing 200 years, Nazis - their natural allies - who didn't get the message in The Great War, part II, along with the evangelical fundamentalists brandishing their full array of TV tent-revival heretics, neighborhood bunds - excuse me, fellowships - and schoolboard activists, who have been at it attempting to impose a "2nd Reawakening" since >at least< the early '70s - and are too deficient to know the difference, so long as supporting their half-assed doctrine is passed into law.
By the way, never forget the Яepuблikan$' great and good ally, Uncle Vlad, the Invader. I hear-tell that in the same way as ol' Tweety, he's the darling of the Russian Orthodox KGB confessors!
Vote Яepuблikan$ for lawless law & order!
Яepuблikan$ - the coup-coup party.
On Vlad, the best evidence that Trump had too many entanglements with Russia was his reluctance to go after Russia for interference in elections.
For decades, the Red-like Scare was just simmering to be tapped. He could so easily have demonized the resurgence of an aggressive Russia, and defensed democracy against outside interference, with the added bonus that he would seem extra heroic as that support was in his favor and he was fighting against it. Instead he went after every easy target except Russians. I guess that would have been too much like biting the hand that feeds you. Russia was the only place that would lend to him anymore, and was open to his laundering schemes!
As for the Confederate types, Nazis, etc. remember that in the South, the poor white people did not see much benefit either, It was easy for the rich in the south to place blame on minorities for their condition white perpetuating that same condition. The appeal to race was one reason why labor unions never thrived in the South. They associated the unions with black people, and then they were able to prevent both black and white workin class people to get any kind of fair benefits. The key point I am trying to make is that instead of demonizing lower class white people, I think that minorities and liberals could try to find common cause with them against a system perpetuated by conservative rich and/or powerful people. Less and less, there is nobody else but extremists reaching out to them to hear their concerns, and regardless of the past, they cote in a democracy, Their concerns should be given attention if only to redirect them to the proper targets. Black people and immigrants are not causing their misery, but the very people that supposedly lead them are. Yet, because we view them as stupid and lost causes, nobody is calmly and respectfully giving them a coherent countervailing view. Media does not as they live in a media bubble. The only voice that respects them enough to talk to them are the more extreme groups. It is stupid of us to expect that one of the least educated populations of the US, the least attended to, are going to see past the only people willing to engage with them and come to see how those same leaders perpetuate their own problems.
Oh, I completely agree. Note, the "knuckle-draggers" I'm identifying are upper middle class, or better. (C'mon, who do you think runs the likes of the Daughters of the Confederacy, for example. Look at the DAR for a mirror image!) In archaic Euro-speak: the bourgeoisie! And behind each of those more violent groups, you'll find the money egging them on. The folks you're referring to are the "mushrooms," who were "born one morning when the sun didn't shine," held hostage in the dark, and are continually fed a load of $#!7! by their "betters" - to use the kind of term they might use. "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich!" would be other language they might use. Those are who fall prey to all that "preyer." And the only thing they have to give is loyalty to the "friends" that feed on them.
The idiots in "Idiocracy" seem like beyond Mensa members' intellect by comparison. ;) :(
I just must share this wonderful satire from Andy Borowitz today, in case no one else has:
<https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/paul-singer-sets-fishing-record-by-catching-two-hundred-pound-supreme-court-justice>
👍👍👍👍👍
What do we Do about all of this?
Some Americans are voting for the Christo- fascist party. This is now an extremely strange cult-like phenomenon in this country. There are many fascists now in local, state and federal governments and even the so-called US supreme Court. We have six there right now. How can I tell? They all lied to get their jobs and are lying to us today. That's what fascism is all about the big lie and running black money to fascists (Citizens United) The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable. Are you one of them? Even if you voted for tRump are you really holding hands with one of the above?
The Democratic Party is now making a change. The Democratic Party has become the anti-fascist party. We stand for your rights. We stand for democracy. We stand for civil rights. We stand for women's rights. We stand for workers’ rights. We stand for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. How do we do this? By kicking out or keeping out fascists from government. We are the new anti-fascist party. Join us if you are a republican, conservative, democrat or independent in the fight against fascism. If you are a man, woman, rich or poor, voter or non-voter join us. Vote for a Democrat. Third parties are anathema right now. Don't vote third party. That is a vote for fascism.
As long as you want freedom you are anti-fascist already anyway so Vote blue because it is totally good for you and it is totally good for America. It is good for your children. It is good for your grandchildren. It is good for women and men. It is good for members of the LGBT communities. It is good for your dogs and your cats. It is good for all Americans black, white, brown, Indian, - every single American. Want to vote against Christo-fascism? Vote for a Democrat.
We can do this together. Whoever you are Vote for a democrat and change Americas current trajectory to Democracy.
Is it one of these you?
Join us if you are a republican, conservative, democrat or independent in the fight against fascism. If you are a man, woman, rich or poor, voter or non-voter join us. Vote for a Democrat.
or this?
As long as you want freedom you are anti-fascist already
or
Whoever you are
The are all a journalistic "you,"
I assume you're using the journalistic "you," right?
Which "you: specifically do you refer to. Are you disagreeing with my comment?
No. I'm trying to establish who "you" refers to in your comment.
It’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it.
U bet! LOL!
I am not sure that they do not look at politics as some kind if bait the liberal comedy. Either that, or I think maybe they think The Onion parodies are actually real news too.
Do you realise how ridiculously hubristic, not to mention silly, your statement “the US has the number 1 education system in the world”, when it’s followed by “we rank 14th … according to the OECD”..?
The reason Trump was elected isn’t because of how you patronisingly stated - because of a lack of intellectualism. It was due to the masses of working & middle class people getting left behind, betrayed by the deindustrialisation Clinton’s NAFTA deal caused, and the promises of neoliberalism coming to nothing. The wealth inequality widening, with the top 20% getting richer and everyone else losing their jobs or working for low wages. Then Obama failed to fulfil any of his “hope and change” promises, standing by and doing nothing while millions of American families were thrown out of their homes after the 2008 financial crises, yet bailing out the bankers who caused it. Life expectancy in the US began falling under Obama. I could go on, with many more egregious examples of why Americans felt betrayed by the Democrats, and rightly so. They were so desperate, along with Hilary being a terrible candidate and widely disliked, taking voters for granted and calling them names - “the deplorables” - that they voted for a racist, misogynistic game show host.
Everyone seems to forget Hillary WON the popular vote.The Electoral College system, especially in conjunction with gerrymandering, harms democracy.
But she was the wrong candidate against Trump. And the Dems were too short sighted, scared of something different - I do not know what - to see this.
Sandy, how was Hilary Clinton wrong? She was a woman! That's it and our media permitted Trump to rant and posture against her in the most disrespectful ways. The fact that she won by 3 million votes is remarkable. Instead of that she was the wrong candidate, maybe the message is that we need to get rid of the electoral college and to call men (and women) out on their misogyny and racism when it shows up, pointing out just how the remarks or actions are racist or misogynistic. It's time men and their female surrogates are called for their actions and we stop blaming women for being women, just not good enough.
Agree about the electoral college - it is out of date and old fashioned and no longer appropriate - a true democracy is one person one vote, the popular vote. I believe that America was definitely not ready for a woman especially a democratic woman. Also she was not reaching out to working America in the same way as Bernie was. Trump was talking to the same people that Bernie was addressing - those that felt disenfranchised - the working Americans, but had a different way of dealing with the issues and is more authentic and compassionate - not a psychopath. I believe a lot of the Bernie supporters in the states that Trump won the electoral college stayed home. Now I worry about DeSantos!!
OK, but I have to ask, is America ready for a Jewish socialist either??
(And I am someone who FULLY supports Bernie and most of his platforms/ideas.)
Having experienced ANTI-SEMITISM first hand myself, I can tell you that it crosses ALL political divides, boundaries, and ideologies, yes even into centrist and even into some of the left leaning Dem electorate.
Sadly, it is NOT just the foaming at the mouth, knuckle dragging brown shirt peckerwoods who hate on/loathe 'the tribe', although theirs is the most fervent and violent of all haters.
Agree about HRC, Sandy. Add to your comments that she's a defiant hawk and a blatant Wall Street shill, and you have someone the likes of the t***p base would never vote for. Nor would many Progressives.
America proved it was ready for a woman, she won the popular vote by a land slide. She was one of the most qualified candidates that has ever run.
it's always seemed to me, Ruth, that if the right woman was far right enough, she might get elected, a la Margaret Thatcher.
Agree
...or our very own batshit insane harpy, Magda T Goebbels, perhaps??
Well, as Obama told Biden, it was "her turn," not his. A sizable percentage of moderate voters thought that she deserved it (in part because of being done wrong by Bill) and because we have never had a woman president. I always thought that Bernie was a better antidote to Bill Clinton than Hillary, who mostly reinforced his worst neoliberal policies, but like most Sanders supporters, I voted for her and thought I'd wake up the next morning and find Trump's election was a mirage. What Democrats failed to recognize, IMO, is that there was (and is) a huge contingent who have not recovered from having a Black man in the White House. It's no surprise that DiSantis wants to erase any discussion of racism. Or even the legitimacy of Black voters.
Totally agree with you - I too was/am a Bernie supporter who voted for Hillary but really think he would have been a much better candidate against Trump!
Mostly agree, progwoman, especially about Bernie. I couldn't make myself vote for HRC, however. Too close to her husband's philosophies and deeds: NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, etc. Bernie was by far the better choice.
TRE45ON won, by Jill Stein siphoning off anti-45 & pro-women voters, & by Bernie voters sitting it out. It was so narrow, so close.
We learned our lesson years ago, voting for an alternative candidate out of fond hope combined with disgust, with the worst candidate then winning. So this time, we as Bernie supporters held our noses & voted for HR.
I agree everything was Obamas fault. After all wasn't he a Kenyan? /s
You are right about that. She was too timid.
If trump was walking behind me making faces like that I would have turned around and said "excuse me Mr. trump but the bathroom is that way.
Hear! Hear! Elizabeth.
And, not for the first time. Remember Bush vs. Gore?
The one thing that you have failed to mention is the steady drumbeat of conservative media that has shaped, distorted, and distended the story of white victimization. And then, of course, there are evangelical church leaders who see dollar signs in the wealth philosophy of individual responsibility. For you to pin this exclusively on a failure of the democratic party is absurd. The Fox audience, the evangelical audience, they are complicit, and I'm tired of people excusing rabid, out of control hatred. While it's true that economic insecurity may underlie this political inflammation of their brains, it's also true that their attention had been reshaped and diverted by bad actors" -- and they, trumps base and affiliates -- have willingly given up discernment. To this extent. I think the OP is correct.
Susan, you are so right about conservative media, but not just them, mainstream media, including NPR/PBS have participated. Somehow they decided on a ridiculous "balanced" coverage bit where they were giving the same amount of time to climate deniers as to actual scientists, anti-baccers as to scientists, Trump liars as to those calling out the lies, and on and on. Because of Trump's childish behavior in 2016, the media in general gave hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity to Trump and the Trump clones, forgetting the "balance" when it came to that and the best they could do for Hillary was to keep bringing up her emails and Ben Gazi, neither of which more than 10 years later have been dropped by Republicans, despite no evidence of serious wrong-doing (a couple of messages labeled confidential were found among Clinton's emails, possibly called confidential after they were sent). Trump on the other hand stole boxes and boxes of papers, many of which were top secret, and left around where "anyone" just might find them. There is no comparison and for any media to even imply there is a similarity is criminal, but that's what happens when rich conservative white guys own media and use it for their own purposes.
Why did we allow the Fairness Act to expire. That is when this fascist move began gaining ground.
I agree with you completely It was nit an act but a doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine from the Federal Communications Commission is what it was called, and yes, I think it kept things a lot more honest. It was made back in the days when radio bandwidth was a limited commodity that had to be licensed and regulated or people would broadcast over each other and no stations would reliably be heard. Their rules were governed by the idea if distributing this limited resources for the public good . Then cable came and some people felt like there was no linger a real justification for this limitation of broadcasters to broadcast whatever they wanted or not. So in the name of free speech, we made it easy to drown out the speech of those not privileged to own their own media source and not act in the interest of the public.
Yes, and the cable broadcasters were just as powerful as the radio and TV ones, and should have been held to the same standards...While not using the public airwaves, they were certainly using the public rights-of-way for their cables The same goes today for cable internet. Using public infrastructure, and should be regulated for the public good.
What's more, while cable companies are making a killing ($100/mo for just about every person in Amerika, they don't even put on good programming, usually depending on others to create content.
I received a phone call from one of them trying to sell me on a cable hookup...."You can get 40 channels for just under $160 a month...That's less than $4 each"
"OK", i said. "I'll take three."
Maybe I'm just different, but I can only watch one channel at a time . . .
I cut the cable cord a while ago. Can still follow the news online from a variety of sources.
And then the Dems did Bernie out of the nomination!
YES, THIS, EXACTLY!
Their 'economic anxiety' did NOT install that racist hatred, misogyny, xenophobia, ANTI-SEMITISM, and ferocious desire for fascism into their (diminished) collective cerebral cortexes, it was ALREADY THERE.
It was just amplified, exacerbated, and exploited by Goebbels Nooz (and the like), to get them fully whipped up into an apoplectic rightwingnut frenzy.
I don’t pin it solely on the Dems. But we are talking about why, after 8 years of Obama, did millions of working class Americans pick a bigoted game show host ?
Some people are indeed racist or couldn't get over the fact that Obama let the republican legislature stop him at every turn. The picked tRump because he was a populist/fascist wwho lied to them at every turn.
Also, I agree that Obama, like most recent Democrats, had a hard time taking a strong approach to dealing with the Republican legislature. Why he did not invoke the Constitutional requirement to pay debts when debt default was an issue, I will never know. That was really weak.
Well, you could say that he told us who he was at every turn, and people just did not take the hints seriously. As for the lies, they just do nit seem to care at all as long as their "team" is winning.
A round of applause any time the subject goes to the Murdoch devils and their spawn. Pragmatically, if you want to get to the bottom of our polarization, infighting, fear and domestic terrorism, most of it can be traced to that single source. Fox et al are the cheerleaders. Sure, there are systemic issues, and profound ones, that need addressed. But the United States doesn't need to go to our present extremes to have a serious discussion about reasonable reforms.
If I had one wish before I go, I would want the Murdochs stripped of their citizenship and thrown out of the country, as well as their media blocked here. We absolutely have to have a discussion about the limits of the First Amendment. Other countries have, without sacrificing their democratic principles.
I kind if think Rush Limbaugh deserves some credit for polarizing things. And maybe having cameras in al, the congressional proceedings made it difficult to make compromises with the other side since then you were seen to be "agreeing with the enemy." People like Rush would call out anybody who did not toe the line and try to compromise. I think compromises take strength, but uniformly, people like Rush saw them as weakness. Didn't Trump give Rush an award? He understood how much Rush did to oave the way for somebody like him: loud, brash, obnoxious, and detached from reality.
Absolutely. You make a good point. Limbaugh was one of the first. Fox took off on that, profiting from extremist speech. You may disagree, but I believe that Limbaugh would have faded away eventually, considering his singularity (at the time) and his drug dependence. Admittedly, Jen Senko spoke of her dad getting originally culted through his listening to Limbaugh traveling to and from his work ("The Brainwashing of My Dad"), so the guy had a powerful reach for sure. But she blames Fox for most of the damage.
Fox built up an enormous propaganda machine based on Limbaugh's extremism and they have ways of reaching and seducing the masses that are quite sophisticated.
J-Pat: Watch the deplorables attacking the US Capitol, and tell me Hillary was wrong. Oh, and by the way, Hillary was only 'widely disliked' by Republicans who got their news from a 'Show' ...not a factual News Broadcast ...a SHOW, from a company that slandered her for many years, then was forced to pay $737.5 MILLION for defamation to Dominion for Lying and slandering, and there are more law suits on the way.
Carmine, thank you for your accurate defense of Hilary Clinton. She has been maligned for decades, essentially for being a woman. On top of that, she can think, is smart, takes crap from nobody, and gives a damn. Sounds like a good/worthy Democrat to me
Agree with all you say - she is smart etc etc. But a large portion of America was not ready for her. I think Bernie would have been a better match for Trump. He appeals to the emotional passion not just the intellect. But this is all in the past. What to do now!?!
Yup
Hear, Hear.
How many “ educated “ people would have swallowed that crap about the evils of Hillary.
You are very correct in pointing out the fact that Hillary won by millions of popular votes.-as did Biden in 2020.
Well, there’s an ass for every saddle, and the way things are going, we better start making a hell of a lot more saddles.
We really do need to turn our clocks back hundreds of years when just the idea of the Separation Of Church and State was a big No, No,and millions of people were murdered if anyone one of them even attempted to go against, and destroy that belief.🤔🤨
If after watching Trump supporters after the last seven years, you don't think the majority ARE deplorable, then you need to think some more. Or you don't see what the rest of us see.
That "terrible candidate" won the popular vote by a few million. She also BTW beat Bernie Sanders by 3M votes.
Women just didn't realize it doesn't really count as winning unless you beat a man by at least ten million.
If you don't remember Republicans taking both the House and Senate in 2010, you've got a Republican style memory. Where it's always Obama's fault -- and never the Republicans blocking and spending all their time trying to repeal Obamacare.
My favorite was when they claimed Obama's response to Katrina was inadequate.
Bridget, yes, Republicans do have a knack of making stuff up, then forgetting history. History has not been kind to Republicans lately, but somehow, they do keep getting their wonks elected. Hillary was right about the "basket of deplorables" and those deplorables are proving it every day. The antidote, Democrats must vote in huge numbers in every election. What's the chance of that!
I don't know.
But if Republicans and a Republican Supreme Court block student loan forgiveness, our odds are better that Gen Z won't forget.
Bridget, I hope the SC won't do that since there is no reason they should since it is supposed to be within the options of the President, but who knows hout the current Republican 6 will rule. They make up the Constitution to support whatever they are getting paid to rule. If they do it and some of the other just plain evil things they have the chance to do this term, I hope Gen Z will remember and I hope the rest of us will too, on their behalf if not on our own.
I personally thought that she was giving them way too much credit, and 'soft pedaling', even downplaying in the name of civility, their mentalities with that descriptor. ;)
This was a wonderful reminder of truth to power my friend! Well done!
Yes, if one cannot see the blatant, painfully obvious hypocrisy of that shithead fascist J.D. Vance, now, you are well beyond 'reachability'.
Yup-I cringed too when she rolled out the "deplorables", but didn't she ever hit THAT nail on the head! 75 million of them. The wealth inequality is completely on the Repubs and their tax cuts and clinging to an economic theory that does not work. Even the architect of "Trickle Down", Dave Stockman, admitted it does not work. I could go on....
Hilary Clinton may be blunt, but she does call it like she sees it.
She’s a ghoul.
LOL_ LOL_ LOL. a ghoul? How would you describer tRump then - christ in thte second comming? P L E A S E
Nope, he’s a crass, misogynistic, insecure, bigoted political and moral vacuum.
But, but their 'gold standard POTUS' Saint Ronnie RayGun ZAP! said it WILL work, so they must believe it, and cling to it, regardless of outcomes, for the direct benefit of their oligarchic trillionaire donor-bosses.
Maybe they had foresight, and were talking about what Donnie SCUMp was doing in that hotel room in Moscow, maybe?? (Yeah, EEWWWW!)
Yeah David, I was a Repub back in those days and thought Reagan was God. It took dimwit '43s invasion of Iraq (a 3 year old could foresee the outcome of that stupidity, that we're still witnessing today) combined with Mark Meadow's tea party to say buh-bye, along with endless tax cuts that have only resulted in declining revenues and increasing debt. Since President Biden's election I've learned through HCR and R Reich how FDR style government IS important for growth, not the lean, "you're on your own" Repub approach. And about that Moscow motel room...thanks, now I'm not going to sleep tonight!
Yes, looking back at that time, I sometimes think that I was the only single, even 'leftist' progressive Dem who did NOT pull the lever for that pompous, arrogant, self-righteous, sanctimonious, rightwing pruneface.
He duped this WHOLE nation about as much as the putrid orange SHITler did in the '16 race.
That white bread, Christianist asshole was a turn off for me no matter HOW MUCH 'prosperity' he promised with his POS economic theories <-(at BEST!)
Amen to that brother!
Initially the public was taken with Bernie Sanders, who directly addressed concerns of the American people & described a much more people-oriented way of governance, but a concerted effort by the corporatist establishment of the Democratic Party shot him down. That's when too many people turned to the (by then) only other viable alternative to the unpopular Hillary, bringing us the disaster that was the Trump administration.
Thank you for making this crucial point, Jaime.
No tRump and his christo-fascist deplorables brought us the disaster that was tRump!
The reason the US has the best educational system but ranks14th is because the country doesn't have educational standards that are upheld in every state. Red states have used education money to balance budgets, saying that we don't need everyone to have a good education. Teachers are not allowed to teach, paid less than they deserve and villified by the right for everything they try to do for kids. Education in blue states is important but the GOP is afraid to let people get an education, because if they do they won't vote republican.
The growth of fascism depends upon a dumbed-down populace, so yeah.
The US ranks SIXTH in the world, actually.
The statistics vary. You got me curious, so I found this online:
<https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country>
Apparently there are various factors to measure and sources to, well, source.
I'd bet contrasted with smaller nations, the US features lopsided, more heterogeneous statistics, depending on factors such as urban/rural, economic status, public/private/home schooled, etc. Of course the STEM courses are a part of the controversy here and likely are less so in, say, EU countries?
Do some of the education statistics refer to post graduate education? Here is the place for grad school …if you can get there!
BTW, what source are you using for the decline in life expectancy begins in Obama's term?
Because all i can find is it dropping from 78.7 to 78.6 in 2016.
A fact which would not have been known in 2016 so could not have impacted voters.
It's currently 76.1.
My uneducated guess is that boomers are now in our sixties. Due to our sheer numbers, we're negatively impacting life expectancy.
Conversely, in ten years you may see it take a jump up. (Unhealthy or unlucky boomers are dying off in their sixties -- which is normal. After that initial danger period, your odds of living into your 80s increase.)
Trump didn't help by screwing up COVID and the Republicans aren't helping by increasing access to guns and refusing to take the Medicaid expansion, but boomers have been a spanner in the works for 70+ years and it's best to start with them.
Nearly all of the decline in longevity occurred during the Trump administration & was firmly established even before the pandemic. That blip in 2016 is statistically insignificant.
Which is why I think it has more to do with the life stage of baby boomers more than the sitting president.
Bridget, maybe the decline in life expectancy is also because healthcare is so hard to get for so many people. Even the ACA costs far more than most families can afford. Being in ACA essentially wiped out my sister's savings and retirement because of her pre-existing conditions and what I think is also abuse within the medical system not making a proper diagnosis and over prescribing expensive treatments. When people are quite ill, they often will pay anything to feel better. That led to the opioid epidemic among working-class white people, the ones who never thought they would resort to such a thing. We the People must be OK with the declining life expectancy because we do so little to stop the needless dying of our people in overdoses, gun deaths, anti-vaccer insanity, and poor health care. Little has been done concerning poverty beyond the few months of relief during the pandemic. The rich who run things don't care much because they believe they can afford the best of everything and for that reason will live longer. Usually, they're right.
Ruth, I'm so sorry about your sister. I have relatives and friends with chronic health conditions and I know how draining they are - both to your bank account and your ability to navigate an unnecessarily complicated system.
So I agree with you that there are many factors.
But I think if boomers were younger - say in their thirties, all of those things could be true and life expectancy would still be rising. Because people in their thirties on average don't die from diabetes, heart attacks, etc. And we skew the numbers.
The death toll is the consequence of everything you said and policies which have failed us over the last 40 years coming home to roost. And late 50s-60s is the age group where people start getting sick & dying from poor health choices.
Boomers are also the first generation (correct me if I'm wrong) where their retirement is predominately 401k based and not pension/Social Security - leading to more financial instability. Financial instability is not good for life expectancy.
There's a crime wave in the late 1950s through the early 1990s. When I was at Penn in the 1970s, Jeremy Siegel predicted to all of us that rising crime would start to taper off in the 1980s and 90s.
Because crimes are predominately committed by young men between the ages of 16 and 30. So track that crime wave with when the first of the boomers hit sixteen and the last of them hit 30.
I think boomers are still a pig in a python and we rarely weight that when we look at national statistics.
Should we make better health care choices? Should we start looking at addiction prevention instead of criminalization? Should we try and break through vaccine and pandemic misinformation? Yes to all of that.
But we should also accept that we're going to have lousy numbers for the next ten years and fix things going forward.
It was the Pandemic. Longevity is measured by statistics of death. The pandemic brought us more senior deaths thus longevity drop. Pull out you pencil and you can figure it out easily by yourself.
Yes.
But if the pandemic had hit in the 1980s, when boomers were in the 20-40 age group, overall life expectancy wouldn't have been as impacted. Because the generation in their 60s was so much smaller than ours.
Smarter people than me started predicting increased Alzheimer and dementia cases in the 1990s. But I don't remember them predicting the higher cases of type 2 diabetes which is also tied to age.
Most of what you say may be true, however, that does not excuse the undying support that he still receives from the rank and file. He offered hope to the working class, but what exactly did he do for them and what good did his presidency accomplish for the good of the country and the world? I ask these respectfully because i'm lost. And I do agree that many people who supported Trump the FIRST time were mis-labeled as deplorables. They didn't like Hillary, but they voted along party lines, and that lead to this current situation.
J-Pat, Obama led the way toward universal health care. John Boehner and the Republicans set out on a decade of war on this idea without ever proposing a sentence of their own as to how to provide for the health of the American people. Reasons: racism and corporate selfishness. Please watch the documentary film, The Brainwashing of My Dad, which you can view on YouTube.
“Obama-care” is not “universal healthcare”. In fact Obama got the entire thing from Mitt Romney’s Policy Centre. That’s right, it WAS a Republican policy. It was DEMOCRAT Senators who were the block on doing any better. Obama had a super-majority for the first two years.
Obama is insidious because he’s a smooth talker and he fools people, like yourself, into thinking he’s any different from the Corporate whores. He’s not. His entire staff was picked by Wall Street. He did their bidding, especially after the crash when voters expected him to come down hard on the criminal casino capitalist bankers…. because when campaigning he said he would do that. What happened? Not one prosecution followed. 5 million American families were evicted while he did nothing. Oh, except allowing the bankers bonuses to be paid out if the BAIL OUT cash. US Taxpayers cash! He also promised to the Women’s groups that “On day one in office my first act will be to codify Roe v Wade.” Hmm how did that go? When he was challenged about it he replied “It’s not one of my priorities”. THAT is your Saint Obama.
Dear J-Pat, now you have stopped commenting and started bullying. Wherever the ACA came from, Obama put it forward. Fact. Republicans disparaged it at every turn and failed to offer any form of health care legislation, no matter how flawed. Fact. The rest of your remarks may be true but are beside the point. The original thread was about why people could vote for a Trump. One of the answers is that many hated him because he is Black. This is relevant to the documentary I cited. I hope you watch.
Error: Correct to One of the answers is that many hated Obama because he is Black. See the documentary film.
You make some relevant points. Obama lost me several days in when he appointed Henry Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs CEO, to be Sec. of the Treasury. We weren't going to see any major economic reforms. "Business as usual" . . . we could have done worse recovering from the Great Recession, although the inequality has continued to climb since then.
You are right about the ACA too, although it has been a godsend to many Americans. We could have done so much better with a nationalized plan for all. Obama is a professorial sophisticate and being a millionaire, cannot help but lose some degree of popular trust in that regard.
He did serve a noble cause -- as our first black president. He mobilized many demoralized minorities who hadn't bothered to vote before. I'll leave it to them to judge his performance as vs. their expectations. But we needed a JFK, and we likely needed an Obama too. Need I add that, in contrast to Trump, he WAS "Saint Obama."
We all could ask him if he has regrets about not acting on Roe.
You're so bitter (as am l ; but towards #45 and the likes of you) but l hope you realize the Republicans wouldn't allow any legislation to pass during Obama's term. Republicans still don't smell too good to me.
Lmao you’ve been drinking the MSNBC kool-aid. Obama had a SUPER MAJORITY for the first TWO YEARS. Stop making excuses for politicians who promise so much but all they give is excuses.
J-Pat thank you for participating...
The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable.
“the deplorables” has turned out to be correct.
The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are "deplorable." Even if you voted for tRump are you really holding hands with one of the above?
I didn’t vote for Trump, or Biden. I have never voted for a right wing politician in my life. Both of them are right wing. But you’re making a huge mistake to classify 50-60 million americans as “nazis, white supremacists” etc. While undoubtedly there are some, the majority of Trump voters are normal, working class folk who are fed up with fake promises from mainstream politicians. Oh, and there’s the fact that Trump INCREASED his numbers with Black AND Hispanic voters. Are they “White Supremacists”…?
Sure they can be. White supremacy is an ideology not a race.
And no, not all Trump voters are white supremacists or Nazis but there is an old adage about sleeping with dogs.
If you sleep with dogs, you'll get up with fleas.
In this case, if they are sleeping with Nazis and white supremacists they at least like their ideas or they concur with their ideas or, even that they are accomplices to their tyranny.
Actually, no, Biden has never been Reich wing.
Now, if you believe that Dems and member of the former Republican party should interact with working class members of the Dems party (left vs right) I agree with you. Working class Americans (all Americans) should interact with each other respectfully. The problem is the right and religious rights idea that it's either their way or the highway or that they should own the libs is Christo- fascism and that is oppression.
Here is an example for you. I am pro-life. Pro a woman's life that is but not pro forced pregnancy or forced birth. I believe that a woman should have full autonomy in every respect. I firmly believe that a woman who does not want an abortion should never be forced to have one. I love children you see.
I also believe that if a woman needs that kind of medical intervention she should be able to have one. (We can quibble about details later.) Don't you agree ?
Now, the Christo-fascists disagrees with us lefties. They believe that all women should be oppressed and forced into making babies because they say so. Does that make any sense?
If your answer is yes then
consider a government that forces every woman to abort their 1st and 2nd pregnancies. If you are anti-women's rights you would go nuts about that wouldn't you? That's how religiously oppressed. Citizens in the USA feel about right wing demands.
There is only one way to fight the christo- fascists sickness and that is to confront it directly and completely.
Thanks for this opportunity J-pat.
That’s a fair criticism. But shooting yourself in the foot doesn’t help. My hope is that the Inflation Reduction Act will.
The facts tend to suggest that the severe income inequality that is ruining the middle and working classes was and is being engineered by the republicans. Trickle down economics does not exist except as a means of gaslighting. Massive tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations allow them to keep billions and use it to make more and more. Once again the lack of education and critical thinking means the gaslighting by the fascistic right is working.
Part of the problem is that no matter what injustices of the past we may be trying to fix, a democracy has to have something in it for all the people. Rural America has terribly low educational funding, compared to urban areas thanks to property tax for funding education. That, combined with a general neglect and feeling that it is right that these Americans should not be heard and are "not intellectual," makes them vulnerable to anybody willing to give them attention. Rich, urban conservatives like Trump who have almost nothing in common with them are able to harness this feeling of neglect, amplify it, and misdirect it in all sorts of ways. So I get what you are saying.
Still, you have to remember that Obama did not exactly get his way as would have liked. Explicitly, the Congressional Republican leadership agreed to oppose all ideas put forward by the Obama administration regardless of merit. That was their no-compromise pledge, https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311
They largely stood by it, and once Obama lost the Senate majority, there was little he could do - he even failed to appoint a Supreme Court position during his last months in office. And just like any President, he inherited the problems of his successor, so, just like any President it is hard to lay all the blame on any of them unless they do take egregious action, particularly in the economic sphere where even more sources can influence the economy over which a President has no control. The Great Recession started under George Bush. The Housing Bubble was caused in large part due to deregulation by Republicans of the banking industry by repealing the Glass-Steagull Act, which kept more speculative investment practices away from your ordinary savings bank. Instead, they were allowed to create and trade in new and speculative financial instruments such as packaged sub-prine loans. When it came time to fix the crisis when Obama was elected, the package passed under his watch was already being put together. Because of the immediacy if the crisis, there was not a lot of time to renegotiate large portions of the package. And lets be clear, this package was fully supported by and created by Republicans. Should Obama have taken the time to overhaul the package and properly target the victims if the crisis? I cannot say if it would have been worth it at the time, if it would have turned things around (and they did turn around), or even if the actual package had much impact v all the other complicated variables that supported the turn-around. More like academic economists as opposed to political ones, I will humbly and truthfully say I do not and probably cannot know.
As for NAFTA, there is a lot of problems determining its exact impact.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/naftas-impact-u-s-economy-facts/ . "For every net job lost in this definition, the gains to the U.S. economy were about $450,000, owing to enhanced productivity of the workforce, a broader range of goods and services, and lower prices at the checkout counter for households.” That was in 2916. Our increase in exports to Mexico also made it hard to quantify the amount of jobs created v lost in NAFTA. And given that during NAFTA, jobs were being outsourced to Asiac countries anyway, it is impossible to quantify how many jobs that went to Mexico might have just gone to Asia instead. The Republican line concerning NAFTA, like most economic arguments made by politicians to their constituents was a vast simplification of a complex problem. I would not buy the party line of either party when they start making claims like this. If economics were that simple, centralized economies lime that of the USSR would have succeeded. A basic tenet of conservative economics is that economies are too complex for any government to really control, yet every political party thinks they know exactly what went wrong at any given time. I can say when bad policy obviously causes problems directly, but most of those claims you make cannot be "rightly" laid at the feet of the Democrats ... or Republicans often when so many different factors combine to cause them.
What it says is that about 60 million American voters are racist/religious knuckleheads, while 14 million Americans are just voting their 401Ks. The first group will never vote Democrat, the second just might - if the economic circumstances remain favorable.
America, this blessed plot, this precious stone set in the silver sea.....Love it or leave it.
"Racist/religious knuckleheads" are sheep who will vote for Democrats when they find out that behind the curtain are oligarchs and foreign wolves who would eat them.
I keep using examples like Republican diabetics who vote themselves unable to afford insulin. Republican seniors on fixed incomes who vote to sunset Social Security and Medicare.
What those racist/religious knuckleheads need is a "great awakening."
To find out what's behind the curtain, they'd have to actually LOOK behind the curtain. They either don't care enough to do that, or are afraid to lest they have their biases debunked.
If you attend sentence hearings, you will probably discover that judges have a higher conversion rate than preachers.
When the sheep have a "tit in the wringer" it hurts.
Hmm.....it's difficult for me to think of anything that would awaken them, finally, after all this time. They have followed this pussy-grabbing lowbrow, even as he drove his truck through every one of the Ten Commandments. If he tells them he will look after them, they believe him.
They don't like black and brown people and they don't like Jews, even though, oddly, they expect a flying Jew to come save them at the End of Times.
"Trump's people" have become a cult, so hoping they will awaken is a bit like hoping that followers of Jim Jones could change their ways if informed that drinking Kool-Aid may not be in their best interests.
Dr. Hutchinson. Take a trip to bankruptcy court. To sentencing of the 1/6 defendants. To funerals of COVID victims.
I've been hoping that a Jimmy Carter/Billy Sunday evangelist will take the good news to the world, that God gave us benefits so we can tithe. First the benefits. Later the tithe.
If COVID wasn't their "great awakening" nothing will be.
The dead don't vote. DOJ should have brought a few cases for spreading false medical info.
Except the DOJ has a policy of not indicting the current president.
🤣
And it would be hard to go after other people when POTUS is claiming you should drink bleach.
The defendants were not POTUS.
I attended a funeral for a man who believed the right wing anti-vaxers and was a healthy motorcycle riding tough guy. He died of Covid after a long hospital stay. The funeral was heavily attended by his friends and family, non of which wore a mask in the middle of the worst of Covid. They all were so sorry he died at such an early age. The minister said “We don’t know why he was taken, but God had a plan”.
He was determined to “own the libs”. You can’t cure stupid.
When one's whole, total and devout raison d'etre is "owning/burning the libtards", one IS unreachable.
Goebbels Nooz/et al can claim 'mission accomplished' in their brain washing, dogmatization, propagandizing goals. :( :(
It's a magical universe to religious zealots.
Our friends and family need empathy, education and awakening. As Joe Biden says, they need “breathing room”. He has worked so hard to give folks this. I don’t like name calling. Whether we refer to people as “average”or “knuckleheads” or “sheep”, that doesn’t advance our case, IMHO. People are genuinely scared, bern through a lot. Lost a lot. And, many profit. Look at the news about Alito. Let’s talk about those elites. And look at the “Woman who bought a mountain” in the new Atlantic Monthly article. We have so much work to do!
IMHO - in my humble opinion
100% correct. And Biden's plan worked for many Americans.
Except that giving folks in a cult "breathing room" is not going to work. They require extraction, which is almost impossible when they are addicted to extremist media and surrounded by insular reinforcement. It's a literal addiction, including a chemical aspect. When they're not kept in "fight or flight" mode, most harbor a simmering resentment, even rage. The Biden plan won't work for that.
Bob Altemeyer, the notable researcher of authoritarianism, said that one feature of those who score high in authoritarianism and submissive (most of the demographic -- the less common are the "high or double high dominants" like Trump) is that they are usually conformist. We see that with the GOP and it looks like cowardice to us. Point being, that one extraction method that seems to work for such cultists is that if enough of their peers shift, they feel uncomfortable and follow along. But it requires that first person having the courage or an exasperation in the status quo.
Daniel Solomon ; Well said!
I sometimes wonder IF that 'great awakening' would be enough though.
EVEN IF their Goebbels Nooz, et al DID inform them (it does NOT!) about the Muricun NAZI Party's plans (STILL!) to obliterate Social Security and Medicare, (despite their loud false/staged protestations during Biden's address), that they will still vote their fascists into power and 'die for the 'cause'', as martyrs (or yes, as brain dead idiots).
Or fix it!
No such thing as a liberal arts education anymore. Everyone "specializes" in business, taxes, real estate and all those things that help get you on the fast track to live the "ameriKKKan Dream??!??"
My wife works for a very proficient Dentist who laps up Faux News like it was the elixir of youth! He's THE MAN for your oral health, but can't tell the forest from the trees because he was NEVER exposed to the virtues and rigors of a real world education!
I am thankful every day that I was able to learn how to analyze, think critically and to "look behind the curtain" when facts don't add up... It undoubtedly continues to cause me serious consternation, but I am able to discern between a snake salesman and an empathetic human being. We are suffering as a nation and society because of the lack of THIS basic "skill set" that is essential to building community awareness and determining what is in everyone's best interest.
The unexamined life is STILL NOT worth living and is a NECESSITY FOR SURVIVAL!
I went to a famous London girls school. but I am not aware of being taught to be analytical, rather it was just a well rounded education in basic subjects until 16 when you started to specialize in your chosen subjects - mine were Geography, Art, Math & English, but none of those were about history & examining why who-did-what. But I never accept just anybody's opinion on anything without pondering the alternatives, so I do not think this is so much a problem with education in the schools, as possibly a problem of religious indoctrination from an early age giving people fixed minds, or is there just such a difference in the 'Conservative' brain that once they hold a belief they cannot accept anything outside of that because it requires the very thing - analysis- that their brains are not constructed - or willing - to do ! IOW I believe people tend to be who they are = Conservative in type or free thinking in type, not so much about education ! When we try to budge the Conservative from their carefully fostered beliefs we are basically threatening their feelings of safety - that is why they refuse to listen - while those who like discussion about ideas are always willing to engage on that, even if the opposite view is from a die-hard Conservative. Those conversations inevitably fizzle out rather quickly for the same 'discomfort' reasons !
It's hard to separate genetics from environment here, because most conservatives, like native authoritarians, grow up with a cultural lineage. Sometimes how we're reared, even from an early age, can imprint more strongly than all the verbal stuff we're taught later. "Do as I say, not as I do" is something most kids can see right through.
Physicians describe dentistry as mouth mechanics. Makes for anti-dentites.
HAHAHAHA!!!
Actually, many people don't know that Dentists are Doctors...
He is always reminding my wife lol
This is well said.
With money as speech, our votes are bought. "We in fact, do not elect the 'knucklehead.' Electoral College, bought off 'representatives' even if it came down to the 'Supreme' court, it's not looking good for the humans' votes! TV ads are not cheap! The average voter can't begin to match contributions from billionaires. What a travesty Citzens United is!
There are many fascists now in local, state and federal governments and even the so-called US supreme Court. We have six there right now. How can I tell? They all lied to get their jobs and are lying to us today. That's what fascism is all about the big lie and running black money to fascists (Citizens United) The supporters of the christo-fascist party are Nazis, white supremacists, gun toting militia members, haters and bigots of all kinds. They truly are deplorable.
There's a huge "left-behind" swath of the American population: places where education has been chronically de-funded and degraded for decades, where science has been replaced by religious indoctrination, and where working 2 or more jobs is still not enough to support a family. In these places there is neither time nor other necessary resources for "intellectuals" to develop or thrive.
It's really not a great mystery why people from these areas would gravitate to a vengeful, narcissistic con man who happens to be fluent in their language of grievance.
This is what the Democrats mostly fail to understand. Biden's policies have started to reverse some of the economic woes of the "left-behinds" — but it will take many years of such policies for most of those people to feel the effects.
I've read through the questions and replies. "How on Earth did Donald John Trump become our 45th President of the United States?"
Because -- face it -- Trump is America. As vile and deranged as he is, he reveals our national character like no other "celebrity." He's America's id on full display.
Trump could go out and shoot someone and would not lose any support. America goes into Indo-China and slaughters well over a million innocent people, and Americans still bring out the parades and banners. Because of Vietnam, Dr. King called America "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." And we all know it didn't stop with Vietnam.
Borrowing the words of another 60's icon: Trump is just an example of the chickens coming home to roost.
They might as well have elected Gordon Gekko, since the mantra IS "Greed, at ANY and ALL COSTS, IS GOOD". ;)
Due to a very progressive tax system, the advent of numerous social programs to help the public, the support of unions, a "can do" attitude, a widespread concern by both the public & government for social problems, & a national pride in the pillars of democracy: liberty, equality & justice, America improved in both moral authority & standard of living (at all economic levels) at its fastest in history during the era from FDR to LBJ to become #1 in the world in most measures of prosperity & well-being. Since 1980 & the growing corporatization & concomitant de-democratization of America, we've been in a steady decline relative to the rest of the world as other nations have passed us by.
My sister graduated from college cum laude in Engish literature, and yet with all her intelligence, she voted for Trump, twice. Her reason was she didn't want our country to become socialist. I guess she doesn't believe in publlic school, police departments, and social security. I didn't debate with her politics, but it goes to show you you don't have to be a deadbeat to be mislead.
BUT Americans ARE terrified of 'socialism' they have been brainwashed for years.
Ivory tower, but insular. One reason most of the EU is ahead of us in many things is the contiguity of the countries. Easy to see, even experience, what others are doing, and compare/contrast w/ them. We are separated by two oceans from knowing the world better. Mexico just means a vacation in Cancun and Canada is for fishing trips. 🙄
That's all the rightwingnut fascists have to do, is drop the 'trigger words' socialist, commie, or even 'liberal policies', and it is enough for some (yes, sometimes regardless of education level) to react with vitriol.
The fascist Congressmicrobes (and of course, SCUMp himself) have learned this lesson quite well from their Goebbels Nooz type 'otlets'.
outlets above. ;)
Keith Olson ; A whole lotta cheating going on! that's what it says! tfg may have succeeded in strong arming some higher level election officials! I don't believe 74 million votes for him for a second!
Yep! Republicans got us investigating over & over certain states they lost, but nobody examined states with suspicious results favoring Republicans whose electoral system were (still are) controlled by Republicans & which use the problematic, manipulable ES&S voting machines owned & managed by Trumpublican partisans. Virtually all of the dozen or so Senate races & over 2 dozen House races considered tossups went to Republicans. I calculated the odds of that happening randomly & it was something like (within a magnitude or 2 of) 1 in a quintillion.
Definitely something to think about and watch for for the future! The GOP are slide of hand artists. They’re ranting and waving in one direction while doing their dirty deed in the other. The question is, where are we looking?
The American Fascist party members in the house of representatives are now locking arms and doing the fascist lockstep for all to see and singing America über alles "above everyone else"
Keith, the best reply is to direct you to the documentary film, The Brainwashing of My Dad, which you can view entirely on YouTube. The failure of critical thinking is right on, but this cut across the educational spectrum. Some of the reasons are given in this documentary.
It says we are bat-s crazy!
If anyone on here feels like watching "Shiny Happy People" you will then get a full understanding of how this happens. It's more about "gang" and "cult" mentality than intelligence.
Full on Corruption is in the mix, too!
"Jim Bob Duggar’s reality stardom stemmed from his political career. In 2002, after four years serving as Republican Arkansas state representative, he ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Though he didn’t win, he did grab the attention of Discovery Network, whose executives took notice of media images of his large family attending campaign events."
<https://time.com/6284603/shiny-happy-people-duggar-family-true-story/>
Isn’t that why Republican politicians do everything they can to kill education? It benefits them to have an uneducated electorate.
The 74 million are just gullible idiots that believe all the BS on Facebook & TikTok & would rather belong to the group of idiots than defend our society, help to change all our problems & learn how to think critically & how to evaluate candidates for office before going to the polls to vote! Our education system needs fixing but every President has tried & failed to institute changes that make a difference & improves the quality of HS graduates! It’s better left to local school districts to find ways to improve their curriculum & teacher engagement. The Country is stuck with all the idiots of Gen X & Millennials but there’s lots of hope for better voting outcomes & more engagement within the Gen Z generation!
Another diversionary controversy to keep our minds occupied while the biosphere burns up and the plutocrats take control.
It's the Greatest show on Earth! The GOP under the Big Top! There's a sucker born every minute! Now especially with forced birth and criminals controlling the schools!
A Blitzkrieg of distractions! Slow MO 'justice, too!
The “Republicans” have all taken themselves down to scum level with trump and will stay there because none of them have any integrity or balls. They are such cowards and chose their own destiny when they did not hold trump accountable from day one. Biden, however does have integrity and class and loves his son more than they have the ability to recognize. They have no agenda, no policy and no party other than to hate and say no to everything and go after the Biden family. Most Americans see through this nonsense and know they have two choices. A sociopath or an old man who knows what the hell he is doing. Thank you Joe!
The system really is broken, but the cause is deeper. Any system that reverses the popular vote is broken. The Electoral College is an anachronism, and has no business being incorporated in the machinery of American Democracy.
But we lost the House!!!!
With 'members' of Congress like George Santos allowed to remain in his seat, because those who illegitimately hold theirs need his votes! No wonder we lost! How many other frauds are there in 'the people's house' ? 'People' being corporate and even foreign interests? It would take too much time to investigate, wouldn't it? Divide us more?!? Bullshit!
McCarthy Needs the votes of a fraudster that is known. There are more of them with questionable resumes and dirty campaign money!
By what six seats?
Usual midterm is 15-20. Tea Party is 40+.
Let's see if McCarthy is still Speaker in 2024.
BEFORE the election.
Because one guy's resigned and Santos is facing charges. Given the age of Republican congressmen, it's going to be close.
Where I live 3 members are Republican Batisianos in Democratic majority districts, DNC abandoned us early on. In NY and CA, Republicans won at least 6 Democratic seats.
Who won those seats in 2016?
Democrats won 2, lost in 2018.
Hunh?
Democrats picked up 41 seats in 2018. They flipped the House.
They may have only done it with a slight majority but the number of seats flipping was still significant.
And while they may have had a slight majority, Democrats had two things Republicans don't.
A younger median age on the reps and Nancy Pelosi.
You will notice that Nancy Pelosi didn't need 16 votes to make her Speaker. You'll notice that Nancy Pelosi didn't have to give away everything except the kitchen sink to win her Speakership.
Nancy Pelosi ran rings around the Republicans when she was in the minority. Kevin McCarthy never had that kind of skill or clout.
Sorry, Daniel, I wasn't reading your answer in the thread so I got confused.
So of the 3 seats, two flip every election?
We’ll get it back in 2024! We lost because the justices put it on hold but now they have ruled gerrymandering to be unconstitutional. So we will win back the House!
Yes, and nationally, the GOP got more votes in House races than the Democrats. We can blame them at our peril. Is it all voter suppression? Or is it also voter disapproval of Democratic candidates?
1.Gerrymandering.
2. Voter preclusion.
3. Lack of money.
4. Lousy media coverage.
5. Lies, lies, lies
Britain OUSTED Boris Johnson for his lies. The Republicans here in the US SUPPORT Trump’s lies and his criminal behavior.
Yeah! The voters disapprove of Democrats so much that the last two elections were won by them.That does not make sense! The GOP sucks, and has little to offer workers and the middle class. All the court cases and now convictions do not help either, along with taking away basic rights, banning books and silencing Democrat legislators in some states.
My intent was that the DNC is backing many candidates too squeamish to garner the enthusiasm of disaffected voters. The DNC seems to believe that “centrist” is the sweet spot for Democrats to convince fence sitters…not full throated advocacy for Progressive goals like MFA, higher wages for workers, more equitable taxation of concentrated wealth, criminal justice reform, etc.
I have always thought that "CENTRIST" Democrats or 'establishment' Democrats are Republican 'lite'
Lewis Dalven ; I don't like the DNC, nor do I support it.
There is definitely a double standard in our justice system. Anyone else would already be in prison for all the crimes Trump has committed in his life. The rich and powerful seldom if ever go to prison in America.
I’m reminded of a story told by my favorite composer, Miklos Rozsa. In 1967 he was hired to write the music for an MGM film called “The Power,” and was told by studio executives that it was a very important picture (one you’ve likely never heard of, the reason for which is to come) because its star is engaged to the president’s daughter. The star was George Hamilton, and the president in question wasn’t the head of MGM, but Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States. The bride-to-be was his daughter, Lynda.
Rozsa then noted that, suddenly, the wedding was off, and “The Power” just as suddenly became much, much less important, so unimportant that the movie, a rather confusing tale of telekinetic mayhem, was given almost no advertising support and vanished soon after its release.
Well, it’s kind of like that with Hunter Biden: he’s important to Republicans only because they think he can be used to discredit his father, the 46th President of the United States (or 44th, if you care to dismiss George W. Bush and Trump as the equivalent of anti-popes, illegally occupying seats of power they never earned [see Bush v. Gore, and also the minutes of the recent trial convicting former NSA translator Reality Winner as to the contents of the classified document she retained and disseminated]; the moment Joe Biden leaves office, Hunter becomes an irrelevancy, especially since the Republicans are constantly ginning up fake conspiracies, controversies and crises to lay at the feet of Democrats, their own form of telekinetic mayhem, and just as bogus.
Democrats are trying to affect policy changes for the "general welfare" while Republicans have taken on a wartime posture and are practicing psyops. So extreme has the GOP become, that many view Biden as the enemy, while extolling their perceived virtues of V. Putin and other brutal dictators.
Please tell me why some people call them Christo-fascists. /s
Goes back to the John Birch Society vilifying Eisenhower for having one brother who was a registered Socialist and in essence asked another, a liberal, to be his closest advisor. When it became clear that the internment of Japanese Americans was unjust, Milton resigned in protest. In 1943, he was appointed president of his alma mater, now Kansas State University. He went on to serve as president of both Pennsylvania State University and Johns Hopkins University. Milton was Ike's closest confidant during his presidency, and also served Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Nixon's brother and nephew were associated with international fugitive Robert Vesco. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/23/archives/vesco-and-watergate-his-testimony-sought-by-investigators-of-senate.html
Billy Carter. Neil Bush. https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut/
There are no longer any 'average Americans'. Republicans will believe the allegations against Hunter Biden either because it suits their purposes or because it coddles their 'outrage'. Other Americans will hopeful see through this.
It coddles AND suits their purpose.
Yeah, what is an “average” American? I think it’s worth thinking about, especially if you’re planning to run for President. Or maybe the question is just what is an American (if there is such a thing anymore).
Trump supporters are the ones who will be carrying on about Hunter, and I don't see them as "average Americans."
Hunter Biden, like the Trump progeny, is a big asshole.
Regardless of whether or not we’d choose Hunter for a friend — & regardless of MAGA-Rs’ octane-fueled allegations to scrum for #45 since before the 2020 election — in Hunter’s court case this headline says it all: #45-appointed judge accepted a plea deal that’s >harsher than normal< for 1st offenders on the minor charges brought before this #45-appointed judge, according to legal experts in article.
And those minor charges themselves are rare in cases where it’s a first-time offender, & where the offender actually rectified the tax situation a long time ago, & sought help for his addiction a long time ago.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/legal-experts-say-charges-hunter-biden-are-rarely-brought-rcna90191?cid=eml_mrd_20230621
Were also points made on our local news last night by a local expert.
MAGA-Rs have been lying — & screaming to any journalists who would listen — about made-up crimes to not only damage now-President Biden, but also to divert attention from what #45/Giuliani/quiescent-Pence/etc., committed re Ukraine, attempting to rig the 2020 election. The verdict that Hunter committed minor transgressions, not major ones, means the situation’s the reverse of what MAGA-Rs are still claiming: because the truth is Hunter’s getting worse treatment than normal, not more lenient treatment.
Now, will MAGA-Rs turn their attention to another drug-addled son of a (former) president, Don Jr? A judge in one of the cases where his lifelong-criminal dad’s been charged has rebuked the son & warned the dad that Jr’s comments are treading on court rules.
Hunter Biden saw his mother and baby sister killed and spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from his own injuries.
Donnie Jr (according to his college roommates) was physically abused by his father. In front of them. For something minor.
Some addictions have real causes.
There but for the grace of God go I.
Still a humongous asshole.
Your empathy is noted.
I am a disabled combat veteran. I listened to this stuff for 50 years. I have relatives that were similarly affected. I can sing the lyrics to Sam Stone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLVWEYUqGew
But the resolution should have happened as soon as Weiss got the case. I know more about pretrial intervention than most people.
I was a judge for 30 years and I know the DSM and I know he probably shouldn't have been prosecuted.
But he was the son of a vice president and failed to act accordingly. His problems don't give him a license to be an asshole.
So daniel what did he do to yoou. Please tell us.
Made me curious . . .
<https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dj-says-he-watched-donald-trump-brutally-slap-his-son-in-college-8900500>
That sounds like the story I remember but I think there were others floating around as well.
I don't thinks his bottom is an issue here. Is it?
Nobody is in control of what their children do as adults. How many parents have to deliberately gag themselves rather than tell their off-the-rails progeny what the facts are ? Presidents are just humans after all, and what their offspring choose to do is not their fault !
True in some cases but not in all cases.
Whatever their kids ages parents should aim to be responsible for and honest with their kids. Its not always convenient or productive to do so, but if the intentions are right thats felt by all. A dysfunctional or broken family is another matter. My parents lack of transparency and dishonesty and deceit and double standards caused alot of damage,
Sadly, Trump supporters and most right wing Republicans will believe the double standard charge. They have lost the ability to see Trump for what he truly is.
There is a double standard of justice in this country and Trump has been the beneficiary. Any other common thug who committed the array of crimes Trump has admitted to would have been tried, convicted and sent to Gitmo long ago. Yet this Orange Anus continues to walk free and spew poison.
The real double standard is that Trump has not yet faced charges for January 6.
I blame Garland. Justice delayed is justice denied.
If my memory is correct, Donny boy could have pled guilty but decided not to follow his lawyer’s advice. The nature of the crimes cannot be compared. The GOP is clutching at straws.
Paranoia is a direct result of the MAGA kool-aide. It has rendered Republicans lunatics. Trying to reason with them with TRUTH is pointless.
Before MAGA. Here in Baghdad By the Sea, we have role models -- like JEB Bush. https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1993/10/07/man-at-center-of-fla-medical-scam-arrested/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/jeb-bush-dogged-by-decades-of-questions-about-business-deals/2015/06/28/0138223c-edb7-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html
Like Rick Scott: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/08/30/democrats-medicare-fraud-is-fungus-scott-will-never-get-rid-of-573155
Like Marco Rubio: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/06/marco-rubio-david-rivera-venezuela-meeting-00072652
Makes one wonder how anyone can live in Florida amongst these people. And then there's the humidity...
Actually the correct answer is both #1 & #2 but that was not enabled on this poll.
My thought exactly! The Democrats won’t point out that Biden did in fact hold over a trump appointed prosecutor so that he could continue his investigation into Biden’s own son or that if trump would have just cooperated with the National Archives in the first place or even the legal paperwork that came after his first couple of refusals then I am not even sure that they would have brought charges against him. Trump put himself in this predicament NOT Biden or the Justice Department. Maybe Biden doesn’t need to say it so he can remain impartial but all of the other Democrats in office should point it out. If the people who want to keep wasting their money on trump and want to continue to look up to the republicans who spew their hatred and lies (thankfully there’s hope since some republicans will stand up to the bullshit because they remember when they were a party that had a direction and not a dictator) don’t see that they are tearing Americans apart it is truly a very sad day. Republicans want to keep them poor and less educated so that they will continue to believe their lies so that they can stay in power. It’s the only reason (other than hate) that I can see for them to attack the systems that would help people to learn from history and try to go in the other direction. Power is all that they care about and not the people who gave it to them. On a side note: I would love to see if there are actually any “golf clothes” in the boxes that the DOJ took. When he was president I believe that I read an article that he spent more time golfing than actually in the office. I guess that he should have spent less time golfing and actually following the legal documents given to him. He profited off of the taxpayers while in office and bullied the other departments but now he is crying foul when all of his misdeeds are catching up to him and unfortunately his lackeys are still working to try to blame others for what he did (hello Jim Jordan and etc.).
True, except, this is just the beginning of Trump's legal problems. Wait till the January 6 investigation reaches all the way up to him.
The answer as to whether average Americans will accept the GOP claim of a double standard is both yes and no. There's too many ardent Trump supporters to argue they don't represent average American--or at least a large population within the general public. Many of them will openly accept the claims.
One of the powers of cult control is that in order to escape from the cult you have to admit you were duped. Most of those who would admit that have already done so. Those that haven't have swallowed years of lies. They wouldn't just have to admit to themselves they were duped, but duped at a staggering level. Leaving a cult means internally someone must self-incriminate themself as being deceived and that's a hard pill to swallow--particularly for people of a personality bend that tends to view things in oversimplified black and white terms.
Many American's won't fall for the GOP's claim. Unfortunately, this will likely just further splinter the country, because then you'll have two groups hardened on both sides of the issue. That's another power of a political cult. The ones that haven't been duped will take an I-told-you-so attitude with the ones who have been duped. That makes it even harder for the duped to admit they've been duped, because they face both an internal conflict as well as a potential loss of face.
You are spot on Brett, the corporate plutocracy presently in control of this nation loves this. Keep the masses feuding with themselves as they slowly constrict our Democracy.
We have known for years that Trump has two sets of ethics - one for everyone else that they have to obey the law, the other for Trump that he is so wonderful and such a gift to humanity that of course, nothing he does would be considered a crime [including shooting someone i broad daylight on fifth Avenue NYC] The only thing Hunter Biden did wrong was in not requesting an extension for filing his taxes. Since he did pay all that he owed (and probably the penalties and interest) I had a lady doing my taxes for twenty years, She too sick in 2022 and filed for an extension, so my taxes weren't filed until September that year. I am deeply sorry for the Biden family that Hunter turned to addictive chemicals to ease his pain. He lost his mother and sister when he was very young. He lost a beloved brother to brain cancer. I know from personal experience how devastating such tragedies can be for younger members of the family. I am proud of Joe and Jill Biden who released the statement that they love their son and will stand by him.
The party of Nixon, a clinical paranoid, and W, a shadow of a person, just do not like any democrat. The plumbers really tried to illegally steal a presidential election but somehow it is forgotten. A lifelong second rate human being like 45 remains popular by pandering to the paranoia of voters who don’t want to consider issues but who resonate to the dog whistles of their fears. Tell them that the country of their parents can actually become a fascist dictatorship and they do not have the ability to comprehend. Tell them that we can see returns of the robber barons or the McCarthyites and they probably don’t know what it means. They still expect wealth to trickle down from the untaxed. We have bounced back from the edge of the abyss in the past but that is certainly not a guarantee we can do it again.
"They still expect wealth to trickle down from the untaxed." Wow. Well said.
We have problems.
But, on voir dire, under oath, even a MAGAT can be compelled to follow the rule of law.