The Thursday night news conference did not immediately halt the stream of Democrats who have been calling on Biden to end his candidacy after a rocky debate performance two weeks ago. Shortly after the news conference ended, Reps. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) added their names to the list of those who have asked Biden to step aside.
Mostly Monday Reads: Another Fine Mess
Posted: February 24, 2025 Filed under: Black Women Lead, Broligarchy, FARTUS, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, The American Triumvirate and Shadow Minister Putin | Tags: 2, @johnbuss.bsky.social, Bernie Sanders, Elonia Musk, FARTUS, HUD hack, John Buss, Joy Reid, Medicaid, NYC Mayor, sanctuary cities 5 Comments
“Of course, they’ll blame Biden for the missing gold. The plan all along. John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The grift and chaos are real. There is nothing golden about this new Gilded Age. The rich guys may have been rotten back then, but they did it by building railroads and steel plants. This new set throws their Dad’s money at things and tells everyone they are smart when they are anything but intelligent.
The Republican party deserves ignominious defeat at the polls.
Musk’s claws are all over Medicaid, and he’s being aided by Republican Congress Critters. Trump’s recent shake-down of the mayor of New York City is already giving Musk his jollies by throwing immigrants housed at the Roosevelt Hotel the boot. But that’s only one of 53 sites that will be shuttered without indicating who is waiting to hear their case in a court of law, which is likely a good portion if not all of them. Neo-Nazi encampments are on the rise too. But take heart: hackers have joined voters in trolling these folks. The midterm elections cannot come fast enough for me. Let’s take this news in order.
This analysis of the coming Medicare evisceration is provided by the site The Last Billionaires and is written by Jason Sattler. Guillotines one? “Here’s how Republicans are planning to throw millions off Medicaid and lie about it. Trump is teaching his minions to say, “We didn’t insure anyone”/”They deserved it.”
A lot of the horror in the Donald Trump sequel is new.
Sure, he was terrible the first time James Comey and Vladimir Putin made him president. But his misery couldn’t measured in donated kidneys that had to be junked, cures for diseases that won’t be found, and intentional infant deaths due to HIV.
That’s what Elon Musk has given us by singlehandedly electing Trump a second time.
However, one aspect of this Trump administration is nearly identical to the last. He wants to give rich people sloppy, unnecessary tax cuts and then “pay” for those tax cuts by basically ending Medicaid as we know it.
You’ll remember that he succeeded in the giveaways to the rich, but thanks to millions of activated Americans and John McCain’s thumb, he failed to gut Medicaid. Thankfully, because you may also remember that Trump bungled us into the worst response to COVID-19 in the rich world with a yearlong supercut of unforced errors that would have been infinitely worse if he’d succeeded in his dream of swiping insurance from masses of struggling workers and their families.
This time around, Trump, MAGA, and the Nerd Reich are determined to punish us for the few weeks rich people had to take out Olive Garden rather than enjoying the lush dining room by destroying the best medical research system ever created and simultaneously gutting the worst health insurance system in the rich world.
To be clear, we’re not sure how the details of this will look.
Republicans only need 50 votes in the Senate, which they have for pretty much anything Trump wants. The House is a mess. Speaker Mike Johnson only has a few votes to lose. While there are no true moderate Republicans in Congress, there are Republicans in losable districts—more than enough of them to lose the House in 2026 if democracy continues somewhat usually. If things go wrong enough, the GOP could even conceivably lose the House in special elections before November 2026.
One way they could go wrong is if Republicans touch a third rail and gut the largest provider of insurance in America. And that’s Trump’s plan. He has endorsed $880 billion in cuts for Medicaid, which is actually $44 billion MORE than House Republicans under his and Paul Ryan’s direction tried to cut Medicaid last time.
Because they tried this before, we have a decent idea of what the result would be, according to the Congressional Budget Office:
“In calendar year 2026, Medicaid enrollment is estimated to be 8 million lower under the AHCA than under current law due to the combination of two factors: (i) a decline of 6 million in enrollment for newly eligible adults under current law and (ii) a decline of 2 million in enrollment for all other Medicaid enrollees attributable to more frequent — 2 — eligibility redeterminations, the repeal of retroactive eligibility, and optional State work requirements for adults.”
That’s at least 8 million who’d be thrown off the program due to paperwork and ridiculous requirements that undermine the very nature of Medicaid, which exists to supplement Americans who can’t get insurance because they’re aged and not rich or taking care of a family member or trying to find a job or a kid.
As Kelly Hooper of Politico reminds us “Republicans’ plans for Medicaid have a political problem. GOP lawmakers expected to vote soon on slashing the insurance program for low-income people represent tens of millions reliant on it.
House Republicans who represent large numbers of Medicaid recipients are pushing back on their leaders’ plans to slash billions in funding for the insurance program for low-income people.
That dissension could grow considering that President Donald Trump has made the GOP more appealing to the working class. Republicans rely on low-income voters more than they have in decades, with Trump the first Republican presidential candidate to win the poorest third of the electorate since the 1960s.
A POLITICO review of enrollment in Medicaid by congressional district found that 11 Republicans in competitive seats represent larger-than-average Medicaid populations — collectively nearly 2.7 million recipients. A vote to cut the program presents a politically sensitive decision that may come back to haunt them in 2026.
With a 218-215 House split — the tightest in modern history — Republicans will be fighting for every seat during the midterms to keep control of the chamber. And they can only lose one vote in the House and still pass their budget bill.
House Republican leaders plan to use Medicaid cuts to pay for tax relief, border security and energy production in the coming weeks.
“The bulk of these cuts would have to be in Medicaid, and that’s why they’re not going to get the requisite votes they need to get it passed with the margins that they have right now,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former GOP Senate Budget Committee staffer. “Leaders are going to have a lot of difficulty getting the votes to pass this resolution.”
Nationally, about 24 percent of people in the United States are enrolled in Medicaid, according to an estimate compiled by NYU Langone Health. Just over 72 million people nationwide had Medicaid coverage as of October 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Garret Graff has written “An Obituary for the FBI. America’s dream of a politically independent bureau is officially dead” at his blog Dooms Day Scenario. This year, Richard Nixon’s FBI and DOJ will be a quaint takeover by comparison.
The Sunday night announcement that Dan Bongino — a bombastic MAGA podcast host, fiery right-wing troll, one-time Secret Service agent, and three-time failed Republican congressional candidate — would be the new FBI deputy director and join the newly confirmed director Kash Patel, another MAGA loyalist better known for his hucksterism of Trump merchandise than his management, leadership, or law enforcement experience, and lead the FBI marked an almost certainly permanent alteration of the fabric of the institution.
In the entire modern history of the bureau, the deputy director — the #2 person who serves as the day-to-day operational leader of the FBI — has always been a civil servant and career special agent, one who has worked his (they’ve always been men) way up the ranks over a two-decade career and is deeply familiar with the workings of the bureau, its wide-ranging missions, and curious culture.
All previous modern directors, meanwhile, have had deep experience with the FBI — working in senior roles in law enforcement, atop the Justice Department, or as federal judges. Patel and Bongino, who does not require Senate confirmation in the role, bring none of that acquired expertise or wisdom to the role; neither has worked for the FBI for a single day and neither has meaningful senior management experience.
Both have been installed, effectively, to troll the libs — and, more dangerously for every American, to weaponize the normally fiercely independent bureau in service to Donald Trump personally. Don’t take my word for it — Bongino said it himself in 2018: “My entire life right now is about owning the libs.” He added then: “We win, you lose, the new rules are in effect.” Or try this video:
More recently, he said this on his podcast: “What matters? Anyone? Power.” Listen to that clip, watch the glee on his face as he says, and imagine him as the second most-powerful person in a vital national law enforcement agency that holds enormous sway over Americans of all stripes, and tell me that isn’t one of the darkest things you’ve seen yet out of the Trump administration.
Dan Bongino, who hosts a popular pro-Trump podcast and has appeared regularly on Fox News, will serve under Kash Patel. http://www.ft.com/content/510e…
— Financial Times (@financialtimes.com) 2025-02-24T17:46:58.462Z
FARTUS’ shakedown of the Mayor of New York City is already paying off big time. This is from NBC News. “NYC Mayor Eric Adams to close Roosevelt Hotel migrant center targeted by Musk, Trump administration. The hotel’s closure comes as Adams promises to close another 53 emergency shelter sites by June.” I wonder if they’ll ship The Statue of Liberty out, too?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday that the city will close the Asylum Seeker Arrival Center at the Roosevelt Hotel, a site that was the frequent target of criticism from Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
Over 173,000 migrants completed registrations at the Manhattan hotel since its opening in May 2023, accounting for nearly three quarters of the 232,000 migrants who entered the city since the spring of 2022, the Adams administration reported.
“While we’re not done caring for those who come into our care, today marks another milestone in demonstrating the immense progress we have achieved in turning the corner on an unprecedented international humanitarian effort,” Adams said in a Monday statement.
The mayor added that his administration has “skillfully managed this crisis,” and that the Roosevelt Hotel has been “key in allowing us to effectively manage our operations.”
On top of closing the arrival center at the hotel, Adams also announced the closure of the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center located at Roosevelt.
The mayor cited a downtick of migrant registrations as well as the success of migrants who have “sought care” from the city to take their “next steps in their journeys,” as inspiring the move to shut down the core center at Roosevelt Hotel.
Adams’ administration said that while an average 4,000 migrants were arriving each week to New York City during the “height of the international asylum seeker crisis,” the average number of registrants in the city has dropped down to the about 350 migrants per week in recent months.
“Now, thanks to the sound policy decisions of our team, we are able to announce the closure of this site and help even more asylum seekers take the next steps in their journeys as they envision an even brighter future, while simultaneously saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” Adams said in a statement.
Remember, seeking asylum is not illegal in the US. It’s a process that’s part of an international treaty that we signed. Our government’s site about the process is still online. You may read about it here. However, bribing foreign politicians is a big no-no. The BBC reports that “Ex-Reform UK Wales leader accused of taking Russian-linked bribes.” Sound familiar?
The former leader of Reform UK in Wales has appeared in court accused of accepting bribes to make statements in the European Parliament that would benefit Russia.
Nathan Gill, 51, from Llangefni on Anglesey, is facing eight counts of bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.
The court heard Mr Gill, who was a UKIP and later a Brexit Party MEP between 2014 and 2020, was alleged to have received money from his co-defendant and former Ukrainian politician Oleg Voloshyn.
He appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court by video link on Monday, speaking to confirm his name, date of birth and address.
While FARTUS is still trying to turn the US Military into his own private force, he still has these guys and they are building. This is from The Guardian. “Neo-Nazi group plots rebuild as Trump’s FBI chief takes helm, audio reveals. Exclusive: Terrorist group the Base appears defiant as new administration aims to deprioritize threat from far right.”
An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the US appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by the Guardian from its digital accounts.
Founded in 2018, the Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counter-terrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist organization in several countries.
By 2022, it seemed to disappear. Yet its founder and leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, a former US special forces contractor residing in Russia, used the safety of Russian apps before the November election to recruit and reorganize during a tense political moment. At one point, he even solicited ex-American soldiers with an offer of $1,200 a month to put members through paramilitary training somewhere in the Pacific north-west.
The Base’s regrouping comes at a time when the Trump administration has made it a policy goal to move away from policing far-right extremism and during the appointment of Kash Patel – a Maga acolyte who lauds January 6 attackers and has peddled Qanon conspiracy theories – to helm the FBI. Experts say federal law enforcement ignoring far-right groups such as the Base could expose Americans to increased domestic terror threats.
Nazzaro’s efforts, so far, appear to be paying off: the Guardian was tipped to an audio message released in mid-February from an assumed new leader of the Base with an American accent, discussing the ambitious future of the group.
After criticizing other neo-Nazi organizations such as Blood Tribe for publicly protesting against drag-queen story hours in the midwest, the voice preached covert action and quiet preparations for armed cells throughout the US rather than flashy activism.
“Are we just going to be reactionary? Or are we going to be part of the solution? The military solution,” they said. “Because inevitably we’re going to end up in some sort of military situation, what are the choices?”
The voice then describes a “black scenario” where the US government soon collapses and there’s a need to “provide for your family” and for “white women”.
“There is no political solution, only a military solution,” they can be heard saying under heavy voice modulation. “So act accordingly.”
So, there have been various ways to express concern about what has happened these first 6 weeks under the FARTUS Triumvarite and Kakistocracy. MTN has this about recent contributions by hackers. “Hack at Department of Housing and Urban Development Trolls Donald Trump and Elon Musk | Report
The hack has ended, but the images are circulating on the internet.”
A hack at the Department of Housing and Urban Development this morning has now trolled Donald Trump and Elon Musk by playing a short, AI-generated video of Donald Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet with the title “Long Live The Real King” over the video. Below is a screen grab taken by reporters this morning at the Department:
The video was on display for a short period of time this morning before being taken down by Housing and Urban Development officials. The “long live the real king” message on the video likely refers to a recent statement made by Donald Trump stating “long live the king” after he said that he would be ending congestion pricing in New York City.
It is unclear at this point who is responsible for the hack this morning, whether it was done internally by a HUD employee, or whether authorities have any leads.
Well, it stands to irritate them more than many of our protests since internet surfing, trolling, and golfing appear to be the only presidential duty these days. I’m not sure how long it will take to stop all of this and try to rebuild our infrastructure, but this sure will kill a lot of people in the process. Just the firing of all the best and brightest of the top brass in the military is a huge loss of knowledge and leadership. The Republicans are working on those billionaire tax cuts already, so the bilking of the Treasury continues.
The U.S. Army Chorus sang ‘Les Mis’ at the White House Governors’ Ball. The U.S. Army Chorus ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ performance from ‘Les Misérables’ is going viral?
So, our lonely eyes turn to the Democratic Party. Nicholas Wu, writing for Politico, filed this report today. “House Democrats are ramping up their attacks on the GOP agenda. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urged “maximum attendance” this week ahead of a tight vote.”
House Democrats are sharpening their attacks on the Republican policy agenda ahead of an expected Tuesday budget vote, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laying out a plan for pushback in a letter to Democratic colleagues Monday.
With one House Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) already publicly opposing the plan and others privately dug in against it, Jeffries urged “maximum attendance” from his caucus to keep the pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson and his minuscule GOP majority. Democrats are also playing up the backlash some Republican members of Congress faced at recent town halls (some of it organized by liberal advocacy groups) as they try to harness grassroots resistance to the GOP.
House Democrats will gather Tuesday on the House steps, Jeffries said, to “make sure that the country can hear from everyday Americans whose lives will be devastated by the Republican budget scheme.”
Even Bernie Sanders is back on the road again. This time, he’s holding town meetings in deeply red republican states and cities. So, I’m going to use this article from the Nebraska Examiner. “Overflow Omaha crowd launches U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour. ‘We are living in two Americas,’ says the Vermont senator and former presidential candidate.” Hey, it’s an improvement over giving speeches on the floor to a camera.
U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders kicked off his “Fighting Oligarchy” nationwide tour in Omaha Friday night, drawing an overflow crowd of more than 2,500, with hundreds more turned away.
The progressive independent from Vermont spoke to supporters about what he said is division in the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Sanders said he chose Omaha as his first tour stop because of its working-class voters who were swayed toward Republican candidates in the 2024 election. The former presidential candidate said he wants to encourage people, similar to those living in the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, to recognize policies that could hurt them and their livelihoods.
He said that 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck while rich people are receiving tax cuts.
His tour continues Saturday in Iowa, aimed at promoting democracy and encouraging the working class to stand up to signs of oligarchy.
“We are living in two Americas,” said Sanders. “What we do now will impact our lives. [Americans] need a grassroots movement that says no to oligarchy.”
Kitty Brougham, 65, of Omaha was among those cheering at the Omaha Marriott Downtown at the Capitol District.
She said she wanted to attend the event because she was losing hope. She is the mother of Sammie Peterson, 24, a transgender woman, and is worried for her future.
“I am watching my country be taken away from me,” said Brougham. “I needed hope.”
Sanders’ call to stand up inspired Peterson as well. She said she has not been very politically active in the past but feels that now is the time. As she worries for her future, she finds the ability to speak out.
Sanders spoke for about 30 minutes, at one point reciting the Gettysburg Address and reminding supporters that America was built on pushback against oligarchs. He encouraged people to speak up and said they are stronger when they come together — regardless of political party.
Originally set for the Laborers International Union building, the event was moved to the larger Marriott to accommodate a turnout estimated at 2,580 in the ballroom and two overflow rooms. Organizers said hundreds of others were turned away due to space constraints.
Alexander Beavers, 13, a middle school student from Omaha, was with his family cheering from the front row.
“Trump already ruined the state,” said Beavers.
Now, if these folks’ comments could only show up on the front page of any of the legacy national newspapers.
I don’t look forward to MSNBC really making a big effort for anything if this is typical of their reactions. You may have been here when I did an interview as one of the original “Reiders” back in the day on Zerlina Maxwell’s podcast. I’ve been a fan of hers forever. I attended her book signing at Baldwin Books when she launched a tour of her book on the Evers. This has me both sad and mad. They’ve canceled her show. They’re also moving Jen Psaki to Rachel’s current and old spot. Two women of color out their shows. Alex Wagner will be an at-large reporter. That is sure to be tough on her young family.
I just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out with kindness and encouragement, both personally and in these social media streets. So very proud of The Reidout @joy.msnbc.com team, who are truly family, and all of our supporters & friends. See you tomorrow night at 7, one more time ‼️
— Joy-Ann Reid (@joyannreid.bsky.social) 2025-02-24T05:16:06.613Z
This is from The Independent. “Joy Reid’s staff had ‘tense’ meeting with MSNBC chiefs after learning her show was being axed in media, report says. Joy Reid hosted ‘The ReidOut’ for more than four years on MSNBC.”
MSNBC has canceled Joy Reid’s evening news show and held a “tense” meeting with her staff after the news was leaked to the press.
The final episode ofThe ReidOutwill air this week, The New York Times reports. Her slot will be replaced by a show led by a trio of hosts: Democratic strategist Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and journalist Alicia Menendez. They currently host The Weekend, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Rebecca Kutler, the network’s newly-appointed leader, made the call amid larger plans to overhaul MSNBC’s programming, according to the Times.
Now, media journalist Oliver Darcy reports Reid’s staff found out they were losing their jobs in a tense and emotional 30-minute impromptu meeting Sunday morning. Staffers were reportedly frustrated they learned about the show shutting down from media reports, rather than directly from leadership.
Reid has hosted a 7 p.m. show on the network since 2020. She had been with the company since 2014.
The network has also removed Alex Wagner from her weekday evening spot, and Darcy reports Kutler held a “similar” meeting with the show’s staff. However, Wagner is expected to stay with MSNBC as a contributor.
Now, many are mourning Reid’s departure.
“I owe the television part of my career to Joy Reid, as do so many other Black voices y’all never would have heard of if not for her,” journalist Elie Mystal wrote on X. “And *that’s* why she’s gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable.”
I’m getting too old for this shit.
#BlueskyResistance #Voices4Victory #ProudBlurAdvertisement at a London bus stop. Ya gotta love the British…
— Libby Whittemore (@libbage55.bsky.social) 2025-02-24T14:58:45.189Z
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: A Broken Orange Clock
Posted: September 16, 2024 Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign, Black Women Lead, black women's reproductive health | Tags: "concepts of a plan", #DonOld, @repeat1968. John Buss, A Clockwork Orange, Politics and Football, Republicans "create stories" 5 Comments
“I know someone who is in serious decline…” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I usually take a long break from TV in the Fall. I actually don’t have a TV at the moment, although I have a new one sitting on a box on my bed that I haven’t bothered to set up for over a year now. I stick to the news and weather, so I’m usually okay as long as I can stream those. I typically like following politics, but that’s not like it used to be, and I prefer to get that from the print media. I’m even avoiding as much of that as possible because there’s no discussion about policy anymore. The cult of personality is everywhere these days.
This political season reminds me of all the things I detest about football. I ignore football games as much as possible. I usually call it mutants crashing and men fighting over ceremonial big balls. It starts with a between the legs movement and some guy bending over. It’s about throwing and catching and running away. It also causes brain damage. It’s a perfect allegory for today’s Republican politics right up to the part where the adherents of the team wear silly costumes and scream a lot.
Maybe it’s because most people don’t harvest, do something productive, or return to school to meet new kids and teachers. Maybe social media is the new American circus and it doesn’t just happen one week of the year. I’m happy for the cooler weather. Halloween is still the best holiday on the calendar, but it’s short-lived and overrun by the overtly commercial Crassmess season. But really, America. This is one of the silliest silly seasons that I’ve experienced in a long time.
So, I’m hesitant to follow the herd into the latest guy with a gun near Trump. There are guys with guns in schools. In our reality, they’re in shopping centers, neighborhoods, and even hospitals every day. They’re all ready to shoot things up for one reason or another. Most of them are troubled, surrounded by gun culture, encouraged to take out whoever has run off with their balls, and they’re unfortunately successful. When we’re encouraged to see all others as a team, we don’t want to play ball with but against, it begins to make sense. Is this the way American governance and law work now?
Everyone knows there’s someone on the team willing to shit talk. The crowd evidently loves it. Truth be damned. I mean, ‘concepts of a plan’ wouldn’t win a football game. Why should it get votes in an election? Every team has a designated shit-talker. But donOLD has a team full of them. That’s all they can do. Here’s a great example from The Guardian, as Edward Helmore wrote. “JD Vance admits he is willing to ‘create stories’ to get media attention. Republican vice-presidential candidate defends spreading false, racist claims demonizing Haitian immigrants.” What happens if the people on the other end aren’t participating in the ball-chasing activities? Then, the other side looks much more like the droogies in A Clockwork Orange. H/t for this to Hillary Clinton.
In a stunning admission, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he was willing “to create stories” on the campaign trail while defending his spreading false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.
Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”. Asked by the CNN host Dana Bash whether the false rumors centering on Springfield, Ohio, were “a story that you created”, Vance replied, “Yes!” He then said the claims were rooted in “accounts from … constituents” and that he as well as the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, had spoken publicly about them to draw attention to Springfield’s relatively large Haitian population.
Vance’s remarks drew a quick rebuke from the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who supports his party’s White House nominee in November’s election, Kamala Harris.
“Remarkable confession by JD Vance when he said he will ‘create stories’ (that is, lie) to redirect the media,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “All this to change the subject away from abortion rights, manufacturing jobs, taxation of the rich, and the other things clearly at stake in this election.”
Vance further insulted people in Springfield who are Haitian as “illegal”, though the vast majority of them are in the US legally through a temporary protected status (TPS) that has been allocated to them due to the violence and unrest in their home country in the Caribbean. The status must be renewed after 18 months.
The rumors proliferating out of Springfield have led to bomb threats aimed at local hospitals and government offices. Vance on Sunday told Bash it was “disgusting” for the media to suggest any of his remarks had led to those threats. He also used the same term to refer to the people issuing those threats, though – in a separate appearance on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press – he made it a point to blame the media for accurately reporting on them, saying it was “amplifying the worst people in the world”.
Vance ultimately defended his endorsement of the lies about Springfield as calling attention to the immigration policies at the White House while Harris has served as vice-president to Joe Biden.
“I’m not mad at Haitian migrants for wanting to have a better life,” Vance said. “We’re angry at Kamala Harris for letting this happen.”
Haitians in Springfield have been thrust under the US’s divisive political spotlight after Trump alleged that some of them were responsible for the abduction and consumption of pets during the former president’s debate with Harris on Tuesday.
Town officials have vociferously rejected the lies, and a woman who helped start the rumors on a widely circulated Facebook post acknowledged they were unfounded hearsay.
Two Springfield Elementary schools were evacuated again today. Fire Department Investigators are trying to determine the cause of a fire that destroyed two apartment buildings Sunday morning. The buildings were located directly across the street from one elementary school there. This analysis is from Jonathan V. Last written for The Bulwark. “Trump Is the Main Character of 2024. Again. How to take over the news cycle with this one weird trick.”
Late last week, in between laughing at JD Vance and Donald Trump, I had a thought:
What if the Haitians-stealing-and-eating-your-pets is actually good for the Trump campaign?
Not good in the tactical sense. Polling on the story doesn’t look especially good for him. But good in the strategic sense. This insane lie—which, borders on blood libel—may be reorienting the campaign in ways that are ultimately useful for Trump.
Let me explain.
(1) Trump needs to be the main character. Trump’s grand unified theory is that politics, like entertainment, is an attention economy. His strategy—always—is to dominate the news and make himself into the main character of every story.
A neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville? It’s about Trump’s response.
A global pandemic? It’s about Trump’s daily antics.
Geostrategic considerations involving a 75-year conflict on the Korean peninsula? It’s about Trump’s relationship with the Korean dictator.
It doesn’t matter what the issue, or context, is. Trump wants it to be about Trump. He believes that if he owns the spotlight—even if it is a very unflattering spotlight—then he can maneuver and find angles.
This theory may be callow, dangerous, and/or immoral. But it is not crazy.
And while it doesn’t always work out for Trump, it works out enough that it’s a good percentage play for him. Like doubling down on an 11. You don’t always win that bet. But you win it often enough that you should do it automatically, without hesitation.
I remember those years in football when knocking the other guy senseless to the point they had to send EMS in with a stretcher was considered fun. Do you suppose all those old guys who loved those wipe-outs still love it even though the NFL finds it costly for them and tries to avoid it? Then, there are always the folks that boo at the Ref and think the Refs are there to call a play on the part of the other team. This is from Judd Legume writing at Popular information. “The attack on the legitimacy of the 2024 presidential election has begun.” It can’t be that they just suck at the game or that play. It has to be the fault of someone else! Right?
There are 49 days until Election Day in the United States. Although the presidential race remains extremely close, Donald Trump and his allies have escalated their efforts to undermine the results.
In a post to Truth Social on Sunday morning, Trump falsely claimed that the United States Postal Service (USPS) “has admitted that it is a poorly run mess that is experiencing mail loss and delays at a level never seen before.” Trump asked, “how can we possibly be expected to allow or trust the U.S. Postal Service to run the 2024 Presidential Election?”
Trump has attacked mail-in voting for years, baselessly asserting that mail-in ballots facilitated fraud that robbed him of victory in 2020. Early this year, Trump appeared to change his tune on the practice. “ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS,” Trump posted to Truth Social on April 19. “REPUBLICANS MUST MAKE A PLAN, REGISTER, AND VOTE!” That change of heart appears to be short-lived.
In addition to attacking mail-in voting, Trump has advanced broader claims that Democrats “want to cheat” in the 2024 election. In a September 7 Truth Social post, Trump pledged to prosecute and jail Democrats who repeat “the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election.” (In nearly 4 years since the 2020 election, Trump has produced no evidence of cheating.) Trump claimed that prosecuting “Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials” was the only way to ensure “this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
Trump will not commit to accepting the results in November, saying he would only do so “if everything’s honest.” Otherwise, Trump said, he plans to “fight.”
Screenshot
Remind me again: who appointed Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General and CEO of the USPS? How about this headline from Forbes in April? “The Trump donor whom Biden can’t fire is running the U.S. Postal Service directly into the ground—just what everyone warned about when he was confirmed during the pandemic.” Mission accomplished, Asshole!
Let’s see how much airplay this gets today, what with crazies with guns in the bushes and immigrant hellscape stories out there as bait for the media. This is from Newsweek. “Kamala Harris Gets Good News From Economists: New Survey.” This is reported by Rachel Dopkin.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, received good news from economists about her economic agenda, according to a survey published on Saturday.
The economy has been a major talking point in this year’s election following high inflation in recent years. Even though inflation has decreased, falling to its lowest level in three-and-a-half-years in August, many Americans are still feeling its effects.
The Federal Reserve is expected to cut its benchmark rate, known as the federal funds rate, during next week’s meeting by either a modest quarter-point or a larger half-point cut. The Fed raised the rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023 to curb high inflation, which hit both the United States and countries around the world after the COVID-19 pandemic. The expected rate cut would be the first in over four years. The cost of consumer borrowing, including for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards, should go down over time with a series of Fed cuts.
So, which presidential nominee has the better economic agenda to get Americans back on track? According to nearly 40 economists from America’s top schools surveyed by the Financial Times and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’ Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets, it’s Harris instead of former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.
When asked which nominees’ economic policies would be more inflationary—in other words, which would be more likely to cause inflation—70 percent of the economists said Trump’s while only 3 percent said Harris’. Meanwhile, 27 percent said there is no material difference in each economic platform’s inflationary consequences.
A total of 70 percent also thought Trump’s economic platform would produce larger federal budget deficits, while only 11 percent said Harris’ platform would and 19 percent said there would be no material difference.
Budget deficits are when government expenses exceed revenue. They also add to the national debt, which is not good for the economy.
DonOLD is doing his usual grift thing after being very unaware of a shooter in the bushes of his Florida Golf Club. Oh, the Humanity! This is from The Daily Beast. “Trump Asks for Cash Hours After Second. “I will NEVER SURRENDER!” the former president wrote in an email solicitation Sunday. Assassination Bid. “
Donald Trump wasted no time hitting up potential donors for money Sunday in the immediate aftermath of the second apparent assassination attempt against him in two months.
Within a few hours, the former president sent out an “Alert from Trump” email blast to potential donors saying: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL! Nothing will slow me down.”
After the first attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Trump, in spite of blood streaming down his face after his ear was grazed by a bullet, managed to tell his supporters to “fight, fight, fight.”
On Sunday, after Secret Service agents foiled what authorities are calling a possible second assassination attempt, Trump wrote: “I will NEVER SURRENDER! I will always love you for supporting me.”
Never forget that the only thing this guy was successful at for a period of time was being a reality star on TV. This guy really has no shame. Meanwhile, Laura Loomer is back in the spotlight again. “GOP Senate nominee Bernie Moreno raised funds on Laura Loomer’s show and met with her in D.C.” This is reported by Media Matters.
In late July, Ohio U.S. Senate nominee Bernie Moreno fundraised on the show of Laura Loomer, a far-right extremist who has celebrated the deaths of migrants and mocked Vice President Kamala Harris’ Indian American heritage. Loomer also said on her show that she met with Moreno that month when he was in Washington, D.C.
Moreno’s appearance with Loomer is yet another example showing Republicans’ deep entrenchment with the far-right conspiracy theorist, despite recent efforts to distance the party from her.
Loomer’s history of offensive remarks is long and awful. It includes a toast to “2,000 more” dead migrants; an admission that she’s “not going to care” when there’s anti-immigrant violence; racist insults following the death of “ghetto b—-” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX); and the claim that the White House “will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.
Loomer has also described herself as “pro-white nationalism” and a “proud islamophobe.” Last year she posted a video claiming that “9/11 was an inside job.” Loomer has also promoted the viral, racist lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating pets.
Trump and his campaign are heavily connected to Loomer, with the far-right bigot flying on his plane to Pennsylvania and New York last week. Their close connections have caused consternation among a few Republicans.
I can only imagine what Senator Sherrod Brown is going through. Meanwhile, women are dying from the Trump Abortion Laws throughout the country. This is from ProPublica, which does the most crucial investigative journalism in the country. Trump Lies and people die. Say her NAME. Amber Nichole Thurman, She is a victim of MAGA.
In her final hours, Amber Nicole Thurman suffered from a grave infection that her suburban Atlanta hospital was well-equipped to treat.
She’d taken abortion pills and encountered a rare complication; she had not expelled all of the fetal tissue from her body. She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C.
But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.
Thurman waited in pain in a hospital bed, worried about what would happen to her 6-year-old son, as doctors monitored her infection spreading, her blood pressure sinking and her organs beginning to fail.
It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late.
The otherwise healthy 28-year-old medical assistant, who had her sights set on nursing school, should not have died, an official state committee recently concluded.
Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, the experts, including 10 doctors, deemed hers “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.
Their reviews of individual patient cases are not made public. But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state.
There are almost certainly others.
Committees like the one in Georgia, set up in each state, often operate with a two-year lag behind the cases they examine, meaning that experts are only now beginning to delve into deaths that took place after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.
Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light. ProPublica will share the story of the second in the coming days. We are also exploring other deaths that have not yet been reviewed but appear to be connected to abortion bans.
Doctors warned state legislators women would die if medical procedures sometimes needed to save lives became illegal.
I haven’t heard stories like this since I was in High School awaiting the Roe Decision. Leaders in my Presbyterian Church in Omaha held a panel of speakers with horrible stories like these. We learned firsthand what Roe would mean to us if the Supreme Court decided to keep it out of the realm of others’ politics and religion. This is not acceptable in a country like ours. The fight is on, and this isn’t a game. We’re better than this.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Under Pressure
Posted: July 12, 2024 Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Biden Harris 2024, Black Women Lead | Tags: @repeat1968, Ashley Al, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Project 2025, Racism, Republicans, Russia, U.S. Politics, Viktor Orban 7 Comments
“How much clearer can one be, President Biden is not stepping down.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Okay, here is my punditry. This entire mess is basically due to two things. The Democratic Party is just being the Democratic Party. It always looks like a huge public pie fight until they reach a consensus. President Joe Biden is just being himself with a bit of age and a lot of presidenting weighing on him. Also, let the man get some sleep! My Dad was perfectly functional into his 90s. This can be the case for a lot of seniors.
This headline is from NPR and is worth putting right here as the first suggested read today. It’s reported by Domenico Montanaro. “After Biden’s debate performance, the presidential race is unchanged.” I’d say most of us are less worried about Biden’s stutter and senior moments and more terrified of Donald Trump in his entirety. Why would we want to put the country through another 4 years of him when he was such a nerve-wracking failure the first four? What’s our goal here? It’s to stop Trump. The Republican Party is incapable of taking the moral high ground.
The race for the presidency remains statistically tied despite President Biden’s dismal debate performance two weeks ago, a new national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.
Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate. In this poll, he leads Trump 50% to 48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump holding the slightest advantage with 43% to 42%.
Those numbers, though, do not represent statistically significant differences, as the margin of error in the survey is +/- 3.1 percentage points, meaning results could be 3 points higher or lower.
The poll also found that, at this point, no other mainstream Democrat who has been mentioned as a replacement for the president on the ticket does better than Biden.
The results reflect the hyperpolarized political environment in the country and the reality that both of the major parties’ presumptive nominees bring with them significant disadvantages. Majorities of those surveyed continue to say they have a negative opinion of both men, and neither, they say, should be on the ballot at all.
The Marist Poll folks characterized the race thusly. “Contest for President Still “Up for Grabs. Biden +2 Percentage Points Against Trump, Despite Concerns about Biden’s Mental Fitness.” So now the strategy is to just fucking keep reporting about everything that is wrong with Trump and remind the American Public how awful things were under his regime.
With just days to go before the start of the Republican National Convention, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump continue to be closely matched among registered voters in both a head-to-head matchup and a multicandidate field. Biden’s support remains relatively unchanged from last month despite the view of many Americans that he lacks the mental fitness to serve as president. However, Biden outperforms Trump on whether either candidate has the character to be President of the United States, and by more than two to one, Americans are more concerned about a president who lies than they are about someone who is too old to serve. Both candidates remain flawed in the eyes of Americans, and majorities say neither should be on the ballot. Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Gretchen Whitmer do not improve the Democrats’ chances against Trump.
This is Ashley Allison, a resident Harvard Fellow at the Institute School of Politics at the Kennedy School.This is a microphone drop moment if I have ever listened to and seen one.
Builder, creator, advocate, and organizer, Ashley Allison is an Obama-Biden Administration and Biden-Harris campaign senior staffer with more than 15 years of experience building campaigns and strategies that lead to victory. As the National Coalitions Director for Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign, she led nearly 500 staff and paid fellows to activate the most robust coalition of voters in modern history. Ashley’s commitment to racial equity and civil rights has been proven throughout her career.
The Washington Post reports this news about last night’s presser and the President’s scheduled Rally in Michigan today. “Biden heading to Michigan for rally after high-stakes news conference. The president is visiting the must-win state after a mixed session with reporters that showcased his knowledge but also included verbal stumbles.” Yasmeen Abutaleb has the lede. So are these folks experts that never “stumble” and now what could cause it like stress, tiredness, age, or a life-long stutter? Trump’s speeches are unhinged and full of lies and gobbledygook. Former aids won’t vote for him because they say he’s a malignant narcissist? Can we examine him and his Personality Disorders, history with the law, and his failure to tell the truth every time he opens his mouth or puts some nonsense on Truth Social?
President Biden is set to hold a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday following a news conference that received mixed reviews from other Democrats, in which Biden showed command of complex foreign policy issues but stumbled through some answers and mixed up names.
Many Democrats predicted privately that defections could increase markedly on Friday, and both supporters of Biden and those who argue he should end his candidacy were watching carefully to see the number of dissenters who might step forward. Some in the party have been waiting for the end of the NATO summit in Washington, and others were holding their fire until the news conference.
Do they constantly list every single trouble Donald has getting up or down stairs or his many verbal falsehoods and weirdness? Where is their coverage of Dotard Donald? Here’s the LA Times Editorial Board listing the various disasters surrounding Donald.
It’s unbelievable that the nation is spending so much time on the question of Biden’s verbal acuity, when the greatest concern ought to be that his challenger is a self-aggrandizing felon and twice-impeached election-denier. Trump fomented the Jan. 6 insurrection, shows contempt for the rule of law and shamelessly lies in pursuit of more power. He’s an authoritarian who admires murderous despots, wants to jail his political enemies and has publicly flirted with declaring himself a dictator on his first day back in office.
With fervent support from the Republican Party, he peddles cruelty, racism and misogyny, demonizing immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country,” demeaning women‘s looks and intelligence, and using disgustingly fascist language to criticize his opponents as “vermin.” He’s a man who lied about his wealth for years to cheat on his taxes, whose business was convicted of criminal tax fraud, and who’s been denounced by many former aides and Cabinet members as a “malignant narcissist” who recklessly puts himself before the American people.
Trump is the only man in the presidential race manifestly unworthy of holding a position of power, and has no business ever returning to the White House. If the GOP had any decency left, its members would be discussing whether to dump Trump for a candidate who isn’t out to bulldoze democratic institutions in favor of autocracy.”
Now that’s more like it! Dear Political Pundits, Reporters, and Podcast Dudes! Take note that this is the way you do it! This is what we face if we don’t do a Trifecta in the Beltway come November. This is reported by Anna Conkling at The Daily Beast. “GOP Rep Delivers a House Floor Speech Straight Out of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. In a speech before the House that seemed lifted right out of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, Rep. Glenn Grothman said he wants the U.S. to go back to 1960.” Oh, Hell NO!
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) on Thursday accused “the angry feminist movement” of emasculating men and said the U.S. should “work our way back” to 1960 if former President Donald Trump wins in November.
In a House floor speech that could have been lifted from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Grothman went after supporters of government-funded childcare programs and said President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty “took the purpose out of the man’s life, because now you have a basket of goodies for the mom.” He added, “They’ve taken away the purpose of the man to be part of a family. And if we want to get America back to, say, 1960, where this was almost unheard of, we have to fundamentally change these programs.”
Grothman said “the breakdown of the family” was caused by the U.S. government in the 1960s and “people like Angela Davis, well-known communist, people like the feminists who were so important in the 1960s.”
“So I hope the press corps picks up on this, and I hope Republican and Democrat leadership put together some sort of plan for January, in which we work our way back to where America was in the 1960s,” he added.
Grothman, a fervent supporter of Trump, hailed the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, saying after the decision: “Over the years, millions of children have had their dreams stolen before seeing the light of the day. But today marks a brighter future for the hearts and minds of unborn children, women, and families.
“I commend the six justices who voted to overturn Roe for having the courage to base their decision on sound legal principles rather than a fashionable line of thinking that rules academia, Hollywood, and the mainstream media.”
Here’s Heather Cox Richardson today on her SubStack Letters from an American.
Yesterday, Raw Story reported that Ivan Raiklin, Trump’s self-declared “Secretary of Retribution” has compiled a “Deep State target list” of 350 people he wants to see arrested and punished for “treason” if Trump is reelected. The list includes Democratic and Republican elected officials, journalists he considers to be Trump’s enemies, U.S. Capitol Police officers, and witnesses against Trump in his impeachment trials and the hearings concerning the events of January 6, 2021.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story: “His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom.” The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Raiklin said the list was just the beginning. “This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, okay?”
Former president Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has tried to distance himself from the radical extremist blueprint outlined in Project 2025, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation. Today, videos surfaced of Trump cheering the project on from the start. At a Heritage Foundation dinner in 2022, Trump, slurring his words, said: “Our country is going to hell…. This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do…when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America. And that’s coming.”
On a right-wing podcast yesterday, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said that Trump’s agenda and Project 2025 have “tremendous” overlap. “There are some quibbles and differences of opinion here and there, which not only is okay, but it’s actually good,” Roberts said. “I mean, we’re gonna be able to sort those out once the presidential administration declares what their priorities are.” He said that Trump’s attempt to distance himself from the project was “a political tactical decision.” Media Matters uncovered a video in which Project 2025 director Paul Dans said that Trump is “very bought in with this.”
The Heritage Foundation, the key author of Project 2025, is a sponsor of the Republican National Convention.
Today the Heritage Foundation preemptively accused the Biden administration of cheating in the 2024 election and warned that Biden might try to hold the White House “by force.” It said that Biden and his administration could “circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.”
There is no indication that Biden, who has repeatedly said he will accept the election results, will try to launch a coup against the United States government. In contrast, Trump, who has refused to say he will accept the election result unless he agrees with it, has already done exactly what Heritage is trying to pin on Biden: Trump tried to stay in office against the will of the voters in 2021.
Trump is currently under criminal indictment for that attempt, although the Supreme Court’s eye-popping July 1 decision in Trump v. U.S. declaring that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of a president’s “official duties” means Trump can challenge those indictments. Indeed, in the wake of that decision, Trump’s lawyers have filed a motion to vacate the jury’s conviction of Trump on 34 felony counts related to the falsification of business records in his attempt to skew the 2016 election, and to dismiss the indictment.
While the U.S. and our allies celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Erin Banco of Politico reported yesterday that Trump advisors have told foreign officials that Trump plans to scale back U.S. cooperation and support for NATO, including reducing the sharing of intelligence with NATO countries.
This seems likely to be related to the news that the U.S. intelligence discovered a series of Russian plots to assassinate executives from European defense companies that are supplying arms to Ukraine. Americans took that intelligence to Germany and foiled a Russian plot to kill the chief executive officer of a German arms manufacturer.
During the NATO summit, he’s also edged closer to Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Orban did not meet with President Biden, but he scuttled down to Flordia to chat with Donald. No doubt, he’s passing on what Putin wants Donald to know and do. This is from Marcie at Empty Wheel. TRUMP MAY ATTEMPT TO DISAVOW PROJECT 2025 — BUT HE’S NOT DISAVOWING VIKTOR ORBÁN. Just so you know, Kansas is larger than Hungary. Hungary is about 2.3 times smaller than Kansas.
Kansas is approximately 211,900 sq km, while Hungary is approximately 93,028 sq km, making Hungary 43.9% the size of Kansas. Meanwhile, the population of Kansas is ~2.9 million people (6.8 million more people live in Hungary). That’s about the Population of Houston.
Project 2025 is the American instantiation of a authoritarianism adopted from Viktor Orbán, right along with his apology for Russia.
As Casey Michel laid out in the New Republic in March, Orbán has been using the Heritage Foundation as a beachhead to sustain Hungary’s influence operations during the Biden Administration.
Enter the Heritage Foundation. While Heritage grew to prominence in the 1980s as a font of Reaganite policy, in recent years the organization has undergone a monumental shift in terms of both policy and priorities. Rather than persist in its stolid dedication to conservative values, Heritage has swung in a far more reactionary—and far more authoritarian—direction in recent years. Across the policy landscape, Heritage has become little more than an intellectual breeding ground for Trumpist ideas.
While much attention has understandably focused on Heritage’s so-called “Project 2025,” which provides a roadmap for Trump to seize as much power as he can, such a shift has extended to foreign policy. This has been seen most especially in Heritage leading the effort to gut funding for Ukraine. But it’s also evident in the way Heritage has endeavored to anchor its relations with Orbán, making Budapest once more America’s preferred partner in Europe—regardless of the cost.
Much of that shift is downstream from Heritage’s leadership, overseen by Kevin Roberts. Appointed as Heritage’s president in 2021, Roberts immediately began remaking Heritage’s priorities with a distinctly pro-Orbán bent—and began opening up Heritage as a vehicle for Hungarian influence in the U.S.
Part of that involved things like last week’s confab, one of many meetings between Roberts and Orbán. (After one 2022 sit-down, Roberts—who, among other things, has said he doesn’t think Joe Biden won the 2020 election—posted that it was an “honor” to meet with Orbán, praising his “movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families.”) But the relationship is structural as well: Heritage finalized what they refer to as a ‘landmark’ cooperation agreement with the Danube Institute, a Hungarian think tank that appears to exist only to praise Orbán’s government.*
The Budapest-based Danube Institute is largely unknown in the U.S., but it has transformed in recent years into one of the premier mouthpieces for propagating Orbánist policies. While it is technically independent, it is, as Jacob Heilbrunn notes in his new book on the American right’s infatuation with dictators, located “next to the prime minister’s building and funded by Orbán’s Fidesz party.” Indeed, the Hungarian think tank is overseen by a foundation directly bankrolled by the Hungarian state—meaning that the Danube Institute is, for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.
[snip]
Most important, however, is the man currently running the Danube Institute: John O’Sullivan, a British conservative who once served as the director of studies at—you guessed it—the Heritage Foundation. “With his extensive connections in the conservative universe, [O’Sullivan] became Orbán’s conduit to the American Right,” Heilbrunn noted.
Unsurprisingly, the key to O’Sullivan’s and the Danube Institute’s outreach to American conservatives has been the Heritage Foundation. A post in early 2023 from the Hungarian Conservative noted that the Danube Institute and the Heritage Foundation had “signed a landmark cooperation agreement, deepening Hungary’s transatlantic relations.”
Trump may be disavowing Project 2025 — or attempting to. But he’s not disavowing Orbán.
On the contrary, he and Orbán seem intent to run, hand in hand, to clothe a Transatlantic authoritarianism in the face of Christian nationalism.
Here’s a good reference to figure out what exactly Project 2025 is.
Recently, it’s been encouraging to see so many Americans waking up to the danger of Project 2025. Celebrities such as Taraji P. Henson, who spoke repeatedly about it during the recent Black Entertainment Television awards, as well as a grassroots effort on social media to raise awareness, have caused Google searches for Project 2025 to soar, with recent searches eclipsing even Taylor Swift.
Public awareness is important because polls have shown that the more people learn about Project 2025, the higher its negatives grow. Opposition among independents soars from net -15 to -66 according to polling and research by Navigator. Among all voters, the trend is also clear.
The more Trump is tied to Project 2025, the more likely voters will reject the two of them together. Perhaps this is why Trump has sought to distance himself from the people behind the project—even though nearly all of them have ties to the first Trump administration.
We need to all be talking more about this and hanging it around Donald’s turkey neck, along with his gobbledygook moments.
So, that’s a lot of to you to read. We’re still here trying to inform everyone who wants to keep the good life. My granddaughters turn 3 next week. I definitely do not want Project 2025 to rule their future. We have enough stuff to take out with the damage from the Supreme Court MAGATs. Have a peaceful and pleasant weekend.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: SCOTUS Runs Amok, Congress Vacations, and the Trump Mob got the Blues
Posted: July 1, 2022 Filed under: Black Women Lead, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Climate change, ethics, SCOTUS, Second Amendment, Surreality, the GOP, The Insurrection Fallout, The Right Wing, Trump Trash 14 Comments
Happy Friday!
We’re closing in on Independence Day! I’m sure the six signers of the Declaration of Independence that led to me being here sure wouldn’t be happy with the mess we’re in today. None of the nation’s three branches of government is fairing well in today’s polls either. A new Emerson Poll is out and Americans are clearly not happy or trustful of any of the branches.
The latest Emerson College Polling national survey of US voters finds a majority disapprove of President Biden, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Biden has a 40% job approval, while 53% disapprove of the job he is doing as president. Since last month, Biden’s approval has increased two points. The US Congress has a 19% job approval, while 70% disapprove of the job they are doing. The Supreme Court has a 36% job approval; 54% disapprove.
Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling said, “Independent voters align more with Democrats on Supreme Court approval: 71% of Democrats and 58% of Independents disapprove of the job that the Supreme Court is doing whereas a majority, 56%, of Republicans approve of the job they are doing.”
In the 2022 November Midterm Elections, 46% of voters plan to vote for the Republican congressional candidate on the ballot while 43% plan to support the Democratic congressional candidate. This congressional ballot test has remained relatively stagnant since last month’s national poll, where Republicans also led by three points on the congressional ballot, 45% to 42%.
Looking at 2024, 64% of Democratic primary or caucus voters think President Biden should be the Democratic nominee for president, while 36% think he should not be. In the 2024 Republican Primary, 55% of voters would support former President Trump, 20% Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and 9% former Vice President Mike Pence. No other potential GOP candidate clears 5%.
In a hypothetical 2024 Presidential Election matchup between President Biden and former President Trump, Trump holds 44% support while Biden has 39% support; 12% would vote for someone else and 5% are undecided. “Since last month, Trump has held his share of support while Biden’s support has reduced four points.”
The Trump family crime syndicate certainly is a cult. Let’s hope we don’t get a repeat where the left just boycotts our democracy because they can’t get their way. The desire to see Roe as national law is strong everywhere but in the White Christian Nationalist party.
Following the Supreme Court decision to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which leaves abortion legality up to the states, 59% of voters think that Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion. Among women, support for the legislation is higher: 62% think Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion compared to 55% of men.
“While a majority, 65%, of Republicans oppose Congress passing a law to legalize the right to abortion, the policy has majority support among Democrats and Independent voters, 81% of Democratic voters and 58% of Independent voters support federal legislative action to legalize abortion,” Kimball said.
Congressional legalization of the right to abortion has the highest support among 18-29 year olds: 76% support a federal legalization of abortion, compared to 59% of 30-49 year olds, 50% of 50-64 year olds, and 56% of those over 65.
A majority, 57%, say that they or someone that they’ve known have had an abortion. Among those who have had or know someone who has had an abortion, 62% think Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion.
There are also some numbers on the impact of the public hearings held by the January 6th committee.
The January 6th hearings have had a split impact on voters’ intention to vote for Donald Trump in 2024 if he were to run: 35% say it makes them less likely, 32% say it makes them more likely, 28% say it makes no difference.
Kimball noted, “Half of Republicans say they are more likely to vote for Trump following the January 6th hearings, while a plurality, 38%, of Independents say they are less likely to support Trump if he runs in 2024. More specifically, among those who voted for Trump in 2020, nine percent say they are less likely to vote for him again in 2024 after the hearings.”
Kimball continued, “The January 6th hearings reflect an educational divide, regarding their impact on Trump support: those with a college degree or less are about 33% less likely to vote for Trump because of the hearings, whereas 51% of those with a postgraduate degree are less likely to support Trump because of the hearings.”
Yes, Trump loves him some undereducated people. There are also some numbers on the economy–which is labeled the most important issue by the majority of voters–and gun regulation.
In other polling news, Reproductive and Women’s rights are moving quickly up the priority scale. It’s hard to see that we will get anything done without some new blood in the senate.
A new poll finds a growing percentage of Americans calling out abortion or women’s rights as priorities for the government in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, especially among Democrats and those who support abortion access.
With midterm elections looming, President Joe Biden and Democrats will seek to capitalize on that shift.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in remarks immediately after the decision that “reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November.” But with pervasive pessimism and a myriad of crises facing the nation, it’s not clear whether the ruling will break through to motivate those voters — or just disappoint them.
Everyone is still reeling from the number of extremely radical opinions forced on us by a group of White Nationalist Christians on the Supreme Court.
Well, that’s a nice statement. Now, DO SOMETHING!
https://twitter.com/lindarchilders/status/1541588025771061248
From Hayes Brown writing at MSNBC: “Congress has let the Supreme Court run amok. The founders would be baffled by a judiciary that Congress can’t — or won’t — balance.”
The Supreme Court ended its term Thursday having produced a string of decisions that with casual brutality threatened Americans’ privacy, health and well-being. Democrats, in the face of this assault on the rights and privileges of their constituents, haven’t responded with the necessary anger or urgency.
The framers intended Congress to be the most powerful of the three branches of government, consisting of representatives of the people and the states. The executive was to be feared and constrained; the judiciary was, in comparison, an afterthought mostly left to future Congresses to craft. In drafting the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton considered the courts the “least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution.”
What we’ve seen this term is a court determined to prove Hamilton wrong. While Congress has the ability to curtail the authority that the unbalanced, undemocratic courts have accumulated, there seems to be almost no drive among Democrats to even challenge the third branch.
Let me clarify that I do not propose invalidating the principle of judicial review, whereby the courts have the authority to block and overturn legislative and executive actions. The Supreme Court’s function as arbiter of the Constitution is an important and needed one, given the possible abuses from the other branches.
It’s a power that is more easily used to strike down than to build. As Vox’s Ian Milhiser has noted, while the court can’t establish an agency to protect the rights of citizens, it can absolutely erase one out of existence.
Here’s some historical reference from Ian Milhiser at Vox: “The case against the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court was the midwife of Jim Crow, the right hand of union busters, the dead hand of the Confederacy, and now is one of the chief architects of America’s democratic decline.”
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s public approval ratings are in free fall. A Gallup poll taken in June before the Court’s decision in Dobbs found that only 25 percent of respondents have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Court, a historic low. And that’s after nearly a year’s worth of polls showing the Court’s approval in steady decline.
To thisI say, “good.” The Dobbs decision is the culmination of a decades-long effort by Republicans to capture the Supreme Court and use it, not just to undercut abortion rights but also to implement an unpopular agenda they cannot implement through the democratic process.
And the Court’s Republican majority hasn’t simply handed the Republican Party substantive policy victories. It is systematically dismantling voting rights protections that make it possible for every voter to have an equal voice, and for every political party to compete fairly for control of the United States government. Alito, the author of the opinion overturning Roe, is also the author of two important decisions dismantling much of the Voting Rights Act.
This behavior is consistent with the history of an institution that once blessed slavery and described Black people as “beings of an inferior order.” It is consistent with the Court’s history of union-busting, of supporting racial segregation, and of upholding concentration camps.
Moreover, while the present Court is unusually conservative, the judiciary as an institution has an inherent conservative bias. Courts have a great deal of power to strike down programs created by elected officials, but little ability to build such programs from the ground up. Thus, when an anti-governmental political movement controls the judiciary, it will likely be able to exploit that control to great effect. But when a more left-leaning movement controls the courts, it is likely to find judicial power to be an ineffective tool.
The Court, in other words, simply does not deserve the reverence it still enjoys in much of American society, and especially from the legal profession. For nearly all of its history, it’s been a reactionary institution, a political one that serves the interests of the already powerful at the expense of the most vulnerable. And it currently appears to be reverting to that historic mean.
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 30: In this handout provided by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. (R) looks on as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson signs the Oaths of Office in the Justices’ Conference Room at the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. Jackson was sworn in as the newest Supreme Court Justice today, replacing the now-retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer. (Photo by Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
Newly sworn-in Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson is going to join the normal group of women on the court and will have her job cut out for her!
President Joe Biden in a written statement praised Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic swearing in as the first Black female Justice of the Supreme Court, calling it a “profound step forward.”
“Her historic swearing in today represents a profound step forward for our nation, for all the young, Black girls who now see themselves reflected on our highest court, and for all of us as Americans,” Biden said in the written statement.
Biden also thanked retiring Justice Stephen Breyer for “his many years of exemplary service.”
Here are some links to news on the latest January 6th Committee’s findings.
From Politico: New details of Jan. 6 panel’s mystery messages emerge
“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow,” read a slide that the Jan. 6 committee broadcast at the end of Hutchinson’s hearing, which Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) characterized as pressure on a key witness. “He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
Meadows is the person whose name was redacted in that slide. Contents of that final deposition were described to POLITICO, which could not independently corroborate the identity of the intermediary or that Meadows directed any message be delivered to Hutchinson before her second deposition.
From David Rothkopf of The Daily Beast: Put a Fork in Donald Trump—the Ex-President Is Done
Mark it on your calendars. This was the week the meteoric political career of Donald Trump did what meteors often do and collided with planet Earth, leaving a large, ugly mark on the landscape.
The fact that Trump may soon announce his candidacy for the presidency in the days ahead is itself more of a sign of his political collapse than it is of any strength he may have. The first time he ran for president, he did it because he thought it would boost his brand. This time he is likely to do it because he thinks it may make him more difficult to prosecute. And because he can use it to mount one last big attempt to fleece his supporters.
From the Washington Post: ‘Take me up to the Capitol now’: How close Trump came to joining rioters
The excursion that almost happened came into clearer focus this week, as the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 presented explosive testimony and records detailing Trump’s fervent demands to lead his supporters mobbing the seat of government. Though Trump’s trip was ultimately thwarted by his own security officers, the new evidence cuts closer to the critical question of what he knew about the violence in store for that day.
Trump has acknowledged his foiled effort to reach the Capitol. “Secret Service wouldn’t let me,” he told The Washington Post in April. “I wanted to go. I wanted to go so badly. Secret Service says you can’t go. I would have gone there in a minute.”
But as Trump repeatedly floated the idea in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, several of his advisers doubted he meant it or didn’t take the suggestion seriously. One senior administration official said Trump raised the prospect repeatedly but in a “joking manner.”
As a result, the White House staff never turned Trump’s stated desires into concrete plans. Press officers made no preparations for a detour to the Capitol, such as scheduling an additional stop for the motorcade and the pool of reporters who follow the president’s movements. There was no operational advance plan drafted for the visit. No speech was written for him to deliver on the Hill, and it wasn’t clear exactly what Trump would do when he got there, said the person who talked with Trump about the idea.
From MediaIte’s Colby Hall: “Rudy Giuliani Deletes Tweet Insisting Cassidy Hutchinson Was Not Present When He Asked for a Pardon.” Giuliani has to be so close to jail that he can smell the jello.
Flagged by Ron Flipowski, who noted “She wasn’t there when I asked Trump for a pardon. But I never asked for a pardon. Only Rudy.”
He deleted the apparently self-incriminating Tweet and clarified that he never asked for a pardon …
So, that’s enough of the chaos for today. I’m just dreaming of BBQ chicken, potato salad, and a really big piece of my mother’s chocolate cake.
Have a nice long weekend!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Of Droogs, Unwinable Wars, and Civil Rights Protests
Posted: February 7, 2022 Filed under: Black Lives Matter, Black Women Lead, Capital Punishment aka Death Penalty, child sexual abuse, children, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, corporate money, Criminal Justice System, Feminists, History, Human Rights, immigration, income inequality, misogyny, physical abuse, police brutality, racism, Rape Culture, white nationalists 22 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Fifty years ago, Elton John released Tiny Dancer, and Clockwork Orange was playing in theatres. We were fighting what seemed like an endless war run by a lawless President. It was the year of the Easter Offensive when North Vietnamese forces overran South Vietnamese forces. It was probably the first true evidence of a war the US would not win.
Shirley Chisholm became the first woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) passed Congress and got 35 of the 38 votes to become a Constitutional Amendment. In 1972, Native Americans occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The protest came from tribal frustration with the government’s ‘Trail of Broken Treaties.’ It lasted six days.
After the Senate voted passage of a constitutional amendment giving women equal rights, Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., left, met with two supporters and one opponent, Wednesday, March 23, 1972 in the Capitol in Washington. Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., second from right, one of eight senators who voted against the amendment. Others are Rep. Martha Griffiths, D-Mich., and Sen. Marlow Cook, R-Ky.
Furman v. Georgia was decided in 1972. The United States Supreme Court invalidated all death penalty schemes in the United States in a 5–4 decision. Each member of the majority wrote a separate opinion. The Civil Rights act of 1972 passed which led to Title IX.
A recipient institution that receives Department funds must operate its education program or activity in a nondiscriminatory manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Some key issue areas in which recipients have Title IX obligations are: recruitment, admissions, and counseling; financial assistance; athletics; sex-based harassment, which encompasses sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence; treatment of pregnant and parenting students; treatment of LGBTQI+ students; discipline; single-sex education; and employment. Also, no recipient or other person may intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Title IX or its implementing regulations, or because the individual has made a report or complaint, testified, assisted, or participated or refused to participate in a proceeding under Title IX.
1972 was also the year of the Gary Declaration coming from a National Black Political Convention. Reverend Jesse Jackson was just one of many to attend the convention.
What Time Is It?
We come to Gary in an hour of great crisis and tremendous promise for Black America. While the white nation hovers on the brink of chaos, while its politicians offer no hope of real change, we stand on the edge of history and are faced with an amazing and frightening choice: We may choose in 1972 to slip back into the decadent white politics of American life, or we may press forward, moving relentlessly from Gary to the creation of our own Black life. The choice is large, but the time is very short.
Let there be no mistake. We come to Gary in a time of unrelieved crisis for our people. From every rural community in Alabama to the high-rise compounds of Chicago, we bring to this Convention the agonies of the masses of our people. From the sprawling Black cities of Watts and Nairobi in the West to the decay of Harlem and Roxbury in the East, the testimony we bear is the same. We are the witnesses to social disaster.
Our cities are crime-haunted dying grounds. Huge sectors of our youth — and countless others — face permanent unemployment. Those of us who work find our paychecks able to purchase less and less. Neither the courts nor the prisons contribute to anything resembling justice or reformation. The schools are unable — or unwilling — to educate our children for the real world of our struggles. Meanwhile, the officially approved epidemic of drugs threatens to wipe out the minds and strength of our best young warriors.
Economic, cultural, and spiritual depression stalk Black America, and the price for survival often appears to be more than we are able to pay. On every side, in every area of our lives, the American institutions in which we have placed our trust are unable to cope with the crises they have created by their single-minded dedication to profits for some and white supremacy above all.
Me in 1973 with friends.
I was in high school feeling like we might actually get through this all and get to the dream of a more perfect Union. It was definitely a year of ups and downs. Fifty years ago seems like another lifetime. You’d think we’d see more progress on all of this.
We do have a Black Woman Vice President but no ERA and we had our first Black Man elected President who served two terms.. The Department of Interior is led by an Indigenous woman who has planned reforms that might bring more civil rights to our native peoples. Women’s sports are taken a lot more seriously but not one woman player earns what her male peers make.
Black Americans face a new wave of voter suppression and a Supreme Court ready to tear through laws meant to improve access to American Universities not unlike what the 1972 Civil Rights law sought to do on the basis of gender. We just got rid of a second long, unwinnable war but will we have another?
We also have Elton John on tour and Droogs. The Droogs are the white male Maga Men and hide under names like Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, and Patriot Front.
Some things don’t change and in this country, we know why. They don’t share power. They don’t want to. They’ll do anything to keep as much of it as possible. We have a White Male problem and it’s mostly got the face of an extreme patriarchal take of Christianity.
So that’s the perspective. This is the reality in 2022. This is from MS Magazine whose first stand-alone magazine was published in 1972. Excerpts from Elizabeth Hira’s “Americans Are Entitled to Government That Truly Reflects Them. Let’s Start With the Supreme Court” are going to show you exactly how far the rest of us still have to go. It’s in response to the audacity the Republican Party has to hold up Joe Biden’s promise to appoint the first black woman to the Supreme Court as some kind of affirmative action for a less-qualified person which is total Bull Shit.
This is the premise she completely proves. “Our current system has created conditions where, statistically, mostly white men win. That is its own kind of special privilege. Something must change.”
This is her conclusion. “American government in no way reflects America—perpetuating a system where male, white power makes decisions for the rest of us.”
These are her descriptive statistics.
Data shows these claims are not hyperbolic. A Supreme Court vacancy started this inquiry: There have been 115 Supreme Court justices. 108 have been white men. One is a woman of color, appointed in 2009. (Americans have had iPhones for longer than they’ve had a woman-of-color justice.)
One might be tempted to dismiss old history, except that the Supreme Court specifically cannot be looked at as a “snapshot in time” because the Court is built on precedent stretching back to the nation’s founding. Practically speaking, that means every decision prior to 1967 (when Justice Thurgood Marshall joined the Court) reflected what a group of exclusively white men decided for everyone else in America—often to the detriment of the unrepresented.
In a nation that is 51 percent female and 40 percent people of color, are white men simply more qualified to represent the rest of us than we are of representing ourselves? That sounds ridiculous because it is. And yet that is the implication when naysayers tell us that race and gender do not matter—that the “most qualified” people can “make the best choices” for all of us, and they all just happen to be white men.
What’s worse, those white men aren’t just making broad, general decisions—each and every branch of government acts in ways that directly impact people because of their race and gender, among other identities.
- When the Supreme Court considers affirmative action, it will be considering whether race matters for students who are already experiencing an increase in school segregation—what Jonathan Kozol once dubbed “Educational Apartheid.”
- When Congress is inevitably asked to pass a bill to protect abortion should the Court strike down Roe v. Wade, 73 percent of the Congress making that decision will be men—not people who could even potentially experience pregnancy.
- When recent voting rights bills failed, it was because two white Democrats and 48 Republicans (45 white and three non-white) collectively decided not to protect all American voters of color against targeted attacks on their access to the ballot.
- When Senator Kyrsten Sinema spoke to the Senate floor about why she could not take necessary steps to protect Americans of color, she did not have to look a single sitting Black woman senator in the eye. Because there are none.
The Supreme Court is not alone in underrepresenting women, people of color, and women of color. Of 50 states, 47 governors are white, 41 are men. Nearly 70 percent of state legislators are male.
The pattern holds federally, too: Today’s Congress is the most diverse ever—a laudable achievement. Except that today’s Congress is 77 percent white, and 73 percent male. (As an example of how clear it is that Congress was simply not designed for women, Congresswomen only got their own restroomin the U.S. House in 2011.)
In the executive branch, 97.8 percent of American presidents have been white men. There has never been a woman president.
BIA Spokesperson at Trail of Broken Treaties Protest: 1972
John Crow of the Bureau of Indian Affairs answers questions from Native Americans on November 2, 1972 at 1951 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington, D.C on the first day of the Trail of Broken Treaties demonstrations.
The numbers don’t lie. I don’t even want to go into the number of American presidents that have been worse than mediocre including the previous guy. This is the kind of systemic discrimination perpetuated in this country’s primary decision-makers. It is no wonder 50 years later we are even losing the table scraps they’re stealing now.
I’m going to leave you with this one last analysis before telling you to go read the entire essay.
The first female major-party presidential nominee was dogged by questions of her “electability,” and recent data shows large donors gave Black women congressional candidates barely one-third of what they gave their other female counterparts. Some people don’t support women and candidates of color because they worry these candidates simply can’t win in a white male system of power—which perpetuates a white male system of power. To create equitable opportunities to run, we must change campaign finance structures. It’s a necessary precursor to getting a government that looks like everyone.
I’m trying to send money to Val Demings in her effort to take down Mark Rubio. Mark Rubio will never consider the interests of all of his constituency because he’s funded by white males with a vested interest in their monopolies on politics and the economy.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN0gy6fSRkU&list=RDGMEMc6JZQrQ__ROET3gGdz-Trw&index=1
Now Tom said, “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I’ll be thereWherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”
Yeah!
Like Tom Joad, I was born an Okie. I was born on the Cherokee strip one of those places on the Trail of Broken Treaties at the end of the Trail of Tears. “The Grapes of Wrath” was on many a book banning and burning list back in the day. Look for it again on a list near you.
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