OMG, I keep telling myself “things can’t get worse” when it comes to the Supreme Court, well, I keep getting proven wrong. During the past week Justice Samuel Alito has been found to have been flying flags at both his DC home and at his “beach house” which imply he’s part of the MAGA movement – if there was any doubt before these things were made public. At his home he was flying an American flag upside down which is the “stop the steal” public statement of those Trump supporters (flying it between Jan. 6th and Jan. 20th in solidarity with the INSURRECTIONISTS) who firmly believe the 2020 election was “stolen.” The flag flying at his beach house was the symbol of “Christian nationalism” seen (usually) by Trump’s white nationalist base. There were probably a dozen or so of these flags in the assault on the Capitol.

Worse, Alito was apparently flying that “Appeal to Heaven” flag for a period of months – apparently his neighbors were worried about the blow-back if they reported it. There are photos of the flag flying during three separate months. Of course, we (those of us paying attention) already knew Alito – along with Clarence Thomas (whose wife was involved in the INSURRECTION) – was neck deep in Trump’s attempt to overturn our constitutional system of laws. They’ve been busy, right out in the open, in an attempt to “turn back the clock” on RIGHTS “we the people” have come to take for granted. We’re going to find out between now and November how many Americans take their rights for granted to the point of losing them.

Hyperbole? I think not. All you have to do is listen to Trump’s actual words and watch those who are his sycophants and you should be on HIGH alert. Of course, if you’re a member of Trump’s CULT (like, apparently, Alito and Thomas) you might be “giddy” at this point because there’s no way in any “normal” time in American history (save for the pre Civil War days) where our republic has been so under assault. And, speaking of the “Civil War” – trust me on this one – there’s a significant number of those “citizens among us” who are chomping on the bit for the second Civil War. It’s just that some are more subtle than others. Marjorie Taylor Greene just comes out and says it (wanting “red states” to succeed from the “Union”) while the neo-Nazi’s are much more covert – but, if a non “social media” person like me can find these discussions on the internet, well…..

The “right” in America has been working toward this end for the last (at least) 50 years and they are “playing chess” while the rest of us are playing “checkers.” Controlling the courts is a KEY to their strategy because these Judicial appointments are for the lifetime of the Judge. That’s why Thomas has been there over 30 years and will remain there for at least another 4 years unless Trump somehow CHEATS his way back into the “White House.” Alito hasn’t been there that long (around 20 years) but, if Trump “wins” they’ll both retire so YOUNGER judges can be appointed to replace them. It’s all part of the scheme.

Personally, I was devastated back in the 2000 election when the SCOTUS chose to decide the election – of course – in the favor of George W Bush and Dick Cheney. The history of that choice SHOULD still be clear in the minds of the American voters – but, as some have suggested, MANY of America’s voters have amnesia. (The reality is a bunch of them are, well, not too smart – sorry, that’s just the reality) Republicans are expert at appealing to these – what some people call – “low information voters.” Trump famously was quoted as saying “I love my uneducated voters.” Full stop!

Since Bush v Gore we’ve been saddled with “Citizen’s United v Federal Election Commission” which unleashed a TORRENT of dark money into our elections – from the grass roots all the way to the top. I’ve pointed out here numerous times the “foundation” of fascism is a government/corporate partnership. In America, we are often fed the “Russian Oligarch” “thing” – but, when you think about it, America has so many MORE “Oligarchs” than the Russians that it’s not even a contest. Here’s the definition of “Oligarch:” “A member of a small governing faction.” There are more detailed definitions, but that is it “in a nut shell.”

Think of all the Wall Street Billionaires who are funneling money to politicians – mostly republicans – by the MILLIONS. Do you really believe they want nothing for that money. For heaven’s sake, Trump is just coming out and OFFERING “quo” in “quid pro quo” to the oil barons in our nation. Here’s what he ACTUALLY said to them “Give $1 BILLION to my campaign to help me get re-elected and I’ll reverse ALL of Joe Biden’s “green” initiatives.” They’ll be able to, as Trump puts it, “drill baby drill.”

And, of course, these Billionaires aren’t just sitting in the background now that they have a 6 – 3 majority on the SCOTUS. Harlan Crowe has allegedly lavished HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of gifts upon Clarence Thomas – none of it reported. That doesn’t even include the value of him purchasing Thomas’s Mom’s home and then allowing her to live in it rent free OR the $250 THOUSAND motor home which was, for all intents and purposes GIVEN to Thomas by a different BILLIONAIRE. According to the records I’ve found Alito has ONLY taken one ($100,000) freebie trip sponsored by none other than Leonard Leo – the man MOSTLY responsible for the right wingers on the SCOTUS as I’m writing this. Seriously, TWO certain votes for, say, calling the INSURRECTION a “normal tourist visit” is difficult to overcome.

So, we’re depending on Alito and Thomas to be “non-partisan” as they decide whether or not Donald Trump has “absolute immunity” and, I don’t know about you, but my confidence level on that one is, well, ZERO. Neither SHOULD be able to even sit on the cases let alone participate in the deciding vote. If you listened to the arguments of the (absurd) case, you heard both Alito and Thomas asking questions about any thing BUT the case which was brought before them. (I have to say Kavanaugh and Roberts weren’t much better, if at all)

My prediction has been the Court will “throw” this case back to the district court on some kind of “imagined” technicality for Judge Chutkin to decide and then the appeal process will start all over again. Think this court isn’t in Trump’s “back pocket?” Well, Jack Smith attempted to get them to take the case in December of 2023 and they refused. The DC Circuit made what most people called a “bullet proof” opinion denying Trump’s ludicrous claim. THEN, the court decided to take the case and they set oral arguments for the LAST day of this year’s term – something like 90 days after it was put on the docket. This isn’t subtle.

To: “We the people” – and, I’m talking especially to all the young impressionable Americans who are justifiably upset with what Netanyahu is doing in GAZA. First, there’s not much President Biden can do to force Netanyahu to “back off.” He’s just as corrupt as Trump and, as I’ve said from the start of Israel’s response to October 7th, he’ll drag this out indefinitely because once the “war” is over, Netanyahu will likely be voted OUT and he’ll be facing the corruption charges he’s been avoiding for the last few years. Secondly, there’s a PLETHORA of issues which will affect America’s young people (and America’s women) on this year’s ballot. Getting tricked into voting for a third party is a “fool’s errand.” It’s going to be EITHER President Biden or corrupt (sleepy) Donald Trump.

The COURT is an issue which will HAUNT “we the people” if Trump is allowed to put more (younger) right wing hacks on it – that’s a paramount issue which would be at the top of the heap in any other year. But, how about the Climate crisis? Trump doesn’t believe in it (or he’s too STUPID to understand) Women’s health issues? Republicans are even going after contraception. I listened to Trump being questioned about laws affecting contraception and it seemed clear he didn’t understand the question. Just the same he dithered in a way suggesting he had some kind of plan to limit it. How about Voting Rights. The Roberts Court (with Alito at the forefront) has effectively GUTTED Section Five of the 1965 Voting Rights Act which people like MLK Jr. and John Lewis (and many others) risked their lives to get passed during the administration of LBJ. How about affordable education.

President Biden is attempting to find ways to “forgive” student loan debt for MILLIONS of Americans and republicans are trying to BLOCK him at every turn. Marjorie Taylor Greene said something like “they borrowed the money they should be forced to pay it all back.” Of course, Ms. Greene took out approximately $200,000 of PPP loans during the pandemic – loans which were COMPLETELY forgiven. I’ll let you decide: Is that a classic example of republican hypocrisy? Help with Childcare? Biden and the democrats are pushing for re-upping the “Child Care Tax Credit” which was significant for around HALF of America’s children living in poverty. Republicans have been blocking that! The list goes on and on – but America’s young people have a real stake in voting for democrats – this year and for as long as it takes to purge the right wing bent of this SCOTUS. Once that’s been accomplished, maybe we’ll have political parties which can work together for the benefit of the American people.

I know people who – when I criticize Trump – say, I’d rather have that than Biden’s “socialism.” I immediately think – “too much Fox ‘news'” Biden and the democrats, in his first two years were INCREDIBLY successful in making significant INVESTMENTS in the American people. That, of course, included the Child Tax Credit mentioned above, until republicans refused to extend the pandemic relief bill democrats passed shortly after Biden took office. But, there’s lot’s more. Trump had “infrastructure week” (over and over ) while Biden got a BIPARTISAN infrastructure bill passed – freeing up something like $1TRILLION for needed repairs of existing infrastructure and expansion of utilities (like high speed internet) into rural areas, etc. etc.

I read yesterday how Ted Cruz (of Texas) is now touting the infrastructure bill as if he had ANYTHING to do with it. (Texas is apparently getting $30 BILLION for their state’s projects) Of course, what Cruz won’t talk about as he’s cutting the ribbon for an important project is that he voted AGAINST the bill. About two thirds of republicans in the Senate voted AGAINST it and a higher percentage in the House. Biden got this through with a Senate split 50/50 democrats/republicans and Nancy Pelosi had the SAME margin of a majority in the House as the republicans did at the beginning of this term – where the ONLY way they’ve accomplished ANYTHING is by seeking democrats to vote with them (actually, like it should be)

Kevin McCarthy was voted out as speaker because he worked with democrats to prevent the nation from defaulting on its debt. The new speaker – Mike Johnson – would have suffered the same fate except the democrats came to his rescue in order to hold out hope something MIGHT get done which benefits the American people before this House term comes to an end. Apparently, right wing members in the House don’t understand that by working with democrats to actually pass useful legislation they would likely remain in control of the House. To me, kind of fundamental. (But along with many others I feel people like MT Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and many more are simply “mental.” (The Senate has a few “doozies” as well)

Final Thought: As usual, once I start writing about this “stuff” I can’t seem to stop and I’m too lazy to play out what I want to say ahead of time. I guess I’m comfortable with “off the cuff.” The main point here tonight is that even considering ALL the issues which are paramount in this upcoming election – and, there are MANY – in my opinion, when you think of the “long term” there’s nothing MORE important than preventing republicans from putting more wack jobs on the SCOTUS.

As we observe the CORRUPTION of Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas we SHOULD be seriously ALARMED. If they are replaced by younger right wing judges “we the people” will be facing YEARS of “turning back the clock” issues coming out of the court. Just the FACT they are even considering the ABSURD claim a president has “absolute immunity” should say it all. And, KNOWING that two out of nine judges are apparently willing to subjugate their own authority to a POTUS is astonishing and alarming. Just by taking Trump’s appeal, they are saying a president “might” (in certain circumstances) be “above the law.” Nonsense!

I have to add: Trump’s lawyer claimed a president COULD have “Seal Team 6” assassinate a political opponent and without being IMPEACHED and CONVICTED (by the Senate) he/she would be “above the law.” They would have “absolute immunity.” Here’s the irony. When Trump found out that the Search Warrant for Mar a Lago included a standard form of the “rules” of using lethal force by FBI agents he made the OUTRAGEOUS claim President Biden wanted him to be murdered – by the FBI. (Of course the same “rules” were part of the search of Biden’s home when he discovered he had classified documents from when he was VP) I thought, maybe the court will OK this while there’s still time in Biden’s term. Just sayin…. (Or should I say “Just thinkin….) Stay tuned………..

Well, we’re several weeks into Trump’s FIRST criminal trial and it should be interesting how it ends up. Trump seems to always find a way to escape CRIMINAL accountability and this case may be no different – although as one witnesses it a GUILTY verdict seems appropriate. However, there’s some technicalities which could interfere in such a verdict not the least of which is if Trump’s lawyers managed to “sneak” a MAGA faithful onto the jury. His other cases seem to be running headlong into Judges who want to make sure those trials don’t happen until after the November election.

I have to wonder what these judges are thinking? Do they really believe their own “power” won’t be compromised should Trump somehow cheat his way into the “White House” a second time? Whether he’s found GUILTY or not in the Manhattan “election interference” trial, what is clear is he CHEATED to get elected the first time so why would it be any different this time. Clearly he’ll never get more than around 47% of the vote (if that) so his, and his republican sycophants, objective is to whittle down the number of people who will vote for Joe Biden – in any way they can.

The rhetoric coming out of Trump’s mouth is so reminiscent of 1930’s propaganda coming from the German Third Reich (OK, I’m talking about Hitler, Goebbels, and all the rest) and the mis/disinformation apparently flooding America’s Social Media networks (I say “apparently” because I don’t personally frequent those networks) from Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and (maybe) Egypt – countries with authoritarian leaders who fear the spread of “democracy” – is reminiscent of the flood of propaganda which was spreading across America during the 1930’s directly from Berlin. Fascism is a form of “government” which is not restricted by norms and things like a constitution.

Here are some of the “things” coming out of Trump’s mouth which should grab the attention of democrats, republicans, and independents alike. Here’s a comparison between Trump’s rhetoric and Hitlers:

“In honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country—that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible; they’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and to destroy the American Dream.” Here’s Hitler justifying the MURDER of six MILLION Jews: “If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin!”

Here’s a “blurb” from “The New Yorker:” Just as the Fascists’ hateful rhetoric during the interwar period (between WW I and WW II) was intended to dehumanize, delegitimize, and intimidate its targets, Trump is trying to do the same thing to the individuals and institutions on his enemies list, (emphasis mine) which seems to include anybody who won’t forgive his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results or who supports the subsequent efforts to hold him to account. The foes he is targeting appear to include President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats, Never Trump Republicans, the Justice Department, the courts, senior military officers, and the media—i.e., many of the central institutions (pillars) of American democracy.

Trump claimed that President Biden “together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits, and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy.” He added, “If the communists get away with this, it won’t stop with me.”

Trump has claimed with words parroted from fascists before him, that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” He (and his sycophants) have been pushing the “Great Replacement theory” which is the result of fear mongering about immigrants aimed at the republican base to the point where a significant portion believe it. (After all, we ARE a nation of immigrants. The reality is Trump is a second generation immigrant married to a first generation immigrant – what he objects to is immigrants who aren’t “white.”) He has threatened massive round ups of “illegal aliens,” putting them in what amount to concentration camps before, presumably, sending them back to their – as he calls them – “shit hole” countries.

Trump has PROMISED (I thought of writing “threatened” but decided promised would be more accurate) to suspend our constitution, he’s promised to go after the media which isn’t friendly to him (probably anything not friendly to him), he’s promised to weaponize the Justice Department to “arrest” his enemies – apparently in retribution for his own misdeeds. He’s planning to have, for example, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, the Clinton’s, Jack Smith (of course), probably the state prosecutors holding him accountable for all his CHEATING, MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc. etc. all arrested and charged with crimes he will apparently invent.

Just the other day, in a “meeting” at Mar a Lago, it was reported he made the following proposal to a group of oil executives: They would supply his campaign with ONE BILLION dollars and, in return, he would promise to end “Joe Biden’s ‘green’ policies” in favor of increased leases of government land for oil and gas exploration. What would you call that? Yep, that’s the classic “quid pro quo.” Got him IMPEACHED the first time – what do you think will happen if “we the people” vote in a House controlled by democrats? Just sayin…. (Getting IMPEACHED a third time would break his record!)

I started this post (rant) a few weeks ago and have since become lazier than usual. I’m going to attempt to bring it to some kind of a conclusion. I’ve been (sort of) paying attention to Trump’s Manhattan trial and have to say, from my layman’s point of view, it doesn’t look that good for Trump. That said, as the lawyer’s I’ve listened to have said it only takes putting a bit of doubt in one juror to cause a mistrial – which would likely leave Trump to be “off the hook.” It appears it’s likely this will be the only trial happening before the election because of a series of “Trump friendly” judges.

Aileen Cannon is not even subtle in her rulings (constantly) in Trump’s favor and her apparent disdain for Jack Smith. I’m convinced if Mr. Smith is unable to get a different judge Trump will get away with what may be significant espionage crimes. I mean, who knows how many people he shared the classified info with and, as I’ve said before, there were a number of classified folders which were empty when the FBI executed the Search Warrant on Mar a Lago. I know I’ve often wondered where the files which were in those folders actually ended up. Does Trump still have them? Or, did he work something out with a foreign government to get them.

And, the Supreme Court even taking the ABSURD “absolute immunity” case just shows how low this court is willing to go despite their increasingly “ugly” standing with the American people. (OK, I should say with a significant MAJORITY of the American people) We’ve got TWO judges who have NO business even participating on ANY case which has ANY thing to do with the January 6th INSURRECTION. (Which at least two cases do) As most people know Ginni Thomas was right in the middle of the attempt by Trump to overthrow the 2020 election. As far as I’m concerned she – along with SEVERAL members of Congress – SHOULD have been indicted as being part of the conspiracy to overthrow the election.

Then there’s Sam Alito. He’s been at the center of several pro business (corporations are “people”) decisions since the early days of President Obama’s administration along with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the blocking of Affirmative Action at top U.S. Universities, the overturning of Roe, and lots more to come. Recently, evidence came to light showing Alito flying an America Flag upside down – in concert with the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement – right in the front yard of his home. As most cowards would do, he blamed his wife. (Similarly to Justice Thomas claiming he didn’t talk to his wife about her allegedly ILLEGAL activities) The issues with the Supreme Court is bordering on the absurd.

A quick refresher: Judge Gorsuch is there because Mitch McConnell refused to allow Barack Obama’s choice (after the death of Antonin Scalia) to be even considered – for over one year – because “it was an election year.” Judge Kavanaugh was confirmed despite credible reports he had committed sexual assault on more than one occasion – allegations which were stifled by Trump’s FBI. And, of course, Judge Barrett had her confirmation rushed through by McConnell even while voting was taking place in 2020 because, well, he didn’t have to follow his own example set when Obama’s choice (Merrick Garland) was blocked for over one year. Give the republicans credit – they are unable to govern – but, they are really good at CHEATING and the SCOTUS is a great example of their success.

Will the Court decide Trump has “absolute immunity” both while in office and after leaving office? My guess is likely not. However, they can “remand” the case back to the District Court to force Judge Chutkin to differentiate between official duties and no official duties – as if overthrowing a free and fair election might be considered an “official duty.” Just by accepting this ABSURD claim by Trump and then putting off arguments until the LAST day of their term, they did for Trump what he needed. And, that’s to stall this case until after the election so that if somehow he CHEATS his way back into office he can have the two federal cases against him thrown out. Why? Because he says so!

The reason I don’t think the Court will simply rule on the case which was brought before it is because there still might be time for Judge Chutkin to get the case tried if, for example, the Court renders their decision at the end of June (putting it off as long as they can) That would not fit into the time schedule of Alito and Thomas as both, by rights, should be resigning in disgrace as I’m writing this. They’ve (the Court) acted in the space of a couple weeks in the past when the case is pressing (see Bush v Gore) but this court seems to be in the opposite of a hurry. I’ve said before I have NO confidence at all in this Court and I don’t expect that to change. I will say, this decision will NOT be unanimous. Judge Jackson put it best when she wondered why the discussion (in the arguments) seemed to go anywhere but to the case which had been presented to the Court. The fact they accepted the case, in the first place, told me “somethin’s up.”

Final Thought: Watching Trump’s Manhattan Trial confirms to me, even more, that Trump is nothing but a two bit mob boss. Michael Cohen was the perfect lawyer for him, until he wasn’t. Apparently, Trump expected Cohen to “take the fall” for him regarding the “Stormy Daniels” payoff and, as he’s done before, he’s said “I hate flippers.” (And, we’re not talking about people in a swimming pool) The evidence of Trump’s guilt is overwhelming, but the defense appears to be basing their chances on pointing out Mr. Cohen is a LIAR. Well, of course, Trump is a (allegedly) pathological LIAR and, if you’re working for him in the capacity of Mr. Cohen, well, you MUST be willing to LIE. Apparently, Trump has an ability to suck people into his “cult of personality” as he’s done with MILLIONS of Americans (plus what’s left of the republican party) – let’s hope a guilty verdict in this case might wake a few of the MAGA faithful up – and, really, clarify things for those independents and young people who don’t especially care for President Biden to cast a vote for the preservation of our democratic republic. In the words of Ben Franklin: “We’ll have this republic as long as we can keep it.”

I personally know so-called “upstanding Americans” who would rather have an authoritarian rule by Trump than “keeping the republic” under Biden. Almost every one of them watches/listens to Fox “news” or worse. Just about every one of them who’s said to me “I don’t watch Fox ‘news'” has, without thinking – later- confirmed to me they actually do and that they know how bad it is because they’re willing to LIE about the fact they DO watch it. Stay tuned………..

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Trump is Willing to Trade Our Children’s Future for a Billion Dollars

The willingness to destroy our collective home in exchange for riches is one of the most extreme examples of greed run amok…

Thom Hartmann May 10

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Image by Cristian Ibarra from Pixabay

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“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed…” – Jesus (Luke 12:15)

“My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy. I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. I’m so greedy.” – Donald Trump

The Washington Post revealed yesterday that Donald Trump told a group of fossil fuel executives that if they’d give him a billion-dollar bribe, he’d use it to become president and then eliminate all of President Biden’s environmental regulations and prevent any new ones from coming into law.

The industry barons had been grumbling that they’d already spent more than $400 million lobbying the Biden administration over the past year to little effect. They really shouldn’t have a basis to complain: just the three largest oil companies operating in America made $85.65 billion dollars in profits last year, which they could split up among shareholders and senior executives.

Nonetheless, Trump’s brazen appeal for them to grease his palm seemed to shock even these hardened planet-killers.

This comes the same week that The Guardian broke the story that most of the world’s top climate scientists surveyed — all of them among the 843 authors of the IPCC’s most recent report — believe the planet is going to crash through the 1.5° Celsius threshold they’d previously defined as a disaster scenario. Most are now expecting us to hit 2.5° or even 3° Celsius, levels that could make much of the planet uninhabitable for humans. And it’s going to happen a hell of a lot sooner than anybody had anticipated just a decade ago.

It’s gotten so bad that some climate scientist’s are questioning the wisdom of their own families having children.

In other words, Donald Trump and his Republican friends are explicitly willing to trade our and our children’s future for a billion dollars. And they couldn’t have offered this deal to the industry if five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court hadn’t legalized political bribery of both politicians and judges (like themselves and Aileen Cannon) when they overturned the good government laws Congress passed in the wake of the Nixon bribery scandals in the 1970s.

It may have been an unnecessary effort on Trump’s part.

The Saudis and Russians — who both desperately want Trump back in the White House — cut oil production over the past two months by 1.4 million barrels a day with the apparent goal of driving US gasoline prices up past $6 a gallon in time for the election this fall.

Remember the GOP hysteria around gas prices hitting $5 a gallon in October and November of 2022 just in time for the midterm elections, with Fox “News” hosts hyping stickers being put on gas pumps across the country bearing a picture of Biden pointing to the price with an “I did that” slogan?  It almost singlehandedly gave us GOP control of the House of Representatives and was the result of a similar Saudi and Russian production cut.

Now, it looks like we ain’t seen nothing yet.

When he was president, Trump allowed the Saudis to buy the largest gasoline refinery in America (at Port Arthur, Texas); between their oil supply cuts and the possibility they could reduce that refinery’s output this fall (no doubt because of “maintenance issues”) gas could easily puncture the $7 a gallon ceiling by November.

Analysts found that throughout the midterm election year 2022, there was a nearly one-to-one inverse correlation between the price of gasoline, Americans’ perception of the state of the economy, and approval ratings for the Biden administration. As The Washington Post pointed out that year, there was an estimated 91 percent inverse correlation between the price of gas and the popularity of Democrats when they’re in power: as gas prices go up, Democrats’ approval ratings (and electability) measurably and predictably go down.

The willingness to destroy our collective home in exchange for riches is one of the most tragic and extreme examples of greed run amok. Which shouldn’t surprise us: for the past century, the unofficial slogan of the GOP has been “Greed is Good!” as memorialized in the 1987 movie Wall Street.

Will Rogers used to tell the story that when he was a kid the way he learned which visitors to his parents ranch were Republicans was that they were the ones his dad told him to keep an eye on so they didn’t steal anything. Decades may have passed, but the GOP hasn’t changed a bit.

Their standard-bearer this year is the living incarnation of that slogan. As Trump told a cheering audience when he was first running for president:

“I like money. I’m very greedy. I’m a greedy person. I shouldn’t tell you that, I’m a greedy — I’ve always been greedy. I love money, right?”

The good news is that there is, increasingly, pushback from the Biden administration and Democrats in the states.

Five Blue states are now looking at ways to hold fossil fuel moguls and their companies accountable for the damage climate change-fueled extreme weather has inflicted on their people. Vermont is leading the way, with legislation that passed their House this week and is now headed to the Vermont Senate, almost certainly carrying a large enough majority to overcome a veto by the state’s Republican governor.

The bill would set up a $2 billion fund to pay for weather damage, funded by a tax of sorts on the fossil fuel industry. New York, California, Massachusetts, and Maryland are all looking at similar legislation this year.

But as long as the Supreme Court’s corrupt 5-4 Citizens United decision stands and Republican politicians and judges are eager to take bribes from the industry, these efforts will be purely remedial, the equivalent of putting Band-Aids on cancerous lesions.

These tragic realities highlight the extraordinary stakes of this year’s election, which will not only determine the future survival of American democracy but also the destiny of most all life on Earth. The GOP’s embrace of greed isn’t just a moral issue any more: it’s now threatening us all.

Double-check your voter registration and reach out to wake up everybody you know. Given how rapidly extreme weather is amplifying, causing death and destruction across America (and the world), your own family’s survival may depend on it.

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I live on the “left coast” and was up early today (4/25) so I managed to listen to many of the arguments involved in the appeal of Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity.” Now, as someone who has little to NO faith in this SCOTUS I was not surprised with what I heard based on my interpretation of the questions posed by the various judges. Here’s what will surprise me: If the judges simply decide the case in front of them. Basically, to me, the judges who claim to be “textualists” or “originalists” seemed to be looking for ways to expand the issue to areas which were NOT part of the case in front of them. I believe at least three justices (Alito, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) were looking for possible ways to DELAY the January 6th D.C. case to allow Trump to throw this out if he manages to somehow CHEAT his way back into the “White House.”

I mean, it’s been obvious for quite some time this court is on the side of our TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING four times indicted (ex) president simply by their willingness to, at a minimum, help him stall this procedure. What also seemed obvious to me was several of the justices searching for ways to decide MORE than what is included in this indictment/appeal. There will be no “yes or no” decision by this court – just as they did in the Citizens United v FEC case they will go well beyond the issues of this appeal in order to appease their own political bent. Yes, I’m predicting this and I certainly hope I’m wrong, but they seemed to be searching for a way to strip Jack Smith of his ability to proceed with this case.

If they do what I fear I hope Mr. Smith then decides to prosecute the “unindicted co-conspirators” along with all the others involved in the conspiracy to overthrow our elected government on January 6th, 2021. That, of course, would include the wife of Clarence Thomas – who very possibly could be the deciding vote on this case in favor of the judges looking for an off ramp for Trump in his CLEARLY illegal attempt to pull off a coup d’etat. To me, there is NO WAY judge Thomas should have been sitting on the bench for this case. He should have been recused due to the actions of his wife.

I’m getting similar feelings I had during the Colorado case where Trump had been purged from their ballot based on Section three of the 14th Amendment which prevents anyone who took an oath to the constitution and participated in or gave support to anyone who participated in an INSURRECTION from holding ANY office in the federal government (or any state). The Colorado Supreme Court found that Trump participated in an INSURRECTION and was, therefore, ineligible to be on the Colorado ballot as a candidate for president. The SCOTUS, as myself and many others imagined they would, found a way to “stray” from their “textualist/originalist” bent because it didn’t fit their ideological view. They made a POLITICAL decision. They appear to be leaning to do the same in Trump’s January 6th indictment.

This Court is creating a serious image problem for themselves. We all saw on TV the INSURRECTION. We watched and listened to Trump urging his supporters to “go to the Capitol and fight like hell or you won’t have a country anymore.” Those of us who pay attention to all this have heard Trump PUBLICLY reiterate that “VP Pense did have the right to overthrow the election” (or words to that affect) when Congress decided to amend the statute defining the VP’s role in counting the Electoral College votes – a purely ceremonial role. It could not be more obvious that Trump was pressuring Pense to turn away legitimate Electoral College votes in order to count the so-called “alternate electors” from several of the “battleground” states.

At a bare minimum I believe the SCOTUS will send this case back to the District Court for a determination regarding “official acts v personal acts” – a decision which will be subject to appeal and then the appeal process starts all over again – which would mean the Supreme Court’s part in that would be decided sometime NEXT YEAR. I believe the court is going to expose itself as benefactors of Trump and they could care less about the “blow back” they will receive. I’m sure they believe all the negative publicity will blow over by the time their next term begins. And, who knows? It might.

I’ve written before about Lewis Powell’s “memo” to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce back in (I think – I could look it up but I’m too lazy) 1973. He was arguing that us “peons” – ie “working class Americans” had gained to much power and America’s corporations should “turn the tables” in favor or America’s “Oligarchs.” Soon after Powell was appointed to the SCOTUS by Richard Nixon and by 1980 “conservatives” had received the message and it was fully implemented by Ronald Reagan and his right wing/racist administration. Challenge #1: Destroy the union movement in America. See: The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) which Reagan, in essence, had destroyed when Air Traffic Controllers went on strike back in 1981. By my calculation, that was when unions took a “nosedive” and so did the wages of working class Americans.

One of the central tenets of the “conservative” movement has been preventing as many people as possible from voting – especially people who might vote for democrats. As time has evolved since Reagan became president the Court has tilted strongly to the right – in 2000 it actually chose GW Bush to be president when, by all accounts, the rightful “winner” was Al Gore. In fact, in that situation the Court acted with “all haste” – like, as I remember it, in a manner of days (not months/years) to “crown” GW Bush and Dick Cheney to reign on “we the people.” I’m sure republicans were more than pleased when Mr. Gore simply accepted the decision in order to prevent a rebellion.

That court decision led to the invasion of Iraq (and, very possibly 9/11 due to Bush’s willingness to ignore the warning signs), the 20 LONG years of incompetence in Afghanistan, and, of course, the financial meltdown of 2007 – 2008. When the Obama/Biden administration took office the “mess” they inherited was of historic proportions. However, Donald Trump left the “messiest” mess for the incoming Biden Administration I can remember in my lifetime. To me, the burgeoning of the national debt began under Reagan via the so-called “Trickle down” (I’ve always said “trickle up”) tax policy which has led to “tax cuts for the rich” in every republican administration since (except, I believe, George HW Bush).

When you look up articles about the budget deficit and the national debt it becomes clear what you’re reading is tilted one way or the other depending on who’s writing it. By my observation Clinton and Obama both left office with an annual deficit considerably less than the one they inherited and, it appears, so will President Biden, whenever it becomes time for him to finally (and actually) retire. What Biden inherited was catastrophic due to Trump’s selfish incompetence in managing a “once in a century” pandemic. (Although, it seems the possibility of future pandemics looms large)

My point is this: Decisions by the SCOTUS are of immense importance. The decision to crown Bush/Cheney, for example, not only let to a financial meltdown, it led to the loss of THOUSANDS of American lives via the ILLEGAL invasion of Iraq – where something like one half of the Iraqi population was displaced and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s died due to the Bush/Cheney invasion. This would NOT have happened had the Court simply allowed the recount of votes in Florida to be completed. I will go to my grave believing Al Gore was the rightful winner of the 2000 American presidential election.

And, since then the Court has continued its drift rightward to the point where what we witnessed during the arguments regarding Trump’s ABSURD claim of “absolute immunity” seemed to gain a sympathetic (and pathetic) audience with – by my count – at least four of the justices. When these justices – who claimed in their confirmation hearings that “hypothetical” situations are irrelevant when it comes to deciding issues regarding the constitution – began throwing around hypothetical possibilities of retribution by sitting presidents toward their predecessor I wanted to vomit. The discussion seemed to be focused on many imagined possibilities of mischief, but not on the actual appeal before the court.

As I’ve said, this should have been obvious when the court decided to take this appeal in the first place and then schedule the arguments for the LAST day of the term – something like 9 weeks later. This was the court participating in Trump’s strategy of “delay, delay, delay.” Will they make a decision based on the merits of the appeal? Well, I surely hope so – granting this appeal will render them as being insignificant going forward – they would be approving America as a dictatorship (and “we the people” would have one more election to stop this attack on our constitution). I don’t think there’s any way they can simply overrule the District Court’s determination this claim (absolute immunity for the president) is preposterous – “we don’t have a king” – and the DC Circuit court’s agreement with the District Court.

However, as stated above, my gut instincts tell me they’re going to throw it back to the District Court based on some creative imagination of what our constitution SHOULD say, which is all Trump needs to put this off until sometime in 2025 – unless he’s re-elected. Trust me, there are more right wing decisions which are anti-democratic coming from this court, likely at the end of June. I don’t follow everything they decide to take up, but their track record is horrible to someone like me, but, likely to someone who agrees with Lewis Powell, this court is “right on.” Yikes!!!

Final Thought: I have to add, the fundamental source of fascism would be when corporations and government are acting in “partnership.” The following is a quote attributed to Benito Mussolini: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”  There are questions as to whether or not he actually said that, but, as you can see – in today’s America the “oligarchs” (corporate “power brokers”) are pretty much aligned to Trump’s “slow moving coup.” And REALLY wealthy Americans, like Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg are building fortresses in remote areas for when the “you know what hits the fan.”

I’m not arguing against corporations, I’m just pointing out when they get to the point where their self interest causes them to “partner” with government for the purpose of implementing policy which is detrimental to “we the people” then we are a de-facto fascist state. There’s a reason why “big business” is realigning itself with Trump despite his CLEAR intentions to, in essence “tear up the constitution.” The corporate interests are simply “creating shareholder value” the “commons” be damned. They seem to believe the promise to “cut taxes” is the true political “selling point.” The idea of democrats actually instituting a “wealth tax” is considered, by the corporatists, as “socialism.” Government investing in its people, to them, is “socialism.”

That all being said, the next several elections, well beyond my remaining lifetime, will be critical in turning back this right wing attempt to undermine our democratic republic. The “checks and balances” imbedded into our constitution are under severe threat by a right wing segment of our population which has railed against “progress” since, well, the beginning of this nation – especially since the “New Deal” of FDR. The Court has been “rigged” and, thus, it’s possible Trump will succeed in making sure our elections are “rigged.” And, of course, they’ll be “rigged” in his favor. Stay tuned.,,,,

Is SCOTUS in on the Coup and Trying to End American Democracy?

by thomhartmann

I was working on my own response to the SCOTUS apparently planning to, at a minimum, send Trump’s “absolute immunity” claim back to the District Court in order to add an additional YEAR of delay. As usual, Mr. Hartman says it much better!

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Many Americans are confused by the spectacle they heard (we couldn’t “witness” it because Republicans on the Supreme Court won’t allow their proceedings to be televised) yesterday as an attorney for Donald Trump, at least three different times in different ways, argued that Trump was above the law and should be treated as such.

Even more baffling was the apparent agreement with that position by at least four of the six Republicans on the Court.

Every time the government’s attorney or the Democratic appointees on the Court tried to bring the discussion back to “calling balls and strikes in the case before us” (as Roberts said is all he’d ever do) the Republican appointees changed the subject, claiming they’re more concerned about “future presidents” than Trump. Right…

Associate Justice Sam Alito — who famously loves 16th century witch-burning judges and “unborn children” — went so far as to create a hypothetical in defense of Trump that turned reality on its head. Keep in mind, it is Trump, not Biden, who’s spent nearly four years trying to destabilize both our political and judicial systems.

Nonetheless, Alito asked:

“If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”

Say what? Jack Smith is a greater threat to democracy than Donald Trump?

Throughout the entire two-plus hours, Republican justices (with the possible exceptions of Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts) implicitly supported Trump’s attempted coup (that Justice Thomas’ wife was in the middle of).

Trump’s attorney argued — with the apparent agreement of four of the six Republican appointees — that if Trump were reelected he could assassinate people, stage a military coup, and sell America’s military secrets to Putin with no consequences whatsoever.

Which raises the vital question: why would they be so cavalier about Trump’s threat to our democracy? Is it just that Thomas and Alito want to retire and want their replacements selected by Trump instead of Biden?

The simple reality is that conservatives throughout modern history have viewed democracy with a jaundiced eye, and the Supreme Court’s Republican appointees are no exception. To their minds democracy is fine when it puts them and their patrons in power, but when it fails at that it’s an impediment to wealth and power that must be circumnavigated.

As one of history’s most famous conservatives, England’s Edmund Burke, noted in the late 18th century, when people engaged in “servile” occupations like hairdresser or candle-maker are allowed to participate in democracy by voting, the state suffers “oppression” and is “at war with nature”:

“The occupation of a hairdresser or of a working tallow-chandler cannot be a matter of honour to any person — to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.”

At the CPAC convention this past February, a well-known rightwing influencer, Jack Posobiec, went off on a rant about how important it is for conservatives to band together to end democracy in America and, presumably, replace it with Christofascism just like in Russia and Hungary.

“Welcome to the end of democracy!” he declared. “We’re here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here,” he added as he held up a cross.

This, frankly, should not be surprising. It was 1951 when Russell Kirk, the godfather of the modern conservative movement, published his book The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot in which he laid out the importance of “classes and orders” in society. (I detailed Kirk extensively in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.)

The middle class was growing like a weed back then — this was before Reagan kneecapped the labor movement — and Kirk warned that if too many people got into the middle class and were no longer “the fearful poor” that there would be chaos in America.

He warned that too much middle class wealth would mean that women would no longer fear and respect their husbands, racial minorities would forget their “rightful place” in the social order, young people would defy their parents, and society would generally go to hell.

Kirk’s solution, dictated back in the late 1700s by Burke himself, was to gut the middle class and return to the “normal” social form of a small number of really rich people at the top, a tiny middle class of doctors, lawyers, and professionals who served the rich, and a massive class of the working poor.

This was the Victorian world Charles Dickens wrote about in almost all of his novels, and, when the 1960s happened and women, students, and minorities rose up in protest, became the world that Reaganomics was established to return us to.

“‘My little child!’ cried Bob [Cratchit in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol]. ‘My little child.’ He broke down all at once. ‘He couldn’t help it.’” … “‘It’s only once a year, sir,’ pleaded Bob.”

Re-impoverishing America’s working class families to avoid the dire consequences Burke and Kirk identified, Reagan declared war on unions, gave the rich massive tax cuts, gutted federal support for education (creating today’s student debt crisis), and started the GATT/NAFTA negotiations that led to over 50,000 factories and over 15 million good union jobs being shipped overseas.

Every Republican president since has doubled down on Reagan’s campaign to devastate both the American middle class and the democracy that once supported them: Bush and Trump added tens of trillions to our debt with their tax breaks for billionaires, all three Republican presidents since Reagan packed the courts with democracy-skeptical ideologues, and each has worked to enrich the wealthy while cutting aid and support to working class and poor Americans.

Gutting the middle class, eliminating the social safety net, and “restoring order” to society is still the conservative mantra, now heavily overlaid with racist tropes and rightwing Christian ideology.

So Posobiec’s proclamation that it’s time to replace democracy with strongman authoritarianism, and the endorsement of that worldview by Republicans on the Court with yesterday’s dog-and-pony show, is just another variation on Kirk’s and Burke’s distrust of what John Adams famously and angrily called “the rabble.”

This is not a new debate. 

Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 book Leviathan, often seen as a seminal origin document for the Enlightenment, argued that people should ultimately be able to govern themselves (thus establishing what Americans today call the “liberal” school of political science).

Leviathan also, however, articulated the foundation of the modern-day “conservative” worldview when Hobbes wrote that, lacking the iron fist of church and state, human societies and nations would invariably revert to their “natural” state:

“In such condition, … the life of man [is], solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

One-hundred-three years after Hobbes published those words, Jean Jacques Rousseau rebutted him and established the intellectual basis used by the Founders of our American republic, arguing that the “natural state” of humankind is not violent and hierarchical but, rather, compassionate, egalitarian, and democratic.

The Founders and Framers of the Constitution agreed with Rousseau, and explicitly wanted to limit potentially monarchical powers of the presidency. At the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in September of 1787, James Madison, noting that the Virginia constitution gave “some executive immunities related to the criminal process” to that state’s governor, asked the assembled delegates to “consider what privileges ought to be allowed to the Executive.”

Not a single delegate rose to defend the position; instead, Charles Pinckney called for an adjournment for the day. During an 1800 debate in the US Senate, Pinckney explained to his colleagues that “it was the design of the Constitution, and . . . not only its spirit, but letter . . . that it never was intended to give Congress, or either branch, any but specified, and those very limited, privileges indeed.”

As Jack Smith noted in his written pleadings before the Supreme Court, “James Wilson told the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, the president was ‘far from being above the laws,’ and ‘not a single privilege [wa]s annexed to his character.’”

Tench Coxe, who I quoted extensively in The Hidden History of American Democracy, noted in a 1787 essay that it was the intention of the Founders that a president could be “proceeded against like any other man in the ordinary course of law.” And, indeed, when Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, two different states brought murder indictments against him and not a single court objected or argued that the executive branch should have immunity from prosecution under criminal law.  

But don’t tell any of that to the Republicans on the Supreme Court.

From gutting both civil and voting rights, to kneecapping union rights, to helping George W. Bush steal the 2000 election that Al Gore won in Florida by more than 40,000 votes, the Court’s conservative majority has steadfastly held to the Burkean belief that too much democracy is a danger that can only be balanced by handing as much wealth and political power as possible to the morbidly rich.

Which is why expanding the Supreme Court and establishing a code of conduct for its members via a new Judiciary Act must become one of the first jobs of a second Biden administration.

The fear of that happening, in fact, may well be one of the reasons why Republicans on the Court went so far out of their way to help Trump return to the White House via the delays they’ve inflicted on Jack Smith’s efforts to hold him to justice.

Trump’s attempted coup is nowhere near done: both the Republican Party and the Republicans on the Supreme Court are working as hard as they can to complete it and replace American democracy with naked oligarchy.

To paraphrase Burke, when men and women who don’t trust democracy are given the power to regulate it to the benefit of themselves and their billionaire patrons, the nation itself suffers oppression and is at war with nature.

Pass it along.

I’m being FORCED to use a word I refused to allow in my sixth grade classroom but there’s an area in the state of Georgia where the people keep electing a representative who seems intent on passing Louie Gohmert as the STUPIDEST member of Congress. I’m writing, of course, about Marjorie Taylor Greene. OK, I got that off my chest – but, the problem is Ms. Greene seems capable of causing serious DAMAGE to America as state run TV in Russia is talking almost as if she’s a knowing “useful idiot” while they basically cheer her anti Ukraine BS.

I’ve been writing that if these republicans allow Ukraine to fall to the Russians because of blocking the desperately needed assistance which has been sitting at the foot of the Speaker’s desk for several months now they will have made Benedict Arnold look like a patriot. This is a bill which would get, likely, well north of 300 bipartisan votes in the House if Speaker Johnson would just bring it up for a vote. Of course, with all things GOP in the House, if the Speaker pisses anyone off they can call for a “motion to vacate.” And, without democratic support, Mr. Johnson would just be going the way of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. As everyone knows the GOP majority has the slimmest margin for error EVER. They’ve got ONE vote to spare. (Chuck Schumer has been dealing with the same margin in the Senate for the past four years.

If Ms. Greene calls for the removal of Johnson it will just be MORE chaos and, hopefully, the Ukraine aid will be passed before then. Of course, instead of simply allowing the House to vote on the bill the Senate sent over which would allow this aid to be on its way very quickly Speaker Johnson has proposed splitting up the aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, plus aid for the Palestinians in GAZA. Whatever they produce would then be subject to getting 60 votes in the Senate and, likely, then a conference to work out the differences. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are DYING unnecessarily and Russia is managing to make gains they couldn’t make if Ukraine has the U.S. aid.

I keep writing about how History is repeating itself with this version of the republican party and those republicans keep making me look as if I’m – well – smart. I mean when you consider what Hitler was doing to keep the U.S. from entering WW II, supporting American Nazi’s who were hell bent on overthrowing our democratic republic, and, in order to pull this off, spending HUGE sums of money to spread Nazi propaganda in all parts of America it mirrors Putin’s Russia (The Russians seem to be copycats). Hitler also had appeasers (up to actual supporters) in Congress and, you guessed it, these were all republicans. Some of them actually taking BRIBES from people with direct connections to the Nazi’s.

Trump’s tendencies which seem to clearly be fundamentally fascist are well documented. He’s even using Nazi “talking points” in some of his rallies and, sure enough, his crowds seem to cheer this. I recently pointed out how those who were pro-Nazi back in the years leading up to WW II had children in indoctrination camps and those children very likely are the grandparents of many of these right wing Americans who are pushing this “road to fascism” today on what could be (although I certainly hope it isn’t) the rest of us.

And, make no mistake, if Trump somehow manages to CHEAT his way back into the “White House” once again, it will be with the help of Vladimir Putin (just like in 2016) and he WON’T have a majority of Americans voting for him. One of the ways republicans CHEAT to “win” is to secretly support third party candidates in order to siphon votes from, in this case, Biden. There are some disturbing polls showing, for example, what RFK Jr.’s candidacy COULD do to the election.

I’ve been pointing out RFK Jr.’s main donor is also one of Trump’s main donor’s (Timothy Mellon) and one of RFK Jr.’s spokespersons, the other day, said their objective was to make sure Joe Biden doesn’t win the election in November. It grieves me to say that may be true. It bothers me mainly because my most enthusiastic support of a candidate was back in my first year of voting (you had to be 21 back then to vote – you only had to be 17 or 18 to go die in Vietnam) in 1968 when I was a supporter of RFK as he was running for president (as a democrat). I’m struggling to imagine why RFK’s son wants to topple our republic while his father gave his life trying to defend it.

Today, the ENTIRE Kennedy clan came out publicly in support of President Biden. However, the use of third party candidates to allow republicans to “win” election is nothing knew. I even remember John Anderson running as a “liberal republican” back in 1980 to pull votes from Jimmy Carter because, mainly, Americans were upset Iran was holding a bunch of Americans hostages. What the voters didn’t know was Ronald Reagan had made a secret deal with the Iranians so they would not release the hostages until he was sworn in as president. And, the Iranians agreed by actually releasing the hostages on that very day. Another republican president who CHEATED.

Of course, Reagan also was eye deep in the Iran/Contra “affair” along with his VP – the future president George HW Bush – who had been a part of the CIA off and on over the course of his career leading up to Reagan’s candidacy. However, “today’s” republican party is hardly noticeable compared to “back in the day.” Someone like, for example, Ms. Greene would NEVER have been put in front of a microphone at any point in time until Trump unleashed the energy of the pent up white nationalists in America in 2015. (You can check out the “strategy” of people like Don Black and David Duke of the KKK regarding their fealty toward Trump – who they believed would bring the white nationalist movement “into the mainstream.” (They weren’t all that wrong)

While I’m personally convinced the Russians have something on Trump – the “pee tape??” – it’s hard to figure out how all these other republicans have matriculated to Putin’s “position” on America’s foreign policy. Apparently Tucker Carlson is simply just a believer in fascism, but all these republicans who’ve been attempting to block the desperately needed assistance for Ukraine? They apparently are just fine with Putin marching right through Ukraine into Eastern Europe. Their understanding of history seems a bit lacking, from my perspective.

News Flash! : Last Friday Speaker Johnson FINALLY put the aid for Ukraine (and Israel, Taiwan, GAZA and more) up for a vote and, just as I had projected, it passed overwhelmingly with a bipartisan majority with MORE than 300 “yeahs.” Fortunately, it supposedly will only take the Senate one day to pass all of this and as soon as President Biden signs the bill the aide to Ukraine will be on its way. As the saying goes, “better late than never,” but the reality is there are MANY Ukrainians who have been KILLED because the House republicans were dithering on this vote.

I’m happy Speaker Johnson came to his senses and it will be interesting to see if Ms. Greene follows through on her threats to move to “vacate the chair.” It will be just as interesting to see if the democrats will swoop in and save Johnson from the same fate that befell Kevin McCarthy. I’m not even sure if Mr. Johnson wants democrats to save him because that will further drive him away the MAGAt’s in his party. Maybe what these republicans deserve is the spectacle of attempting to find another speaker with a one vote margin for error.

Final Thought: I don’t know if it’s simply ironic or if it’s funny, that the man who could end up being the “star witness” in Trump’s Manhattan election interference case (ie “hush money case”) has the last name of PECKER! (No pun necessary) From my observation of the first couple days of Trump’s first trial is that our TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING four times indicted (ex) president’s infidelity goes well beyond his “dalliance” with Stephanie Clifford (ie “Stormy Daniels”). Apparently the Trump Tower doorman was paid $30,000 for his “story” that Trump produced an “illegitimate” child with a former maid. Mr. PECKER said that he didn’t believe the “story” but the co-conspirators – Trump, Michael Cohen, and Mr. PECKER wanted to prevent it from becoming public right before the end of the 2016 campaign.

So, there were THREE different “stories” which were part of the “catch and Kill” scheme of Trump, Cohen, and PECKER. And, they all had to do with Trump being unfaithful to his wife – take note of that all you evangelical Christians who have decided to put your faith in Donald Trump – and, that would include Franklin Graham. Just sayin……. It’s that Trump’s base is largely made up of people who profess to be “believers” which really has motivated most of my rants on this site. Sadly, this right wing bent toward fascism is nothing new for a large section of the “Christian community” in America. I’ll be 77 this fall and the results of the upcoming elections – for the next 20 years (if we’re still having them) – won’t affect me like it will to those who comprise our younger generations.

America, in my view, needs to embrace the progressive movement in this nation sooner rather than later. America is the land of HUGE wealth, but, sadly, that wealth is becoming more and more concentrated at the top. America has become the land of “oligarchs” and President Biden wants to cause them to pay more in taxes so that investments can be made in our people, our infrastructure, and our future. The list of “needs” is too long for me to list here, but if somehow you’ve ended up on this site and you agree with what I’m saying make sure you VOTE – not only in November, but in every election going forward.

Keep in mind, there is presently a ROGUE SCOTUS and it will take YEARS to remedy that issue. ANY time a republican president gets into the “Oval Office” the threat to make matters worse will be there for at least the next four presidential elections. It has become apparent that if Trump somehow CHEATS his way back into the “White House” both Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito will step down so a couple more YOUNG right wing justices can be placed on the court – making EVERYTHING more difficult going forward. To me, just that issue alone is worth young people voting for President Biden, full stop. The reality is it will be either Biden of Trump winning the election. So, a “protest vote” for any third party candidate by a young progressive person will be like a vote for Trump! Yikes!!! Stay tuned……

What we’re all witnessing is a former president being tried in a setting which resembles the trial of a MOB boss. My instincts want me to write “Only in America” – but, I know that’s not true. There have been many CORRUPT “leaders” from other countries who have been prosecuted for their CORRUPTION. My first thought, in this regard, is Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. He’s prosecuting a “war” which, to me, appears to be full of “war crimes” in order to put off himself being forced to face up to his own CORRUPTION. So, it’s not “only in America” – but, it’s still the FIRST time in our nearly 250 year history when a president or former president has been held accountable for pure CORRUPTION. Yikes!!! Stay tuned……

I’m no fan of “Sleepy” Donald Trump as anyone who’s been on this site would be well aware. I’ve been pointing out about the DANGER he poses to this nation since the day he took office back in 2017. My biggest mistake was thinking republicans would tire of his schtick and root him out of office – as a means of self survival. Boy was I wrong. One by one they FLIP 180 degrees from their more sane moments and do whatever they can to kiss Trump’s Butt so he won’t fire off an unflattering “tweet/untruth” their way. (I have to say, I’ve always hoped to receive one of those, but I fully understand a peon like myself spends a lot of time writing with only a few members of the cyberworld [somehow] landing on these pages.)

Trump, as anyone without their heads in the sand knows, is spending his time these days in the first of the FOUR trials he may or may not have to face – depending on factors like “we the people” and our vote, the SCOTUS who seems to be doing whatever they can to help him stall off the inevitable, and the judges in the “Espionage case” and the Georgia RICO case. I do have to say, if these judges prove to be his path to avoiding accountability this nation will be brought to her knees. (For anyone objecting to referring to America in the “feminine” I refer you to “God Bless America” – “stand beside her and guide her”) Trump is busy proving to his followers that if you have MILLIONS you can buy yourself out of being held to account. Yes, we do have a “two tier” justice system – the “foot soldiers” of the INSURRECTION are in jail, the “architect” of the INSURRECTION is still free and possibly will totally avoid accountability.

That all being said, I found it interesting Trump, according to numerous witnesses who were in the courtroom, seemed to “nod off” on several occasions during today’s proceeding. Yes, he who refers to “Sleepy” Joe Biden had his head droop to his chest in court today as he seems to slobber all over himself – something I’m good at during my 76th year on this planet – and “jerk his head up” after a bit of prodding from his attorneys. So, is Trump going to continue referring to President Biden as “sleepy?” What’s the old saying? “Don’t throw rocks out of a glass house.” And calling him “Crooked Joe” is even more of a projection!

As always, there’s more. Trump, the expert at projection is constantly suggesting President Biden “can’t put a complete sentence together” when, in reality, it’s Trump who has difficulty putting anything resembling a sentence together on the frequent occasions where he strays from the teleprompter. From whales being killed by windmills, to mistaking Biden by referring to former president Obama, to mistakenly referring to Nikki Haley as Nancy Pelosi (regarding January 6th, 2021), to suggesting President Obama was going to cause the beginning of WW II. Yes, Joe Biden has been a “stutterer” since he was a child and it creates “gaffes” when he’s speaking, but, compared to Trump, well, Biden is like a skilled linguist.

These realities, to me, highlight why our “liberal media” is so inept – or, in many cases, committed to helping Trump regain the “White House” – the level of his CORRUPT conduct be damned. I recognize I’m part of the problem. I watch MSNBC (when I watch anything) and I seem to respond with more attention when the topic, these days, is Trump in the courthouse. I would like them to spend more time on “Biden on the campaign trail” as one person I know has said, but I always end up wanting to know if today’s the day my number one issue on my bucket list – seeing Trump in jail – might be able to be checked off.

For example, today Trump – once again – appears to have violated Judge Merchan’s gag order when he posted a “conspiracy theory” which was born on – surprise, surprise – Fox “news” about the jurors. He was STRICTLY forbidden from making any public comments, in any form, regarding jurors. He has been alleged to have violated the gag order four times now, including today’s post on his social platform. My understanding is any fines the judge imposes for “contempt” of the court are limited to $1000 which Trump can pay by snatching just a few small donor donations out of his MAGA “piggy bank.” In other words, no biggee!

However, should the judge decide to set a real limit which would cause Trump to stop violating the order, like “next time you do this be prepared to be held in custody.” They wouldn’t have to put him in Rikers – I’m sure they have a cell with it’s own “commode” in the Manhattan County Jail where Trump could spend (at least) a couple weeks for stepping over the CLEAR boundary set by Judge Merchan. When I was teaching (6th graders) I discovered early on when you have a student challenge your authority you need to deal with it RIGHT NOW – or the conduct will spiral out of control.

To me, Trump is already at the point where he’s in that “spiraling out of control” phase that BULLIES go through. He’s gotten away with his reprehensible behavior since he was a child. It took a jury award of OVER $83 MILLION to get Trump to (with maybe one exception) stop defaming E Jean Carroll. Should he choose to continue, her lawyers will simply take him to court again. It appears the jury awarded enough to shut him up, however. What will it take for Judge Merchan to “shut him up?” Despite all the pundits who say you can’t put him in jail because of his Secret Service detail, to that I say “hogwash.”

I totally believe the solution to Trumps repeated challenges to these judges with his violations of the gag orders is for a judge to put him in jail. And, of course, the most important people to be protected from his wrath are the witnesses and the jury. Trump had already stepped “over the line” at least a couple times before he posted the nonsense about the selection of the jury. The judge SHOULD give him the (non consequential) fine for starters and the NEXT time he does it – and there WILL be a next time – give him a week or two in the “slammer” to think about whether or not he wants more time there – where he can nod off to sleep and it won’t be a headline.

The post in question originated from a Fox “news” host – you know, the cable network that specializes in LYING. They’ve already paid out close to 800 MILLION dollars for defaming the company which made SOME of the voting machines used in the 2020 election – claiming they were the result of – AND I’M NOT KIDDING – Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who’s been dead for years. They’re also facing a 2+ BILLION defamation lawsuit from the company which makes software for voting machines that I believe will be getting close to court time toward the end of this year. Apparently, Fox hasn’t gotten the message – but, I would recommend Trump not “repost” their conspiracy theories while he’s facing these trials.

The reason Fox (I believe it was Jesse Waters who made the original post – he’s the guy who took over for the shamed Tucker Carlson of “I love Russia” fame) is making up stuff about the jury selection is because they KNOW Trump is guilty of the charges against him. His only hope is to somehow get a MAGA faithful on the jury – with Trump’s defense counsel doing exactly what Mr. Waters was claiming the prosecution was doing (along with the judge) – pure projection which would bring a smile to Joseph Goebbels face – In an attempt to pull off what is referred to as “Jury Nullification.” It will only take one juror who refuses to consider the evidence to spoil the prosecution’s case.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Trump is “innocent until proven guilty.” Everyone deserves that “right” – even those in the MAGA world who are busy stripping as many “rights” from “we the people” as they can. Maybe the jury will listen to the evidence and conclude they don’t believe the TWO TIME impeached four time indicted so-called popular vote LOSING ex president is guilty. Who knows? But if Trump continues to violate the gag order – designed to protect the average citizens who will be on the jury from the “wrath of MAGA” (and, we all know what that means) – I believe he needs a “time out” in a jail cell. A couple weeks of using that stainless steel toilet in the corner of his cell might just get his attention. As with ALL bullies – you have to make them STOP or they will just get worse. That’s how you do it will sixth graders and apparently, Trump has never had anyone give him a firm NO in his life. That, to me, is what it will take to get him to “shut his mouth.” (And, leave his fingers off his phone)

Final Thought: I’ve pointed out here I’m almost finished reading “Prequel” by Rachel Maddow which, to me, is almost a must read. It SHOULD be part of the High School Curriculum for emerging adults – just so they know how precious our republic is and how vulnerable it is from bad actors within. The parallels between what is happening with the MAGA faithful and their relationship with Vladimir Putin and his desire for world domination to the Nazi’s of 1930’s Germany and the American Nazi’s who were appeasers (or supporters) of Hitler is sobering. As has happened many times over with world HISTORY we are seeing an example of the republican party attempting to make HISTORY repeat itself. Just stop and consider how almost unbelievable it is to have someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene being the major influencer in ANY American political party having a chance for electoral success in this nation! Yikes!!!

I kind of hope the MAGA car signs will read “Trump/Greene 2024.” Wouldn’t that explain America’s dilemma in a “nutshell?” (Pun intended!)

I haven’t been writing much lately, but I still spend much of each day thinking about the potential devastation facing America. And, as I study the “moves” of Vladimir Putin and I continue reading about American history I hold out hope “we the people” in sufficient numbers will BLOCK the so-called “MAGA” movement by an overwhelming vote this coming November. However, I don’t have a sense of certainty in something that SHOUD be “certain.” I’m seeing the moves of Putin to seem perilously similar to the rise of Adolf Hitler back in the 1930’s plus those in the “MAGA” movement, and, of course, in particular, Trump mirroring those in the “America First” movement (actual American Nazi’s) back in the lead up to WW II. It’s all actually SHOCKING!

I’m presently reading “Prequel” by Rachel Maddow which, to put it mildly, is an eye opening book. If you haven’t read it, I heartily recommend it. I’m about two thirds through the book (I just read a chapter or so at bed time) and the detail of the Nazi movement during the thirties in the United States is sobering, to say the least. Thousands of men, women, and children were radicalized into a pro-Hitler movement that pretty much spanned the nation in “cells” with an oversized element in New York. The goal of these American Nazi’s was to topple our democratic republic and turn America into a Nazi dictatorship. For those who, in today’s world, believe it “can’t happen here” I would recommend they would read this book.

In addition, as I was watching a YouTube video relating to the music I still continue to frustrate myself in learning I noticed a clip from PBS regarding “Nazi Town USA.” I clicked on the link (You can see it HERE) and, very similar to Ms.Maddow’s book this video was mind opening. I wrote a while back – after I had just started Maddow’s book -that I thought I had read a lot about American History at that time (1930’s) but, I was sorely mistaken. I knew Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford were, in essence, Nazi traitors. But, the depth of the Nazi reach into America went so much further. In fact, the video of “Nazi Town USA” was mind boggling. This ALL should have been part of American history studies since the end of WW II.

Here’s one of the things I couldn’t help but “ponder” even though there’s nothing in Maddow’s book, at least to this point (or in the video) to confirm my suspicions, but I couldn’t help but think many who were being brainwashed into the Nazi movement were the children of the adults marching in lock step with swastika armbands, carrying Nazi flags, and saluting their leaders with the “heil” salute. This “infection” of America reached well into the halls of Congress and was virtually ignored by the FBI (under J Edgar Hoover) because Hoover was so “anti-communist.” I point this out because those children would be in their eighties today and THEIR children would be, potentially, many of the adults in America who make up Trump’s so-called “MAGA base.”

Keeping in mind, as MY mind can’t stop pondering the possibilities, that Trump is a second generation GERMAN immigrant to this nation. Their is documentation of Fred Trump, Donald’s father, participating in rallies of the KKK back in the 1920’s. The KKK and the American Nazi’s were, in essence, “cut from the same cloth.” I have a hard time believing back when ten’s of thousands of American Nazi’s filled Madison Square Garden for a Nazi rally that Fred Trump wasn’t there – either in person or in spirit. It was a rally populated by German immigrants who were simpathetic to Hitler. There were American flags and German flags bearing huge swastikas as a backdrop to the stage.

I point this out because when you consider what Vladimir Putin is doing in his attempt to create division in America and draw what amounts to, from my viewpoint, Nazi sympathizers into the “Russian fold.” As I read more about the time leading up to WW II I see “characters” on today’s American scene who remind me of the “appeasers” to Hitler back in “the day.” (And, of course, Putin seems to be following Hitler’s “playbook” almost to a “T”) Members of Congress like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Ted Cruz of Texas, Matt Gaetz of Florida, and on and on – members of Congress who some have termed as the “Russian Wing” of our national legislature seem willing to sacrifice Ukraine to Putin, as if that’s all he’s after.

For example, the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson has been refusing to bring a Senate passed bill which provides aid to Ukraine (along with aid to Israel, Taiwan, and the Palestinian people in GAZA) to the House floor for a vote. Ms. Greene has threatened to call her “motion to vacate” up for a vote if Mr. Johnson allows the House to pass the aid for Ukraine – which would pass with a HUGE bipartisan majority if only it would be brought to the “floor” for a vote. Instead, the House schedule calls for votes regarding, and I’m not kidding, various acts related to “we the people’s” appliances – like kitchen and laundry appliances. I kid you not! If Ukraine ultimately falls to Russia it will be largely the result of Speaker Johnson’s failure to act.

So far, since the beginning of this Congress the ONLY things passed have been bills to keep the government running – which required bipartisan majorities to pass each time a government shutdown was “looming.” Former speaker Kevin McCarthy was “axed” because of his willingness to work with democrats to avoid, in one case, a government default and in the other “kicking the can down the road” to prevent a “shutdown.” The right wing members of the House would gladly cause a government default on the national debt because, well, as I’m trying to point out they are not friendly to our form of government and they’re out to destroy it. Again, they remind me of the Nazi sympathizers infecting America leading up to WW II.

Putin, for example, is spreading right wing propaganda designed to undermine America’s “open society” – pitting Americans against each other with the one side thinking it would be OK to side with Russia in it’s attempted land grab in Ukraine. Our “liberal media” seems incapable of accurately reporting on what Putin is “up to” and thier focus on Trump’s legal issues, to me, is what is allowing this MAGA disaster to spread to the point where Trump actually has the possibility to “Make America like Russia.” This “Make (fill in the blank) Great Again) mantra is nothing new – in fact, Hitler’s Germany was saying “Make Germany Great Again.” (Nothing Trump does or says is “original”)

The most sobering part in all of this, as I spend a lot of time thinking about America’s present dilemma, is that Trump’s base will still be there, for example, if he’s convicted of a series of FELONIES causing enough republicans to refuse to vote for him allowing President Biden a second term. As I study the history of this nation the willingness of so many Americans to profess what amounts to right wing Nazi propaganda causes me to believe the “battle” for the soul of this nation, as President Biden puts it, will go on long after the results of the November 2024 election.

To me, the heart of the problem is that so many Americans have no idea what transpired in the country leading up to WW II and I have to believe they don’t even realize they’re potentially supporting a fascist movement in America simply by voting for Trump. I know some people vote that way (republican) because, well, their parents voted that way. But, there are others who SHOULD know better who have pledged to vote for Trump, regardless of whether or not he’s convicted of one of the 88 FELONIES he’s presently been charged with. The latest, and I have to say from my perspective one of the most disappointing example, is the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sanunu. He said he will vote for Trump whether or not he’s convicted of a CRIME. Yikes!!! Another republican 180 degree “flip flop.”

Sanunu was a strong supporter of Trump’s final opponent – who’s still getting close to 20% of the republican primary votes even though she’s dropped out of the “race,” former South Caroina governor Nikki Haley. How Sanunu could go from supporting the “long shot” candidate who remained in the “race” to fealty to Trump is hard for me to understand. But, keep in mind, the republican party is the home of ALL the names I mentioned above as the “Russia wing” of Congress, plus people like (Moscow) Mitch McConnell and (whimpy) Lindsay Graham who clearly KNOW how BAD Trump is and the threat he poses to our republic yet they continue to “kiss the ring.” Honestly, it’s as embarrassing as it is disturbing to watch/listen to people like this because I know people all around the globe are listening/watching as well.

To our alliances this all must be both shocking and terrifying. For example, what if the U.S. dumped it’s connection to NATO for an alliance with Russia. To me, this would mean that what my father fought against in WW II will become a lost cause. In other words, I believe Trump represents a more serious danger to the experiment of American self rule than Hitler ever did. I have long understood that the threat to America continuing to evolve toward the ideals of our “living” constitution is real. Putin and Trump are using our openness against us. Their surrogates were/are FLOODING “Social Media” with propaganda which would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

Final Thought: Since I first started putting my thoughts to writing on this “blog” (I think a more accurate description would be “diary in cyberspace”) I’ve been pointing out what seems too obvious to me – LOSING “rights” is much easier than getting them back. In our society with a Congress designed to move slowly and protect the “rights” of the minority we’re seeing this “up close and personal.” Take for example the issue of “women’s health” – referred to by republicans as the “pro-life movement.” Well, I’ve come to believe it’s anything but “pro-life” over the years.

I say that as someone who thought he’d NEVER pay for an abortion until it dawned on me that I actually did back in the early 1970’s. My wife (at the time) was pregnant with what we thought would be our first child. After about 15 – 20 weeks she had a miscarriage and I rushed her to the hospital and the doctors performed what was, in essence, an abortion (This may have been shortly after the passage of Roe v Wade but, at the time, it was never a thought). Fast forward to today’s world post “Dobbs” (where the SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade) “we the people” are seeing one horror story after another of women in similar circumstances being denied similar HEALTH CARE until they’ve reached the point where their lives are in danger. This is happening in roughly half of American states.

I believe it will be years before the rights of women to “control their own bodies” is restored – as one example of how difficult it is to regain a lost “right.” Well, picture if Trump somehow manages to CHEAT his way back into the “White House” (And, trust me, the CHEATING is well under way as I’m writing this) and is successful at even some of the “retribution” he’s promising. He’s openly said he wants to do away with our constitution – which would be scary should he pull it off – but, even if he’s “only” successful in “knee capping” the federal agencies he dislikes the most (FBI, DOJ, Intelligence Community) turning them into personal assets – just try to picture the long, and possibly impossible, road back from that disastrous outcome.

Picture the U.S., Russia, and China in some kind of “accord” to “control the world” and you might see where this could go. (That “accord” very likely could include Iran, North Korea, Hungary, and Turkey – for starters) And, with a republican party which has openly (if not in secret) and COWARDLY joined forces with Trump and I hope you can see the IMMENSE possibilities. There will likely be more and more (disgusting) Americans doing what Chris Sanunu did this past weekend and that’s putting their self interest in front of our countries’ self interest.

As I said earlier, the CHEATING is well under way. I end this by giving one example. If, for some reason, you’re planning to vote for JFK Jr. as a protest vote because you don’t like that President Biden is 81 years old you are, in essence, voting for Trump. Remember, one of Trump’s major donors is the largest donor to JFK Jr.’s campaign and one of JFK Jr.’s spokespersons just recently said “the quiet part out loud.” Their (The JFK Jr.’s campaign) goal is to defeat President Biden. If you’re a young voter remember, it will be either President Biden or Trump who will win the next election and you have the MOST to lose if somehow Trump regains the “White House.” The solution to what threatens us is VOTING and if you value this republic that means voting for President Biden even if you don’t care for him simply because he’s so old. (And OBTW JFK Jr. is 70)

The other day I watched one of the lowest American politicians I can think of, John Bolton, being interviewed on MSNBC and he reminded me of why he so turns me off. After pointing out all the DANGERS Trump represents to America should he somehow CHEAT his way back into the “White House” he said he would vote for “neither Biden nor Trump.” That is what boggles my mind about some of these republicans who CLEARLY understand the threat Trump poses. I’m sure Bolton, like most republicans, disagrees with Biden’s “Build Back Better” philosophy – despite the resounding economic successes since Biden took office – but, as I just said – if you’re going to vote for a third party candidate in 2024 you’re falling into Trump’s trap. That’s how Trump “won” in 2016 (Jill Stein) and that’s how he’s planning to “win” in 2024 (RFK Jr.).

White Rural Rage: The Secret Political Force Shaping America’s Future

by thomhartmann

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Rural white voters have, in many cases, far more political power than suburban or urban voters, and they’re using that outsized power to push our nation toward disaster. While they’re only 20 percent of the country, for example, because of gerrymandering they control fully 42 percent of seats in the House of Representatives.

The authors of new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy point out that rural whites are measurably more bigoted and xenophobic than suburban or urban voters, 13 points more likely to hate on queer people, 15 points more likely to support Trump’s Muslim ban.

They’re also far more likely to agree that setting democracy aside for a strongman like Trump or another Putin wannabee will “fix the mess and drain the swamp.” And fully 74% of the members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election represented rural districts.

The majority of rural white voters disagree with the statement (or have no opinion) that “diversity makes America stronger.” And while only 22 percent of city dwellers believe Trump won the 2020 election and Biden and Democrats “stole” it, a mind-boggling 47 percent of rural whites are certain Biden is illegitimately occupying the White House.

The astonishing paradox, though, is how Republican politicians regularly crap on their own voters in rural America. Instead of offering help or solutions to rural problems, the GOP and conservative media instead feed them a steady diet of xenophobic and racist fear and hate.

And they eat it up! The racist buffoons among them are one and a half times more likely to be QAnon followers than people who live in cities or suburbs.

Democrats created — and Republicans opposed — virtually all the programs that are keeping rural America from sinking even farther into poverty and despair. Social Security, unemployment insurance, SS Disability, Medicare, Medicaid, over 60 farm subsidy programs that funnel billions in taxpayer dollars into rural communities, food stamps, the Women and Infant Children (WIC) program, anti-addiction programs, etc.

The only real accomplishment of the Trump presidency was passing a massive $2 trillion dollar tax cut for the morbidly rich that had virtually no effect on rural voters. Nonetheless, 71 percent of rural voters cast a ballot for Trump in 2020.

There are still 11 mostly rural states where hospitals are closing and people are dying younger than necessary because Republicans in those states have refused to expand Medicaid.

Republicans in Congress fought against legislation to expand rural broadband access. They constantly try to cut or gut rural health and nutrition programs, and fought against expanding Obamacare in a way that would help rural people.

Most of the Red State Republican politicians in America know their seats will never be in danger, so they take millions from special interest groups to write loopholes into the tax code, vote for larger fossil fuel subsidies, and vote against efforts to lower prescription drug prices or do anything about global warming.

They get rich while the people who put them into office struggle to get by. Ted Cruz escapes to Cancun with the $600,000+ in cash he just got for his podcast, laughing at Texas voters all the way. JD Vance, a multimillionaire Wall Street guy, lives in an elite townhouse and travels by first class while people in Ohio watch Republican politicians gut their public schools and try to outlaw abortion and birth control.

Republican members of Congress representing rural states went all the way to the Supreme Court to successfully block President Biden’s first attempt at reducing student debt while rural students carry 60% more student debt than urban students by age 25.

One of the most chilling quotes from the book is about how rural voters are willing to both abandon democracy and embrace a violent rightwing coup:

“[R]ural Americans are more likely to believe that ‘it may be necessary at some point soon for citizens to take up arms against the government.’ Indeed, more than one out of four rural residents agree that Trump should be returned to office by force if necessary.”

White rural voters are more likely than any other demographic group — Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans — to be willing to overturn our democracy, and the people who represent them are in the majority of legislators who voted to overturn the 2020 election the day after the January 6th attack on our capitol.

If, say, Black people held that view, rightwing media would be trumpeting it every day from coast to coast. But because it’s rural white people, the so-called “heartland Americans,” it gets largely ignored by American media.

After all, most mainstream outlets treat rural people as if they’re an exotic species who must be listened to: going to rural diners to interview people is so common it’s become a cliché. In the past month I’ve seen dozens of such interviews played on MSNBC and CNN, but not once have I seen those same reporters go into a city and ask why people are voting for Biden.

The Biden administration has done more for rural America than any president since Lyndon Johnson rolled out Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. Biden’s American Rescue Plan provided specific tax breaks and credits targeted at rural poverty, subsidized mortgage payments, and provided rent assistance to tens of thousands of rural residents:

— Rural Americans are nine times more likely to lack access to affordable child care, so Biden’s program allocated $39 billion for subsidies for child care providers, with the money disproportionately going to rural communities. There was also $350 billion specifically allocated for small towns in rural areas to help them run basic government functions and upgrade their infrastructure. He even put up $198 million in funding for rural colleges and universities.

— Biden and Democrats delivered a 15% increase in SNAP (food stamp) benefits that have a huge impact in rural areas, reaching “2.9 million people in rural areas, including 800,000 children, reducing rural poverty by 11 percent and rural child poverty by 20 percent.” Biden’s USDA, over Republican objections, also put a billion dollars into rural food banks.

— Biden and Democrats “invested a historic $3 billion in the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) Economic Development Administration (EDA) to build local [rural] economies that are resilient to future economic shocks, including a $300 million Coal Communities Commitment.”

— Biden and Democrats — over GOP objections — expanded hunting and fishing opportunities on 2.1 million acres of public lands, the largest such expansion in U.S. history, and provided $1.5 billion in annual funding for wildlife and habitat conservation efforts. Another $2 billion went “for funding communities in the Rural Partners Network to spur job creation and build infrastructure.”

— They put $5 billion in “investments to help rural areas update infrastructure, boost high-speed internet access, and aid agricultural producers and small businesses in implementing climate-focused practices” and “$1.7 billion in funding to assist farmers, ranchers and foresters in adopting techniques to adapt to the changing climate, such as cover crops, nutrient management, and carbon storage.”

And that’s just the beginning: for a full list of the ways the Biden administration, over the objection of Republicans in Congress, has helped rural people click here.

Not one single Republican in either the House or the Senate voted for any of the things listed above: in fact, almost all voted against these helps to rural America.

Instead of concerning themselves with the well-being of rural people, they’re trying to block clean air standards that prevent rural communities from being poisoned, block clean water standards in rivers that supply water to rural communities, cut taxes on billionaires, and increase subsidies to the fossil fuel and banking industries.

All while taking huge campaign contributions, private jet rides, taxpayer funded junkets overseas, and the promise of million-dollar-a-year jobs when they leave Congress if only they vote the right way.

Because Republican politicians are more interested in feathering their own nests than helping out the people they were elected to represent, rural Red states are massively subsidized by urban Blue states just to keep their heads above water. As the Associated Press recently reported:

“Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.

“Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.”

It’s undeniably true (and documented with each hotlink below) that Republican-controlled “Red” states, almost across the board, have higher rates of:

— Spousal abuse
— Obesity
— Smoking
— Teen pregnancy
— Sexually transmitted diseases
— Abortion (at least before Dobbs; now it would be “forced births”)
— Bankruptcies and poverty
— Homicide and suicide
— Infant mortality
— Maternal mortality
— Forcible rape
— Robbery and aggravated assault
— Dropouts from high school
— Divorce
— Contaminated air and water
— Opiate addiction and deaths
— Unskilled workers
— Parasitic infections
— Income and wealth inequality
— Covid deaths and unvaccinated people
— Federal subsidies to states (“Red State Welfare”)
— People on welfare
— Child poverty
— Homelessness
— Spousal murder
— Unemployment
— Deaths from auto accidents
— People living on disability
— Gun deaths

So, why do Red state voters tolerate being conned and ripped off by their own elected representatives? Are they just stupid?

One theory is that “they hate the same people we hate.” And, indeed, for a significant and measurable cohort of rural white voters, racial fear and hatred is a primary motivating factor in their embrace of the GOP, although that’s only, according to this new book, about 20% of rural people.

Others vote Republican because the party has been so effective at branding itself with county fairs, NASCAR, country music, and the overall rural lifestyle including a faux paean to rugged individuality and independence.

Having over 1500 radio stations daily broadcasting a rightwing Republican message to literally every nook and cranny of rural America is another large factor. As is the dominance of Australian billionaire Lachlan Murdoch’s Fox “News.”

Will rural voters ever wake up to how badly they’re being screwed now and have been screwed by Republicans ever since Reagan started the whole neoliberal austerity and free trade movement that shipped over 60,000 factories and 20 million jobs overseas?

Or is the GOP’s cynical manipulation of religion, gender, and race enough to keep them voting to hurt themselves and further enrich Republican fat-cats?

So far, all indications seem like that’s the case and will stay that way for at least the next election cycle.

While the media struggles with trying to “understand” the rural white voter every election cycle, instead they should be running stories on how the very real problems and crises of rural America are daily made worse by Republicans in Congress and at the helm of their Red States.

How to break through?

Democrats need to get smart and start using the “negative partisanship” strategies Rachel Bitecofer recommends in her new book Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game. They can do this by pointing out, with ad buys and media appearances, just how bad Red state Republicans politicians have been for rural people and their communities.

And they need to do it soon. As the authors of White Rural Rage point out:

“By 2040, 70% of Americans will reside in the 15 most populous states and choose 30 of the 100 US senators. Concentrated in smaller and more rural states, the remaining 30% of the population will elect 70 senators. No matter how distorted these population ratios become, each state is guaranteed its two senators — past, present, and forever.”

Our mainstream media have made it clear, for over 40 years, that they won’t expose the damage Republicans are doing to rural areas because their TV programs will fail if Republican politicians boycott them.

So, the job falls to us and the Democrats. Can we do it? I believe so; we just need to get started.

Pass it along…

Today, as I’m writing this is Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate as the day Jesus was hung from a cross. I, as usual, went to the Good Friday service at the church I attend on a regular basis. It was a powerful service and I spent a good amount of the time in deep thought regarding my history of attempting to point out what a disgusting person Donald Trump is and questioning why so many Christians make up his so-called base. I have to look inward at my own beliefs as I seem to be so obsessed with wanting to make sure Trump, in the words of Liz Cheney, never gets close to the “Oval Office” ever again.

My previous post was motivated by my disgust as I watched Trump being Trump – which is always dishonest, and this part of his schtick was him – on a (un)Truth Social video hawking bibles. It was the “God Bless The U.S.A.” Bible – “The only Bible recommended by Trump.” He said, “I have many Bibles in my home” – undoubtedly another in his LONG line of LIES he spews to his minions. I find myself unable to “love my neighbor” if that means it could be Trump. To me, based on my searches (which I gave some examples of in my previous post), Trump is no Christian. But, then I thought, what if?????

I mean, Trump, himself, has clearly said he NEVER admits to doing anything wrong. He calls EVERY phone call which has either got him IMPEACHED or INDICTED (Georgia) “a perfect phone call.” When he was asked if he felt any responsibility to all the people DYING from COVID 19 due to his ineptitude, he responded “no, I don’t.” He’s facing FOUR indictments with (now) 88 FELONY charges and, in each case – contrary to what is public evidence already – he says, “I did nothing wrong.” He’s denied he ever knew E. Jean Carroll, despite EVIDENCE to the contrary, and couldn’t stop DEFAMING her until a unanimous jury decided he owed Ms. Carroll OVER $83 MILLION in a judgement. He was found to have sexually assaulted her aside from the defamation. To me, not the actions of a Christian. But, what if????

As he was hawking the Bibles on his (un)Truth Social website he made all kinds of claims about his belief in “God.” Of course, the claims rang TOTALLY hollow to me – leading to my previous posts. But, let’s just, for example, take a look at the Ten Commandments to get a more complete picture of what I’m getting at in this posting. And, keep in mind, there’s no one who’s capable of living up to the “law” as it was written in the time of Moses. That’s exactly why Jesus appeared and ultimately was crucified on the cross for all of us SINNERS who just can’t manage to live perfect lives. But, there’s one thing those of us who are Christians have done which I’m confident is near impossible for Trump. However, what if?????

How about the first Commandment, “Thou shall have no other Gods before me.” I can’t help but think of that one when Trump suggests he’s the modern example of Jesus – because, in effect, he’s suggesting (apparently) due to ALL the CRIMINAL indictments that he’s being “crucified.” I always think he can’t make me more disgusted, and then, well, he does – every time. Violating that commandment would make it difficult for me to believe Trump is actually a “Christian” by itself. But, what if????

Remembering the Sabath day to keep it “holy” does not mean that’s the day for playing golf. (full disclosure – I’m not so good on this one myself, but I digress) As I pointed out in my previous post, when I did a bit of searching, I could find no example of Trump even getting near a “house of worship” on the Sabath. I know many Christians who don’t go to church, but they’ve all done one thing I can’t picture Trump doing. But, what if????

Thou shall NOT commit adultery. I’m listing the commandments I can easily remember here – and, this one is easy to point out Trump has a huge problem with. For heaven’ s sake (pun intended) the FIRST of Trump’s FOUR criminal trials has to do with at least TWO instances of Trump committing adultery – one with a Playboy model and the other with a “porn star.” These alleged adulterous affairs happened while his present wife was either pregnant with Trump’s final son or shortly after his birth. Plus, his failed marriages were the result of alduterous relationships – at least in part.

I’m not squeaky clean (based on my early years) in regard to my relationships with women but, there’s a huge difference between me and Trump. (And, I point out my own issues, which seem minute to me in comparison to Trump, but I believe God doesn’t differentiate) It says in the Bible “don’t look at the spec in the other person’s eye until you take care of the log in your own.” But, I just can’t help myself. Once again, I say, what if????

Along these lines Trump was caught on Tape BRAGGING about being a sexual predator and, his BRAGGING was followed by something like 25 women coming forward claiming Trump sexually abused them. Of course, Trump denied everything and accused every one of these women of LYING. This was during his first run for the “White House” and, in the one case where he was taken to court over his denials he was found by, as I said earlier, a unanimous jury to not only have defamed Ms. Carroll but to have, in the words of the judge, to have “raped her.” (What about all the others?) That makes it hard for me to believe Trump is a “Christian.” But, as I’ve been saying, what if????

How about this commandment: “Thou Shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” In every day language that means DON’T LIE. Well, during Trump’s four years as our TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING four times indicted (ex) president he was credibly found to have committed over 30,000 LIES! Whenever I can stomach listening to him in a public venue it doesn’t take long before his constant LYING makes me a bit sick to my stomach as I have to wonder why Christians would allow someone to LIE to their faces and still support him. Obviously, the pathological LYING makes it difficult for me to consider him a “Christian.” But, what if????

There’s another commandment which states “Thou shall not covet…..” (actually, there’s – I believe – maybe three commandments regarding “don’t be covetous.” (Don’t covet you “neighbor’s” wife, his house, or – in essence – your neighbor’s “stuff.”) As I watch/listen to Trump basically idolizing, for example, Vladimir Putin as he commit’s murder and war crimes I have a hard time bringing myself to believe Trump to be a Christian. (Actually, well before his “White House” years I heard him on the radio being covetous about his own daughter! Eewwwe! But, you’re correct, what if????

The final commandment I’ll include in this rant says, “Don’t steal.” Of course, one of Trump’s CRIMINAL trials (well, now that I think of it, you could say two of them) is the result of him STEALING sensitive government documents, then LYING about it to federal authorities, and even LYING to his own attorneys in an attempt to hide some of the documents from the FBI. (And, I actually believe he succeeded in that with documents we may never know where they ended up) The other thing I thought of was his impending trial regarding January 6th, 2021 is due to him attempting to STEAL the 2020 election. Neither of these examples would be the work of someone considering themselves a “Christian.” But, what if???

People who do “stuff” like Trump, or support people who do “stuff” like Trump, meaning MAGA minions, don’t seem to me to be actual “Christians.” It is, based on my small amount of research, a really bad “witness” in regard to how others view “Christians.” (This reminds me of a story I heard about Nick Saban, the longtime football coach at the University of Alabama when he chided some of his players for actively “taking a knee for God” during their games’ warmups during the day and then, that night, going out drinking and chasing women)

In fact, my own mother was unable to consider Christianity because she was convinced she would have to become a republican. She passed away long before Trump was on the political scene, but I know many other people who are turned off to Christianity based on their viewing the actions of those of us who proclaim to be Christians. I can’t tell you how many people I know from my own church (I’m in the old person category) who say “my son/daughter/children is/are not “walking with the Lord.”

I try to tell them there’s a good reason why – but, the conversation never goes much further because they don’t want to hear what they know I’m going to say. But, the fact I consider Trump the epitome of a pagan (and many of these church members are part of his cult), there is one aspect of Christianity that I’ve learned from speakers who are devout Christians which they express frustrations with. It’s as if they don’t want to believe some of the realities of the “Teachings of Jesus.”

I’ll give a quick example: I once listened to a speaker who was the head of a large Christian organization who’s father-in-law was constantly criticizing both him and his wife – this person’s daughter – for their devout Christian beliefs. This went on for years. Then, about three days before this man died he changed his tune, asked for forgiveness, and expressed repentance for his life of sin. In the eyes of Jesus, just like the criminal on the cross next to him who did the same, AND the eyes of Christians, this man was “saved” – a couple days prior to his death. According to his son-in-law, at the time, it didn’t seem “fair.” It seemed as if he got away with creating a lot of grief for the family of the speaker while ultimately “going to heaven.” Well, what if????

Of course, I’m referencing Trump here, every time I say “what if????” While I don’t believe it’s happened and I don’t believe it’s going to happen – and, I SHOULD be praying for it to happen – I can’t bring myself to believe Trump has repented nor will he. But, based on my reading of the Bible – I’ve read it through twice along with parts of it many times (my wife says I SHOULD read it more regularly) if Trump were to somehow bring himself to repent, ask for forgiveness, and commit to living according to the teachings of Jesus, he WOULD be forgiven and destined for heaven. Instead of hawking Bibles, he would need to be reading one. I don’t see that happening and I’m not sure how I’d react if it did. (I would have to see the change in conduct before I could believe it had happened – and, sadly, I don’t think I would be able to forgive him)

If Trump actually committed his life to Jesus would I consider that a cause for celebration? I honestly can’t say I would be able to respond that way, but it actually would be a cause for celebration. We would see it in his behavior. However, I wouldn’t be one to excuse his previous behavior, should he actually become a “believer” but, if his future behavior indicated he had actually admitted to his life of SIN and started living a life progressively getting closer to Jesus’ teachings that would be, in my view, an actual MIRACLE we could all see. But, I have to say once more, I don’t believe that will happen. In my view, Trump is incapable of publicly admitting he’s ever done ANYTHING wrong.

I say, regarding his present campaign to get back behind the resolute desk in the “Oval Office,” God help us. And, this Easter weekend my prayer is that those sucked into Trump’s CULT would come to their senses and realize they’re following what amounts to – in Ten Commandments “lingo” – a “graven image.” The dichotomy for me is, I know I’m not supposed to “judge” but, when it comes to Trump I can’t seem to help myself. And, it seems almost impossible for me to stop wishing to see him behind bars. The reality, for me – as it says in the Bible and I said earlier – “stop worrying about the spec in the other person’s eye until you take care of the log in your own.” I’m going to work on my own conduct, but, I thought it would be worthwhile to think about “what if” Trump actually fully accepted Christ? Stay tuned………..

I have to add: Trump’s followers who claim to be all about Christ while they’re packing an AR-15 and making threats to FBI officials, Judges, and members of Congress with whom they disagree come across as totally disingenuous tp me. “Chrsitians” ???

Final Thought: What motivated this post and MY previous one (I put one of Thom Hartman’s in between the two) was watching Trump hawking a Bible on his Social Media platform – during “Holy week.” So, it has taken me a few days to post this (Easter was last Sunday) and, as always seems to be the case, the “stuff” just keeps happening. And, this time, the news today regards the Israeli’s using “precision munitions” to take out three vehicles of aid workers in GAZA from “World Central Kitchen” (I just sent money to them last week) killing SEVEN aid workers. This debacle just keeps getting worse and worse and it’s high tide President Biden make a public stand against Bibi Netanyahu – a WAR CRIMINAL similar to Vladimir Putin.

As I was taking in the info regarding this attack on these aid workers I saw the statistics where the number of AID workers killed in GAZA is nearing 200 with something like 175 coming from the United Nations. I started writing before Israel had actually physically entered GAZA that Netanyahu would keep this “war” going indefinitely because he knows the day after it ends he will be out of office and forced to face his OWN corruption charges. Netanyahu will NEVER be a supporter of President Biden and Biden seems to be a bit slow to figure this out. (And, I’m a strong Biden supporter) Well, he’d BETTER figure it out and act decisively sooner rather than later as the slaughter of Palestinians MUST stop.

Not only do “we the people” have a responsibility to help make the slaughter STOP, but we will then be required to help rebuild GAZA which the Israeli’s have turned into a pile of shattered concrete. To me, this is a moral IMPERATIVE and Biden is helping to re-elect Trump by giving a policy of mixed messages while civilians are DYING by the THOUSANDS – mostly women and children. And, here’s something I believe with all my heart. Israel will NOT “extinguish” HAMAS – there are likely to be MORE members of HAMAS when the “smoke clears” than when this all started.

One more Thing: Now, Israel has attacked the Iranian Embassy in Syria – killing a few Iranian leaders – with more precision weapons coming from the U.S. Here’s the thing, while I “get” why the Israeli’s want to go after Iran, Embassies are universally considered “off limits.” It will be interesting to see if the only support Israel gets from this action continues to be from the U.S. Here we go! Stay tuned………..