Jared Bernstein, Garry Kasparov, and Dr. Julie Sweetland break down and parse the threats of economic negligence, rising new oligarchs, and the bloated disinformation we're facing today
My friend is an administrator for six hospitals and said the Drs are freaking out without access to NIH and CDC. They refer to them daily for case study and mysterious issues they need further discussion on. It is a life and death situation but these monsters have no empathy and people are nothing. That is their true nature. Evil.
Please have more written work and less videos, or if you insist on videos, the provide a transcript. I'm a very fast reader and it makes my head explode to listen to a 30 minute video that I could read a transcript of in 5 minutes at most. I value Jennifer's opinion on things, but only in written form. I really miss her post in the morning both at WaPo and here. That was always a must read. I'll give the Contrarian another month and then evaluate if 1 post a day from Jen is worth my money.
I agree 100 percent! I subscribed because this was where I could read her work. This has become the opposite of what Mae West said, "Too much of a god thing is wonderful." Contrarian has come to be too many emails, too many podcasts, too many interviews. Simply and focus.
Yes. Thank you for posting. You speak for me as well. I'm pretty smart...maybe it's ADHD??? One size does not fit all. Isn't that implicit in a democracy?
What are the ways those who oppose Trump can start making as much NOISE (publicly) to at least try to drown out the constant NOISE coming from Trump and his MAGA republicans?
Is there a way to find out which Rublican congressmen/women are NOT in support of what the Trump administration is doing? It's clearly not enough to just rely on the Democrats.
I have a Rep. Congressman for my district ( when Boebert carpetbagged away). I call his office. I emailed the two Republican senators who did not vote Hegseth and thanked them. I call my Dem. senators to thank them. I always identify myself as a registered Independent, a retired RN, MPH and US Army Reserves medical officer. I read an article today in the WaPo that R Senator Bill Cassidy (who is an MD) was instrumental in getting Hep B vaccines for newborns and is on the committee vetting RFK Jr., so I wrote to him. All you have to do is google a rep's name to get contact info.
I salute your activism Ilene . Legislators are our first responders and needed to know from us when they are doing the job for we the people as well as when they are not. We have to encourage each of them to speak up,loud, trustfully and repeatedly. I also salute your military service 👏
That's why for weeks, mostly after November 5th I've been advocating through my posting at Letters from an American, published by the admirable Heather Cox Richardson, to put pressure on our legislators mostly to contain this avalanche of cruel and authoritarian orders and explain trustfully the consequences of their implementation. I think we should consider friendly and honest legislators as allies and not our employees even if we pay their salaries. Some if not most are employees of corporations and groups of interest that maintain control over them with contributions and others ways. Thanks for your reply Ilene.
Adam Kinzinger was on an interview here on Contrarian the other day and I started following him because, though I’m a registered Dem, he’s a Republican with a spine right now who is calling Trump out for things and is advocating for everyone to come together to advocate for democracy. I respect that and we need more of that from Republicans, Democrats, and just everyone regardless of affiliation.
Peaceful protest or civil disobedience. This is tricky because the press will fixate on crazy radicals like me, who say things like "All corporations are bad because they are legally defined as psychopaths who only care about themselves and getting richer."
Thank you for the Contrarian and of course I have questions I hope you can help answer. Yes I know this is a lot!
Re: stopping grants PO which has now been rescinded. I believe it will come back with tighter wording and a razor focus.
- What are the legal steps to stop such a thing? Who has standing? Who sued or did something to get the judge to pause the dicta.
- who would be responsible for such a dicta, the person who wrote it out someone else?
- I've read, is it true, that the meta-data on this and other POs shows that it was drafted outside of the whitehouse, by herratige or someone.
Re: Transgender POs
- what grounds does the president have to issue a PO on this topic? I can see he can say something like "Title 1 grants will be blocked for schools that don't comply (or some such) but all care for gender confirmation treatments for all?
- again who has standing to push back and how would that be done?
Re: firing the IGs.
- Who has standing, how do they proceed? Can anyone else push a response. This horrible action seems to have gone silent in the news.
Re: Buyout offer
- we know Trump lies. We know the current budget doesn't go past March. Is there reason to think this offer is even going to stand?
- Editorializing on the non-inquisitive, much less non-critical framing of the headlines in NYT and WaPo on this. They act like it can really happen and I don't think it can, but what do I know?
A warm welcome in particular to former Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, recently placed on a list of "terrorists and extremists" the Putin regime reserves for those who dare tell the truth about it.
I'm appreciating the Contrarian very much, but would respectfully request, given what is currently happening in so many cities in our country, that you choose a name for this email other than "roundup."
Oh, while I'm here, about my avatar.... Being an "old fogey" (I used to be able to prove that I was online before there was a World Wide Web - but the key search term I needed for that proof became the name of a couple of retailers.....), I prefer not to have photos of myself online - I like my privacy. So instead of a photo, I'm using the yellow and blue "K" flag from the International Code of Signals. When displayed on its own, it means "I wish to communicate with you".
The little squiggle was added this year - it's the symbol for a resistor. Its purpose is to remind me to resist Trumpism whenever and wherever I can, and to let others know that I'm doing so. Sometimes, a little symbolic show of resistance can lead to bigger things. The movements have to start somewhere.
It is no coincidence that they are going after community service organizations. These organizations don't have the funds to defend themselves. No big ag. No big pharma. No big business attacks. Just the little guys on the ground doing the day in and day out work of keeping communities safe. Also, remember who was a community organizer? Revenge is his game.
Excellent interview with Julie Sweetland with regards to disinformation. The scientific method is not being taught in public school education. It should begin in the middle school science curriculum and continue throughout high school. Teaching it in every science class throughout middle school and high school would go a long way in making Americans more scientifically literate. Having a higher degree of scientific knowledge makes one less susceptible to misinformation and especially disinformation.
I agree. I was, at one time, the director of a small research papers office at the University of Chicago, in a social sciences area. I had one assistant whose task was at times to help by doing a bit of proofreading. These were grad students who earned some money by doing this as part-time work. Both of the people there while I had the job told me they didn't understand some science references because they had liberal arts backgrounds that didn't include anything more than a very 'general' course in science. This was in the late 70s, so the lack of a better background in science has an unfortunately long history. (And these were young people who had gone to 'good' schools, private schools and colleges, not kids from rural or inner city backgrounds.) They had gotten clear to graduate school without understanding basic science terms and concepts.
Here is what we need. Shock and awe. And you need to respond. You need to say, “Good idea” “Bad Idea”...something - anything. Because we are getting weary of the daily gloom and doom reports.
Idea.
Think Million Man March minus the marching part.
How about organizing a disrupter for the White House. And Congress... here is the White House switch board number. 202-456-1414
I don’t have one for Congress..assuming they have a central switch board. We need about 10 million people to start calling at noon and continue calling for days.
Just jam the lines.
Also need a catch phrase. STOP THE MADNESS? Just a suggestion.
Any ideas?
This requires a coordinated effort. Random calling and writing does not have the same impart.
Thats why we need Robert Reich, The Contrarian, etc.
Thousands of people doing a peaceful protest. No name calling. No confrontation. Just a coordinated effort to jam their phones.
One mantra, Stop The Madness.
Getting day in and day out doom and gloom reports are not helping. You are preaching to the choir. We know they are assholes and idiots.
Help us do a peaceful demonstration.
This Friday, starting at noon, we start calling the White House. We leave a message. “Stop the Madness”.
The East coast starts first, then...then they stop at 1PM. Then it is noon in the Midwest...etc.
We jam their switch board for 8 hours. Calls cascading all day from the east coast to the west.
A million man march. Stop the madness. I repeat, a peaceful protest. No name calling. No confrontation. No profanity. Just a coordinated effort to jam their phones.
Great post, but you have to remember that there are new people finding The Contrarian all the time, or at least sniffing at it, and they don't yet know about the assholes and the idiots. There's a whole lot of teaching and convincing to be done.
At the same time, I really like your idea about calling the White House from coast to coast. I may well do that!
As these existential crises “flow in” with the associated chaos they create, it’s comforting to know I can read all about them here. I do suffer from existentialitis.
I do not believe Trump ever read any of the executive orders he signed. Does anybody agree with me. The man has a read a book in his whole life let alone over 300 executive orders.
Jen, I truly relish the content, especially the expert interviews, but where's the merch? I think many of us would like to spread the word to strangers with T shirts and caps. It's difficult enough to talk everyone I know into subscribing! ;-D
I reposted the article on oligarchs and it was subsequently taken down by Facebook as SPAM. Tried again and they left it on for now. Just thought you should know.
My friend is an administrator for six hospitals and said the Drs are freaking out without access to NIH and CDC. They refer to them daily for case study and mysterious issues they need further discussion on. It is a life and death situation but these monsters have no empathy and people are nothing. That is their true nature. Evil.
Wonder who they voted for? Hmmmm
Like everything else, it probably depends on where they live, how old they are and who their parents are and what the parents believe.
Please have more written work and less videos, or if you insist on videos, the provide a transcript. I'm a very fast reader and it makes my head explode to listen to a 30 minute video that I could read a transcript of in 5 minutes at most. I value Jennifer's opinion on things, but only in written form. I really miss her post in the morning both at WaPo and here. That was always a must read. I'll give the Contrarian another month and then evaluate if 1 post a day from Jen is worth my money.
I agree 100 percent! I subscribed because this was where I could read her work. This has become the opposite of what Mae West said, "Too much of a god thing is wonderful." Contrarian has come to be too many emails, too many podcasts, too many interviews. Simply and focus.
It's hard to please everyone. I like to listen while I am doing something else.
Yes. Thank you for posting. You speak for me as well. I'm pretty smart...maybe it's ADHD??? One size does not fit all. Isn't that implicit in a democracy?
SAME HERE!
You are the enviable exception. If the Contrarian eliminated all their formats, they would lose, not gain.
What are the ways those who oppose Trump can start making as much NOISE (publicly) to at least try to drown out the constant NOISE coming from Trump and his MAGA republicans?
Is there a way to find out which Rublican congressmen/women are NOT in support of what the Trump administration is doing? It's clearly not enough to just rely on the Democrats.
I have a Rep. Congressman for my district ( when Boebert carpetbagged away). I call his office. I emailed the two Republican senators who did not vote Hegseth and thanked them. I call my Dem. senators to thank them. I always identify myself as a registered Independent, a retired RN, MPH and US Army Reserves medical officer. I read an article today in the WaPo that R Senator Bill Cassidy (who is an MD) was instrumental in getting Hep B vaccines for newborns and is on the committee vetting RFK Jr., so I wrote to him. All you have to do is google a rep's name to get contact info.
I salute your activism Ilene . Legislators are our first responders and needed to know from us when they are doing the job for we the people as well as when they are not. We have to encourage each of them to speak up,loud, trustfully and repeatedly. I also salute your military service 👏
Thank you. The legislators are our employees. All of them. As an Independent, they have to earn my vote, and how will they know what matters?
That's why for weeks, mostly after November 5th I've been advocating through my posting at Letters from an American, published by the admirable Heather Cox Richardson, to put pressure on our legislators mostly to contain this avalanche of cruel and authoritarian orders and explain trustfully the consequences of their implementation. I think we should consider friendly and honest legislators as allies and not our employees even if we pay their salaries. Some if not most are employees of corporations and groups of interest that maintain control over them with contributions and others ways. Thanks for your reply Ilene.
Adam Kinzinger was on an interview here on Contrarian the other day and I started following him because, though I’m a registered Dem, he’s a Republican with a spine right now who is calling Trump out for things and is advocating for everyone to come together to advocate for democracy. I respect that and we need more of that from Republicans, Democrats, and just everyone regardless of affiliation.
Peaceful protest or civil disobedience. This is tricky because the press will fixate on crazy radicals like me, who say things like "All corporations are bad because they are legally defined as psychopaths who only care about themselves and getting richer."
Thank you for the Contrarian and of course I have questions I hope you can help answer. Yes I know this is a lot!
Re: stopping grants PO which has now been rescinded. I believe it will come back with tighter wording and a razor focus.
- What are the legal steps to stop such a thing? Who has standing? Who sued or did something to get the judge to pause the dicta.
- who would be responsible for such a dicta, the person who wrote it out someone else?
- I've read, is it true, that the meta-data on this and other POs shows that it was drafted outside of the whitehouse, by herratige or someone.
Re: Transgender POs
- what grounds does the president have to issue a PO on this topic? I can see he can say something like "Title 1 grants will be blocked for schools that don't comply (or some such) but all care for gender confirmation treatments for all?
- again who has standing to push back and how would that be done?
Re: firing the IGs.
- Who has standing, how do they proceed? Can anyone else push a response. This horrible action seems to have gone silent in the news.
Re: Buyout offer
- we know Trump lies. We know the current budget doesn't go past March. Is there reason to think this offer is even going to stand?
- Editorializing on the non-inquisitive, much less non-critical framing of the headlines in NYT and WaPo on this. They act like it can really happen and I don't think it can, but what do I know?
Re: Democratic response to this shit show:
Where are the dems? Other than Schumer I haven't heard much. Can you do an interview with Harris? Adam K has a wonderful post on this: https://substack.com/@adamkinzinger/note/c-89394746?r=1zd7r0
Enquiring minds and all that - thank you for all you do!
A warm welcome in particular to former Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, recently placed on a list of "terrorists and extremists" the Putin regime reserves for those who dare tell the truth about it.
I'm appreciating the Contrarian very much, but would respectfully request, given what is currently happening in so many cities in our country, that you choose a name for this email other than "roundup."
The Daily Resistance? [accompanied by the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth]...
How about Sense and Sensibility? Both seem rare these days.
Those two are not rare Professor, they are following the fate of the dinosaurs.
I like that too.
👍👍
Oh, while I'm here, about my avatar.... Being an "old fogey" (I used to be able to prove that I was online before there was a World Wide Web - but the key search term I needed for that proof became the name of a couple of retailers.....), I prefer not to have photos of myself online - I like my privacy. So instead of a photo, I'm using the yellow and blue "K" flag from the International Code of Signals. When displayed on its own, it means "I wish to communicate with you".
The little squiggle was added this year - it's the symbol for a resistor. Its purpose is to remind me to resist Trumpism whenever and wherever I can, and to let others know that I'm doing so. Sometimes, a little symbolic show of resistance can lead to bigger things. The movements have to start somewhere.
It is no coincidence that they are going after community service organizations. These organizations don't have the funds to defend themselves. No big ag. No big pharma. No big business attacks. Just the little guys on the ground doing the day in and day out work of keeping communities safe. Also, remember who was a community organizer? Revenge is his game.
Excellent interview with Julie Sweetland with regards to disinformation. The scientific method is not being taught in public school education. It should begin in the middle school science curriculum and continue throughout high school. Teaching it in every science class throughout middle school and high school would go a long way in making Americans more scientifically literate. Having a higher degree of scientific knowledge makes one less susceptible to misinformation and especially disinformation.
I agree. I was, at one time, the director of a small research papers office at the University of Chicago, in a social sciences area. I had one assistant whose task was at times to help by doing a bit of proofreading. These were grad students who earned some money by doing this as part-time work. Both of the people there while I had the job told me they didn't understand some science references because they had liberal arts backgrounds that didn't include anything more than a very 'general' course in science. This was in the late 70s, so the lack of a better background in science has an unfortunately long history. (And these were young people who had gone to 'good' schools, private schools and colleges, not kids from rural or inner city backgrounds.) They had gotten clear to graduate school without understanding basic science terms and concepts.
I like having these roundups. It can be overwhelming to read/watch everything even though one should.
I am trying to witness all of the MAGA BS calmly. I hope soon attorneys will emerge to create class action lawsuits I can join. Is that even possible?
Here is what we need. Shock and awe. And you need to respond. You need to say, “Good idea” “Bad Idea”...something - anything. Because we are getting weary of the daily gloom and doom reports.
Idea.
Think Million Man March minus the marching part.
How about organizing a disrupter for the White House. And Congress... here is the White House switch board number. 202-456-1414
I don’t have one for Congress..assuming they have a central switch board. We need about 10 million people to start calling at noon and continue calling for days.
Just jam the lines.
Also need a catch phrase. STOP THE MADNESS? Just a suggestion.
Any ideas?
This requires a coordinated effort. Random calling and writing does not have the same impart.
Thats why we need Robert Reich, The Contrarian, etc.
Thousands of people doing a peaceful protest. No name calling. No confrontation. Just a coordinated effort to jam their phones.
One mantra, Stop The Madness.
Getting day in and day out doom and gloom reports are not helping. You are preaching to the choir. We know they are assholes and idiots.
Help us do a peaceful demonstration.
This Friday, starting at noon, we start calling the White House. We leave a message. “Stop the Madness”.
The East coast starts first, then...then they stop at 1PM. Then it is noon in the Midwest...etc.
We jam their switch board for 8 hours. Calls cascading all day from the east coast to the west.
A million man march. Stop the madness. I repeat, a peaceful protest. No name calling. No confrontation. No profanity. Just a coordinated effort to jam their phones.
Please respond. We are all waiting.
Great post, but you have to remember that there are new people finding The Contrarian all the time, or at least sniffing at it, and they don't yet know about the assholes and the idiots. There's a whole lot of teaching and convincing to be done.
At the same time, I really like your idea about calling the White House from coast to coast. I may well do that!
As these existential crises “flow in” with the associated chaos they create, it’s comforting to know I can read all about them here. I do suffer from existentialitis.
I do not believe Trump ever read any of the executive orders he signed. Does anybody agree with me. The man has a read a book in his whole life let alone over 300 executive orders.
Jen, I truly relish the content, especially the expert interviews, but where's the merch? I think many of us would like to spread the word to strangers with T shirts and caps. It's difficult enough to talk everyone I know into subscribing! ;-D
I reposted the article on oligarchs and it was subsequently taken down by Facebook as SPAM. Tried again and they left it on for now. Just thought you should know.