I read that there are people in the Democratic caucus who are afraid Republicans will blame them for a government shutdown. It is clear that the 78 year old convicted felon, Musk and the Republicans are shutting the government down. The Democratic caucus is composed of professional politicans who should know how to frame an argument and it would seem they should know how to position themselves as trying to keep the government functioning, but it is the republicans who are shutting the government down. I would hope the Senate Democrats would use this occasion to highlight what the republicans are doing. However, reading they may cave and not put up a defense, fills me with the continuing despaire I feel about the competence of the leaders of the Democratic party.
"I read that there are people in the Democratic caucus who are afraid Republicans will blame them for a government shutdown."
I will blame both parties. It is a core function of Congress to pass a budget, yet members from both sides would rather play partisan parlor games than do their job. I say withhold all of their pay until they pass an actual budget - not a CR or "omnibus spending package", but a budget.
Claude Malhuret's great speech (with English subtitles) in the French Senate denouncing Trump's presidency as the court of Nero, the state capture in America, and America's partnership with Putin's Russia.
I just listened. M. Malhuret spoke with conviction and precision. He knows his stuff. The total antithesis of the goon in the White House incapable of spitting anything out but incoherent obscenities,
The Russian-American Fascist Alliance is seen and is being protested worldwide. While Iranian men wore white shirts, tearing them open to be shot by the Shah’s fascist troops, the women of Paris don’t need any stinking shirts. https://bit.ly/4iBdePo
The capture of the state in America is "the chronicle of a death foretold" - like the title of an excellent short novel by Garcia Marques. Everyone in the novel knows what is going to happen, and yet no one prevents the murder of a young man by a jealous rival from happening. In a prescient column on August 2022, Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Editor of the The Financial Times of London wrote in the U.K. newspaper of the impending capture of the U.S. government (which has now taken place) as the next stage of Trumpism.
That would happen with loyalists heading and staffing the FBI, CIA, and IRS, and in all senior military positions under a devoted Secretary of Defense as well as on the board of the Federal Reserve and all significant regulatory agencies. He went on: "Imagine what this would mean for the rule of law and civil rights. Imagine, too, the pressure such agencies could put on independent businesses, notably including those of the media."
Martin foresaw unaccountable rule, despotism, as the consequence for Americans and nothing good coming for global cooperation. Instead he predicted the formation of distinct spheres of interest as the basis of global order, a catastrophic transformation towards a world of despotism. It is indeed a pity if the American republic, re-founded on the ideal of government of the people, by the people, and for the people through a bitter and terrible civil war in 1861-65, continuously renewed, not least by FDR and through civil rights legislation, a beacon of freedom and equality for the rest of the world, should now become another authoritarian tyranny run by American oligarchs for their own benefit and that of a cruel and bloody foreign dictator.
We can only hope that enough Americans of courage and resolution stand up for America as of old and take back their country, no matter how long the struggle, and how hard.
It seems that I am a lone voice, but I feel I have to speak on this, even at the expense of repeating myself. I joined this platform with the hope to find fellow progressive voices bent on fighting the rising fascism that is threatening the core of democracy and the rule of law in the US. It is very hard to pinpoint the essence of democracy, for there are so many aspects of it - but I for one would argue that without justice and solidarity you would never have enough democracy.
Last night I expressed my sadness and anguish in discovering that Ms. Rubin totally misrepresents the genocidal destruction of Gaza, and maybe even sides with the nazi-like government of Israel that openly practices ethnical cleansing and the expulsion of Palestinians. And keep in mind that you cannot expel all people, this road takes you inevitably towards extermination, as happened with Jews in the Holocaust. What is mind boggling is that we cry all the time about the insane actions of Trump, a criminal bent on destroying democracy - but Netanyahu is only more evil and more criminal version of him - and we have all been witnessing hundreds of thousands of Israelis marching in the streets before October 7 2023, trying desperately to salvage their democracy and the rule of law. No help came from the US, which as we know supports completely this genocide - without the US, Isreal would be impotent.
It gets worse. The ICC has issued a warrant on Netanyahu for the crimes against humanity, and the only reason he can avoid being arrested is the American betrayal of the rule on international law. This is why the issue of Gaza touches into the core of American democracy - most of US foreign policy is based nn this. Moreover, there is no way you can build democracy at home by crushing it abroad, your sins will haunt you, will turn back to you like a boomerang.
Today I discovered that less than half of American population supports now Israel, and this in spite decades of propaganda and the low educational level of many of the Republicans who tend to be ignorant on this (and almost every other) subject: https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-toward-israelis.aspx. So how is it possible that on this rather progressive platform there is so little support, if any, for the Palestinian plea of bare survival?
When the history is written eventually of the decline and fall of the American republic, both the transformation of the Republican Party to an extremist insurgency and the subversion of American government by Russia will receive much attention. Starting with Nixon's "southern strategy" in 1968 to attract southern whites resentful of civil rights for blacks, moving through Ronald Reagan's and George Bush, Sr.'s dog whistles, and Newt Gingrich's attempts at blackmail through government shut-downs, Republicans came to the point of being unable to govern when the country was faced with economic collapse in 2008. The Republican Bush administration had to rely on Democrats in Congress to pass its emergency measures. By 2016, attacking illegal immigrants was more socially acceptable than claiming to be a White Supremacist. So while attacking Obama as not a legitimate president because (according to Trump and Russia Television) he was not born in America, Trump ran on his fiction of hordes of raping and murdering Mexican immigrants who were being enabled by Democrats to wreak havoc in America. By the end of Trump's first term, the Republican Party in Congress had become totally complicit in criminality. It shielded Trump by acquitting him in the Senate after two impeachments by the House despite clear evidence of extortion for corrupt political purposes and inciting an insurrection to prevent the lawful transfer of power. All that mattered now for Republicans was to get office and keep it, no matter how. They were now only in politics for pay-offs to their donors by cutting taxes on the rich while fighting any attempts to help the less privileged gain access to health care. According to the respected investigative journalist, Craig Unger ("House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of the Russian Mafia") Donald Trump has been a Russian asset at least since 1987 when he visited Moscow, in a visit apparently arranged by the KGB for this greedy and politically ambitious, apparently well-connected businessman. That would explain why all his actions aim to help achieve the aims of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, weaken and divide America and its allies, and create chaos. The Republican Party seems to be fully supportive both of Trump and his CEO to run the United States government Elon Musk who seems to have bought the government in concession. Musk's mandate from Trump is to burn it down and provide fiscal space for huge new tax cuts for billionaires. Meanwhile, the media will be cowed, protesters and critics will be threatened, and the FBI, the CIA, the Defense and Justice departments will be staffed by incompetent Trump loyalists.
If I read another Trump talking point, "The president is clear he wants ...", without context about Trumps terrible record on that issue I am going to accuse US journalists and opposition spokespeople of malpractice.
Rather than accepting a Trump quote out of context the standard response should be:
"Trump says many things that are often lies, displays of outright ignorance, or indications of mental confusion. For example ....
-Trump says he wants peace in Ukraine for a war started by Russia, but claims that the war was started by Ukraine and cuts US military support for Ukraine
-Trump says that his tax cuts pay for themselves but instead they added 5 trillion to the national debt
-Trump says that he wants to support US industry but instead cuts support for US chip manufacturing
The immediate counterpoints to Trumps assertions are damning. Let's use them.
I read that there are people in the Democratic caucus who are afraid Republicans will blame them for a government shutdown. It is clear that the 78 year old convicted felon, Musk and the Republicans are shutting the government down. The Democratic caucus is composed of professional politicans who should know how to frame an argument and it would seem they should know how to position themselves as trying to keep the government functioning, but it is the republicans who are shutting the government down. I would hope the Senate Democrats would use this occasion to highlight what the republicans are doing. However, reading they may cave and not put up a defense, fills me with the continuing despaire I feel about the competence of the leaders of the Democratic party.
"I read that there are people in the Democratic caucus who are afraid Republicans will blame them for a government shutdown."
I will blame both parties. It is a core function of Congress to pass a budget, yet members from both sides would rather play partisan parlor games than do their job. I say withhold all of their pay until they pass an actual budget - not a CR or "omnibus spending package", but a budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIK9vbQRwBQ
Claude Malhuret's great speech (with English subtitles) in the French Senate denouncing Trump's presidency as the court of Nero, the state capture in America, and America's partnership with Putin's Russia.
I just listened. M. Malhuret spoke with conviction and precision. He knows his stuff. The total antithesis of the goon in the White House incapable of spitting anything out but incoherent obscenities,
The Russian-American Fascist Alliance is seen and is being protested worldwide. While Iranian men wore white shirts, tearing them open to be shot by the Shah’s fascist troops, the women of Paris don’t need any stinking shirts. https://bit.ly/4iBdePo
Impeach. Feathers of Hope. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/p/remove-impeach-impeach
Recruit Ruth Marcus to The Contrarian….
The capture of the state in America is "the chronicle of a death foretold" - like the title of an excellent short novel by Garcia Marques. Everyone in the novel knows what is going to happen, and yet no one prevents the murder of a young man by a jealous rival from happening. In a prescient column on August 2022, Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Editor of the The Financial Times of London wrote in the U.K. newspaper of the impending capture of the U.S. government (which has now taken place) as the next stage of Trumpism.
That would happen with loyalists heading and staffing the FBI, CIA, and IRS, and in all senior military positions under a devoted Secretary of Defense as well as on the board of the Federal Reserve and all significant regulatory agencies. He went on: "Imagine what this would mean for the rule of law and civil rights. Imagine, too, the pressure such agencies could put on independent businesses, notably including those of the media."
Martin foresaw unaccountable rule, despotism, as the consequence for Americans and nothing good coming for global cooperation. Instead he predicted the formation of distinct spheres of interest as the basis of global order, a catastrophic transformation towards a world of despotism. It is indeed a pity if the American republic, re-founded on the ideal of government of the people, by the people, and for the people through a bitter and terrible civil war in 1861-65, continuously renewed, not least by FDR and through civil rights legislation, a beacon of freedom and equality for the rest of the world, should now become another authoritarian tyranny run by American oligarchs for their own benefit and that of a cruel and bloody foreign dictator.
We can only hope that enough Americans of courage and resolution stand up for America as of old and take back their country, no matter how long the struggle, and how hard.
I lost track today. do we have tariffs on Canadian goods or not?
It seems that I am a lone voice, but I feel I have to speak on this, even at the expense of repeating myself. I joined this platform with the hope to find fellow progressive voices bent on fighting the rising fascism that is threatening the core of democracy and the rule of law in the US. It is very hard to pinpoint the essence of democracy, for there are so many aspects of it - but I for one would argue that without justice and solidarity you would never have enough democracy.
Last night I expressed my sadness and anguish in discovering that Ms. Rubin totally misrepresents the genocidal destruction of Gaza, and maybe even sides with the nazi-like government of Israel that openly practices ethnical cleansing and the expulsion of Palestinians. And keep in mind that you cannot expel all people, this road takes you inevitably towards extermination, as happened with Jews in the Holocaust. What is mind boggling is that we cry all the time about the insane actions of Trump, a criminal bent on destroying democracy - but Netanyahu is only more evil and more criminal version of him - and we have all been witnessing hundreds of thousands of Israelis marching in the streets before October 7 2023, trying desperately to salvage their democracy and the rule of law. No help came from the US, which as we know supports completely this genocide - without the US, Isreal would be impotent.
It gets worse. The ICC has issued a warrant on Netanyahu for the crimes against humanity, and the only reason he can avoid being arrested is the American betrayal of the rule on international law. This is why the issue of Gaza touches into the core of American democracy - most of US foreign policy is based nn this. Moreover, there is no way you can build democracy at home by crushing it abroad, your sins will haunt you, will turn back to you like a boomerang.
Today I discovered that less than half of American population supports now Israel, and this in spite decades of propaganda and the low educational level of many of the Republicans who tend to be ignorant on this (and almost every other) subject: https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-toward-israelis.aspx. So how is it possible that on this rather progressive platform there is so little support, if any, for the Palestinian plea of bare survival?
When the history is written eventually of the decline and fall of the American republic, both the transformation of the Republican Party to an extremist insurgency and the subversion of American government by Russia will receive much attention. Starting with Nixon's "southern strategy" in 1968 to attract southern whites resentful of civil rights for blacks, moving through Ronald Reagan's and George Bush, Sr.'s dog whistles, and Newt Gingrich's attempts at blackmail through government shut-downs, Republicans came to the point of being unable to govern when the country was faced with economic collapse in 2008. The Republican Bush administration had to rely on Democrats in Congress to pass its emergency measures. By 2016, attacking illegal immigrants was more socially acceptable than claiming to be a White Supremacist. So while attacking Obama as not a legitimate president because (according to Trump and Russia Television) he was not born in America, Trump ran on his fiction of hordes of raping and murdering Mexican immigrants who were being enabled by Democrats to wreak havoc in America. By the end of Trump's first term, the Republican Party in Congress had become totally complicit in criminality. It shielded Trump by acquitting him in the Senate after two impeachments by the House despite clear evidence of extortion for corrupt political purposes and inciting an insurrection to prevent the lawful transfer of power. All that mattered now for Republicans was to get office and keep it, no matter how. They were now only in politics for pay-offs to their donors by cutting taxes on the rich while fighting any attempts to help the less privileged gain access to health care. According to the respected investigative journalist, Craig Unger ("House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of the Russian Mafia") Donald Trump has been a Russian asset at least since 1987 when he visited Moscow, in a visit apparently arranged by the KGB for this greedy and politically ambitious, apparently well-connected businessman. That would explain why all his actions aim to help achieve the aims of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, weaken and divide America and its allies, and create chaos. The Republican Party seems to be fully supportive both of Trump and his CEO to run the United States government Elon Musk who seems to have bought the government in concession. Musk's mandate from Trump is to burn it down and provide fiscal space for huge new tax cuts for billionaires. Meanwhile, the media will be cowed, protesters and critics will be threatened, and the FBI, the CIA, the Defense and Justice departments will be staffed by incompetent Trump loyalists.
If I read another Trump talking point, "The president is clear he wants ...", without context about Trumps terrible record on that issue I am going to accuse US journalists and opposition spokespeople of malpractice.
Rather than accepting a Trump quote out of context the standard response should be:
"Trump says many things that are often lies, displays of outright ignorance, or indications of mental confusion. For example ....
-Trump says he wants peace in Ukraine for a war started by Russia, but claims that the war was started by Ukraine and cuts US military support for Ukraine
-Trump says that his tax cuts pay for themselves but instead they added 5 trillion to the national debt
-Trump says that he wants to support US industry but instead cuts support for US chip manufacturing
The immediate counterpoints to Trumps assertions are damning. Let's use them.