Trumps Indictment: Historical and Future Implications II
November 8, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 9, 2023
Yesterday was a bad day for extremism in the United States of America.
In Ohio, voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution; in Kentucky, voters reelected Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, for another four-year term; in Pennsylvania, voters put Democrat Daniel McCaffery, who positioned himself as a defender of abortion rights, on the state supreme court; in Rhode Island, Gabe Amo, a former Biden staffer who emphasized his experience in the Biden White House, won an open seat in the House of Representatives to become Rhode Island’s first Black member of Congress; and nationwide, right-wing Moms4Liberty and anti-transgender-rights school board candidates tended to lose their races.
In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin campaigned hard to flip the state senate to the Republicans, telling voters that if his party had control of the whole government he would push through a measure banning abortion after 15 weeks. This has been a ploy advanced by Republicans to suggest they are moderating their stance on abortion, and Youngkin appeared to be trying out the argument as a basis for a run for the presidency.
But voters, who are still angry at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which protected abortion rights until about 24 weeks, after fetal abnormalities are evident, rejected the suggestion they should settle for a smaller piece of what they feel has been taken from them by extremists on the Supreme Court.
Today, Youngkin indicated he will not run for president in 2024.
The Democrats who won have prioritized good governance, including the protection of fundamental reproductive rights. In Kentucky, Beshear focused on record economic growth in the state—in his first term he secured almost $30 billion in private-sector investments in the economy, creating about 49,000 full-time jobs—and his able handling of emergencies, as well as his support for education and, crucially, reproductive rights.
In Virginia, Democrat Schuyler VanValkenburg beat incumbent Republican state senator Siobhan Dunnavant, the sponsor of a culture war “parents’ rights” law that was behind the removal of books from schools. While Dunnavant tried to convince voters that VanValkenburg, a high school history and government teacher, was in favor of showing pornography to high school students, he responded with a defense of teachers and an attack on book banning, reinforcing democratic principles. As Greg Sargent noted in the Washington Post, right-wing culture wars appear to be losing their potency as opponents emphasize American principles.
In Ohio, exit polls showed that Republicans as well as Democrats backed the protection of reproductive rights. As Katie Paris of the voter mobilization group Red Wine and Blue put it: “Reproductive freedom and democracy are not partisan issues.”
After such a rejection, a political party that supports democracy would accept its losses and rethink the message it was presenting to voters. But since the 1990s, far-right Republicans have insisted that election losses simply prove they have not moved far enough to the right.
That pattern was in full view today as front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump explained away Republican Daniel Cameron’s loss in Kentucky by blaming it on Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who MAGA Republicans insist is too moderate.
Cameron had tied himself closely to Trump, antiabortion, and the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in her own home in a mistaken drug raid. Three days ago, Trump had said that Cameron had made “a huge surge” after Trump endorsed him and voters saw “he’s not really ‘a McConnell guy.’ They only try to label him that because he comes from the Great State of Kentucky.” Trump assured Cameron, “I will help you!”
Now Trump blames McConnell. Right-wing podcast host Mark R. Levin echoed Trump when he told his 3.8 million followers on X that “RINOs have no winnable message.”
They are not alone in insisting that Republicans lost not because they are extremist but because they aren’t extremist enough. Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote that “Republicans are losing Republican voters because the base is fed up with weak Republicans who never do anything to actually stop the communist democrats…. The Republican Party is tone deaf and weak…. Republican voters are energized and can not wait to vote for President Trump…. [T]he Republican Party has only a short time to change their weak ways before they lose the base for years to come.”
It is worth remembering that just six days ago, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called Greene a close friend and said he did not disagree with her on many issues.
Last night’s results highlight a key problem for the Republicans going into 2024. Their presumptive front-runner, former president Trump, is responsible for putting on the Supreme Court the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and is on video saying he thinks that women who get abortions must be punished. That position has made him a hero with the party’s evangelical base, including lawmakers such as House speaker Johnson. But it is demonstrably unpopular in the general voting population.
As writer Molly Jong-Fast said today: “Women don’t want to die for Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs.”
Within MAGA Republicans’ refusal to admit that their far-right positions are unpopular is a disdain for those voters who disagree with them. Journalist Karen Kasler, who covers the Ohio statehouse, reported the statement of Republican Senate president Matt Huffman in the wake of yesterday’s election loss. "This isn't the end,” he said. “It is really just the beginning of a revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1."
Ohio House speaker Jason Stephens’s statement more explicitly rejected the decision of 56.62% of Ohio voters. “I remain steadfastly committed to protecting life, and that commitment is unwavering,” he said. “The legislature has multiple paths that we will explore to continue to protect innocent life. This is not the end of the conversation.”
Later today, 27 of the 67 Ohio House Republicans signed a statement taking a stand against the abortion measure approved yesterday and vowing to “do everything in our power” to stop it.
In a conversation on the right-wing cable show Newsmax, former senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) complained that young people turned out because there were “sexy things” on the ballot like abortion and marijuana. He warned: “[P]ure democracies are not the way to run a country.”
The sentiment that it is not important to let everyone vote appeared to be at work yesterday in Mississippi, where at least nine precincts in Democratic-leaning Hinds County ran out of ballots. The most populous county in the state, Hinds County is 70% Black and includes the city of Jackson, which is almost 83% Black. Officials rushed to print more ballots, but the lines ballooned. After a judge tried to remedy the situation by extending the voting hours in the county by an hour, the Republican Party of Mississippi fought that order.
Republican governor Tate Reeves won reelection.
cont below
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 9, 2023
Yesterday was a bad day for extremism in the United States of America.
In Ohio, voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution; in Kentucky, voters reelected Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, for another four-year term; in Pennsylvania, voters put Democrat Daniel McCaffery, who positioned himself as a defender of abortion rights, on the state supreme court; in Rhode Island, Gabe Amo, a former Biden staffer who emphasized his experience in the Biden White House, won an open seat in the House of Representatives to become Rhode Island’s first Black member of Congress; and nationwide, right-wing Moms4Liberty and anti-transgender-rights school board candidates tended to lose their races.
In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin campaigned hard to flip the state senate to the Republicans, telling voters that if his party had control of the whole government he would push through a measure banning abortion after 15 weeks. This has been a ploy advanced by Republicans to suggest they are moderating their stance on abortion, and Youngkin appeared to be trying out the argument as a basis for a run for the presidency.
But voters, who are still angry at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which protected abortion rights until about 24 weeks, after fetal abnormalities are evident, rejected the suggestion they should settle for a smaller piece of what they feel has been taken from them by extremists on the Supreme Court.
Today, Youngkin indicated he will not run for president in 2024.
The Democrats who won have prioritized good governance, including the protection of fundamental reproductive rights. In Kentucky, Beshear focused on record economic growth in the state—in his first term he secured almost $30 billion in private-sector investments in the economy, creating about 49,000 full-time jobs—and his able handling of emergencies, as well as his support for education and, crucially, reproductive rights.
In Virginia, Democrat Schuyler VanValkenburg beat incumbent Republican state senator Siobhan Dunnavant, the sponsor of a culture war “parents’ rights” law that was behind the removal of books from schools. While Dunnavant tried to convince voters that VanValkenburg, a high school history and government teacher, was in favor of showing pornography to high school students, he responded with a defense of teachers and an attack on book banning, reinforcing democratic principles. As Greg Sargent noted in the Washington Post, right-wing culture wars appear to be losing their potency as opponents emphasize American principles.
In Ohio, exit polls showed that Republicans as well as Democrats backed the protection of reproductive rights. As Katie Paris of the voter mobilization group Red Wine and Blue put it: “Reproductive freedom and democracy are not partisan issues.”
After such a rejection, a political party that supports democracy would accept its losses and rethink the message it was presenting to voters. But since the 1990s, far-right Republicans have insisted that election losses simply prove they have not moved far enough to the right.
That pattern was in full view today as front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump explained away Republican Daniel Cameron’s loss in Kentucky by blaming it on Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who MAGA Republicans insist is too moderate.
Cameron had tied himself closely to Trump, antiabortion, and the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in her own home in a mistaken drug raid. Three days ago, Trump had said that Cameron had made “a huge surge” after Trump endorsed him and voters saw “he’s not really ‘a McConnell guy.’ They only try to label him that because he comes from the Great State of Kentucky.” Trump assured Cameron, “I will help you!”
Now Trump blames McConnell. Right-wing podcast host Mark R. Levin echoed Trump when he told his 3.8 million followers on X that “RINOs have no winnable message.”
They are not alone in insisting that Republicans lost not because they are extremist but because they aren’t extremist enough. Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote that “Republicans are losing Republican voters because the base is fed up with weak Republicans who never do anything to actually stop the communist democrats…. The Republican Party is tone deaf and weak…. Republican voters are energized and can not wait to vote for President Trump…. [T]he Republican Party has only a short time to change their weak ways before they lose the base for years to come.”
It is worth remembering that just six days ago, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called Greene a close friend and said he did not disagree with her on many issues.
Last night’s results highlight a key problem for the Republicans going into 2024. Their presumptive front-runner, former president Trump, is responsible for putting on the Supreme Court the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and is on video saying he thinks that women who get abortions must be punished. That position has made him a hero with the party’s evangelical base, including lawmakers such as House speaker Johnson. But it is demonstrably unpopular in the general voting population.
As writer Molly Jong-Fast said today: “Women don’t want to die for Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs.”
Within MAGA Republicans’ refusal to admit that their far-right positions are unpopular is a disdain for those voters who disagree with them. Journalist Karen Kasler, who covers the Ohio statehouse, reported the statement of Republican Senate president Matt Huffman in the wake of yesterday’s election loss. "This isn't the end,” he said. “It is really just the beginning of a revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1."
Ohio House speaker Jason Stephens’s statement more explicitly rejected the decision of 56.62% of Ohio voters. “I remain steadfastly committed to protecting life, and that commitment is unwavering,” he said. “The legislature has multiple paths that we will explore to continue to protect innocent life. This is not the end of the conversation.”
Later today, 27 of the 67 Ohio House Republicans signed a statement taking a stand against the abortion measure approved yesterday and vowing to “do everything in our power” to stop it.
In a conversation on the right-wing cable show Newsmax, former senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) complained that young people turned out because there were “sexy things” on the ballot like abortion and marijuana. He warned: “[P]ure democracies are not the way to run a country.”
The sentiment that it is not important to let everyone vote appeared to be at work yesterday in Mississippi, where at least nine precincts in Democratic-leaning Hinds County ran out of ballots. The most populous county in the state, Hinds County is 70% Black and includes the city of Jackson, which is almost 83% Black. Officials rushed to print more ballots, but the lines ballooned. After a judge tried to remedy the situation by extending the voting hours in the county by an hour, the Republican Party of Mississippi fought that order.
Republican governor Tate Reeves won reelection.
cont below
There was, though, another blow to the Republicans yesterday: special counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating President Biden’s son Hunter for the past five years, undermined Republican conspiracy theories when he told the House Judiciary Committee that no one is interfering with his investigation and that he, alone, makes the decisions about it.
Earlier this year, House Republicans produced an IRS employee who claimed that Biden administration officials had pressured the IRS to back off from the investigation. Weiss made it clear that accusation was wrong. “At no time was I blocked, or otherwise prevented from pursuing charges or taking the steps necessary in the investigation by other United States Attorneys, the Tax Division or anyone else at the Department of Justice,” he told the committee.
Nonetheless, in the wake of yesterday’s damaging election results, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Representative James Comer (R-KY), today issued subpoenas to Hunter Biden and the president’s brother James.
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-8-2023
Earlier this year, House Republicans produced an IRS employee who claimed that Biden administration officials had pressured the IRS to back off from the investigation. Weiss made it clear that accusation was wrong. “At no time was I blocked, or otherwise prevented from pursuing charges or taking the steps necessary in the investigation by other United States Attorneys, the Tax Division or anyone else at the Department of Justice,” he told the committee.
Nonetheless, in the wake of yesterday’s damaging election results, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Representative James Comer (R-KY), today issued subpoenas to Hunter Biden and the president’s brother James.
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-8-2023
November 9, 2023 (Thursday)
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 10, 2023
The Republican-dominated House of Representatives remains unable to agree even to a way forward toward funding the United States government. This is a five-alarm fire.
The continuing resolution for funding the government Congress passed in September when then–House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) couldn’t pass appropriations bills runs out on November 17. If something is not done, and done quickly, the U.S. will face a shutdown over Thanksgiving. This will not only affect family gatherings and the holiday, it will hit Black Friday—which, as the busiest shopping day of the year, is what keeps a number of businesses afloat.
The problem with funding the government is the same problem that infects much else in the country today: far-right Republicans insist that their position is the only acceptable one. Even though the majority of the country opposes their view, they refuse to compromise. They want to gut the government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights.
To impose their will on the majority, they don’t have to understand issues, build coalitions, or figure out compromises. All they have to do is steadfastly vote no. If they can prevent the government from accomplishing anything, they will have achieved their goal.
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) perfectly illustrated how much easier it is to destroy than to build today as he objected to the promotion of military leaders, one at a time. Democrats tried to bring up each promotion of career military personnel, many of whom have served this country for decades, by introducing them by name; Tuberville had only to say “I object” to prevent the Senate from taking up those promotions.
That refusal to budge from an extreme position weakens our military. It also weakens our democracy, as was apparent today in Michigan as Republican lawmakers joined an antiabortion group in suing to overturn a 2022 amendment to the state constitution protecting abortion rights. Voters approved that amendment with 57% of the vote in a process established by the state constitution, but the plaintiffs want to stop it from taking effect, claiming that by creating a new right, it disfranchises them and prevents the legislature from making laws. They could launch their own ballot initiative to replace the amendment they don’t like, but as that seems unlikely to pass, they are instead trying to block the measure the voters have said they want.
The decision of Ohio’s voters to protect abortion rights on Tuesday has prompted a similar disdain for democracy there. The vote for that state constitutional amendment was not close—56.6% to 43.4%—but Republican legislators immediately said they would work to find ways to stop the amendment from taking effect.
North Dakota state representative Brandon Prichard was much more explicit. Opposed to the measure, he wrote, “Direct democracy should not exist…. It would be an act of courage to ignore the results of the election….” According to James Bickerton of Newsweek, Prichard has previously called for Republican-dominated states to “put into code that Jesus Christ is King and dedicate their state to Him.”
Now that refusal to compromise threatens the U.S. government itself. It has been apparent that the Republicans were unable to agree on a funding plan even among themselves. On Tuesday, as Nicole Lafond of Talking Points Memo pointed out, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Americans should just trust the Republicans. He told reporters: “I’m not going to tell you when we will bring [appropriations bills] to the floor, but it will be in time, how about that? Trust us: We’re working through the process in a way that I think that people will be proud of…. [M]any options…are on the table and we’ll be revealing what our plan is in short order.”
Today, although the House managed to vote on a series of extremist bills designed to signal to their base—lowering the salaries of government officials they dislike to $1 a year—the House Republicans had to pull the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill after extremists loaded it with antiabortion language so they could not get the votes to pass it even through the Republican side of the aisle; earlier they had to pull the bill to fund Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies.
“We’re still dealing with the same divisions we always have had,” a House Republican told Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong, and Julie Tsirkin of NBC News. “We’re ungovernable.”
And then, after pulling the bill, Speaker Johnson adjourned the House until Monday. As Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) put it this afternoon: “We are just 8 days away from a devastating government shutdown—and instead of working in a bipartisan way to keep the government open, Speaker Johnson sent Congress home early for the weekend. This is completely unacceptable.”
Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote: “The training wheels fell off for [Republican] leadership this week. They tried to pass two appropriations bills. They failed twice. The government shuts down in 8 days and [the House Republican Party] HAS NO PLAN. Instead, we voted on stupid stuff today like reducing the salary of [the] W[hite] H[ouse] Press Secretary to $1.”
The problem remains what it has been since the Republican Party took control of the House in 2021: far-right extremists refuse to agree to any budget that doesn’t slash government funding of popular programs, while less extremist Republicans recognize that such cuts would gut the government and horrify all but the most extreme voters. In any case, measures loaded with extremist wish lists will not pass the Senate; this is why appropriations bills are traditionally kept clean.
Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy hammered out just such an agreement with the administration in May 2023 for funding, but the extremists refuse to honor it. For their part, Democrats are holding firm on that agreement. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told NBC News correspondent Julie Tsirkin that “[a] clean continuing resolution at the fiscal year 2023 levels is the only way forward… We're asking for the status quo to keep the government open.”
The government budget isn’t the only casualty of the Republican chaos. The farm bill, which funds agricultural programs and food programs, must be renewed every five years. The measure authorized in 2018 expires this year, but extremists are eager to slash funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as food stamps, endangering the passage of a measure farmers strongly support.
And today the Defense Department pleaded with Congress to pass the supplemental budget request President Biden made in August to fund Ukraine’s military needs in its war against Russian aggression.
The Republican Party’s problem continues to be America’s problem, and it is getting bigger by the day.
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-9-2023-thursday
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 10, 2023
The Republican-dominated House of Representatives remains unable to agree even to a way forward toward funding the United States government. This is a five-alarm fire.
The continuing resolution for funding the government Congress passed in September when then–House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) couldn’t pass appropriations bills runs out on November 17. If something is not done, and done quickly, the U.S. will face a shutdown over Thanksgiving. This will not only affect family gatherings and the holiday, it will hit Black Friday—which, as the busiest shopping day of the year, is what keeps a number of businesses afloat.
The problem with funding the government is the same problem that infects much else in the country today: far-right Republicans insist that their position is the only acceptable one. Even though the majority of the country opposes their view, they refuse to compromise. They want to gut the government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights.
To impose their will on the majority, they don’t have to understand issues, build coalitions, or figure out compromises. All they have to do is steadfastly vote no. If they can prevent the government from accomplishing anything, they will have achieved their goal.
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) perfectly illustrated how much easier it is to destroy than to build today as he objected to the promotion of military leaders, one at a time. Democrats tried to bring up each promotion of career military personnel, many of whom have served this country for decades, by introducing them by name; Tuberville had only to say “I object” to prevent the Senate from taking up those promotions.
That refusal to budge from an extreme position weakens our military. It also weakens our democracy, as was apparent today in Michigan as Republican lawmakers joined an antiabortion group in suing to overturn a 2022 amendment to the state constitution protecting abortion rights. Voters approved that amendment with 57% of the vote in a process established by the state constitution, but the plaintiffs want to stop it from taking effect, claiming that by creating a new right, it disfranchises them and prevents the legislature from making laws. They could launch their own ballot initiative to replace the amendment they don’t like, but as that seems unlikely to pass, they are instead trying to block the measure the voters have said they want.
The decision of Ohio’s voters to protect abortion rights on Tuesday has prompted a similar disdain for democracy there. The vote for that state constitutional amendment was not close—56.6% to 43.4%—but Republican legislators immediately said they would work to find ways to stop the amendment from taking effect.
North Dakota state representative Brandon Prichard was much more explicit. Opposed to the measure, he wrote, “Direct democracy should not exist…. It would be an act of courage to ignore the results of the election….” According to James Bickerton of Newsweek, Prichard has previously called for Republican-dominated states to “put into code that Jesus Christ is King and dedicate their state to Him.”
Now that refusal to compromise threatens the U.S. government itself. It has been apparent that the Republicans were unable to agree on a funding plan even among themselves. On Tuesday, as Nicole Lafond of Talking Points Memo pointed out, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Americans should just trust the Republicans. He told reporters: “I’m not going to tell you when we will bring [appropriations bills] to the floor, but it will be in time, how about that? Trust us: We’re working through the process in a way that I think that people will be proud of…. [M]any options…are on the table and we’ll be revealing what our plan is in short order.”
Today, although the House managed to vote on a series of extremist bills designed to signal to their base—lowering the salaries of government officials they dislike to $1 a year—the House Republicans had to pull the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill after extremists loaded it with antiabortion language so they could not get the votes to pass it even through the Republican side of the aisle; earlier they had to pull the bill to fund Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies.
“We’re still dealing with the same divisions we always have had,” a House Republican told Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong, and Julie Tsirkin of NBC News. “We’re ungovernable.”
And then, after pulling the bill, Speaker Johnson adjourned the House until Monday. As Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) put it this afternoon: “We are just 8 days away from a devastating government shutdown—and instead of working in a bipartisan way to keep the government open, Speaker Johnson sent Congress home early for the weekend. This is completely unacceptable.”
Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote: “The training wheels fell off for [Republican] leadership this week. They tried to pass two appropriations bills. They failed twice. The government shuts down in 8 days and [the House Republican Party] HAS NO PLAN. Instead, we voted on stupid stuff today like reducing the salary of [the] W[hite] H[ouse] Press Secretary to $1.”
The problem remains what it has been since the Republican Party took control of the House in 2021: far-right extremists refuse to agree to any budget that doesn’t slash government funding of popular programs, while less extremist Republicans recognize that such cuts would gut the government and horrify all but the most extreme voters. In any case, measures loaded with extremist wish lists will not pass the Senate; this is why appropriations bills are traditionally kept clean.
Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy hammered out just such an agreement with the administration in May 2023 for funding, but the extremists refuse to honor it. For their part, Democrats are holding firm on that agreement. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told NBC News correspondent Julie Tsirkin that “[a] clean continuing resolution at the fiscal year 2023 levels is the only way forward… We're asking for the status quo to keep the government open.”
The government budget isn’t the only casualty of the Republican chaos. The farm bill, which funds agricultural programs and food programs, must be renewed every five years. The measure authorized in 2018 expires this year, but extremists are eager to slash funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as food stamps, endangering the passage of a measure farmers strongly support.
And today the Defense Department pleaded with Congress to pass the supplemental budget request President Biden made in August to fund Ukraine’s military needs in its war against Russian aggression.
The Republican Party’s problem continues to be America’s problem, and it is getting bigger by the day.
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-9-2023-thursday
America needs major healing. And maybe even watch some old Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood episodes.
The fact that election after election we continue to struggle to have a liberal majority in the house and senate floors me. I have been saying this for years and no one seems to want to hear what I’m saying. America is still extremely racist, Homophobic, and misogynistic.
Unfortunately many people who STILL vote red after explicitly witnessing the absolute unraveling of our democracy and the incompetence the republicans have proven time and time again, will continue to follow the republican party because they can relate to their agendas. If someone has strong views against abortion they are going to vote red regardless of what it may cost them and the rest of us as long as they see that their main ideals are met. The same with people who obsess over what two men , or women do behind the privacy of their own closed doors and every single American that can’t possibly be racist because they have two friends that are Black, Hispanic Asian etc.
The fact that election after election we continue to struggle to have a liberal majority in the house and senate floors me. I have been saying this for years and no one seems to want to hear what I’m saying. America is still extremely racist, Homophobic, and misogynistic.
Unfortunately many people who STILL vote red after explicitly witnessing the absolute unraveling of our democracy and the incompetence the republicans have proven time and time again, will continue to follow the republican party because they can relate to their agendas. If someone has strong views against abortion they are going to vote red regardless of what it may cost them and the rest of us as long as they see that their main ideals are met. The same with people who obsess over what two men , or women do behind the privacy of their own closed doors and every single American that can’t possibly be racist because they have two friends that are Black, Hispanic Asian etc.
DaddyScruff said:America needs major healing. And maybe even watch some old Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood episodes.
The fact that election after election we continue to struggle to have a liberal majority in the house and senate floors me. I have been saying this for years and no one seems to want to hear what I’m saying. America is still extremely racist, Homophobic, and misogynistic.
You're preaching to the choir here; I was born in the Deep South. I'm glad that the Trump administration revealed the level of racism/homophobia/and misogynistic that remains in this country. At least now we see clearly.
Is it just me, or every election does it appear that the newly elected seem to focus on what to UNDO instead of DOING and moving ahead? Example, the election in Ohio—Republicans along with extremist groups are vying to overturn the will of the people rather than accepting it and moving forward.
Unfortunately many people who STILL vote red after explicitly witnessing the absolute unraveling of our democracy and the incompetence the republicans have proven time and time again, will continue to follow the republican party because they can relate to their agendas. If someone has strong views against abortion they are going to vote red regardless of what it may cost them and the rest of us as long as they see that their main ideals are met. The same with people who obsess over what two men , or women do behind the privacy of their own closed doors and every single American that can’t possibly be racist because they have two friends that are Black, Hispanic Asian etc.
You nailed it.
I've hesitated to say this: But abortion isn't about a fetus any more than rape is about sex. It's about CONTROL.
The fact that election after election we continue to struggle to have a liberal majority in the house and senate floors me. I have been saying this for years and no one seems to want to hear what I’m saying. America is still extremely racist, Homophobic, and misogynistic.
You're preaching to the choir here; I was born in the Deep South. I'm glad that the Trump administration revealed the level of racism/homophobia/and misogynistic that remains in this country. At least now we see clearly.
Is it just me, or every election does it appear that the newly elected seem to focus on what to UNDO instead of DOING and moving ahead? Example, the election in Ohio—Republicans along with extremist groups are vying to overturn the will of the people rather than accepting it and moving forward.
Unfortunately many people who STILL vote red after explicitly witnessing the absolute unraveling of our democracy and the incompetence the republicans have proven time and time again, will continue to follow the republican party because they can relate to their agendas. If someone has strong views against abortion they are going to vote red regardless of what it may cost them and the rest of us as long as they see that their main ideals are met. The same with people who obsess over what two men , or women do behind the privacy of their own closed doors and every single American that can’t possibly be racist because they have two friends that are Black, Hispanic Asian etc.
You nailed it.
I've hesitated to say this: But abortion isn't about a fetus any more than rape is about sex. It's about CONTROL.
Ahavati said:
You nailed it.
I've hesitated to say this: But abortion isn't about a fetus any more than rape is about sex. It's about CONTROL.
I know. And it’s very sad. It’s always been about control. Unfortunately it is something I’ve never really paid attention to before because I always avoided politics. Now that I literally don’t have a choice but to pay attention (because I now understand what’s at stake) there is so much that has been going on right before my eyes. I understand the meaning of “stay woke” now. ( “they” can try to demonize that word all they want. It definitely beats being totally asleep to what’s going on.)I do take time to step away so that it’s not ever consuming but understand now how important these issues are.
You nailed it.
I've hesitated to say this: But abortion isn't about a fetus any more than rape is about sex. It's about CONTROL.
I know. And it’s very sad. It’s always been about control. Unfortunately it is something I’ve never really paid attention to before because I always avoided politics. Now that I literally don’t have a choice but to pay attention (because I now understand what’s at stake) there is so much that has been going on right before my eyes. I understand the meaning of “stay woke” now. ( “they” can try to demonize that word all they want. It definitely beats being totally asleep to what’s going on.)I do take time to step away so that it’s not ever consuming but understand now how important these issues are.
DaddyScruff said:
I know. And it’s very sad. It’s always been about control. Unfortunately it is something I’ve never really paid attention to before because I always avoided politics. Now that I literally don’t have a choice but to pay attention (because I now understand what’s at stake) there is so much that has been going on right before my eyes. I understand the meaning of “stay woke” now. ( “they” can try to demonize that word all they want. It definitely beats being totally asleep to what’s going on.)I do take time to step away so that it’s not ever consuming but understand now how important these issues are.
The entire world needs to be paying attention to this. #wokeasfuck
I know. And it’s very sad. It’s always been about control. Unfortunately it is something I’ve never really paid attention to before because I always avoided politics. Now that I literally don’t have a choice but to pay attention (because I now understand what’s at stake) there is so much that has been going on right before my eyes. I understand the meaning of “stay woke” now. ( “they” can try to demonize that word all they want. It definitely beats being totally asleep to what’s going on.)I do take time to step away so that it’s not ever consuming but understand now how important these issues are.
The entire world needs to be paying attention to this. #wokeasfuck
November 10, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 11, 2023
For months now it has felt weirdly as if life in the United States of America is playing out on a split screen. That sense is very strong tonight.
On one side is a country that in the past three years has invested in its people more completely than in any era since the 1960s. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act jump-started the U.S. economy after the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic; are rebuilding our roads, bridges, harbors, and internet infrastructure; have attracted $200 billion in private investment for chip manufacturing; and have invested billions in addressing the effects of climate change.
All of these changes need workers, and the economy emerged from the coronavirus pandemic with extraordinary growth that reached 4.9% in the last quarter and has seen record employment and dramatic wage gains. Median household wealth has grown by 37% since the pandemic, with wages growing faster at the bottom of the economy than at the top.
Yesterday, President Biden, in a buoyant mood, reflected this America when he congratulated members of the United Auto Workers in Belvidere, Illinois, for the strong contracts that came from negotiations with the nation’s three top automakers—Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors—thanks to the UAW workers’ 46-day graduated strike. The union demanded the automakers make up the ground that workers had ceded years ago when the plants were suffering.
The final contracts that emerged from long negotiations gave workers wage gains of 30% over the next four and a half years, better retirement security, more paid leave, commitments that automakers would create more union jobs, union coverage for workers at electric vehicle battery plants—the lack of that protection had been a key reason autoworkers had been skittish about electric vehicles—and a commitment from Stellantis to reopen the Jeep Cherokee plant in Belvidere that had been shuttered in February.
The UAW’s success is already affecting other automakers. As workers at non-union plants begin to explore unionization, Honda and Toyota have already announced wage hikes to match those in the new UAW contracts, and Subaru is hinting it will do the same.
Biden had worked hard to get the Belvidere plant reopened, and he joined the UAW picket line—the first president to do such a thing. He told the autoworkers that he ran for the presidency “to…bring back good-paying jobs that you can raise a family on, whether or not you went to college, and give working families more breathing room. And the way to do that is to invest in ourselves again, invest in America, invest in American workers. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
In Belvidere, Biden and UAW president Shawn Fain cut a selfie video. In it, Biden says: “[Y]ou know, the middle class built this country, but unions built the middle class. And when unions do well, everybody does well. The economy does well.” Fain adds: “And this is what happens when working class people come together and stand together. Stand united. You know, one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life was seeing a sitting U.S. president visit striking workers on the picket line. That goes a long way for showing where this president stands with working-class people.” Biden says: “Well, I want to tell you, from where I stood, you did a hell of a job, pal.” Fain answers: “Yep. Back at you.”
In contrast to this optimistic can-do vision that is making American lives better is the other side of the screen: that of former president Trump and the MAGA Republicans who have doubled down on supporting him.
In Ohio, after voters on Tuesday approved an amendment to the state constitution protecting abortion rights, Republicans are calling the amendment “ambiguous” and trying to remove it from the jurisdiction of the courts. They want to make the legislature—which they dominate thanks to gerrymandering—the only body that can decide what the measure means. They are openly trying to override the decision of the voters.
In Washington, Republicans have empowered Christian extremist Mike Johnson (R-LA) to lead the House of Representatives as speaker, and today we learned that outside his office he displays a flag associated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) network that wants to place the United States government under the control of right-wing Christians. On January 6, 2021, rioters took these flags with them into the U.S. Capitol.
Johnson is also associated with a right-wing movement to call a convention of states to rewrite the Constitution.
In The Bulwark on Wednesday, A. B. Stoddard noted that the Republican Party’s surrender to its MAGA wing is nearly complete. Today, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who is the third most powerful Republican in the House, illustrated that capitulation when she filed a five-page letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Stefanik’s letter drew on an article from the right-wing Breitbart media outlet to accuse Judge Arthur Engoron and his principal law clerk of being partisan operatives. Engoron is presiding over the New York fraud trial of former president Trump and the Trump Organization.
Legal analyst Lisa Rubin noted that Stefanik’s position as a member of Congress shields her from Freedom of Information Act requests, meaning that journalists will be unable to uncover whether members of Trump’s legal defense worked with her to produce the letter. And while the mistrial motion that observers like Rubin expected to see Trump defenders produce could be dismissed quickly by Engoron himself, a complaint to the state’s judicial conduct commission will hang out there until the commission meets again.
Undermining their opponents through accusations of impropriety has been a mainstay of the Republicans since the 1990s, and it is a tactic Trump likes to use. In this case, it illustrates that Stefanik, an official who swore to defend the Constitution, has abandoned the defense of our legal system and is instead embracing Trump’s efforts to tear it down.
Meanwhile, the inability of the Republicans to figure out a way to fund the government has led the credit-rating agency Moody’s to downgrade the outlook for the credit rating of the United States today from “stable” to “negative.” Moody’s expressed concern about the fight over the debt limit last spring, the removal of House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and the rising threat of a government shutdown.
All of this plays into the hands of former president Donald Trump, who is eager to return to the White House. From there, he promises, he will take revenge on those he thinks have wronged him.
John Hendrickson of The Atlantic was at Trump’s political rally in Hialeah, Florida, on Wednesday, where the former president railed against those “coming into our country,” people he compared to “Hannibal Lecter,” a fictional serial killer who ate his victims. Trump said that under Biden, the U.S. has become “the dumping ground of the world,” and he attacked the “liars and leeches” who have been “sucking the life and blood” out of the country. He also attacked the “rotten, corrupt, and tyrannical establishment” of Washington, D.C.
Hendrickson called it a “dystopian, at times gothic speech [that] droned on for nearly 90 minutes.”
cont below
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 11, 2023
For months now it has felt weirdly as if life in the United States of America is playing out on a split screen. That sense is very strong tonight.
On one side is a country that in the past three years has invested in its people more completely than in any era since the 1960s. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act jump-started the U.S. economy after the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic; are rebuilding our roads, bridges, harbors, and internet infrastructure; have attracted $200 billion in private investment for chip manufacturing; and have invested billions in addressing the effects of climate change.
All of these changes need workers, and the economy emerged from the coronavirus pandemic with extraordinary growth that reached 4.9% in the last quarter and has seen record employment and dramatic wage gains. Median household wealth has grown by 37% since the pandemic, with wages growing faster at the bottom of the economy than at the top.
Yesterday, President Biden, in a buoyant mood, reflected this America when he congratulated members of the United Auto Workers in Belvidere, Illinois, for the strong contracts that came from negotiations with the nation’s three top automakers—Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors—thanks to the UAW workers’ 46-day graduated strike. The union demanded the automakers make up the ground that workers had ceded years ago when the plants were suffering.
The final contracts that emerged from long negotiations gave workers wage gains of 30% over the next four and a half years, better retirement security, more paid leave, commitments that automakers would create more union jobs, union coverage for workers at electric vehicle battery plants—the lack of that protection had been a key reason autoworkers had been skittish about electric vehicles—and a commitment from Stellantis to reopen the Jeep Cherokee plant in Belvidere that had been shuttered in February.
The UAW’s success is already affecting other automakers. As workers at non-union plants begin to explore unionization, Honda and Toyota have already announced wage hikes to match those in the new UAW contracts, and Subaru is hinting it will do the same.
Biden had worked hard to get the Belvidere plant reopened, and he joined the UAW picket line—the first president to do such a thing. He told the autoworkers that he ran for the presidency “to…bring back good-paying jobs that you can raise a family on, whether or not you went to college, and give working families more breathing room. And the way to do that is to invest in ourselves again, invest in America, invest in American workers. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
In Belvidere, Biden and UAW president Shawn Fain cut a selfie video. In it, Biden says: “[Y]ou know, the middle class built this country, but unions built the middle class. And when unions do well, everybody does well. The economy does well.” Fain adds: “And this is what happens when working class people come together and stand together. Stand united. You know, one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life was seeing a sitting U.S. president visit striking workers on the picket line. That goes a long way for showing where this president stands with working-class people.” Biden says: “Well, I want to tell you, from where I stood, you did a hell of a job, pal.” Fain answers: “Yep. Back at you.”
In contrast to this optimistic can-do vision that is making American lives better is the other side of the screen: that of former president Trump and the MAGA Republicans who have doubled down on supporting him.
In Ohio, after voters on Tuesday approved an amendment to the state constitution protecting abortion rights, Republicans are calling the amendment “ambiguous” and trying to remove it from the jurisdiction of the courts. They want to make the legislature—which they dominate thanks to gerrymandering—the only body that can decide what the measure means. They are openly trying to override the decision of the voters.
In Washington, Republicans have empowered Christian extremist Mike Johnson (R-LA) to lead the House of Representatives as speaker, and today we learned that outside his office he displays a flag associated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) network that wants to place the United States government under the control of right-wing Christians. On January 6, 2021, rioters took these flags with them into the U.S. Capitol.
Johnson is also associated with a right-wing movement to call a convention of states to rewrite the Constitution.
In The Bulwark on Wednesday, A. B. Stoddard noted that the Republican Party’s surrender to its MAGA wing is nearly complete. Today, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who is the third most powerful Republican in the House, illustrated that capitulation when she filed a five-page letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Stefanik’s letter drew on an article from the right-wing Breitbart media outlet to accuse Judge Arthur Engoron and his principal law clerk of being partisan operatives. Engoron is presiding over the New York fraud trial of former president Trump and the Trump Organization.
Legal analyst Lisa Rubin noted that Stefanik’s position as a member of Congress shields her from Freedom of Information Act requests, meaning that journalists will be unable to uncover whether members of Trump’s legal defense worked with her to produce the letter. And while the mistrial motion that observers like Rubin expected to see Trump defenders produce could be dismissed quickly by Engoron himself, a complaint to the state’s judicial conduct commission will hang out there until the commission meets again.
Undermining their opponents through accusations of impropriety has been a mainstay of the Republicans since the 1990s, and it is a tactic Trump likes to use. In this case, it illustrates that Stefanik, an official who swore to defend the Constitution, has abandoned the defense of our legal system and is instead embracing Trump’s efforts to tear it down.
Meanwhile, the inability of the Republicans to figure out a way to fund the government has led the credit-rating agency Moody’s to downgrade the outlook for the credit rating of the United States today from “stable” to “negative.” Moody’s expressed concern about the fight over the debt limit last spring, the removal of House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and the rising threat of a government shutdown.
All of this plays into the hands of former president Donald Trump, who is eager to return to the White House. From there, he promises, he will take revenge on those he thinks have wronged him.
John Hendrickson of The Atlantic was at Trump’s political rally in Hialeah, Florida, on Wednesday, where the former president railed against those “coming into our country,” people he compared to “Hannibal Lecter,” a fictional serial killer who ate his victims. Trump said that under Biden, the U.S. has become “the dumping ground of the world,” and he attacked the “liars and leeches” who have been “sucking the life and blood” out of the country. He also attacked the “rotten, corrupt, and tyrannical establishment” of Washington, D.C.
Hendrickson called it a “dystopian, at times gothic speech [that] droned on for nearly 90 minutes.”
cont below
It was a sharp contrast to Biden’s speech in Belvidere.
“We have more to do, but we’re finally building an economy that works for the people—working people, the middle class—and, as a consequence, the entire country,” Biden said. “When I look out at all of you and the communities like Belvidere, I see real heroes of your story—you know, you and the American worker, you’re the American people.
“Because of you, I can honestly say—and I mean this from the bottom of my heart—I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future than I am today…. Donald Trump often says…, ‘We are now a failing nation. We’re a nation in decline.’”
“But that’s not what I see,” Biden said. “I know this country. I know what we can do if folks are given half a chance. That’s why I’m so optimistic about our future. We just have to remember who we are. We are the United States of America. There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together.”
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-10-2023
“We have more to do, but we’re finally building an economy that works for the people—working people, the middle class—and, as a consequence, the entire country,” Biden said. “When I look out at all of you and the communities like Belvidere, I see real heroes of your story—you know, you and the American worker, you’re the American people.
“Because of you, I can honestly say—and I mean this from the bottom of my heart—I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future than I am today…. Donald Trump often says…, ‘We are now a failing nation. We’re a nation in decline.’”
“But that’s not what I see,” Biden said. “I know this country. I know what we can do if folks are given half a chance. That’s why I’m so optimistic about our future. We just have to remember who we are. We are the United States of America. There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together.”
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-10-2023
It breaks my heart how Veterans are treated in this country.
November 11, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 12, 2023
In 1918, at the end of four years of World War I’s devastation, leaders negotiated for the guns in Europe to fall silent once and for all on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was not technically the end of the war, which came with the Treaty of Versailles. Leaders signed that treaty on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand set off the conflict. But the armistice declared on November 11 held, and Armistice Day became popularly known as the day “The Great War,” which killed at least 40 million people, ended.
In November 1919, President Woodrow Wilson commemorated Armistice Day, saying that Americans would reflect on the anniversary of the armistice “with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…."
But Wilson was disappointed that the soldiers’ sacrifices had not changed the nation’s approach to international affairs. The Senate, under the leadership of Republican Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts—who had been determined to weaken Wilson as soon as the imperatives of the war had fallen away—refused to permit the United States to join the League of Nations, Wilson’s brainchild: a forum for countries to work out their differences with diplomacy, rather than resorting to bloodshed.
On November 10, 1923, just four years after he had established Armistice Day, former President Wilson spoke to the American people over the new medium of radio, giving the nation’s first live, nationwide broadcast.
“The anniversary of Armistice Day should stir us to a great exaltation of spirit,” he said, as Americans remembered that it was their example that had “by those early days of that never to be forgotten November, lifted the nations of the world to the lofty levels of vision and achievement upon which the great war for democracy and right was fought and won.”
But he lamented “the shameful fact that when victory was won,…chiefly by the indomitable spirit and ungrudging sacrifices of our own incomparable soldiers[,] we turned our backs upon our associates and refused to bear any responsible part in the administration of peace, or the firm and permanent establishment of the results of the war—won at so terrible a cost of life and treasure—and withdrew into a sullen and selfish isolation which is deeply ignoble because manifestly cowardly and dishonorable.”
Wilson said that a return to engagement with international affairs was “inevitable”; the U.S. eventually would have to take up its “true part in the affairs of the world.”
Congress didn’t want to hear it. In 1926 it passed a resolution noting that since November 11, 1918, “marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed,” the anniversary of that date “should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
In 1938, Congress made November 11 a legal holiday to be dedicated to world peace.
But neither the “war to end all wars” nor the commemorations of it, ended war.
Just three years after Congress made Armistice Day a holiday for peace, American armed forces were fighting a second world war, even more devastating than the first. The carnage of World War II gave power to the idea of trying to stop wars by establishing a rules-based international order. Rather than trying to push their own boundaries and interests whenever they could gain advantage, countries agreed to abide by a series of rules that promoted peace, economic cooperation, and security.
The new international system provided forums for countries to discuss their differences—like the United Nations, founded in 1945—and mechanisms for them to protect each other, like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), established in 1949, which has a mutual defense pact that says any attack on a NATO country will be considered an attack on all of them.
In the years since, those agreements multiplied and were deepened and broadened to include more countries and more ties. While the U.S. and other countries sometimes fail to honor them, their central theory remains important: no country should be able to attack a neighbor, slaughter its people, and steal its lands at will. This concept preserved decades of relative peace compared to the horrors of the early twentieth century, but it is a concept that is currently under attack as autocrats increasingly reject the idea of a rules-based international order and claim the right to act however they wish.
In 1954, to honor the armed forces of wars after World War I, Congress amended the law creating Armistice Day by striking out the word “armistice” and putting “veterans” in its place. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a veteran who had served as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and who had become a five-star general of the Army before his political career, later issued a proclamation asking Americans to observe Veterans Day:
“[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-11-2023
November 11, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 12, 2023
In 1918, at the end of four years of World War I’s devastation, leaders negotiated for the guns in Europe to fall silent once and for all on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was not technically the end of the war, which came with the Treaty of Versailles. Leaders signed that treaty on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand set off the conflict. But the armistice declared on November 11 held, and Armistice Day became popularly known as the day “The Great War,” which killed at least 40 million people, ended.
In November 1919, President Woodrow Wilson commemorated Armistice Day, saying that Americans would reflect on the anniversary of the armistice “with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…."
But Wilson was disappointed that the soldiers’ sacrifices had not changed the nation’s approach to international affairs. The Senate, under the leadership of Republican Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts—who had been determined to weaken Wilson as soon as the imperatives of the war had fallen away—refused to permit the United States to join the League of Nations, Wilson’s brainchild: a forum for countries to work out their differences with diplomacy, rather than resorting to bloodshed.
On November 10, 1923, just four years after he had established Armistice Day, former President Wilson spoke to the American people over the new medium of radio, giving the nation’s first live, nationwide broadcast.
“The anniversary of Armistice Day should stir us to a great exaltation of spirit,” he said, as Americans remembered that it was their example that had “by those early days of that never to be forgotten November, lifted the nations of the world to the lofty levels of vision and achievement upon which the great war for democracy and right was fought and won.”
But he lamented “the shameful fact that when victory was won,…chiefly by the indomitable spirit and ungrudging sacrifices of our own incomparable soldiers[,] we turned our backs upon our associates and refused to bear any responsible part in the administration of peace, or the firm and permanent establishment of the results of the war—won at so terrible a cost of life and treasure—and withdrew into a sullen and selfish isolation which is deeply ignoble because manifestly cowardly and dishonorable.”
Wilson said that a return to engagement with international affairs was “inevitable”; the U.S. eventually would have to take up its “true part in the affairs of the world.”
Congress didn’t want to hear it. In 1926 it passed a resolution noting that since November 11, 1918, “marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed,” the anniversary of that date “should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
In 1938, Congress made November 11 a legal holiday to be dedicated to world peace.
But neither the “war to end all wars” nor the commemorations of it, ended war.
Just three years after Congress made Armistice Day a holiday for peace, American armed forces were fighting a second world war, even more devastating than the first. The carnage of World War II gave power to the idea of trying to stop wars by establishing a rules-based international order. Rather than trying to push their own boundaries and interests whenever they could gain advantage, countries agreed to abide by a series of rules that promoted peace, economic cooperation, and security.
The new international system provided forums for countries to discuss their differences—like the United Nations, founded in 1945—and mechanisms for them to protect each other, like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), established in 1949, which has a mutual defense pact that says any attack on a NATO country will be considered an attack on all of them.
In the years since, those agreements multiplied and were deepened and broadened to include more countries and more ties. While the U.S. and other countries sometimes fail to honor them, their central theory remains important: no country should be able to attack a neighbor, slaughter its people, and steal its lands at will. This concept preserved decades of relative peace compared to the horrors of the early twentieth century, but it is a concept that is currently under attack as autocrats increasingly reject the idea of a rules-based international order and claim the right to act however they wish.
In 1954, to honor the armed forces of wars after World War I, Congress amended the law creating Armistice Day by striking out the word “armistice” and putting “veterans” in its place. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a veteran who had served as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and who had become a five-star general of the Army before his political career, later issued a proclamation asking Americans to observe Veterans Day:
“[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
—
Notes: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-11-2023
I'm sharing this here because I think it warrants our attention and I resonate with much of what both SonderNinja and the video says. There is no easy way to fix the system ( if there is any way at all ). Change comes with consequences we must be prepared to bear. But in the interim and until that change occurs, I would hate to see our final systematic days succumb to the authoritarian regime called MAGA.
SonderNinja said:While I hate to see peers & colleagues engage in conflict, I am keen on keeping an eye on the political discussions here, and i get a lot out of them. I won't take part in the personal conflict game, but I have been in the "truth game" for a long time....so long ago, in fact, that when I first found myself within the truth community, it was still largely made up of more liberal-oriented alt-somethingsomething loonies. Then the fascinating change in 2016, when it suddenly turned more toward conservative narratives, and we tinfoil hatters found ourselves among strange bedfellows on the right (a honeymoon that ended years ago, btw). It all looks so insane until you begin to understand the Hegelian Dialectic and how there is really only one party in a two-party system. And the overall system, the one that we all depend on, the one that the one party serves, this evil, irredeemable system, is rotting from the inside out and due for collapse. Entirely necessary and nothing can be done to save it.
The WW3 narrative is just another aspect of the changes to come. Growth is painful, and somebody had to be alive through these events, just so happens that's you & me, right? The way I see it, it's almost harvest time, and the whole thing is there (i.e. the 'beast system' that runs America and other corporations) to farm humans and our attention, energy and emotions.
My friend Paul makes great YT videos talking about this, always a little something for everyone, going in hard on Trump and Biden both, just like a real truther, with the requisite indifference toward the left and the right. I feel emboldened to post it here because all the crazy shenanigans going on in the world lately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U18P7UG0hU&t=45s
SonderNinja said:While I hate to see peers & colleagues engage in conflict, I am keen on keeping an eye on the political discussions here, and i get a lot out of them. I won't take part in the personal conflict game, but I have been in the "truth game" for a long time....so long ago, in fact, that when I first found myself within the truth community, it was still largely made up of more liberal-oriented alt-somethingsomething loonies. Then the fascinating change in 2016, when it suddenly turned more toward conservative narratives, and we tinfoil hatters found ourselves among strange bedfellows on the right (a honeymoon that ended years ago, btw). It all looks so insane until you begin to understand the Hegelian Dialectic and how there is really only one party in a two-party system. And the overall system, the one that we all depend on, the one that the one party serves, this evil, irredeemable system, is rotting from the inside out and due for collapse. Entirely necessary and nothing can be done to save it.
The WW3 narrative is just another aspect of the changes to come. Growth is painful, and somebody had to be alive through these events, just so happens that's you & me, right? The way I see it, it's almost harvest time, and the whole thing is there (i.e. the 'beast system' that runs America and other corporations) to farm humans and our attention, energy and emotions.
My friend Paul makes great YT videos talking about this, always a little something for everyone, going in hard on Trump and Biden both, just like a real truther, with the requisite indifference toward the left and the right. I feel emboldened to post it here because all the crazy shenanigans going on in the world lately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U18P7UG0hU&t=45s
The above 'authoritarian regime' is being demonstrated in Ohio, where a majority of voters passed the amendment for abortion rights by a margin of 57% to 43%.
Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week.
Republican state Reps. Jennifer Gross, Bill Dean, Melanie Miller and Beth Lear said in a news release Thursday that they’ll push to have the Legislature, not the courts, make any decisions about the amendment passed Tuesday.
“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” said the mix of fairly new and veteran lawmakers who are all vice-chairs of various House committees. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”
https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-overthrow-judicial-powers-77a68c1e6ee6fc79462f6aaf4ea1a323
Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week.
Republican state Reps. Jennifer Gross, Bill Dean, Melanie Miller and Beth Lear said in a news release Thursday that they’ll push to have the Legislature, not the courts, make any decisions about the amendment passed Tuesday.
“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” said the mix of fairly new and veteran lawmakers who are all vice-chairs of various House committees. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”
https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-overthrow-judicial-powers-77a68c1e6ee6fc79462f6aaf4ea1a323
Ahavati said: I would hate to see our final systematic days succumb to the authoritarian regime called MAGA.
Me too, A. As you've pointed out on several occasions a win for the MAGA mob could take the US down a very terrible road indeed. That the Democrats win the next election and send Trump back to his golf courses is imperative. Keep up the fight, girl. 👍👍👍
Me too, A. As you've pointed out on several occasions a win for the MAGA mob could take the US down a very terrible road indeed. That the Democrats win the next election and send Trump back to his golf courses is imperative. Keep up the fight, girl. 👍👍👍
November 13, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 13, 2023
In a speech Saturday in Claremont, New Hampshire, and then in his Veterans Day greeting yesterday on social media, former president Trump echoed German Nazis.
“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream…. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
The use of language referring to enemies as bugs or rodents has a long history in genocide because it dehumanizes opponents, making it easier to kill them. In the U.S. this concept is most commonly associated with Hitler and the Nazis, who often spoke of Jews as “vermin” and vowed to exterminate them.
The parallel between MAGA Republicans’ plans and the Nazis had other echoes this weekend, as Trump’s speech came the same day that Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported that Trump and his people are planning to revive his travel ban, more popularly known as the “Muslim ban,” which refused entry to the U.S. by people from some majority-Muslim nations, and to reimpose the pandemic-era restrictions he used during the coronavirus pandemic to refuse asylum claims—it is not only legal to apply for asylum in the United States, but it is a guaranteed right under the Refugee Act of 1980—by claiming that immigrants bring infectious diseases like tuberculosis.
They plan mass deportations of unauthorized people in the U.S., rounding them up with specially deputized law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers contributed by Republican-dominated states. Because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn’t have the space for such numbers of people, Trump’s people plan to put them in “sprawling camps” while they wait to be expelled. Trump refers to this as “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Trump’s people would screen visa applicants to eliminate those with ideas they consider undesirable, and would kick out those here temporarily for humanitarian reasons, including Afghans who came here after the 2021 Taliban takeover. Trump ally Steve Bannon and his likely attorney general, Mike Davis, expect to deport 10 million people.
Trump’s advisors also intend to challenge birthright citizenship, the principle that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. This principle was established by the Fourteenth Amendment and acknowledged in the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision during a period when native-born Americans were persecuting immigrants from Asia. That hatred resulted in Wong Kim Ark, an American-born child of Chinese immigrants, being denied reentry to the U.S. after a visit to China. Wong sued, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment established birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court agreed. The children of immigrants to the U.S.—no matter how unpopular immigration was at the time—were U.S. citizens, entitled to all the rights and immunities of citizenship, and no act of Congress could overrule a constitutional amendment.
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Trump immigration hardliner Stephen Miller told the New York Times reporters. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”
In addition to being illegal and unconstitutional, such plans to strip the nation of millions of workers would shatter the economy, sparking sky-high prices, especially of food.
For a long time, Trump’s increasingly fascist language hasn’t drawn much attention from the press, perhaps because the frequency of his outrageous statements has normalized them. When Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 referred to many Trump supporters as “deplorables,” a New York Times headline read: “Hillary Clinton Calls Many Trump Backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P.* Pounces.” Yet Trump’s threat to root out “vermin” at first drew a New York Times headline saying, “Trump Takes Veterans Day Speech in a Very Different Direction.” (This prompted Mark Jacobs of Stop the Presses to write his own headlines about disasters, including my favorite: “John Wilkes Booth Takes Visit to the Theater in a Very Different Direction.”)
Finally, it seems, Trump’s explicit use of Nazi language, especially when coupled with his threats to establish camps, has woken up at least some headline writers. Forbes accurately headlined yesterday’s story: “Trump Compares Political Foes to ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda.”
Republicans have refused to disavow Trump’s language. When Kristen Welker of Meet the Press asked Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel: “Are you comfortable with this language coming from the [Republican] frontrunner,” McDaniel answered: “I am not going to comment on candidates and their campaign messaging.” Others have remained silent.
Trump’s Veterans Day “vermin” statement set up his opponents as enemies of the country by blurring them together as “Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs.” Conflating liberals with the “Left” has been a common tactic in the U.S. right-wing movement since 1954, when L. Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley Jr. tried to demonize liberals—those Americans of all parties who wanted the government to regulate business, provide Social Security and basic welfare programs, fund roads and hospitals, and protect civil rights—as wannabe socialists.
In the United States there is a big difference between liberals and the political “Left.” Liberals believe in a society based in laws designed to protect the individual, arrived at by a government elected by the people. Political parties disagree about policy and work to change the laws, but they support the system itself. Most Americans, including Democrats and traditional Republicans, are liberals.
cont below
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
NOV 13, 2023
In a speech Saturday in Claremont, New Hampshire, and then in his Veterans Day greeting yesterday on social media, former president Trump echoed German Nazis.
“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream…. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
The use of language referring to enemies as bugs or rodents has a long history in genocide because it dehumanizes opponents, making it easier to kill them. In the U.S. this concept is most commonly associated with Hitler and the Nazis, who often spoke of Jews as “vermin” and vowed to exterminate them.
The parallel between MAGA Republicans’ plans and the Nazis had other echoes this weekend, as Trump’s speech came the same day that Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported that Trump and his people are planning to revive his travel ban, more popularly known as the “Muslim ban,” which refused entry to the U.S. by people from some majority-Muslim nations, and to reimpose the pandemic-era restrictions he used during the coronavirus pandemic to refuse asylum claims—it is not only legal to apply for asylum in the United States, but it is a guaranteed right under the Refugee Act of 1980—by claiming that immigrants bring infectious diseases like tuberculosis.
They plan mass deportations of unauthorized people in the U.S., rounding them up with specially deputized law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers contributed by Republican-dominated states. Because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn’t have the space for such numbers of people, Trump’s people plan to put them in “sprawling camps” while they wait to be expelled. Trump refers to this as “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Trump’s people would screen visa applicants to eliminate those with ideas they consider undesirable, and would kick out those here temporarily for humanitarian reasons, including Afghans who came here after the 2021 Taliban takeover. Trump ally Steve Bannon and his likely attorney general, Mike Davis, expect to deport 10 million people.
Trump’s advisors also intend to challenge birthright citizenship, the principle that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. This principle was established by the Fourteenth Amendment and acknowledged in the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision during a period when native-born Americans were persecuting immigrants from Asia. That hatred resulted in Wong Kim Ark, an American-born child of Chinese immigrants, being denied reentry to the U.S. after a visit to China. Wong sued, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment established birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court agreed. The children of immigrants to the U.S.—no matter how unpopular immigration was at the time—were U.S. citizens, entitled to all the rights and immunities of citizenship, and no act of Congress could overrule a constitutional amendment.
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Trump immigration hardliner Stephen Miller told the New York Times reporters. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”
In addition to being illegal and unconstitutional, such plans to strip the nation of millions of workers would shatter the economy, sparking sky-high prices, especially of food.
For a long time, Trump’s increasingly fascist language hasn’t drawn much attention from the press, perhaps because the frequency of his outrageous statements has normalized them. When Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 referred to many Trump supporters as “deplorables,” a New York Times headline read: “Hillary Clinton Calls Many Trump Backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P.* Pounces.” Yet Trump’s threat to root out “vermin” at first drew a New York Times headline saying, “Trump Takes Veterans Day Speech in a Very Different Direction.” (This prompted Mark Jacobs of Stop the Presses to write his own headlines about disasters, including my favorite: “John Wilkes Booth Takes Visit to the Theater in a Very Different Direction.”)
Finally, it seems, Trump’s explicit use of Nazi language, especially when coupled with his threats to establish camps, has woken up at least some headline writers. Forbes accurately headlined yesterday’s story: “Trump Compares Political Foes to ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda.”
Republicans have refused to disavow Trump’s language. When Kristen Welker of Meet the Press asked Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel: “Are you comfortable with this language coming from the [Republican] frontrunner,” McDaniel answered: “I am not going to comment on candidates and their campaign messaging.” Others have remained silent.
Trump’s Veterans Day “vermin” statement set up his opponents as enemies of the country by blurring them together as “Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs.” Conflating liberals with the “Left” has been a common tactic in the U.S. right-wing movement since 1954, when L. Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley Jr. tried to demonize liberals—those Americans of all parties who wanted the government to regulate business, provide Social Security and basic welfare programs, fund roads and hospitals, and protect civil rights—as wannabe socialists.
In the United States there is a big difference between liberals and the political “Left.” Liberals believe in a society based in laws designed to protect the individual, arrived at by a government elected by the people. Political parties disagree about policy and work to change the laws, but they support the system itself. Most Americans, including Democrats and traditional Republicans, are liberals.
cont below
