Just got through listening to Bob Cesca on the Stephany Miller show and liberals fucking themselves and voters like me with the insane idea we shouldn't vote at all if we don't like the Democratic candidate. If you think trashing any Dems is a good idea then you need to explain how that helps us. Not voting because there is no democratic socialist on the ticket could hurt us in November and looking at nonvoters track record isn't at all encouraging when they seem to think once things get bad enough even the GOP will vote blue. The fantasy of a forever liberal America and sweeping reform with no resistance as inevitable does not bring out voters who think we can always recover. Too much confidence is killing us if it leads to ignoring elections. I know we talk about Trumpers voting against their own interests then what do you call not voting for our own interests on the left? Fear and hate brings out GOP voters while we on the left seem not to have any fear of losing at all. I definitely think the left is not immune from the hate tactics the right uses against Democrats. One thing indisputably is not voting lose elections every single time. I see even AOC supports Jeffries as speaker because she can see how politics in America works and how desperate our situation is. Elect the Dems, give them power and then make the changes we need instead of "biting ourselves in the ass" as my father would say by rolling over for the GOP and not voting.
I watched that Bob Cesca bit. Bob gets his hair on fire about the democratic party now and then.
We have to remember the POV of the individuals attacking the various wings of the democratic party: they come from a place that values conformity at all costs. All their members have to follow the party line. The GOP has always been like that. The Dixiecrats were always like that. The Confederates were always like that. The MAGA churches are like that. The wealthy are like that, as a way to make sure their money lasts for generations. Bigots have a world order stuck in their brain. It is always the conservatives that say stuff like 'New World Order'.
The Democrats are opposite of that: each political subdivision picks people that match their local situation. So it looks like chaos to the conformist brain. But the dems represent their area. I don't care what another district does. That situation gives our enemies openings to nit-pick, attack, and divide. That's why I block posts from dems that attack other dems. They really want a blue version of the GOP.
Conformity is not a principle of the Democratic Party. Support for human rights is.
Wrong we lose uniformly and never figure out the math of winning elections. Nice high minded excuse for not voting. Sounds like something the GOP would support because it works in their favor every election. You are the problem, not the solution and enable the right to win. Like I said people with so much confidence they don't feel inclined to vote because they are safe. So much for the compassionate left letting others suffer so they can claim they don't vote in lock step for humane government. Disgusting selfish liberals are everywhere.
I was 25 during the Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. I remember a summer of ubiquitous Bicentennial mania. A kitschy, rolling museum called the “Freedom Train” was traveling around the nation filled with replicas of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and all manner of other counterfeit tidbits from our first 200 years. Disco was hot and so was the weather. Pintos were exploding, disaster movies were thrilling us in mall cineplexes, George Lucas was filming some kind of space movie in North Africa, and people were still edgy about going into the water after Jaws terrorized us the summer before. Gerald Ford was issuing “Whip Inflation Now” WIN buttons as a balm for the country’s financial situation, and pardoning Richard Nixon for crimes that wouldn’t last one news cycle in today’s peak-corruption environment. And a peanut farmer from Georgia was campaigning for the White House in November.
Yeah. Crazy times, as usual, but you know what? The one thing we DIDN’T worry about was our country descending into fascism. Even the Republican party of that era had convinced a corrupt president to step down two years earlier. We knew that whatever needed fixing, we were going to vote in November, our votes would be counted, and our democracy would go on.
Now, 50 years later, with a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, pedophilic, breathtakingly corrupt Russian asset destroying our country to a degree that would trigger a declaration of war if another nation were attacking us in the same way, we are expected to celebrate our country’s first 250 years. Forget it. That we have such a monster in charge with a gutless, cultish GOP running Congress and the most corrupt SCOTUS since Plessey versus Ferguson, will be a stain on this country’s history for all time. I will not be a party to the “celebration.” There is paint drying somewhere that I need to watch on Saturday.
Yes, that was a wonderful time. I was living in NYC then, and the Bicentennial celebrations were so much fun.. People always talk about how terrible the city was in those days, the crime and everything, but the seventies were the last decade when a normal person with very little money could live in and enjoy NYC. Then Reagan came in and the financialization of the economy took off, leading to the discontent and anger that helped lead to the election of Zohran Mamdani (whom I support) as mayor.
Mark, that was a wonderful trip down Memory Lane and then such descriptive language for our current Creature in the White House, but I will keep adding that this is a takeover by White Supremacists without the white sheets. The three Strict Scrutiny legal experts this morning suggested that the harm, if continuing, could go all the way to the Dred Scott decision, which was one of the key triggers setting off the Civil War.
I can't imagine one of those "conservative" justices on this court living anywhere but a bunker or another country when they step down......or maybe even now.....except Alito's wife needs to stay in the house with the flagpole she's so fond of.
Honestly, I believe it was the advertising bullshit that we were the greatest country in the world and people start believing it with all of our shortcomings to the other free nations of the world and got complacent and other countries Catching up and then passing us by An old adversaries had long grudges and got mad. Typical Americans got very short attention span.
Troy Nehls, GOP congressman from TX was asked what he's having for July 4. He said "a party with ribeyes and lobster tails". The reporter asked if the average Texan could afford that type of food. Nehls, irritated, said "Well, maybe they don't work as hard as I do." Hope Dems hammer that in before the midterms.
Hi Donnab and Larry, it's the Marie Antoinette attitude in the 21st century. Like Drumpf and the rest of the Epstein class, Nehls basically said, "Let them eat cake."
I myself, a couple of days ago, desperate for anything before switching to my Roku box, caught an "Aspen conference question and answer session with really some very self-indulgent frat boy types. Whole Foods was at the table, but the smarmy guy from Lyft, talking about gas prices and how Lyft would probably contract with "3rd party providers" to ease the costs for "our drivers" and how drivers are just driving to afford that special vacation or event or save for someone's education. And all this said with a straight face and no wonder at all about why Lyft was a SECOND job that 'their drivers' needed for those items, when during the '80s just one job could still get you most of that stuff.
Once again: EAT the Rich!! All tech bros and tech-adjacent guys need be shipped out.
Nayeera played that twice today filling in for Michelangelo. His arrogance and entitlement speaks volumes. Something is wrong if a voter thinks that guy is worthy of being a government rep.
Larry, I found a Wash State page for the State AG's office, where AG Brown put out the results of the wins made by the AG's office (in conjunction with other Dem AGs across the country and other amicus briefs). There were responses to Brown's announcements, and they were just sad. You can really see a media and digital divide so clearly in them. And I could also sense the isolation and loneliness that drove people to "do their own research"......and one woman found that somehow our State AG would be under a Grand Bar which is in England and has something to do with a Fabian Society. Whoaa. There were, as had been noted by others, so many misunderstandings of how state and even local government works, how the electoral system works, how digitized elections work, and on and on.
Lorie, we’re all frustrated that these uninformed cult members cast their votes without having ANY critical thinking skills to comprehend factual news, let alone having NO understanding of civics/government. Republicons have “dumbed down” America, and as Drumpf says, he “loves stupid people.”
Larry, I'm not labelling any of those commenters on the Nick Brown AG emails as in a cult. And I realize that there are fewer of them than us. I'm just saying that both our education system and the mass media have failed these people. Trump certainly reminds me of two people who were in my life before 2000. Both of them had unrecognized dyslexia, and probably both (and perhaps even Trump) were told, one way another, that they were stupid and 'couldn't learn'. Early messages of stupidity and unworthiness can have scorchingly awful results, as we're witnessing with Trump.
As a non-elitist, I don't want to dismiss anyone from the room with me because they didn't have my advantages, I just want them to realize that some people have the right cred for leadershp and some don't. As an "ancient weightlifter", I'm careful not to diss any woman just arriving in a fitness area just because they've been yoked to a desk and gotten heavy, or haven't had the means to get started yet. Meet them where they are.
Hi Lorie-lots to unpack in your response. I’ve been an educator for decades, and I understand there are many Americans with learning challenges; the reasons people lack CT skills today are many and varied. No child should be “dissed,” nor made to feel stupid.
However, if there’s “research” done by these people and verifiable facts are ignored or disparaged, and disputing fact based science is condoned, their inner biases are often another contributing factor for their “beliefs.” Faux News (and their ilk) promote fear, and these people are easy targets to be manipulated, which is why we’re in this dangerous situation.
Yes, we need to meet everyone where they are. But about 20 percent of Americans are in a place that’s unreachable. IMO, from my experiences, they are a waste of time.
Larry, I rarely can deal face to face, because I'm always shocked out of rational thought by a conversation that suddenly veers into MAGA territory, But I can be patient with some online forums, such as the one I discovered at the state AG's website. And I don't stay for an argument, I just aim to respond calmly and by presenting some realities that the person may have missed.
Just listened to Nyeera's partial explanation of the screeching white supremacy stuff issuing from the mouths of such high IQ people on the right as Stephen Miller and Megyn Kelly. A simple query to Wikipedia provides a sure-fire answer about this huge wrong track our government continues to want to steer Americans on to:
Approximately 83% to 87% of the Earth's population is non-white. This group—often referred to as the global majority—comprises people of African, Asian, Indigenous, Latin American, and mixed-heritage backgrounds. People of white European descent make up the remaining 13% to 17% of the global total.
While the globe has been turning, America must be, like most countries multi-racial, diverse, and proud of it, or just agree to be a new and enlarge apartheid S. Africa (probably Musk's dream default).
Mike, can you platform Becca Balint after you return? I heard her interviewed on Dean's show and was dismayed to find that Rep Balint is being rudely harassed and maligned by some of the male Members of Congress. This is at least the 6th time that we've found out about, with AOC and the Squad being the original targets, then Sarah McBride, and now Becca Balint. The kind of rude, crude and bigotted harassment by certain males in Congress, while many Dems fail to stand up for their incoming sisters, is horrific. These men need to be named and shamed in the absence of videos like the one which caught AOC on the steps of one of the Capitol buildings being verbally harassed by some male asshole congressman.
Such behavior seems to signify that the "Men's Club" is feeling signficantly threatened, but we need to find ways to applaud and support our new leaders. Their Congressional web pages only allow for their constituents to contact them, and therefore wider approval from the broader American audience is left on the table while the haters must be also calling in to hate on Ms. Balint. It seems that Congressional men are conducting modern day "witch hunts" on every woman who arrives from a different group of Americans, be they black, gay, trans, non-Christians, etc. Diversity in Congress has turned them all into bullying bedwetters. Thank you so much for what you do, Mike.
Just got through listening to Bob Cesca on the Stephany Miller show and liberals fucking themselves and voters like me with the insane idea we shouldn't vote at all if we don't like the Democratic candidate. If you think trashing any Dems is a good idea then you need to explain how that helps us. Not voting because there is no democratic socialist on the ticket could hurt us in November and looking at nonvoters track record isn't at all encouraging when they seem to think once things get bad enough even the GOP will vote blue. The fantasy of a forever liberal America and sweeping reform with no resistance as inevitable does not bring out voters who think we can always recover. Too much confidence is killing us if it leads to ignoring elections. I know we talk about Trumpers voting against their own interests then what do you call not voting for our own interests on the left? Fear and hate brings out GOP voters while we on the left seem not to have any fear of losing at all. I definitely think the left is not immune from the hate tactics the right uses against Democrats. One thing indisputably is not voting lose elections every single time. I see even AOC supports Jeffries as speaker because she can see how politics in America works and how desperate our situation is. Elect the Dems, give them power and then make the changes we need instead of "biting ourselves in the ass" as my father would say by rolling over for the GOP and not voting.
I watched that Bob Cesca bit. Bob gets his hair on fire about the democratic party now and then.
We have to remember the POV of the individuals attacking the various wings of the democratic party: they come from a place that values conformity at all costs. All their members have to follow the party line. The GOP has always been like that. The Dixiecrats were always like that. The Confederates were always like that. The MAGA churches are like that. The wealthy are like that, as a way to make sure their money lasts for generations. Bigots have a world order stuck in their brain. It is always the conservatives that say stuff like 'New World Order'.
The Democrats are opposite of that: each political subdivision picks people that match their local situation. So it looks like chaos to the conformist brain. But the dems represent their area. I don't care what another district does. That situation gives our enemies openings to nit-pick, attack, and divide. That's why I block posts from dems that attack other dems. They really want a blue version of the GOP.
Conformity is not a principle of the Democratic Party. Support for human rights is.
Wrong we lose uniformly and never figure out the math of winning elections. Nice high minded excuse for not voting. Sounds like something the GOP would support because it works in their favor every election. You are the problem, not the solution and enable the right to win. Like I said people with so much confidence they don't feel inclined to vote because they are safe. So much for the compassionate left letting others suffer so they can claim they don't vote in lock step for humane government. Disgusting selfish liberals are everywhere.
I was 25 during the Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. I remember a summer of ubiquitous Bicentennial mania. A kitschy, rolling museum called the “Freedom Train” was traveling around the nation filled with replicas of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and all manner of other counterfeit tidbits from our first 200 years. Disco was hot and so was the weather. Pintos were exploding, disaster movies were thrilling us in mall cineplexes, George Lucas was filming some kind of space movie in North Africa, and people were still edgy about going into the water after Jaws terrorized us the summer before. Gerald Ford was issuing “Whip Inflation Now” WIN buttons as a balm for the country’s financial situation, and pardoning Richard Nixon for crimes that wouldn’t last one news cycle in today’s peak-corruption environment. And a peanut farmer from Georgia was campaigning for the White House in November.
Yeah. Crazy times, as usual, but you know what? The one thing we DIDN’T worry about was our country descending into fascism. Even the Republican party of that era had convinced a corrupt president to step down two years earlier. We knew that whatever needed fixing, we were going to vote in November, our votes would be counted, and our democracy would go on.
Now, 50 years later, with a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, pedophilic, breathtakingly corrupt Russian asset destroying our country to a degree that would trigger a declaration of war if another nation were attacking us in the same way, we are expected to celebrate our country’s first 250 years. Forget it. That we have such a monster in charge with a gutless, cultish GOP running Congress and the most corrupt SCOTUS since Plessey versus Ferguson, will be a stain on this country’s history for all time. I will not be a party to the “celebration.” There is paint drying somewhere that I need to watch on Saturday.
Yes, that was a wonderful time. I was living in NYC then, and the Bicentennial celebrations were so much fun.. People always talk about how terrible the city was in those days, the crime and everything, but the seventies were the last decade when a normal person with very little money could live in and enjoy NYC. Then Reagan came in and the financialization of the economy took off, leading to the discontent and anger that helped lead to the election of Zohran Mamdani (whom I support) as mayor.
Mark, that was a wonderful trip down Memory Lane and then such descriptive language for our current Creature in the White House, but I will keep adding that this is a takeover by White Supremacists without the white sheets. The three Strict Scrutiny legal experts this morning suggested that the harm, if continuing, could go all the way to the Dred Scott decision, which was one of the key triggers setting off the Civil War.
I can't imagine one of those "conservative" justices on this court living anywhere but a bunker or another country when they step down......or maybe even now.....except Alito's wife needs to stay in the house with the flagpole she's so fond of.
Honestly, I believe it was the advertising bullshit that we were the greatest country in the world and people start believing it with all of our shortcomings to the other free nations of the world and got complacent and other countries Catching up and then passing us by An old adversaries had long grudges and got mad. Typical Americans got very short attention span.
Troy Nehls, GOP congressman from TX was asked what he's having for July 4. He said "a party with ribeyes and lobster tails". The reporter asked if the average Texan could afford that type of food. Nehls, irritated, said "Well, maybe they don't work as hard as I do." Hope Dems hammer that in before the midterms.
Hi Donnab and Larry, it's the Marie Antoinette attitude in the 21st century. Like Drumpf and the rest of the Epstein class, Nehls basically said, "Let them eat cake."
Yes Sakina, and the lower and middle classes battle for the cake crumbs. The shame is that we all have to suffer for the MAGA cult ignorance.
Hi Sakina. What a self-entitled, arrogant creep he is!!
Nice catch, donnab! Thanks for sharing.
I myself, a couple of days ago, desperate for anything before switching to my Roku box, caught an "Aspen conference question and answer session with really some very self-indulgent frat boy types. Whole Foods was at the table, but the smarmy guy from Lyft, talking about gas prices and how Lyft would probably contract with "3rd party providers" to ease the costs for "our drivers" and how drivers are just driving to afford that special vacation or event or save for someone's education. And all this said with a straight face and no wonder at all about why Lyft was a SECOND job that 'their drivers' needed for those items, when during the '80s just one job could still get you most of that stuff.
Once again: EAT the Rich!! All tech bros and tech-adjacent guys need be shipped out.
Yes, French Revolution comes to mind. Of course, GOP doesn't read or care about history.
Nayeera played that twice today filling in for Michelangelo. His arrogance and entitlement speaks volumes. Something is wrong if a voter thinks that guy is worthy of being a government rep.
Larry, I found a Wash State page for the State AG's office, where AG Brown put out the results of the wins made by the AG's office (in conjunction with other Dem AGs across the country and other amicus briefs). There were responses to Brown's announcements, and they were just sad. You can really see a media and digital divide so clearly in them. And I could also sense the isolation and loneliness that drove people to "do their own research"......and one woman found that somehow our State AG would be under a Grand Bar which is in England and has something to do with a Fabian Society. Whoaa. There were, as had been noted by others, so many misunderstandings of how state and even local government works, how the electoral system works, how digitized elections work, and on and on.
Lorie, we’re all frustrated that these uninformed cult members cast their votes without having ANY critical thinking skills to comprehend factual news, let alone having NO understanding of civics/government. Republicons have “dumbed down” America, and as Drumpf says, he “loves stupid people.”
Larry, I'm not labelling any of those commenters on the Nick Brown AG emails as in a cult. And I realize that there are fewer of them than us. I'm just saying that both our education system and the mass media have failed these people. Trump certainly reminds me of two people who were in my life before 2000. Both of them had unrecognized dyslexia, and probably both (and perhaps even Trump) were told, one way another, that they were stupid and 'couldn't learn'. Early messages of stupidity and unworthiness can have scorchingly awful results, as we're witnessing with Trump.
As a non-elitist, I don't want to dismiss anyone from the room with me because they didn't have my advantages, I just want them to realize that some people have the right cred for leadershp and some don't. As an "ancient weightlifter", I'm careful not to diss any woman just arriving in a fitness area just because they've been yoked to a desk and gotten heavy, or haven't had the means to get started yet. Meet them where they are.
Hi Lorie-lots to unpack in your response. I’ve been an educator for decades, and I understand there are many Americans with learning challenges; the reasons people lack CT skills today are many and varied. No child should be “dissed,” nor made to feel stupid.
However, if there’s “research” done by these people and verifiable facts are ignored or disparaged, and disputing fact based science is condoned, their inner biases are often another contributing factor for their “beliefs.” Faux News (and their ilk) promote fear, and these people are easy targets to be manipulated, which is why we’re in this dangerous situation.
Yes, we need to meet everyone where they are. But about 20 percent of Americans are in a place that’s unreachable. IMO, from my experiences, they are a waste of time.
Larry, I rarely can deal face to face, because I'm always shocked out of rational thought by a conversation that suddenly veers into MAGA territory, But I can be patient with some online forums, such as the one I discovered at the state AG's website. And I don't stay for an argument, I just aim to respond calmly and by presenting some realities that the person may have missed.
I was asked today if I have plans for July 4. Answer “I don't believe there is any reason to celebrate.”
Not proud to be an American with a Fascist running the country, loss of women's, lgbt, and minority rights.
As the kids say, donnab, when outside the country maybe we can "fake it 'till we make it" as new Canadians!
I just want to sleep through the night these next 4-5 days - it's a high bar here.
Just listened to Nyeera's partial explanation of the screeching white supremacy stuff issuing from the mouths of such high IQ people on the right as Stephen Miller and Megyn Kelly. A simple query to Wikipedia provides a sure-fire answer about this huge wrong track our government continues to want to steer Americans on to:
Approximately 83% to 87% of the Earth's population is non-white. This group—often referred to as the global majority—comprises people of African, Asian, Indigenous, Latin American, and mixed-heritage backgrounds. People of white European descent make up the remaining 13% to 17% of the global total.
While the globe has been turning, America must be, like most countries multi-racial, diverse, and proud of it, or just agree to be a new and enlarge apartheid S. Africa (probably Musk's dream default).
Mike, can you platform Becca Balint after you return? I heard her interviewed on Dean's show and was dismayed to find that Rep Balint is being rudely harassed and maligned by some of the male Members of Congress. This is at least the 6th time that we've found out about, with AOC and the Squad being the original targets, then Sarah McBride, and now Becca Balint. The kind of rude, crude and bigotted harassment by certain males in Congress, while many Dems fail to stand up for their incoming sisters, is horrific. These men need to be named and shamed in the absence of videos like the one which caught AOC on the steps of one of the Capitol buildings being verbally harassed by some male asshole congressman.
Such behavior seems to signify that the "Men's Club" is feeling signficantly threatened, but we need to find ways to applaud and support our new leaders. Their Congressional web pages only allow for their constituents to contact them, and therefore wider approval from the broader American audience is left on the table while the haters must be also calling in to hate on Ms. Balint. It seems that Congressional men are conducting modern day "witch hunts" on every woman who arrives from a different group of Americans, be they black, gay, trans, non-Christians, etc. Diversity in Congress has turned them all into bullying bedwetters. Thank you so much for what you do, Mike.