I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it all, the same way I'd have a hard time wrapping my hands around a hot poker. Thing is, I don't believe that "roughly half the people in the United States are ok with that" because I doubt that most of those people know what "that" is. I'm not sure myself. I do believe that we're going to pull this one off, and that much of the credit will go to the Supremes who decided _Dobbs_. Then we've got to figure out how to cut the unelected fourth branch of government -- big money -- down to size. (What was the phrase Grover Norquist used about shrinking government down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub? Something like that might work with the billionaires, mega-multimillionaires, and corporations.)
I've said it before, and I will say it again. Read Timothy Snyder's works on tyranny and its symptoms and effects. I ordered three other works of his to bone up on my 19th and 20th century oligarchs/dictators/authoritarian leaders. Our democracy has already been sold to the highest bidder so far. To me, it is just a question of when and how we lose our balance and keel over into the maw of other countries' historical graves. God have mercy on us all. I love this country, put 8 years into AF service to it in the 1960s and was in South Korea when Kennedy was killed - - 30 miles south of the DMZ. Maybe Kamala Harris can pull us out of a tough spot, but my betting is on our Creator, who loves us all and wants us to do what He would do. People have to read history if they don't want to keep repeating it. That's the problem from my viewpoint. Not enough of us are aware of the past. And we have to pray to the One who created and died for us to help us in our hour of need.
Agree about Snyder -- I'm in the 5th section of ON FREEDOM at the moment. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is another one of my essentials, and to cheer myself up I'm also in the middle of Heather Cox Richardson's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR.
Actually, that would be Trillionaire Coup. The Catholic Church has more than a trillion dollars in assets buried around the world. Real estate, art, shares in corporations and their own banks to launder it - too much is never enough for the Church of Rome. And to keep their assets and the government in friendly little hands, Cardinal Dolan dilated bigly for Trump at the Al Smith roast this week. They are trying to buy this election in any way they can.
- What about the separation of church and state? Pope Franci$, through his proxy and BFGF Cardinal Dolan, kissed the fat Orange Ass at Al $mith's BBQ, so all that Latin lucre will stay tax free for eternity. Pretty in Pink beanie, Dolan made it clear - he prefers a foul-mouthed, promising dictator to a woman of principle. And you can bet your bottom tithe, a memo went out to every priest across the country to follow the papal lead and pimp Trump from the pulpit.
- Kamala Harris is the only candidate who can deliver moral leadership - she is NOT the lesser of two evils, as Pope Franci$ said. Trump is the AntiChrist. Harris has Christian values - even if the Pope does not. ONLY Harris will guarantee self-determination for American women.
- Apparently, a trillion dollar fortune is not enough for Pope Francis or the Church of Rome. Disgraced Cardinal Mahoney in the Los Angeles diocese just racked up another $1 billion judgement for perv priests. Courts around the nation and world are finally seeing the light. The Church is fighting for survival - and to survive they are fighting dirtier than ever. They are fighthing democracy.
- The Catholics are Cuming! The Catholics are Cuming! And they are cuming all over The Constitution and electing themselves a felon for president. Just like they have done in Italy, Spain and Argentina this century. Just like they have done for millenia around the world.
- Send a message to Dolan and Francis and Rome: the American Presidency is not for sale.
If the billionaires pull off this coup, against the will of the American people, we are going to need to do a lot of organizing to wrench it back again.
If they keep pushing extremes, we'll have to give them extremes back. This is not Russia, we know freedom. We take pride in freedom. And we've made great strides, albeit later than we should have in several cases, in freedom. We don't need a strongman, we don't need a protector, and we are not a downtrodden people. We must be willing to rise against them and remind them of their place and our power, preferably at the ballot box. If not, well there are amendments to assist us.
This could not be more deeply troubling, David, as you have spelled out in such eloquent detail. As you've indicated, we are in a position now that has been years in the making with the passage of one obscene "law" after the other by the fascist, religious bigots on the Supreme Court.
What’s mind-blowing, however, is why this election is even close? Why would millions of the downtrodden vote for the very politicians who have subjugated them? Or at least that would appear to be so on the surface of things. But then we have to remind ourselves that the concurrent Republican agenda, while ramming through these so-called laws that are designed to disenfranchise large swaths of the people and to instill real power exclusively in the hands of the superrich, has been to destroy public education. As a result, we now have almost half of our population, millions of voters who can barely feed their families but are still willing to support the very politicians and policies that have served to enslave them. (I'm using my words with deliberate care.) When education has lost its value and meaning, fact and fabrication are interchangeable: people can be led to believe anything.
A final note to Elon Musk: be careful what you wish for. How are you going to react, you bigoted, unenlightened shell of a human, if Trump turns around once you’ve installed him as President and demands that you hand your industrial empire over to him? You don’t believe me? Go talk to the oligarchs who genuflect before Putin and have to scurry about seeking his favor. Go ask Trump himself for that matter.
These "downtrodden" (who don't seem to be as downtrodden as all that) wouldn't believe in a million years that they've been subjugated by these politicians and the mega-rich who support them. They're sure they're being subjugated, or kept from their rightful birthright, by uppity women, people of color, and the politicians who pander to *them*.
Vance, Thiel and Musk are all smarter than Trump and hard to believe may be more evil. One or more of them, though, however treacherous, isn’t smart enough to keep quiet.
What they underestimate with their 25th Amendment schemes or other less legitimate routes to succession is that Trump, however degenerate and deranged, does have a feral sense of preservation that so far has easily vanquished all of his Republican enemies.
His corporate media anointed successor,DeSantis, is a withering shell, and all the smart money guys from 2016 have never recovered, or been taken seriously since then.
He will learn of this, or may sense this, already and he still has his base. These guys should pay more attention to what happened to Mike Pence.
cannot tie the life of me figure out why people worship this shitbag.
Sadly, that seems to be the correct term…more so than at any time in my 75 years.
Not hyperbolic, just sayin:
Trumpler + Elon + rouge runaway R-wing-nut SCOTUS = BREAK GLASS MOMENT.
What we have before us akin to evil cartoonish maniacs taking all and edging planet into utter darkness.
Elon - dangerous brain amalgamation of super-intellect and dumb-as-shit absence of sensibility, bathed in racist, heartless 1980’s Afrikaner apartheid tone-deaf hate.
Trumpler - oily orange, pathologically lying, self-serving, criminal sociopath features reptilian instincts and aesthetic. See his paranoid, hateful, beady eye slits.
SCOTUS - DBs as puppeteered by long-game, utterly corrupt R wing nerdish, devil man, Leonard Leo.
—————
If Trumpler prevails on 11-5, thanks to decades of GOP cheating, lying, grifting and gaslighting, the American people will deserve what we get.
Bye bye American democracy.
Hello trajectory to WW3.
Thanks for coming on The Reidout tonight!!!
Was fun as always.
Elon confessed by accusing Dems of “using Big Tech to rig the election”
Lock Musk up then deport that bitch.
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it all, the same way I'd have a hard time wrapping my hands around a hot poker. Thing is, I don't believe that "roughly half the people in the United States are ok with that" because I doubt that most of those people know what "that" is. I'm not sure myself. I do believe that we're going to pull this one off, and that much of the credit will go to the Supremes who decided _Dobbs_. Then we've got to figure out how to cut the unelected fourth branch of government -- big money -- down to size. (What was the phrase Grover Norquist used about shrinking government down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub? Something like that might work with the billionaires, mega-multimillionaires, and corporations.)
I've said it before, and I will say it again. Read Timothy Snyder's works on tyranny and its symptoms and effects. I ordered three other works of his to bone up on my 19th and 20th century oligarchs/dictators/authoritarian leaders. Our democracy has already been sold to the highest bidder so far. To me, it is just a question of when and how we lose our balance and keel over into the maw of other countries' historical graves. God have mercy on us all. I love this country, put 8 years into AF service to it in the 1960s and was in South Korea when Kennedy was killed - - 30 miles south of the DMZ. Maybe Kamala Harris can pull us out of a tough spot, but my betting is on our Creator, who loves us all and wants us to do what He would do. People have to read history if they don't want to keep repeating it. That's the problem from my viewpoint. Not enough of us are aware of the past. And we have to pray to the One who created and died for us to help us in our hour of need.
There. Now I feel a little better.
Agree about Snyder -- I'm in the 5th section of ON FREEDOM at the moment. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is another one of my essentials, and to cheer myself up I'm also in the middle of Heather Cox Richardson's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR.
OK, now, all the rest of you go out and do likewise; educate some people...
Actually, that would be Trillionaire Coup. The Catholic Church has more than a trillion dollars in assets buried around the world. Real estate, art, shares in corporations and their own banks to launder it - too much is never enough for the Church of Rome. And to keep their assets and the government in friendly little hands, Cardinal Dolan dilated bigly for Trump at the Al Smith roast this week. They are trying to buy this election in any way they can.
- What about the separation of church and state? Pope Franci$, through his proxy and BFGF Cardinal Dolan, kissed the fat Orange Ass at Al $mith's BBQ, so all that Latin lucre will stay tax free for eternity. Pretty in Pink beanie, Dolan made it clear - he prefers a foul-mouthed, promising dictator to a woman of principle. And you can bet your bottom tithe, a memo went out to every priest across the country to follow the papal lead and pimp Trump from the pulpit.
- Kamala Harris is the only candidate who can deliver moral leadership - she is NOT the lesser of two evils, as Pope Franci$ said. Trump is the AntiChrist. Harris has Christian values - even if the Pope does not. ONLY Harris will guarantee self-determination for American women.
- Apparently, a trillion dollar fortune is not enough for Pope Francis or the Church of Rome. Disgraced Cardinal Mahoney in the Los Angeles diocese just racked up another $1 billion judgement for perv priests. Courts around the nation and world are finally seeing the light. The Church is fighting for survival - and to survive they are fighting dirtier than ever. They are fighthing democracy.
- The Catholics are Cuming! The Catholics are Cuming! And they are cuming all over The Constitution and electing themselves a felon for president. Just like they have done in Italy, Spain and Argentina this century. Just like they have done for millenia around the world.
- Send a message to Dolan and Francis and Rome: the American Presidency is not for sale.
Oligarchy is too kind. We are looking at a mix of kleptocracy and kakistocracy.
Brilliant! But the sense of foreboding is almost overwhelming.
It is. Helpful hint: Denial may be a river in Egypt but it also comes in handy sometimes.
We can't give up.
If the billionaires pull off this coup, against the will of the American people, we are going to need to do a lot of organizing to wrench it back again.
I’d imagine it’d be too late by then, no?
If they keep pushing extremes, we'll have to give them extremes back. This is not Russia, we know freedom. We take pride in freedom. And we've made great strides, albeit later than we should have in several cases, in freedom. We don't need a strongman, we don't need a protector, and we are not a downtrodden people. We must be willing to rise against them and remind them of their place and our power, preferably at the ballot box. If not, well there are amendments to assist us.
This could not be more deeply troubling, David, as you have spelled out in such eloquent detail. As you've indicated, we are in a position now that has been years in the making with the passage of one obscene "law" after the other by the fascist, religious bigots on the Supreme Court.
What’s mind-blowing, however, is why this election is even close? Why would millions of the downtrodden vote for the very politicians who have subjugated them? Or at least that would appear to be so on the surface of things. But then we have to remind ourselves that the concurrent Republican agenda, while ramming through these so-called laws that are designed to disenfranchise large swaths of the people and to instill real power exclusively in the hands of the superrich, has been to destroy public education. As a result, we now have almost half of our population, millions of voters who can barely feed their families but are still willing to support the very politicians and policies that have served to enslave them. (I'm using my words with deliberate care.) When education has lost its value and meaning, fact and fabrication are interchangeable: people can be led to believe anything.
A final note to Elon Musk: be careful what you wish for. How are you going to react, you bigoted, unenlightened shell of a human, if Trump turns around once you’ve installed him as President and demands that you hand your industrial empire over to him? You don’t believe me? Go talk to the oligarchs who genuflect before Putin and have to scurry about seeking his favor. Go ask Trump himself for that matter.
Yes, spot on.
I’d blame Fox News before I’d blame public education.
These "downtrodden" (who don't seem to be as downtrodden as all that) wouldn't believe in a million years that they've been subjugated by these politicians and the mega-rich who support them. They're sure they're being subjugated, or kept from their rightful birthright, by uppity women, people of color, and the politicians who pander to *them*.
Vance, Thiel and Musk are all smarter than Trump and hard to believe may be more evil. One or more of them, though, however treacherous, isn’t smart enough to keep quiet.
What they underestimate with their 25th Amendment schemes or other less legitimate routes to succession is that Trump, however degenerate and deranged, does have a feral sense of preservation that so far has easily vanquished all of his Republican enemies.
His corporate media anointed successor,DeSantis, is a withering shell, and all the smart money guys from 2016 have never recovered, or been taken seriously since then.
He will learn of this, or may sense this, already and he still has his base. These guys should pay more attention to what happened to Mike Pence.