I’m going to side with JVL here and say that the vibecession was complete BS. And the median voter, who told exit pollsters that their most salient issue was inflation, very stupidly voted for a candidate guaranteeing more inflation. For the entire campaign, Mona, Sarah, and others coddled these swing voters in their stupidity about inflation. We had a once in a century pandemic!! There was a resulting supply shock due to global supply chains getting whipsawed back and forth. Yet rather than understanding nuance, especially because many of the same voters complained that the recovery from the GFC was too slow, they voted for the guy promising higher prices. So now that guy is doing the things he promised he would do. Although he has chickened out before, maybe he won’t this time. Wall Street’s confidence in Trump’s cowardice is what is keeping the market where it is. But that is separate than a vibecession. Prices are objectively higher today than they were 6 months ago. GDP did drop in Q1. And it’s only going to get worse.
I think it was always kind of an Alpha Power vibe. Trump has a way of tickling the authoritarian in people. Why did so many working class voters hitch their wagon to his star. Power. J6th and overcoming that?...getting nicked by an AR-15 bullet? Brushing aside Courts and Judges that refuse to silence him when they would have put other defendents in handcuffs and a mouth ball. Why do so many poor white, black and hispanic men vote for him. He's the bully and the Democrats are the NPR people. So how do you deal with that support he has. Fight fire with fire, we need a ruthless prick as a candidate
Or at least start really fighting back. If anyone needs to be silenced, it's the NPR pajama boys. These people ... What's the George Orwell quote? "There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."
More Jasmine Crockett, please. Make Jim Jordan defend stacking boxes of classified documents next to the shitter in the Mar-A-Lago bathroom off the ballroom.
An NPR Pajama Boy would be anyone capable of saying in public something like, "Look, I think we need to wrestle with the seriously problematic generational implications of the cis-gender patrimony on transnormative gender identity."
It comes down to the survey question, "Do you think Candidate X understands you?" We need Democrats who score high on that question. There ARE people out there for whom a sentence like that demonstrates that candidates DO understand them. There just aren't enough of them to win elections.
Ahhh...yes I am afraid that kind of stuff is right up there with angels dancing on pinheads. Those issues are important but they do not get what you need to address them...which is VOTES.
Get elected and then work on culture issues. These next elections are going to be street fights. Folks want more affordable lives, and opportunity, that is what they will vote for. And...release the Epstein files!
Governor Breshear says "guess what...they're Inmates not Judicially Involved Population"...stop talking in Advocacy Language, talk like you do to your friends and co workers, its not that hard.
Or the opposite. Someone who speaks in non political no spin terms, easy to understand, a tremendous control of facts, very intelligent, not losses his cool ever, a flat out top notch debater, can go on FOX and kill it, has empathy, very likable: Pete Buttigieg
Dave, Whenever I hear that argument, I simply say: America wasn't ready for a black president. Then we elected a black president. That is the former debater in me speaking.
I love Pete! I want him to adopt me as an extra grandfather for his kids! But I've been wondering whether he would want to raise them in the White House, since they're so young now.
My main concern, in addition to electability? While I'm glad that he never loses his cool, I think he comes across as TOO cool when people want to see real passion, a more agressive fighter type. He wouldn't have to do that all the time, just enough to convince people he will fight for them if calm reasoning and persuasion don't work.
Alas, I fear you're probably right about the country's readiness. If some still won't vote for a woman (and we know that's true), it seems unlikely they'd vote for someone gay. On the other hand, it might make a difference that he's a white, cisgender male.
Sad but true. When we have elections that are this close you're kind of dealing with the last 5% in and they're usually not the Poli Sci Majors, they're more like the bowling alley folks, god love them, it is what it is...reality has been stretched so thin and is so fragile a huge battle is fought for that last mile over Vibe and that's how the Republicans did it.
It was rarely pointed out that inflation was a world wide phenomenon after the pandemic due to the supply chain shocks and then the Ukraine war. The US had lower inflation and came out better than almost any other country, but those facts were rarely pointed out and inflation seemed to end at the border for many people.
I disagree, Keith. It was said often - but the people who voted for Trump weren't reading or hearing those (intelligent explanations). They didn't care that the US was doing better than Europe, damn it. OTOH, you are right - Biden didn't do his job with the bully pulpit.
It was a global pandemic, global supply chain issues, everyone, everywhere was feeling it. It was often discussed how much the USA was doing much, much better than everywhere else. Could a more able bodied Biden have been more on top of it? Maybe. From what I remember though, the message was out there and people were just not listening. As mentioned elsewhere, much of this is people raging for the sake of raging and looking for scapegoats to vent their frustrations.
American voters can only digest all if it fits on a bumper sticker.( in most cases). Biden was terrible on messaging no doubt. That simply isn't Biden. Empathy and common sense are. Guess what 49.8 % chose? Doesn't say a lot about Americans does it.
Unbelievable to me.....but there it is.....my fellow countrymen are easily swayed fools. I guess Republicans are right - we're not fit for democracy. Where they're wrong is in thinking that THEY (or King Trump) is the answer.
Agree about Biden not using the bully pulpit. I think that depends where you were reading. The press rarely made the point that inflation was a global phenomenon and connected what was happening here was also happening elsewhere, and everyone felt the same price pressures.
You have to add "right-wing" after "press" to make your claim more accurate, Keith. I saw the references to world-wide inflation as worse than what we experienced frequently in the NYT, WSJ, WAPO, CNN, and of course MSNBC.
Just as these sources have been non-stop in explaining the true effects of tariffs on inflation.
Not the press's job. Biden did not use the bully pulpit because he was not capable of effectively doing so. Anyone suggesting that adding nuance is the way to combat the fire hose of BS has no concept how people consume information.
He was perfectly capable, as was his VP and cabinet. But I honestly think they thought everyone would see the good things they were doing, and that these successes would be embraced by the citizenry.
Unfortunately, and right wing media all across the country owns much of the blame for this, there are a lotta folks who do not pay any attention to main stream media (not that there is much of that any longer).
Someone should have been in charge of humble bragging for the Biden administration....
I agree that the VP was more than capable. It sounds, however, that his "inner circle" did not want the VP or cabinet to perform those functions. If they relied on the people to independently "see the good things they were doing, and that these successes would be embraced by the citizenry" they were clueless. Political malpractice.
I like Pete B., a lot. For all the reasons set forth above. I also share some of the concerns identified above. I also think that anyone in that cabinet will be saddled with the "how could you not see and be concerned" about the Prez's competency.
Next candidate should probably be from outside the federal government.
The press would ignore most of what Biden did. Axios printed that Johnson had a win when he refused to accept the vote that went against him. Had a closed door session and arm twisted the Republicans for a change their vote. Then returned and said the bill passed. By rights there should have been two votes, but that would have made Johnson look weak. Axios never pointed that out. Comments in WAPO were always against the paper for underplaying the good Biden did, or ignoring it. The paper lost 300,000 subscribers because of the paper’s heavy handedness.
It was, but your financial position has always been fabulously weak. With Trump and the Republicans plundering the treasury and running the economy into the ground...oh and causing the globe to boycott all things American....well the citizenry is about to get a very harsh lesson in Econ 101.
Oh, I pointed that out many times. I had to because the fools where I live kept spewing this narrative. They probably knew it was bilge water, but pacifying their believers was more important. Lying is normal and expected with Republicans.
My Republican friends still are quick to say "Democrats hemorrhage money". Oblivious to the facts. They look confused when I tell them the budget reports on Democrat vs. Republican administrations do not support that statement.
I’m in MD, which has high (-er) gas taxes. Approximately 10 days ago I paid $3.15/gallon. The Shell station X from my work is now charging $3.26/gallon, and I’ve seen as high as $3.38 at a local Exxon. That’s not just seasonal.
Clearly, but are more expensive to rent and are not as ubiquitous as the "normal" ones, you know, like the three outside Ebbing, Mo. And, as Janet mentioned above, the visable change is an added plus.
Right now regular gasoline in Mexico is $1.26/ liter which translates into $4.80/gal. And the dollar is falling probably because of the way agent Krasnov and his gang of merry evil doers are deliberately crashing the US economy while Claudia's people are maintaining a steady course.
I am in NY (upstate). I can get gas at $2.97/gallon, sometimes less/sometimes more at the BJ's Wholesale. If I go to a regular station it is something like $3.09.
I live in California in a tourist area 25 minutes from the Nevada border. 91 octane was a little over $4 a week ago in Nevada. It's closer to $6 or $7 in California. I drive an electric, but (current) second car is gas. Someone told me they thought gas was going to $10 in California soon, with the loss of two refineries. Clean air has a price.
Changing their processes to accomodate these regulations is expensive, so California gas is more expensive. Thus, "clean air has a price."
That doesn't vitiate your suggestion that Big Oil is gouging customers, of course. But this is 21st Century capitalism, where buying politicians and asserting monopoly power is perfectly acceptable.
Eggs.. well, I bought a dozen last weekend (organic) for a bit over $3/doz. But if I go to the farmer's market, I can get free range organic jumbo eggs, double yolk for about $6 and they are huge. There are even bigger eggs (we call them the Teradactyls) but I am a bit afraid of those.
I have always listened to Dr.Mike Osterholm (one of the top epidemiologists in the world). He has said we were very vulnerable to epidemics and pandemics and that well before covid! Now we have Trump and RFK Jr. I don't want to sound dark, but we really need to be lucky.
The inflation concerns were real. There were almost daily major news stories trumpeting how unaffordable eggs were. As a result, people were concerned about inflation.
Currently, beef (especially ground beef) is at all-time highs. Where are the daily news stories?
If you want to know why inflation stopped being an issue, look no further. Maybe post-tariff back to school shopping will change the dynamic.
I agree with you, but there is a certain sense of timing involved if any of these things will have a meaningful impact on elections. Because of our collective short attention spans, we are better off if these things occur (inflation, Epstein, etc.) closer to an election and continue through the election. It's hard to keep these things going for a year (2026) or three (2028).
I get so tired of how Sarah et al let voters off the hook. That is we can't call the stupid even when they are so. I also was upset about the press coverage of the post COVID inflation with was covered as in a panic and with no context. It may have been a concern but the central bank was handling.
I don't think Sarah's letting voter's off the hook so much as acknowledging where they're at in their own minds. She strikes me as the sort that's too nice to call someone stupid to their face...besides, she has JVL right there to do it for her.
I don't think her job as a focus group facilitator is to judge and call out stupid comments (that's why I couldn't be a facilitator) but to collect the comments, the discussion, document it, analyze it and then convey where the thinking of these groups are. I think she does a very good job of that.
We can acknowledge where they are and also understand that the only winning with them is for them to stay home. I’ve seen her mention a couple of times recently that some voters are unreachable. I agree.
Not just this campaign but the first Felon Trump campaign. The Boston Globe had a series of articles supposedly by a neutral researcher of the pro Trump and the pro Hilary. It wasn’t neutral. The pro Trump interviews were one note; how they felt, what they expected, and why they were going to vote for Trump. Nothing about what they did or didn’t do to get themselves out of their present situation, nothing about why they kept voting for the same fools every election. Nothing about anything specific, only what they want for themselves. Then they got four years of nothing. Aside from appearing in his rallies, his base got grifted to give him lots of money, and nothing else. Same with the second election. Voted because of immigration, the cost of food, and inflation. Nonsense. If those were their real interests, then there should be a lot of screaming. Costs were so high in November, but now in July, they are higher and his base says nothing. If it was knife edge hard eight months ago, why so silent now.
Disagree. I have two teenage boys and our grocery bills are up tremendously. My records indicate about 40% higher than pre-Covid (but yes this is conflated with them eating more). Just look at Tyson foods with their operating profit up 28.6% YoY.
But the big thing is housing prices, this is devastating for younger folks that were not lucky enough to purchase a house before Covid and low interest rates.
Trump ain’t fixing those problems - he’s making them worse- but they were real during the Biden era.
The fact that price increases happened because our recovery was better than after the GFC is brutally honest. In fact, the rise of Trump in 2016 was partially due to the slow & torturous recovery following 2008-2009. They happened and were not a direct result of what Biden did, and yet Harris paid the price of them. But the most important part of all of this is IF a voter is complaining about high prices, voting for the person who is promising even HIGHER prices is a very stupid thing to do. So either the voters’ complaints were BS OR voters are stupid. There is no third choice.
Can I comment about Schiff's mortgage. I say this as an underwriter. So we look at files and verify the facts. Residence is a material fact. But the issue when it comes to a Senator is different than that for most others. Schiff, like most in Congress who don't live close by keeps 2 residences. And here I am not distinguishing between a rental or an owner occupied property.
And this issue for a mortgage or for a home insurer is - is this owner occupied. if Schiff owns 2 properties then both would be in essence owner occupied. This is different from a rental - where the risk is generally higher.
How the law operates... well that is beyond me. But if I were looking as Schiff's file and saw a driver's license in CA and a residence in DC - his occupation would explain everything.
What an entirely reasonable and logical explanation. I look forward to the completely deranged narrative that actually takes root instead of this very obvious thing.
Haven’t read the article about Schaffer yet, but I know lots of people who own two properties that they reside in throughout the year. Where they vote determines residency in states, and, except for Mark Meadows, you can’t vote in two states. At least not legally.
Thanks for this context, as an attorney allow me to piggyback with a bit more. Given the IG and DOJ policy standards for making a criminal referral and convening a federal grand jury to initiate a federal prosecution only when DOJ is reasonably certain of their ability to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt so as to secure a conviction at trial that can survive any appeal, and the added approval required from main justice to indict a U.S. Senator, no ethical federal prosecutor abiding by DOJs formal charging guidance who reviewed the evidence and likely defenses, such as the explanation a knowledgeable professional like you just provided, would ever dream of bringing a criminal charge against Schiff for mortgage fraud based on such an intended use representation. There’s no chance you can ever prove intent to defraud nor probably even that the representation was knowingly false or that a fraud ultimately occurred. It’s not enough that you can argue the representation is false, it has to be actually false when made (intended use can change from the time an application is filled out so actual use would not control) and Schiff would have to have known it, intended to deceive the mortgage issuer, and succeeded in the fraud. Not merely by getting the mortgage, but by getting it fraudulently. All would need to be proved by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt with no guarantee that you could rely on anything from Schiff himself who could not be compelled to testify or sit for an interview. So how do you prove intent and knowledge solely with third party evidence? With course of conduct by Schiff and the bank and testimony of any party admissions, but it’s hard as fuck and easy to rebut with contrary evidence and alternative noncriminal explanations, such as the one you just provided or evidence of the due diligence investigation of the underwriter who confirmed the representations and approved the loan fully understanding the context of the intended use representation.
Carrying such a burden at trial on these facts ain’t happening and it’s not even a remotely close call.
Yes, that goes without saying. Its clear that DOJ is acting like Donald Trump's personal law firm and weaponizing investigations and prosecutions for political purposes. They are doing everything they claimed has been done to them and will point to those claims and all their BS conspiracy mongering about Biden, Obama, Clinton, and Comey any time they are challenged on their own flagrant abuses of power.
The reality is that federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and political guardrails were far, far too cautious and conservative in their investigations and prosecutions of the crimes committed by Trump and his retinue of lawless thugs, and that caution and restraint were the only improper political considerations at issue. Just like Comey's statements in October 2016, deviations from agency policies, guidelines, and practices only ever inure to Trump's benefit, and somehow still become evidence that everyone is unfairly out to get Trump.
The human rights abuses being committed by this administration are not a distraction at all, but I think we should focus less on Trump and more on his enablers who made this possible. That is, his voters. Don't lose sight of the fact that the hard core of Trump's base consists of religious communities across the country. Many white Christian congregations, especially Evangelical and Catholic ones, voted for Trump at 80% to 90% or more. And it wasn't because of fringe members. Pew research has found that among people who identify as church members, the more often they attended service, the more likely they were to vote for Trump. They went to church on Sunday and voted for Trump on Tuesday. These are people who say their moral conscience prevents them from ever voting for Democrats.
C'mon JVL, Tim, Sarah. Talk to the pastors of megachurches and Catholic Bishops. Reach out to the "faith leaders" who stood with Trump at his inauguration. Ask them how they feel about voting to send people to be tortured in concentration camps in El Salvador. People who have done nothing wrong. Is this how Jesus says we should treat strangers in need? Ask them what line there might be that Trump couldn't cross without losing their support. Is contracting a concentration camp in El Salvador all that different from firing up a gas chamber? Is there any line at all?
Voting is not a morally neutral act. It's not like rooting for one football team over another. If you vote for a liar, you have committed an act of deception. If you vote for a bigot, you have committed an act of bigotry. If you vote for a racist, you have committed and act of racism. If you vote for a man who says he will drive the largest mass deportation in US history and treat immigrants "very roughly," you have committed an act of cruelty. I don't want to hear another comment from Pam Bondi or Marco Rubio. I want the media to get in the faces of people who say they speak for a moral America. I want to hear them explain why they have done this to our country.
Ask them how they feel about blindly supporting a pedophile, the crime that has been the basis of all of the right-wing conspiracy theorists for years. The one crime that has been seen as the most vile, even to other criminals. Yet, with Trump, it is overlooked. Perhaps because so many of those preachers have histories of their own.
Yes I think focusing on his appetite for raping young women is the way to go when communicating with fundamentalists. And we need to start talking about ICE detention centres and what rapes are happening there. We already know rapists have donned ICE cosplay gear and attacked women.
This is an issue that will get the attention of church congregations...getting them to see how vulnerable their daughters are in an authoritarian regime run by a sexual predator.
They won't be as the right wing Proud Boyz types begin to grab women off the street. Trump has empowered right wing vigilantes and now hires them for ICE. What could go wrong?
As long as they're sticking to migrants. Trump and crew are going after people having legal status here. MAGA does not care, and those hard-core MAGA, they believe that this country was founded for those of European descent only.
If you ask these people about voting for an (alleged) pedophile or a rapist, they don't care. They demonstrate that every time one of their own gets accused. I have a personal saying, once a victim is "known or grown," meaning a victim comes forward and/or is an adult coming forward, they no longer care about predators or sexual abuse.
Still , pedophilia is the basis of many conspiracy theories. It is the one thing that rich men do that they get away with that makes people want justice. It is the extreme abuse of power and cover up. Trump is now part of the cover up. Don’t let this end. Even if there are Democrats who get involved, it will help a New Democratic Party emerge. Don’t defend the old one. Cast out all abuses of power.
Pam Bondi was part of the original cover up. Get rid of her first.
"Voting is not a morally neutral act. It's not like rooting for one football team over another. If you vote for a liar, you have committed an act of deception. If you vote for a bigot, you have committed an act of bigotry. If you vote for a racist, you have committed an act of racism. If you vote for a man who says he will drive the largest mass deportation in US history and treat immigrants "very roughly," you have committed an act of cruelty."
This is undoubtably true. That said, does committing an act racism make you a racist? Or does committing an act of cruelty make you a cruel person? More importantly, does telling a person that they are a cruel rapist make then more or less likely to listen to anything you say on other, more persuadable issues?
That's why Epstein is so powerful. There is no reasonable way to rationalize it.
I believe someone in one the Louie’s of France court made the quip that to have one dalience is one thing, but to continue is to show who you are. So, no, one act of racism is just that. And if the person telling you are a cruel anything is important to you in any way, then it will mean something. The BTK rapist, when captured, was concerned that his wife wouldn’t see him. Besides, what persuadable issues could you say to such a person?
So, you are saying that anyone who voted for Trump three times is, to their core, a lying, cruel, racist bigot? Incapable of redemption or persuasion? There is polling out there that would suggest that nearly 10 million Obama voters then voted for Trump. According to your argument, a vote for Obama, it would seem, would automatically make that person a kind, reasonable, racially tolerant human. Those seem to be qualities that would be ingrained in a person, i.e. who they are. What changed them? Why did "who they are" change so dramatically? Maybe it's a little more nuanced than what you suggest. According to many commenters nuance is something we should all be comfortable with.
Dave, they are unquestionably deceptive, cruel and racist. But you misquote Katherine, because it does NOT follow that they are incapable of redemption or persuasion.
Mobs turn on a dime, sometimes the oddest, most unpredictable dime.
No. I was responding to your question, of once a something, equates with always a something. You chose racism; any other characteristic may be substituted, which makes your statement meaningless, because it has no bearing on your statement about Obama; you are mixing apples with oranges. Felon Trump said “There are good people on both sides.” He did not condemn the driver who killed a protester in Charlottesville in the “Unite the Right.” He said at one of his rallies that if his followers roughed up the black journalist, who was there to do his job, that he “would pay their bail.”
For John Lewis, Trump said after Lewis died, “He’ll be looking up to his followers.” These were a small example of his statements, or lack of statement in his first administration. It has only accelerated into his second.
And if his voting base continue to support him, what does that say? Nuance is out having a drink, because it needs it. Wants no part in this discussion.
The original comment was about the "voters" and what their acceptance of Trump says about them. You don't have to convince me of who our current President is.
"That said, does committing an act racism make you a racist?"
Good question. How many racist acts do you have to commit to "be" a racist? I don't know. What is your number?
It's probably counterproductive for politicians to call people names when they are trying to get their votes. I am not running for anything, so I can call it when I see it. And I enjoy "bad JVL" when he emerges. Now I live in a fairly liberal community, but I grew up in Iowa in the heart of MAGA America. I know them, they are my people. Some of them are my relatives. I had an uncle (long deceased) who was a deacon in his church. He loved to tell "Black jokes," using a much more vulgar name. He told me his best source was church, where he would exchange them with his friends on Sunday. Obviously, there are all kinds of people everywhere. But if you walk around town in small communities in MAGA America, you will be surrounded by racist bigots.
If shaming voters is a bad idea, going after their leaders is not. When church members start becoming embarrassed at the behavior and statements of their pastor or priest, that is when they might start thinking about their own choices.
Of course, there are racists (too many) in the US. Go ahead and shame the leaders, that is a part of their job descriptions. I wouldn't expect too much of anything from organized religion.
Andrew: "So he’s moving on to Plan B: Ginning up a bunch of new red-meat stories to try to redirect the attention of his Epstein-riled fans."
What does it say about the MAGAe that Trump is working overtime to distract them from discovering the kind of man they're supporting? From my vantage point, Trump believes these fine folks are purely reactionary and incapable of critical thinking and focusing on more than one issue at a time.
I guess time will tell if Trump's read is correct.
He said he loves unintelligent people. His base is loaded with unintelligent people. That they voted for him twice only underscores their lack of intelligence.
When I was driving home yesterday, I was behind a guy in a pickup truck with a "We the People" graphic on his rear window, and next to that was a "Team Trump" bumper sticker. I admit I started laughing my ass off. Apparently this fine gentleman doesn't experience any cognitive dissonance when he publicly venerates our Constitution while supporting the type of man our Founders feared. And the reason why this fine gentleman doesn't experience any cognitive dissonance is because there's no fucking cognition to begin with.
The fact that this man's vote carries the same weight as mine will never not be irritating.
Thanks for the info on Immigrant Law Defenders. I have been looking for a way to help alleviate this madness in some way. I started donating today. God Bless
I am so fucking pissed off about the ICE raids. I live in Southern California and people here are living in fear and keeping their kids home from summer school. They’ll probably keep them home from regular school which begins on 3 weeks where I live. This doesn’t even touch the impact on their incomes since many are avoiding public places such as the places they work. I’m sick, sick, sick about the way Trump and his henchmen are treating human beings. It’s up to us to stop him.
Tim, I am glad to hear that Andry is alive and hopefully on his way back.
Is this who we really are? My God.
One other thing. You want to make the Epstein scandal stick? Stop referring to it as the Epstein files and call it what it is. Child sex trafficking. Sex with underage girls. Pedophilia. That's the language that white redneck Americans understand. And you have to hammer it home at every opportunity.
That Puff Daddy quote is jaw dropping, like "they buried the lede" jaw dropping. Puff Daddy, Epstein, Trump; pick your cliche: Fool me once, shame on me... You are known by the company you keep... Where there's smoke...
For anyone seeking to verify the Dowd opinion, the original appeared in the NYT under a different title, "Living La Vida Trumpa" on November 17, 1999, page 25.
You must not have been reading Maureen Dowd’s columns. For over thirty years, whenever she wrote about Felon Trump, and she did it often, it was never to make him look harmless and fun.
We can argue this forever. I did not like Hillary. I thought her ham-fisted health care committee doomed any advancement for improving health care in this country in the 1990’s. She went to Arizona to campaign, and totally ignored Wisconsin. I did vote for her. I wanted, in spite of her clay feet, to win. I still do feel that way about her. I do not know Maureen Dowd except for her columns. She afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. She never plays sides. I respect that in her journalism.
The therapist in me views Andry's release as a Pyrrhic victory. That trauma is now a part of his very body. It won't be easily treated. I worry about him...I worry not only about every single person who is/was sent to CECOT, but to the concentration camps, too. There aren't enough EMDR therapists in this country to facilitate that healing, to put it mildly.
The plea of Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren to this day to "Never Forget" comes from the constant, never-ending trauma that the abductions, the concentration camps, the mass executions has caused them.
This legacy is what Trump and his Homeland Security Department are perpetuating.
There's one other factor that will haunt the US long after POS and his "Nazis" are gone. ICE is becoming our version of the Einsatzgruppen - the ones that "cleansed" Germany, Poland and other countries of the "untermenschen". A point rarely mentioned/known is that even the Einsatzgruppen suffered from the killing, the violence, the terror they were inflicting. The end result for the Nazis was the creation of "sanitized" killing camps - Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz and Majdanek. POS is trying to ship his Untermenschen to other countries.
The damage ICE is inflicting on the population will also destroy the men and women OF ICE and those who know them.
The Shah of Iran had his SAVAK. The East Germans had Stasi. The public needs to be reminded that secret police exist today in many countries and are not a relic of the past.
Not now. I wonder when the incidences of PTSD, ulcers, nightmares, suicides will begin. When you sell your soul to the devil, hell doesn't come right away.
We're going to have to remember that he gets desperate and creates shit to divert our attention from whatever is most important - like the totally fake TikTok video of Obama getting imprisoned. Too bad his cankles don't swell more and cut off his circulation entirely.
Agree. If there were any justice in the world he’d be gone already. But he’s old, fat, sick, and sounds loonier every day. He literally sounds like an old man who tells meandering and pointless stories. People humor him because he has moments of lucidity and, well, he is POTUS. For now.
Back during his first term there was a video of the FBI arresting all the drumpf family except sparkle princess who was driving the get away car. I can't find it now.
It's interesting that one of the squirrels Trump is having his base chase is the release of the Grand Jury testimonies.
As lawyers have attested this past weekend on several media outlets, there will be nothing new or of value to the base in those testimonies. The testimonies are simply a rehash of what is already public about Epstein and Maxwell. There's nothing new about other clients or how the young teenaged girls were sexually abused. The base will be holding a second bunch of white binders with old familiar information.
So, it's the same squirrel, incredibly, the same one that Trump and Bondi have used already to distract his base.
Since his base was not happy with the squirrel-white binders that were released a few months ago once they realized they had been given a red herring, why do Trump and Bondi think the MAGA faithful will be satisfied once they realize that they have been duped again with the same ploy?
Or do Trump and Bondi really believe that their MAGA base is soooo dumb, they can be fooled the second time even though they weren't fooled the first?
I wonder, do those people even know the grand jury testimony is destined to be a nothingburger? We do, because we have some diversity in our media diets, but will they be completely blindsided when they get duped?
Exactly! If they are duped the second time and realize they've been fooled again, should we taunt them with the chant, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"?
Naw, I guess we have to be the adults in the room once again.
No. Don't taunt them. That diverts their anger from him to us. Let them keep it focused where it belongs—on HIM. And it has to be made clear this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real stuff is in the interviews, testimony, and piles of evidence that the FBI gathered.
Good point. Will mainstream push the narrative of the abuse of underage girls, and the number of years this happened? Or dig into who those creeps are, and publish their names? If not, then the press is as not doing its job.
Thanks for the link,... I think. It's propaganda from start to finish, but that's what he gets paid for. I wonder if he believes half the things he wrote:
About the WSJ article on Trump's alleged birthday letter, he is acting a Tucker Carlson-like "just asking questions" routine. We'll find out more once the provenance of the birthday book is established and released. My bet is on the WSJ, not this guy.
His palpitations over the Grand Jury transcripts is odd. It's like he hasn't heard any other comments how mundane they will be. Maybe he's trying to influence his readers to "just believe" in the testimonies so they'll sit back now and stop pestering Bondi et. al. for more documents.
He doesn't mention that Bondi gave instructions to the FBI investigators to flag any mention of Trump in the files they reviewed. At least I didn't see any mention of it. But he's quick to explain that Trump meant the Democrats "sabotaged the files" when Trump said they were a Democratic "hoax." Gee, it's so good to have these "Trump whisperers" helping to clarify what their dear leader actually meant.
Thanks again, Frau Katze. I scrolled through the 700+ posts reading as many as I could, mostly with a deep sense of concern for their mental health -- and even more for the mental health of their loved ones, and yet even more for the survival of our democracy.
The posters were a blend of Christian nationalists and dedicated Trump supporters with lots of hate towards Democrats and not-too-subtle antisemitism (e.g. "Ted Cruz cares more about a certain mid-east country founded in 1948 than he does about Texas."). Clearly, they are suffocating on conspiracy theory and paranoia about the deep state.
I did read one guy (the one you meant?) who was trying to keep the conversation on a rational and sensible level: I like his first name. :>)
Do you think the Administration is really going to act upon the agreement to return some of these men to the US for trials? I think it is a BS bluff by Trump et al, and Maduro will probably not comply, either. Also...I hope these released men are able to tell their stories in Venezuela, especially the men we saw exiting the plane in wheelchairs.
Fulgencio Batista ruled Cuba with an iron hand. There was no democracy there. Castro wanted to free his country from this dictator, but the US did not . Castro turned communist because the USSR helped him. Imagine what would have happened if we stopped aiding dictators. Would be interested in what caused Rubio’s family to leave.
Batista came to power in a coup that overthrew Cuba's last democratically elected government. He was a corrupt and criminal dictator who deserved to be overthrown. That does not and will never make Castro a good guy. He was every bit the violent and oppressive dictator that Batista was, the regime targets and Cuba's in and out groups simply changed. Learn to hold both thoughts in your head at once.
Your last sentence was emotional and added nothing to your thought. Castro became the person you spoke of. Was he in the beginning? He wanted to remove Batista for good reasons. He was right. Do you know first hand what he wanted when he was fighting? Maybe “The Bay of Pigs” fiasco changed him. That had CIA fingerprints all over it. That agency wanted to keep Batista, he was useful. It wasn’t democracy loving Cubans who planned the counter coup, it was anti-Castro, backed by CIA.
In 1918, a young Vietnamese man, Ho Chi Min, went to the Paris peace talks to speak with President Wilson. He had a Declaration of Independence for his people, and wanted Wilson’s help to become independent from France. Life was brutal under French colonialism, and a growing number of Vietnamese wanted their own rule. Wilson, racist as he was, stiffed the man. Leaving the meeting, the first people he met were members of the Bolshevik party, and they pledged their support. Ho Chi Min never looked back, although he did try again in 1946, only to be stiffed by Truman. Since we never tried to talk to Castro, we will never know.
No, the point of my last statements is that Batista and Castro were both bad guys, and you don't have to rehabilitate one or the other to acknowledge this fact. Both were dictators who seized power through the use of force, cancelled planned elections, oversaw human rights abuses, including violence and extrajudicial murder of political opponents, seized property, assets, stole wealth directly from the Cuban people, and exercised control over the economy and country's finances to benefit preferred in groups.
Batista seized power in a military coup in 1952 and then cancelled the planned election that year. Castro overthrew Batista by force on NYE 1958 and came into power repeatedly promising to hold free elections in the immediate future. He first announced the postponement of any elections until "after the revolution" on April 9, 1960 and then announced the cancellation of all future elections on May 1, 1960, based on the claim that representative democratic elections only served counterrevolutionary interests. He was solidly aligned with the Soviet Union by this point and was imposing a Soviet model one party state with government control of the economy and trade unions, suppression of civil liberties, and the absence of freedom of speech and press. The Bay of Pigs couldn't have changed him into any of this between the time of Batista's removal and May 1960 because it didn't happen until April 1961, almost a full year later. I can't speak to the individual motives of every anti-Castro Cuban who opposed the regime or participated in the Bay of Pigs, but I can tell you that American-born Cuban guerrilla commander William Morgan, who held the rank of comandante in Castro's forces and played a key role in driving Batista's forced from the central mountains, captured Santa Clara alongside Che Guevara, and foiling a coup attempt against Castro's government orchestrated by Dominican strongman and Batista ally Rafael Trujillo in August 1959, ultimately became disillusioned with the revolution precisely because Castro had led him to believe that he was not a communist and he sought to establish Cuba as a parliamentary democracy.
After Castro's indefinite cancellation of future elections and the arrest of many other former rebel fighters for "counterrevolutionary activities," Morgan joined up with anti-Castro guerilla forces in June 1960 to fight for Cuba to restore elections. He was captured and executed by firing squad with Fidel and Raul Castro in attendance in March 1961, a full month before the Bay of Pigs landings. And regardless of their feelings about democracy and elections, the Cuban exile community that participated in that operation hardly needed the CIA to persuade them to hate Castro. Really not sure what relevance Woodrow Wilson's discussions with Ho Chih Mihn have to any of this here, but the fact that he drew inspiration from the Declaration of Independence is well known and whatever flaws the man may have had, he was no Castro and I cannot understand the insistence on revising history or crafting apologia for a communist dictator who presided for decades over an impoverished nation. For instance, we absolutely did try to talk to Castro during his visit to NYC as part of his 1959 charm offensive. He literally met with the sitting VPOTUS Richard Nixon during the visit, and he reported back to President Eisenhower by recognizing Castro's leadership potential and recommending further engagement.
Nobody is arguing that America did everything right or that all our past actions were justified, but nobody should be this committed to defending Castro or providing revisionist justifications for a brutal dictatorship. Fact is, that Castro would have initiated a global nuclear Armageddon during the Cuban missile crisis by attacking the United States if he had launch authority over any Russian nukes. Fortunately, Khrushchev stood between him and the missiles, and he wasn't about to end the world based on the crazed whims of Fidel Castro.
There is nothing in my comments praising Castro. Nothing. The point about Wilson that you either missed or ignored is that no one spoke to Ho Chi Min but the Bolsheviks, which were a game changer. The CIA was involved in preventing Castro from succeeding, that was probably a game changer. Why wouldn’t it be; CIA operatives working with anti-Castro forces would negate anything Nixon said to Castro. Why would he trust us? Kruschev wanted American misses away from Russian territory, which he succeeded in getting at a later time, and used Cuba as a cat’s paw. Kruschev always used Cuba. Cuba was destitute. The USSR supplied all Cuba’s energy and purchased all its sugar. We tried to kill him instead of working with him as we did with Broz Tito at the same time. I am now done.
I didn't say you praised him, I said you don't have to rehabilitate him with revisionist justifications for a brutal dictatorship. You can simply acknowledge that both Batista and Castro were bad guys without elevating one or the other. Unless of course you don't think Castro is a bad guy, and all that stopped him from "succeeding"(with what?) was the CIA boogeyman.
Castro's hostility towards the United States was baked in before he ever succeeded in overthrowing Batista, and the relationship had collapsed well before the Bay of Pigs. That deterioration of U.S.-Cuban relations had absolutely nothing to do with the CIA or U.S. support for anti-Castro forces, none of which had happened yet. Nixon met with Castro during his 1959 charm offensive, and U.S.-Cuban relations cratered afterwards because of Castro's embrace of Marxism and increasingly close alignment with the Soviet Union. That alignment with the Soviet Union is what made working with him impossible and distinguishes Castro from Tito, who was not a close ally with the Soviets. The U.S. was able to work with Tito by exploiting the divisions between his government and the Soviets, whereas Castro and the Soviets were closely linked and aligned from very early on in the regime.
The U.S.-Cuban relationship and any hope of working with Castro reached the point of no return when Castro struck a deal to provide oil to the USSR, ordered refineries owned by U.S. oil companies to process the Soviet oil, and nationalized the refineries when the U.S. refused the request to refine oil for our geopolitical adversary on August 6, 1960. The relationship was already unsalvageable by the time of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. I know well what Khrushchev's goals were during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the outcome of his negotiations with Kennedy. Doesn't change the fact that while Khrushchev was playing a dangerous game of chicken while using the presence of the nukes as a cudgel to achieve certain diplomatic goals, Castro was actually advocating him to launch nuclear missiles at the United States and start a global nuclear war. Advocating for nuclear war via a preemptive strike and inevitable exchange between great powers is merely another example of Castro being a bad guy, or does the blame for this example of deranged and dangerous lunacy get passed on to the CIA as well?
"All the world can now see the truth: Brennan, Clapper, and Comey manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals—all to get Trump.”
Well Tulsi, what are you guys waiting for? Shouldn't these men be charged and arrested then? Or are you just talking shit out of your mouth that the justice department can't back up in a warrant?
The men released with Andry need to get great American lawyers (not that Venezuelians don't have good lawyers, American for optics) to sue in the International Court. Shipping these guys off to CECOT was a CLEAR violation of international law. We need to get TCV, Noem, Rubio, and Miller on a list to be arrested anytime they set foot on any non-American soil and tried in the Hague.
I’m going to side with JVL here and say that the vibecession was complete BS. And the median voter, who told exit pollsters that their most salient issue was inflation, very stupidly voted for a candidate guaranteeing more inflation. For the entire campaign, Mona, Sarah, and others coddled these swing voters in their stupidity about inflation. We had a once in a century pandemic!! There was a resulting supply shock due to global supply chains getting whipsawed back and forth. Yet rather than understanding nuance, especially because many of the same voters complained that the recovery from the GFC was too slow, they voted for the guy promising higher prices. So now that guy is doing the things he promised he would do. Although he has chickened out before, maybe he won’t this time. Wall Street’s confidence in Trump’s cowardice is what is keeping the market where it is. But that is separate than a vibecession. Prices are objectively higher today than they were 6 months ago. GDP did drop in Q1. And it’s only going to get worse.
I think it was always kind of an Alpha Power vibe. Trump has a way of tickling the authoritarian in people. Why did so many working class voters hitch their wagon to his star. Power. J6th and overcoming that?...getting nicked by an AR-15 bullet? Brushing aside Courts and Judges that refuse to silence him when they would have put other defendents in handcuffs and a mouth ball. Why do so many poor white, black and hispanic men vote for him. He's the bully and the Democrats are the NPR people. So how do you deal with that support he has. Fight fire with fire, we need a ruthless prick as a candidate
Or at least start really fighting back. If anyone needs to be silenced, it's the NPR pajama boys. These people ... What's the George Orwell quote? "There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."
More Jasmine Crockett, please. Make Jim Jordan defend stacking boxes of classified documents next to the shitter in the Mar-A-Lago bathroom off the ballroom.
NPR pajama boys??? You lost me there.
An NPR Pajama Boy would be anyone capable of saying in public something like, "Look, I think we need to wrestle with the seriously problematic generational implications of the cis-gender patrimony on transnormative gender identity."
It comes down to the survey question, "Do you think Candidate X understands you?" We need Democrats who score high on that question. There ARE people out there for whom a sentence like that demonstrates that candidates DO understand them. There just aren't enough of them to win elections.
Ahhh...yes I am afraid that kind of stuff is right up there with angels dancing on pinheads. Those issues are important but they do not get what you need to address them...which is VOTES.
Get elected and then work on culture issues. These next elections are going to be street fights. Folks want more affordable lives, and opportunity, that is what they will vote for. And...release the Epstein files!
Governor Breshear says "guess what...they're Inmates not Judicially Involved Population"...stop talking in Advocacy Language, talk like you do to your friends and co workers, its not that hard.
I’m one of them, in theory, but I turn the sound down when the jargonistas come on.
Jargonistas. I like that.
Jargonists, could that include convention wisdom pundits?
Or the opposite. Someone who speaks in non political no spin terms, easy to understand, a tremendous control of facts, very intelligent, not losses his cool ever, a flat out top notch debater, can go on FOX and kill it, has empathy, very likable: Pete Buttigieg
I would totally vote for Pete, but I don't think America is ready for a gay President. It's unfortunate.
Dave, Whenever I hear that argument, I simply say: America wasn't ready for a black president. Then we elected a black president. That is the former debater in me speaking.
Valid point
I have yet to hear a comeback to that point.
And then we tried to elect two women.
I love Pete! I want him to adopt me as an extra grandfather for his kids! But I've been wondering whether he would want to raise them in the White House, since they're so young now.
My main concern, in addition to electability? While I'm glad that he never loses his cool, I think he comes across as TOO cool when people want to see real passion, a more agressive fighter type. He wouldn't have to do that all the time, just enough to convince people he will fight for them if calm reasoning and persuasion don't work.
Alas, I fear you're probably right about the country's readiness. If some still won't vote for a woman (and we know that's true), it seems unlikely they'd vote for someone gay. On the other hand, it might make a difference that he's a white, cisgender male.
Sad but true. When we have elections that are this close you're kind of dealing with the last 5% in and they're usually not the Poli Sci Majors, they're more like the bowling alley folks, god love them, it is what it is...reality has been stretched so thin and is so fragile a huge battle is fought for that last mile over Vibe and that's how the Republicans did it.
Maybe, or maybe we need Jasmine Crockett and AOC to kick all their asses.
We need a consummate liar unencumbered by shame!
crazy hair, good with a Jr High School nick name
It was rarely pointed out that inflation was a world wide phenomenon after the pandemic due to the supply chain shocks and then the Ukraine war. The US had lower inflation and came out better than almost any other country, but those facts were rarely pointed out and inflation seemed to end at the border for many people.
I disagree, Keith. It was said often - but the people who voted for Trump weren't reading or hearing those (intelligent explanations). They didn't care that the US was doing better than Europe, damn it. OTOH, you are right - Biden didn't do his job with the bully pulpit.
Agreed.
It was a global pandemic, global supply chain issues, everyone, everywhere was feeling it. It was often discussed how much the USA was doing much, much better than everywhere else. Could a more able bodied Biden have been more on top of it? Maybe. From what I remember though, the message was out there and people were just not listening. As mentioned elsewhere, much of this is people raging for the sake of raging and looking for scapegoats to vent their frustrations.
American voters can only digest all if it fits on a bumper sticker.( in most cases). Biden was terrible on messaging no doubt. That simply isn't Biden. Empathy and common sense are. Guess what 49.8 % chose? Doesn't say a lot about Americans does it.
Unbelievable to me.....but there it is.....my fellow countrymen are easily swayed fools. I guess Republicans are right - we're not fit for democracy. Where they're wrong is in thinking that THEY (or King Trump) is the answer.
Earlier one person commented that what Democrats need is a real prick (like Trumpster). I replied; How about the opposite? Pete Buttigieg.
Agreed and ready to volunteer for Pete’s next run. Maybe he can get across the distinction between inflation and the cost of eggs.
I think the majority of us are sick of "pricks" and would like to go back to civility, even when we disagree.
Agree about Biden not using the bully pulpit. I think that depends where you were reading. The press rarely made the point that inflation was a global phenomenon and connected what was happening here was also happening elsewhere, and everyone felt the same price pressures.
You have to add "right-wing" after "press" to make your claim more accurate, Keith. I saw the references to world-wide inflation as worse than what we experienced frequently in the NYT, WSJ, WAPO, CNN, and of course MSNBC.
Just as these sources have been non-stop in explaining the true effects of tariffs on inflation.
Not the press's job. Biden did not use the bully pulpit because he was not capable of effectively doing so. Anyone suggesting that adding nuance is the way to combat the fire hose of BS has no concept how people consume information.
He was perfectly capable, as was his VP and cabinet. But I honestly think they thought everyone would see the good things they were doing, and that these successes would be embraced by the citizenry.
Unfortunately, and right wing media all across the country owns much of the blame for this, there are a lotta folks who do not pay any attention to main stream media (not that there is much of that any longer).
Someone should have been in charge of humble bragging for the Biden administration....
I agree that the VP was more than capable. It sounds, however, that his "inner circle" did not want the VP or cabinet to perform those functions. If they relied on the people to independently "see the good things they were doing, and that these successes would be embraced by the citizenry" they were clueless. Political malpractice.
I like Pete B., a lot. For all the reasons set forth above. I also share some of the concerns identified above. I also think that anyone in that cabinet will be saddled with the "how could you not see and be concerned" about the Prez's competency.
Next candidate should probably be from outside the federal government.
The press would ignore most of what Biden did. Axios printed that Johnson had a win when he refused to accept the vote that went against him. Had a closed door session and arm twisted the Republicans for a change their vote. Then returned and said the bill passed. By rights there should have been two votes, but that would have made Johnson look weak. Axios never pointed that out. Comments in WAPO were always against the paper for underplaying the good Biden did, or ignoring it. The paper lost 300,000 subscribers because of the paper’s heavy handedness.
As I keep saying: the US economy was the envy of the world. 2. Americans need to take Econ 101
It was, but your financial position has always been fabulously weak. With Trump and the Republicans plundering the treasury and running the economy into the ground...oh and causing the globe to boycott all things American....well the citizenry is about to get a very harsh lesson in Econ 101.
Toughing the stove will be getting hotter!
Oh, I pointed that out many times. I had to because the fools where I live kept spewing this narrative. They probably knew it was bilge water, but pacifying their believers was more important. Lying is normal and expected with Republicans.
My Republican friends still are quick to say "Democrats hemorrhage money". Oblivious to the facts. They look confused when I tell them the budget reports on Democrat vs. Republican administrations do not support that statement.
I’m in MD, which has high (-er) gas taxes. Approximately 10 days ago I paid $3.15/gallon. The Shell station X from my work is now charging $3.26/gallon, and I’ve seen as high as $3.38 at a local Exxon. That’s not just seasonal.
Why are there not billboards in red districts listing current gas and egg prices?
They would probably just blame Biden.
...because the billboards could not keep up with the inflation rate hikes, where today's numbers are older than yesterday's news?
Even better! Having to cross out yesterday's prices with today's would make a big impact.
Electronic billboards exist. They can be updated with a few mouse clicks.
Clearly, but are more expensive to rent and are not as ubiquitous as the "normal" ones, you know, like the three outside Ebbing, Mo. And, as Janet mentioned above, the visable change is an added plus.
In Maine, the station that was $2.81/gal ten days ago was $3.01/gal this weekend.
"Mein Herz blutet"
Right now regular gasoline in Mexico is $1.26/ liter which translates into $4.80/gal. And the dollar is falling probably because of the way agent Krasnov and his gang of merry evil doers are deliberately crashing the US economy while Claudia's people are maintaining a steady course.
I am in NY (upstate). I can get gas at $2.97/gallon, sometimes less/sometimes more at the BJ's Wholesale. If I go to a regular station it is something like $3.09.
I live in California in a tourist area 25 minutes from the Nevada border. 91 octane was a little over $4 a week ago in Nevada. It's closer to $6 or $7 in California. I drive an electric, but (current) second car is gas. Someone told me they thought gas was going to $10 in California soon, with the loss of two refineries. Clean air has a price.
Not certain about your last sentence. If the big oil companies are gouging consumers, remember Enron, why should their feeble fig leaves matter?
California requires refineries to re-formulate their gas for California in the summer (mostly to control air pollution in the LA basin). There was a reasonable answer to this on Google: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=california+gas+reformulation&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8.
Changing their processes to accomodate these regulations is expensive, so California gas is more expensive. Thus, "clean air has a price."
That doesn't vitiate your suggestion that Big Oil is gouging customers, of course. But this is 21st Century capitalism, where buying politicians and asserting monopoly power is perfectly acceptable.
Ouch! I live in MN. (2.97 currently) I always use a CUB rewards at a Holiday station that is usually 30 cents off, so I never pay the going price.
Does California have higher taxes on gas? I know Canada does.
Yes
I had the same experience last night! Over $70 to fill my tank!
Prices have gone up in VA as well. My local station has gone from $3.05 in May up to $3.39 before settling at $3.29.
Same here in SWVA. Oh and also eggs are still expensive as f***. 🤬
Eggs.. well, I bought a dozen last weekend (organic) for a bit over $3/doz. But if I go to the farmer's market, I can get free range organic jumbo eggs, double yolk for about $6 and they are huge. There are even bigger eggs (we call them the Teradactyls) but I am a bit afraid of those.
"We had a once in a century pandemic!!"
Jesus, I hope you are right on that!
What with trump AND RFK Jr. if we get another one we are TRULY screwed!
Measels is already roaring back.
But RFK Jr is saving us from colored food dyes! :(
Fortunately most of the population is vaccinated or old enough that they had it as a child.
But it’s going strong among the unvaccinated.
I have always listened to Dr.Mike Osterholm (one of the top epidemiologists in the world). He has said we were very vulnerable to epidemics and pandemics and that well before covid! Now we have Trump and RFK Jr. I don't want to sound dark, but we really need to be lucky.
I think we're operating on a log scale, so the next one will be once in 10 years.
Two facts of economic life: 1. prices never drop (except maybe during a depression) 2. Americans need to take Econ 101
The inflation concerns were real. There were almost daily major news stories trumpeting how unaffordable eggs were. As a result, people were concerned about inflation.
Currently, beef (especially ground beef) is at all-time highs. Where are the daily news stories?
If you want to know why inflation stopped being an issue, look no further. Maybe post-tariff back to school shopping will change the dynamic.
The price of eggs was heavily impacted by bird flu.
Saw a report that Egg producers used bird flu as an excuse to jack up prices.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2025/03/05/egg-prices-bird-flu-corporate-greed/
I’m not surprised.
and tariffs
I agree with you, but there is a certain sense of timing involved if any of these things will have a meaningful impact on elections. Because of our collective short attention spans, we are better off if these things occur (inflation, Epstein, etc.) closer to an election and continue through the election. It's hard to keep these things going for a year (2026) or three (2028).
There are only 2 choices:
1) the concerns were real and so voters are exceedingly stupid in voting for a candidate promising even higher prices
2) or the concerns weren’t real
I get so tired of how Sarah et al let voters off the hook. That is we can't call the stupid even when they are so. I also was upset about the press coverage of the post COVID inflation with was covered as in a panic and with no context. It may have been a concern but the central bank was handling.
If you listened to Sarah and her focus group voters, (and I listened as little as possible there) you see how simplistic American voters have become.
I don't think Sarah's letting voter's off the hook so much as acknowledging where they're at in their own minds. She strikes me as the sort that's too nice to call someone stupid to their face...besides, she has JVL right there to do it for her.
I don't think her job as a focus group facilitator is to judge and call out stupid comments (that's why I couldn't be a facilitator) but to collect the comments, the discussion, document it, analyze it and then convey where the thinking of these groups are. I think she does a very good job of that.
I'm actually in awe that Sarah can give them as much grace as she does. I'd go Dark JVL within minutes of listening to many of these folks.
I go JVL watching the podcast. My wife asks from the other room who the hell I am yelling at
😂
We can acknowledge where they are and also understand that the only winning with them is for them to stay home. I’ve seen her mention a couple of times recently that some voters are unreachable. I agree.
Not just this campaign but the first Felon Trump campaign. The Boston Globe had a series of articles supposedly by a neutral researcher of the pro Trump and the pro Hilary. It wasn’t neutral. The pro Trump interviews were one note; how they felt, what they expected, and why they were going to vote for Trump. Nothing about what they did or didn’t do to get themselves out of their present situation, nothing about why they kept voting for the same fools every election. Nothing about anything specific, only what they want for themselves. Then they got four years of nothing. Aside from appearing in his rallies, his base got grifted to give him lots of money, and nothing else. Same with the second election. Voted because of immigration, the cost of food, and inflation. Nonsense. If those were their real interests, then there should be a lot of screaming. Costs were so high in November, but now in July, they are higher and his base says nothing. If it was knife edge hard eight months ago, why so silent now.
Disagree. I have two teenage boys and our grocery bills are up tremendously. My records indicate about 40% higher than pre-Covid (but yes this is conflated with them eating more). Just look at Tyson foods with their operating profit up 28.6% YoY.
But the big thing is housing prices, this is devastating for younger folks that were not lucky enough to purchase a house before Covid and low interest rates.
Trump ain’t fixing those problems - he’s making them worse- but they were real during the Biden era.
The fact that price increases happened because our recovery was better than after the GFC is brutally honest. In fact, the rise of Trump in 2016 was partially due to the slow & torturous recovery following 2008-2009. They happened and were not a direct result of what Biden did, and yet Harris paid the price of them. But the most important part of all of this is IF a voter is complaining about high prices, voting for the person who is promising even HIGHER prices is a very stupid thing to do. So either the voters’ complaints were BS OR voters are stupid. There is no third choice.
Bingo.
That is the longest thread on replies I seen on The Bulwark to one comment!
Absolutely correct!
Which ones?!
Can I comment about Schiff's mortgage. I say this as an underwriter. So we look at files and verify the facts. Residence is a material fact. But the issue when it comes to a Senator is different than that for most others. Schiff, like most in Congress who don't live close by keeps 2 residences. And here I am not distinguishing between a rental or an owner occupied property.
And this issue for a mortgage or for a home insurer is - is this owner occupied. if Schiff owns 2 properties then both would be in essence owner occupied. This is different from a rental - where the risk is generally higher.
How the law operates... well that is beyond me. But if I were looking as Schiff's file and saw a driver's license in CA and a residence in DC - his occupation would explain everything.
What an entirely reasonable and logical explanation. I look forward to the completely deranged narrative that actually takes root instead of this very obvious thing.
Haven’t read the article about Schaffer yet, but I know lots of people who own two properties that they reside in throughout the year. Where they vote determines residency in states, and, except for Mark Meadows, you can’t vote in two states. At least not legally.
Thanks for this context, as an attorney allow me to piggyback with a bit more. Given the IG and DOJ policy standards for making a criminal referral and convening a federal grand jury to initiate a federal prosecution only when DOJ is reasonably certain of their ability to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt so as to secure a conviction at trial that can survive any appeal, and the added approval required from main justice to indict a U.S. Senator, no ethical federal prosecutor abiding by DOJs formal charging guidance who reviewed the evidence and likely defenses, such as the explanation a knowledgeable professional like you just provided, would ever dream of bringing a criminal charge against Schiff for mortgage fraud based on such an intended use representation. There’s no chance you can ever prove intent to defraud nor probably even that the representation was knowingly false or that a fraud ultimately occurred. It’s not enough that you can argue the representation is false, it has to be actually false when made (intended use can change from the time an application is filled out so actual use would not control) and Schiff would have to have known it, intended to deceive the mortgage issuer, and succeeded in the fraud. Not merely by getting the mortgage, but by getting it fraudulently. All would need to be proved by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt with no guarantee that you could rely on anything from Schiff himself who could not be compelled to testify or sit for an interview. So how do you prove intent and knowledge solely with third party evidence? With course of conduct by Schiff and the bank and testimony of any party admissions, but it’s hard as fuck and easy to rebut with contrary evidence and alternative noncriminal explanations, such as the one you just provided or evidence of the due diligence investigation of the underwriter who confirmed the representations and approved the loan fully understanding the context of the intended use representation.
Carrying such a burden at trial on these facts ain’t happening and it’s not even a remotely close call.
Sadly we now have a lawless presidency with the DOJ et al in on the abuse of the law.
Yes, that goes without saying. Its clear that DOJ is acting like Donald Trump's personal law firm and weaponizing investigations and prosecutions for political purposes. They are doing everything they claimed has been done to them and will point to those claims and all their BS conspiracy mongering about Biden, Obama, Clinton, and Comey any time they are challenged on their own flagrant abuses of power.
The reality is that federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and political guardrails were far, far too cautious and conservative in their investigations and prosecutions of the crimes committed by Trump and his retinue of lawless thugs, and that caution and restraint were the only improper political considerations at issue. Just like Comey's statements in October 2016, deviations from agency policies, guidelines, and practices only ever inure to Trump's benefit, and somehow still become evidence that everyone is unfairly out to get Trump.
The human rights abuses being committed by this administration are not a distraction at all, but I think we should focus less on Trump and more on his enablers who made this possible. That is, his voters. Don't lose sight of the fact that the hard core of Trump's base consists of religious communities across the country. Many white Christian congregations, especially Evangelical and Catholic ones, voted for Trump at 80% to 90% or more. And it wasn't because of fringe members. Pew research has found that among people who identify as church members, the more often they attended service, the more likely they were to vote for Trump. They went to church on Sunday and voted for Trump on Tuesday. These are people who say their moral conscience prevents them from ever voting for Democrats.
C'mon JVL, Tim, Sarah. Talk to the pastors of megachurches and Catholic Bishops. Reach out to the "faith leaders" who stood with Trump at his inauguration. Ask them how they feel about voting to send people to be tortured in concentration camps in El Salvador. People who have done nothing wrong. Is this how Jesus says we should treat strangers in need? Ask them what line there might be that Trump couldn't cross without losing their support. Is contracting a concentration camp in El Salvador all that different from firing up a gas chamber? Is there any line at all?
Voting is not a morally neutral act. It's not like rooting for one football team over another. If you vote for a liar, you have committed an act of deception. If you vote for a bigot, you have committed an act of bigotry. If you vote for a racist, you have committed and act of racism. If you vote for a man who says he will drive the largest mass deportation in US history and treat immigrants "very roughly," you have committed an act of cruelty. I don't want to hear another comment from Pam Bondi or Marco Rubio. I want the media to get in the faces of people who say they speak for a moral America. I want to hear them explain why they have done this to our country.
Ask them how they feel about blindly supporting a pedophile, the crime that has been the basis of all of the right-wing conspiracy theorists for years. The one crime that has been seen as the most vile, even to other criminals. Yet, with Trump, it is overlooked. Perhaps because so many of those preachers have histories of their own.
Yes I think focusing on his appetite for raping young women is the way to go when communicating with fundamentalists. And we need to start talking about ICE detention centres and what rapes are happening there. We already know rapists have donned ICE cosplay gear and attacked women.
This is an issue that will get the attention of church congregations...getting them to see how vulnerable their daughters are in an authoritarian regime run by a sexual predator.
They’re in denial.
They won't be as the right wing Proud Boyz types begin to grab women off the street. Trump has empowered right wing vigilantes and now hires them for ICE. What could go wrong?
As long as they stick to illegal migrants, MAGA will cheer.
As long as they're sticking to migrants. Trump and crew are going after people having legal status here. MAGA does not care, and those hard-core MAGA, they believe that this country was founded for those of European descent only.
Considering the Catholic Church, you could be correct.
Add too the Southern Baptist Convention, not to mention a whole host of lesser scandals in smaller churches.
If you ask these people about voting for an (alleged) pedophile or a rapist, they don't care. They demonstrate that every time one of their own gets accused. I have a personal saying, once a victim is "known or grown," meaning a victim comes forward and/or is an adult coming forward, they no longer care about predators or sexual abuse.
Still , pedophilia is the basis of many conspiracy theories. It is the one thing that rich men do that they get away with that makes people want justice. It is the extreme abuse of power and cover up. Trump is now part of the cover up. Don’t let this end. Even if there are Democrats who get involved, it will help a New Democratic Party emerge. Don’t defend the old one. Cast out all abuses of power.
Pam Bondi was part of the original cover up. Get rid of her first.
My theory is that they don’t believe Trump was involved with Epstein. They don’t read the articles on it.
True and Fox News is silent on it
Exactly! I would pay to see a forum of "clergy", any religion really, explain with a straight face just what the hell they believe in.
"Voting is not a morally neutral act. It's not like rooting for one football team over another. If you vote for a liar, you have committed an act of deception. If you vote for a bigot, you have committed an act of bigotry. If you vote for a racist, you have committed an act of racism. If you vote for a man who says he will drive the largest mass deportation in US history and treat immigrants "very roughly," you have committed an act of cruelty."
This is undoubtably true. That said, does committing an act racism make you a racist? Or does committing an act of cruelty make you a cruel person? More importantly, does telling a person that they are a cruel rapist make then more or less likely to listen to anything you say on other, more persuadable issues?
That's why Epstein is so powerful. There is no reasonable way to rationalize it.
I believe someone in one the Louie’s of France court made the quip that to have one dalience is one thing, but to continue is to show who you are. So, no, one act of racism is just that. And if the person telling you are a cruel anything is important to you in any way, then it will mean something. The BTK rapist, when captured, was concerned that his wife wouldn’t see him. Besides, what persuadable issues could you say to such a person?
So, you are saying that anyone who voted for Trump three times is, to their core, a lying, cruel, racist bigot? Incapable of redemption or persuasion? There is polling out there that would suggest that nearly 10 million Obama voters then voted for Trump. According to your argument, a vote for Obama, it would seem, would automatically make that person a kind, reasonable, racially tolerant human. Those seem to be qualities that would be ingrained in a person, i.e. who they are. What changed them? Why did "who they are" change so dramatically? Maybe it's a little more nuanced than what you suggest. According to many commenters nuance is something we should all be comfortable with.
Dave, they are unquestionably deceptive, cruel and racist. But you misquote Katherine, because it does NOT follow that they are incapable of redemption or persuasion.
Mobs turn on a dime, sometimes the oddest, most unpredictable dime.
They don’t believe he’s a racist or any other bad stuff. They only watch Fox, remember.
No. I was responding to your question, of once a something, equates with always a something. You chose racism; any other characteristic may be substituted, which makes your statement meaningless, because it has no bearing on your statement about Obama; you are mixing apples with oranges. Felon Trump said “There are good people on both sides.” He did not condemn the driver who killed a protester in Charlottesville in the “Unite the Right.” He said at one of his rallies that if his followers roughed up the black journalist, who was there to do his job, that he “would pay their bail.”
For John Lewis, Trump said after Lewis died, “He’ll be looking up to his followers.” These were a small example of his statements, or lack of statement in his first administration. It has only accelerated into his second.
And if his voting base continue to support him, what does that say? Nuance is out having a drink, because it needs it. Wants no part in this discussion.
The original comment was about the "voters" and what their acceptance of Trump says about them. You don't have to convince me of who our current President is.
"That said, does committing an act racism make you a racist?"
Good question. How many racist acts do you have to commit to "be" a racist? I don't know. What is your number?
It's probably counterproductive for politicians to call people names when they are trying to get their votes. I am not running for anything, so I can call it when I see it. And I enjoy "bad JVL" when he emerges. Now I live in a fairly liberal community, but I grew up in Iowa in the heart of MAGA America. I know them, they are my people. Some of them are my relatives. I had an uncle (long deceased) who was a deacon in his church. He loved to tell "Black jokes," using a much more vulgar name. He told me his best source was church, where he would exchange them with his friends on Sunday. Obviously, there are all kinds of people everywhere. But if you walk around town in small communities in MAGA America, you will be surrounded by racist bigots.
If shaming voters is a bad idea, going after their leaders is not. When church members start becoming embarrassed at the behavior and statements of their pastor or priest, that is when they might start thinking about their own choices.
Of course, there are racists (too many) in the US. Go ahead and shame the leaders, that is a part of their job descriptions. I wouldn't expect too much of anything from organized religion.
These religious types continue to support Trump. His vile behaviour with the migrants—they see illegal migrants as subhuman.
They’re not bothered by Epstein either. I don’t know why not. Perhaps they don’t believe it?
I think many are bothered, but don't see the proof yet. Release the Epstein files...
This crew of sickos never believed that they would actually have a chance to torture brown people. They just can't stop. What sadist could?
💥💥💥 DONT MISS THIS!!! 🧨🧨🧨
Trump needs new batteries! it's just not working! https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/they-just-arent-buying-it
May Andrew and family have an uneventful move, just like flying these days, uneventful is the best outcome.
Having just come home from an uneventful (airplane-wise) trip to Portugal, I whole-heartedly agree!!
I worked in Air Traffic, uneventful days were the best days!
Andrew: "So he’s moving on to Plan B: Ginning up a bunch of new red-meat stories to try to redirect the attention of his Epstein-riled fans."
What does it say about the MAGAe that Trump is working overtime to distract them from discovering the kind of man they're supporting? From my vantage point, Trump believes these fine folks are purely reactionary and incapable of critical thinking and focusing on more than one issue at a time.
I guess time will tell if Trump's read is correct.
Time has told. He is correct. No way he gets elected (twice!) if that were not true.
He said he loves unintelligent people. His base is loaded with unintelligent people. That they voted for him twice only underscores their lack of intelligence.
When I was driving home yesterday, I was behind a guy in a pickup truck with a "We the People" graphic on his rear window, and next to that was a "Team Trump" bumper sticker. I admit I started laughing my ass off. Apparently this fine gentleman doesn't experience any cognitive dissonance when he publicly venerates our Constitution while supporting the type of man our Founders feared. And the reason why this fine gentleman doesn't experience any cognitive dissonance is because there's no fucking cognition to begin with.
The fact that this man's vote carries the same weight as mine will never not be irritating.
They fool us. They walk upright. “Night Court.”
OMG!! I would have had the same
Reaction and thoughts.
"Trump believes these fine folks are purely reactionary and incapable of critical thinking and focusing on more than one issue at a time."
Why should the followers be smarter than the leader?
“Trump believes these fine folks are purely reactionary and incapable of critical thinking and focusing on more than one issue at a time.”
Much like t**** himself. No doubt the world’s greatest narcissist loves seeing himself in them.
That MAGA and Trump have a bizarre symbiotic relationship?
Thanks for the info on Immigrant Law Defenders. I have been looking for a way to help alleviate this madness in some way. I started donating today. God Bless
I am so fucking pissed off about the ICE raids. I live in Southern California and people here are living in fear and keeping their kids home from summer school. They’ll probably keep them home from regular school which begins on 3 weeks where I live. This doesn’t even touch the impact on their incomes since many are avoiding public places such as the places they work. I’m sick, sick, sick about the way Trump and his henchmen are treating human beings. It’s up to us to stop him.
Tim, I am glad to hear that Andry is alive and hopefully on his way back.
Is this who we really are? My God.
One other thing. You want to make the Epstein scandal stick? Stop referring to it as the Epstein files and call it what it is. Child sex trafficking. Sex with underage girls. Pedophilia. That's the language that white redneck Americans understand. And you have to hammer it home at every opportunity.
MAGA have rationalized the story. Mostly, they don’t believe it. They only watch Fox, who aren’t covering it.
I’ve seen comments on articles critical of Trump: they say “I didn’t even read the article, I came straight to the comments.”
Thanks for enraging me once again about the many times Maureen Dowd made Trump look harmless and fun.
That Puff Daddy quote is jaw dropping, like "they buried the lede" jaw dropping. Puff Daddy, Epstein, Trump; pick your cliche: Fool me once, shame on me... You are known by the company you keep... Where there's smoke...
For anyone seeking to verify the Dowd opinion, the original appeared in the NYT under a different title, "Living La Vida Trumpa" on November 17, 1999, page 25.
Tim: please cite sources in the future.
You must not have been reading Maureen Dowd’s columns. For over thirty years, whenever she wrote about Felon Trump, and she did it often, it was never to make him look harmless and fun.
She totally trashed Hillary’s reputation and I can’t forgive her for that. She is very talented and smart but has some blind spots.
We can argue this forever. I did not like Hillary. I thought her ham-fisted health care committee doomed any advancement for improving health care in this country in the 1990’s. She went to Arizona to campaign, and totally ignored Wisconsin. I did vote for her. I wanted, in spite of her clay feet, to win. I still do feel that way about her. I do not know Maureen Dowd except for her columns. She afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. She never plays sides. I respect that in her journalism.
The therapist in me views Andry's release as a Pyrrhic victory. That trauma is now a part of his very body. It won't be easily treated. I worry about him...I worry not only about every single person who is/was sent to CECOT, but to the concentration camps, too. There aren't enough EMDR therapists in this country to facilitate that healing, to put it mildly.
The plea of Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren to this day to "Never Forget" comes from the constant, never-ending trauma that the abductions, the concentration camps, the mass executions has caused them.
This legacy is what Trump and his Homeland Security Department are perpetuating.
There's one other factor that will haunt the US long after POS and his "Nazis" are gone. ICE is becoming our version of the Einsatzgruppen - the ones that "cleansed" Germany, Poland and other countries of the "untermenschen". A point rarely mentioned/known is that even the Einsatzgruppen suffered from the killing, the violence, the terror they were inflicting. The end result for the Nazis was the creation of "sanitized" killing camps - Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz and Majdanek. POS is trying to ship his Untermenschen to other countries.
The damage ICE is inflicting on the population will also destroy the men and women OF ICE and those who know them.
The Shah of Iran had his SAVAK. The East Germans had Stasi. The public needs to be reminded that secret police exist today in many countries and are not a relic of the past.
I have no sympathy for the men and women of ICE.
Not now. I wonder when the incidences of PTSD, ulcers, nightmares, suicides will begin. When you sell your soul to the devil, hell doesn't come right away.
Well said. :(
Remember how Trump & Co said they had no control over El Salvador? That was his most popular excuse for not bringing back Kilmar Garcia.
We're going to have to remember that he gets desperate and creates shit to divert our attention from whatever is most important - like the totally fake TikTok video of Obama getting imprisoned. Too bad his cankles don't swell more and cut off his circulation entirely.
They have been having help from double cheeseburgers with fries and "diet" Coke for years. At some point, at some hopefully near point ....
I'm rooting for the BMOD!
Sorry, Richard, but BMOD?
Big Mac of Death
It will happen soon.
I like the idea and your optimism, but "soon" is, of course, relative.
Agree. If there were any justice in the world he’d be gone already. But he’s old, fat, sick, and sounds loonier every day. He literally sounds like an old man who tells meandering and pointless stories. People humor him because he has moments of lucidity and, well, he is POTUS. For now.
Back during his first term there was a video of the FBI arresting all the drumpf family except sparkle princess who was driving the get away car. I can't find it now.
It's interesting that one of the squirrels Trump is having his base chase is the release of the Grand Jury testimonies.
As lawyers have attested this past weekend on several media outlets, there will be nothing new or of value to the base in those testimonies. The testimonies are simply a rehash of what is already public about Epstein and Maxwell. There's nothing new about other clients or how the young teenaged girls were sexually abused. The base will be holding a second bunch of white binders with old familiar information.
So, it's the same squirrel, incredibly, the same one that Trump and Bondi have used already to distract his base.
Since his base was not happy with the squirrel-white binders that were released a few months ago once they realized they had been given a red herring, why do Trump and Bondi think the MAGA faithful will be satisfied once they realize that they have been duped again with the same ploy?
Or do Trump and Bondi really believe that their MAGA base is soooo dumb, they can be fooled the second time even though they weren't fooled the first?
I wonder, do those people even know the grand jury testimony is destined to be a nothingburger? We do, because we have some diversity in our media diets, but will they be completely blindsided when they get duped?
Exactly! If they are duped the second time and realize they've been fooled again, should we taunt them with the chant, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"?
Naw, I guess we have to be the adults in the room once again.
No. Don't taunt them. That diverts their anger from him to us. Let them keep it focused where it belongs—on HIM. And it has to be made clear this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real stuff is in the interviews, testimony, and piles of evidence that the FBI gathered.
Good point. Will mainstream push the narrative of the abuse of underage girls, and the number of years this happened? Or dig into who those creeps are, and publish their names? If not, then the press is as not doing its job.
Here’s how they get duped. They only watch Fox or read clever propaganda like this guy spins.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/honeypot-friday-july-18-2025-c-and
Thanks for the link,... I think. It's propaganda from start to finish, but that's what he gets paid for. I wonder if he believes half the things he wrote:
About the WSJ article on Trump's alleged birthday letter, he is acting a Tucker Carlson-like "just asking questions" routine. We'll find out more once the provenance of the birthday book is established and released. My bet is on the WSJ, not this guy.
His palpitations over the Grand Jury transcripts is odd. It's like he hasn't heard any other comments how mundane they will be. Maybe he's trying to influence his readers to "just believe" in the testimonies so they'll sit back now and stop pestering Bondi et. al. for more documents.
He doesn't mention that Bondi gave instructions to the FBI investigators to flag any mention of Trump in the files they reviewed. At least I didn't see any mention of it. But he's quick to explain that Trump meant the Democrats "sabotaged the files" when Trump said they were a Democratic "hoax." Gee, it's so good to have these "Trump whisperers" helping to clarify what their dear leader actually meant.
Yes, it’s full of missing information and other misleading statements.
Check his comment section: they’re quoting bible verses.
But at least one guy wasn’t fooled.
Thanks again, Frau Katze. I scrolled through the 700+ posts reading as many as I could, mostly with a deep sense of concern for their mental health -- and even more for the mental health of their loved ones, and yet even more for the survival of our democracy.
The posters were a blend of Christian nationalists and dedicated Trump supporters with lots of hate towards Democrats and not-too-subtle antisemitism (e.g. "Ted Cruz cares more about a certain mid-east country founded in 1948 than he does about Texas."). Clearly, they are suffocating on conspiracy theory and paranoia about the deep state.
I did read one guy (the one you meant?) who was trying to keep the conversation on a rational and sensible level: I like his first name. :>)
How the Bible quoters can support “Grab them by the pussy” Trump I don’t know. I can only assume they don’t believe he said it.
Yes, lots of conspiracies about the “deep state.” Conspiracies are very popular in MAGA.
I’m just now arguing with a MAGA at the WSJ about global warming (he claims it doesn’t exist). That’s very common too.
Do you think the Administration is really going to act upon the agreement to return some of these men to the US for trials? I think it is a BS bluff by Trump et al, and Maduro will probably not comply, either. Also...I hope these released men are able to tell their stories in Venezuela, especially the men we saw exiting the plane in wheelchairs.
Marco Rubio’s ancestors did not flee communism. That was a lie. Some one checked and found that they came before Castro came to power.
And if his family never left, Lil Marco would have no problem being on the side of the Castros given he exhibits no principles or integrity.
Fulgencio Batista ruled Cuba with an iron hand. There was no democracy there. Castro wanted to free his country from this dictator, but the US did not . Castro turned communist because the USSR helped him. Imagine what would have happened if we stopped aiding dictators. Would be interested in what caused Rubio’s family to leave.
Batista came to power in a coup that overthrew Cuba's last democratically elected government. He was a corrupt and criminal dictator who deserved to be overthrown. That does not and will never make Castro a good guy. He was every bit the violent and oppressive dictator that Batista was, the regime targets and Cuba's in and out groups simply changed. Learn to hold both thoughts in your head at once.
Your last sentence was emotional and added nothing to your thought. Castro became the person you spoke of. Was he in the beginning? He wanted to remove Batista for good reasons. He was right. Do you know first hand what he wanted when he was fighting? Maybe “The Bay of Pigs” fiasco changed him. That had CIA fingerprints all over it. That agency wanted to keep Batista, he was useful. It wasn’t democracy loving Cubans who planned the counter coup, it was anti-Castro, backed by CIA.
In 1918, a young Vietnamese man, Ho Chi Min, went to the Paris peace talks to speak with President Wilson. He had a Declaration of Independence for his people, and wanted Wilson’s help to become independent from France. Life was brutal under French colonialism, and a growing number of Vietnamese wanted their own rule. Wilson, racist as he was, stiffed the man. Leaving the meeting, the first people he met were members of the Bolshevik party, and they pledged their support. Ho Chi Min never looked back, although he did try again in 1946, only to be stiffed by Truman. Since we never tried to talk to Castro, we will never know.
No, the point of my last statements is that Batista and Castro were both bad guys, and you don't have to rehabilitate one or the other to acknowledge this fact. Both were dictators who seized power through the use of force, cancelled planned elections, oversaw human rights abuses, including violence and extrajudicial murder of political opponents, seized property, assets, stole wealth directly from the Cuban people, and exercised control over the economy and country's finances to benefit preferred in groups.
Batista seized power in a military coup in 1952 and then cancelled the planned election that year. Castro overthrew Batista by force on NYE 1958 and came into power repeatedly promising to hold free elections in the immediate future. He first announced the postponement of any elections until "after the revolution" on April 9, 1960 and then announced the cancellation of all future elections on May 1, 1960, based on the claim that representative democratic elections only served counterrevolutionary interests. He was solidly aligned with the Soviet Union by this point and was imposing a Soviet model one party state with government control of the economy and trade unions, suppression of civil liberties, and the absence of freedom of speech and press. The Bay of Pigs couldn't have changed him into any of this between the time of Batista's removal and May 1960 because it didn't happen until April 1961, almost a full year later. I can't speak to the individual motives of every anti-Castro Cuban who opposed the regime or participated in the Bay of Pigs, but I can tell you that American-born Cuban guerrilla commander William Morgan, who held the rank of comandante in Castro's forces and played a key role in driving Batista's forced from the central mountains, captured Santa Clara alongside Che Guevara, and foiling a coup attempt against Castro's government orchestrated by Dominican strongman and Batista ally Rafael Trujillo in August 1959, ultimately became disillusioned with the revolution precisely because Castro had led him to believe that he was not a communist and he sought to establish Cuba as a parliamentary democracy.
After Castro's indefinite cancellation of future elections and the arrest of many other former rebel fighters for "counterrevolutionary activities," Morgan joined up with anti-Castro guerilla forces in June 1960 to fight for Cuba to restore elections. He was captured and executed by firing squad with Fidel and Raul Castro in attendance in March 1961, a full month before the Bay of Pigs landings. And regardless of their feelings about democracy and elections, the Cuban exile community that participated in that operation hardly needed the CIA to persuade them to hate Castro. Really not sure what relevance Woodrow Wilson's discussions with Ho Chih Mihn have to any of this here, but the fact that he drew inspiration from the Declaration of Independence is well known and whatever flaws the man may have had, he was no Castro and I cannot understand the insistence on revising history or crafting apologia for a communist dictator who presided for decades over an impoverished nation. For instance, we absolutely did try to talk to Castro during his visit to NYC as part of his 1959 charm offensive. He literally met with the sitting VPOTUS Richard Nixon during the visit, and he reported back to President Eisenhower by recognizing Castro's leadership potential and recommending further engagement.
Nobody is arguing that America did everything right or that all our past actions were justified, but nobody should be this committed to defending Castro or providing revisionist justifications for a brutal dictatorship. Fact is, that Castro would have initiated a global nuclear Armageddon during the Cuban missile crisis by attacking the United States if he had launch authority over any Russian nukes. Fortunately, Khrushchev stood between him and the missiles, and he wasn't about to end the world based on the crazed whims of Fidel Castro.
There is nothing in my comments praising Castro. Nothing. The point about Wilson that you either missed or ignored is that no one spoke to Ho Chi Min but the Bolsheviks, which were a game changer. The CIA was involved in preventing Castro from succeeding, that was probably a game changer. Why wouldn’t it be; CIA operatives working with anti-Castro forces would negate anything Nixon said to Castro. Why would he trust us? Kruschev wanted American misses away from Russian territory, which he succeeded in getting at a later time, and used Cuba as a cat’s paw. Kruschev always used Cuba. Cuba was destitute. The USSR supplied all Cuba’s energy and purchased all its sugar. We tried to kill him instead of working with him as we did with Broz Tito at the same time. I am now done.
I didn't say you praised him, I said you don't have to rehabilitate him with revisionist justifications for a brutal dictatorship. You can simply acknowledge that both Batista and Castro were bad guys without elevating one or the other. Unless of course you don't think Castro is a bad guy, and all that stopped him from "succeeding"(with what?) was the CIA boogeyman.
Castro's hostility towards the United States was baked in before he ever succeeded in overthrowing Batista, and the relationship had collapsed well before the Bay of Pigs. That deterioration of U.S.-Cuban relations had absolutely nothing to do with the CIA or U.S. support for anti-Castro forces, none of which had happened yet. Nixon met with Castro during his 1959 charm offensive, and U.S.-Cuban relations cratered afterwards because of Castro's embrace of Marxism and increasingly close alignment with the Soviet Union. That alignment with the Soviet Union is what made working with him impossible and distinguishes Castro from Tito, who was not a close ally with the Soviets. The U.S. was able to work with Tito by exploiting the divisions between his government and the Soviets, whereas Castro and the Soviets were closely linked and aligned from very early on in the regime.
The U.S.-Cuban relationship and any hope of working with Castro reached the point of no return when Castro struck a deal to provide oil to the USSR, ordered refineries owned by U.S. oil companies to process the Soviet oil, and nationalized the refineries when the U.S. refused the request to refine oil for our geopolitical adversary on August 6, 1960. The relationship was already unsalvageable by the time of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. I know well what Khrushchev's goals were during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the outcome of his negotiations with Kennedy. Doesn't change the fact that while Khrushchev was playing a dangerous game of chicken while using the presence of the nukes as a cudgel to achieve certain diplomatic goals, Castro was actually advocating him to launch nuclear missiles at the United States and start a global nuclear war. Advocating for nuclear war via a preemptive strike and inevitable exchange between great powers is merely another example of Castro being a bad guy, or does the blame for this example of deranged and dangerous lunacy get passed on to the CIA as well?
"All the world can now see the truth: Brennan, Clapper, and Comey manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals—all to get Trump.”
Well Tulsi, what are you guys waiting for? Shouldn't these men be charged and arrested then? Or are you just talking shit out of your mouth that the justice department can't back up in a warrant?
The men released with Andry need to get great American lawyers (not that Venezuelians don't have good lawyers, American for optics) to sue in the International Court. Shipping these guys off to CECOT was a CLEAR violation of international law. We need to get TCV, Noem, Rubio, and Miller on a list to be arrested anytime they set foot on any non-American soil and tried in the Hague.