Imagine that a short one year ago; if then sitting-President Biden had as much as answered reporters' questions the way Trump just did regarding live issues happening under his watch, your mainstream and huge swaths of social/online media would have instantly gone apoplectic for days on end about his senility and incapacity to function as President.
Here, today, is concrete, irrefutable evidence that the leader of the free world is most certainly and blissfully not aware - neither of serious issues occurring within the administration he runs, and may possibly be out of sorts in his mental faculties. Yet, even your own comical approach to reporting it screams, crickets!!!
I'll be convinced Trump and Trump World is serious about deportations when ICE starts raiding the meat and poultry packing plants in Red States as well as the agricultural worker bees. Until then it is just let's see how cruel we can be to pretty much normal people. Of course, knowing Trump he has already elicited "donations" from the poultry and meat packing owners for a look the other way position. On a side note, if you look at the picture of Jeff Bezos and his significant other, Laura Sanchez at the inauguration, then cover Sanchez from the neck down and concentrate on her face, is it just me or is that picture a dead ringer for Michael Jackson?
“as painful as the sight of this moral rot is the recognition that we voted for it.” Set aside the definition of “we”, I’d like to point out that many/most of those who *did* vote for it don’t share that “recognition”. See all the “we didn’t vote for *this*” malarkey, a la this old nsfw onion piece: https://theonion.com/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock-1819583529/
Sorry, can't bring myself to "mourn" the impending loss of Cornyn. A former Texas Supreme Court Justice-- and utterly supine enabler of the GOP's wholesale destruction of the rule of law & dismemberment of separation of powers. Go for it Texas: substitute one disgrace (Paxton) for another (Cornyn).
A poor lady is now terrified and in prison, and in danger of being deported, having hurt nobody at all and just trying to go about her day- because millions of red hatted morons a) thought somebody was looking down on them b) thought the con man on the tee vee was a Business Man
I don’t live in America but if I did I’d be thinking, even if we somehow get out of this in 2028, I have to share space with millions of people like that? Even if you live in a blue state you’re surely in airports etc thinking half of these people wanted a fascist.
The night before the election, as I was leaving my local Democratic HQ, folks were trying to reassure me that we could win b/c I had a REALLY bad feeling about the next day. But it went way beyond that: as I said to them, "Even if we win, this country is in serious trouble and I don't know what we're going to do about that."
I'm sorry, but anyone who cares about John Fetterman has to intervene. He's a good guy, IMO, but he is ill. He cannot handle the hard job of being a senator. He's hurting his constituents, colleagues, the office of the senate, his staffers and himself. This is an emergency.
Excellent column by Bill today. This is what mass deportation looks Iike and it's just as cruel, ugly and hateful as we'd imagined. I don't know if hearing stories and seeing images like these will change his supporters minds but I guarantee you it will change the world's perception of who we are as a country.
"[Starlink] owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years."
"Their strategy was simple but effective: They bought huge shares of the memecoin two minutes before the incoming first lady announced the venture publicly, then sold those shares hours later after the announcement spiked the price."
Is it me or am I getting the sense that The Bulwark is looking to oust Fetterman? I mean, he's not the guy folks thought he'd be, but at the same time...ouch!
People around Fetterman are starting to speak out. The man is clearly suffering the effects of his stroke. Mood swings, irrational behavior, screaming at people and the like. Saw it with my mother. And 80-yr-old woman who never cursed, and a minute later, she was cursing in Hungarian, and physically attacking me. His family, the party really need to do an intervention. And he is NOT going to get better. Someone should release his CT-scans.
Nice piece Bill, but it's not really the 'shame of what we have become'. It's the shame of what we have always been, only now it's exposed. Not pretty, vile, in fact, but it's human nature. Moral clarity and courage? When they are to one's advantage, (especially to congress members) always be sure that is the case. Those tenets do not and could never define a society founded on "individual rights." Now begins the reaping of the bitter fruit we have sown and so gloriously honored. If Alexander Hamilton were alive today, he would move back to Nevis, open a pub and laugh all day long at our absurdity.
1) Less than 50% voted for T. Too bad lots of us are bad at counting? T counted on our being bad at math that many would believe him when he claimed to have a mandate, implying everybody wanted him to do the things he's done. 2) My spouse is the cradle Catholic in our house, the rest of us varied. She says most new Popes pick names for symbolic value. Francis liked Francis of Assisi. The newest Leo, bishop of Chicago and long-term missionary in Peru, is the 14th Leo. What did he appreciate of the prior Leo, the 13th?
A "New Advent " bio says the 13th Leo, b.1835, served mid-1800s as clergy, not chosen Pope until turn of the century, 1900ish. As a young man, he helped care for the sick in in a cholera epidemic, then was stricken by, but survived typhoid fever. Brigands thrived at the time, on top of the sicknesses, as the robbing ones could escape, from one Italian state where they committed a crime, to another, where they lived off their stolen wealth, as Italy had no good federal system back then.
He worked against the "brigands", aka "banditi", in Naples, then campaigned for a more just and equitable system of taxation overall. He went on to set up standards for schools and colleges in Italy (a place mainly Catholic, less need to steal to avoid hunger, if well-educated?) His assigned chores did not take him to the bigger place of Rome until after our US Civil War finished. Thus, in
the 1870s, after previously living in crossroads and brigand set-ups with Napoleonic influences (governments often anti-religious) he was where he could learn much. Not Pope until 1903, he tried to mend fences with and between varied countries. France, Russia, Germany's Bismarck, and I think maybe Belgium were cited.
The hundreds of popes elected over 2000 years, through the present, plus "anti-popes" are on one page here, the bios linked showing quality varied, just as we see in our democracies today:
You're missing his greatest accomplishments. He was known as the pope of the workers. Per AI: Pope Leo XIII, whose reign spanned from 1878 to 1903, is known for his significant contributions to the Catholic Church, particularly in the realm of social doctrine and diplomacy. He's considered the "Social Pope" for his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which addressed the rights of workers and laid the groundwork for modern Catholic social teaching.
Yes, your’re right! I started to say that by calling him the pro-labor pope but figured everyone else would cover his big moment, so covered the little steps on the way there. You’re right, the encyclical swamped the rest.
Part of what makes this so important is that it was written during the violent, turbulent times of people like business owners shooting workers who protested against slave hours, slave wages, no safety regulations, big business monopolies, etc. He gave permission to the real populists (today's populists AREN'T) of the time who were pro-union, pro-workers, pro safety for workers and the populace, etc. to demand those changes with the literal blessing of the churches.
The downside: MAGA-world will say that the choice of the first-ever U.S.-born pope at this juncture in history represents the Vatican siding with MAGA. When Trump says "It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope," he is undoubtedly thinking it's an honor to himself, and intended as such.
Yes, Pres T appeals to the ignorant, at the price of making himself look even worse, more shallow. Catholics are already saying they see through him. ADVICE: We have to stop repeating T. When we repeat his lines, we do what he wishes us to do, spread his nastiness, without T having to pay for the free ad.
I'm not a Kristi Noem type of driver, but I have committed one or two traffic violations (through inattention) that were worse than not noticing the sign that says, "No right turn on this particular red light." Only a ghoul would believe that Ximena Arias-Cristobal deserves to be shackled and packed off to a gulag after spending her young life apparently doing things the right way.
"Oh, but she wasn't arrested for a traffic violation. She was arrested for being in the country illegally!" say the MAGA ghouls. I suppose she should have been prepared to self-deport to her country of birth as soon as she turned 18. Have I got that right?
Only a sociopath would think that way. Only a nativist zealot would think the country's survival depends on expelling such people.
I have always believed that a political movement or agenda that holds Donald Trump as its greatest hero cannot be morally sound or intellectually serious - no matter how much ink is spilled in trying to make him appear decent and thoughtful. The conspicuous failure to make reasonable moral judgments around immigration issues is just one of many illustrations of that principle.
"I DONT KNOW THAT"
Imagine that a short one year ago; if then sitting-President Biden had as much as answered reporters' questions the way Trump just did regarding live issues happening under his watch, your mainstream and huge swaths of social/online media would have instantly gone apoplectic for days on end about his senility and incapacity to function as President.
Here, today, is concrete, irrefutable evidence that the leader of the free world is most certainly and blissfully not aware - neither of serious issues occurring within the administration he runs, and may possibly be out of sorts in his mental faculties. Yet, even your own comical approach to reporting it screams, crickets!!!
I'll be convinced Trump and Trump World is serious about deportations when ICE starts raiding the meat and poultry packing plants in Red States as well as the agricultural worker bees. Until then it is just let's see how cruel we can be to pretty much normal people. Of course, knowing Trump he has already elicited "donations" from the poultry and meat packing owners for a look the other way position. On a side note, if you look at the picture of Jeff Bezos and his significant other, Laura Sanchez at the inauguration, then cover Sanchez from the neck down and concentrate on her face, is it just me or is that picture a dead ringer for Michael Jackson?
“as painful as the sight of this moral rot is the recognition that we voted for it.” Set aside the definition of “we”, I’d like to point out that many/most of those who *did* vote for it don’t share that “recognition”. See all the “we didn’t vote for *this*” malarkey, a la this old nsfw onion piece: https://theonion.com/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock-1819583529/
M3A = Make America America Again = justice and equality before the law.
Sorry, can't bring myself to "mourn" the impending loss of Cornyn. A former Texas Supreme Court Justice-- and utterly supine enabler of the GOP's wholesale destruction of the rule of law & dismemberment of separation of powers. Go for it Texas: substitute one disgrace (Paxton) for another (Cornyn).
No, Bill, I did not vote for it, in the last election or any previous one. I resisted all the way. Dont put your shame on half the country.
A poor lady is now terrified and in prison, and in danger of being deported, having hurt nobody at all and just trying to go about her day- because millions of red hatted morons a) thought somebody was looking down on them b) thought the con man on the tee vee was a Business Man
I don’t live in America but if I did I’d be thinking, even if we somehow get out of this in 2028, I have to share space with millions of people like that? Even if you live in a blue state you’re surely in airports etc thinking half of these people wanted a fascist.
The night before the election, as I was leaving my local Democratic HQ, folks were trying to reassure me that we could win b/c I had a REALLY bad feeling about the next day. But it went way beyond that: as I said to them, "Even if we win, this country is in serious trouble and I don't know what we're going to do about that."
And she came here at the age of 4. We are awful.
I'm sorry, but anyone who cares about John Fetterman has to intervene. He's a good guy, IMO, but he is ill. He cannot handle the hard job of being a senator. He's hurting his constituents, colleagues, the office of the senate, his staffers and himself. This is an emergency.
Excellent column by Bill today. This is what mass deportation looks Iike and it's just as cruel, ugly and hateful as we'd imagined. I don't know if hearing stories and seeing images like these will change his supporters minds but I guarantee you it will change the world's perception of who we are as a country.
"[Starlink] owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years."
~ the Trump 2.0 mafia
"Their strategy was simple but effective: They bought huge shares of the memecoin two minutes before the incoming first lady announced the venture publicly, then sold those shares hours later after the announcement spiked the price."
unknown traders doing insider trading
"It seems like we are much better at catching people that are committing misdemeanors than people that are actually a danger to society."
~Kacey Carpenter, R rep in the Georgia State House, comments to the media
(also wrote a letter to the judge on Ximena’s behalf)
Is it me or am I getting the sense that The Bulwark is looking to oust Fetterman? I mean, he's not the guy folks thought he'd be, but at the same time...ouch!
People around Fetterman are starting to speak out. The man is clearly suffering the effects of his stroke. Mood swings, irrational behavior, screaming at people and the like. Saw it with my mother. And 80-yr-old woman who never cursed, and a minute later, she was cursing in Hungarian, and physically attacking me. His family, the party really need to do an intervention. And he is NOT going to get better. Someone should release his CT-scans.
Nice piece Bill, but it's not really the 'shame of what we have become'. It's the shame of what we have always been, only now it's exposed. Not pretty, vile, in fact, but it's human nature. Moral clarity and courage? When they are to one's advantage, (especially to congress members) always be sure that is the case. Those tenets do not and could never define a society founded on "individual rights." Now begins the reaping of the bitter fruit we have sown and so gloriously honored. If Alexander Hamilton were alive today, he would move back to Nevis, open a pub and laugh all day long at our absurdity.
1) Less than 50% voted for T. Too bad lots of us are bad at counting? T counted on our being bad at math that many would believe him when he claimed to have a mandate, implying everybody wanted him to do the things he's done. 2) My spouse is the cradle Catholic in our house, the rest of us varied. She says most new Popes pick names for symbolic value. Francis liked Francis of Assisi. The newest Leo, bishop of Chicago and long-term missionary in Peru, is the 14th Leo. What did he appreciate of the prior Leo, the 13th?
A "New Advent " bio says the 13th Leo, b.1835, served mid-1800s as clergy, not chosen Pope until turn of the century, 1900ish. As a young man, he helped care for the sick in in a cholera epidemic, then was stricken by, but survived typhoid fever. Brigands thrived at the time, on top of the sicknesses, as the robbing ones could escape, from one Italian state where they committed a crime, to another, where they lived off their stolen wealth, as Italy had no good federal system back then.
He worked against the "brigands", aka "banditi", in Naples, then campaigned for a more just and equitable system of taxation overall. He went on to set up standards for schools and colleges in Italy (a place mainly Catholic, less need to steal to avoid hunger, if well-educated?) His assigned chores did not take him to the bigger place of Rome until after our US Civil War finished. Thus, in
the 1870s, after previously living in crossroads and brigand set-ups with Napoleonic influences (governments often anti-religious) he was where he could learn much. Not Pope until 1903, he tried to mend fences with and between varied countries. France, Russia, Germany's Bismarck, and I think maybe Belgium were cited.
The hundreds of popes elected over 2000 years, through the present, plus "anti-popes" are on one page here, the bios linked showing quality varied, just as we see in our democracies today:
https://www.NewAdvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm
Leo XIII died in 1903.
You're missing his greatest accomplishments. He was known as the pope of the workers. Per AI: Pope Leo XIII, whose reign spanned from 1878 to 1903, is known for his significant contributions to the Catholic Church, particularly in the realm of social doctrine and diplomacy. He's considered the "Social Pope" for his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which addressed the rights of workers and laid the groundwork for modern Catholic social teaching.
Yes, your’re right! I started to say that by calling him the pro-labor pope but figured everyone else would cover his big moment, so covered the little steps on the way there. You’re right, the encyclical swamped the rest.
Part of what makes this so important is that it was written during the violent, turbulent times of people like business owners shooting workers who protested against slave hours, slave wages, no safety regulations, big business monopolies, etc. He gave permission to the real populists (today's populists AREN'T) of the time who were pro-union, pro-workers, pro safety for workers and the populace, etc. to demand those changes with the literal blessing of the churches.
The downside: MAGA-world will say that the choice of the first-ever U.S.-born pope at this juncture in history represents the Vatican siding with MAGA. When Trump says "It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope," he is undoubtedly thinking it's an honor to himself, and intended as such.
Yes, Pres T appeals to the ignorant, at the price of making himself look even worse, more shallow. Catholics are already saying they see through him. ADVICE: We have to stop repeating T. When we repeat his lines, we do what he wishes us to do, spread his nastiness, without T having to pay for the free ad.
I'm not a Kristi Noem type of driver, but I have committed one or two traffic violations (through inattention) that were worse than not noticing the sign that says, "No right turn on this particular red light." Only a ghoul would believe that Ximena Arias-Cristobal deserves to be shackled and packed off to a gulag after spending her young life apparently doing things the right way.
"Oh, but she wasn't arrested for a traffic violation. She was arrested for being in the country illegally!" say the MAGA ghouls. I suppose she should have been prepared to self-deport to her country of birth as soon as she turned 18. Have I got that right?
Only a sociopath would think that way. Only a nativist zealot would think the country's survival depends on expelling such people.
I have always believed that a political movement or agenda that holds Donald Trump as its greatest hero cannot be morally sound or intellectually serious - no matter how much ink is spilled in trying to make him appear decent and thoughtful. The conspicuous failure to make reasonable moral judgments around immigration issues is just one of many illustrations of that principle.