Calling those "banned words" around green energy a free speech issue misses the point. Companies control the words their employers use especially in official documents submitted to management all the time. That's often a waste of effort IMO, but not necessarily sinister.
What it is here is newspeak. Somehow that's worse. Also quite stupid - it calls to mind all those AI hallucinations in RFK's reports, and deleting that photo of the Enola Gay from a gov website just because it used the word "gay." So often, these people are idiots communicating to other idiots, and they don't trust everyone to appreciate the context or actually what's being discussed. That, or they're just too lazy or sloppy to even realize the mistake.
At its heart, though, the verboten words are trying to define something out of existence. If you don't have a name for something it's suddenly less real. And that's a scary thought, for as long as we're still allowed to think it. :-$
I've read thought a lot of comments here and there are a lot of good thoughts. The biggest problem I see is that Trump and his MAGA followers, just don't give a shit about what anyone else thinks or what might be good for our country. Trump likes power and money and Trump's voters like, well you know I don't know what they like. The shit show will continue.
I hope the inflict pain on blue states strategy backfires. Certainly, Democrats aren't going to pressure Democrats to cave on their shutdown demands. And given that subways and tunnels help Republican and Independent voters just as much as Democratic voters, I'm hoping that enough of them see the craziness of this decision to push a portion of them against Trump. The tunnel is a big deal to Northern NJ voters who commute into the city, so it will be interesting to see how this action may impact the November race for Governor. I think it will help Democrat Mikie Sherrill.
My elderly father is a polio survivor. He’s spent his life with post-polio symptoms. He was worn a KAFO (look it up) for yrs. He has never had any muscles in one leg.
We are suffering from what u call the arrogance of health. Those who are healthy cannot imagine life with an illness and believe they are impervious.
thank you for posting the link to the essay about polio. My husband also had polio as a and was paralyzed from the waist down. He recovered. Had he made it to 82, I wonder if he would have begun to experience the effects of his childhood illness.
I remember lining up in the school cafeteria to get the sugar cubes. It was a great relief for my parents.
Project 2025 now completely endorsed by T. Rump and rapidly nearing completion. There is still no effective opposition as approval of the duly elected administration remains above 40% and over 50% believe the government shutdown is caused by Democrats(about 30%) or "unknown deep state operatives" (about 25%). Unless those numbers change there is no hope and they cannot change as long as the notoriously fickle American electorate continues to buy what the T. Rump criminal enterprise is selling. Peasant revolt, anyone?
OMG I "read the whole thing" What a beautifully written story. Thank you for sharing.
"...science is the workshop of miracles. Physician-scientists are the artisans working through the night, arguing, racing, debating seemingly crazy ideas, all the while taking on complex questions to find a cure to benefit all of humankind. Vaccines are manmade miracles among us."
Okay, JVL, I've been listening long enough to know that these are the comments you pay attention to.
I also know there are others who pay attention to you, although maybe not as much as I'd like them to.
I think it's time to get the Democrats to add a new thing DAILY to their budget CR demands.
Yesterday was healthcare. Today it can be demanding that all ICE agents work without masks. Tomorrow it can be demanding that Kennedy is replaced with an appropriately qualified candidate. The next day it can be requiring an increase in taxes. The day after that can be a demand that all the inappropriately removed federal employees are put back to work--every new day, a new demand.
This can actually effectively do a number of things to counter this regime. #1, it will keep attention on the issue #2, it looks like the Democrats are actually fighting on our behalf. #3, it keeps the fight from getting stale. #4, it can help Americans understand the breadth of what is going on by dropping 1 straightforward new thing each day for them to wrap their heads around, rather than being overwhelmed by a deluge. #5, it's a way to improve on the somewhat benign way that this battle has begun. #6, Trump understands extortion. #7, it is a way to make it a losing option for Trump to continue to dig in his heels--every day, the demands go up and every day he doesn't know what is going to hit him next.
Democrats can do this and they should start on it right away.
Moving the goalposts is a great strategy in a situation where the other side is refusing to negotiate. Especially considering "Moving the goalposts" is a deeply recognized Republican tactic, and has been executed for decades.
I am way out of my understanding how we got taken over in a short 8 months by a handful of people. The capitulation of all our trusted guardrails have been demolished. We can only keep trying to patch what we can and hope we get a chance later to get our country back.
Easily. The constitution was written by a bunch of people who figured it would last 20 years tops and had very little real political experience. It was intended to be difficult to amend and nearly impossible to negotiate with as written, and it had dozens if not hundreds of problems baked in by the situation it was created to resolve, like African slavery.
When you take something like that and subject it to the whims of a madman, which to be clear has been what every Republican president has been since the 70s, it will always burn up at the edges and wear down a little more, until eventually one day you look up and realize its gone.
The only people who can't understand why its gone are usually the ones who were advocating for "centrist solutions" while the right wing burned everything down in a grab for naked authoritarianism.
It used to be Democrats were also Americans. What agencies and policies of the government are not American agencies and policies?
In the current Trumplican Party we no longer need a Supreme Court, because we have a Supreme Leader instead! We really don’t really need the Senate or the House any longer. Mike Johnson says negotiations and compromise mean nothing, just get with the dear leader’s program.
Democrats haven't been Americans in America since the 70s and 80s. we were always the dreaded "left wing socialists" who wanted healthcare and equal rights for everyone, even nonwhite people and non-Christians. We were always the enemy, and now that there are more of us than there are of them, they are grasping for a way to take away the power of the majority they've been swinging around since the end of the Civil War.
As I read Stephen Miller’s words, I thought about decades of peaceful Civil Rights protesters: ruthless, tough, and hardcore in their absolute commitment to justice. May we measure up.
Just remember that for every Martin Luther King or Ghandi there was someone else to convince the government that they REALLY preferred peaceful protest to violent protest. We don't recognize the sacrifice of those who's violent protests enabled the success of peaceful protests, but we should.
Uh, Andrew? How did congressional Democrats directly provoke a government shutdown when Republicans hold the White House and majorities in both chambers of Congress? Since I pay for this newsletter, I'd appreciate it if you didn't carry the water for a lame, dishonest Trump admin. talking point. The Republican Party can end this shutdown any time it wants to, and owns it 100%.
That FDR / March of Dimes story was fantastic.
Calling those "banned words" around green energy a free speech issue misses the point. Companies control the words their employers use especially in official documents submitted to management all the time. That's often a waste of effort IMO, but not necessarily sinister.
What it is here is newspeak. Somehow that's worse. Also quite stupid - it calls to mind all those AI hallucinations in RFK's reports, and deleting that photo of the Enola Gay from a gov website just because it used the word "gay." So often, these people are idiots communicating to other idiots, and they don't trust everyone to appreciate the context or actually what's being discussed. That, or they're just too lazy or sloppy to even realize the mistake.
At its heart, though, the verboten words are trying to define something out of existence. If you don't have a name for something it's suddenly less real. And that's a scary thought, for as long as we're still allowed to think it. :-$
I've read thought a lot of comments here and there are a lot of good thoughts. The biggest problem I see is that Trump and his MAGA followers, just don't give a shit about what anyone else thinks or what might be good for our country. Trump likes power and money and Trump's voters like, well you know I don't know what they like. The shit show will continue.
I hope the inflict pain on blue states strategy backfires. Certainly, Democrats aren't going to pressure Democrats to cave on their shutdown demands. And given that subways and tunnels help Republican and Independent voters just as much as Democratic voters, I'm hoping that enough of them see the craziness of this decision to push a portion of them against Trump. The tunnel is a big deal to Northern NJ voters who commute into the city, so it will be interesting to see how this action may impact the November race for Governor. I think it will help Democrat Mikie Sherrill.
My elderly father is a polio survivor. He’s spent his life with post-polio symptoms. He was worn a KAFO (look it up) for yrs. He has never had any muscles in one leg.
We are suffering from what u call the arrogance of health. Those who are healthy cannot imagine life with an illness and believe they are impervious.
thank you for posting the link to the essay about polio. My husband also had polio as a and was paralyzed from the waist down. He recovered. Had he made it to 82, I wonder if he would have begun to experience the effects of his childhood illness.
I remember lining up in the school cafeteria to get the sugar cubes. It was a great relief for my parents.
Project 2025 now completely endorsed by T. Rump and rapidly nearing completion. There is still no effective opposition as approval of the duly elected administration remains above 40% and over 50% believe the government shutdown is caused by Democrats(about 30%) or "unknown deep state operatives" (about 25%). Unless those numbers change there is no hope and they cannot change as long as the notoriously fickle American electorate continues to buy what the T. Rump criminal enterprise is selling. Peasant revolt, anyone?
OMG I "read the whole thing" What a beautifully written story. Thank you for sharing.
"...science is the workshop of miracles. Physician-scientists are the artisans working through the night, arguing, racing, debating seemingly crazy ideas, all the while taking on complex questions to find a cure to benefit all of humankind. Vaccines are manmade miracles among us."
This may be today's most striking irony. Russell Vought's last name is pronounced "vote."
This whole newsletter makes me feel like Im in the fucking Twilight Zone, who are these people and wtaf is wrong with them?
Okay, JVL, I've been listening long enough to know that these are the comments you pay attention to.
I also know there are others who pay attention to you, although maybe not as much as I'd like them to.
I think it's time to get the Democrats to add a new thing DAILY to their budget CR demands.
Yesterday was healthcare. Today it can be demanding that all ICE agents work without masks. Tomorrow it can be demanding that Kennedy is replaced with an appropriately qualified candidate. The next day it can be requiring an increase in taxes. The day after that can be a demand that all the inappropriately removed federal employees are put back to work--every new day, a new demand.
This can actually effectively do a number of things to counter this regime. #1, it will keep attention on the issue #2, it looks like the Democrats are actually fighting on our behalf. #3, it keeps the fight from getting stale. #4, it can help Americans understand the breadth of what is going on by dropping 1 straightforward new thing each day for them to wrap their heads around, rather than being overwhelmed by a deluge. #5, it's a way to improve on the somewhat benign way that this battle has begun. #6, Trump understands extortion. #7, it is a way to make it a losing option for Trump to continue to dig in his heels--every day, the demands go up and every day he doesn't know what is going to hit him next.
Democrats can do this and they should start on it right away.
Moving the goalposts is a great strategy in a situation where the other side is refusing to negotiate. Especially considering "Moving the goalposts" is a deeply recognized Republican tactic, and has been executed for decades.
I am way out of my understanding how we got taken over in a short 8 months by a handful of people. The capitulation of all our trusted guardrails have been demolished. We can only keep trying to patch what we can and hope we get a chance later to get our country back.
Easily. The constitution was written by a bunch of people who figured it would last 20 years tops and had very little real political experience. It was intended to be difficult to amend and nearly impossible to negotiate with as written, and it had dozens if not hundreds of problems baked in by the situation it was created to resolve, like African slavery.
When you take something like that and subject it to the whims of a madman, which to be clear has been what every Republican president has been since the 70s, it will always burn up at the edges and wear down a little more, until eventually one day you look up and realize its gone.
The only people who can't understand why its gone are usually the ones who were advocating for "centrist solutions" while the right wing burned everything down in a grab for naked authoritarianism.
It used to be Democrats were also Americans. What agencies and policies of the government are not American agencies and policies?
In the current Trumplican Party we no longer need a Supreme Court, because we have a Supreme Leader instead! We really don’t really need the Senate or the House any longer. Mike Johnson says negotiations and compromise mean nothing, just get with the dear leader’s program.
Democrats haven't been Americans in America since the 70s and 80s. we were always the dreaded "left wing socialists" who wanted healthcare and equal rights for everyone, even nonwhite people and non-Christians. We were always the enemy, and now that there are more of us than there are of them, they are grasping for a way to take away the power of the majority they've been swinging around since the end of the Civil War.
“…they think they’re ruthless? …They think they’re tough? …They think they’re hardcore?”
As I read Stephen Miller’s words, I thought about decades of peaceful Civil Rights protesters: ruthless, tough, and hardcore in their absolute commitment to justice. May we measure up.
Just remember that for every Martin Luther King or Ghandi there was someone else to convince the government that they REALLY preferred peaceful protest to violent protest. We don't recognize the sacrifice of those who's violent protests enabled the success of peaceful protests, but we should.
We're just deporting the wrong people.
Uh, Andrew? How did congressional Democrats directly provoke a government shutdown when Republicans hold the White House and majorities in both chambers of Congress? Since I pay for this newsletter, I'd appreciate it if you didn't carry the water for a lame, dishonest Trump admin. talking point. The Republican Party can end this shutdown any time it wants to, and owns it 100%.