I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!
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Noted above, I took most of what was spelled out without the usual pictorial memes — because they rang so true to things I see. I really would have trouble picking out just one, but maybe that is because the orange con and lazy degenerate is now so much more dangerous with the advancing senility. It is highly upsetting and troublesome that the rt. seems bound to let him go on knowing they will put someone (that we obviously would not want any more than we want him) in his place. It has been the plan for a very long time to be rid of pesky Democrats that want things done right and for everyone — not just a select few.
We are far from perfect, but I did spend quite some time on one of the above meme phrases:
I am fed up with people saying "I don't know enough about her". It doesn't matter. Because you know EVERYTHING you need to know about him.You will have a chance to go forward with Harris if you think she is wrong and keep the best she has to offer as is a normal reaction, and then put forward someone whom you see as slightly better. What we have always done and it has sufficed for well over 200 years. Refinements always possible, but we are admired for what we have done (although not so much in the last yrs.) through our democracy. There is nothing wrong with it that doing it RIGHT can't fix. So we need to 'hire' people who do it right and don't subvert the last 200 years into the last few years of the freak show we have had to endure. We are the light on the hill and I hope and pray we don't let the light go out. We don't have to — it's a matter of working for what is right, and true.
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Don’t know if it will link but there is a YouTube video on Project 2025 in Schoolhouse Rock form.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=11ASl6yX7hz_ZqkI&fbclid=IwY2xjawFTjZpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHZePHDHk3NYQhUsLOwZn9ptpqGyU4_mxYDXsu7aHHhsc6YyhyaAGDOmYtA_aem_8a3_yyvYHPGaLb5A2GhKbA&v=CvQhTbCY4xc&feature=youtu.be
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Posting Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, summing up the past five years. It leaves me wondering if our democracy will hold. There is room for hope and room for despair. We cannot say yet where the United States of American will land. I like how HRCs recap reminds us of all that has gone down since 2019. It’s rather unbelievable in ways. I am not one who can say, “my faith is in the American people.” I cannot blindly believe such a statement. My hope is that an overwhelming majority of voters cast votes for Harris and vote blue down the ballot box. But my inner realist cannot give in to much optimism. I’m not built that way.
September 14, 2024 (Saturday)Five years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started:
“Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....”
I wrote a review of Trump’s apparent mental decline amidst his faltering presidency, stonewalling of investigations of potential criminal activity by him or his associates, stacking of the courts, and attempting to use the power of the government to help his 2020 reelection.
Then I noted that the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), had written a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on Friday, September 13, telling Maguire he knew that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, who had deemed the complaint “credible” and "urgent.” This meant that the complaint was supposed to be sent on to the House Intelligence Committee. But, rather than sending it to the House as the law required, Maguire had withheld it. Schiff’s letter told Maguire that he’d better hand it over. Schiff speculated that Maguire was covering up evidence of crimes by the president or his closest advisors.
And I added: “None of this would fly in America if the Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were not aiding and abetting him.”
“This is the story of a dictator on the rise,” I wrote, “taking control of formerly independent branches of government, and using the power of his office to amass power.”
Readers swamped me with questions. So I wrote another post answering them and trying to explain the news, which began breaking at a breathtaking pace.
And so these Letters from an American were born.
In the five years since then, the details of the Ukraine scandal—the secret behind the whistleblower complaint in Schiff’s letter—revealed that then-president Trump was running his own private foreign policy to strong-arm Ukraine into helping his reelection campaign. That effort brought to light more of the story of Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which until Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to be in exchange for lifting sanctions the Obama administration imposed against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.
The February 2022 invasion brought renewed attention to the Mariupol Plan, confirmed by Trump’s 2016 campaign advisor Paul Manafort, that Russia expected a Trump administration to permit Russian president Vladimir Putin to take over eastern Ukraine.
The Ukraine scandal of 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then his acquittal on those charges and his subsequent purge of career government officials, whom he replaced with Trump loyalists.
Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy.
More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic.
We have, though, lived through the attempts of the former president to rig the 2020 election, the determination of American voters to make their voices heard, the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the election of Democrat Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the subsequent refusal of Trump and his loyalists to accept Biden’s win.
And we have lived through the unthinkable: an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob determined to overrule the results of an election and install their own candidate in the White House. For the first time in our history, the peaceful transfer of power was broken. Republican senators saved Trump again in his second impeachment trial, and rather than disappearing after the inauguration of President Biden, Trump doubled down on the Big Lie that he had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election.
We have seen the attempts of Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress to move America past this dark moment by making coronavirus vaccines widely available and passing landmark legislation to rebuild the economy. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred the economy to become the strongest in the world, proving that the tested policy of investing in ordinary Americans worked far better than post-1980 neoliberalism ever did. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, we saw them paralyze Congress with infighting that led them, for the first time in history, to throw out their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
We have watched as the Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with religious extremists, has worked to undermine the proven system in place before 1981. It took away the doctrine that required courts to defer to government agencies’ reasonable regulations and opened the way for big business to challenge those regulations before right-wing judges. It ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, and it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion.
And then we watched the Supreme Court hand down the stunning decision of July 1, 2024, that overturned the fundamental principle of the United States of America that no one is above the law. In Donald J. Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties.
We saw the reactionary authoritarianism of the former president’s supporters grow stronger. In Republican-dominated states across the country, legislatures passed laws to suppress Democratic voting and to put the counting of votes into partisan hands. Trump solidified control over the Republican Party and tightened his ties to far-right authoritarians and white supremacists. Republicans nominated him to be their presidential candidate in 2024 to advance policies outlined in Project 2025 that would concentrate power in the president and impose religious nationalism on the country. Trump chose as his running mate religious extremist Ohio senator J.D. Vance, putting in line for the presidency a man whose entire career in elected office consisted of the eighteen months he had served in the Senate.
In that first letter five years ago, I wrote: “So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…. Defend what is great about this nation: its people, and their willingness to innovate, work, and protect each other. Making America great has never been about hatred or destruction or the aggregation of wealth at the very top; it has always been about building good lives for everyone on the principle of self-determination. While we have never been perfect, our democracy is a far better option than the autocratic oligarchy Trump is imposing on us.”
And we have made noise, and we have taken up oxygen. All across the country, people have stepped up to defend our democracy from those who are open about their plans to destroy it and install a dictator. Democrats and Republicans as well as people previously unaligned, we have reiterated why democracy matters, and in this election where the issue is not policy differences but the very survival of our democracy, we are working to elect Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
If you are tired from the last five years, you have earned the right to be.
And yet, you are still here, reading.
I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.
And so I write.
But I have come to understand that I am simply the translator for the sentiments shared by millions of people who are finding each other and giving voice to the principles of democracy. Your steadfast interest, curiosity, critical thinking, and especially your kindness—to me and to one another—illustrate that we have not only the power, but also the passion, to reinvent our nation.
To those who read these letters, send tips, proofread, criticize, comment, argue, worry, cheer, award medals (!), and support me and one another: I thank you for bringing me along on this wild, unexpected, exhausting, and exhilarating journey.
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I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them their "divine, magical, and ecstatic" existence.
Clyde S. Kilby
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So glad you put Richardson in today, Divine. I would have is you didn't. It is rather daunting, but I did take a lot of comfort to her degree of caring — for seeing a need and filling it. For me, reading HCR has taken guess work and confusion of a lot of the double-speak of politics.
Still, like you I have fears. I have to believe though that we will survive on a decent level. In the end, I'm not able to accept the idea that anyone like a Trump could (after the first 4 yrs. including an insurrection) re-take the WH. To that end on the way here I read about some Maga Reps. after the debate actually saying things like might as well get use to Kamala Harris - President. Many of the Maga 'recognized' the disgrace and loss that Trump went through doing the last debate. How those people ultimately vote (even though debate night they verbally acknowledged Harris) who can know.
I cannot lose my hope in general that more of humanity is upstanding and decent and caring than are not. I can't lose my hope that people will tend toward honor, dignity, freedom, and democracy for all, equally. I can't though say anything is certain.
In my mind I totally believe we are on this Earth to develop our souls and to that end learning is comprised just as much from negative things as positive. I've mentioned before — if you think about it, you learn most from mistakes that imprint — while things that go right leave a much lighter imprint. Our wins can in fact be somewhat dismissed as normal and natural — expected. But losses can be devastating, embarrassing, painful in so many ways and hang around like an albatross. Oh how you learn — just back into your automatic garage door a bit too hard like I did.
Having said that, I do have to believe at this point that more people than not do NOT want the chaos, disruptions, losses, grifting, and sleazy dictator dealings that we would have with the FG. He I think is only in this to try and save himself (still not one iota of actual caring for anyone else) while many of his Reps. cohorts have seen him as their door to what THEY want — which in this case is no better for us. I must have hope that in the end we ALL (even many of the Reps.) had enough FG imprints to go the other way. I truly believe we may be firmly at the crossroads of wanting something better far, far better. The differences are not only clear, but they are also stark.
I must have hope, and I do have likely a lot more of that than faith. I want to have faith that we have learned enough from the negative imprints to NOT make the mistake again. I just have to keep hoping till we get through that election. Then maybe I can have more of my faith back.
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Thanks for the encouragement, Jackie! It is needed and appreciated! Perhaps there is a lot of fear mongering that I am buying into.
I must say, tho, that one thing which plays in my mind is reason. I tend to try to reason stuff out, separate from emotions of hope and faith. Logic, if you will. I think about how Joe Biden won the popular vote by over 7 million voters. Plenty were fed up with FG by that time. It doesn’t stand to reason with me that millions have changed their minds about FG after these last four years and would swap a Democratic vote out for a Republican one. I do not see that the Republicans can win back that many votes. They either have to convince Republicans who didn’t vote in last election to do so this time, or they have to sign new voters and get them to vote. I read they have a shambles of a grass roots campaign. Instead, they want to use voter suppression and legal wrangling to try to circumvent election results.
Also, it seems many more Republican defectors are coming out this election saying that a vote for Kamala saves democracy. I guess the latest is George Will. I don’t know much about him, but apparently many were surprised to hear him say he will vote for Harris.
The black vote will be paramount this election. I know Oprah is getting out there doing her thing and I am all for it. She was instrumental in getting Obama elected. Does she still carry the same kind of clout for Kamala? I want to believe she does. Plus Barack and Michele are out the campaigning as well. And we got Swift.
One more thing. I read gas prices might hit below $3.00 a gallon before the election, a boost for Dems. In town here, it’s currently $3.09.0 -
(((Divine))) and everyone. Our gas is apparently on the way down as well. It in fact, just got down to $3.09 this morning. I do get your point about reason and using facts, and I pretty much agree with it all. I am wondering though (recalling that there is 'internal' polling numbers we don't see) if I can rely on ALL the facts that I have.
Just meaning that I wonder if we are really getting total honesty when we are told some facts. Some could be left out. That said, at the same time, if we think we might lose (there's a little bit of an imprint for you) we would be way more inclined to keep working really hard. So maybe we are not always getting it all. I can live with that if it means we end up going way, way over in our final totals.
Also, I do feel deep concern over the Reps. states that are attempting to change their laws and thereby provide themselves a way to not have to count TOO many Democratic votes and other sleazy methods of stealing the vote. Bad enough that we have the Electoral College — that I so hope gets tossed once and for all in 2024. INDIVIDUAL people SHOULD ALWAYS know their vote counted period and right now we don't. Not in a way that can makes us feel that we were solidly heard.
Truth is and I'll finally admit it — a part of me will be terrified until we actually get this election over with. So there is why I got to have that hope. Something has to hold me up from now till then.
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Well, here is a good reason that I think Trump is on the road to a big big loss. Who in their right mind would vote for a man who says and does something like that. I think a lot of the handlers and those who have been BD (before debate) thinking Trump could carry this are in a bit of a true bind. He is melting down before everyone's eyes. He says he won the debate hands down, but his actions are saying a totally different thing.
And in my mind the above is not about winning or losing a Presidency. It is about trying to find a way to soothe a totally and highly damaged ego. His handlers build him up, tell him what he needs to do, jack him up like a world class prize fighter — and then he loses it in front of the world at large. I am saying I'm sitting here wondering — where is he going to be with all of this in two months. He's gotten every break (completely un-deserved) a person could, and we have gotten nothing. Yet, he's a plethora of ego driven SLOP and seems barely able to tolerate the slightest thought that someone, anyone, could see him for the loser in his heart he knows he is.
I am fearful he won't get all the way through, and they will put Vance in his place — although many of the Reps. see him as nearly as un-fit as they are seeing Trump. The issue would be for me that I do think some Reps. would feel they actually do have a 'slightly' better choice in Vance. It is all a bit frightening to comtemplate.
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https://polinews.org/secret-service-activates-as-popping.../
POLINEWS.ORG
Secret Service Activates As Popping Sounds Reportedly Heard At Trump Golf Course
This is the second time I have read something about this today. You know, the last person that took a shot (pretty close one too) at Trump was a Reps. In some ways I am not surprised. This is what the Loon does so much —- try to incite people to some sort of action and usually he is thinking of really negative actions. So, I think — someone is taking him up on it.
Are they trying to scare him, or maybe they really want a loser like that really GONE. But I am no longer surprised that his rhetoric produces heinous results. It is just new that it seems he is getting a dose of his own medicine now and then. Perhaps he will have to REALLY move into his basement till the election.
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It's too little, too late, but just the hell what was she trying to do. Time to consider who might try to use what you do to their advantage — hmmmm.
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Just another thing we have to consider.
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He realoly did misss nap time.
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Good ole' brilliant JD to the rescue. There are rocks in my garden — your name is on one of them.
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And this is a dangerous stupid demented man and too many of you are willing to vote for him, so I want to know — what in God's name is wrong with you, since we know what is wrong with him.
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They were pleasant to watch and I hope other possible moderators follow their leads.
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I pray that is just what happens. The best chance there is to put Trump in his place is now for good.
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There was a time when people like this were DISMISSED as the lunatics they were. I'm not much one to go back, but in this case a big exception is possible.
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A remarkable admission. JD Vance ADMITTED in an interview this morning that he is more than willing to LIE to the American people for political gain:
“In a stunning admission, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he was willing ‘to create stories’ on the campaign trail while defending his spreading false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.
Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need ‘to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention.’”
Well JD, my not so good man. How's about we pay attention by sending you back under whatever slimy rock you crawled out from under and you just stay there. I'd say it is a fitting place for someone with your not very brilliant and not at all clever ideas.
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You know, some days my level of disbelief (while believing) goes right through the roof. No wonder Trump picked him — a carbon copy of deep stupidity even if slimmer and better dressed. No mind, this man is two things — stupid and dangerous. I hope Ohio does the smart thing at election time and dumps him like yesterday's garbage.
You are dismissed — take your books and go home.
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Over the years I have come to believe that life is full of unchosen circumstances, that being human has to do with the evolution of our individual consciousness and with it, responsibilities for choice. Pain and joy both come with life. I believe that how we respond to what happens to us and around us shapes who we become and has to do with the psyche or the soul’s growth.
Jean Shinoda Bolen
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Hmmm, a bit suspicious. He did get about a good week's worth of attention with his ear issue supposedly from a bullet which he by the way called taking a bullet to the HEAD. He does have a head, but not much in it.
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Melania did it. The Trumps are just as poorly educated as any of those dumb Reps.
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Melania Trump Takes To Social Media To Whine About Her ‘Privacy’— And People Are Not Having It
Some people never get over themselves. She has been (one way or other) in the public eye's for a long time and you are a user as well. Get over yourself. You have had the life YOU wanted.
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