I have never attended a Trump rally, but I feel like I've had an experience that has some similarity. Not long before John Lee Hooker, the blues guitarist, died, friends invited me to a performance of his. It was obvious to me, as an internal medicine physician, that he had neurological deficits with both physical and cognitive deficits. His son led him out by the arm and he was unsteady. His speech was unclear. He was repeating the same lyrics over and over. He really didn't play the guitar except to aimlessly strum - there was none of the exceptional dexterity for which he was so well-known. The backing band totally carried him. This had no resemblance to the John Lee Hooker of old. Yet the audience responded to this sad display of difficulty as if it was unchanged from the John Lee Hooker they knew. I was shocked, since the difference was so painfully obvious. I therefore now have no difficulty accepting that Trump's crowd may well totally ignore whatever difficulties Trump exhibits with his speech, thought pattern, vocabulary, tangential thinking, non sequiturs, whatever, changes that are obvious to any but members of the cult-like following.
Robert's take on how the media is normalizing Trump is spot-on. The Washington Post is outdoing Trump in casting doubt on its integrity. The paper is featuring Trump press person Kellyanne Conway, the woman who invented “alternative facts,” in a Virtual Program event on April 24. This is the women who lied, misinformed, and lied some more when she worked for the previous president. The WaPo is normalizing and legitimizing her abhorrent behavior while she was representing American policy and programs to America and the world.
The Washington Post led the way to uncover the crimes and immorality of the Nixon administration, but that seems so old-fashioned these days. Apparently the paper believes Conway is worth our attention now. She frequently attacked the WaPo and other respectable news media, so the paper appears to be endorsing someone who forcefully denigrated a free and fair press.
I’m beyond disgusted with what appears to be this shameless pandering to Trump world (or the WaPo owners and shareholders). I encourage subscribers to tell the WaPo what you think of this! Email the Opinions editor at David.Shipley@washpost.com. Send your LTE to letters@washpost.com.
The ignorance of TFG and Chris Sununo is simply staggering!!! For the orange cancer to say that Gettysburg was beautiful was akin to him saying " there are very fine people on both sides " -He simply is deranged in a multitude of ways- and the Governor of NH is simply a moron!!
Governor Sununu is a coward! The person who stole our yard sign is a coward.The person who wrote me an anonymous letter, responding to my Letter to Ed with a litany of Faux News talking points is a coward. The person who drove by us waving his cigarette and ranting about our Register To Vote bumper sticker is a coward.
Yesterday I received an email from a neighbor praising my most recent Letter to Ed.She is a former college professor and was a prolific Letter to Ed writer.She told me she stopped writing as she was afraid.I truly understand…although it saddened me.
Three months in and I have only received. +++ responses wearing my Biden/Harris t-shirt.👕🛒
No responses from the MAGA hat-wearing cowards in my Fl county !
Just ordered another t :”I’m Voting Yes on Amendment 4” and will be alternating.
New order of yard signs arriving tomorrow. We will strategically place.My Republican evangelical neighbor even commented that we should borrow her large dog( his bark is worse than his bite!) to stand guard by our sign.Always be kind…
💙 this community.Please all, keep doing whatever is in your comfort zone. 🌊
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice, specializing in adult and geriatric psychiatry, I come across a vast number of clients who suffer from extreme anxiety brought on by watching the news. Aside from writing a prescription telling them to lay off Fox News (which specializes in fear mongering), and to limit their consumption of news to 10 minutes twice a day, I also prescribe Today's Edition Newsletter to help them put the world in perspective. I tell them to listen to the audio version because your voice has a calming effect. Just thought you might want to know how therapeutic you can be and how listening to you can help avoid adding additional medications to the mix. Thank you for all you do.
Disappointment in the former Republican Party abounds. Aside from the normalization of their standard-bearer (the Quadefendant), the utter disgrace of Chris Sununu, and the despicable criticism of our president by the person formerly known as Marco Rubio, the current squatter in the Speaker's chair continues to vacillate between the gravitational pull of the MAGAt world and the lifeline of bipartisanship.
Sununu's message should be part of every Democratic ad. He distilled the reality of the Republican abrogation of democracy into a single meme: "Yeah. Me and 51 percent of America." The day I accept that 51 percent of America is willing to overlook the litany of the Quadefendant's treasonous, illegal, immoral, and destructive behaviors is the day I no longer deserve to be called an American...or husband...or Dad...or Pop-Pop. Sununu should be sent packing.
Rubio continued the descent he began when the Quadefendant sent him running in the 2016 primaries. His blubbering and blathering has only increased over time. And to think I once respected him and looked forward to his rise in what I thought was a viable and vibrant Republican Party. His criticism of President Biden following his masterful handling of the potentially explosive Iranian attack shows that he's reached new depths. AP reported his comments at the end of this story: https://apnews.com/article/62cba0eaac095115f8386397b3ded2f4
Mike Johnson continues to dance at the end of the strings manipulated by the MAGAt puppet-master, the Quadefendant. He's promised to address funding for Israel and Ukraine (https://apnews.com/article/912a7419b00749fbc2f472df93f67bb1), but he'll certainly need help from Democrats. It will be interesting to watch him dance and attempt to keep from becoming hopelessly entangled, or worse, strangled.
This week begins the next chapter of the Quadefendant's sordid saga. Let's hope that some Republicans will wake up to the fact that they've hitched their wagons behind a horse's a$$.
"Debates" are useless at this point because the right wing media has created an "alternative reality" that is not based in fact and the inability to do fact checking in real time continues the "angertainment" feature that depends on clicks and eyeballs.
The questions are completely worthless, in that the underlying societal systems that impact day-to-day issues are not addressed with background explanations educating the public on "how we got here."
Example: How the original Republican Party was formed, the "flip" of Republican and Democratic parties during the mid-1960s with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Acts, and the expulsion of "Republicans" with any moral conscience and backbone from the Tea Party/MAGA movement that welcomed the anti-government militias, former Confederates, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacy Christian Nationalists into the "take up arms unless we win" cult of "Orange Jesus."
"Name calling" and projection are childish and beneath the dignity of diplomacy needed for leadership.
Global trade, economics, resolution of conflicts and war, and the necessity of addressing the very survival of the planet require the ability to learn and to lead.
"REAL" Questions in a Presidential Debate must address
* the widening economic disparities (businesses benefitting from government subsidies and infrastructure, CEOs and the 1% making trillions of dollars while workers cannot secure housing, health care and food),
* the obstruction and inability to govern of the current Republican Party, and
* the dark money and other "legislation from the bench" tactics of this corrupt Supreme Court that must be aggressively dealt with.
* Of course, whether a person can make decisions about their own body is a given. Talk about "big government" - they are inserting themselves into every aspect of an individual's life and imposing laws that take away one's humanity.
Sununu is my governor and I have always despised listening to his two-faced responses to journalists, depending upon the forum in which the questions are posed. Thanks for this summary of his actions and the link to the Stephanopoulos interview so that I can use this information when I canvass for Democratic candidates in our state and national elections. May a blue wave prevail!
During time with relatives in Ohio watching the total eclipse, I had a fraught conversation with a thirty-something nephew about our current politics. He is a progressive who has bought into the idea that Biden is too old and must step down. He’s convinced Trump will win. I will send today’s edition to him. It will resonate with him if he reads it. A job, two young children, a full time busy working wife and a sense of being overwhelmed and worried about his children’s futures …. I hope he reads your work, Robert. Thank you.
1. Trump will lie, bully, bluster, and interrupt, to try to demonstrate he is "stronger." The American movie genre applauds "tough-guy" mavericks. James Bond, Rocky, Kevin Cosner's movies, Shane, Walking Tall, the Matrix, Reacher, Jack Ryan, Fast and Furious, Richard Boone in Paladin.
2.. The moderator will fail to rein in Trump. They will let him perform, to get the TV audience, when they could cut his microphone.
3. Biden will follow the rules, answer the questions, and be polite; Trump won't. On TV, Biden will look weak.
4. Murphy's Law: "Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference."
This statement of yours is so well expressed Robert: "Until the news organizations get over their own sense of self-importance and realize that this election is not about them, they will continue to undersell the threat that is Donald Trump. Shame on them! It is our duty to urge them to recognize this is an extraordinary moment in which the maximization of profit cannot be their guiding light."
The major media in this country is rotten to the core.
Yes, Robert, President Biden and his team steered us through a most difficult and demanding moment with a steady hand and a clear compass. A photo of the President, Secretary Blinken and others in the Situation Room circulated in the (social) media over the weekend. One shudders at the thought of who might be sitting around the table next year – and with what consequences.
As to invertebrate Sununu – no surprise there. He is anti trump and anti MAGA until he isn't. Remember his clear take on Donald Bolduc during the N.H. Republican Senate primary in 2022: "not serious, a conspiracy theorist-type candidate." After he won the primary Bolduc suddenly morphed into a "true patriot, who would do great work for N.H. in Washington."
Sununu is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a male Nancy Mace. He is one of them.
Chris Sununu's capitulation to the serial philandering liar known as Trump is really a profile in cowardice. I wonder if his family and close friends feel a degree of mortification over his sell-out? I think his former admirers, the ones who thought he was a bright light in the GOP swamp, feel similarly to me? He was a beacon for hope; now the light has been snuffed out.
Thanks. This is the second time this morning: Sununu comes from a political family. As a governor he requires brand loyalty. Issues may have something to do with his loyalty, but peer pressure, paternalism and greed are more likely. I don't think he has the ubiquitous Jungian collective racial subconscious that drives most MAGATs to vote contrary to their personal economic and physical health, he just wants power. So much for "live free or die."
Our only hope is to sweep the elections. Register Democrats, save democracy.
How many other cowardly republican governors support trump and demonize President Biden while happily accepting the federal funds and support provided by the President Biden administration. If they supported trump and refused federal support, I might give them an infinitesimal amount of credit. Hypocrisy thy name is republican. Profiles in Cowardice adds another chapter
I have never attended a Trump rally, but I feel like I've had an experience that has some similarity. Not long before John Lee Hooker, the blues guitarist, died, friends invited me to a performance of his. It was obvious to me, as an internal medicine physician, that he had neurological deficits with both physical and cognitive deficits. His son led him out by the arm and he was unsteady. His speech was unclear. He was repeating the same lyrics over and over. He really didn't play the guitar except to aimlessly strum - there was none of the exceptional dexterity for which he was so well-known. The backing band totally carried him. This had no resemblance to the John Lee Hooker of old. Yet the audience responded to this sad display of difficulty as if it was unchanged from the John Lee Hooker they knew. I was shocked, since the difference was so painfully obvious. I therefore now have no difficulty accepting that Trump's crowd may well totally ignore whatever difficulties Trump exhibits with his speech, thought pattern, vocabulary, tangential thinking, non sequiturs, whatever, changes that are obvious to any but members of the cult-like following.
Robert's take on how the media is normalizing Trump is spot-on. The Washington Post is outdoing Trump in casting doubt on its integrity. The paper is featuring Trump press person Kellyanne Conway, the woman who invented “alternative facts,” in a Virtual Program event on April 24. This is the women who lied, misinformed, and lied some more when she worked for the previous president. The WaPo is normalizing and legitimizing her abhorrent behavior while she was representing American policy and programs to America and the world.
The Washington Post led the way to uncover the crimes and immorality of the Nixon administration, but that seems so old-fashioned these days. Apparently the paper believes Conway is worth our attention now. She frequently attacked the WaPo and other respectable news media, so the paper appears to be endorsing someone who forcefully denigrated a free and fair press.
I’m beyond disgusted with what appears to be this shameless pandering to Trump world (or the WaPo owners and shareholders). I encourage subscribers to tell the WaPo what you think of this! Email the Opinions editor at David.Shipley@washpost.com. Send your LTE to letters@washpost.com.
The ignorance of TFG and Chris Sununo is simply staggering!!! For the orange cancer to say that Gettysburg was beautiful was akin to him saying " there are very fine people on both sides " -He simply is deranged in a multitude of ways- and the Governor of NH is simply a moron!!
Governor Sununu is a coward! The person who stole our yard sign is a coward.The person who wrote me an anonymous letter, responding to my Letter to Ed with a litany of Faux News talking points is a coward. The person who drove by us waving his cigarette and ranting about our Register To Vote bumper sticker is a coward.
Yesterday I received an email from a neighbor praising my most recent Letter to Ed.She is a former college professor and was a prolific Letter to Ed writer.She told me she stopped writing as she was afraid.I truly understand…although it saddened me.
Three months in and I have only received. +++ responses wearing my Biden/Harris t-shirt.👕🛒
No responses from the MAGA hat-wearing cowards in my Fl county !
Just ordered another t :”I’m Voting Yes on Amendment 4” and will be alternating.
New order of yard signs arriving tomorrow. We will strategically place.My Republican evangelical neighbor even commented that we should borrow her large dog( his bark is worse than his bite!) to stand guard by our sign.Always be kind…
💙 this community.Please all, keep doing whatever is in your comfort zone. 🌊
✍️📲💲🚶🏻📣👕🪧
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice, specializing in adult and geriatric psychiatry, I come across a vast number of clients who suffer from extreme anxiety brought on by watching the news. Aside from writing a prescription telling them to lay off Fox News (which specializes in fear mongering), and to limit their consumption of news to 10 minutes twice a day, I also prescribe Today's Edition Newsletter to help them put the world in perspective. I tell them to listen to the audio version because your voice has a calming effect. Just thought you might want to know how therapeutic you can be and how listening to you can help avoid adding additional medications to the mix. Thank you for all you do.
Disappointment in the former Republican Party abounds. Aside from the normalization of their standard-bearer (the Quadefendant), the utter disgrace of Chris Sununu, and the despicable criticism of our president by the person formerly known as Marco Rubio, the current squatter in the Speaker's chair continues to vacillate between the gravitational pull of the MAGAt world and the lifeline of bipartisanship.
Sununu's message should be part of every Democratic ad. He distilled the reality of the Republican abrogation of democracy into a single meme: "Yeah. Me and 51 percent of America." The day I accept that 51 percent of America is willing to overlook the litany of the Quadefendant's treasonous, illegal, immoral, and destructive behaviors is the day I no longer deserve to be called an American...or husband...or Dad...or Pop-Pop. Sununu should be sent packing.
Rubio continued the descent he began when the Quadefendant sent him running in the 2016 primaries. His blubbering and blathering has only increased over time. And to think I once respected him and looked forward to his rise in what I thought was a viable and vibrant Republican Party. His criticism of President Biden following his masterful handling of the potentially explosive Iranian attack shows that he's reached new depths. AP reported his comments at the end of this story: https://apnews.com/article/62cba0eaac095115f8386397b3ded2f4
Mike Johnson continues to dance at the end of the strings manipulated by the MAGAt puppet-master, the Quadefendant. He's promised to address funding for Israel and Ukraine (https://apnews.com/article/912a7419b00749fbc2f472df93f67bb1), but he'll certainly need help from Democrats. It will be interesting to watch him dance and attempt to keep from becoming hopelessly entangled, or worse, strangled.
This week begins the next chapter of the Quadefendant's sordid saga. Let's hope that some Republicans will wake up to the fact that they've hitched their wagons behind a horse's a$$.
"Debates" are useless at this point because the right wing media has created an "alternative reality" that is not based in fact and the inability to do fact checking in real time continues the "angertainment" feature that depends on clicks and eyeballs.
The questions are completely worthless, in that the underlying societal systems that impact day-to-day issues are not addressed with background explanations educating the public on "how we got here."
Example: How the original Republican Party was formed, the "flip" of Republican and Democratic parties during the mid-1960s with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Acts, and the expulsion of "Republicans" with any moral conscience and backbone from the Tea Party/MAGA movement that welcomed the anti-government militias, former Confederates, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacy Christian Nationalists into the "take up arms unless we win" cult of "Orange Jesus."
"Name calling" and projection are childish and beneath the dignity of diplomacy needed for leadership.
Global trade, economics, resolution of conflicts and war, and the necessity of addressing the very survival of the planet require the ability to learn and to lead.
"REAL" Questions in a Presidential Debate must address
* the widening economic disparities (businesses benefitting from government subsidies and infrastructure, CEOs and the 1% making trillions of dollars while workers cannot secure housing, health care and food),
* the obstruction and inability to govern of the current Republican Party, and
* the dark money and other "legislation from the bench" tactics of this corrupt Supreme Court that must be aggressively dealt with.
* Of course, whether a person can make decisions about their own body is a given. Talk about "big government" - they are inserting themselves into every aspect of an individual's life and imposing laws that take away one's humanity.
Sununu is my governor and I have always despised listening to his two-faced responses to journalists, depending upon the forum in which the questions are posed. Thanks for this summary of his actions and the link to the Stephanopoulos interview so that I can use this information when I canvass for Democratic candidates in our state and national elections. May a blue wave prevail!
During time with relatives in Ohio watching the total eclipse, I had a fraught conversation with a thirty-something nephew about our current politics. He is a progressive who has bought into the idea that Biden is too old and must step down. He’s convinced Trump will win. I will send today’s edition to him. It will resonate with him if he reads it. A job, two young children, a full time busy working wife and a sense of being overwhelmed and worried about his children’s futures …. I hope he reads your work, Robert. Thank you.
It would be a mistake for Biden to debate Trump.
1. Trump will lie, bully, bluster, and interrupt, to try to demonstrate he is "stronger." The American movie genre applauds "tough-guy" mavericks. James Bond, Rocky, Kevin Cosner's movies, Shane, Walking Tall, the Matrix, Reacher, Jack Ryan, Fast and Furious, Richard Boone in Paladin.
2.. The moderator will fail to rein in Trump. They will let him perform, to get the TV audience, when they could cut his microphone.
3. Biden will follow the rules, answer the questions, and be polite; Trump won't. On TV, Biden will look weak.
4. Murphy's Law: "Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference."
This statement of yours is so well expressed Robert: "Until the news organizations get over their own sense of self-importance and realize that this election is not about them, they will continue to undersell the threat that is Donald Trump. Shame on them! It is our duty to urge them to recognize this is an extraordinary moment in which the maximization of profit cannot be their guiding light."
The major media in this country is rotten to the core.
Yes, Robert, President Biden and his team steered us through a most difficult and demanding moment with a steady hand and a clear compass. A photo of the President, Secretary Blinken and others in the Situation Room circulated in the (social) media over the weekend. One shudders at the thought of who might be sitting around the table next year – and with what consequences.
As to invertebrate Sununu – no surprise there. He is anti trump and anti MAGA until he isn't. Remember his clear take on Donald Bolduc during the N.H. Republican Senate primary in 2022: "not serious, a conspiracy theorist-type candidate." After he won the primary Bolduc suddenly morphed into a "true patriot, who would do great work for N.H. in Washington."
Sununu is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a male Nancy Mace. He is one of them.
Chris Sununu's capitulation to the serial philandering liar known as Trump is really a profile in cowardice. I wonder if his family and close friends feel a degree of mortification over his sell-out? I think his former admirers, the ones who thought he was a bright light in the GOP swamp, feel similarly to me? He was a beacon for hope; now the light has been snuffed out.
Thanks. This is the second time this morning: Sununu comes from a political family. As a governor he requires brand loyalty. Issues may have something to do with his loyalty, but peer pressure, paternalism and greed are more likely. I don't think he has the ubiquitous Jungian collective racial subconscious that drives most MAGATs to vote contrary to their personal economic and physical health, he just wants power. So much for "live free or die."
Our only hope is to sweep the elections. Register Democrats, save democracy.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/mission
Thanks Robert for your continued vigilance and advocacy!
How many other cowardly republican governors support trump and demonize President Biden while happily accepting the federal funds and support provided by the President Biden administration. If they supported trump and refused federal support, I might give them an infinitesimal amount of credit. Hypocrisy thy name is republican. Profiles in Cowardice adds another chapter