SCOTUS is manifesting its own damnation as an institution undermining democracy by replacing majority people votes with majority donor dollars. Time to get our Congress to expand the court beyond 9.
It must be noted, the bridge in Stuart, FL is in a Red Ciry in a Red County-Martin-and the protest was organized by The Martin County Democrats. I salute them. I am a Democrat in the next county north; not tooting our horn but we did have a protest at same time
"In short order, major American cities will revert to the status of frontier towns in the Wild West".
It is much worse than that. Frontier towns in the Wild West made people check their guns at the town limits before entering,.
Also, while we can't give up or give in, I attended the DC women's march in DC. It was very energizing to be a part of 500,000 people. I thought Congress would have to take notice, but they showed they don't care, they have too much power. We have to turn that energy into votes, it is the only thing they understand.
I need help. I wish I didn't read this. How the hell am I supposed to have any hope when you write things like "A modern democracy is being disassembled piece-by-piece" ? I wasn't supposed to be a part of this fight. I am going to turn 30 this year and I don't want to die in a world where things keep getting worse. I want to fight, but I could use some encouragement. I don't want to spend every day doomscrolling and expecting things to keep getting worse. I don't know if I can handle the news anymore, but I can't stop watching it because I want to be aware if they ever start rounding up gay people. I don't want to have to worry about having to spend the rest of my life in the closet. I'm trying to find hope out there and I'm struggling. I also have manic thoughts and OCD so I sometimes feel hopeless and hopeful in the same day. I don't know what I'm writing anymore. I'm not doing well. I feel like my life and the country are spiraling and nobody cares about anything except inflation. I need encouragement. Please if anyone can respond. I'm panicked. I don't want to live in a third world corrupt country. I can't. I feel like I'm in a doom spiral. I feel like I'm going to die in pain under a fascist regime one day and I can't stop it. I can't think straight. I feel like the right wing and SCOTUS have me at gun point because I'm gay, and they're pointing guns at women and everyone I love. I feel like the right wing is laughing at me and suffocating me and I can't focus. I feel like the country is on fire and everyone is burning and I'm being forced to watch in horror as it burns to death. SOMEONE MAKE IT STOP!!!
As you your comments about Twitter failing to take down the video of mass murder being republished, and deleting the accounts that did it, I might add that Twitter deleting accounts has very little effect. Since Twitter allows anonymous accounts, and does not verify the identities behind the accounts, any person who has an account deleted, can open another account with a false name, and be back in business with 10 minutes if their account is deleted. That is the nature of Twitter, and in my opinion, one of its major flaws.
Bernie Sanders came to our rally in Montpelier, Vermont and gave a real stemwinder of a speech, in which he loudly (as is his wont) called out the hypocrisies of the Republican party that claims to be pro-life while doing nothing to stop gun violence or protect the rights of pregnant women. Love the guy!
As for Twitter: I was permanently banned for snidely suggesting that perhaps Trump's choices of food might contribute to heart disease or a stroke. But they have no problem sharing videos of executions or other hateful stuff. Interesting.
“The reactionary majority has converted the Constitution into a destroyer of laws, a fulcrum of anarchy—the antithesis of the great charter of democracy envisioned by the Framers.” Truly inspirational words, Robert. They should be emblazoned across the land. I plan to quote them widely—with credit, of course.
As for the Supreme Court’s likely further (total) misreading of the Second Amendment, I guess it’s time for me to get those bumper stickers printed, the ones I’ve been thinking about for years, the ones that say WYATT EARP WAS RIGHT. Wyatt Earp, you’ll recall, made his hame first by enforcing gun control.
HOORAY for the St. Lucie River band of activists leading the way!! As a white-haired grandmother in blue Massachusetts I add my energy & passion to theirs, urging my daughters and granddaughters to carry on!
While clear that social media needs safeguards, why does Fox and Carlsson get away with a constant barrage of lies, racism and white supremicist ideology. The most viewed broadcast seems to escape any responsibility for the hate and destructive influence.
Thank you, MaryAnn. Of all the things that terrify me right now, the obvious bias of the press scares me the most. I'm an old English teacher and I know the power of words. When they are used to conceal truth or control thought, we are in a great deal of trouble. And it's not something that's going to happen. It's happening.
When the media are reporting or not reporting in the interests of a prevailing movement we are in the most obvious authoritarian situation. A state-controlled press is the final blanket over the individual's ability or right to think. The newspapers--online and in hard copy--decide what events to tell us about and what to think about those events. It was the awareness of this in The NY Times that drove me here. If a trusted source of news is doing this so blatantly, I believe we are already in more trouble than we realize. I am frightened by the persistent fear that we are about to be in trouble, about to be suppressed by this terrible push toward authoritarianism. I think we are already there. My hope is in the wonderful comments here that acknowledge this god-awful reality and understand that it is here, in this alien landscape, that we must continue to fight. We won't change this today. Our children and our grandchildren might have a chance. But it will be, as Mr. Hubbell points out, a long, long game and those of us who are the grandmothers right now are in combat with that worse of enemies--despair. I think about the WaPo article about the 50-year planning and strategy the Republicans have mounted to get to exactly this place. And they have arrived. That kind of organized and disciplined crusade is not the usual approach of my fellow liberals and Democrats. Now would be the time to figure out and execute a plan to do just that. The Republicans took a settled law, locked in. place for half a century and, brick by brick are on the verge of tearing it down. We are facing a reality that seems equally well grounded. Can we sign on for however long it takes??
Our focus must be to elect every Democratic candidate to every available seat in government, whether it be local, state or federal. While we may not capture every contest, the more people we can motivate to vote up and down the Democratic ticket, the greater the opportunity to reform and expand SCOTUS and protect the rights of women, LGBTQ and voters. We each need to do what we can to help in this effort - whether it's writing postcards, attending events, calling voters or contributing to campaigns. Do what you can and together, I believe, we really can make a difference.
We must not forget that protests in support of abortion are important but no where near enough. The state legislatures will soon have complete control over women's bodies and the Democrats are the only party that will protect women's right to choose. We HAVE to shift the state legislatures to the Democrats and hold the legislatures which are currently in Democratic control. We also have to work hard to shift the state governorships to Democrats. To do this we have to support The States Project and Sister District and other organizations which are working to accomplish this.
Many of the situations Robert mentioned in todays Edition unfortunately have their origin in the spread of right wing extremists group. Dana Milbank wrote the following
“ The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a decades-old group that tracks right-wing extremism, found that more than 1 in 5 Republican state legislators in the United States were affiliated with far-right groups. The IREHR (which conducted a similar study with the NAACP in 2010 on racism within the tea party) cross-referenced the personal, campaign and official Facebook profiles of all 7,383 state legislators in the United States during the 2021-22 legislative period with thousands of far-right Facebook groups. The researchers found that 875 legislators — all but three of them Republicans — were members of one or more of 789 far-right Facebook groups. That works out to 22 percent of all Republican state legislators.” This is the threat we all must encounter and eliminate.
SCOTUS is manifesting its own damnation as an institution undermining democracy by replacing majority people votes with majority donor dollars. Time to get our Congress to expand the court beyond 9.
It must be noted, the bridge in Stuart, FL is in a Red Ciry in a Red County-Martin-and the protest was organized by The Martin County Democrats. I salute them. I am a Democrat in the next county north; not tooting our horn but we did have a protest at same time
John Robert’s legacy will be that he presided over the Tucker Carlson Court
"In short order, major American cities will revert to the status of frontier towns in the Wild West".
It is much worse than that. Frontier towns in the Wild West made people check their guns at the town limits before entering,.
Also, while we can't give up or give in, I attended the DC women's march in DC. It was very energizing to be a part of 500,000 people. I thought Congress would have to take notice, but they showed they don't care, they have too much power. We have to turn that energy into votes, it is the only thing they understand.
I need help. I wish I didn't read this. How the hell am I supposed to have any hope when you write things like "A modern democracy is being disassembled piece-by-piece" ? I wasn't supposed to be a part of this fight. I am going to turn 30 this year and I don't want to die in a world where things keep getting worse. I want to fight, but I could use some encouragement. I don't want to spend every day doomscrolling and expecting things to keep getting worse. I don't know if I can handle the news anymore, but I can't stop watching it because I want to be aware if they ever start rounding up gay people. I don't want to have to worry about having to spend the rest of my life in the closet. I'm trying to find hope out there and I'm struggling. I also have manic thoughts and OCD so I sometimes feel hopeless and hopeful in the same day. I don't know what I'm writing anymore. I'm not doing well. I feel like my life and the country are spiraling and nobody cares about anything except inflation. I need encouragement. Please if anyone can respond. I'm panicked. I don't want to live in a third world corrupt country. I can't. I feel like I'm in a doom spiral. I feel like I'm going to die in pain under a fascist regime one day and I can't stop it. I can't think straight. I feel like the right wing and SCOTUS have me at gun point because I'm gay, and they're pointing guns at women and everyone I love. I feel like the right wing is laughing at me and suffocating me and I can't focus. I feel like the country is on fire and everyone is burning and I'm being forced to watch in horror as it burns to death. SOMEONE MAKE IT STOP!!!
As you your comments about Twitter failing to take down the video of mass murder being republished, and deleting the accounts that did it, I might add that Twitter deleting accounts has very little effect. Since Twitter allows anonymous accounts, and does not verify the identities behind the accounts, any person who has an account deleted, can open another account with a false name, and be back in business with 10 minutes if their account is deleted. That is the nature of Twitter, and in my opinion, one of its major flaws.
Bernie Sanders came to our rally in Montpelier, Vermont and gave a real stemwinder of a speech, in which he loudly (as is his wont) called out the hypocrisies of the Republican party that claims to be pro-life while doing nothing to stop gun violence or protect the rights of pregnant women. Love the guy!
As for Twitter: I was permanently banned for snidely suggesting that perhaps Trump's choices of food might contribute to heart disease or a stroke. But they have no problem sharing videos of executions or other hateful stuff. Interesting.
“The reactionary majority has converted the Constitution into a destroyer of laws, a fulcrum of anarchy—the antithesis of the great charter of democracy envisioned by the Framers.” Truly inspirational words, Robert. They should be emblazoned across the land. I plan to quote them widely—with credit, of course.
As for the Supreme Court’s likely further (total) misreading of the Second Amendment, I guess it’s time for me to get those bumper stickers printed, the ones I’ve been thinking about for years, the ones that say WYATT EARP WAS RIGHT. Wyatt Earp, you’ll recall, made his hame first by enforcing gun control.
HOORAY for the St. Lucie River band of activists leading the way!! As a white-haired grandmother in blue Massachusetts I add my energy & passion to theirs, urging my daughters and granddaughters to carry on!
While clear that social media needs safeguards, why does Fox and Carlsson get away with a constant barrage of lies, racism and white supremicist ideology. The most viewed broadcast seems to escape any responsibility for the hate and destructive influence.
Thank you, MaryAnn. Of all the things that terrify me right now, the obvious bias of the press scares me the most. I'm an old English teacher and I know the power of words. When they are used to conceal truth or control thought, we are in a great deal of trouble. And it's not something that's going to happen. It's happening.
When the media are reporting or not reporting in the interests of a prevailing movement we are in the most obvious authoritarian situation. A state-controlled press is the final blanket over the individual's ability or right to think. The newspapers--online and in hard copy--decide what events to tell us about and what to think about those events. It was the awareness of this in The NY Times that drove me here. If a trusted source of news is doing this so blatantly, I believe we are already in more trouble than we realize. I am frightened by the persistent fear that we are about to be in trouble, about to be suppressed by this terrible push toward authoritarianism. I think we are already there. My hope is in the wonderful comments here that acknowledge this god-awful reality and understand that it is here, in this alien landscape, that we must continue to fight. We won't change this today. Our children and our grandchildren might have a chance. But it will be, as Mr. Hubbell points out, a long, long game and those of us who are the grandmothers right now are in combat with that worse of enemies--despair. I think about the WaPo article about the 50-year planning and strategy the Republicans have mounted to get to exactly this place. And they have arrived. That kind of organized and disciplined crusade is not the usual approach of my fellow liberals and Democrats. Now would be the time to figure out and execute a plan to do just that. The Republicans took a settled law, locked in. place for half a century and, brick by brick are on the verge of tearing it down. We are facing a reality that seems equally well grounded. Can we sign on for however long it takes??
Our focus must be to elect every Democratic candidate to every available seat in government, whether it be local, state or federal. While we may not capture every contest, the more people we can motivate to vote up and down the Democratic ticket, the greater the opportunity to reform and expand SCOTUS and protect the rights of women, LGBTQ and voters. We each need to do what we can to help in this effort - whether it's writing postcards, attending events, calling voters or contributing to campaigns. Do what you can and together, I believe, we really can make a difference.
We must not forget that protests in support of abortion are important but no where near enough. The state legislatures will soon have complete control over women's bodies and the Democrats are the only party that will protect women's right to choose. We HAVE to shift the state legislatures to the Democrats and hold the legislatures which are currently in Democratic control. We also have to work hard to shift the state governorships to Democrats. To do this we have to support The States Project and Sister District and other organizations which are working to accomplish this.
Many of the situations Robert mentioned in todays Edition unfortunately have their origin in the spread of right wing extremists group. Dana Milbank wrote the following
“ The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a decades-old group that tracks right-wing extremism, found that more than 1 in 5 Republican state legislators in the United States were affiliated with far-right groups. The IREHR (which conducted a similar study with the NAACP in 2010 on racism within the tea party) cross-referenced the personal, campaign and official Facebook profiles of all 7,383 state legislators in the United States during the 2021-22 legislative period with thousands of far-right Facebook groups. The researchers found that 875 legislators — all but three of them Republicans — were members of one or more of 789 far-right Facebook groups. That works out to 22 percent of all Republican state legislators.” This is the threat we all must encounter and eliminate.
We have government of, by, and for corporations and wealthy individuals. It is Federalist mob rule to keep the rest of us in line.