Brainster
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 26, 2006
- Messages
- 21,960
Maybe she should call her substack Letters from an Illiterate American? She gets her "new" from sites like the NZ Hearld?View attachment 59272
Media. From Heather Cox Richardson.
Maybe she should call her substack Letters from an Illiterate American? She gets her "new" from sites like the NZ Hearld?View attachment 59272
Media. From Heather Cox Richardson.
Probably sooner rather than later but sureBe sure to let us know when it does.
T. Ryan Gregory on X, Mar 5 2025:
Americans in my comments when I say they need to stop their rogue state from destroying itself and the world:
"We feel bad about it, a tiny fraction of us are protesting, and our opposition party wore pink shirts to a speech.
What more do you expect us to do?"
From another thread on X, which I hope will grow rapidly:T. Ryan Gregory on X, Mar 5, 2025:
You don't need to post any of the following comments anymore,:
* We can't rise up, we'd lose our jobs.
* We can't rise up, they'd shoot us.
* We can't rise up, they want to declare martial law.
* We are rising up, they just aren't reporting it.
* What are we supposed to do?
T. Ryan Gregory on X, Mar 5, 2025:
Let's do it like this for those who are sincerely asking how people can rise up.
Please post in the comments an example of effective large-scale resistance, nationwide strikes, massive protests, or other popular uprisings from other countries.
Can be past or current.
And yes, most examples start small.
Don't wait for someone to organize millions of people.
But these examples show what can happen.
What must an American president be able to do and beWhat can be learned from Trump about democracy and the discontent with it (Ruthless Criticism, Jan 2025)
The political and journalistic guardians of democracy are astonished at the openness with which Trump touts his authoritarianism as not just the style, but as the very substance of his presidency. And above all – especially after his election victory – by the success with which Trump advertised his campaign. Are American voters not taking him seriously? Or don’t they care? Or is that what they want? The election doesn’t provide a clear answer to these questions. But the media has come to the conclusion, supported by the opinion polls, that the voters see things the way Trump wants them to: a critical mass of voters not only don’t see Trump as a threat to democracy, but as its savior. Namely, from the very politicians who upheld the defense of democracy as the only issue on which they thought, until the end, they could be sure of a majority. And now this: a proto-fascist as the savior of democracy – how can that be?
(...)
Whether this is already fascist or just barely democratic is the wrong question – that’s a matter for the domestic security services of the democratic nations to concern themselves with. It would be better to take note of the achievements that the most powerful democracy in the world is apparently capable of – especially since the warning can be heard everywhere that America is more a harbinger than an exception when it comes to political mores. One achievement concerns the assertion of rule: here, democracy brings to power a leader who adamantly insists that his power alone can save the nation from the “enemy from within” who he will do away with – if necessary, by using the military. The other achievement concerns the formation of citizens into members of the national community who, in their proud self-consciousness that they are the freest people on earth, insist on their right to unrestricted power for the leader of their choice.
Nice theory, but these mistakes are hurting an awful lot of people.The Democrats' form of resistance could be:
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake".
Let's see: You guys should scream against Trump's attempt to end federal income taxes on tips and overtime pay. I mean, come on, that's clearly fascism in action! You should scream against his attempt to stop the taxing of Social Security benefits, never mind that those benefits were not taxed until Reagan made them taxable.Now that insanity and evil have triumphed, what comes next from the opposition?
This washing bag of cherry picked (and possibly incorrect, given your other posts and contents of your website) facts seem more an attempt to convince yourself more than anyone else.Let's see: You guys should scream against Trump's attempt to end federal income taxes on tips and overtime pay. I mean, come on, that's clearly fascism in action! You should scream against his attempt to stop the taxing of Social Security benefits, never mind that those benefits were not taxed until Reagan made them taxable.
You should scream against the approximately $800 billion in new capital/investments that Trump has already attracted/coordinated. Yeah, I mean, we don't want thousands of new good-paying jobs created by that investment, since, somehow, this would have to be fascism, since Trump made it happen.
You should scream against the identification and elimination of wasteful/fraudulent federal spending. I mean, sheesh, only fascists don't want the government to waste our tax dollars. How selfish of us! And just never mind that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in 2024 that the federal government loses at least $230 billion to fraud each year. Yeah, those folks at the GAO are probably fascists too!
You should sound the alarm over Trump's ending of government censorship. Now, granted, it's hard to see how this could be fascist, but somehow it just must be, because Trump did it! Who knows, maybe the government needs to censor all speech that it finds unacceptable? Who knew?
Oh, and don't forget to wail and bemoan Trump's attempt to protect women's sports from male competition and to prevent minors from being persuaded/allowed to get irreversible transgender surgery. I'm guessing that the thousands of scientists who've documented the fact that the reasoning part of the human brain does not fully develop until the early 20s--I'm sure they must be part of the fascist conspiracy!
Finally, you should especially scream against Trump's renewal of our friendship with and support for Israel. Absolutely! Now, yes, here too, it's hard to see how a neo-Nazi would do this, but it just be the case because Trump is doing it! There must be some fascist, neo-Nazi motive for befriending and standing by the small Jewish state!
As for the bold leaders who will lead your resistance, why not AOC or Ilhan Omar or Adam Schiff or Hakeem Jeffries?
And on and on I could go. "Insanity and evil" not only triumphed in the 2024 election, but they've triumphed in 27 out of 50 states because those states have elected Republican governors. Hey, just FYI, you folks not only lost big time in the electoral college (312-226) and lost every swing state, but you lost the popular vote by over 2 million votes.
Internally that is fine.That's not it. Look, my brain is screwy. I don't think in words or in pictures, my mind is full of stretchy squishy relationship and impact rubberbands and stuff. I can't explain it well, it's a very fuzzy way of thinking that ends up being great for math and great for actuarial work, but a huge barrier to translate for other people.
This is overly generalized, so bear that in mind.
Obama got elected, and a pile of idiot tea partiers spent eight years insisting that Obama wasn't a legal president because birth certificate baloney. To this, liberals generally responded in the vein of "Shut up you absolute loons, Obama was legally elected by the legal process and is the president, so you shouldn't be carrying on like idiots about them not being a legitimate president. Obama is perfectly legitimate, the process worked exactly how it was supposed to, and you're a ninny." Obama reversed a bunch of EOs and issued a bunch of new EOs and nobody paid attention because the morons were too busy yelling about Hawaii not being part of the US and such.
Trump got elected the first time, and a pile of people staged marches in pussy hats proclaiming "not MY president". And I thought that was pretty damned hypocritical at the time, given than Trump won by the exact same rules of the game that those same liberals were venerating during the prior administration. But you know, at least they could point and say "popular vote!" even though that's not how the rules work in the first place. But there was some basis for the complaint, even if I didn't agree with it. Trump reversed a bunch of EOs and issued a bunch of new EOs and nobody paid attention because they were distracted by crocheted headwear and never-ending investigations into everyone associated with Trump's administration.
Biden got elected, and conservatives got angry that their guy didn't win. Liberals pretty much told them to STFU and deal with it, because them's the rules and you lost so shove it. Biden reversed a crap ton of EOs and issued a whole bunch of new EOs and conservatives hated it and liberals loved it, and liberals pretty much said "too bad, so sad, that's how it works, that's what the President gets to do".
Trump got elected again... and this time they also got the popular vote. And the group of people who've been banging the drum about how the system works are now bitching that the system worked exactly the same way it's always worked, and even their proposed popular vote takes everything would have resulted in the exact same result we have now... but NOW they're going to protest about it. And Trump did the same thing Biden did and dumped the prior Admin's EOs and started issuing their own EOs, but no, no, no, no we can't have Trump doing it, that's a problem so let's have massive protests to tell everyone we're mad that the game didn't go our way.
So at the end of the day, it's not so much "we don't like what you're doing and you're going to hear about it"... it's "we're just fine with it when our guy does it but we don't like it when YOU do it so we're going to make a stink about you doing the same thing our guy did"
This is probably worthy of its own thread. Also I don't have a good answer.Assuming we manage to get The Orange Idiot, the Pseudo-Autistic Jerk and their flying monkey henchmen out of Washington ASAP, what steps do we take to repair the nuclear damage they have inflicted? It's going to be like cleaning up after Godzilla, but with evil intent.
As already pointed out, you have drunk so much KoolAid you are gagging on it. Meanwhile, the stock market is tanking, unemployment is up, inflation is up, gas prices are up, the entire free world is laughing at the U.S., Russia is cheering him on, and Trump continues to march forward in his wet dream of replacing federal workers with his loyalist minions. I won't go through your list of lies one by one because it would be a waste of time trying to knock some sense into you, a less likely scenario than convincing the Pope to renounce Catholicism. So just take a good look at your narcissistic god-king child who you worship--this is your cult leader. Bow down to him and lick his golden feet, that is all you cult members are capable of contributing.Let's see: You guys should scream against Trump's attempt to end federal income taxes on tips and overtime pay. I mean, come on, that's clearly fascism in action! You should scream against his attempt to stop the taxing of Social Security benefits, never mind that those benefits were not taxed until Reagan made them taxable.
You should scream against the approximately $800 billion in new capital/investments that Trump has already attracted/coordinated. Yeah, I mean, we don't want thousands of new good-paying jobs created by that investment, since, somehow, this would have to be fascism, since Trump made it happen.
You should scream against the identification and elimination of wasteful/fraudulent federal spending. I mean, sheesh, only fascists don't want the government to waste our tax dollars. How selfish of us! And just never mind that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in 2024 that the federal government loses at least $230 billion to fraud each year. Yeah, those folks at the GAO are probably fascists too!
You should sound the alarm over Trump's ending of government censorship. Now, granted, it's hard to see how this could be fascist, but somehow it just must be, because Trump did it! Who knows, maybe the government needs to censor all speech that it finds unacceptable? Who knew?
Oh, and don't forget to wail and bemoan Trump's attempt to protect women's sports from male competition and to prevent minors from being persuaded/allowed to get irreversible transgender surgery. I'm guessing that the thousands of scientists who've documented the fact that the reasoning part of the human brain does not fully develop until the early 20s--I'm sure they must be part of the fascist conspiracy!
Finally, you should especially scream against Trump's renewal of our friendship with and support for Israel. Absolutely! Now, yes, here too, it's hard to see how a neo-Nazi would do this, but it just be the case because Trump is doing it! There must be some fascist, neo-Nazi motive for befriending and standing by the small Jewish state!
As for the bold leaders who will lead your resistance, why not AOC or Ilhan Omar or Adam Schiff or Hakeem Jeffries?
And on and on I could go. "Insanity and evil" not only triumphed in the 2024 election, but they've triumphed in 27 out of 50 states because those states have elected Republican governors. Hey, just FYI, you folks not only lost big time in the electoral college (312-226) and lost every swing state, but you lost the popular vote by over 2 million votes.
The fraud discovered by the GAO is real. The only fraud we are learning about from DOGE is them fraudulently making up billions of dollars in savings that literally do not exist.Let's see: You guys should scream against Trump's attempt to end federal income taxes on tips and overtime pay. I mean, come on, that's clearly fascism in action! You should scream against his attempt to stop the taxing of Social Security benefits, never mind that those benefits were not taxed until Reagan made them taxable.
You should scream against the approximately $800 billion in new capital/investments that Trump has already attracted/coordinated. Yeah, I mean, we don't want thousands of new good-paying jobs created by that investment, since, somehow, this would have to be fascism, since Trump made it happen.
You should scream against the identification and elimination of wasteful/fraudulent federal spending. I mean, sheesh, only fascists don't want the government to waste our tax dollars. How selfish of us! And just never mind that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in 2024 that the federal government loses at least $230 billion to fraud each year. Yeah, those folks at the GAO are probably fascists too!..
There was an article on the 150 year old voters in NYTimes today. Anybody have that? I have only the morning nedwsletter from them.The fraud discovered by the GAO is real. The only fraud we are learning about from DOGE is them fraudulently making up billions of dollars in savings that literally do not exist.
They currently claim $105 billion in savings but can only prove around $9 billion of it.
They have taken credit for cancelling programs, that ended decades ago.
They inflate number from $15 million to $15 billion.
They claim 150 year old persons are receiving Social Security benefits.
Want to find fraud? Look at DOGE.
How long will it take for you to realise that copypasta of MAGA talking points will get you nowhere. He and his entire coterie lie...constantly. And it's not even clever lies. He lies about things that can be very easily researched.Let's see: You guys should scream against Trump's attempt to end federal income taxes on tips and overtime pay. I mean, come on, that's clearly fascism in action! You should scream against his attempt to stop the taxing of Social Security benefits, never mind that those benefits were not taxed until Reagan made them taxable...<snipped for utter bullcrap>