Our president is doing what he most loves to do: boasting and taking very visible victory laps. There will be no Pax Americana, not in the US and not in the Mideast. As Nesrine Malik wrote in today's The Guardian: "Western leaders attending the Sharm el-Sheikh summit have enabled and sponsored this slaughter. They are in no position to build a Palestinian future."
"The war has ended." "The ceasefire will hold. " "There is no more inflation." In other words, "Reality is what I say it is." As the son of the Capo of the Trump Organization. he could not be contradicted, defied, or challenged. Now as president he still thinks he can rule by fiat--a result of a lifetime of being surrounded by cowardly toadies. Sooner or later the house of cards will fall. Sadly the fallout may impact the Gaza peace plan, so-called.
There is universal hope that his plan will lead to the end of genocidal devastation in Gaza and to peace. But here's the reality: Under the terms of this proposal, Israel will not fully withdrawn from Gaza. Some of the dead Israeli hostages will not be returned, according to Netanyahu. (An excuse to restart the hostilities?) Any discussion of a State of Palestine has been kicked down the road, if not off the planet. Netanyahu has refused to release Marwan Barghouti, Palestine's most popular potential leader and a proponent of the statehood of Palestine. The Gaza peace plan was drafted by Israel and the US--parties not exactly free of conflicts of interest. Nary a Gazan or Palestinian in sight. Those at the center of this plan, the US president, Netanyahu, and Tony Blair, are men of enormous ego and ambition, each looking to advance some personal interest. A plum role has been given to the opportunist Tony Blair, whose consulting group is likely to make a fortune filling technocratic positions. And favorite son-in-law Jared Kushner, the self-described "deal guy," stands atop this project. How soon before the Real Estate Developer-in-Chief starts to float development plans? Lastly, a board of peace led by the US president will oversee the governance of Gaza. By what stretch of the imagination can this greedy bigoted bully be thought of as a man of peace? Hamas, while accepting certain elements of the proposed peace plan, says other points need further negotiation. Among other things, they haven't yet agreed to fully disarm.
How many months or weeks can such a plan hold? The US president's belief that this sham of a peace plan would be seen as worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize is cringeworthy. Delusional. Laughable.
I fear most of this is true, or soon will be. It all seems very much making things up as they go along. Those are not the elements of a long-term stable peace. Something that involves Jared, hotels in Gaza and Israelis running them does not spell kosher -- if you allow me the mixed metaphor -- for Palestine.
Having said that, we all rejoice that bombs have stopped in Gaza, aid trucks are arriving by the hundreds every day, that Israeli families are being reunited with those stolen from them by the idiot murderers who ran Hamas, that for the first time in a long time, the sounds of explosions are not filling children's hearts with terror.
Beyond that, I doubt many of us know what to think or imagine.
Even at this early date analysts are beginning to reflect on this 'plan' more carefully, absent the original enthusiasm that greeted the cessation of bombing-- certainly something we must be thankful for. But to treat this plan like a Rosetta Stone for Mideast peace was always nonsense.
Like everything else that comes out of Trumpolini's gaping maw, this "peace plan" is bovine excrement of the highest degree. Hamas has already repudiated it. Bibi and his merry band of rogues are just waiting for Sugar Daddy to provide them with the promised pretext to resume warring.
Yes, what exactly did Trump promise Hamas and Hezbollah? Money? Weaponry?
I am happy that some of the hostages have been released. We all should be but there will never be peace there because the men who have bigger egos than Musk, Thiel, Bessent, Lutnick, Kushner, and Miller are the sheiks, the princes, and authoritarian rulers of Syria, Qatar, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq. They all surround Israel.
Bombs have stopped? Well shooting people HAS NOT! I am in contact with Pals vis TT and WhatsApp and what they’re showing me doesn’t look anything like PEACE! l cannot wait for Netanyahu and Trump to have their day in court.
I will bet you anything that construction plans have already been drawn up for all the resorts and hotels the trumpians want to build on the Gaza Strip. No rebuilding for the Palestinian people is in those plans. The blood of the Palestinian people will forever stain Israel and the U.S. government under Trump.
I'm sorry I won't be around long enough to see historians finally give this man his rightful reckoning as the most delusional national leader the world has ever known.
More sickening to me is the apparent inability of the US press to juggle two realities.
One is the achievement of a kind of peace in Israel (and if it's real, and holds, then even the most devoted Donald-haters, among whose number I include myself, will have to give him some credit).
The other is the Gazafication of US cities, specifically the ones the Republicans call "Democrat cities," under literal military assault as, evidently, the Republicans prepare for the 2026 elections by terminating the conditions under which they can take place.
What is happening in Chicago should be getting as much attention as what's happening in Gaza. It isn't. Indeed, as far as the national corporate press is concerned, it seems to be, "Chicago Who?"
That's disgraceful: that turns every national headline into an act of propaganda.
This! ICE’s actions in Chicago are relentless and spreading. They are clearly unconcerned with any court’s decisions, and the only media attention is from local outlets.
The mainstream press, from ABC News to the New York Times, is fully revealed as corporate-owned propaganda. Gaza gets top story status, while American citizens are zip-tied, gassed, and shot in their homes by masked goons in Chicago with far-below-the-fold placement. The conservative media sees no stock bump from reporting anything close to the truth about the corruption, excess, and incompetence of the TACO Regime.
I have a feeling the MSM is feeling the blowback. In recent days it's been possible for a former subscriber (now non-subscriber) like me to read the NYT freely. And sometimes I think it's valuable to see how much fealty they are still paying to the powers-that-be, how minimal their critical thinking/reporting is.
Sometimes you get more information on what's happening in Chicago and domestically by reading foreign publications, and yes, I'm speaking of The Guardian.
It took nearly twenty years for the world to see that the Treaty of Versailles didn't achieve peace in Europe. I don't think it will take that long for this peace plan to fall apart, but fall apart it's bound to do. Hopefully in the next round of the Mideast war the US won't be blindly allied with a Netanyahu.
One interesting phenomenon in Israel: while Trump is, for the moment, popular among Israelis to an extent many of us naturally find quite upsetting, Netanyahu is despised. Many Israelis recognize the grim reality that October 7 might well never have happened had it not been for Netanyahu's empowerment of Hamas (he cynically believed he was strengthening Israel's hand by playing to corrupt factions in Gaza), plus the failure of the IDF to take seriously the warnings of "spotters" at the border. All those families; all those kids at the music festival; they might still be alive and thriving today if it weren't for Bibi.
I had an email conversation with an Israeli cousin; she is grateful to Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff, yet also understands the bigger picture about them. She's kjust one person, but I suspect her perspective is fairly typical. They are of celebrating the release of the remaining living hostages and what feels like an end to the nightmare (or at least gives some hope), while still hating Netanyahu, and understanding that Trump and his cohort are terrible and that things are really bad here in the U.S.
as for netanyahu, what he has really done ... besides genocide ... is foster the growth of future generations of hamas (or its progeny) because those children who witnessed the destruction of gaza, the death of its population by bomb, bullets, or starvation, probably won't grow up to be peaceful pacifists ... especially when the only jobs they can probably get will be as dishwashers at trump resorts on the beaches of gaza.
I agree. He’s been kissing up to Israeli conservatives for decades, ruling over Palestine like an evil despot. & continuing this latest war in order to avoid trial for his own misuse of power, supported by our own convicted chief executive. Birds of a feather…
Exactly my thoughts when he was getting so much praise! Makes me so angry how they treat him like he’s this extraordinary human being knowing what hell he’s putting the Americans in! So so very disturbing to say the least!
What has been happening in Gaza is heartbreaking and despicable. At the least, it is genocide, aka murder. At its worst, it is the place where another despot thinks he is a king and can order anyone to do anything at his bidding. When did our world turn into this kind of evil? Drumpf is NOT an extraordinary anything!! He never was and he never will be. He is famous behind closed doors as the worst client any business has had the displeasure of working for. He does not pay his bills! He cheats all contractors working for him out of their just pay. This man has been doing this his entire adult life and he is a disgrace to the human race! I'm not sure how much more damage he will do before those who are still kissing his ass and bowing down to him realize that he is destroying our nation, one stick at a time!! He is not loyal to anyone but himself. We need to hold our own January 6th style event and shove him out of our HOUSE!!!
I hope we have some coffee today together because this spectacle at the Knesset this morning is disgustingly stomach churning. While I try to stay hopeful, I’m not quite sure this country will ever recover from the Orange Stain and his minions within my lifetime. 😢🤬
Trump is a symptom at least as much as a cause. He's part of the backlash against the country's struggle to recover from the racism that's been part of "US" since before the founding. No, we're not going to recover from that in what's left of my lifetime (I'm 74), but I do hope and believe that we're going to get ourselves back on track.
Well, you’ve got a few years on me, but not many. 😅 When you spend most of your working lifetime trying to combat engrained bigotry, only to find people have decided they’d rather turn the clocks back, it’s dishearteningly to say the least and today is not a good day for me, but this too shall pass.
A disgusting tit for tat. Bibi addresses Congress, Trump speaks to the Knesset. Neither had anything of note to say, and as some have pointed out it’s the very early days of the “peace” agreement.
I know that, at 53, the recovery will not probably be accomplished in my lifetime. But, if it can be begun soon, and is truly robust (we're going to require a lot of new laws and some constitutional amendments), and is sustained for the rest of my days, that is the win.
For now, stop the bleeding, kill the infection, exise and thwart the cancer ~ recovery is for the future.
I agree that the immediate goal is to stem the tide of this authoritarianism as quickly as possible before more harm is done and it entrenches itself further. These type of regimes, once firmly established, are even harder to overthrow and can last decades. Pinochet comes to mind here. So yes, laser type focus is required now, but my concern for the children of this country increases daily. It’s just one of those days, I guess.💜
I was around for Watergate and aftermath. You’ll see the reform. Keep pushing for it. Find bad laws and recommend fixes. Write your elected Members about it.
That would also be appropriate for the nominal head of a regime that has been talking about "improper ideologies," installed maga apparatchiks in every agency, instituted a corrupt "central plan" for the economy that's nothing but a collection of Ponzi schemes and grifts, and replacing real science with the 21st century version of Lysenkoism.
Oh, they are already there. I've seen worms with more spine than those gelatinous mounds of flesh. I'm sure they do NOT realize that all their ass-kissing & agreement with what is going will save them. They will be swept away like "road apples" after a parade of horses goes by!
Most normal, everyday citizens cannot thrive in autocracies. But the oligarchs do. This fight is more than just against a weak, diseased, fragile, entitled old man but we must also stand up to the greedy, power-hungry billionaires who put him in power and have begun to destroy what the US has tried to stand for for almost 250 years. NO KINGS!
It's not just about billionaires, though, true, the reason we have so many of them goes back to Reaganomics, tax cuts, social-spending cuts, and the rest of it. The billionaires didn't have the votes to put Trump in power not once but twice. 77 million overwhelmingly white voters did that.
I realize it is their right to have opinions and a world view, but I am astonished at the Trumpist and extreme rightists. What neurological connections and neurotransmitters create the Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi type minds? What life experiences and backgrounds lead to Trumpists? How do Mike Johnsons arise who cannot speak without lying? Indeed ,sociopaths find their fit as ICE agents, and bigots always exist, but how does a society devolve into such a state? How can decency, concerns for others, belief in justice so quickly wither? What makes a civilization so deteriorate from within? I suppose it is the age old mystery of why evil exists. A certain portion of humans are just made that way, perhaps.
A passing acquaintance with U.S. history would answer your questions. "Trumpism" didn't come out of nowhere. It was around before Trump was even born: call it racism or white supremacy or "America First" or "traditional family values," whatever you want. It went into high gear after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s. Remember when all the white Southern Democrats flooded into the Republican Party? Then came the backlash against Roe v. Wade (1973), which culminated in the Dobbs decision (2022). This culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, from whose administration the country has never recovered. And if too many USians keep attributing what's happening now to some amorphous "evil," we never will.
Great questions & observations. I've spent hours trying to dissect the same questions. I happened to watch an "olde timey" horror movie with Vincent Price as the star. It's called the "Mask of the Red Death". It really was a terrible movie but I get a kick out of watching them. There were a few scenes in the movie that reminded me of Republicans. There was gala with numerous noblemen & noblewomen in attendance & to please the host the nobility were told to debase themselves by acting like animals, a pig, a worm, a jackass. It made me think of trump's power over Republicans. He now has them parroting his "radical left lunatics" & the much more dangerous moniker of "terrorist wing of the Democratic Party". High ranking Republicans officials in Congress calling their so-called colleagues terrorists. We need to hold those Republicans personally responsible should Democrats be gunned down or singled out for abuse. So because I mostly vote Democrat & protest what is going on in our country I can now be deemed a terrorist? Is that what we've come to? I'll answer my own question with "Yes, that is what we have come to!"
~~~ I'll close with this caveat that I thought about shortly after the 9/11 attacks, "One man's terrorist is another man's patriot!" Makes sense when you think about doesn't it? It's all in perception.
To me the worst of George W Bush's legacy was to introduce and normalize the word "terror" and "war on terror" into our vocabulary. See what unintended consequences that term has unleashed.
I couldn't access it all b/c I don't have Facebook (I guess) but what I read was terrifying enough - thanks. His own family disowns him. I cannot understand why our great legacy media doesn't remind readers of this every damn day his name comes up.
Our "great legacy media" has been bought and sullied by corporate oligarchs. It's come to the point that "we know what they are; at this point, we're only haggling over the price." We must get the truth and facts further afield from legacy media. It no longer serves us well.
Susan, thank you for posting this. I admire Alisa for her courage in expressing her angst over her cousin’s depravity. I hope she can overcome the unwarranted guilt she suffers. She is obviously a power for good, in balance of Stephen’s evil.
Fascists exist throughout the world. The names you mention are just some of those who are willing to show their faces. The millions of others, in and out of power, rich and poor, have won this battle. They now control and are in the process of putting the final nails in democracy's casket! But the irony of this is that there remain millions of Americans, both rich and poor, who still do not recognize the takeover.
Scott, I’ve been convinced for quite a while, that this evolution of “soullessness” began when greed took over people and their lives. Simple things like Sundays being a day for extended family interaction eliminated by shopping malls and stores open on Sundays. Weeknight family dinners. The explosion of social media/technology taking the place of in person conversation.
Cable television with 1000+ channels/streaming expansion of the 5 or 6 tv channels we got when I was growing up. On many of those cable networks, misinformation and lies influenced too many Americans.
Generations of people bypassed for eligibility to college or advancement because they were earning “just enough” to not qualify for scholarships or financial aid. IMHO, these factors have led our country to the division we are experiencing today.
It's also becoming sickening that the media (both mainstream and non- ) persistently report that Trump's approval rating is sinking fast, is in the toilet, etc., etc., and yet polls continue to show it holding at about 40%. It's beginning to be inexplicable.
The Weimar Republic in the 1930s fell quickly because Germany had no long history of democratic rule. That republic was imposed from without as a part of the sanctions for WW I.
Our Republic on the other hand, is 250 years old and not, I hope, going down without a fight.
If you have not already done so, find a protest near you ( Indivisible.org or Mobilize.us ) and protest loudly, but peacefully on Saturday.
What the U.S. has going for it is a long history of resistance to anti-democratic rule. That's how Black men became citizens, and how women got the right to vote, and how progress was made on other fronts. What's going on now is backlash to all that progress. And let's not kid ourselves: the backlash has very, very deep roots. That's what Jim Crow was about, and I'm afraid Jim Crow is still alive in the hearts and minds of too many white USians.
Today, Trump has a 40% approval rating. At this point in his first term his approval rating was 37%. So, he’s more popular today than he was in 2017.
Let that sink in. He is consolidating his authoritarian take over and still, he is more popular than he was his first term. There is no hope unless the people in this country wake up.
I just cannot fathom how there are actually Americans who believe it's ok for the despot to turn Blackhawk helos on America cities. The cities that hole up our GDP. Why isn;t it 90% of Americans disapprove?
Even right wing idiologues don't want a police stsate.
“I am an originalist, and if the original meaning of the Constitution compelled this outcome, I would be inclined to agree that the Supreme Court should respect it until the Constitution is amended through the proper processes,” he wrote.
But the textual and historical evidence is “far more equivocal than the current court has been suggesting,” wrote Caleb Nelson, who is. often quoted by Roberts, Thomas,Alito et al..
“In the face of such ambiguities, I hope that the justices will not act as if their hands are tied.”
While I commend the judges & their rulings & do indeed take heart that some Republican governors are balking at the idea of military in the streets in the cities of the US I still see that the trump regime is defying laws & may likely defy any judicial orders to cease & desist.
~~~We are dealing with a lawless regime, drunk on their own manufactured "mandate" by the electorate to do what they are doing. Don't misunderstand, I'm delighted that the judges are supporting our democracy, I'm just not as certain that these losses will be a turning point. It's essential that the judges keep ruling for democracy & the Constitution, I just hope the country & citizenry has the strength to withstand the onslaught. We should, but will we?
Return, I totally agree: it is "nice" that judges are ruling against the Felon and his maladministration, but it is also empty of meaning because they feel they have impunity to ignore such rulings, confident that the totally corrupted majority of the SCOTUS will give them carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want. All the crap that has happened this weekend, including the announcement by Dry Drunk Pigshead that Idaho will be hosting a Qatari air base, is a demonstration that they simply give the middle finger to the Rule of Law and move on. I have little confidence that democracy will survive in the USA without bloodshed, and I think the Democrats in Congress are so aversive to rocking the boat that they will let the whole 250-year experiment in representative government dwindle away. Fun fact: The Roman Republic was around 200 years old when it began to slide into imperialism, first in the Italian peninsula and then into the larger Mediterranean (Punic and Macedonian Wars) and it took only about 100 years before it became a total autocracy masquerading as a "republic." Same with Athenian Democracy: about 200 years and then the ambitions of the wealthy ruling classes began the slide to dictatorship.
I don't think the turning point will come until the police and military are forced into making personal decisions: am I going to shoot granny and a pregnant woman for tRump. Unfortunately, I think there are too many who will say Hell, Yeah!
Thank God and others that even Republicans are waking up to the threat that Trump poses to the American democracy! As I've heard several state " Trump is nuts!"
Every GOP governor would be smart to break with any or preferably all of tRump’s nonsense. Good for Kevin Stitt now we need for the remaining GOP to do the same but unfortunately there’s still too many of them who are spineless or worshipping their orange god. At some point this idiocy must end.
Stitt is running to be the next GOPer president. All the others need to be reminded that their long term political ambitions depend on being against 47.
It is sickening to see Trump pose as the beacon of Pax Americana to Israel and Palestine while he terrorizes cities in his own country.
Our president is doing what he most loves to do: boasting and taking very visible victory laps. There will be no Pax Americana, not in the US and not in the Mideast. As Nesrine Malik wrote in today's The Guardian: "Western leaders attending the Sharm el-Sheikh summit have enabled and sponsored this slaughter. They are in no position to build a Palestinian future."
"The war has ended." "The ceasefire will hold. " "There is no more inflation." In other words, "Reality is what I say it is." As the son of the Capo of the Trump Organization. he could not be contradicted, defied, or challenged. Now as president he still thinks he can rule by fiat--a result of a lifetime of being surrounded by cowardly toadies. Sooner or later the house of cards will fall. Sadly the fallout may impact the Gaza peace plan, so-called.
There is universal hope that his plan will lead to the end of genocidal devastation in Gaza and to peace. But here's the reality: Under the terms of this proposal, Israel will not fully withdrawn from Gaza. Some of the dead Israeli hostages will not be returned, according to Netanyahu. (An excuse to restart the hostilities?) Any discussion of a State of Palestine has been kicked down the road, if not off the planet. Netanyahu has refused to release Marwan Barghouti, Palestine's most popular potential leader and a proponent of the statehood of Palestine. The Gaza peace plan was drafted by Israel and the US--parties not exactly free of conflicts of interest. Nary a Gazan or Palestinian in sight. Those at the center of this plan, the US president, Netanyahu, and Tony Blair, are men of enormous ego and ambition, each looking to advance some personal interest. A plum role has been given to the opportunist Tony Blair, whose consulting group is likely to make a fortune filling technocratic positions. And favorite son-in-law Jared Kushner, the self-described "deal guy," stands atop this project. How soon before the Real Estate Developer-in-Chief starts to float development plans? Lastly, a board of peace led by the US president will oversee the governance of Gaza. By what stretch of the imagination can this greedy bigoted bully be thought of as a man of peace? Hamas, while accepting certain elements of the proposed peace plan, says other points need further negotiation. Among other things, they haven't yet agreed to fully disarm.
How many months or weeks can such a plan hold? The US president's belief that this sham of a peace plan would be seen as worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize is cringeworthy. Delusional. Laughable.
I fear most of this is true, or soon will be. It all seems very much making things up as they go along. Those are not the elements of a long-term stable peace. Something that involves Jared, hotels in Gaza and Israelis running them does not spell kosher -- if you allow me the mixed metaphor -- for Palestine.
Having said that, we all rejoice that bombs have stopped in Gaza, aid trucks are arriving by the hundreds every day, that Israeli families are being reunited with those stolen from them by the idiot murderers who ran Hamas, that for the first time in a long time, the sounds of explosions are not filling children's hearts with terror.
Beyond that, I doubt many of us know what to think or imagine.
Any peace there won't last long. I can't think of a better target for Islamic terrorism than a Trump resort in Gaza.
Even at this early date analysts are beginning to reflect on this 'plan' more carefully, absent the original enthusiasm that greeted the cessation of bombing-- certainly something we must be thankful for. But to treat this plan like a Rosetta Stone for Mideast peace was always nonsense.
Like everything else that comes out of Trumpolini's gaping maw, this "peace plan" is bovine excrement of the highest degree. Hamas has already repudiated it. Bibi and his merry band of rogues are just waiting for Sugar Daddy to provide them with the promised pretext to resume warring.
Glad as well that the bombings have stopped but this deal smells like three day old fish. Obviously, a lot of bucks changed hands.
Yes, what exactly did Trump promise Hamas and Hezbollah? Money? Weaponry?
I am happy that some of the hostages have been released. We all should be but there will never be peace there because the men who have bigger egos than Musk, Thiel, Bessent, Lutnick, Kushner, and Miller are the sheiks, the princes, and authoritarian rulers of Syria, Qatar, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq. They all surround Israel.
Bombs have stopped? Well shooting people HAS NOT! I am in contact with Pals vis TT and WhatsApp and what they’re showing me doesn’t look anything like PEACE! l cannot wait for Netanyahu and Trump to have their day in court.
I will bet you anything that construction plans have already been drawn up for all the resorts and hotels the trumpians want to build on the Gaza Strip. No rebuilding for the Palestinian people is in those plans. The blood of the Palestinian people will forever stain Israel and the U.S. government under Trump.
Biden also bears enormous responsibility for supporting Netanyahu, encouraging him ("I am a zionist") and funding the war.
Donna, unfortunately you are right and I take no pleasure in saying that.
I tke no pleasure either in that.
Donna, well said!!!
I'm sorry I won't be around long enough to see historians finally give this man his rightful reckoning as the most delusional national leader the world has ever known.
Love your analysis.
More sickening to me is the apparent inability of the US press to juggle two realities.
One is the achievement of a kind of peace in Israel (and if it's real, and holds, then even the most devoted Donald-haters, among whose number I include myself, will have to give him some credit).
The other is the Gazafication of US cities, specifically the ones the Republicans call "Democrat cities," under literal military assault as, evidently, the Republicans prepare for the 2026 elections by terminating the conditions under which they can take place.
What is happening in Chicago should be getting as much attention as what's happening in Gaza. It isn't. Indeed, as far as the national corporate press is concerned, it seems to be, "Chicago Who?"
That's disgraceful: that turns every national headline into an act of propaganda.
This! ICE’s actions in Chicago are relentless and spreading. They are clearly unconcerned with any court’s decisions, and the only media attention is from local outlets.
Why are ICE agents still wearing masks and defying orders and directives? Governor Pritzker said 'no masks' and yet they continue to wear them.
The mainstream press, from ABC News to the New York Times, is fully revealed as corporate-owned propaganda. Gaza gets top story status, while American citizens are zip-tied, gassed, and shot in their homes by masked goons in Chicago with far-below-the-fold placement. The conservative media sees no stock bump from reporting anything close to the truth about the corruption, excess, and incompetence of the TACO Regime.
I have a feeling the MSM is feeling the blowback. In recent days it's been possible for a former subscriber (now non-subscriber) like me to read the NYT freely. And sometimes I think it's valuable to see how much fealty they are still paying to the powers-that-be, how minimal their critical thinking/reporting is.
The legacy media sources should hardly be called 'conservative' any more than the GOP.
Disagree. Conservatives value profit over all other concerns in my experience.
Sometimes you get more information on what's happening in Chicago and domestically by reading foreign publications, and yes, I'm speaking of The Guardian.
Also, AlJazeera.
For video media, there's the BBC World Service.
It took nearly twenty years for the world to see that the Treaty of Versailles didn't achieve peace in Europe. I don't think it will take that long for this peace plan to fall apart, but fall apart it's bound to do. Hopefully in the next round of the Mideast war the US won't be blindly allied with a Netanyahu.
One interesting phenomenon in Israel: while Trump is, for the moment, popular among Israelis to an extent many of us naturally find quite upsetting, Netanyahu is despised. Many Israelis recognize the grim reality that October 7 might well never have happened had it not been for Netanyahu's empowerment of Hamas (he cynically believed he was strengthening Israel's hand by playing to corrupt factions in Gaza), plus the failure of the IDF to take seriously the warnings of "spotters" at the border. All those families; all those kids at the music festival; they might still be alive and thriving today if it weren't for Bibi.
I had an email conversation with an Israeli cousin; she is grateful to Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff, yet also understands the bigger picture about them. She's kjust one person, but I suspect her perspective is fairly typical. They are of celebrating the release of the remaining living hostages and what feels like an end to the nightmare (or at least gives some hope), while still hating Netanyahu, and understanding that Trump and his cohort are terrible and that things are really bad here in the U.S.
as for netanyahu, what he has really done ... besides genocide ... is foster the growth of future generations of hamas (or its progeny) because those children who witnessed the destruction of gaza, the death of its population by bomb, bullets, or starvation, probably won't grow up to be peaceful pacifists ... especially when the only jobs they can probably get will be as dishwashers at trump resorts on the beaches of gaza.
I agree. He’s been kissing up to Israeli conservatives for decades, ruling over Palestine like an evil despot. & continuing this latest war in order to avoid trial for his own misuse of power, supported by our own convicted chief executive. Birds of a feather…
Exactly my thoughts when he was getting so much praise! Makes me so angry how they treat him like he’s this extraordinary human being knowing what hell he’s putting the Americans in! So so very disturbing to say the least!
What has been happening in Gaza is heartbreaking and despicable. At the least, it is genocide, aka murder. At its worst, it is the place where another despot thinks he is a king and can order anyone to do anything at his bidding. When did our world turn into this kind of evil? Drumpf is NOT an extraordinary anything!! He never was and he never will be. He is famous behind closed doors as the worst client any business has had the displeasure of working for. He does not pay his bills! He cheats all contractors working for him out of their just pay. This man has been doing this his entire adult life and he is a disgrace to the human race! I'm not sure how much more damage he will do before those who are still kissing his ass and bowing down to him realize that he is destroying our nation, one stick at a time!! He is not loyal to anyone but himself. We need to hold our own January 6th style event and shove him out of our HOUSE!!!
I think I see a small boy on the curb shouting "But the Emperor has no clothes on!?"
Yes! Are we degenerating into a world being controlled by “strong men” of no character or conscience?
Our children are watching…
He is levying war against Americans and empowering ICE with weapons of war.
I’m feeling resentment towards the people who are cheering a fascist.
That's why he will never even be on the Nobel Peace prize list.
Yes, the felon is a sleeze and a poser. Always has been.
Yes. Talk about cognitive dissonance! It’s hard to wrap my head around it all.
I hope we have some coffee today together because this spectacle at the Knesset this morning is disgustingly stomach churning. While I try to stay hopeful, I’m not quite sure this country will ever recover from the Orange Stain and his minions within my lifetime. 😢🤬
Trump is a symptom at least as much as a cause. He's part of the backlash against the country's struggle to recover from the racism that's been part of "US" since before the founding. No, we're not going to recover from that in what's left of my lifetime (I'm 74), but I do hope and believe that we're going to get ourselves back on track.
Well, you’ve got a few years on me, but not many. 😅 When you spend most of your working lifetime trying to combat engrained bigotry, only to find people have decided they’d rather turn the clocks back, it’s dishearteningly to say the least and today is not a good day for me, but this too shall pass.
A disgusting tit for tat. Bibi addresses Congress, Trump speaks to the Knesset. Neither had anything of note to say, and as some have pointed out it’s the very early days of the “peace” agreement.
I don't know if I've ever seen two empty suits--and exceptionally cruel ones--flatter each other so much.
I know that, at 53, the recovery will not probably be accomplished in my lifetime. But, if it can be begun soon, and is truly robust (we're going to require a lot of new laws and some constitutional amendments), and is sustained for the rest of my days, that is the win.
For now, stop the bleeding, kill the infection, exise and thwart the cancer ~ recovery is for the future.
I agree that the immediate goal is to stem the tide of this authoritarianism as quickly as possible before more harm is done and it entrenches itself further. These type of regimes, once firmly established, are even harder to overthrow and can last decades. Pinochet comes to mind here. So yes, laser type focus is required now, but my concern for the children of this country increases daily. It’s just one of those days, I guess.💜
I was around for Watergate and aftermath. You’ll see the reform. Keep pushing for it. Find bad laws and recommend fixes. Write your elected Members about it.
Six of one, half dozen of another, but not yet if we stop him here! I do often use the term Mango Mussolini though.🤷♀️
I first thought you said the Orange Stalin.
That would also be appropriate for the nominal head of a regime that has been talking about "improper ideologies," installed maga apparatchiks in every agency, instituted a corrupt "central plan" for the economy that's nothing but a collection of Ponzi schemes and grifts, and replacing real science with the 21st century version of Lysenkoism.
Let's show Trump and his Republicans that the American people reject photo-fascism by voting for these Democrats on Nov. 4, 2025:
Spanberger for Governor, PO Box, 3121 Glen Allen, VA 23058 and
Mikie Sherrill for Governor, PO Box 43032, Montclair, NJ 07043
Trump and his toadies have provided Democratic candidates a lot of speaking material. And they should ram it down their throats.
Amen! Both are outstanding candidates and worthy of our support.
A question for Mike Johnson and John Thune. At what point do you and your Caucus become irrelevant, and are you already there?
Oh, they are already there. I've seen worms with more spine than those gelatinous mounds of flesh. I'm sure they do NOT realize that all their ass-kissing & agreement with what is going will save them. They will be swept away like "road apples" after a parade of horses goes by!
Will *not* save them
of course this applies to SCOTUS too.
Most normal, everyday citizens cannot thrive in autocracies. But the oligarchs do. This fight is more than just against a weak, diseased, fragile, entitled old man but we must also stand up to the greedy, power-hungry billionaires who put him in power and have begun to destroy what the US has tried to stand for for almost 250 years. NO KINGS!
It's not just about billionaires, though, true, the reason we have so many of them goes back to Reaganomics, tax cuts, social-spending cuts, and the rest of it. The billionaires didn't have the votes to put Trump in power not once but twice. 77 million overwhelmingly white voters did that.
I realize it is their right to have opinions and a world view, but I am astonished at the Trumpist and extreme rightists. What neurological connections and neurotransmitters create the Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi type minds? What life experiences and backgrounds lead to Trumpists? How do Mike Johnsons arise who cannot speak without lying? Indeed ,sociopaths find their fit as ICE agents, and bigots always exist, but how does a society devolve into such a state? How can decency, concerns for others, belief in justice so quickly wither? What makes a civilization so deteriorate from within? I suppose it is the age old mystery of why evil exists. A certain portion of humans are just made that way, perhaps.
A passing acquaintance with U.S. history would answer your questions. "Trumpism" didn't come out of nowhere. It was around before Trump was even born: call it racism or white supremacy or "America First" or "traditional family values," whatever you want. It went into high gear after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s. Remember when all the white Southern Democrats flooded into the Republican Party? Then came the backlash against Roe v. Wade (1973), which culminated in the Dobbs decision (2022). This culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, from whose administration the country has never recovered. And if too many USians keep attributing what's happening now to some amorphous "evil," we never will.
Great questions & observations. I've spent hours trying to dissect the same questions. I happened to watch an "olde timey" horror movie with Vincent Price as the star. It's called the "Mask of the Red Death". It really was a terrible movie but I get a kick out of watching them. There were a few scenes in the movie that reminded me of Republicans. There was gala with numerous noblemen & noblewomen in attendance & to please the host the nobility were told to debase themselves by acting like animals, a pig, a worm, a jackass. It made me think of trump's power over Republicans. He now has them parroting his "radical left lunatics" & the much more dangerous moniker of "terrorist wing of the Democratic Party". High ranking Republicans officials in Congress calling their so-called colleagues terrorists. We need to hold those Republicans personally responsible should Democrats be gunned down or singled out for abuse. So because I mostly vote Democrat & protest what is going on in our country I can now be deemed a terrorist? Is that what we've come to? I'll answer my own question with "Yes, that is what we have come to!"
~~~ I'll close with this caveat that I thought about shortly after the 9/11 attacks, "One man's terrorist is another man's patriot!" Makes sense when you think about doesn't it? It's all in perception.
To me the worst of George W Bush's legacy was to introduce and normalize the word "terror" and "war on terror" into our vocabulary. See what unintended consequences that term has unleashed.
And now, by extension, we have the "Department of War".
And instituting "Enhnaced Interrogation!"? A rose by any other name is still a rose! Thank you Shakeseare!
This is a public Facebook post by one of Stephen Miller's cousins. It's very enlightening.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BZbbgG1d8/?mibextid=wwXIfr
I couldn't access it all b/c I don't have Facebook (I guess) but what I read was terrifying enough - thanks. His own family disowns him. I cannot understand why our great legacy media doesn't remind readers of this every damn day his name comes up.
Our "great legacy media" has been bought and sullied by corporate oligarchs. It's come to the point that "we know what they are; at this point, we're only haggling over the price." We must get the truth and facts further afield from legacy media. It no longer serves us well.
Susan, thank you for posting this. I admire Alisa for her courage in expressing her angst over her cousin’s depravity. I hope she can overcome the unwarranted guilt she suffers. She is obviously a power for good, in balance of Stephen’s evil.
Access to power, ans rhe ability to amass wealth could explain Bondi and Noem.
Miller? Who knows what created this angry, vengeful racist?
From the way he speaks, there sounds like there might be a sanity issue there, or he's been around Trump for too long -- or both.
Fascists exist throughout the world. The names you mention are just some of those who are willing to show their faces. The millions of others, in and out of power, rich and poor, have won this battle. They now control and are in the process of putting the final nails in democracy's casket! But the irony of this is that there remain millions of Americans, both rich and poor, who still do not recognize the takeover.
Scott, I’ve been convinced for quite a while, that this evolution of “soullessness” began when greed took over people and their lives. Simple things like Sundays being a day for extended family interaction eliminated by shopping malls and stores open on Sundays. Weeknight family dinners. The explosion of social media/technology taking the place of in person conversation.
Cable television with 1000+ channels/streaming expansion of the 5 or 6 tv channels we got when I was growing up. On many of those cable networks, misinformation and lies influenced too many Americans.
Generations of people bypassed for eligibility to college or advancement because they were earning “just enough” to not qualify for scholarships or financial aid. IMHO, these factors have led our country to the division we are experiencing today.
I ask myself this every day. It is astonishing
It is sickening that Trump's approval rating is still at 40%. What is the matter with nearly half of our citizenry?
It's also becoming sickening that the media (both mainstream and non- ) persistently report that Trump's approval rating is sinking fast, is in the toilet, etc., etc., and yet polls continue to show it holding at about 40%. It's beginning to be inexplicable.
I’m still disheartened that so many Americans according to the poll you cited, support troops in American cities.
Yes it seems to be a big minority to me. What can they be thinking. I suppose they believe what Trump says.
The Weimar Republic in the 1930s fell quickly because Germany had no long history of democratic rule. That republic was imposed from without as a part of the sanctions for WW I.
Our Republic on the other hand, is 250 years old and not, I hope, going down without a fight.
If you have not already done so, find a protest near you ( Indivisible.org or Mobilize.us ) and protest loudly, but peacefully on Saturday.
What the U.S. has going for it is a long history of resistance to anti-democratic rule. That's how Black men became citizens, and how women got the right to vote, and how progress was made on other fronts. What's going on now is backlash to all that progress. And let's not kid ourselves: the backlash has very, very deep roots. That's what Jim Crow was about, and I'm afraid Jim Crow is still alive in the hearts and minds of too many white USians.
Today, Trump has a 40% approval rating. At this point in his first term his approval rating was 37%. So, he’s more popular today than he was in 2017.
Let that sink in. He is consolidating his authoritarian take over and still, he is more popular than he was his first term. There is no hope unless the people in this country wake up.
I just cannot fathom how there are actually Americans who believe it's ok for the despot to turn Blackhawk helos on America cities. The cities that hole up our GDP. Why isn;t it 90% of Americans disapprove?
They don’t believe it will happen to them, and they enjoy watching it happen to us.
Even right wing idiologues don't want a police stsate.
“I am an originalist, and if the original meaning of the Constitution compelled this outcome, I would be inclined to agree that the Supreme Court should respect it until the Constitution is amended through the proper processes,” he wrote.
But the textual and historical evidence is “far more equivocal than the current court has been suggesting,” wrote Caleb Nelson, who is. often quoted by Roberts, Thomas,Alito et al..
“In the face of such ambiguities, I hope that the justices will not act as if their hands are tied.”
See. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/us/politics/originalism-trump-supreme-court-unitary-executive.html
No kings. https://www.nokings.org/?SQF_SOURCE=socialsecurityworks&link_id=9&can_id=c21edc35afceb939e29222ede000e0fb&source=email-re-no-kings-4&email_referrer=email_2929581&email_subject=re-no-kings&&
Protest at Congressional Republicans' offices. Do they not have daughters?
The discharge petition can be signed by any Republican House member.
Many of them privately say Trump is nuts.
"‘Epstein bomb’ about to drop, 100 GOP members to ‘jail break’ from Trump, Swalwell says."
https://www.kron4.com/news/politics/epstein-bomb-about-to-drop-100-gop-members-to-jail-break-from-trump-swalwell-says/
While I commend the judges & their rulings & do indeed take heart that some Republican governors are balking at the idea of military in the streets in the cities of the US I still see that the trump regime is defying laws & may likely defy any judicial orders to cease & desist.
~~~We are dealing with a lawless regime, drunk on their own manufactured "mandate" by the electorate to do what they are doing. Don't misunderstand, I'm delighted that the judges are supporting our democracy, I'm just not as certain that these losses will be a turning point. It's essential that the judges keep ruling for democracy & the Constitution, I just hope the country & citizenry has the strength to withstand the onslaught. We should, but will we?
Return, I totally agree: it is "nice" that judges are ruling against the Felon and his maladministration, but it is also empty of meaning because they feel they have impunity to ignore such rulings, confident that the totally corrupted majority of the SCOTUS will give them carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want. All the crap that has happened this weekend, including the announcement by Dry Drunk Pigshead that Idaho will be hosting a Qatari air base, is a demonstration that they simply give the middle finger to the Rule of Law and move on. I have little confidence that democracy will survive in the USA without bloodshed, and I think the Democrats in Congress are so aversive to rocking the boat that they will let the whole 250-year experiment in representative government dwindle away. Fun fact: The Roman Republic was around 200 years old when it began to slide into imperialism, first in the Italian peninsula and then into the larger Mediterranean (Punic and Macedonian Wars) and it took only about 100 years before it became a total autocracy masquerading as a "republic." Same with Athenian Democracy: about 200 years and then the ambitions of the wealthy ruling classes began the slide to dictatorship.
I don't think the turning point will come until the police and military are forced into making personal decisions: am I going to shoot granny and a pregnant woman for tRump. Unfortunately, I think there are too many who will say Hell, Yeah!
Thank God and others that even Republicans are waking up to the threat that Trump poses to the American democracy! As I've heard several state " Trump is nuts!"
Every GOP governor would be smart to break with any or preferably all of tRump’s nonsense. Good for Kevin Stitt now we need for the remaining GOP to do the same but unfortunately there’s still too many of them who are spineless or worshipping their orange god. At some point this idiocy must end.
Stitt is running to be the next GOPer president. All the others need to be reminded that their long term political ambitions depend on being against 47.
Jim Jordan says ICE is doing the Lord's work. How dare he. His Lord would be appalled at the tactics of ICE.
ICE would arrest and zip-tie Jesus!