When Jen Rubin and Ann Telnaes left WaPo over its censorship, so did I. Target hasn't seen one red cent from me either in at least a year or more. Small things, but if enough of us do them, they add up.
I used to love Amazon, and began using it in 1999.
It was sort of a fun, updated and re-branded Sears Roebuck catalog (showing my age here) for the internet age. Same marketing technique. Everything available to buy in the 50s, 60s and 70s universe right at your fingertips in a BIG catalog. And delivered right to your door!
But Bezos has gone off the rails. Great wealth and power corrupt absolutely.
The hallowed Sears Roebuck, the world's ORIGINAL direct mail retailer, was destroyed by private equity billionaires. Those are the REAL culprits behind the despair found in so many Americans and their communities that lost out in the "globalization" and "digitalization" bonanza. And Trump has manipulated these vulnerable souls to make them believe the culprit is China and immigrants.
Private equity has done even worse things than destroy SR and other businesses. They have bought out then bankrupted hospitals and nursing homes, destroying health and lives in the process.
You are right and I do feel guilty about still subscribing to Amazon Prime and shopping at Whole Foods. I try to reduce my use of both but still... One of these days may I have the intestinal fortitude to forgo both. The one good thing about Amazon Prime is their very east refund policy. Which is essential because so much of what they sell is junk! The manufacturers Jeff Bezos buys from are selling us a lot of poorly made products.
It’s not really all that difficult, in my experience. I, too, loved Amazon initially, but after seeing what Bezos & his greed were doing to smaller competitors, I decided to support them. A bit more $$$, but so much more satisfying…
You're right. But I'm caregiver/roommate for my elderly aunt and getting out to shop is tricky and Amazon simplifies that. I confess to doing shopping for myself also on Amazon. The local choice for many things is Target, which is its own problem.
I would join you on dumping Amazon, except I don’t read physical books anymore. Kindle is the only game in town and I feel like that alone is doing good for the environment since no trees are killed so I can read a couple of books a day. Plus, not everything is available in ebook through the library/Libby/hoopla. Give me another choice and I’ll drop Amazon in a heartbeat. Also, sadly, if you aren’t in a big metropolis, not everything is available locally or available online elsewhere 😩.
I’m so sorry they did that! It’s not right. I don’t believe it’s all roses at all. If you give me another resource for ebooks, I’m happy to go elsewhere. In the meantime, I’m stuck since I often read several books a day.
Again, I do use the library, just not for paper books. They are harder to hold and often have difficult to read fonts. My ebooks all weigh exactly the same thing and are in the perfect font and size for me. Don’t even need a bookmark. Plus, I have about 2k books with me at all times and access to millions more if I have WiFi. No longer have to carry heavy books with me on vacation! I pay $12/month for Kindle Unlimited and read WAY more than $144/year in KU books. I’m 68 years old, so believe me when I say, I’ve held thousands of books in my hands and don’t miss that at all.
We're buying everything we can from Wal-mart these days rather than automatically going to the Amazon web site. Still, we can't cut off our noses to spite our faces when we're elderly and partially disabled and must use delivery for our goods. Amazon needs some direct competition.
Lets help that trump fellow and his bondi girl a bit because if both of them have to count on the patel guy to smoke us out of the woods......
(Because that is what real lefties do.... they try to help where possible!)
Guide on how to recognize a radical antifa Soros sponsored drag queen loving defund the police pizza eating and kid grooming leftie:
Radical lefties like:
- Affordable healthcare for all
- Affordable housing for all
- Solid mental healthcare for all
- Sensible gun control
- Minimum wages
- Unions
- Decent retirement
- One person one vote
- Protection of the environment
- Pollution control (clean air, soil, water)
- Fighting climate change
- Reducing fossil fuel dependency
- Alternative green energy
- Respect for allies
- Fair taxation
Feel free to add identification points so that the bondi girl can recognize us and jail us all without due process and without seeing something resembling a judge.
As an American, I fail to see this as “radical” either. But there is a history of tamped down political discourse. Americans don’t debate policy - they throw it at someone like a weapon.
Gosh, Marc, you named all the things Trump, his regime and MAGAs hate. Apparently, they hate the United States, since all of the things you list are sorely needed by this country.
It should be noted that it's not just Trump, or even just his administration, but rather the ENTIRE Republican party that is responsible for this assault on American democracy. Where's the outrage from the so-called "moderates"? Susan Collins? Crickets. We need to hold Republican politicians, particularly in purple states accountable for their involement in campaign of censorship and oppression. Please consider joining groups like SwingLeft, Indivisible, and Sister District Project (and many others) to help flip states from red to blue.
You said it. Even moderates shouldn't put up with the loss of rights and indignities that are being foisted upon us. For not speaking up, they are complicit cowards.
Exactly. The electoral resistance begins in Virginia with early voting beginning on 9/19. New Jersey also is voting. The Democratic States of America must unite against the Fascist Federal Government and the Fascist States of America. Polite conversation is over.
No squabbling among Democrats should be the dictum. The moment is too critically important to waste that time. That said, we must remain committed to basic human rights, women's rights at the top of the list.
Great column. But I cannot feel any empathy or respect for the New York Times, given their role in our current state of affairs, their contributions to both-side-ism, their repeated and spiteful denigration of President Biden, and their insidious normalizing of everything the GOP and Trump have done over the past 10 years. I canceled my subscription a while back and the Washington Post shortly thereafter. I actually hold them and most of the media outlets in this country accountable as enablers of this regime. They continue to misrepresent the situation through their deliberate use of language that slants, sanitizes, and whitewashes what is going on. The recent, repeated use of "assassination", with its loaded political implications typically reserved for politicians or state leaders, instead of the far less loaded word "murder" is just one example. There are countless others over the past decade. Let us not forget the incessant drumbeat of "likability" and "her emails". They got what they wanted with Trump's election, so now they can deal with the consequences.
Agree 100%. The NYT has normalized, legitimized President Pinocchio since he first became a candidate in 2015--just for clicks. They don't need EVER to publish a photo of him, they don't need running news, just brief factual reports of presidential actions. Until they change I won't re-subscribe. We should not be funding the NYT out of our nostalgia for what the paper once was.
You could say the same about the Washington Post since Jeff Bezos and William Lewis took over. The Graham, Meyer, and Bradlee families would be incensed.
Jennifer, you should PUBLISH real-time snippets from that "lawsuit" Dump filed against the New York Times. It reads like a pamphlet describing the Emperor's beautiful new clothes.
Seriously, a judge would have difficulty reading this and commenting on it without rolling his eyes. The legal beagles who wrote it (no doubt with Donnie Dipwad's help) should lose their license to practice. Mel Brooks couldn't have done a better job....
I cancelled my WaPo subscription long before Jennifer quit. Other main stream news outlets were quit during the pandemic. We have been in decline for years. My brain and body are doing the same thing - quitting. Thank goodness I am old enough to redeem my body but my mind and spirit fight on. We can save our democracy! From ma, on a rainy day in the mid atlantic - we need the rain and it seems fitting for our country, today. Rain and hope :) Thank you.
Democrats should grind the process (coming up with a funding bill) to a halt. Make motions and force votes. Let the terrified Republicans vote against a bill supporting the 1st Amendment. Let the Republicans vote against restoring Medicaid funding. Democrats should not yield the floor. We need a "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" moment.
How to move the democratic party into agreement, even if for a short period of time, is problematic. However, this is a "must" if we want to have any chance of defeating the efforts of Trump and his followers.The cost of fighting within the party is too great and the only way to move the public at large is the unity of the democratic party.
There seems to have been a problem with one issue voters in the Democratic Party. The old saying applies: "Never overlook the good in the quest for perfection." Get back in power in unity, then work on the individual issues. It seems obvious - if we aren't there at all we can effect no changes to anything. This is where we are now in Congress.
Amen. Though it will be hard to give full-throated support to those who caved on presenting a united front against our oppression, for example—on government funding (Schumer) or crossed the crypto line for Trump (Gallego) or placed Israel above humanity (Fetterman).
When Jen Rubin and Ann Telnaes left WaPo over its censorship, so did I. Target hasn't seen one red cent from me either in at least a year or more. Small things, but if enough of us do them, they add up.
Ditto Amazon and Amazon Prime.
I used to love Amazon, and began using it in 1999.
It was sort of a fun, updated and re-branded Sears Roebuck catalog (showing my age here) for the internet age. Same marketing technique. Everything available to buy in the 50s, 60s and 70s universe right at your fingertips in a BIG catalog. And delivered right to your door!
But Bezos has gone off the rails. Great wealth and power corrupt absolutely.
Stop supporting oligarchs.
The hallowed Sears Roebuck, the world's ORIGINAL direct mail retailer, was destroyed by private equity billionaires. Those are the REAL culprits behind the despair found in so many Americans and their communities that lost out in the "globalization" and "digitalization" bonanza. And Trump has manipulated these vulnerable souls to make them believe the culprit is China and immigrants.
Private equity has done even worse things than destroy SR and other businesses. They have bought out then bankrupted hospitals and nursing homes, destroying health and lives in the process.
You are right and I do feel guilty about still subscribing to Amazon Prime and shopping at Whole Foods. I try to reduce my use of both but still... One of these days may I have the intestinal fortitude to forgo both. The one good thing about Amazon Prime is their very east refund policy. Which is essential because so much of what they sell is junk! The manufacturers Jeff Bezos buys from are selling us a lot of poorly made products.
It’s not really all that difficult, in my experience. I, too, loved Amazon initially, but after seeing what Bezos & his greed were doing to smaller competitors, I decided to support them. A bit more $$$, but so much more satisfying…
You're right. But I'm caregiver/roommate for my elderly aunt and getting out to shop is tricky and Amazon simplifies that. I confess to doing shopping for myself also on Amazon. The local choice for many things is Target, which is its own problem.
I would join you on dumping Amazon, except I don’t read physical books anymore. Kindle is the only game in town and I feel like that alone is doing good for the environment since no trees are killed so I can read a couple of books a day. Plus, not everything is available in ebook through the library/Libby/hoopla. Give me another choice and I’ll drop Amazon in a heartbeat. Also, sadly, if you aren’t in a big metropolis, not everything is available locally or available online elsewhere 😩.
Just for the record - Amazon unilaterally decided to give my ebook away for free when it first came out. I had no vote. All is not roses there...
I’m so sorry they did that! It’s not right. I don’t believe it’s all roses at all. If you give me another resource for ebooks, I’m happy to go elsewhere. In the meantime, I’m stuck since I often read several books a day.
Your local library? Get in a walk, meet nice people, hold a paper book in your hands, use a $bill for a bookmark…
Again, I do use the library, just not for paper books. They are harder to hold and often have difficult to read fonts. My ebooks all weigh exactly the same thing and are in the perfect font and size for me. Don’t even need a bookmark. Plus, I have about 2k books with me at all times and access to millions more if I have WiFi. No longer have to carry heavy books with me on vacation! I pay $12/month for Kindle Unlimited and read WAY more than $144/year in KU books. I’m 68 years old, so believe me when I say, I’ve held thousands of books in my hands and don’t miss that at all.
We're buying everything we can from Wal-mart these days rather than automatically going to the Amazon web site. Still, we can't cut off our noses to spite our faces when we're elderly and partially disabled and must use delivery for our goods. Amazon needs some direct competition.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏‼️
Lets help that trump fellow and his bondi girl a bit because if both of them have to count on the patel guy to smoke us out of the woods......
(Because that is what real lefties do.... they try to help where possible!)
Guide on how to recognize a radical antifa Soros sponsored drag queen loving defund the police pizza eating and kid grooming leftie:
Radical lefties like:
- Affordable healthcare for all
- Affordable housing for all
- Solid mental healthcare for all
- Sensible gun control
- Minimum wages
- Unions
- Decent retirement
- One person one vote
- Protection of the environment
- Pollution control (clean air, soil, water)
- Fighting climate change
- Reducing fossil fuel dependency
- Alternative green energy
- Respect for allies
- Fair taxation
Feel free to add identification points so that the bondi girl can recognize us and jail us all without due process and without seeing something resembling a judge.
As a European citizen, I have to admit that I fail to see what is "radical" with your above points.
Eh..... Christina..... I'm a Belgian..... a Belgian with a warm heart for the real US (not the US of trump's dictatorial fever dream).
As a U.S. citizen, I and many others of us here agree with you.
As an American, I fail to see this as “radical” either. But there is a history of tamped down political discourse. Americans don’t debate policy - they throw it at someone like a weapon.
Gosh, Marc, you named all the things Trump, his regime and MAGAs hate. Apparently, they hate the United States, since all of the things you list are sorely needed by this country.
Not only that, Charles, but most of those issues are supported by a majority of Americans, if polls are to be believed.
Science-based everything! Also maybe “higher” minimum wages.
It should be noted that it's not just Trump, or even just his administration, but rather the ENTIRE Republican party that is responsible for this assault on American democracy. Where's the outrage from the so-called "moderates"? Susan Collins? Crickets. We need to hold Republican politicians, particularly in purple states accountable for their involement in campaign of censorship and oppression. Please consider joining groups like SwingLeft, Indivisible, and Sister District Project (and many others) to help flip states from red to blue.
We should no longer call people like Collins "moderate." We should call them all what they are. Cowards.
You said it. Even moderates shouldn't put up with the loss of rights and indignities that are being foisted upon us. For not speaking up, they are complicit cowards.
I tend to use "quisling shitstain."
Oh, come on now, give Susan Collins a break. She's already said she's "concerned." What more could you ask for from a United States Senator?
s/
🤪
In one word, 'plenty'. How does she think that she is representing the people of her state or the country?
She's abused that word so much that I try to avoid using it.
Exactly! 🤣🤣🤣
This is a call to action we need to hear and act on!
Exactly. The electoral resistance begins in Virginia with early voting beginning on 9/19. New Jersey also is voting. The Democratic States of America must unite against the Fascist Federal Government and the Fascist States of America. Polite conversation is over.
No squabbling among Democrats should be the dictum. The moment is too critically important to waste that time. That said, we must remain committed to basic human rights, women's rights at the top of the list.
FAFA: First Amendment for All.
DIFA: Democracy is for All
Remember Dems, short and sweet. We tend toward paragraphs…. to be clear and then we lose the point :)
Both are good suggestions, but how about USA, Uncensored Speech is American? Or USAS, Uncensored Speech is American Speech?
Uncensored Speech for All!
How correct you are Jennifer -- excellent list. Let's see if the the blue states and others will institute these as they very well should.
I forgot to say that these legal protections being implemented are consistent with my second award winning book on Donald-- https://www.routledge.com/Indicting-the-45th-President-Boss-Trump-the-GOP-and-What-We-Can-Do-About-the-Threat-to-American-Democracy/Barak/p/book/9781032454771. It is also consistent with my forthcoming third book on DJT that will be published after the 2026 elections--Regime Change, Authoritarian Treason, and the Outlaw-in-Chief: President Donald Trump's Struggle to Kill U.S. Democracy & Realign American Global Power.
Great column. But I cannot feel any empathy or respect for the New York Times, given their role in our current state of affairs, their contributions to both-side-ism, their repeated and spiteful denigration of President Biden, and their insidious normalizing of everything the GOP and Trump have done over the past 10 years. I canceled my subscription a while back and the Washington Post shortly thereafter. I actually hold them and most of the media outlets in this country accountable as enablers of this regime. They continue to misrepresent the situation through their deliberate use of language that slants, sanitizes, and whitewashes what is going on. The recent, repeated use of "assassination", with its loaded political implications typically reserved for politicians or state leaders, instead of the far less loaded word "murder" is just one example. There are countless others over the past decade. Let us not forget the incessant drumbeat of "likability" and "her emails". They got what they wanted with Trump's election, so now they can deal with the consequences.
Agree 100%. The NYT has normalized, legitimized President Pinocchio since he first became a candidate in 2015--just for clicks. They don't need EVER to publish a photo of him, they don't need running news, just brief factual reports of presidential actions. Until they change I won't re-subscribe. We should not be funding the NYT out of our nostalgia for what the paper once was.
You could say the same about the Washington Post since Jeff Bezos and William Lewis took over. The Graham, Meyer, and Bradlee families would be incensed.
Yes, WaPo was the first I cancelled.
I'll admit to being conned into another year's subscription, but it's up in November and it's not being renewed.
More money to several Substack sites, The Guardian, and PBS.
Jennifer, you should PUBLISH real-time snippets from that "lawsuit" Dump filed against the New York Times. It reads like a pamphlet describing the Emperor's beautiful new clothes.
Seriously, a judge would have difficulty reading this and commenting on it without rolling his eyes. The legal beagles who wrote it (no doubt with Donnie Dipwad's help) should lose their license to practice. Mel Brooks couldn't have done a better job....
Lucian Truscott devoted his Sept. 16 Substack to exactly this. If he wasn't wearing a hazmat suit while reading the brief, I hope he was able to detox afterward. https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/whiny-little-bruised-ego-baby-blubbers
I cancelled my WaPo subscription long before Jennifer quit. Other main stream news outlets were quit during the pandemic. We have been in decline for years. My brain and body are doing the same thing - quitting. Thank goodness I am old enough to redeem my body but my mind and spirit fight on. We can save our democracy! From ma, on a rainy day in the mid atlantic - we need the rain and it seems fitting for our country, today. Rain and hope :) Thank you.
FEAFS -Free elections Are Free Speech
Democrats should grind the process (coming up with a funding bill) to a halt. Make motions and force votes. Let the terrified Republicans vote against a bill supporting the 1st Amendment. Let the Republicans vote against restoring Medicaid funding. Democrats should not yield the floor. We need a "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" moment.
Could Democrats just start calling themselves "the CEnTEr" and take away thi word "left" ?? Please?
That’s another way we’ve allowed the Right to define us. That has to stop.
How to move the democratic party into agreement, even if for a short period of time, is problematic. However, this is a "must" if we want to have any chance of defeating the efforts of Trump and his followers.The cost of fighting within the party is too great and the only way to move the public at large is the unity of the democratic party.
There seems to have been a problem with one issue voters in the Democratic Party. The old saying applies: "Never overlook the good in the quest for perfection." Get back in power in unity, then work on the individual issues. It seems obvious - if we aren't there at all we can effect no changes to anything. This is where we are now in Congress.
Amen. Though it will be hard to give full-throated support to those who caved on presenting a united front against our oppression, for example—on government funding (Schumer) or crossed the crypto line for Trump (Gallego) or placed Israel above humanity (Fetterman).