I agree that they are deserving of their own condemnation, but swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution to protect ALL of us can withstand any criticism from those who would cry "Political!!!" - especially when that is going to be the Republicans and Murdoch, who we both agree need to go to a special circle in Hell for what you have described.
There are a lot of valid concerns about Musk's influence on Trump, but there is an important one that no one is thinking about. It may even be his most dangerous influence.
Musk's persona is to be bold in the face of naysayers. Not only to be bold, but to poke them in the eye. So much of what he has done in his career are things that others have said are impossible. Today's SpaceX launch is one example. Even though the plan to catch the booster in the chopsticks didn't happen this time, he has already down it once before.
What this means is that he will reinforce Trump's worst instincts. He'll 'inspire' Trump to make no compromises, rather be bold in doing everything he wants despite warnings of the implacability or the adverse consequences. Economist's nearly universally warn the his tariffs and mass deportations will be ruinous for the economy. With Musk's influence, Trump make decide 'damn the torpedoes. full steam ahead'.
I have been thinking that Trump wouldn't really do the tariffs and mass deportations. Rather he will announce the tariffs, but then negotiate rather superficial trade deals and claim to have made 'great' deals that are fair to America, so that tariffs will not be necessary, and them take credit for the strong economy he will inherit.
On mass deportations, I assumed that he would say he his started with the 'worst of the worst'. Deport a 100K, or so, more than usual and claim success. He will then blame liberals and blue state governors for blocking the deportation of millions.
Now, however, I am thinking that he will actually try to do them with confidence that doing these are great ideas. His crazy cabinet picks are examples of this 'be bold' mentality of Musk.
This of course, suggests that he will press hard on doing schedule F, and other authoritarian aspects of project 2025. He will also round up his enemies and pull the licenses of broadcast news media. He will basically go 'full Orban'.
Absolutely NOT, what needs to happen is mandatory civics for all Americans, even voting age adults, people are too stupid to realize, ackshuwally the president doesn't get to unilaterally set the price of gas and bacon, yet that's exactly what they seem to think happens... the magic godking will come fix everything for everyone dontchaknow!!! CANT FIX STUPID BUT THATS EXACTLY WHAT AMERICANS NEED!
There are many things not to like about Tulsi Gabbard. One of them is not what she says but how she says it. Some unholy combination of nature and nurture gifted Gabbard with a voice and delivery that makes her sound uncommonly authoritative, competent, professional and polished even to upper middle class ears. Regrettably, this is a talent she shares with another MAGA nut job, Kari Lake.
Trump is acknowledged to be a showman whose casting-director's eye informs his personnel decisions. He is canny enough recognize a class act when he sees it - that's why he's so charmed by Ivanka and her fine finishing school manners.
Should the Apocalypse arrive early in the form of Gabbard's confirmation of DNI, her notorious reputation as a suckup to Putin will precede her on the world stage among the true pros and defenders of liberal democracies, who can be expected to shun her in a most diplomatic manner. Even there, it's a distinct possibility that Gabbard's magical voice may charm those who know better. Where Tulsi's spoken word presents the greatest threat is among the Republican and business elite who will be induced to sense an affinity for her that will make it easier for them to overlook that Putin probably looks on her as an asset. Gabbard will also be a hit from the top of the MAGA ladder to the rung where listeners will mistake her for a member of the Democratic bicoastal elite and stop listening. What a pity Gabbard doesn't have the thuggish croak of Trump's knuckle-dragging border czar!
Of all of Trump's picks so far, Tulsi is only one that can do permanent severe damage to the US for years, if not decades, to come. All the others could do significant harm and disorder, but can be recoverable once they are gone.
The damage to the military would take time to reverse. The competent people who are driven out won't jump right back in place in 4 years or 8.
DOJ will be made less attractive to people who just want to do their job impartially. Even if they went in during the next sane administration, they would wonder if they're going to be booted out by MAGA redux.
If research on infectious diseases is paused at NIH for several years, there could be serious consequences down the line.
I think one of Kamala Harris's liabilities is that her voice does not sound particularly authoritative, or even especially pleasant.
Maybe she should have been dubbed over, like Giuliano Gemma in "Il Prefetto de ferro." (He's probably too handsome to be the scourge of the Mafia, but at least he got a voice that's more commanding than his own.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qktX6uHkT6k
Aside: I'm not sure how other Bulwark members feel, but I would really appreciate if theBulwark made distinctions between the nominees. That is, take the time to distinguish between really bad nominees from those that are undesirable, but largely competent, or even those who would be good. etc. For me, the publication would seem more reasonable and measured--which would strengthen my trust (read: would keep me reading and subscribing).
Add to that that Trump now has less than 50% of the vote as the count goes on, and 93 million eligible voters did not vote. So, a lot of them were just confused. There is more and more evidence that things are not what they at first appeared to be. We should be wondering why Musk was constantly on the phone with Putin, the master of espionage and spycraft.
In any case, we know that Christian Nationalists are ecstatic. Bring on the suffering, they are raised to believe it is Godly. Also, they have End-of-days beliefs that they think will get fulfilled by Trump. We shall see.
Jumping ship as it were. That is because everyone picked by Trump/Musk/Putin is a pro-Russia choice, and I see the CI being replaced by Russian spies, unless the DOD decides they are not having any of it. Waiting to see if they resign too.
I have read Project 2025, and there is nothing happening including irregularities in the election that surprise me.
Look at Sweden's list because it is in English. That is how to prepare. No one in Europe wants to be caught out like Ukraine was. Prof. Timothy Snyder has a discussion of how that happened too. https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-phantom-campaign
In any case, there are people in the US giving advice for being safe. I find I am having these conversations with friends. Create your communities of support, check your use of media and improve it. Passport in order, ready cash, etc...
What I wrote was NOT an invitation to the sort of accusation of "irregularities" we got from Trump and MAGA. Trump is sitting at 50% as I write this, and yes he majority is gone. He may well end up with a simply a plurality. Harris might even win the popular vote by a tiny margin. Given the inherent Electoral college the GOP possesses, there is near zero chance that a tiny popular vote win by Harris could cost Trump 42 Electoral votes.
Edit: Even though I do not usually read a random substack, I did read the Spoonamore piece. Before Harris rescinds her concession, Spoonamore should provide a lot more data to people competent to evaluate it. Otherwise, like Giuliani, he has theories.
What I last saw from Robert Hubbell is that Trump had less than 50% and that was a couple of days ago. I think it is important that we have an accurate vote count, and that we know about any irregularities. Did you read the Spoonamore letter to see how he got his irregularities? Doesn't it make you want to know what is going on?
These days everybody has a substack. Why should I pay attention to some random substack? Today CNN has Trump at 49.9 %. Right now he has merely a plurality. When all the votes are counted, we may find that he lost the popular vote three times in a row.
I read Spoonamore very carefully. I think people like Chris Krebs (who was in charge of government cyber security during the Trump administration and famously wrote a report asserting that 2020 was the most secure in history) or other experts. I wonder where Spoonamore gets his numbers of bullet ballots for 2024. Where is that sort of granularity being reported apparently on the fly as votes are being counted?
Spoonamore makes assertions about relative numbers of bullet ballots but does not tell us if swing states have generally more than non swing states in other elections. Perhaps swing states always have many times more bullet ballots than non swing states. The rationale here is that there is no incentive for a voter to produce a bullet ballot in a non-swing state because bullet ballots will have no effect on the outcome in those states.
Spoonamore's scenario requires electronic voting. Perhaps Harris should call for hand recounts in e very precinct (not just swing precincts) that use electronic voting.
"I looked into this guy a little bit today. This story is dangerous. He’s not a data scientist. He went to Wharton for a little while and dropped out to found a tech company. I listened to his interview with Thom Hartmann. Some of the ways they speak are alarmingly similar to “news sources” like One America Network. This is not my area of expertise, but his arguments are bad. He is confusing correlation and causation, he’s giving the listener a huge data dump of information that is not connected in any way, and he is making a false connection to a lot of things he is an “expert” in to make unsubstantiated claims. A lot of the things he is talking about are not possible, and they have already been debunked."
Spoonamore is the person I heard talking yesterday. Didn't know he's a lifelong Republican.
One striking datapoint: In North Carolina, more than 11% of votes for Trump were on ballots that had no votes for anyone down-ballot. Such ballots are rarely more than 1% of the total in any election.
In Arizona it was 7.2%. Nevada, 5.5%.
By comparison: Idaho, 0.03%, Utah, 0.01%.
Is there any plausible reason why voters in swing states would be vastly more inclined to vote only for Trump than voters in more solidly Republican states?
The figures that Spoonamore gives are jaw-dropping - and he has explanations for how the hacking could have been done.
Remember Trump telling his fans that they didn't need to vote because he had all the votes he needed?
I also recall something from election day about Musk acting oddly assured that victory was in the bag hours before the vote counts indicated any such thing.
As I noted in an earlier post, I don't want to mimic the crazypants conspiracism of MAGA - but they are the people who already conspired to overturn an election that didn't go their way and who gave various indications that they would use any means necessary to prevent a loss next time - and their leaders (Trump and Musk) are sociopaths devoid of conscience.
These last couple of days I think of "All in the family" We should have seen this coming from a long way out. I can officially say I can stick a fork in Morning Joe. That was pathetic.
A data scientist found extraordinarily high numbers of ballots with only a Trump vote and nothing down-ballot, concentrated in swing states, while the states around them have more normal percentages of such ballots. He didn’t mention the stats for Harris-only ballots, though presumably those didn’t show a similar anomaly.
After all the turmoil that Trump and his cult stirred up around the last election, it feels awkward to suggest the possibility of mischief—except that we’re talking about a psychopath and the kind of people who are drawn to him, including Elon Musk, with his pretentions to being the savior of humanity.
The data scientist mentioned Musk’s "lottery," which seemed to be mainly a data-collection scheme, and how it might have been used for mischief, along with Starlink. I thought voting systems are designed to be insulated from any external network. But I also thought about the MAGA loyalists who inserted themselves in key positions in battleground states, and the breaches of voting systems already perpetrated by MAGAs.
When MAGAs constantly claim that their opponents always cheat, are we obligated to treat MAGAs as above suspicion?
For what it's worth, for me, the evidence would have to be considerable and compelling before I begin to seriously consider that voter fraud occurred. Part of this involves a relatively strong consensus among election officials, respected academics and experts on elections, and politicians on the national level, and well-respected news outlets. Without these groups waving the red flag, I'm not really going to entertain thoughts that significant voter fraud occurred.
By the way, this is one of the reasons congressional Republicans, GOP party leaders, and Murdoch's outlets enabling--either actively or tacitly--Trump's claims of voter fraud is so reprehensible. Voters' trust in elections are based on these individuals and institutions. The degree to which Republicans and Murdoch acted irresponsibly is breathtaking.
purging the military of "disloyal" senior officers and then relying on the new crop of true believers (including a lightweight, philandering rapist at the helm) as modern day brown shirts sounds like the end of this experiment with democracy. Trump isnt playing around, he knows power is a zero sum game and for him to accrue more he must take it from somewhere else. The senate and SCOTUS have already surrendered much of their co-equal branches of govt chops, without even putting up a fight. Is now the time for full bore resistance? if roles were reversed trump would have the good ole boys of the 3% or Proud D!cks out creating mayhem already. Should we take that cue and get serious about thwarting MAGA? youre damn right we should. But can we (ordinary folks) hope to be successful when the rest of the administrative state, both houses of Congress and SCOTUS have already sold out? i think this cake is baked., If trump wants to start pooping on the carpet, no one will say boo. If he puts Lara in charge or brings back Jared, no one will say boo. If he collects billions in broad daylight from crypto or Truth Social, no one will say boo. At least no one in a position that REQUIRES them to stand up to naked corruption. On nov 5th the only check on trumps power fell short. americans just didnt show up. by not showing up we now provide an excuse to the weak kneed, the spineless folks in the senate, in the house, in the administrative state: this is what america voted for, hate it or really hate it, but its happening.
Posted as a comment to Jen Rubin's column this morning
"The Senate needs a small group of Independent senators to keep it anchored away from extremism. if a group of 4-8 R's and D's became official independents and threatened to use their caucus party decision to effect which party was in the majority at any particular time, then they could direct the business of the Senate with soft power. It is essentially what Sinema and Manchin did. It just needs to be larger and more bi-partisan to keep both parties anchored in governing. We must break the two party construct in the Senate so it can be the deliberative body we need for the next couple years."
I think all 4-8 senators should be women. We wouldn't yet have our first female president but as Joe Biden said about senators, we would have 4-8 of them. :)
I believe they think they need to be part of a party to get elected. I would just say Maine has rank choice voting and Susan Collins ( who almost did not make 50% ;last time) may be better off not being part of the Republican Party in 2026
It's inconceivable to me that those who run for Senate, one of the most important positions in government, would just hand their power over to Trump.
11-19-24
Change the narrative —
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnadamsingram/p/change-the-narrative
I agree that they are deserving of their own condemnation, but swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution to protect ALL of us can withstand any criticism from those who would cry "Political!!!" - especially when that is going to be the Republicans and Murdoch, who we both agree need to go to a special circle in Hell for what you have described.
“ The Senate Must Draw the Line Now”
Oh please. What planet in what galaxy in what universe do you live in? Have you met the GOP soon to be in the majority senators?
Not a single synapse, not a single spine among them.
There are a lot of valid concerns about Musk's influence on Trump, but there is an important one that no one is thinking about. It may even be his most dangerous influence.
Musk's persona is to be bold in the face of naysayers. Not only to be bold, but to poke them in the eye. So much of what he has done in his career are things that others have said are impossible. Today's SpaceX launch is one example. Even though the plan to catch the booster in the chopsticks didn't happen this time, he has already down it once before.
What this means is that he will reinforce Trump's worst instincts. He'll 'inspire' Trump to make no compromises, rather be bold in doing everything he wants despite warnings of the implacability or the adverse consequences. Economist's nearly universally warn the his tariffs and mass deportations will be ruinous for the economy. With Musk's influence, Trump make decide 'damn the torpedoes. full steam ahead'.
I have been thinking that Trump wouldn't really do the tariffs and mass deportations. Rather he will announce the tariffs, but then negotiate rather superficial trade deals and claim to have made 'great' deals that are fair to America, so that tariffs will not be necessary, and them take credit for the strong economy he will inherit.
On mass deportations, I assumed that he would say he his started with the 'worst of the worst'. Deport a 100K, or so, more than usual and claim success. He will then blame liberals and blue state governors for blocking the deportation of millions.
Now, however, I am thinking that he will actually try to do them with confidence that doing these are great ideas. His crazy cabinet picks are examples of this 'be bold' mentality of Musk.
This of course, suggests that he will press hard on doing schedule F, and other authoritarian aspects of project 2025. He will also round up his enemies and pull the licenses of broadcast news media. He will basically go 'full Orban'.
Absolutely NOT, what needs to happen is mandatory civics for all Americans, even voting age adults, people are too stupid to realize, ackshuwally the president doesn't get to unilaterally set the price of gas and bacon, yet that's exactly what they seem to think happens... the magic godking will come fix everything for everyone dontchaknow!!! CANT FIX STUPID BUT THATS EXACTLY WHAT AMERICANS NEED!
There are many things not to like about Tulsi Gabbard. One of them is not what she says but how she says it. Some unholy combination of nature and nurture gifted Gabbard with a voice and delivery that makes her sound uncommonly authoritative, competent, professional and polished even to upper middle class ears. Regrettably, this is a talent she shares with another MAGA nut job, Kari Lake.
Trump is acknowledged to be a showman whose casting-director's eye informs his personnel decisions. He is canny enough recognize a class act when he sees it - that's why he's so charmed by Ivanka and her fine finishing school manners.
Should the Apocalypse arrive early in the form of Gabbard's confirmation of DNI, her notorious reputation as a suckup to Putin will precede her on the world stage among the true pros and defenders of liberal democracies, who can be expected to shun her in a most diplomatic manner. Even there, it's a distinct possibility that Gabbard's magical voice may charm those who know better. Where Tulsi's spoken word presents the greatest threat is among the Republican and business elite who will be induced to sense an affinity for her that will make it easier for them to overlook that Putin probably looks on her as an asset. Gabbard will also be a hit from the top of the MAGA ladder to the rung where listeners will mistake her for a member of the Democratic bicoastal elite and stop listening. What a pity Gabbard doesn't have the thuggish croak of Trump's knuckle-dragging border czar!
Of all of Trump's picks so far, Tulsi is only one that can do permanent severe damage to the US for years, if not decades, to come. All the others could do significant harm and disorder, but can be recoverable once they are gone.
The damage to the military would take time to reverse. The competent people who are driven out won't jump right back in place in 4 years or 8.
DOJ will be made less attractive to people who just want to do their job impartially. Even if they went in during the next sane administration, they would wonder if they're going to be booted out by MAGA redux.
If research on infectious diseases is paused at NIH for several years, there could be serious consequences down the line.
But Tulsi at DNI could be catastrophic.
I think one of Kamala Harris's liabilities is that her voice does not sound particularly authoritative, or even especially pleasant.
Maybe she should have been dubbed over, like Giuliano Gemma in "Il Prefetto de ferro." (He's probably too handsome to be the scourge of the Mafia, but at least he got a voice that's more commanding than his own.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qktX6uHkT6k
Aside: I'm not sure how other Bulwark members feel, but I would really appreciate if theBulwark made distinctions between the nominees. That is, take the time to distinguish between really bad nominees from those that are undesirable, but largely competent, or even those who would be good. etc. For me, the publication would seem more reasonable and measured--which would strengthen my trust (read: would keep me reading and subscribing).
Sam Stein is right, unfortunately. Voters did not care that Biden delivered and they did not care that Trump failed to deliver.
Here is what Prof. Snyder says about Musk and Putin's disinformation campaign. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/the-phantom-campaign?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Add to that that Trump now has less than 50% of the vote as the count goes on, and 93 million eligible voters did not vote. So, a lot of them were just confused. There is more and more evidence that things are not what they at first appeared to be. We should be wondering why Musk was constantly on the phone with Putin, the master of espionage and spycraft.
In any case, we know that Christian Nationalists are ecstatic. Bring on the suffering, they are raised to believe it is Godly. Also, they have End-of-days beliefs that they think will get fulfilled by Trump. We shall see.
The rest of us are going to suffer no matter where we are. I am in Europe and Europe is starting to look at being attacked by Putin and Trump together, so my home country will attack my second country. Jeff Stein tells us that top Intelligence Community people are resigning. https://www.spytalk.co/p/breaking-top-intelligence-igs-resign?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Jumping ship as it were. That is because everyone picked by Trump/Musk/Putin is a pro-Russia choice, and I see the CI being replaced by Russian spies, unless the DOD decides they are not having any of it. Waiting to see if they resign too.
I have read Project 2025, and there is nothing happening including irregularities in the election that surprise me.
Even the fact that Scandinavia is updating their war preparedness. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4zwj2lgdo
Look at Sweden's list because it is in English. That is how to prepare. No one in Europe wants to be caught out like Ukraine was. Prof. Timothy Snyder has a discussion of how that happened too. https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-phantom-campaign
In any case, there are people in the US giving advice for being safe. I find I am having these conversations with friends. Create your communities of support, check your use of media and improve it. Passport in order, ready cash, etc...
What I wrote was NOT an invitation to the sort of accusation of "irregularities" we got from Trump and MAGA. Trump is sitting at 50% as I write this, and yes he majority is gone. He may well end up with a simply a plurality. Harris might even win the popular vote by a tiny margin. Given the inherent Electoral college the GOP possesses, there is near zero chance that a tiny popular vote win by Harris could cost Trump 42 Electoral votes.
Edit: Even though I do not usually read a random substack, I did read the Spoonamore piece. Before Harris rescinds her concession, Spoonamore should provide a lot more data to people competent to evaluate it. Otherwise, like Giuliani, he has theories.
What I last saw from Robert Hubbell is that Trump had less than 50% and that was a couple of days ago. I think it is important that we have an accurate vote count, and that we know about any irregularities. Did you read the Spoonamore letter to see how he got his irregularities? Doesn't it make you want to know what is going on?
These days everybody has a substack. Why should I pay attention to some random substack? Today CNN has Trump at 49.9 %. Right now he has merely a plurality. When all the votes are counted, we may find that he lost the popular vote three times in a row.
I read Spoonamore very carefully. I think people like Chris Krebs (who was in charge of government cyber security during the Trump administration and famously wrote a report asserting that 2020 was the most secure in history) or other experts. I wonder where Spoonamore gets his numbers of bullet ballots for 2024. Where is that sort of granularity being reported apparently on the fly as votes are being counted?
Spoonamore makes assertions about relative numbers of bullet ballots but does not tell us if swing states have generally more than non swing states in other elections. Perhaps swing states always have many times more bullet ballots than non swing states. The rationale here is that there is no incentive for a voter to produce a bullet ballot in a non-swing state because bullet ballots will have no effect on the outcome in those states.
Spoonamore's scenario requires electronic voting. Perhaps Harris should call for hand recounts in e very precinct (not just swing precincts) that use electronic voting.
Terry you are right to be skeptical. My friend has debunked Spoonamore for me. She researched him. Here is what she found.
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-election-starlink-musk-steal-trump-38757341656d4f44243076d6356cb68b
She also says,
"I looked into this guy a little bit today. This story is dangerous. He’s not a data scientist. He went to Wharton for a little while and dropped out to found a tech company. I listened to his interview with Thom Hartmann. Some of the ways they speak are alarmingly similar to “news sources” like One America Network. This is not my area of expertise, but his arguments are bad. He is confusing correlation and causation, he’s giving the listener a huge data dump of information that is not connected in any way, and he is making a false connection to a lot of things he is an “expert” in to make unsubstantiated claims. A lot of the things he is talking about are not possible, and they have already been debunked."
She shared this site too.
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=147216
Rick Hasen is a law professor at UCLA.
"Also, they have End-of-days beliefs that they think will get fulfilled by Trump."
That is one expectation that just may come true.
Spoonamore is the person I heard talking yesterday. Didn't know he's a lifelong Republican.
One striking datapoint: In North Carolina, more than 11% of votes for Trump were on ballots that had no votes for anyone down-ballot. Such ballots are rarely more than 1% of the total in any election.
In Arizona it was 7.2%. Nevada, 5.5%.
By comparison: Idaho, 0.03%, Utah, 0.01%.
Is there any plausible reason why voters in swing states would be vastly more inclined to vote only for Trump than voters in more solidly Republican states?
The figures that Spoonamore gives are jaw-dropping - and he has explanations for how the hacking could have been done.
Remember Trump telling his fans that they didn't need to vote because he had all the votes he needed?
I also recall something from election day about Musk acting oddly assured that victory was in the bag hours before the vote counts indicated any such thing.
As I noted in an earlier post, I don't want to mimic the crazypants conspiracism of MAGA - but they are the people who already conspired to overturn an election that didn't go their way and who gave various indications that they would use any means necessary to prevent a loss next time - and their leaders (Trump and Musk) are sociopaths devoid of conscience.
And the insanity continues: Dr Oz in charge of medicare/medicaid. Is Dr. Phil next?
Will the commission on the Afghanistan withdrawal delve into the deal that was negotiated with the Taliban that there would be a withdrawal?
These last couple of days I think of "All in the family" We should have seen this coming from a long way out. I can officially say I can stick a fork in Morning Joe. That was pathetic.
A data scientist found extraordinarily high numbers of ballots with only a Trump vote and nothing down-ballot, concentrated in swing states, while the states around them have more normal percentages of such ballots. He didn’t mention the stats for Harris-only ballots, though presumably those didn’t show a similar anomaly.
After all the turmoil that Trump and his cult stirred up around the last election, it feels awkward to suggest the possibility of mischief—except that we’re talking about a psychopath and the kind of people who are drawn to him, including Elon Musk, with his pretentions to being the savior of humanity.
The data scientist mentioned Musk’s "lottery," which seemed to be mainly a data-collection scheme, and how it might have been used for mischief, along with Starlink. I thought voting systems are designed to be insulated from any external network. But I also thought about the MAGA loyalists who inserted themselves in key positions in battleground states, and the breaches of voting systems already perpetrated by MAGAs.
When MAGAs constantly claim that their opponents always cheat, are we obligated to treat MAGAs as above suspicion?
For what it's worth, for me, the evidence would have to be considerable and compelling before I begin to seriously consider that voter fraud occurred. Part of this involves a relatively strong consensus among election officials, respected academics and experts on elections, and politicians on the national level, and well-respected news outlets. Without these groups waving the red flag, I'm not really going to entertain thoughts that significant voter fraud occurred.
By the way, this is one of the reasons congressional Republicans, GOP party leaders, and Murdoch's outlets enabling--either actively or tacitly--Trump's claims of voter fraud is so reprehensible. Voters' trust in elections are based on these individuals and institutions. The degree to which Republicans and Murdoch acted irresponsibly is breathtaking.
purging the military of "disloyal" senior officers and then relying on the new crop of true believers (including a lightweight, philandering rapist at the helm) as modern day brown shirts sounds like the end of this experiment with democracy. Trump isnt playing around, he knows power is a zero sum game and for him to accrue more he must take it from somewhere else. The senate and SCOTUS have already surrendered much of their co-equal branches of govt chops, without even putting up a fight. Is now the time for full bore resistance? if roles were reversed trump would have the good ole boys of the 3% or Proud D!cks out creating mayhem already. Should we take that cue and get serious about thwarting MAGA? youre damn right we should. But can we (ordinary folks) hope to be successful when the rest of the administrative state, both houses of Congress and SCOTUS have already sold out? i think this cake is baked., If trump wants to start pooping on the carpet, no one will say boo. If he puts Lara in charge or brings back Jared, no one will say boo. If he collects billions in broad daylight from crypto or Truth Social, no one will say boo. At least no one in a position that REQUIRES them to stand up to naked corruption. On nov 5th the only check on trumps power fell short. americans just didnt show up. by not showing up we now provide an excuse to the weak kneed, the spineless folks in the senate, in the house, in the administrative state: this is what america voted for, hate it or really hate it, but its happening.
RE: "But they do have a constitutional obligation to judge these nominations. Voting yes is excusing behavior that shouldn’t be excused."
So. What's that definition of insanity? Expecting something different from those who've done the same thing over and over and over again?
Posted as a comment to Jen Rubin's column this morning
"The Senate needs a small group of Independent senators to keep it anchored away from extremism. if a group of 4-8 R's and D's became official independents and threatened to use their caucus party decision to effect which party was in the majority at any particular time, then they could direct the business of the Senate with soft power. It is essentially what Sinema and Manchin did. It just needs to be larger and more bi-partisan to keep both parties anchored in governing. We must break the two party construct in the Senate so it can be the deliberative body we need for the next couple years."
I think all 4-8 senators should be women. We wouldn't yet have our first female president but as Joe Biden said about senators, we would have 4-8 of them. :)
They'd be the most powerful people in the country. Not sure why more don't see it that way.
I believe they think they need to be part of a party to get elected. I would just say Maine has rank choice voting and Susan Collins ( who almost did not make 50% ;last time) may be better off not being part of the Republican Party in 2026