I think that the AP should not only stick to their guns regarding the Gulf of Mexico, but start reporting on what the rest of the world sees now - the United States of South-Eastern Russia led by co-Governers Musk & Trump lol. Putin must be the happiest he's ever been, having an American President doing all his work, who was actually elected by the American people! It has to be beyond his wildest dreams that Americans would do this to themselves.
If there actually were a Deep State, now would be the time for it to act in ways only a James Bond screenplay writer could imagine. But, alas, all we have are loyal, competent public servants who have been locked out of their email.
Both Putin and Musk were instrumental in getting the Felon re-elected against all odds. Now he's their plaything. There's a nasty little threesome going on in the Oval Office and guess which one is bending over????
I think the shortest way to get our country back from Trump The Terrorist and his gang
of thugs, IS TO IMPEACH him for the third time. As they say, THE THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM!
I am not surprised by Senate Leader Thune's willingness to wait and do nothing while the cancerous catastrophe morphs into a political orgy of no-return and permanent damage. This is because recent past history of the Republican Party's concern about America and its future is always trumped by their concern over keeping themselves gainfully employed. (No Putin Intended, I swear!)( Ah, I mean, no pun intended!) (Oh yeah, and I swear to this ,too!)
What the now leader of the senate is proposing to do, is sit and wait, ever vigilantly, while their dear old drunk dad runs over every citizen in town. Now how much sense does this make?
Republicans need to turn their backbones, now made of limp shelf-expired miniature marshmallows, into American Made Steel, like the kind that came from Pittsburgh.
Let me finish by stating the obvious. Some cancers come four or five stages. Trump is just a continuing one stage cancer that can bring death at anytime. Think about it! Congress needs to check Trump and his sun-glassed juvenile delinquent, Musk, RIGHT NOW!
Impeach him? How? With what? Both hands and a dictionary? A Busby Berkley dance routine? Stern facial expressions?
Are we hoping that public opinion may turn and MAGA will to lose control of the House in the next "election"?
Take a look at the so-called SAVE act and note its purpose. Consider that it contradicts itself and creates a crime -- failing to ensure that each and every voter registration is letter perfect as to documentation requirements that are physically impossible to meet even for the most willing and enthusiastic MAGA biased voting official.
Consider that said "crime" is a blatantly specious pretense for the MAGA captured FBI /DOJ to "investigate" (a.k.a. persecute, intimidate, and where desired bankrupt) election officials, not only during elections, but for each and every voter registration and re-registration.
Consider that said "crime" further creates a pretense for the sort of B.S. lawsuits challenging outcomes in whatever federal election district the AG chooses, perfecting the fraud of massive election fraud. That said legal B.S. and fraud hysteria give the current majority the excuse needed to refuse to seat however many Democrats (and perhaps even doubtful Republicans, if any) needed to sustain the MAGA majority.
And all this -- very possibly, and I suspect even probably -- in an national atmosphere of death threats, physical and legal intimidation, and maybe even active violence by an unleashed network of MAGA squadristi.
I'm afraid we'll see the US House issue a resolution condemning the Pope for DEI offenses before we will see Donald Trump impeached again. Actually I believe the Veep may already have led the way in this regard.
Your response I find lacking in common sense! Trump has already committed impeachable acts in his current term. He is repeatedly breaking laws in his actions regarding such institutions as USAID, FBI/CIA, immigration, Department of Agriculture etc, and people will be dying because of it.
It sounds to me that your response is no different than some of Trump's fellow Republicans. You want to let fear and disgust of his actions make you run for the hills looking for a place to hide. Trump is a spoiled rotten brat that never grew-up and always has gotten what he wants. Well, last time I checked the Constitution, it did not make presidents kings! As President George Bush once said that in situations like this you don't just ".... cut and run!" But, this seems to me to be what you are inferring. I say Republicans and Democrats get together NOW and formulate a plan for checking Trump behavior! In other words, read him the Riot Act and then if he does not conform, then impeachment is straight ahead. Because if we do nothing but run away, as it appears you suggest, the country will get to a breaking point, wherein things will get much tougher to do. Don't think for a moment that congressional Republicans are unconcerned, because they are. This because what Trump and Musk are doing will lead to financial ruin and that will include some members of Congress, because everything is connected and what may now seem like a problem for the indigent and working poor, is in reality a looming problem for everyone and their families. This country needs to stabilize itself. It is long over due that Trump is given a final and ultimate message that ever change or we will get rid of you!
His behavior is endangering every American citizen like it or not! That is the reality of this situation
Some steps that follow from this switch to ally with one of our main enemies:
-- business deals made by Trump enterprises with Russia, likely including a Trump tower in Moscow (and perhaps some new Musk deals)
-- reread the Mueller Report and ask again is Trump a Russian operative?
-- think again about how to analyze all the government destruction that is now occurring -one interpretation is the destruction of the so-called deep state; another is the far right total destruction of the state to create a new authoritarian ruler; but another explanation could be the dismantling of most of our security agencies, of our diplomatic and foreign services and assistance programs, and soon of our military (when the purges of the generals occur) all for one purpose - to make us a client of Russia. This latter reads like a dream list to accomplish a plan Putin only dreamed of implementing. Make America Grovel Again
A question for the community here for which I have no answer: What can be done to get important basic facts to the citizens inside the protective Fox News (etc.) bubble? At this moment, Fox News hasn't even reported what the Trump and his people have said in the past couple days concerning President Zelensky, Ukraine, Russia, Europe and our national security and world order. Every other legit outlet has. The Fox News website at this writing is covering everything except what Trump and others have said.
Of course, most of the administration's statements are obvious lies as well as damaging to our national security and world order, and overwhelmingly against public opinion to boot. The raw words are incapable of slanting. Perhaps that's why Fox and similar outlets are burying them.
This is nothing new. For example, Fox covered the Oath Keepers J6 trial right up until the case went to the jury. However, the Fox website never reported the jury's seditious conspiracy convictions for Rhodes and Meggs or other felony convictions in the case. Fox's audience may yet not know that J6 defendants were guilty of participating in an insurrection, which helped Trump to pardon, commute and otherwise whitewash the shameful traitorous conduct.
All the while, those in the info bubble remain blissfully ignorant of damning shameful information. Any thoughts on how they can be reached?
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated in response to Trump’s attack on Zelensky. “Trump is 200 percent right.”
Those who have the stomach for MAGA lies and slander should scroll over to Bari Weiss's "The Free Press" and read the comments about the piece titled "Niall Ferguson: J.D. Vance’s Fighting Words—Against Me and Ukraine."
A few defend Ferguson and Zelensky, but most commenters are all in on Putin's talking points and just about every loony conspiracy theory concerning Ukraine that has ever been hatched. https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-jd-vances-fighting
How to reach the captives inside the Fox-MAGA info bubble? Well, we know that social media killed the quaint marketplace of ideas, so trying to shout over Fox et al. in an effort to flood those deplorables with better quality information won't work.
Fox et al. will need to be turned off on the grounds they're an active and clear and present threat to our democracy.
Alas, no one whose opinion carries any weight in these matters is willing to take the position that demonstrable lies should be stripped of their undeserved status as constitutionally protected political speech.
It may be necessary to wait for the death of America's liar-in-chief for the spell that has held so many tens of millions enslaved to the big lie and its countless progeny to break.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what he sees (not without some reason) as the folly of how we have taxed, borrowed, and spent, that he can't permit himself to acknowledge what is directly before him. Hence his patently ridiculous statement that until last week the Trump team was striking "exactly the right tone." A species and degree of foolishness that only a really intelligent person could fall into. A comparable assessment in 1939 would be that until Hitler invaded Poland, he was striking exactly the right tone.
What is the biblical verse about motes and beams in the eye? The anti-antis trap themselves in a box of mirrors of their own construction. They loathe what they call "the Left" with a disgust beyond the power of reason to control. So much so that, whatever is not "the Left"--- however mendacious and corrupt its adherents are, and however depraved and vile its collective conduct is, and however disasterous the consequences of its actions-- it simply has to be endurable in preference to its opposite.
The MAGA hatred of Ukraine is an example of a conspiratorial mindset. The facts of the case are abundantly, unambiguously clear - but MAGAs are steeped in a mythology of "THEY are hiding the truth from you! It's really the opposite of what THEY want you to believe!"
It's the same mentality that set out to find an inverse reality beneath the obvious fact that Trump incited his followers to wage war against the Capitol police because he wouldn't accept that he lost an election.
Yes. Remember early in Trump's first presidency, he told everyone not to believe our eyes and ears. MAGA selectively has taken that to heart, so even when they can't avoid seeing and hearing undeniable facts such as for J6 they deny them anyway in furtherance of the conspiratorial lies..
It's not hard to see why they're demanding an election in Ukraine as a prerequisite for negotiations. Zelensky has proven to be a stronger leader than anyone had expected. And he is refusing here to be rolled. They need a Putin crafted pseudo election to get a pliant Putin puppet in there. To make the deal go right for Russia. And Donald, of course, by extension.
King Donald quashed Hochul's hard-fought congestion pricing, but I loved her shot back across his bow "see you in court." This court proceeding, however, may have to wait in line. Until the Eric Adams DOJ dust up has concluded.
Not to mention that the calculations in purported savings do not take into account any criteria for the decisions made or more importantly the destructive, intended and unintended consequences of these cuts. If the cost of addressing cancer, for example, in the near-term or the long-term,in financial or human terms is greater then they have accomplished worse than nothing. Anyone who has been part of corporate “right sizing” knows that blanket cuts damage rather than improve results, but then I don’t suppose that’s their real agenda.
Very clever and apposite. However a famous quote comes to mind when considering the relative capabilities and acumen of Valdimir and Donald. From history we know Putin, and Donald, you are no Putin.
That's right Thune, let the fire spread and then try to put it out! Good luck with that. Reminder, fire does not discriminate it destroys all in its path. That includes you!
Re: NYC congestion pricing coup. Good for Kathy Hochul to sue. This is a New York State matter, and the federal government has no authority to interfere. Snow the Orange Man under with legit lawsuits like this one.
I continue to think that one of the major problems with people is that they don’t think of raising up those around them as well as themselves to a higher level, they just think that they will tear others down to their lowly level. “Why does he make $5 an hour more than I do? He should make what I do!” Never an issue with trying to make sure he gets the extra $5.
The Rs will kill that in a minute. Hell, they've already voted for Patel, Tulsi and God knows how many Putin stooges. Until POS hurts their base, they're all in on treason.
I think that the AP should not only stick to their guns regarding the Gulf of Mexico, but start reporting on what the rest of the world sees now - the United States of South-Eastern Russia led by co-Governers Musk & Trump lol. Putin must be the happiest he's ever been, having an American President doing all his work, who was actually elected by the American people! It has to be beyond his wildest dreams that Americans would do this to themselves.
If there actually were a Deep State, now would be the time for it to act in ways only a James Bond screenplay writer could imagine. But, alas, all we have are loyal, competent public servants who have been locked out of their email.
Both Putin and Musk were instrumental in getting the Felon re-elected against all odds. Now he's their plaything. There's a nasty little threesome going on in the Oval Office and guess which one is bending over????
I think the shortest way to get our country back from Trump The Terrorist and his gang
of thugs, IS TO IMPEACH him for the third time. As they say, THE THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM!
I am not surprised by Senate Leader Thune's willingness to wait and do nothing while the cancerous catastrophe morphs into a political orgy of no-return and permanent damage. This is because recent past history of the Republican Party's concern about America and its future is always trumped by their concern over keeping themselves gainfully employed. (No Putin Intended, I swear!)( Ah, I mean, no pun intended!) (Oh yeah, and I swear to this ,too!)
What the now leader of the senate is proposing to do, is sit and wait, ever vigilantly, while their dear old drunk dad runs over every citizen in town. Now how much sense does this make?
Republicans need to turn their backbones, now made of limp shelf-expired miniature marshmallows, into American Made Steel, like the kind that came from Pittsburgh.
Let me finish by stating the obvious. Some cancers come four or five stages. Trump is just a continuing one stage cancer that can bring death at anytime. Think about it! Congress needs to check Trump and his sun-glassed juvenile delinquent, Musk, RIGHT NOW!
Impeach him? How? With what? Both hands and a dictionary? A Busby Berkley dance routine? Stern facial expressions?
Are we hoping that public opinion may turn and MAGA will to lose control of the House in the next "election"?
Take a look at the so-called SAVE act and note its purpose. Consider that it contradicts itself and creates a crime -- failing to ensure that each and every voter registration is letter perfect as to documentation requirements that are physically impossible to meet even for the most willing and enthusiastic MAGA biased voting official.
Consider that said "crime" is a blatantly specious pretense for the MAGA captured FBI /DOJ to "investigate" (a.k.a. persecute, intimidate, and where desired bankrupt) election officials, not only during elections, but for each and every voter registration and re-registration.
Consider that said "crime" further creates a pretense for the sort of B.S. lawsuits challenging outcomes in whatever federal election district the AG chooses, perfecting the fraud of massive election fraud. That said legal B.S. and fraud hysteria give the current majority the excuse needed to refuse to seat however many Democrats (and perhaps even doubtful Republicans, if any) needed to sustain the MAGA majority.
And all this -- very possibly, and I suspect even probably -- in an national atmosphere of death threats, physical and legal intimidation, and maybe even active violence by an unleashed network of MAGA squadristi.
I'm afraid we'll see the US House issue a resolution condemning the Pope for DEI offenses before we will see Donald Trump impeached again. Actually I believe the Veep may already have led the way in this regard.
Your response I find lacking in common sense! Trump has already committed impeachable acts in his current term. He is repeatedly breaking laws in his actions regarding such institutions as USAID, FBI/CIA, immigration, Department of Agriculture etc, and people will be dying because of it.
It sounds to me that your response is no different than some of Trump's fellow Republicans. You want to let fear and disgust of his actions make you run for the hills looking for a place to hide. Trump is a spoiled rotten brat that never grew-up and always has gotten what he wants. Well, last time I checked the Constitution, it did not make presidents kings! As President George Bush once said that in situations like this you don't just ".... cut and run!" But, this seems to me to be what you are inferring. I say Republicans and Democrats get together NOW and formulate a plan for checking Trump behavior! In other words, read him the Riot Act and then if he does not conform, then impeachment is straight ahead. Because if we do nothing but run away, as it appears you suggest, the country will get to a breaking point, wherein things will get much tougher to do. Don't think for a moment that congressional Republicans are unconcerned, because they are. This because what Trump and Musk are doing will lead to financial ruin and that will include some members of Congress, because everything is connected and what may now seem like a problem for the indigent and working poor, is in reality a looming problem for everyone and their families. This country needs to stabilize itself. It is long over due that Trump is given a final and ultimate message that ever change or we will get rid of you!
His behavior is endangering every American citizen like it or not! That is the reality of this situation
If Putin wrote a script for Trump would he say anything differently?
Some steps that follow from this switch to ally with one of our main enemies:
-- business deals made by Trump enterprises with Russia, likely including a Trump tower in Moscow (and perhaps some new Musk deals)
-- reread the Mueller Report and ask again is Trump a Russian operative?
-- think again about how to analyze all the government destruction that is now occurring -one interpretation is the destruction of the so-called deep state; another is the far right total destruction of the state to create a new authoritarian ruler; but another explanation could be the dismantling of most of our security agencies, of our diplomatic and foreign services and assistance programs, and soon of our military (when the purges of the generals occur) all for one purpose - to make us a client of Russia. This latter reads like a dream list to accomplish a plan Putin only dreamed of implementing. Make America Grovel Again
Look, the only reason we had WWII was Poland's stupid decision to invade itself.
A question for the community here for which I have no answer: What can be done to get important basic facts to the citizens inside the protective Fox News (etc.) bubble? At this moment, Fox News hasn't even reported what the Trump and his people have said in the past couple days concerning President Zelensky, Ukraine, Russia, Europe and our national security and world order. Every other legit outlet has. The Fox News website at this writing is covering everything except what Trump and others have said.
Of course, most of the administration's statements are obvious lies as well as damaging to our national security and world order, and overwhelmingly against public opinion to boot. The raw words are incapable of slanting. Perhaps that's why Fox and similar outlets are burying them.
This is nothing new. For example, Fox covered the Oath Keepers J6 trial right up until the case went to the jury. However, the Fox website never reported the jury's seditious conspiracy convictions for Rhodes and Meggs or other felony convictions in the case. Fox's audience may yet not know that J6 defendants were guilty of participating in an insurrection, which helped Trump to pardon, commute and otherwise whitewash the shameful traitorous conduct.
All the while, those in the info bubble remain blissfully ignorant of damning shameful information. Any thoughts on how they can be reached?
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gloated in response to Trump’s attack on Zelensky. “Trump is 200 percent right.”
Those who have the stomach for MAGA lies and slander should scroll over to Bari Weiss's "The Free Press" and read the comments about the piece titled "Niall Ferguson: J.D. Vance’s Fighting Words—Against Me and Ukraine."
A few defend Ferguson and Zelensky, but most commenters are all in on Putin's talking points and just about every loony conspiracy theory concerning Ukraine that has ever been hatched. https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-jd-vances-fighting
How to reach the captives inside the Fox-MAGA info bubble? Well, we know that social media killed the quaint marketplace of ideas, so trying to shout over Fox et al. in an effort to flood those deplorables with better quality information won't work.
Fox et al. will need to be turned off on the grounds they're an active and clear and present threat to our democracy.
Alas, no one whose opinion carries any weight in these matters is willing to take the position that demonstrable lies should be stripped of their undeserved status as constitutionally protected political speech.
It may be necessary to wait for the death of America's liar-in-chief for the spell that has held so many tens of millions enslaved to the big lie and its countless progeny to break.
I read the Niall Ferguson piece and have read several of his books. He is a perfect example of someone who should know better about Trump, MAGA, and the world-wide fascist movement, but I think fundamentally has such an aversive reaction to the stupidities to which democracy is inevitably prone, and a seriously intense contempt for what he sees (not without some reason) as the folly of how we have taxed, borrowed, and spent, that he can't permit himself to acknowledge what is directly before him. Hence his patently ridiculous statement that until last week the Trump team was striking "exactly the right tone." A species and degree of foolishness that only a really intelligent person could fall into. A comparable assessment in 1939 would be that until Hitler invaded Poland, he was striking exactly the right tone.
What is the biblical verse about motes and beams in the eye? The anti-antis trap themselves in a box of mirrors of their own construction. They loathe what they call "the Left" with a disgust beyond the power of reason to control. So much so that, whatever is not "the Left"--- however mendacious and corrupt its adherents are, and however depraved and vile its collective conduct is, and however disasterous the consequences of its actions-- it simply has to be endurable in preference to its opposite.
The MAGA hatred of Ukraine is an example of a conspiratorial mindset. The facts of the case are abundantly, unambiguously clear - but MAGAs are steeped in a mythology of "THEY are hiding the truth from you! It's really the opposite of what THEY want you to believe!"
It's the same mentality that set out to find an inverse reality beneath the obvious fact that Trump incited his followers to wage war against the Capitol police because he wouldn't accept that he lost an election.
Yes. Remember early in Trump's first presidency, he told everyone not to believe our eyes and ears. MAGA selectively has taken that to heart, so even when they can't avoid seeing and hearing undeniable facts such as for J6 they deny them anyway in furtherance of the conspiratorial lies..
Sadly, I think that you're right about all of that, and I'll make sure to read the comments to that piece after steeling myself.
Thanks for the response even if it can't offer a solution to the insulated lies and untruths in the bubble.
Trump is being played by Putin. Trump doesn't realize that there's no empty beachfront property in Russia.
There is plenty of beachfront potential on the North shore of the Baltic. All they need to do is clear off the current owners.
So Putin didn't capture the parts of the Crimea that were the coveted vacation destinations of the Soviet elite? Tsk tsk.
It's not hard to see why they're demanding an election in Ukraine as a prerequisite for negotiations. Zelensky has proven to be a stronger leader than anyone had expected. And he is refusing here to be rolled. They need a Putin crafted pseudo election to get a pliant Putin puppet in there. To make the deal go right for Russia. And Donald, of course, by extension.
King Donald quashed Hochul's hard-fought congestion pricing, but I loved her shot back across his bow "see you in court." This court proceeding, however, may have to wait in line. Until the Eric Adams DOJ dust up has concluded.
Congestion must not be as bad when you ride in a limo. Or helicopter.
Congestion pricing is a market based solution to gridlock. The alternative would be more highways.
Not to mention that the calculations in purported savings do not take into account any criteria for the decisions made or more importantly the destructive, intended and unintended consequences of these cuts. If the cost of addressing cancer, for example, in the near-term or the long-term,in financial or human terms is greater then they have accomplished worse than nothing. Anyone who has been part of corporate “right sizing” knows that blanket cuts damage rather than improve results, but then I don’t suppose that’s their real agenda.
POTUS now stands for Putin Of The United States!
Very clever and apposite. However a famous quote comes to mind when considering the relative capabilities and acumen of Valdimir and Donald. From history we know Putin, and Donald, you are no Putin.
That's right Thune, let the fire spread and then try to put it out! Good luck with that. Reminder, fire does not discriminate it destroys all in its path. That includes you!
Re: NYC congestion pricing coup. Good for Kathy Hochul to sue. This is a New York State matter, and the federal government has no authority to interfere. Snow the Orange Man under with legit lawsuits like this one.
I continue to think that one of the major problems with people is that they don’t think of raising up those around them as well as themselves to a higher level, they just think that they will tear others down to their lowly level. “Why does he make $5 an hour more than I do? He should make what I do!” Never an issue with trying to make sure he gets the extra $5.
We’re only a month into Trump’s second and he’s on his way to a third impeachment. I’m really starting to believe that Trump just isn’t that smart.
Never going to happen.
The Rs will kill that in a minute. Hell, they've already voted for Patel, Tulsi and God knows how many Putin stooges. Until POS hurts their base, they're all in on treason.
I should have been more specific, I mean when the Dems win Congress in ‘28
We may have elections in 2026. Not sure about 2028. I think you meant '26. :-)