The first step to defending against what’s coming is to understand it well. That’s the stage we are in now. It’s imperative that we acknowledge the danger before we can counter it.
Become an informed resister. This is a long fight we have ahead.
These people are not brought in to serve the people with better education, healthcare, etc. that is for sure. They are to follow the orders that will tear down and move money. What to do is to communicate effectively what the policies are costing people otherwise they won’t care.
They are brought in to destroy the constitutional nation of the United States, and turn it into a lawless land where criminals rule (like the mob), and everyone has to know someone to get anything done. Droves will die. This is the beginning of the end of the United States Superpower. It will be replaced by China.
All you said, Linda, is what I think and have been saying. A friend whose mom is not well and Medicare and Social Security dependent is younger than my nearly 78 and they discussed the other night. Yes, the deaths either intentionally or for lack of ability to afford medical care will be great - of children, of seniors and others. The shrug for what were Constitutional "fundamentals" (on what will the "Originalists" rely??) and rules of law are gone. IF, and this is a big fear, recess appointments are made, there will be nothing left. Why not the House and Senate just rubber stamp it all and go home for the year - or until the Midterms when I am bound and determined to change what we can.
Please remember, trump is in the throes of dementia. It's difficult to ascertain given the smoke and mirror show of his appointees, but he is NOT WELL folks. We need to push for a physical exam other than Ronald McDonald Jackson.
Hiring people like this will have the effect of causing many career professionals to leave government service. Still another part of Project 2025’s plan.
That too has been said about forcing return to office or moves. And DC's budget is falling by the minute and will worsen by so much leaving more people unhoused, without care of any kind. The orange putz hates DC - thinks it is dirty and tho' he's not called us "garbage" he may as well have done what his comedian did about PR. He thought it was bad? I can't even begin to know what next.
The strategy for countering a government of liars is not fact checking. Fact checking debates do not change the minds of anyone. Rather, we need to focus on the prices that people are asked to pay - their insurance bills, their utility bills, the prices they pay at the grocery and in restaurants, their credit card fees, etc. All of these are set based on profit motive, not ideology. They aren't "facts." They are daily reality that can't be debated. The Lyin' Secretaries can say whatever they want and blow things up all they want, but at the end of the month people will look at their paychecks and bills and get a solid understanding of what's actually going on.
You’re right, though I would add this concern: if trump declares an emergency to use the military for mass deportations (and fires or pushes out respected generals as he plans), then he will continue to use “his” military against any protests or uprisings spawned by angry citizens over their paychecks. It’s classic dictatorship strategy. I truly fear the republic is dead.
Oh yes, Karen. I thought about Inauguration and what I'm sure will be counter-(to militias and him) protestors who will, like he tried w/ the upside down Bible and police on horses during the BLM protests, be no doubt killed or injured horribly.
One interesting idea that a friend of mine came up with would be for all of us to buy MAGA hats and wear them at public protests. It's legal to do so. How would law enforcement know who to shoot at? It's a branch of an approach known as "civil obedience" - obeying the law in a disruptive way.
FIRST the planned deportations of 100k. The disruption to lives - I'd go into hiding now in a sanctuary city until SCOTUS disallows them but then what will happen to "states' rights"? - and the economy will be enormous. It is stunning to me that people just don't understand what newer immigrants add to our lives. The DACA and TPS recipients, the green card holders, among whom are medical professionals. Even like Japanese Americans in WWII, I fear, suspected citizens who some arbitrary "decider" says aren't really citizens or "shrug, who cares?" will be at risk.
AND the illnesses that close schools once the anti-vaxers move in and mandate. Then anyone on Medicaid and Medicare ....
Anger fuels my drive. I need to sustain anger v. sadness. How are you doing it, Jerry?
The suggestion I have been bruiting around Substack is, when the unavoidable reality of higher prices and fewer jobs, etc, hits the trump voters (not all of whom were bedazzled MAGAts), our response should NOT be "I told you so." We should encourage such people to write letters to the red legislators they also voted for, bitching loud.
The idea is to maybe let those legislators grow a spine in hopes of keeping even worse policies from being enacted. Everything from the price of eggs, or TVS, or phones to complaints that with only two TSA workers or air traffic controllers at the airport, they missed their plane and/or had to turn back in midair due to a credible bomb threat. Or their insulin has indeed returned to 2019 prices. We can all draft the letters for them, depending on the gripe, because we can see the gripe coming.
Back in 1961 I took my very first jet flight to LA. We touched down and then immediately took off, and looking out the window I saw another, non-jet, plane landing right under us. But yes, lets fire all those elite and unloyal experts who keep this stuff from happening and return to the good old days.
I so wish letter writing would work like it used to. But thanks to Leonard Leo, and a handful of other billionaires who stacked the court with federalist society appointees, Scotus has legalized the de facto bribery of Congress under Citizens United Law. In short, between bribes and bullying, who knows how much letters will help.
I don't disagree, especially regarding the utility of fact checking. AND I don't put it past a cabinet of people who look good while lying to find some convenient scapegoat - see DEI, trans people, and the general umbrella of Woke. To put it politely many MAGA are credulous and have a cultivated mistrust of experts, perfectly primed to buy whatever lie they have to sell.
It will not matter. It is over. The Democrats, like Jews, Tutsis, etc will be blamed for any such problems. The folks that follow trump DO NOT read, it is too complicated, trump, Fox, Gabbard et.al. are simple to understand. Truth fucks up their to blame anyone but their own choices. The coal mines died because of many reasons but instead of doing the complicated and redoing oneself it was easier to get angry at brown immigrants. It is over the stupid now rule and reading be damned!
Let’s start using this, or not: I’m sure people realize when you’re hired at McDonalds as a mopping specialist, your first promotion probably would be to wiping counters and tables, not manager. But here we are.
Of course these nominations—all of them—make sense if the end goal is to blow up our government. No matter what the collateral damage might be. The question is, what do we do to thwart their ability to carry out their mission?
Take care of yourself first. Sherrilyn Ifill put together this reasonable and thoughtful list:
To protect ourselves and our loved ones, there are also pragmatic things we must do. I’ve thought of a few:
• Save some cash. And keep enough in the house for gas and food for a week.
• Let yourself imagine what you would do if you lost your job in terms of finding new employment, paying rent/mortgage for several months, and start building what you need to be able to meet that moment if it comes.
• Get needed vaccinations in case new HHS policies result in changes or delays in their development or availability. Stock up on COVID tests and get the most recent COVID booster. Purchase Plan B if it’s available in your area.
• Think about tightening security on your electronic devices. Be more thoughtful about social media, and even return to making phone calls and writing letters in some instances. I know it’s old school, but actually memorize the phone numbers of at least two loved ones.
• Gird yourself spiritually, through your faith or other meditative practices, as we are all likely to hear or confront many disturbing and ugly interactions. Experience art, go on walks, dance, play Spades, Dominoes, Scrabble. We need resilience.
• Walk away when you need to walk away. Challenge when you need to. Try to always have back up.
• Take the bystander training offered by groups https://righttobe.org/ so that when you see outrages committed against members of your community or against strangers, you will have practice in how you might intervene or respond.
• Get an online subscription to a news service from another country so that you have a reliable sense of what’s going on in the world, and how this country is being perceived.
• Are your taxes paid, or more importantly, filed?
• Is your passport up-to-date?
• If you have money to give – then give to your local library, the food pantry, homelessness services. But also give to cultural institutions. Get a library card and a membership to a museum. Give to organizations working to hold back the worst that this administration may dish out – the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU, the National Women’s Law Center, and so many others.
Thank you. She's brilliant and this is a huge help.
I don't know if they can 'hold back' the worst - I do know I need to re-up with Americans United esp after OK and what TX plans. OK is worse w/ worshipping him via "his" bible. https://www.au.org/
He has convinced his followers that blowing up the Government is what needs to happen. That's what can't be countered because they're excited about it.
Of course he has! And the nominees are on board with it, too. So that's what we need to push back on as hard as we can in as many arenas as we can--to at least limit the damage.
Try writing to your congressperson, your senator and Kamala Harris to request a recount in every purple state for the presidential election. Also demand a check on voters' identities on bullet ballots to see if dead or nonexistent people voted.
I think they are dangling these insipid choices in front of the drooling masses so they can hide the real destroyers under the radar, so to speak. Some or all may make it through confirmation, but I doubt they will be the ones actually wielding the power. They are all little Trojan horses.
I think you right. These clowns will be ones in front speaking to the media, the propagandists.They are Trump’s useful idiots. It is the Assistant Secretaries that we will have to watch too. The ones who know what and how to destroy their departments.
Do you think, @Michael Stayton and @Kathy P., there won't be a recess for him to do as he wants? Or an emergency that he creates that forces Biden to call it? I've not followed news all day (work 'gets in the way') - did the Gaetz ethics report make it to others than the Committee and leaker?
I wish other than a card of thanks for so long a career in public service, I could tell Joe Biden more - how to leave office and be blamed for the election AND see your life's work in service undone. I cannot imagine how he must feel. How Sherrod Brown must feel.
I truly don't know, but the possibility is very strong. Trump's Little Johnson has signaled he'd be willing to recess to allow the nominations to go forward unhindered. And now that the Gaetz question is resolved for now (he withdrew his nomination), Hegseth is next on the block.
As I read this, the first thing I thought to do is ask all my trans friends and family to push me in my wheelchair to the Hill and find restrooms to use for us all. Any spec yet of whose name next for AG? One of his personal lawyers that were named under-AGs? Do you think Hegseth will withdraw when he sees how low the salary is?
Thank you, Jay. I’m to the point of laughing hysterically because just when I think it couldn’t get any worse—it does! And seeing a picture of Mike Johnson joining the other over-dressed idiots at the UFC cage match makes me wonder what his church brethren are praying for these days. OMG
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse? It's been getting worse for years. Even with Joe and Kamala in the WH, effing Trump was there, making it worse all the time, every day.
This is just the beginning, and, yes, he will get all of these people installed. The GQP will cave in the end. Once they are in place he will start removing objective bureaucrats working in the government with loyalists. Even democrats are bending the knee; Hakeem Jefferies has pledged to find "common ground;" Cory Booker is open to RFJ jr. running the HHS; and the media is already normalizing trump out of concern for their careers. Eventually the media will completely turn on democrats/liberals.
There IS NO COMMON GROUND. Period. Case closed. Why all the obeying in advance? Why try to 'make nice' with THE biggest bully - far worse than any others?
Here is Dr. Oz in a grocery store showing his sensitivity to common folk in PA when he ran for the U.S. Senate—crudités are usually raw vegetables served with dips as an appetizer:
I imagine "Good Vivek" (the current SG to distinguish him from "Really Bad Vivek" the new DOGE co-crazy) is bereft at how his good work could all disappear. And with it, many of us.
Thanks Jay Kuo. You nailed it with facts. We are in serious trouble. I just read that in Montana ballots were sent to wrong precincts and even different states by mail. Under DeJoy the post office is under attack. Mail in ballots are excellent.
Indianans are acting against what appears there to be ballot irregularity. I don't think the Dems - given comments here about Booker and Jeffires at least - and hasn't Schumer been silent? - will do anything.
I don’t think reading your (or any) column these days will reduce anyone’s anxiety since every word of this post, for instance, is terrifying. Some of us want to see what’s coming while others want to stay in denial for as long as possible because this reality is horrifying for any thinking person.
There are two kinds of stress. There is distress, which can be debilitating. It’s when your mind and body can’t handle what they’re being bombarded with.
There’s also eustress, however, which is the pumped up feeling you have when you feel prepared to take on a challenge.
My goal is to help inform so that we see and believe we can push back against what’s headed our way. Stress can be channeled into powerful and effective responses.
For me, this is more eustress that enrages me to action. I tried numbness for 2 days; then fantasy that I was dreaming and Kamala was President and I envisioned crowds larger and even happier than when Obama was first inaugurated; then tears - Connie Schultz's substack about Sherrod finally released sobs - and now RAGE which for me is eustress. THANK YOU for keeping us well-informed w/ explanations.
I'm in both places - not exactly denial but wanting to not know AND rage that is what always makes me act in ways I can. Will it kill me? Dunno. I hope not. Or if it does try, now before Medicare changes under a scam doctor and a greater scam, over-tanned (appears real not make-up) head of HHS.
“So what do we do?” many ask.
The first step to defending against what’s coming is to understand it well. That’s the stage we are in now. It’s imperative that we acknowledge the danger before we can counter it.
Become an informed resister. This is a long fight we have ahead.
These people are not brought in to serve the people with better education, healthcare, etc. that is for sure. They are to follow the orders that will tear down and move money. What to do is to communicate effectively what the policies are costing people otherwise they won’t care.
They are brought in to destroy the constitutional nation of the United States, and turn it into a lawless land where criminals rule (like the mob), and everyone has to know someone to get anything done. Droves will die. This is the beginning of the end of the United States Superpower. It will be replaced by China.
The billionaires will survive, they think, so they really don't care about maintaining this country as is.
Of course. They are betting that they can buy access and if not, they can afford to go somewhere else where they can.
All you said, Linda, is what I think and have been saying. A friend whose mom is not well and Medicare and Social Security dependent is younger than my nearly 78 and they discussed the other night. Yes, the deaths either intentionally or for lack of ability to afford medical care will be great - of children, of seniors and others. The shrug for what were Constitutional "fundamentals" (on what will the "Originalists" rely??) and rules of law are gone. IF, and this is a big fear, recess appointments are made, there will be nothing left. Why not the House and Senate just rubber stamp it all and go home for the year - or until the Midterms when I am bound and determined to change what we can.
You are assuming there will still be elections.
You need to own a media outlet to get your message out. He who owns the media, owns the people.
You don’t need to own the media if you have the power to threaten to close them.
Please remember, trump is in the throes of dementia. It's difficult to ascertain given the smoke and mirror show of his appointees, but he is NOT WELL folks. We need to push for a physical exam other than Ronald McDonald Jackson.
Hiring people like this will have the effect of causing many career professionals to leave government service. Still another part of Project 2025’s plan.
That too has been said about forcing return to office or moves. And DC's budget is falling by the minute and will worsen by so much leaving more people unhoused, without care of any kind. The orange putz hates DC - thinks it is dirty and tho' he's not called us "garbage" he may as well have done what his comedian did about PR. He thought it was bad? I can't even begin to know what next.
The strategy for countering a government of liars is not fact checking. Fact checking debates do not change the minds of anyone. Rather, we need to focus on the prices that people are asked to pay - their insurance bills, their utility bills, the prices they pay at the grocery and in restaurants, their credit card fees, etc. All of these are set based on profit motive, not ideology. They aren't "facts." They are daily reality that can't be debated. The Lyin' Secretaries can say whatever they want and blow things up all they want, but at the end of the month people will look at their paychecks and bills and get a solid understanding of what's actually going on.
You’re right, though I would add this concern: if trump declares an emergency to use the military for mass deportations (and fires or pushes out respected generals as he plans), then he will continue to use “his” military against any protests or uprisings spawned by angry citizens over their paychecks. It’s classic dictatorship strategy. I truly fear the republic is dead.
Exactly my thoughts. Would he ever rescind an "emergency declaration" or would it continue forever?
Oh yes, Karen. I thought about Inauguration and what I'm sure will be counter-(to militias and him) protestors who will, like he tried w/ the upside down Bible and police on horses during the BLM protests, be no doubt killed or injured horribly.
One interesting idea that a friend of mine came up with would be for all of us to buy MAGA hats and wear them at public protests. It's legal to do so. How would law enforcement know who to shoot at? It's a branch of an approach known as "civil obedience" - obeying the law in a disruptive way.
Brilliant. Thank you.
FIRST the planned deportations of 100k. The disruption to lives - I'd go into hiding now in a sanctuary city until SCOTUS disallows them but then what will happen to "states' rights"? - and the economy will be enormous. It is stunning to me that people just don't understand what newer immigrants add to our lives. The DACA and TPS recipients, the green card holders, among whom are medical professionals. Even like Japanese Americans in WWII, I fear, suspected citizens who some arbitrary "decider" says aren't really citizens or "shrug, who cares?" will be at risk.
AND the illnesses that close schools once the anti-vaxers move in and mandate. Then anyone on Medicaid and Medicare ....
Anger fuels my drive. I need to sustain anger v. sadness. How are you doing it, Jerry?
The suggestion I have been bruiting around Substack is, when the unavoidable reality of higher prices and fewer jobs, etc, hits the trump voters (not all of whom were bedazzled MAGAts), our response should NOT be "I told you so." We should encourage such people to write letters to the red legislators they also voted for, bitching loud.
The idea is to maybe let those legislators grow a spine in hopes of keeping even worse policies from being enacted. Everything from the price of eggs, or TVS, or phones to complaints that with only two TSA workers or air traffic controllers at the airport, they missed their plane and/or had to turn back in midair due to a credible bomb threat. Or their insulin has indeed returned to 2019 prices. We can all draft the letters for them, depending on the gripe, because we can see the gripe coming.
Back in 1961 I took my very first jet flight to LA. We touched down and then immediately took off, and looking out the window I saw another, non-jet, plane landing right under us. But yes, lets fire all those elite and unloyal experts who keep this stuff from happening and return to the good old days.
I so wish letter writing would work like it used to. But thanks to Leonard Leo, and a handful of other billionaires who stacked the court with federalist society appointees, Scotus has legalized the de facto bribery of Congress under Citizens United Law. In short, between bribes and bullying, who knows how much letters will help.
True. But as long as we don’t know, we shouldn’t give it up.
Yeah, but who will they blame? THAT'S the message to pound.
I don't disagree, especially regarding the utility of fact checking. AND I don't put it past a cabinet of people who look good while lying to find some convenient scapegoat - see DEI, trans people, and the general umbrella of Woke. To put it politely many MAGA are credulous and have a cultivated mistrust of experts, perfectly primed to buy whatever lie they have to sell.
Indeed, nothing is more successful in defeating them than real life evidence of their own failure.
It will not matter. It is over. The Democrats, like Jews, Tutsis, etc will be blamed for any such problems. The folks that follow trump DO NOT read, it is too complicated, trump, Fox, Gabbard et.al. are simple to understand. Truth fucks up their to blame anyone but their own choices. The coal mines died because of many reasons but instead of doing the complicated and redoing oneself it was easier to get angry at brown immigrants. It is over the stupid now rule and reading be damned!
A great summary, Jay; I would also add that as well as being photogenic TV personalities, they're all white, which I'm sure is by design.
A request: can we please stop calling Trump a reality-TV star? Actor is a more appropriate description.
Don't forget some of them are accused sex offenders. Sensing a pattern here.
Prop. He was a prop for the showrunners then, he's a prop for the showrunners now.
And it was always UNreality
A bad actor!
Mehmet Cengiz "Dr." Öz is Turkish-American so probably not white enough for some.
Let’s start using this, or not: I’m sure people realize when you’re hired at McDonalds as a mopping specialist, your first promotion probably would be to wiping counters and tables, not manager. But here we are.
Trump starts picking cabinet:
Four picks have sex scandals.
One is a promoter of faith healing.
One is an end times religious nut.
One is a former pro wrestling performer.
One is a cable news personality.
I think that everything has been said. 🤦♀️
Proud to be a liberal woman, more than ever! Proud to wear this totally unhinged radical liberal t-shirt in front of Republicans 👇
https://libtees-2.creator-spring.com/listing/radlib
Trump spitting in our faces 248 year old Constitutional republic, representative democracy!
"I'm not a doctor, I just play one on television", and since tRump saw him on the tube, that's plenty of "qualification" to oversee CMMS.
Can it get any worse? Wait a day or two and find out.
The very sad thing about Oz is that he *used* to be a respected cardio-thoracic surgeon before fame went to his head.
Thanks to Ophra
Of course these nominations—all of them—make sense if the end goal is to blow up our government. No matter what the collateral damage might be. The question is, what do we do to thwart their ability to carry out their mission?
Take care of yourself first. Sherrilyn Ifill put together this reasonable and thoughtful list:
To protect ourselves and our loved ones, there are also pragmatic things we must do. I’ve thought of a few:
• Save some cash. And keep enough in the house for gas and food for a week.
• Let yourself imagine what you would do if you lost your job in terms of finding new employment, paying rent/mortgage for several months, and start building what you need to be able to meet that moment if it comes.
• Get needed vaccinations in case new HHS policies result in changes or delays in their development or availability. Stock up on COVID tests and get the most recent COVID booster. Purchase Plan B if it’s available in your area.
• Think about tightening security on your electronic devices. Be more thoughtful about social media, and even return to making phone calls and writing letters in some instances. I know it’s old school, but actually memorize the phone numbers of at least two loved ones.
• Gird yourself spiritually, through your faith or other meditative practices, as we are all likely to hear or confront many disturbing and ugly interactions. Experience art, go on walks, dance, play Spades, Dominoes, Scrabble. We need resilience.
• Walk away when you need to walk away. Challenge when you need to. Try to always have back up.
• Take the bystander training offered by groups https://righttobe.org/ so that when you see outrages committed against members of your community or against strangers, you will have practice in how you might intervene or respond.
• Get an online subscription to a news service from another country so that you have a reliable sense of what’s going on in the world, and how this country is being perceived.
• Are your taxes paid, or more importantly, filed?
• Is your passport up-to-date?
• If you have money to give – then give to your local library, the food pantry, homelessness services. But also give to cultural institutions. Get a library card and a membership to a museum. Give to organizations working to hold back the worst that this administration may dish out – the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU, the National Women’s Law Center, and so many others.
Great tips all, thank you. And taking care of oneself is critical if we are to stave off the worst of what's to come.
GREAT thoughts. thank you!
Thank you. She's brilliant and this is a huge help.
I don't know if they can 'hold back' the worst - I do know I need to re-up with Americans United esp after OK and what TX plans. OK is worse w/ worshipping him via "his" bible. https://www.au.org/
Love this. Thank you for sharing.
Do, have done and will do it all. Yes, either it too shall pass or we too shall perish. Not even sure how to feel at times.
He has convinced his followers that blowing up the Government is what needs to happen. That's what can't be countered because they're excited about it.
Of course he has! And the nominees are on board with it, too. So that's what we need to push back on as hard as we can in as many arenas as we can--to at least limit the damage.
Try writing to your congressperson, your senator and Kamala Harris to request a recount in every purple state for the presidential election. Also demand a check on voters' identities on bullet ballots to see if dead or nonexistent people voted.
Yes, but so far there is nothing but silence about this crucial matter from every corner that has any power.
I think they are dangling these insipid choices in front of the drooling masses so they can hide the real destroyers under the radar, so to speak. Some or all may make it through confirmation, but I doubt they will be the ones actually wielding the power. They are all little Trojan horses.
I think you right. These clowns will be ones in front speaking to the media, the propagandists.They are Trump’s useful idiots. It is the Assistant Secretaries that we will have to watch too. The ones who know what and how to destroy their departments.
Do you think, @Michael Stayton and @Kathy P., there won't be a recess for him to do as he wants? Or an emergency that he creates that forces Biden to call it? I've not followed news all day (work 'gets in the way') - did the Gaetz ethics report make it to others than the Committee and leaker?
I wish other than a card of thanks for so long a career in public service, I could tell Joe Biden more - how to leave office and be blamed for the election AND see your life's work in service undone. I cannot imagine how he must feel. How Sherrod Brown must feel.
I truly don't know, but the possibility is very strong. Trump's Little Johnson has signaled he'd be willing to recess to allow the nominations to go forward unhindered. And now that the Gaetz question is resolved for now (he withdrew his nomination), Hegseth is next on the block.
As I read this, the first thing I thought to do is ask all my trans friends and family to push me in my wheelchair to the Hill and find restrooms to use for us all. Any spec yet of whose name next for AG? One of his personal lawyers that were named under-AGs? Do you think Hegseth will withdraw when he sees how low the salary is?
I agree
Yep.
Thank you, Jay. I’m to the point of laughing hysterically because just when I think it couldn’t get any worse—it does! And seeing a picture of Mike Johnson joining the other over-dressed idiots at the UFC cage match makes me wonder what his church brethren are praying for these days. OMG
"makes me wonder what his church brethren are praying for these days" LOL!!!
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse? It's been getting worse for years. Even with Joe and Kamala in the WH, effing Trump was there, making it worse all the time, every day.
“Trump TV will rot your brain,” mothers across the land lament. 😢
This is just the beginning, and, yes, he will get all of these people installed. The GQP will cave in the end. Once they are in place he will start removing objective bureaucrats working in the government with loyalists. Even democrats are bending the knee; Hakeem Jefferies has pledged to find "common ground;" Cory Booker is open to RFJ jr. running the HHS; and the media is already normalizing trump out of concern for their careers. Eventually the media will completely turn on democrats/liberals.
There is no common ground with fascists, and there is nothing normal about 47, or his political minions.
No, whether we like it or not, he will be 47.
As long as Joe Biden doesn't resign before then, making Kamala 47 and Trump (or Vance if Trump's health deteriorates further) 48...
I saw Jeffries on YT last night on Brian Tyler Cohen’s show. I scoffed at the idea of making “common ground” with fascists.
There IS NO COMMON GROUND. Period. Case closed. Why all the obeying in advance? Why try to 'make nice' with THE biggest bully - far worse than any others?
Source for Booker being ok with RKJ please.
Yes! Link?
I’ve read several news articles that some Republicans are not going to confirm his nominees. There is reason for some hope.
Booker is open to RFK Jr
What?!? Surely not!
If one is a New Jersey voter, tell him NO NO NO. My paternal roots are there and I'll be sure to mention it to family. What craziness!
Crudités, anyone?
Laughed heartily. Nicely done.
What are those?
They're what helped Dr. Oz lose his senate election.
Here is Dr. Oz in a grocery store showing his sensitivity to common folk in PA when he ran for the U.S. Senate—crudités are usually raw vegetables served with dips as an appetizer:
https://youtu.be/UTR2PVNOGow?si=1HXOLLWN8wF6mlwu
...which means he has NO clue what it's like to rely on Medicare and Medicaid and try to find help.
I'm waiting for him to appoint "dr" phil...
🥴
Saw Ben Carson said he's not interested in SG. Just read this from Tues. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/19/trump-transition-health-finalists-00190365
I imagine "Good Vivek" (the current SG to distinguish him from "Really Bad Vivek" the new DOGE co-crazy) is bereft at how his good work could all disappear. And with it, many of us.
Thanks Jay Kuo. You nailed it with facts. We are in serious trouble. I just read that in Montana ballots were sent to wrong precincts and even different states by mail. Under DeJoy the post office is under attack. Mail in ballots are excellent.
What can we do? It’s a hijack.
Indianans are acting against what appears there to be ballot irregularity. I don't think the Dems - given comments here about Booker and Jeffires at least - and hasn't Schumer been silent? - will do anything.
Yes. And Americans have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
This is a moment when I need to remind all of PT Barnum's famous quote: "There is a sucker born every minute."
Not all of us have fallen for it!
Is there a place for Kevin Sorbo in the cabinet? 🙄
Or Kid Rock?
I don’t think reading your (or any) column these days will reduce anyone’s anxiety since every word of this post, for instance, is terrifying. Some of us want to see what’s coming while others want to stay in denial for as long as possible because this reality is horrifying for any thinking person.
There are two kinds of stress. There is distress, which can be debilitating. It’s when your mind and body can’t handle what they’re being bombarded with.
There’s also eustress, however, which is the pumped up feeling you have when you feel prepared to take on a challenge.
My goal is to help inform so that we see and believe we can push back against what’s headed our way. Stress can be channeled into powerful and effective responses.
Thank you, Jay! We need all of the good, solid information, that we can get!
For me, this is more eustress that enrages me to action. I tried numbness for 2 days; then fantasy that I was dreaming and Kamala was President and I envisioned crowds larger and even happier than when Obama was first inaugurated; then tears - Connie Schultz's substack about Sherrod finally released sobs - and now RAGE which for me is eustress. THANK YOU for keeping us well-informed w/ explanations.
I'm in both places - not exactly denial but wanting to not know AND rage that is what always makes me act in ways I can. Will it kill me? Dunno. I hope not. Or if it does try, now before Medicare changes under a scam doctor and a greater scam, over-tanned (appears real not make-up) head of HHS.