They want to talk to real hostages? Most of the folks who spent 444 days in the bag in Iran from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1980, are still alive. Ask them.
Three of those poor folks got so depressed from the trauma of the experience, they committed suicide.
The traitors who attacked the Capitol are NOT "hostages." They are imprisoned for a reason. They are convicted felons who tried to overthrow the government, kill our elected leaders, and make the world safe for methamphetamine consumption and Alex Jones's ratings picture.
I’ve never met the woman. Her story was told to me by my now passed father-in-law. My wife, younger than I, only vaguely remembers her when it happened. I’ve been told the widely published photograph of the first group being released shows a woman with short just above shoulder length blonde hair in the group of released women. That’s her.
Nonetheless, I do hope her life has been better in the ensuing years. I am reminded of one of the hostages, who was freed in 1981. He was recovering at the Army hospital in Wiesbaden when some pals offered to take him for a couple of weeks of driving around the Rhineland, enjoying scenery, strudel, and beer.
He told the doctors and staff he was taking up the offer. The staff was shocked. They had a big agenda of medical checks and debriefings scheduled. He couldn't just leave.
The ex-hostage snapped. "Am I a prisoner?"
The staff looked horrified.
The ex-hostage spent the next few weeks on the Rhineland road, quaffing beer.
Our media has been failing us for years, now. They are complicit in all of this. They've sold out our democracy and our safety for profits. Absolutely shameful. That is why I follow you and a few select others on this platform. Thank you for all that you do.
Would you share some other favorites you follow? I read Jay, of course, Heather Cox Richardson, and Joyce Vance, but I'd love to know of others doing the good work.
Robert Reich, Thom Hartmann, Robert Hubbell, Dean Obeidallah, Mary Trump, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Les Leopold. I keep coming across more every day. It gets to be too much to read.
News, especially television news, used to be considered a service; now it’s a profit center. Ironically, it was 60 Minutes that demonstrated that the news could turn a profit.
Maga Mike needs to fall on his knees and pray to his Lord to find the answer… and I’m confident even his God will say, IT’S MATH, DUMMY! 🤦♀️ I rather like Napoleon's observation: "never interrupt your opponents while they are making a mistake.” I hope the Democrats messaging is strong and to the point so these extremists can be voted out. They are truly hurting the country.
I don't think speaker Johnson is going anywhere. He is a rabid right wing evangelist which would make him stubborn. I see the signs of a huge crack in congress it's going to be magnificent to watch.
Somebody please get this Stefanik person out of my face.
Let's not forget Project 2025. This is larger than Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, Elise Stefanik, Mike Johnson, etc. Also. I've heard that No Name, the group angling to be a disruptive third party, wants to get back on the map.
Right now, No Name has been threatened with a lawsuit because they are skirting campaign finance laws and haven't properly disclosed donors. And some names that have leaked out are people who used to support Trump: Peter Thiel, Harlan Crowe (of Clarence Thomas infamy), David Koch.
Yep - because a vote for No Labels is equivalent to a vote for Republicans - ANY VOTE for anything but a Democrat is that. They are nothing but a stalking horse.
That's exactly why No Name annoyed me. They were vague, they didn't have a platform, at least not one they made public, then the donor shifty money problem was uncovered.
The tRumpian mindset, with its undercurrent of violence and wildly extreme politics, has turned the majority of the GOP into lemmings surging over the edge of a precipice, while the Orange Gobshite stands off to one side demanding unquestioning loyalty - to HIM - as the rest of the country watch in horror as this shit-show only worsens.
tRump and "his" party are heading for a massive rejection by the voters, and he himself is facing multiple criminal convictions...we just have to do OUR duties, turn out in force, and vote these miscreants out of office, enough so that both Houses of Congress and the WH are in Democratic hands for the sake of our collective well-being, end of.
ISRAEL is not committing genocide. That is Hamas propaganda, pure and simple. The party that actually wants to commit genocide is Hamas. It is IN THEIR CHARTER. It is literally their reason for existence. I carry no water for Netanyahu, but the October attacks were terrorism, nothing less, and Israel has the right to defend itself. and since Hamas uses innocents and hospitals and schools as shields (crime against humanity, BY DEFINITION), innocents are in the crossfire.
Biden is not enjoying having to support Bibi, but since he is, at the moment, the PM of Israel, that's who gets the (necessary, if you want there to be any Jews left) aid.
And let us be very clear - if Israel wanted to commit genocide, it would have been over and done with long ago. You are victim-blaming because the Israelis have somehow managed to elect a criminal (sound familiar?) with a minority of the vote; the only victims of genocide in that region are, and have always been, the Jews. History, not propaganda.
I had hoped Israel would avoid even getting to the point where we have to discuss this question. We also need to talk about whether talk about forcing Gazans to "voluntarily" emigrate until there are only a few left, and talk about resettling Israelis into Gaza cross the line into ethnic cleansing.
Especially considering that many people in Gaza have been resettled a generation ago INTO Gaza from their homes in what now is Israel.
That whole situation there is one huge mess. Plenty of blame to go around, and I put most of it smack at the feet of the British back in the 1940s because they where the ones who disregarded the Palestinian population in then-Palestine. That caused both sides of today's conflict to be thrown into an impossible situation.
@Jenny Stokes and @Karen Hayes - I don't know where you live, but there are plenty of highly qualified, hard-working honest Dems running for office here in Michigan. But please be clear this election cycle - if you do NOT vote, you will have voted for the clown show that is the Trumpublican Party. Anything that takes a vote from a blue candidate benefits a Red one. You may tell yourself otherwise, but if you are looking for some kind of perfection to deserve your vote, you're going to be looking for a long time. Meanwhile the clowns and thieves and mobsters will be making off with your democracy.
I am an old man, and I have seen them come and go - but NEVER before have the choices been so binary as this election cycle.
As you demonstrated yesterday, the only thing the House is good for is comedy. And it's not even bad comedy. It's actually very good comedy. The best, even. But the results are tragic, because real lives are affected by these numbskulls. And their numbers seem to keep growing. At first, we only had to really deal with MTG. Now, there's Stefanik, Roy, and don't even get me started on Gaetz.
I'm beginning to wonder if aliens have landed and are putting people into pods and spitting out trolls.
Charles, Spot on. BrainDead was a 2016 comedy television series where a government employee discovers that the cause of the tensions between the two political parties is a race of extraterrestrial insects eating the brains of the politicians.
Comedy. It aired for one season on CBS in 2016 before being cancelled. Although a satire with actors and a plot line, the show spliced in real people. Dems, Republicans, White House staff, reporters as I recall. It was actually quite funny.
Who’s the worst enemy of loser trump? Himself. Who’s the worst enemy of GOP? Itself. That quite goes hand in hand. Of course they are destroying themselves and probably a Big Thanks to the Almighty. Let them go ahead, full steam please.
Problem is that they may not implode. They may eek along getting a slim majority here and there and continually be a thorn in the side of the country. It could be the Night of the Living Dead that goes on for decades.
I don't think they know any other way but to cause chaos; they don't want to govern, and they don't want to legislate. Like children they have a tantrum when they don't get their way, unlike children they never learn from this mistake.
"Hostages", really? How about charging trump for making hostages out of every citizen in this country as he tries to sway his complete ignorance and dangerous Hitler-esque platform over the entire country. I'm thinking the blood pressure of the entire country would go down if he were taken off the planet. He's like a case of Rabies.
Until the extreme Maga Republicans stand together and as a united front, call out Trump and say no more. I’m certain none of this will end well until Trump is gone!
Biff with pick Stefanik as his VP. That's my prediction. 1) Because he loves that her lips are pressed tightly to his ass and 2) because she even more easily manipulated than Pence was.
I'm not so sure. Her youth and big piehole might eclipse him, and he doesn't want that. I'm thinking it'll be MAGA Mike. He's biddable, soft-spoken, a fundie, an originator of the insurrection, and will make the perfect potted plant (like the former Mike).
The media is failing us by not calling out these MAGA lies every time they are uttered plus not consulting experts on cults and having them on their shows!
My concern remains on the left much more than the right. We on the left and in the centrist area of the electorate better become experts at voting and electoral math. The third party bids of "no-labels" and RFK Jr. and others are the precise recipe that gave us Orange Adolf in the first place because of a bunch of bitchy voters on the left and center who cried about not being in love with HRC or the Democrats.
Well — this is the simple fact. Democrats and Joe Biden are the only ones on the ballot in favor of democracy , the rule of law or the constitution. So the choice is simple. Vote for the Democrat for President, Senate and House or it is the end of the republic. That is not hyperbole. That is reality.
I understand Joe Biden is "old." But as Seth Myers said, "Id rather be Joe Biden old than Donald Trump old." Lets not forget — Orange Adolf is just a couple of years younger.
And one more thing — Biden/Democrats might not be perfect, and Biden might be old, but Trump/Republicans are bat shit insane, and outright crooks (91 felonies — and we know good goddamn well he's going to be convicted when it goes to trial). And if that's not enough, he's already been found liable for sexual assault in a court of law, and likely will lose his entire business operation in New York. (any idea when Engoron will issue his ruling)?
Perfection in a candidate is unattainable. I understand Biden may not check every box. But he has done a lot of good — and it has proven to take time to undo the damage of 2017-2021 which included the pandemic (that Orange Adolf made worse than it had to be).
There is one choice in November. ONE. Joe Biden and the entire slate of Democrats. Period. The alternative is Hitler's wet dream!
These clowns ARE the party.
They want to talk to real hostages? Most of the folks who spent 444 days in the bag in Iran from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1980, are still alive. Ask them.
Three of those poor folks got so depressed from the trauma of the experience, they committed suicide.
The traitors who attacked the Capitol are NOT "hostages." They are imprisoned for a reason. They are convicted felons who tried to overthrow the government, kill our elected leaders, and make the world safe for methamphetamine consumption and Alex Jones's ratings picture.
One of the hostages, Kathryn Koob, wrote a book about her experiences. Guest of the Revolution is still available.
I think she was one of the few women who did the entire 444 days.
Correct, one of two that did the full 444. My wife’s cousin was one of the women that was in the earlier release group.
Tell your wife's cousin, when you can, that I have the utmost respect and admiration for her valor under such unspeakable terror.
I hope she is doing well.
I’ve never met the woman. Her story was told to me by my now passed father-in-law. My wife, younger than I, only vaguely remembers her when it happened. I’ve been told the widely published photograph of the first group being released shows a woman with short just above shoulder length blonde hair in the group of released women. That’s her.
Understood.
Nonetheless, I do hope her life has been better in the ensuing years. I am reminded of one of the hostages, who was freed in 1981. He was recovering at the Army hospital in Wiesbaden when some pals offered to take him for a couple of weeks of driving around the Rhineland, enjoying scenery, strudel, and beer.
He told the doctors and staff he was taking up the offer. The staff was shocked. They had a big agenda of medical checks and debriefings scheduled. He couldn't just leave.
The ex-hostage snapped. "Am I a prisoner?"
The staff looked horrified.
The ex-hostage spent the next few weeks on the Rhineland road, quaffing beer.
Our media has been failing us for years, now. They are complicit in all of this. They've sold out our democracy and our safety for profits. Absolutely shameful. That is why I follow you and a few select others on this platform. Thank you for all that you do.
Would you share some other favorites you follow? I read Jay, of course, Heather Cox Richardson, and Joyce Vance, but I'd love to know of others doing the good work.
Let us not forget Jeff Tiedrich - very profane, of course - but VERY funny and very much on point at all times.
Robert Reich, Thom Hartmann, Robert Hubbell, Dean Obeidallah, Mary Trump, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Les Leopold. I keep coming across more every day. It gets to be too much to read.
Dan Rather, Mary Trump, George Takai, Michael Beschloss
Timothy Snyder, PhD, Yale historian. “On Tyranny” substack.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! Looks like no shortage of good things to read...
Lucian K. Truscott IV
My apologies, as you were asking Karen. I am just excited about the many great writers that I keep finding.
Best of all I feel is Popular Information by Judd Legum.
Truth!
News, especially television news, used to be considered a service; now it’s a profit center. Ironically, it was 60 Minutes that demonstrated that the news could turn a profit.
I second that!
Maga Mike needs to fall on his knees and pray to his Lord to find the answer… and I’m confident even his God will say, IT’S MATH, DUMMY! 🤦♀️ I rather like Napoleon's observation: "never interrupt your opponents while they are making a mistake.” I hope the Democrats messaging is strong and to the point so these extremists can be voted out. They are truly hurting the country.
His God has two horns on his head and canine teeth.
I don't think speaker Johnson is going anywhere. He is a rabid right wing evangelist which would make him stubborn. I see the signs of a huge crack in congress it's going to be magnificent to watch.
Somebody please get this Stefanik person out of my face.
She's really pompous... its sickening.
I just got really sick of her when interrogating Gay. How is anyone supposed to answer a question with a yes or no!
Agree. She's a spiteful, transparent person. 🙄
She's Aunt Lydia.
OMG!!! You are so correct! Aunt Lydia was an evil, awful, horrible, no good, very bad thing called a person!
She is just as bad as the other psychopaths that still are up dumpster 's ass !
Oh dear Dawna.......how awful to have her around!
Let's not forget Project 2025. This is larger than Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, Elise Stefanik, Mike Johnson, etc. Also. I've heard that No Name, the group angling to be a disruptive third party, wants to get back on the map.
This is the thing that keeps me up worrying.
Right now, No Name has been threatened with a lawsuit because they are skirting campaign finance laws and haven't properly disclosed donors. And some names that have leaked out are people who used to support Trump: Peter Thiel, Harlan Crowe (of Clarence Thomas infamy), David Koch.
Yep - because a vote for No Labels is equivalent to a vote for Republicans - ANY VOTE for anything but a Democrat is that. They are nothing but a stalking horse.
I'd rephrase it that Any vote for anyone but the Democratic nominee is a vote for trump.
I don't know who No Labels will get to run, but it could be someone who is nominally a Democrat. A stupid Democrat but nonetheless....
That's exactly why No Name annoyed me. They were vague, they didn't have a platform, at least not one they made public, then the donor shifty money problem was uncovered.
🤬😡🤬
No Name
The tRumpian mindset, with its undercurrent of violence and wildly extreme politics, has turned the majority of the GOP into lemmings surging over the edge of a precipice, while the Orange Gobshite stands off to one side demanding unquestioning loyalty - to HIM - as the rest of the country watch in horror as this shit-show only worsens.
tRump and "his" party are heading for a massive rejection by the voters, and he himself is facing multiple criminal convictions...we just have to do OUR duties, turn out in force, and vote these miscreants out of office, enough so that both Houses of Congress and the WH are in Democratic hands for the sake of our collective well-being, end of.
There is Noone to vote for........!
Vote blue. There are plenty of high-quality candidates — starting with President Biden — who will continue to save democracy.
NO sorry he is complicit in genocide!
Do expound - using facts and logic, not propaganda please.
How long is the US going to keep sending money (via Biden) to Israel in order to perpetuate genocide?
ISRAEL is not committing genocide. That is Hamas propaganda, pure and simple. The party that actually wants to commit genocide is Hamas. It is IN THEIR CHARTER. It is literally their reason for existence. I carry no water for Netanyahu, but the October attacks were terrorism, nothing less, and Israel has the right to defend itself. and since Hamas uses innocents and hospitals and schools as shields (crime against humanity, BY DEFINITION), innocents are in the crossfire.
Biden is not enjoying having to support Bibi, but since he is, at the moment, the PM of Israel, that's who gets the (necessary, if you want there to be any Jews left) aid.
And let us be very clear - if Israel wanted to commit genocide, it would have been over and done with long ago. You are victim-blaming because the Israelis have somehow managed to elect a criminal (sound familiar?) with a minority of the vote; the only victims of genocide in that region are, and have always been, the Jews. History, not propaganda.
I had hoped Israel would avoid even getting to the point where we have to discuss this question. We also need to talk about whether talk about forcing Gazans to "voluntarily" emigrate until there are only a few left, and talk about resettling Israelis into Gaza cross the line into ethnic cleansing.
NO. Palestinians live there ............how would you like to be RE-SETTLED?
Especially considering that many people in Gaza have been resettled a generation ago INTO Gaza from their homes in what now is Israel.
That whole situation there is one huge mess. Plenty of blame to go around, and I put most of it smack at the feet of the British back in the 1940s because they where the ones who disregarded the Palestinian population in then-Palestine. That caused both sides of today's conflict to be thrown into an impossible situation.
That is not going to happen. Israel is not going to take over the Gaza Strip.
I hope you are right. I don't share your faith, though. Not when at least two members of Netanyahu's cabinet explicitly stated so.
And the Times of Israel reports that this plan has moved beyond idle musings. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-in-talks-with-congo-and-other-countries-on-gaza-voluntary-migration-plan/
And?
And?
@Jenny Stokes and @Karen Hayes - I don't know where you live, but there are plenty of highly qualified, hard-working honest Dems running for office here in Michigan. But please be clear this election cycle - if you do NOT vote, you will have voted for the clown show that is the Trumpublican Party. Anything that takes a vote from a blue candidate benefits a Red one. You may tell yourself otherwise, but if you are looking for some kind of perfection to deserve your vote, you're going to be looking for a long time. Meanwhile the clowns and thieves and mobsters will be making off with your democracy.
I am an old man, and I have seen them come and go - but NEVER before have the choices been so binary as this election cycle.
I am not in the USA and I am watching the CIRCUS!
As you demonstrated yesterday, the only thing the House is good for is comedy. And it's not even bad comedy. It's actually very good comedy. The best, even. But the results are tragic, because real lives are affected by these numbskulls. And their numbers seem to keep growing. At first, we only had to really deal with MTG. Now, there's Stefanik, Roy, and don't even get me started on Gaetz.
I'm beginning to wonder if aliens have landed and are putting people into pods and spitting out trolls.
Charles, Spot on. BrainDead was a 2016 comedy television series where a government employee discovers that the cause of the tensions between the two political parties is a race of extraterrestrial insects eating the brains of the politicians.
Sorry, do you mean a comedy series? Or a documentary? :-)
Comedy. It aired for one season on CBS in 2016 before being cancelled. Although a satire with actors and a plot line, the show spliced in real people. Dems, Republicans, White House staff, reporters as I recall. It was actually quite funny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrainDead
Don't forget Nancy Mace who was supposed to be the moderate. Her behavior at the Hunter Biden hearing was awful. So rude and fascist leaning.
Who’s the worst enemy of loser trump? Himself. Who’s the worst enemy of GOP? Itself. That quite goes hand in hand. Of course they are destroying themselves and probably a Big Thanks to the Almighty. Let them go ahead, full steam please.
Problem is that they may not implode. They may eek along getting a slim majority here and there and continually be a thorn in the side of the country. It could be the Night of the Living Dead that goes on for decades.
I don't think they know any other way but to cause chaos; they don't want to govern, and they don't want to legislate. Like children they have a tantrum when they don't get their way, unlike children they never learn from this mistake.
"Hostages", really? How about charging trump for making hostages out of every citizen in this country as he tries to sway his complete ignorance and dangerous Hitler-esque platform over the entire country. I'm thinking the blood pressure of the entire country would go down if he were taken off the planet. He's like a case of Rabies.
Until the extreme Maga Republicans stand together and as a united front, call out Trump and say no more. I’m certain none of this will end well until Trump is gone!
They will never do that. Even if he burns their families alive. It's a cult and they love their Dear Leader.
Biff with pick Stefanik as his VP. That's my prediction. 1) Because he loves that her lips are pressed tightly to his ass and 2) because she even more easily manipulated than Pence was.
I have some doubts; he may be too sexist for a female running mate.
I'm not so sure. Her youth and big piehole might eclipse him, and he doesn't want that. I'm thinking it'll be MAGA Mike. He's biddable, soft-spoken, a fundie, an originator of the insurrection, and will make the perfect potted plant (like the former Mike).
Yes I think you are right on the money.
MTG and Stefanik are kissing up for Trump’s VP position by being extra moronic and clueless.
I don’t think one could find three uglier people; actually “people” is an upgrade.
The media is failing us by not calling out these MAGA lies every time they are uttered plus not consulting experts on cults and having them on their shows!
My concern remains on the left much more than the right. We on the left and in the centrist area of the electorate better become experts at voting and electoral math. The third party bids of "no-labels" and RFK Jr. and others are the precise recipe that gave us Orange Adolf in the first place because of a bunch of bitchy voters on the left and center who cried about not being in love with HRC or the Democrats.
Well — this is the simple fact. Democrats and Joe Biden are the only ones on the ballot in favor of democracy , the rule of law or the constitution. So the choice is simple. Vote for the Democrat for President, Senate and House or it is the end of the republic. That is not hyperbole. That is reality.
I understand Joe Biden is "old." But as Seth Myers said, "Id rather be Joe Biden old than Donald Trump old." Lets not forget — Orange Adolf is just a couple of years younger.
And one more thing — Biden/Democrats might not be perfect, and Biden might be old, but Trump/Republicans are bat shit insane, and outright crooks (91 felonies — and we know good goddamn well he's going to be convicted when it goes to trial). And if that's not enough, he's already been found liable for sexual assault in a court of law, and likely will lose his entire business operation in New York. (any idea when Engoron will issue his ruling)?
Perfection in a candidate is unattainable. I understand Biden may not check every box. But he has done a lot of good — and it has proven to take time to undo the damage of 2017-2021 which included the pandemic (that Orange Adolf made worse than it had to be).
There is one choice in November. ONE. Joe Biden and the entire slate of Democrats. Period. The alternative is Hitler's wet dream!
Well stated, Andre. I have said much the same thing, but you have just said it better than I ever have. Thank you.