What to Defund

 

Article I grants Congress the power of the purse, arguably its most effective weapon to combat executive overreach. Even if Democrats take both houses, it is nearly impossible, for example, to assemble supermajorities to impeach and remove rogue Cabinet officials. Even with one house secured, however, it can refuse to fund Donald Trump’s priorities. And if Democrats win even a bare majority in the Senate, it can use reconciliation strategically to eliminate programs or temporarily defund departments. And we’ve got a handy list of Trump’s abusive, lawless agencies and departments that Democrats should strategically target.

First and foremost, Democrats should refuse to fund the illegal, reckless Iran War and must eliminate funds for continued deployment of personnel and material that depletes our readiness and leaves us vulnerable elsewhere. They can condition additional funding for the Pentagon on compliance with congressional investigations, and can defund overtly politicized gatherings of the type Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has conducted.

Congress can also use the power of the purse to disable corrupt, lawless departments. Democrats, for example, will need to conduct exacting oversight over the Department of Homeland Security, which has been, according to reports, rife with fraud. Continuing to fund the department before a full accounting is made and until all those responsible are held accountable would be political malpractice.

When it comes to abusive, lawless immigration raids, Democrats must refuse to allocate a single dime for ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and other entities responsible for killing or allowing dozens of people to die (on the streets and in custody), mistreating detainees, ignoring fundamental civil liberties protections, refusing to abide by requirements for body cameras, conducting raids at religious institutions, courts, and schools, continuing to use excessive force and racially profile individuals, and blocking cooperation with state and local criminal investigations.

If Democrats win control of even one house, said body can refuse to fund ICE, CBP, and any other aspects of DHS absent full cooperation with oversight and adoption of strict guidelines on use of force, treatment of detainees, compliance with warrants, etc. Congress can simply refuse to fund “raids,” that is, far-flung operations that do not prioritize dangerous criminals. Congress can deny resources for operations if there is no immediate threat to public safety or in any case in which ICE agents lack a judicial warrant based on probable cause. Democrats will need to rally public opinion, already hostile to ICE and CBP, when Trump hollers that they are protecting “dangerous criminals.” (The response: Democrats will fund focused, law-abiding enforcement actions that are actually against dangerous criminals).

Finally, Democrats should seriously consider a much bigger target: Previously independent agencies or boards that Trump has turned into partisan instruments of his political thuggery. In eviscerating the bipartisanship and independence that were the hallmarks of these bodies and putting virtually the entire federal government (with the Federal Reserve alone exempted) under the thumb of the president, the Trump crew thought they had achieved a “unitary executive” dream come true — federal operations devoid of independent judgment, entirely under the sway of a vindictive, lawless president. While the Supreme Court in Trump v. Slaughter went along with this, allowing Trump to fire members of these previously independent bodies (in that case, the FTC) without cause, Congress has a role to play.

Nothing requires Congress to continue funding flunkies who ignore basic constitutional principles while wielding power to benefit their cronies and punish their perceived enemies. Should they gain control of even one house, Democrats could draw the line: No funds for rogue agencies and lawless departments. (Alternatively, requiring quorums with members of both parties would achieve the same ends.)

They could also start with the Federal Communications Commission. Under Brendan Carr, the FCC has become a First Amendment abomination, with behavior like forcing ABC/Jimmy Kimmel to put a James Talarico interview on YouTube instead of network television. As Kimmel explained:

For the whole 20-plus year[s] of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all... . But for some reason — and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is — something has changed. Now that he is president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network ABC, our affiliates, our local stations based on simple traditional editorial decisions: guest bookings it would seem they don’t like.

Congress can compel Carr to testify about his war on late-night comedians and his overt MAGA bias. If he refuses to cooperate, and if the FCC refuses to adopt enforceable, unbiased rules, Congress should be prepared to defund the FCC until such time as it is controlled by public servants who take their constitutional oath seriously. (Would Trump shut down the government over the issue? Perhaps, although he might find it hard to explain why Americans’ basic services have been disrupted so that he can keep his stooges on the FCC.)

Frankly, Congress can consider defunding any independent agency/commission in which Trump fires members without cause. There is already a long list of individuals/commissions that Trump has politicized. The notion that it is better to leave them in place despite reckless partisan bullying (because occasionally they do something useful?!) is cockeyed and dangerous; foolishly ceding ground to Trump. Entities that no longer operate fairly, without bias and favoritism, cannot operate in the public interest. Why should they receive taxpayer funds?

In sum, Democrats need a coherent, strategic plan for funding the government should they win even one house of Congress. Leadership must be prepared to explain their game plan to voters and to enforce discipline in their own ranks on key votes. If Democrats are serious about recovering our democracy, they must be serious about wielding the power of the purse to benefit the American people.

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian

 

On Trump's Visit to Ireland

 

At 11:50 this morning, the president of the United States made a special stop on his way to promote his private golf course in Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland. For exactly 35 minutes, a rambling Donald Trump stood at the podium inside the 250-year-old Deerfield Residence in Dublin, Ireland, to speak to a room full of our Embassy personnel, Irish business leaders, and government officials. 

For exactly the next 35 minutes, the president read from the cheat sheets in his three-ring binder, he compared Kamala Harris to cage fighting, gave the room a lesson on how golf games are scored, complained about NATO and threatened that there would be an announcement about that soon, joked that the first lady chose to stay home because the flight was too long, before saying to a room full of Irish people, apparently thinking he was being funny, “Let me tell you, you are some of the most vicious bastards.”

…While Donald Trump made that stop on his government-funded vacation to promote his own golf course, Ireland didn’t let him or anyone else forget how they feel about him, not even while he was giving his erratic speech. He opened his remarks with a lengthy explanation about how he gave the United States Ambassador to Ireland, Edward Walsh, the job because he is a good golfer. Then he spent some time telling a story about how the Secret Service treats everyone around him as “collateral damage,” and that “they don’t give a damn about you.” He laughed as he said it. His story was, “I was with the head of the biggest company in the world. We’re playing golf and we have, you know, hundreds of Secret Service all over the course.” 

And then, “But the guy said, ‘Well, you know, I’m a very big executive, so if something happens with the president, they see all these trucks and tanks. This is a big deal.’ And he said, ‘What about me?’ ‘Sir, I’m sorry. You’re considered collateral damage. You’re on your own, sir.’ He didn’t feel too good. He wasn’t sure he should finish out the round, actually.” The people in the room laughed along with him. Then came another odd moment where Trump said something about himself that he says others ask too, “Does Trump cheat?” He continued with, “I can’t cheat. You have 250 Secret Service agents running down. It’s not that I wouldn’t cheat, but you can’t move the ball.” He once again admitted something so many of us have known for as long as we can remember. Donald Trump cheats, and the only reason he doesn’t as often on the golf course lately is because, by his own admission, there would be too many witnesses. 

He didn’t say that he had a moral objection to cheating, or that he didn’t because cheating is wrong. He said he doesn’t cheat right now because of how easy it would be to get caught. Those were words from the sitting President of the United States of America. He also chose to disparage former President Joe Biden, a man beloved by many Irish, while on a visit to the Emerald Isle. Biden’s family has deep roots in Ireland, going back to his great-great-grandparents who came to America during the Great Famine. 

During a visit Biden made in 2023, the Irish parliament told him he was “one of us.” There were thick crowds of people lining the streets, even in the rain, shouting “Welcome home, Joe,” as he went by. He received a standing ovation at Dublin Castle. And in Trump’s remarks today, he called the United States “dead” under Biden, saying, “We had a president who didn’t know who the hell he was. Couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs. Couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs.”

Then came the most dependable part of any speech Trump gives. The cover for the deeply embarrassing wound he suffered when he lost the 2020 election. It’s the one thing he always says, as if lying will make anyone forget the truth. “We had a rigged election, as you know. It was totally rigged. Because I won three times. I didn’t win twice. I won three times.”

When he should have been focused on diplomacy in a foreign country, he instead went to military violence and the time he kidnapped a foreign leader. He focused an entire section of his speech around Venezuela and other places he has brought terror to. “We had a short military conflict, I call it,” he said. “They said, ‘Could you maybe not use the word war?’ Because when you use the word war, it’s a little different.” Then, barely a minute later he said, “We took that over. We won the war. We paid for the war many, many times over.” 

One section he said these were each a “military conflict,” and then suddenly they were a “war,” the very thing he said he has been told not to say. He also took a moment to brag about 65 billion barrels of oil, as he said it was “good for five hundred years,” and described finding oil in Venezuela like looking for new real estate to buy. “You just look at the ground; you see oil all over the place. You say, ‘That looks like a good location to start.’” He spoke about Iran in the same light. “I think Iran is a military conflict. We’re knocking the hell out of them.” He then described how the United States is ramping up weapons production, forcing defense companies to build five and six new plants, before describing Gatling guns that can create “a wall of lead” and lasers that melt drones until “they look like they got poured out of a hot plate.” Maybe the worst thing he said today was that NATO allies refused to help in the Strait of Hormuz, and that, “You’ll be hearing that later.” A threat and a warning all in one.

Towards the end, he went into a tangent about how he has been reading stories about communism in Ireland and that “we’re shutting it down pretty good.” He said, “We’re not going to have any communists running our country. That I can tell you.” In just a few minutes, he bragged about two wars, threatened NATO allies again, and tried to insert himself and his disinformation and drama into a sovereign democratic nation’s politics. When he was done speaking, “YMCA” by the Village People was blasted through the speakers, and he started pretending to take golf swings… .

-from It's a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese's

"Peace Efforts Continue — But No Breakthrough Yet"

 

Another difficult week for Ukraine. As diplomatic efforts continued, Russia once again intensified its attacks across the country — striking Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and other cities with drones and missiles. Civilian areas, homes, transportation and critical infrastructure were all affected.

💔 Russia Strikes Kyiv After Brief Pause

On September 8, Russia launched a major missile and drone attack on Kyiv shortly after U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner left the region. The attack killed at least five people and injured dozens more, damaging residential buildings, a dormitory, a school, a clinic, and other infrastructure across the capital. The attack came after a brief pause in Russian strikes during the U.S. diplomatic visit — a reminder that despite discussions about peace, the war continues to bring destruction to Ukrainian cities.

🚆 Russian Strikes Target Ukrainian Trains

One of the most disturbing developments this week was the targeting of Ukraine's railway system. On September 8, Russian drones struck passenger trains in the Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions. In Sumy, passengers and railway crews were evacuated before the strikes, while a Russian drone attack on a passenger train in the Zaporizhzhia region killed a railway worker. And on Saturday, September 12, Russian drones struck railway stations in Lutsk, Kovel, and Fastiv, with a passenger train in Lutsk hit and several rail cars catching fire. 

🏢 Residential Building Hit in Odesa

Odesa was hit again this week. On the night of September 12, Russia launched another large-scale missile and drone attack on the Odesa region. A multi-story residential building was struck, causing significant damage and a major fire. Dozens of people were injured across the region, including an infant, and two people were reported missing. The attack also damaged other civilian and industrial infrastructure in the region.

🏬 Deadly Strike on Sumy Shopping Center

On September 9, a Russian drone struck a shopping center in Sumy, killing two people and injuring around 20 others. The attack caused a large fire and significant damage to the building. Sumy and the surrounding region have faced repeated attacks because of their proximity to the Russian border.

🔥 Attacks Continue Across Ukraine

Russian strikes also hit ​Pavlohrad, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv, and other areas this week. In Pavlohrad and the surrounding Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian strikes killed civilians and wounded dozens. Russian attacks also hit industrial and port infrastructure, further threatening Ukraine's economy and its ability to move goods and exports.

🇺🇦 Ukraine Pushes Russian Forces Back Near Lyman

Ukraine has made significant gains on the Lyman front, where its forces have conducted a months-long counteroffensive, gradually pushing Russian troops back toward the Zherebets River. Ukrainian advances have reportedly reclaimed more than 200 square kilometers and disrupted Russian supply routes around Ivanivka, Nevske, and Makiivka. The offensive has put Russian units in increasingly difficult positions, with some smaller groups reportedly isolated or partially surrounded. The gains are strategically important because they reduce pressure on Lyman and complicate Russia’s plans to advance farther west toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

🕊️ Peace Efforts Continue — But No Breakthrough Yet

Diplomatic efforts continued this week, with U.S. representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner meeting Ukrainian officials after discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Zelenskyy has said Ukraine remains ready for negotiations and has expressed willingness to meet Putin, but Russia's attacks have continued and the two sides remain far apart on key issues. The U.S. is also exploring possible winter de-escalation measures and additional support for Ukraine's air defenses and energy infrastructure.

For Ukrainians, the message is clear: peace is still the goal, but Ukraine must remain strong enough to defend itself while diplomacy continues.

Thank you for standing with Ukraine and for continuing to support our community.

With Love, 💙💛
— The Ukrainian Apparel Team

 

"Is the United States of America a Democracy... or Is It Not?"

 

On Thursday, in The New Republic, conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published a dire warning to the Republican Party…and to all Americans. In the piece, Luttig outlined how Republicans could refuse to seat elected Democrats in January after a Democratic victory in the 2026 midterm elections of November. “The coming crisis,” the piece says, would be “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”

Luttig spelled out that Trump is fighting a war against America’s democracy. While the refusal of Vice President Mike Pence to assist his power grab made it fail in January 2021, Luttig notes, today Trump and his Republican congressional allies are more determined than ever to take over the country.

Luttig focuses on the ability of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to prevent the recognition of duly elected Democratic representatives on January 3. Johnson has the power, Luttig says, to remove the current House clerk, Kevin McCumber, and replace him temporarily with a MAGA loyalist who will refuse to list Democrats on the roll of those elected to the 120th Congress.

In this scenario, once Democrats are eliminated, they will have to get a federal court to order the temporary clerk to list their names. If a court does so, another crisis point will arrive if the clerk simply refuses to obey the order. Then it’s possible the courts will stay out of the fight until the 120th Congress formally convenes and the Republicans vote not to seat the Democrats. That vote would be reviewable by the courts, including the Supreme Court.

But that review would take weeks, if not months, paralyzing the United States and leaving the country “helplessly vulnerable to all the world’s evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” And at that point, how would the current Supreme Court answer the question: 

“Is the United States of America a democracy, in which ‘We the People’ elect our representatives to the Congress and to the presidency, or is it not?”

As if to illustrate Luttig’s warning, House speaker Johnson told attendees at Trump’s convention in Dallas on Thursday: “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in the Congress. We’re not gonna do it.”

Trump’s attempt to use the United States Postal Service to screen mail-in voting has recently had a test run. Yesterday, Jim Saksa of Democracy Docket picked up a story from Jeff Berlew of the Tallahassee Democrat to report that the USPS rejected mailed ballots from Leon County, in Florida, because the words “return service requested” were only 0.236 inches from the election office’s return address. They were supposed to be a full quarter inch apart. So, the delivery of that mail-in ballots came down to a federal complaint about a spacing issue of 0.014 of an inch. 

“It’s ridiculous,” Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley told Berlew. But, as Saksa notes, the rejection of ballots for such a petty flaw shows what will likely happen if the Supreme Court lifts the injunction blocking the postal service from implementing the new rules it has put in place since Trump ordered such interference in a March executive order.

On Thursday, September 10, Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) under Trump has sent threatening letters to at least thirty top election officials in the states, warning that those officials “are currently under investigation” and are subject to “ongoing litigation,” and so must not destroy any records relating to the 2024 election. As Corasaniti notes, the administration has sued 30 states for their voter lists and has lost 23 of the cases and won none. Trump has claimed to be the victim of voter fraud since the 2016 primaries but has never produced any proof of his claims.

In July, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the civil rights division in the DOJ, threatened state election officials with criminal prosecution if any noncitizens cast a ballot in their state (although it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote), and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin threatened election officials with criminal prosecution if they did not put Trump’s election changes into effect.

Election officials already follow the laws about retaining documents, so the letters seem to be about threatening them. Nevada secretary of state Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, told Corasaniti: “It’s the constant ‘flood the zone’ of harassment and intimidation and threats of legal action hoping we’d fold at some point.” But, he added, “We’re going to continue to follow the law and do what’s in the best interest of our voters.”

And what of the MAGA Republicans Trump would like to see in Congress?

Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post reported yesterday that 25-year-old Stephen Woytek, a top campaign staffer for Senator Jon Husted (R-OH), has recently cultivated a public playlist of songs celebrating the former country of Rhodesia, in which a white minority rule over a Black majority, captioning it “homesick for a place that no longer exists.” Rhodesia is a rallying cry for white supremacists who deplore the change that created Zimbabwe. Woytek also appears to be a historical reenactor who appears to have both worn Nazi uniforms and used a photo of Nazi soldiers as his Facebook profile picture.

Ohio governor Mike DeWine appointed Husted to the Senate to replace J.D. Vance after Vance was elected to the vice presidency, and Husted is now locked in a battle for that seat with former senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat known for his defense of labor. A statement for Husted said that while Woytek “denies negative intent,” the campaign was parting ways with him.

As Goodwin notes, growing numbers of younger Republicans have been expressing support for white nationalism and the Nazis.

Indeed, in his warning, Luttig did not single out Democrats to protect democracy; as he noted in a piece on his Substack in August, plenty of people are already fighting. He called out Republicans.

“There was a time not long ago when virtually every member of Congress could be expected to commit to the peaceful transfer of congressional power in advance of an election,” Luttig wrote. But now, “[i]n a damning indictment of the president and today’s congressional Republicans, it would be hard to find even one congressional Republican with the integrity, sense of duty to country, honor, and courage to put America above the Republican Party, let alone above Donald Trump.”

He urged Republicans “to decide that they are not going to betray their oaths and their country one last time for Donald Trump,” and to make it clear to Trump and Johnson that they will not participate in any unconstitutional plan to deny Democrats seats in the new Congress.

He warned them that should Republicans go along with such machinations and the Supreme Court overrule them, the Republican Party “would finally meet the fate to which it has been destined since January 6, 2021, and cement its place in history as the most corrupt political party ever to emerge in the United States of America for its second attempt in six years to defy the will of the American people on Election Day.”

“The writing is already on the wall, Republicans,” the conservative jurist wrote. “The Republican Party in particular must finally lose the chains of its political and moral enslavement to Donald Trump and separate itself from the MAGA political party cult.”

Today, in Ireland, where he traveled for the Irish Open at his golf club in Doonbeg, Trump told reporters: “We had a rigged election. As you know, it was totally rigged. Because I won three times. I didn’t win twice. I won three times.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

"Our imperial overreach began 25 years ago with the War on Terror. It is being brought to a grim conclusion by Donald Trump’s war on Iran"

Donald Trump, whose war on Iran is the greatest strategic blunder in United States history, is not responsible for triggering the decline of the American empire, but he is responsible for its fatal denouement. This is the end. Hundreds of U.S. bases in the oil-rich Persian Gulf have been damaged or destroyed and I expect will not be rebuilt. Our allies, even those in Europe, are abandoning us. The decadence and immorality of American society, embodied in the vulgarity, stupefying ignorance and cruelty of Trump, are the defining characteristics of the Empire. The Global South, horrified at the Empire’s flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law, including the enabling of genocide in Gaza, sees us as the enemy. Abu Ghraib Prison may have receded from our consciousness, but for the rest of the world, its images of U.S. soldiers and contractors sadistically humiliating and torturing imprisoned Iraqis has replaced the Disneyfied version of America we once exported. The war on Iran, which has disrupted the world’s oil supply, is rapidly pushing the global economy over the cliff. We are going down. And we will bring many with us. Osama Bin Laden may be in a watery grave in the North Arabian Sea. Al-Qaeda may be a shadow of itself. But Bin Laden’s most fervent dreams have been realized in the last twenty-five years of gross miscalculations of the Empire — its squandering of trillions of dollars on military debacles and the ascendancy of our version of Ubu Roi, Donald J. Trump. Rather than defeating supposed enemies, the U.S. has swelled their ranks. It and its colony, Israel, are the most reviled nations on the planet. Every advance by Iran in its asymmetrical war against the Empire is cheered across the globe. The humiliating defeats, the diversion of resources and at least $8 trillion to mount one war after another, which has killed an estimated 4.5 to 4.8 million people, has hollowed the Empire out. Its infrastructure is crumbling. Its democratic institutions are impotent. It survives on an unsustainable $ 40 trillion debt. The jewels of its democracy, including its education system, fair elections and a free press, are discredited and degraded. An abandoned working class, crippled by economic insecurity and a government that steadily strips away social programs that keep those in distress afloat, is propagandized to believe the palpable decline is the work of traitors and enemies within. It has led Trump supporters to turn on the very institutions and ideals designed to sustain democracy. The usual targets of fascism — the “radical left,” Muslims, migrants, intellectuals, artists, people of color and journalists — are persecuted under laws such as The Espionage Act. Lies permeate the airwaves buttressing the self-delusion that once internal enemies are silenced, or eradicated, the glory days of the Empire, defined by hyper-nationalism, patriarchy, stable jobs and white supremacy, will return. Violence against internal enemies along with election fraud are openly advocated by Trump and his court of sycophants, buffoons, grifters and Christian fascists. Attempting to bribe voters by promising them $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms, along with Trump’s contempt for the constitutional order, is the transparent admission that U.S. democracy is a farce. George W. Bush, who was appointed to the presidency by judicial fiat planted these seeds of lawlessness and impunity. Trump has brought them to floraison. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goons, masked and offered the kind of impunity that allowed the torture and killing of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorize U.S. cities. They carry out military-style raids against unarmed civilians that look no different than those the Empire carried out in Fullujah or the Helmand Province in Afghanistan. They are setting up a network of squalid internal concentration camps. The tools of subjugation the Empire used abroad, including the stripping of civil liberties and the implementation of mass surveillance, were legalized at home with the passage of The Patriot Act, with its watchlists, informants and racial and religious profiling. Empires in decay impose the tyranny familiar to those subjugated abroad on their own citizens. I was in the Middle East when it all went wrong. Nearly all of the Muslim world was appalled by the attacks of 9/11. There were massive public expressions of solidarity, including candlelight vigils in Iran. If we had built on this empathy rather than demonizing Muslims and inflicting suffering and death on millions in the Middle East, we would be far more secure today. Instead, we drank deep from the poisonous elixir of nationalism. We foolishly believed we were attacked, as Bush said, because “they hate our freedoms,” not because of our support for the apartheid and genocidal state of Israel, our callous indifference to human life beyond our borders, including the killing of over a million people in Iraq by U.S. sanctions, and our propping up of brutal Arab dictatorships. The wreckage we have left behind from our forever wars include the obliteration of whole cities, along with 940,000 direct deaths in post-9/11 war zones, 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect deaths and 38 million people displaced. The hijackers chose massive death and destruction on a city skyline to send a message. They spoke the language we taught them. It is the message our warplanes, missiles and drones have delivered from Vietnam to Iraq. We did not listen. We naively believed we could use our military to remake the Middle East in our own image. The failure of the War on Terror is not simply a moral failure. It is a strategic failure. We refused to ask the obvious question. Why did many outside our borders feel so much hostility towards us that they were willing to kill themselves and thousands of our fellow citizens? Those of us who dared to raise these questions twenty-five years ago were vilified as supporters of terrorism and silenced. The only way to defeat terrorism is to isolate those who carry out acts of terror within their own societies. It is to build networks of understanding and solidarity. We did the opposite. We became the terrorists we claimed we were seeking to defeat. We did what Bin Laden wanted us to do. We defeated ourselves. Trump is presiding over the last act. The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

"Real patriotism isn’t pretending the country is perfect. Real patriotism is being angry that it isn’t”

 

The weirdest thing about leaving America is realizing how much of America is just a sales pitch. You spend your whole life hearing “greatest country on Earth,” then you go overseas and see clean trains, safer streets, affordable medicine, cities where people can walk without playing Frogger with an SUV, and workers who take vacations without acting like they committed treason.

And then you come home. You come home to potholes, medical debt, school shooting drills, $17 airport sandwiches, people living in tents under highways, politicians wearing flag pins (or worse, gun pins) while doing absolutely nothing for the people standing in food bank lines, and billionaires being treated like they’re the fragile ones. And somehow, we’re all supposed to stand there, hand over heart, and pretend this is normal.

I don’t hate America. I hate what America has been taught to tolerate. I hate that we call basic things “radical.” Healthcare? Radical. Paid leave? Radical. Clean air? Radical. Kids not getting shot in math class? Somehow political.

Meanwhile, the loudest “patriots” are usually the same people telling struggling Americans to shut up, stop complaining, and be grateful. Grateful for what? A flag doesn’t pay rent. A bald eagle doesn’t cover insulin. Fireworks don’t fix bridges. And chanting “USA” doesn’t make a broken system less broken.

America has incredible people. That’s the tragedy. The people are better than the system they’ve been forced to defend. So no, I’m not going to call America the greatest country on Earth just because it has the best marketing department. Real patriotism isn’t pretending the country is perfect. Real patriotism is being angry that it isn’t.

- Brian Krassenstein

We live in a country where the dysfunctional two-party Democratic/Republican Party System is failing us; where an authoritarian could rise to power and destroy our democracy; where venture capitalists and hedge fund billionaires are buying and destroying our democracy; where 401(k) s are fraudulent games of theft and greed played within the wealthy financial sector; where numerous senators and representatives are pawns of the American Legislative Exchange Council; where “the privatization of health services has corresponded closely with skyrocketing costs, leaving millions of Americans without access to care or deeply in debt for seeking treatment for their illnesses.” 

We live in a country where a major credit-rating agency was accused of “manipulating pension data”; where “Koch-supported groups have strongly worked behind the scenes on the federal and local levels to eradicate Social Security and Medicare as overly costly entitlements given to working class people,” and where the Koch Brothers and major corporations sponsor pension reform seminars for judges.  

We live in a country where Moody’s Investors Service, FitchRatings and Standard & Poor’s “gave out AAA ratings to sub-prime mortgage-backed securities. These securities turned out to be toxic, but the agencies were paid anyway. What's worse, when Wall Street ran out of questionable mortgages to securitize, it created a whole new market based on bets on those securities, bets called ‘derivatives.’ The Big Three kept on handing out AAA ratings to these complicated new products, and were again paid handsomely to do so. The rating agencies made hundreds of millions of dollars, but in the end, it was American taxpayers who paid the price -- losing their savings, their homes and their jobs in addition to having to pay billions to bail out banks…” 

We live in a country where breaking a constitutional contract with retirees and public employees is deemed morally and legally justifiable by legislative liars and thieves; where public employees and retirees are victims of plutocratic, concentrated economic privilege and power that accommodates and reinforces an enormous inequality of organizational resources for corporate self-seekers; where public schools are for sale; where public school teachers have been assaulted by a barrage of attacks on their autonomy, dignity and self-respect; where labor unions have lost political power and influence; where there is no pay equity or job security for college adjunct faculty, and where “memories of the university as a citadel of democratic learning have been replaced by a university eager to define itself largely as an adjunct of corporate power.” 

We live in a country where the plutocratic free market theory caters to self-interested desires and profit to the detriment of millions of Americans, while promising “freedom and prosperity;” where Free market principles advocate that the rich and poor should be taxed at the same flat rate, despite creating a vast inequity; where education, health care, retirement pensions, national parks (and most any function intrinsic to essential governing) become privatized to reap in more profits; where publicly-owned companies, services and their assets are auctioned off to private investors; that besides allocating vast amounts of wealth and resources from public to private ownership, there is a transfer of private debts to the public sector while public ownership and service are systematically dismantled.  We live in a country where systemic racism and bigotry are rampant; where xenophobia is pervasive; and where hypocrisy, prevarication, incompetence, immorality, inequality, poverty, avarice, and injustice prevail. 

- Glen Brown

November 19, 2014

September 11, 2001

 

“Nineteen men hijacked four fuel-loaded US commercial airplanes bound for west coast destinations. A total of 2,977 people were killed in New York City, Washington, DC and outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The attack was orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“At the World Trade Center (WTC) site in Lower Manhattan, 2,753 people were killed when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally crashed into the north and south towers, or as a result of the crashes.

“Of those who perished during the initial attacks and the subsequent collapses of the towers, 343 were New York City firefighters, 23 were New York City police officers and 37 were officers at the Port Authority.

“The victims ranged in age from two to 85 years. Approximately 75-80% of the victims were men. At the Pentagon in Washington, 184 people were killed when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building.

“Near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 40 passengers and crew members aboard United Airlines Flight 93 died when the plane crashed into a field. It is believed that the hijackers crashed the plane in that location, rather than their unknown target, after the passengers and crew attempted to retake control of the flight deck.

“As of October 2019, 1,645 (60%) of 2,753 WTC victims' remains have been positively identified, according to the medical examiner's office.

September 11, 2001:

- 8:46 a.m. ET - American Airlines Flight 11 (traveling from Boston to Los Angeles) strikes the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.
- 9:03 a.m. ET - United Airlines Flight 175 (traveling from Boston to Los Angeles) strikes the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.
- 9:37 a.m. ET - American Airlines Flight 77 (traveling from Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles) strikes the Pentagon Building in Washington.
- 9:59 a.m. ET - South tower of WTC collapses in approximately 10 seconds.
- 10:03 a.m. ET - United Airlines Flight 93 (traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco) crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
- 10:28 a.m. ET - North tower of WTC collapses. The time between the first attack and the collapse of both World Trade Center towers is 102 minutes….” (CNN).

To a Terrorist by Stephen Dunn

For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem

without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one

might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.

Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefulness that makes you fall

in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house

and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.

Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness, another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,

the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.

The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.