Meanwhile, Craziness Continues

 

— Marjorie Taylor Greene, after being attacked by the man-child in the White House, pulls the plug on her congressional career saying she refuses to be a “battered wife.” In a long statement that reveals both her distorted Fox “News” style understanding of America’s traditional values and her genuine and honorable horror at how five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have allowed big corporations and the morbidly rich to paralyze any positive actions by Congress (my words and interpretation, not hers), she wrote, in part:

“No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman. The debt goes higher. Corporate and global interests remain Washington’s sweethearts.

“American jobs continue to be replaced—whether it’s by illegal labor, legal labor by visas, or just shipped overseas. Small businesses continue to be swallowed by big corporations. …

“Many common Americans are no longer easily convinced by paid political propaganda spokespersons and consultants on TV and paid shills on social media obediently serving with cult-like conviction to force others to swallow the political party talking points.

“Because they know how much credit card debt they have. They know how much their own bills have gone up over the past 5 years. They actually do their own grocery shopping and know food costs too much. Their rent has increasingly gone up. They have been outbid by corporate asset managers too many times when they put in an offer to buy a house. They have been laid off after being forced to train their visa-holding replacement. The college degree they were told to earn only left them in debt with no big six-figure salary. They see more homeless people than ever on their own community streets. They can’t afford health insurance or practically any insurance. And they just aren’t stupid. …

“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better. … There is no ‘plan to save the world’ or insane 4D chess game being played.”

— After Trump called for the death of military and CIA veterans now serving in Congress who defended the Constitution in a video, they’re predictably getting death threats. This behavior by the president — along with siccing his masked secret police on Americans, taking billions in bribes and graft, and killing fishermen off the coast of Venezuela — isn’t just unprecedented and obscene, it’s also impeachable. And Vance’s support of Trump means he should be included in the impeachment resolution. What’s it going to take for Republicans to wake the hell up?

— Shocking Gallup Poll: 80% of Americans want what Democrats are working for. An astonishing 80% of voters questioned in a recent Kettering Foundation/Gallup Democracy for All Project poll said that political violence is unacceptable, compromise in Congress is necessary, the morbidly rich have too much power, there’s a difference between facts and opinions, and having a mixture of races, religions, and cultures strengthens and benefits America. Getting eighty percent of Americans to agree on anything is generally impossible, and this poll is such a clear repudiation of the un-American crap rightwing media like Fox “News” is constantly shoveling out that a Drudge headline labeled it “Shocking!” Not only is this good news for the future of the Democratic Party and the elections next year, it’s also very, very good news for our efforts to rescue American democracy from the rightwing clutches of cynical billionaires like Trump, the 13 billionaires in his cabinet who’re trying to tear our government agencies apart, and the rightwing goons constantly threatening a second civil war. It doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels; if anything, it shows how important it is that we all show up now and get engaged in the political process…

— A rightwing billionaire reportedly considering buying CNN was reportedly in discussions with Trump’s people about firing Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar. This is how Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán eliminated all the real news in Russia and Hungary and turned every TV and radio network and newspaper in those nations into sycophantic versions of Fox “News,” destroying freedom, democracy, and accountability. Over a period of a few years, both men had friendly billionaires buy up pretty much every media property in the country. And now it’s happening here: news articles suggest the potential buyer for CNN is the Ellison family, who also now own CBS and have turned that network into an administration mouthpiece. Are they also thinking about buying MSNOW? Is The New York Times next? We already have 1,500 rightwing radio stations, four rightwing TV networks, and hundreds of local newspapers now owned by private equity outfits run by rightwing billionaires. This is how democracies die…

— Hegseth hearts the swastika? The Washington Post is reporting, “The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and that more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting against in World War II, as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.” This was apparently Whiskey Pete’s idea, as you can read in his memo for the so-called “Department of War” (something that doesn’t legally exist). He argues, according to the Post, that not being able to hang nooses in the quarters of Black soldiers, display Confederate flags, and scrawl Swastikas everywhere “jeopardize(s) U.S. troops’ combat readiness.” Right…. It’s getting harder and harder for Republicans to pretend to “harumph” when people call them Nazis. At least they’re now owning up to what we’ve all known since Reagan kicked off his first presidential campaign with a “states’ rights” speech near the sight of the murder of three civil rights workers.

— Another Texas woman has died because of that state’s abortion ban; this is becoming shockingly routine in Republican-controlled formerly Confederate Red States. ProPublica is reporting that Tierra Walker, the 37-year-old pregnant mother of a teenage son, was experiencing severe preeclampsia and begged doctors to terminate her pregnancy to prevent her death, but they were afraid of going to prison so, on her son’s 14th birthday, she died in the hospital. Congresswoman Judy Chu was blunt: “Her death was preventable, and it was caused by a law written by Republicans to control women’s bodies, no matter the consequences. This is the disgraceful reality of Republican abortion bans that criminalize care and sacrifice women’s lives.” But, hey, pro-life, right? At least until they’re born. And so long as they’re not pregnant women.

— Trump is preparing to give Putin everything he wants in Ukraine; is it because Putin has the Epstein files, as we learned from the recent email release? Or just because he hates democracy? Or is he still hoping for a billion-dollar Trump hotel in Moscow? The Guardian is reporting: “According to reports, the sweeping 28-point proposal closely resembles demands made by Moscow soon after its full-scale invasion in early 2022. It was reportedly drawn up by Russian and US officials, with support from Trump. Kyiv was not consulted. One European diplomat said they learned of the plan only when they turned on the news.” So, why are Trump, Vance, and Rubio preparing to sell out our ally, the largest democratic country in Europe? Inquiring minds want to know…

— Crazy Alert! Who’s “Piggy?” Trump-humping MAGA cult members are desperately trying to spin the orange adjudicated rapist’s “Quiet, Piggy” comment. They’re now trying to find a reporter — any reporter — named Peggy, so they can say he was talking to her, instead of what we all could see on camera with our lying eyes: that he was insulting reporter Catherine Lucey. Trump has a long history of insulting women, particularly female reporters; why do his followers even bother to try to clean it up? We all heard the Access Hollywood tape and saw the jury verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. Not to mention Jeffrey Epstein writing that he had “the dirt on Trump” that could bring him down just before Epstein mysteriously “died” under Trump’s supervision in jail…

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