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Ethel Weeks's avatar

Reading your account of the law suit against a non-profit, people leaning, good publication made me think of Musk as a form of freedom of speech and money sucking black plague. The man is a villain who has master minded a take over of industrialized countries, starting with ours. For what reason? I truly don't know. In his illness, money doesn't seem to be the driver. Cruelty rings closer to the true motive. He is a racist, mean man. His genius saw an opportunity to manipulate the entity in the White House to usurp power, otherwise completely out of reach to him. Now, Musk seems unstoppable. Your reporting is very valuable, Ken. Be careful down in Louisiana.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

He seems to be in the evil genius in all the Bond movies incarnated into the real world.

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W Tucker's avatar

Ethel I am little confused with your logic you write “The man is a villain who has master minded a take over of industrialized countries, starting with ours”

What industrialized countries has he master minded taken over beside ours?

You write “For what reason? I truly don't know.” Then you write “In his illness, money doesn't seem to be the driver. Cruelty rings closer to the true motive. He is a racist, mean man.”

If you “truly don't know” how do you know his true motives are “cruelty” ?

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Al Bellenchia's avatar

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed.” - Hannah Arendt

And here we are. The events since the election have given me the thought that many Americans don’t deserve the idea and ideals of America, as they have done so little to protect them, while actively preventing others from doing so.

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Tanya Goldstein's avatar

I realized when Trump won the election that I was in mourning for the country I thought I lived in. The grief hasn’t gotten better.

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Edward Low's avatar

If you have a child who is late from an appointed time.. you worry... and even if they were just changing a tire - the stress does not go away.. you already experienced it.

Just like what we worried hmpy trmPEDO would do

Now if there was something actually wrong... like with trmPEDO.. we had that stress before the election that isn't going away... and now we have the reality that he is driving America off a cliff.

Good news (sic): he and fELON muskitler will profit

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Ken Tingley's avatar

You are not alone. Each day seems a little worse. I confess to be overwhelmed by the bad news that is reported each day.

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Edward Low's avatar

and that those in power do nothing

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Edward Low's avatar

True..

but also true: "once we no longer believe the free press, because of our authoritarian 'messiah' we have locked our own shackles"

- ed low

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Tanya Goldstein's avatar

Who was it that said a people get the government they deserve? They cursed us, just like “May you live in interesting times.”

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Edward Low's avatar

Looked it up, the first quote comes from Slave Owner and sometimes rich guy: Thomas Jefferson. * though usually someone else said it first or at the same time

The second of courses is a Chinese curse.. to which I would say:

Don't fear the 'interesting, fear the evil'

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Ken Tingley's avatar

Some quiet time would be nice, for a week at least.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

There is a continued attempt to rewrite even recent history such as Ukraine started the war. I suspect many will believe this.

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Edward Low's avatar

and from those who should know better.. the same people who watched the Jan6 insurrection, but now think those are political hostages

when you see 1984 unfold, you realize there are fools who will

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Ken Tingley's avatar

The free press is teetering because of their shaky finances and those lawsuits will continue to take a toll.

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Edward Low's avatar

and that is the purpose

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Roland Van Deusen's avatar

To become the trillionaire despot he wants to be, Trump has so hollowed out the rest of the Federal government, that he is now head of the world's largest banana republic, with the deadliest military and a doomsday arsenal of nuclear weapons that has nobody to keep it safe and secure. And a Pentagon that will soon be run by straight white Christianist males.

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Catherine's avatar

We should have outlawed billionaires years ago. Not one person should have that kind of power and money. It's gluttonous and disgusting frankly.

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Edward Low's avatar

Pre- ronnie reagan.. the very rich paid 70% to 50% it went down to 20% to 28%*. (like all taxes that wasn't on ALL of their income, just the money they made after a certain amount)

I remember rusty limbaugh talking about this, suggesting that these people would have no incentive to make more money.. which might have been true... but really, after you have made several million dollars, does it matter how much you are taxed on the second half billion?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_tax_cuts#:~:text=In%201980%20Ronald%20Reagan%20was,rate%20had%20been%20since%201925.

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Janet Flinchbaugh's avatar

I hope your vaccinations are up to date.

How did we get to the point of being so ignorant about health matters?

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mike parwana's avatar

In early January my pharmacist gave me my scheduled 2nd shingles vaccine.

Very quietly they said I should consider getting any other needed vaccinations sooner rather than later. Their reasoning was not that vaccines would be outlawed, but that if the government stopped supporting vaccines with volume purchases the vaccine producers might simply stop making them, or the price might skyrocket.

It becomes a supply chain issue even without it being an overt political issue.

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Sandra M. Watson's avatar

My husband is suffering from shingles right now, I got the 1 st dose/shot, yesterday and hoping the 2nd one is available in 2 mos

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mike parwana's avatar

Ugh! Shingles can be awful. My best wishes for a speedy recovery to your husband.

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Edward Low's avatar

and...

What if the fELON/hmpy presidency says if you got shingles it is YOUR fault and insurance companies do not need to cover the treatment......?

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mike parwana's avatar

True. If you had gotten your chicken pox vaccine you wouldn’t have gotten chicken pox. If you didn’t get chicken pox you wouldn’t get shingles.

Of course there wasn’t a vaccine when I was young, but nothing is supposed to make sense anymore.

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Edward Low's avatar

absolutely..

and the dumber and more ignorant.. not making sense is a political platform for the ©

Girlfriend is better

I got a girlfriend that's better than this

But you don't remember at all

As we get older and stop making sense

You won't find her waiting long

Stop making sense, stop making sense

Stop making sense, making sense

I got a girlfriend, she's better than that

And nothing is better than this (is it?)

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Edward Low's avatar

I remember when the government used to help every day people...

of course, that was pre- hmpy trmPEDo

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Ken Tingley's avatar

Good reminder if you haven't had that third Covid booster and it's never too late for a flu shot. Once I started getting the annual flu shot, I stopped getting sick during flue season. Go figure.

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Maggie's avatar

Just be very careful that the shot "giver" does NOT inject too high on your arm. There is a "rare" reaction called SIVA (google it) I just went thru that - my shoulder looked as tho I had football pads on it! After Prednisone (reaction) then going to Ortho & having a cortisone shot for the swelling - things finally are back to normal. But my Ortho gal said make sure next time not that high up.

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W Tucker's avatar

You dropped "R" Maggie, SIRVA stands for shoulder injury related to vaccine administration

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Maggie's avatar

my mistake - my ortho gal wrote it on my paperwork & I didnt have it infront of me. You got it anyhow.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

I'm going to go out on limb here and say our communities stopped reading their daily newspaper and believing it. The readers left before the product eroded. So many just didn't have the time to be a good citizen, so as someone wrote earlier, maybe we do get the government we deserve.

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Sara Idleman's avatar

I read that both Sen. Blumenthal (Dem) and Sen. Kassidy (Rep) were upset when two Cabinet members they supported had lied to them during their hearings. Do these people live in a cave somewhere, do they ever have contact with people of all sorts? Do they simply go from DC to town halls, to meet and greets, then vacation with their families? I've resisted making blanket comments about politicians. But, I am quite frustrated with our representatives at this point. Working as a teacher, then elected official, I became quite skilled at recognizing a lie. The latest Cabinet hearings were awash with lies. I've watched a number of hearings over the years. I remember rolling my eyes the entire time I watched both the Kavanaugh and Gorsuch hearings. Kavanaugh lied constantly and not very well. Gorsuch was smarmy and much more skilled.

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Tanya Goldstein's avatar

I keep getting appeals from the Democrats to give them money. Well, they HAD tons of money, and where did it get us? Many are still afraid to rock the boat too much, lest they risk losing in the midterm elections. I’m already worried there won’t be any midterm elections! Money won’t solve this problem, only courage and determination will.

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Edward Low's avatar

Amen (there needs to be an atheist 'amen')

If you look at the current ny21 dem candidate (https://blakegendebienforcongress.com/) begs for money each time you click, but NO WHERE does he say what his policies or plans are. Just he wants to help people

Paula Collins (https://paulaforny.substack.com/) pointed out that the 'expert' dems told her NOT to put policy on her web pages..

It is like Michelle Wolf said at the press corp dinner, democrats can find a way to lose

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mike parwana's avatar

It seems likely that an equivalent for the Hebrew word for Amen would have been commonly used in Mesopotamia where Abraham lived (Ur) before the earliest recorded version of the Torah or Old Testament.

It’s hard to imagine it wasn’t used in a religious context by ancient Sumerians, or Egyptians, or others, so religious: sure, but not owned by any particular religion.

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Edward Low's avatar

thanks.. and the context

I was thinking more in non-religion what so ever

Like: right on

or

tell it to the sky

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Ken Tingley's avatar

This is the uphill battle in the 21st District. You lose votes by opposing Trump. Simple as that. Very few people actually look at policy and how someone would help them.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

That is a legitimate worry or that the Trump administration will be the ones counting the votes.

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Edward Low's avatar

This is what I don't understand

What happen to lying under oath being a crime.. it's the reason why during the impeachment hearings gym jordan refused to testify.. He knew he would have to tell the truth or end up in jail.

Now there are no reasons to NOT lie to congress.. well but for morals and we know that gQped republicans have no morals

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mike parwana's avatar

Again, an oath is a sacred contract going back to prehistory. The concept of an oath in Zoroastrian and preZoroastrian culture was a concept something like a contract. Breaking an oath was breaking a contract.

And yet, our SCOTUS ignores the breaking of the President’s Oath of Office, which is a Constitutional requirement.

On the grounds of breaking his Oath I suggest that Trump is not, and cannot be, President.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

Steve Bannon was found guilty of defying a subpoena by Congress and did not go to jail either. Congress is being laughed at.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

Sen. Cassidy is a doctor who voted for RFK. As soon as he was confirmed, the state of Louisiana - his state - stopped funding mass vaccinations in the state and ordered health department officials NOT to promote vaccines to the public. Did I say Sen Cassidy was a doctor?

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Susan Andrews's avatar

I believe he is still a Gastroenterologist…and is/has been full of - - - t since long before the Kangaroo Court Cabinet hearings started. His feigned hesitance to vote for RFK Jr was pre-planned…just like the Project 25 Manifesto…which I’m sure was provided to all GOPs in the Congress and Senate last year. Even if the hearing committee members had to each take an oath on a Bible before each hearing session, they would probably have lied with their hand on one of Trump’s faux bibles!

I reminded Cassidy in my recent correspondence to him that he took an oath to Do No Harm…

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Anonymous's avatar

I served with Sen. Blumenthal in Viet Nam. His courage is only exceeded by his willingness to take a stand. Sen Kassidy can not be trusted. Told the kids that there is a Santa Claus AND Easter Bunny. Wait until they lose their first teeth.....

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Susan Andrews's avatar

What an eerie experience for you to be standing so close in those elevator spaces to the epitome of Evil ———-> GREED.

And those attorneys, along with Prez Musk and Puppet-Prez tRump and all their cronies, won’t have to worry about their tax accounts being audited… since over 1000 IRS agents were fired yesterday…essentially crippling our country’s tax return system for the foreseeable future for far less wealthy Americans.

And now with Dejoy’s resignation as long-standing corrupt leader of our USPS, tRump is threatening to become King of our USPS. Imagine the devastation to all our local, state and national postal workers…along with our medication mail-delivery systems, etc. etc.

In Illinois GOV Pritzer’s State of State address this week he stated “Tyranny requires Fear, Silence and Compliance…” And that it only took Hitler several months to dismantle the German republic. Our GOP Congress and Senate aided and abetted all of tRump’s treasonous actions. And it seems tRump’s “victory lap” in his bullet-proof Limo last week at NASCAR was his claim to have beaten Hitler’s record.

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Ken Tingley's avatar

Attending Federal Court is an interesting experiences. I'm usually the only member of the public attending. There may be some Tulane law students, but everyone are lawyers dressed in the same expensive suit. I stick out for a lack of jacket and tie. These are big, important cases and only a few of them are covered in the media.

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Beatriz Roman's avatar

Thank you so much for being there and reporting your observations and opinions.

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Don Shuler's avatar

“Birds of a feather stick together.” The Trump Organization used the same tactic in their dealings with smaller vendors. “Sue me!”

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Edward Low's avatar

I recommend everyone (EVERYONE) read "The 1619 Project"! Not only does it talk about race in America.. but it is very far reaching in connecting many dots.

For example, it makes that 60 of America's largest corporations, pay no taxes.

That of course brings up the topic of: "Well what do they spend that money on."

Certainly it is to pay Stock Holders, also to give CEO exorbitant salaries and bonuses-- people know that. But the other thing they spend their money on: lawyers.

Lawyers to lobby and make the laws that benefit their companies (i.e. so they pay no taxes, but also to sue people who challenge the company)

I remember when Mitt Romney was running for president.. he stated that he paid what he was legally required in taxes (so does hmpy trmPEDO), which was sort of true.. He didn't pay his share, only about 14.1% (I am guessing if you are reading this you pay much more (percentage-wise) than mitt and hmpy).... {https://www.propublica.org/article/what-we-still-dont-know-about-mitt-romneys-taxes}

***I mentioned ‘sort of true’ what isn’t in trmPEDO and romney’s taxes = their off shore interests and how they earn money that is not required to be paid in American taxes.. so you can assume they both pay well less percentage-wise!***

The point is, you are already paying the lawyers..it is money ahead to sue your competition and/or enemy into submission.

Remember fELON musitler profits off the government, more than just from the government subsidies, that he is cutting from others, but not spaceX or tesla. And when more tax breaks for the ultra wealthy come.. every lawyer is worth his weight in Mars rocks

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Ken Tingley's avatar

I believed it also won a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times.

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Maggie's avatar

Have you read the Lewis Powell "memo" from 1971? Telling how "business/corporations must change the way the public, colleges, politics etc feels about capitalisim?sp? A commenter on Tim Snyder's post mentioned it - so I read it. The start of corporate "image" change.

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Edward Low's avatar

No, but I am researching it.. what I have seen so far is it was also a blue print for rusty limbaugh....

as in how to make people question reality and what is true, when you are totally lying to them...

EDIT: I read an essay/article about limbaugh on the 30th anniversary of his show, that stated how the constant barrage of disinformation, created not just talking points for republican.. but a veil to pull over the eyes of his listeners so they would no longer understand what is true and what isn't

pull the cloak over his listeners eyes

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Maggie's avatar

Interesting, isnt it? Never heard of it till today so googled it.

Pretty obvious when you think about it.

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Edward Low's avatar

one of the things it seems democrats doNOT have

a plan...

maybe you could say, better goals, but no plan

the memo kind of explains why Roe v Wade was overturn... (with complete malice) the gQp had a plan

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Maggie's avatar

Long Term plan!

And for sure, the Dems are still mostly clutching their pearls - not all of them but for crying out loud - GET IT TOGETHER! There are ways to disrupt things.

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Edward Low's avatar

Y E S !!!!

like in the last month:

Hochul said she would NOT delay the election for ny21

Hochul would NOT remove eric adams, even though it is clear he needs to be

And I don't know if this is true, but I suspect Hochul and the democrats have not gone through the ny21 voter's rolls and removed republicans that need to be

To top it off, the shhould have made AOC Oversight Committee lead (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ocasio-cortez-loses-bid-top-democrat-house-oversight/story?id=116874211) but did not.. no offense to the guy they gave it to, but he is battling cancer and even if he didn't... he isn't as effective as AOC

edit: ALSO the gQpeds have demonstrated to the Dems how to play the game.. their rules, use them

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Kevin Murphy's avatar

Louisiana is a literal nightmare of ignorance while being a perfect example of the rapidly growing cancer of fascism that is eating us alive. I’m afraid the necessary corrective surgery is going to be bloody and without anesthesia. 🤬

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Ken Tingley's avatar

The Times Picayune is doing a great job chronicling how the Trump administration is taking away significant money for education and disaster relief - Louisiana has received more disaster relief than any state over the past 25 years. Trump is also cutting back all green initiatives while the Louisiana coast line disappears because of climate change.

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Edward Low's avatar

I hate to state the obvious...

Newspapers are in a vicious circle.. declining readers = declining advertisers = declining content = even more declining readers... repeat

And those who don't read are ignorant and those are the same people who are going to be hurt the most by their ignorance

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Ken Tingley's avatar

Can't argue with that. But readers stopped subscribing way before the digital revolution.

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Edward Low's avatar

My comment did not mention digital revolution... it just stated the downward spiral.. the digital aspect is now part of the problem

And as I have stated before.. I think it is as much newspapers not standing up form themselves..

When NCPR does a story and cites a newspaper as a source.. they should be paying that newspaper for doing the work..

Any organization (including substacks...) that says/writes: "as reported by.... (insert the newspaper)" should be paying the newspapers...

Just as when I cite your substack from mine as a source (even if it is just pointing to your opinion) I am getting a free usage for an essay I could be profiting off of (I am not)...

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Janet Flinchbaugh's avatar

Unfortunately I agree with you that we get the govt we deserve and it starts at home. The post star is but a shell of what it was. Almost no local news of what’s going on in local govt. and because of delivery by post office the news is a “ a day late and a $short”.

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Sean Cohan's avatar

Re: Cassidy ... I believe that principled Republican congresspeople - if there are any - especially senators, genuinely fear for their lives if they cross the Trump/Musk Maginot Line. So they don't.

If they do, it's only in instances where the outcome is certain in M4GA's favor.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-congress-political-violence

Re: Free Speech ... The best we may be able to hope for is the notion that discovery goes both ways, and in some instances a judge could make it public. At least go down fighting.

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bernice mennis's avatar

Musk and Trump have told millions of lies, but getting one word "wrong" (rape/assault) or suing for something that was said on 60 minutes minutes makes the "accused" settle because the cost of litigation is so high it could bankrupt almost anyone. When Biden ;pardoned many people he knew would be attacked by Trump's avenger attacks, he said: These people have done nothing but told the truth and did their duty to our country, but the possibility of being prosecuted could bankrupt them. It is the constancy of threats against anyone who is not totally loyal to Trump and Musk that silences newspapers and t.v. and Republicans who bow to Trump's incompetent and dangerous cabinet picks and his dangerous rhetoric--fear of of being sued, impeached, losing primaries, of having their family threatened...This is the rule of terror that Trump has unleashed, the rule of a dictator forcing silence or complicity. It is criminal...

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Maggie's avatar

I dont subscribe to this blog, but do read it now and then. This shows exactly how these fools are affecting our allies! And honestly, the fools dont understand it.

https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/tears-for-fears

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bernice mennis's avatar

I called Cassidy because I felt that his questioning of Kennedy showed some integrity. I call 5 or 10 Republicans about different dangerous cabinet picks each time hoping that integrity or reason would change their mind...It never did, most recently with the FBI Patel and with the 2025 writer of Project 2025 or Tulsi. pr Zelner or Clearly facts and information had absolutely no influence. I would then call them after their vote and say "Shame." Not sure if it is fear of Trumps avenging attacks in the primaries or wanting to keep their families safe or their own protection of power, but I know that is a total loss of any integrity and that in the future the whole party would be seen as complicit in allowing evil.

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bernice mennis's avatar

I love our national parks and support them...His next move will be to allow mining and private development in what should be our national treassure...

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Anonymous's avatar

Didn't the same thing happened to Parler when the left controlled ALL media? Deja Vu but the shoes on the other foot now and oh how it hurts. Pay back?

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