Category Archives: health

If You Care About Democracy, You Must Read This

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I copied the text below from a Facebook post. There is some confusion about who wrote it. I don’t care about that. The message is compelling. And if you care about whether it was Liz Cheney or the mysterious Dr Pru Pru (Facebook moniker), you should stop being distracted and focus on what is so critically important: the message. If you’re unsure about where Liz Cheney is coming from, you should read her book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, that I reviewed at https://shiningseausa.com/2024/02/06/man-unacquainted-with-honor-courage-and-character/ In any event I urge to read the following in its entirety.

“Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you.

You keep sending emails begging for $15,

while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.

This administration is not simply “a different ideology.”

It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF.

That won’t save us.

I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech.

I want strategy.

I want fire.

I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.

Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds.

Surprise.

Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying,

“Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”

I call bullshit.

If you don’t know how to think outside the box…

If you don’t know how to strategize…

If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire…

what the hell are we giving you money for?

Some of us have two or three advanced degrees.

Some of us have military training.

Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.

Yes, the tours around the country? Nice.

The speeches? Nice.

The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.

That was great for giving hope.

Now we need action.

You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years.

We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.

Look at the disappearances.

Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights.

If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.

So here’s what I need from you — right now:

⸻

  1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.

I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs.

Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse.

Make it public. Make it unshakable.

Let the people drag the rot into the light.

If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones.

If Congress won’t act, let the country act.

This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.

Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.

And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented.

You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.

The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.

⸻

  1. Join the International Criminal Court.

Yes, I said it. Call their bluff.

You cannot control what the other side does.

But you can control your own integrity.

So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.

Join.

If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.

Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts.

Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty.

And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.

Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.

⸻

  1. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.

Don’t just send postcards. Send resources.

Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training.

If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it.

If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly.

This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.

Stop campaigning.

Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is.

We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.

Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy.

And let’s be clear:

The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.

They prepared for this.

They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions.

They built a machine while you wrote press releases.

We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years.

It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint.

You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029 —

a coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.

You should be publicly laying out:

  • The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again
  • The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine
  • The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable
  • The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador

You say you’re the party of the people?

Then show the people the plan.

⸻

  1. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.

If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth.

Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.

Give people tools, not soundbites.

We don’t need more slogans.

We need survival manuals.

⸻

  1. Leverage international media and watchdogs.

Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up.

They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.

Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.

Make what’s happening in America a global scandal.

And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.

Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky.

That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up.

If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.

Get creative. Go underground. Go global.

If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.

⸻

  1. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is loyal.

Some are scared. Some want out.

Build the channels.

Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.

Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.

And while you’re at it?

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors.

Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.

We are not the bullies.

We are not the ones filled with hate.

And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it.

They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.

But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd.

We don’t need purity.

We need numbers.

We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.

⸻

  1. Study the collapse—and the comeback.

You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship.

They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.

They went after the structure.

The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.

They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —

until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on.

And his power crumbled beneath him.

You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025,

every aide who defies court orders,

every communications director repeating lies,

every policy writer enabling cruelty,

every water boy who keeps this engine running.

You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down.

You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.

⸻

Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.

They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS.

A M E R I C A N S.

And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.

We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines.

We want backbone.

We want action.

We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.

We are watching.

And I don’t just mean your base.

I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening.

I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.

Often when I speak, it echoes.

But when we ALL

speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.

We need to be deafening.

You still have a chance to do something historic.

To be remembered for courage, not caution.

To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.

But the clock is ticking.

And the deportation buses are idling.”

Words

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Call me a quibbler if you like. I don’t mind. I believe that how we use words is very important and can reveal hidden meanings of intention of which the writer may be unaware. I expect, however, that the Editorial Board of the New York Times would be particularly conscious of the meaning of their statements. Recent experience suggests I am wrong about that, and I suspect I know the reason.

Some background. The Times describes its editorial board as “a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.” Fine as far as it goes although a bit vague on details.

On May 1 a digital version of the Editorial Board’s position titled There Is a Way Forward:  How to Defeat Trump’s Power Grab was published in the Times. On May 4, “A version” of the article appeared in print, Section SR, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Fight Like Our Democracy Depends On It. Having not seen that version, I address here the digital version. The printed version at least has a title more accurately stating what the battle is really about.

Note first that the article is introduced by a probably-AI generated depiction of an American bald eagle, our national symbol, struggling to free itself from a green, goo-like substance adhering to its wings and claws. I read that image to mean that democracy is in serious trouble, an assertion that I and many others have made in multiple posts, and which I believe cannot rationally be denied.

I was intrigued to see the Times standing up for democracy this way. Then I read it.

The opening was very strong:

The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction. Mr. Trump is attempting to create a presidency unconstrained by Congress or the courts, in which he and his appointees can override written law when they want to. It is precisely the autocratic approach that this nation’s founders sought to prevent when writing the Constitution.

The opening was followed by recognition that the Trump challenge is not ephemeral:

Mr. Trump has the potential to do far more harm in the remainder of his term. If he continues down this path and Congress and the courts fail to stop him, it could fundamentally alter the character of American government. Future presidents, seeking to either continue or undo his policies, will be tempted to pursue a similarly unbound approach, in which they use the powers of the federal government to silence critics and reward allies.

But wait. Let’s look more closely:

Mr. Trump has the potential to do far more harm in the remainder of his term. If he continues down this path and Congress and the courts fail to stop him, it could fundamentally alter the character of American government. Future presidents, seeking to either continue or undo his policies, will be tempted to pursue a similarly unbound approach, in which they use the powers of the federal government to silence critics and reward allies.

The piece continues with “It pains us to write these words” …. The patriotic response to today’s threat is to oppose Mr. Trump. But it is to do so soberly and strategically, not reflexively or performatively.”

The strong opening has thus been diluted with reference to the “potential” for future harms that will occur “if he continues down this path,” suggesting there is a reasonable chance Trump will suddenly transform into a person different than he has been his entire life. And the article makes clear that the writers don’t like having to criticize Trump. The solution they propose is implicitly critical of what many people have been doing and thinking in response to Trump’s unhinged blast through the federal government. The authors slip-slide into a description of a “coalition” of damn near everyone who isn’t a committed Trump cultist. A coalition of the willing so broad and encompassing that it will seem, because it is, a bridge too far.

I am encouraged in my cynicism about the position being advocated by what comes next:

 The building of this coalition should start with an acknowledgment that Mr. Trump is the legitimate president and many of his actions are legal. Some may even prove effective. He won the presidency fairly last year, by a narrow margin in the popular vote and a comfortable margin in the Electoral College. On several key issues, his views were closer to public opinion than those of Democrats. Since taking office, he has largely closed the southern border, and many of his immigration policies are both legal and popular. He has reoriented federal programs to focus less on race, which many voters support. He has pressured Western Europe to stop billing American taxpayers for its defense.

The reference to the southern border and other Trump policies is apparently based on a poll of 2,128 Americans crafted by and analyzed by the crafters for another article in the Times.

In the interest of fairness, I note this closing of the paragraph arguing that Trump has been doing what the American public wants:

Among these policies are many that we strongly oppose — such as pardoning Jan. 6 rioters, cozying up to Vladimir Putin of Russia and undermining Ukraine

But even that qualification comes with a qualification: “but that a president has the authority to enact. Elections have consequences.”

Then:

Mr. Trump nonetheless deserves criticism on these issues, and Congress members and grass-roots organizers should look for legal ways to thwart him.

Just criticism? Is the Times Editorial Board unaware that the Republican Party has majorities in both Houses of Congress and that the Congress thus constituted is incapable of judgment independent of whatever madness Trump wants, including an astonishing array of unqualified and incompetent cabinet and agency appointments?

The equivocation continues throughout the article. Under “Pillars of democracy,” the writers felt it necessary to point out that Presidents Biden and Obama had “tested these boundaries [separation of powers] and at times overstepped them.” While the Editorial Board strongly criticizes Trump/Vance about their attitude toward the judiciary, in my view there is no question that the approach used undermines the full impact of the Trump story. They note, for example, that Trump/Vance “seem to have defied clear [court] orders.”

Regarding Congress, the Board says, “Mr. Trump’s steamrolling of Congress involves more legal complexity, many scholars believe.” The obvious implication is that “many scholars dispute the view being stated. More equivocation subtly inserted at every turn. Another example:

Other attempts to assert power over previously independent parts of the executive branch seem more defensible, however. The executive branch reports to the president, after all, and parts of it have suffered from too little accountability in recent decades.

It is true, I admit, that the Editorial Board’s article contains much damning information about Trump’s conduct of the presidency. It could not be otherwise.

Yet, again and again, the subtle equivocation creeps in:

It remains possible that our concerns will look overwrought a year or two from now. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s shambolic approach to governance will undermine his ambitions. Perhaps federal courts will continue to constrain him and he will ultimately accept their judgments.

Sure, it’s “possible” that a lot of unexpected things may happen, but why in an article ostensibly designed to expose the President’s violations of the Constitution and his oath of office, to name just a few, are these constant “on the other hands” inserted?

Maybe I am just quibbling, but, as the Editorial Board notes near the end of its article:

our constitutional order depends to a significant degree on the good faith of a president. If a president acts in bad faith, it requires a sophisticated, multifaceted campaign to restrain him. Other parts of the government, along with civil society and corporate America, must think carefully and rigorously about what to do. That’s especially true when the most powerful alternative — Congress — is prostrate.

Yet, while noting that Trump’s political support seems to be waning, the Board warns us to avoid:

“exaggeration about what qualifies as a violation. Liberals who conflate conservative policies with unconstitutional policies risk sending conservatives back into Mr. Trump’s camp.”

In the end, the Board gets one thing right:

The past 100 days have wounded this country, and there is no guarantee that we will fully recover. But nobody should give up. American democracy retreated before, during the post-Reconstruction era, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Watergate and other times. It recovered from those periods not because its survival was inevitable but because Americans — including many who disagreed with one another on other subjects — fought bravely and smartly for this country’s ideals. That is our duty today.

Having beat this dead horse, I point the Times Editorial Board and my readers to a video that nails it. The woman in the video understands how language usage matters as she states ways to avoid equivocation and ambiguity. You can see the video here: https://www.threads.com/@debbieelledgeofficial/post/DJb2YEIN-pg?xmt=AQF0BLloj6EmrkRVS8pzJFTxn8QHvGWYkz2cHHWwynWmrA

More Book News

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Amazon now has Not to Yield, Volumes One & Two, in softcover and also in the Kindle version.

amazon.com

 

 

The America Trump Wants for You & Your Children

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Meidas+ (meidastouch@substack.com) published a list of 200 reasons to vote against Donald Trump. The list was originally created by Mark Jacob, former editor at the Chicago Tribune, author, and writer of the newsletter Stop The Presses. It contains many duplications. I have reorganized and supplemented the list. None of these points is in doubt. None.

Iif this is the country you want to live in and that you want your children and grandchildren to live in, vote for Trump/Vance. You will be doing so knowing that Trump plans to turn the United States into a gulag-ridden hellscape for everyone and particularly for women and children. You will know that the United States will no longer support action to control climate change.

Consider that if Trump attempts to execute his plan for the country, and there is every reason to think he will, can you reasonably expect the Russian government under the thumb of dictator Vladimir Putin to just sit quietly by and send Trump a congratulatory cake? Can you reasonably expect America’s current allies in NATO and elsewhere around the world to just say, “well, OK, no worries, the US is destroyed as a democracy, but we’re still fully aligned?” Historically, isolationist policies have led the United States into wars. If Trump wins, Russia will overrun Ukraine, and the NATO allies will be next.

Consider the implications of the dismantling of the federal system of Cabinet-level departments and administrative agencies responsible for implementing the multitude of laws enacted by Congress. Trump says he going to “shut down,” among others, the Department of Education.

Consider the implications of replacing the federal workforce with people whose primary “skill” is unquestioning obedience to whatever Trump decides he wants any given day. Here is the list of some of Trump’s past conduct showing that he is an existential threat to the nation:

  1. Trump incited a deadly assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; he has resisted every effort at accountability; the Supreme Court has held that he is above the law when, for example, he tries to compel the Justice Department to support his false claims of a stolen election. Trump will not accept defeat in 2024.
    • Trump pushed the fake-electors scheme to overturn a fair election, knowing the scheme had no lawful basis. He knew it and every Republican who still supports knew and knows it.
    • Trump lied that there were “205,000 more ballots than you had voters” in PA.
    • Trump lied that “the entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED!”
    • Trump falsely accused 2 Georgia election workers of election fraud – the same allegations that led to a $148M judgment vs. Rudy Giuliani.
    • In late 2020,  Trump delayed transition talks with the Biden team even though the stonewalling hurt public health efforts during a pandemic.
    • Trump’s coup attempt projected such instability that Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. planned no attack. This infuriated Trump, who suggested Milley deserved execution: “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
    • Trump plans to pardon the rioters who beat up police officers at the Capitol.
    • Trump did nothing but watch for 187 minutes as his followers stormed the Capitol.
    • Trump spread false claims that mail-in voting would lead to massive fraud, even though it’s been used safely for decades.
    • Trump repeatedly lied about voter fraud to undermine confidence in the 2020 election.
    • Trump tried to overturn the election results by pressuring Georgia officials to “find” votes in his favor.
    • Trump tried to use the Department of Justice as his personal legal defense team, undermining the rule of law.
    • Trump pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, including claims of rigged voting machines.
    • Trump repeatedly undermined the credibility of U.S. elections, a cornerstone of democracy.
    • Trump attempted to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the 2020 election to disrupt mail-in voting.

2. Trump’s extremist justices took away women’s right to control their own bodies.

3. Trump wants more huge tariff increases, which are a tax on American consumers; the Tax Foundation estimates loss of more than 684,000 full-time equivalent jobs as result.

4. Trump stole top secrets, lied about what he had, refused to return them, and left them exposed to unauthorized viewers in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

5. Trump bragged about grabbing the private parts of women he’d just met. Trump regards women as property.

6. Trump called for a “day of violence” in which police could do whatever they wanted with no accountability.

7. Trump threatens mass deportation of undocumented immigrants – imagine what will happen when many resist and others come to their aid. Read this: https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/twelve-million-deportations?r=4gbf6r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

8. Trump called his opponents “vermin,” echoing hate speech from the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwanda massacre.

9. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. He means to give the oil companies and others free rein to destroy the climate. Read this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/17/oil-industry-trump-climate-lobbying/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3f56fd8%2F6712886b1ab9a5507

10. Trump said his next administration would give a major health policy role to anti-vaxxer RFK Jr., a disturbed person who dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and cut off the head of a dead whale with a chainsaw and strapped it to the roof of his minivan.

    • Trump’s lies and incompetence likely led to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths from Covid-19.
    • Trump lied publicly that Covid-19 was “like a regular flu that we have flu shots for” while he privately said it was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” He continued lying throughout the worst of the pandemic, claiming repeatedly that COVID “will just go away.”
    • Trump suggested that putting light in people’s bodies and injecting them with disinfectant could kill Covid.
    • After the right demonized Anthony Fauci, Trump claimed not to know who gave Fauci a presidential commendation. It was Trump.
    • Trump secretly shipped Covid test equipment to Putin when it was needed in the U.S.
    • Trump downplayed the importance of wearing masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to unnecessary deaths.
    • Trump undermined pandemic relief efforts by refusing to sign stimulus bills until they included unrelated demands.
    • Trump downplayed the threat of Covid-19 despite knowing how dangerous it was.
    • Trump pressured governors to reopen their states during the Covid-19 pandemic against public health advice.
    • Trump’s administration ignored early warnings about the Covid-19 pandemic, delaying critical responses.

11. Trump helped the Saudis cover up the murder and dismemberment of a U.S.-based journalist.

12. Trump wants to use the military to put down “the enemy from within” – meaning anyone who opposes his agenda.

13. Trump lied that “Dems want to shut your churches down, permanently.”

14. Trump’s administration separated migrant children from their parents and then lost track of the parents. They didn’t and don’t care.

15. Trump increased the national debt by 39% in just 4 years while giving the rich a big tax cut.

16. Trump had to pay $2 million in a lawsuit over the Trump Foundation’s misuse of charity funds.

17. On 9/11, Trump bragged that the fall of the Twin Towers meant his building was NYC’s tallest. That’s all he was concerned about.

18. Trump touted his business acumen but couldn’t make a profit from casinos and filed for bankruptcy six times.

19. Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, a key alliance for global stability. Next time, he’ll do it.

20. Trump made false statements more than 30,000 times as President.

21. rump lied that an “extremely credible source” told him Obama’s birth certificate was fake. After years of pushing the birtherism hoax, Trump admitted it was bunk — and he blamed it on Hillary Clinton.

22. Trump took Putin’s word over the word of U.S. intel agencies regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.

23. Trump insulted Gold Star parents whose son, a U.S. soldier, had been killed in Iraq. The family was Muslim.

24. A court found Trump and his adult sons liable for business fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certification.

25. After a MAGA supporter massacred Latinos in El Paso, Trump and his wife went to the city and used a newly orphaned baby as a prop for a photo op.

26. Trump lied that “we’re the highest taxed nation in the world.”

27. Trump lied by tweet in 2019: “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas.” In fact, the plant had opened nearly 6 years earlier.

28. Trump lied when making the absurd claim that people weren’t allowed to say “Merry Christmas” until he came along.

29. Trump denounced 4 women in Congress who are members of minority groups, telling them to go back where they came from, even though 3 were born here and the 4th immigrated as a child.

30. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump wanted to shoot social justice protesters. “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at Gen. Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?'”

31. Trump lied that the strategic oil reserve was “mostly empty” and that he filled it. In fact, the reserve was lower at the end of his term than at the start.

32. Trump overruled experts to give a security clearance to Jared Kushner, who later leveraged his access to get $2B from the Saudis.

33. Trump is a racist bigot. He said in 1991: “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.”

34. Trump said in 2015 he favored the creation of a database to track all Muslims in the U.S.

35. Trump asked in 2016 if women should be charged with a crime for having an abortion despite a ban, he said: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”

36. Trump defended Putin in 2015: “Nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody.”

37. In 2016, he called for not only killing terrorists but killing their family members, too.

38. Trump invited Russians into the Oval Office and shared classified information.

39. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, was convicted of 17 tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records.

40. Trump called for government crackdowns on MSNBC and CBS because he didn’t like their coverage of him.

41. Trump’s pardon got Steve Bannon out of federal fraud charges in a “build the wall” scam. Right-wing disinformation is Bannon’s game: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”

42. Trump praised Hungarian despot Viktor Orban as “one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world.”

43. A Trump golf club put up a marker about a “River of Blood” at a Civil War battle that supposedly took place there. But no such battle occurred. It’s a lie.

44. Several Trump golf clubs displayed a Time magazine cover featuring him. You guessed it: It’s fake.

45. Trump pardoned Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of ignoring a court order to stop profiling Latinos.

46. Trump lied about Mika Brzezinski’s husband/co-host: “When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so.”

47. Trump hired Kellyanne Conway as a professional liar, and she fulfilled that role, saying early in the pandemic that Covid was “contained,” calling lies “alternative facts” and referring to a terrorist attack that never happened: the “Bowling Green Massacre.”

48. Trump praised China’s dictator Xi Jinping as “brilliant” and “strong like granite.”

49. Trump quit the Iran nuclear deal, raising the chances of nuclear war.

50. Trump told his Cabinet that the Soviet Union was justified in invading Afghanistan in 1979.

51. After former Klan leader David Duke endorsed him for president, Trump said: “I don’t know David Duke. … I just don’t know anything about him.” But researchers found video clips showing Trump talking about Duke on national TV multiple times.

52. Trump refused to attend his successor’s inauguration, becoming the first president to boycott the transition since Andrew Johnson in 1869.

53. Trump tore up official documents, forcing aides to tape them together to preserve them as required by federal law.

54. Trump endorsed NC gov candidate Mark Robinson, a Holocaust denier who called Obama a “top-ranking demon” and said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”

55. Trump’s social-media Christmas wish for his opponents: “May they rot in hell.”

56. Trump used the South Lawn of the White House for a partisan event, ignoring precedent and propriety, when he gave his 2020 Republican National Convention speech there.

57. Trump, asked about QAnon, the conspiracy cult that claims JFK Jr. is still alive and Democrats kidnap children to harvest their blood, said: “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand that they like me very much, which I appreciate.”

58. Trump lied that U.S. Steel was building 6, 7, 8, or 9 new plants (the number varied). But the company built no new plants.

59. Asked about charges for Ghislaine Maxwell for conspiring with sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, Trump said: “I wish her well, frankly.”

60. Trump lied that he received “the highly honored Bay of Pigs award” from Cuban Americans in Florida. There’s no such award.

61. After a 75-year-old social justice protester in Buffalo, NY, was shoved to the ground by police and suffered a fractured skull, Trump suggested it was a “set-up” by “an antifa provocateur.” Trump tweeted that the activist “fell harder than [he] was pushed.”

62. Trump lied that Obama spied on his campaign.

63. Trump said: “We will be ending the AIDS epidemic shortly in America and curing childhood cancer very shortly.”

64. Trump’s Agriculture Dept. ordered staff to stop referring to “climate change” and call it “weather extremes” instead.

65. Trump is selling watches, crypto, and sneakers. Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bibles were printed in China.

66. Credible evidence indicates that Egypt gave Trump’s campaign a $10M bribe.

67. Trump opened most of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other development, removing protections for a temperate rainforest. Biden reversed the move.

68. He claimed to have built hundreds of miles of new border wall, but most of it was just repairs to existing sections.

69. Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. would lose its energy independence under Biden, even though the U.S. was energy independent before and after his presidency.

70. Trump hosted super-spreader events during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to multiple outbreaks.

71. Trump tried to block the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which described his unfit mental state and corrupt behavior.

72. Trump repeatedly attacked the media, calling them the “enemy of the people” and undermining free speech.

73. Trump refused to condemn white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, telling them instead to “stand back and stand by.”

74. Trump refused to release his tax returns, breaking decades of tradition and transparency.

75. Trump pressured foreign governments, including Ukraine, to investigate his political rivals, leading to his impeachment.

76. Trump mocked a reporter with a disability during a campaign rally, showing a lack of basic decency.

77. Trump refused to support measures to protect against Russian interference in U.S. elections.

78. Trump repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using government resources for political purposes.

79. He ignored intelligence reports about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

80. Trump’s administration rolled back environmental protections, contributing to climate change and pollution.

81. Trump lied that U.S. troops voted overwhelmingly for him, when military ballots showed otherwise.

82. Trump endorsed violence against protesters, saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

83. Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization during a global pandemic, weakening international cooperation.

84. Trump promoted unproven Covid-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine, which endangered public health.

85. Trump repeatedly lied about his administration’s accomplishments, including jobs created and trade deals made.

86. Trump ordered the violent removal of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo-op with a Bible.

87. Trump insulted John McCain, a decorated war hero, saying he prefers “people who weren’t captured.”

88. Trump downplayed the severity of climate change, reversing policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

89. Trump called for imprisoning political rivals, a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

90. Trump’s reckless foreign policy decisions alienated key allies and damaged the U.S.’s reputation globally.

Book Announcement

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I am delighted to announce the publication of Not to Yield, a two-volume compilation of essays adapted from my blog at http://shiningseausa.com and, to a lesser extent, my retired blog at AutumnInNewYork.net.

This is most important: I do not expect you to buy the book because you know me.

If you are interested, please do buy it, but I will never ask. You owe me no explanation of your decision. Similarly, if you are offended by the contents, I’m sorry for that but the book, in addition to being a political and legal history, is replete with my opinions about many subjects. They are my opinions, and that’s that. I have explained the basis for them in, I hope, every case. If you agree, wonderful. If not, you are entitled to. This is the United States, after all. At least for now. One thing seems certain: if Trump loses the election, he will not accept the loss and just retire quietly to Mar-a-Lago. Many of the essays in this book will remain instructive for some time to come.

How to buy Not to Yield”
 
The books are now available at Barnes & Noble:

For Volume One: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-to-yield-paul-m-ruden/1146438480?ean=9798823034661

For Volume Two: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-to-yield-paul-m-ruden/1146448160?ean=9798823034685

You may qualify for a Member Discount and Free Shipping.

If you prefer to buy from the publisher, here is the AuthorHouse website:

For Volume One: https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/863010-not-to-yield
For Volume Two: https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/863011-not-to-yield

There may be shipping and handling charges.

In the relatively near future, they will be available through Amazon, among others. If you want to know when that occurs, state so in a comment  and I will advise at the appropriate time.

The e-book version of the volumes will also be available in the near future on the AuthorHouse website, as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, for a lower price and useable on any e-platform. If e-books are your thing, you may wish to wait. In all events, if you buy it/them, I hope the reading will be stimulating and thought-provoking. Remember that experience (history) keeps a dear school …. [Ben Franklin]

If you think you might want to read some of the essays but not all (each volume is long), you may want to consider buying the book, reading what you like, and donating the books to a local library, perhaps for a tax deduction.

To assist in deciding whether you want to buy one or both volumes, I have set out below a list of the main chapters, each of which usually has multiple essays within it.

From the Back Cover:

“This raw, provocative book of essays adapted from the blog ShiningSeaUSA pulls back the curtain on the Trump presidency, providing a panoramic view of his turbulent time in office, the legal implications of his actions, and the inactions of those surrounding him, enabling him, or standing by. The book includes memoir about life in New York City, legal analyses of major political developments since Donald Trump emerged, deep dives into what went wrong in the Mueller investigation, Trump’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic, and the threat to American democracy from Trump, the Republican Party he has captured, and the “conservative” Supreme Court. Not to Yield exposes the corruption and incompetence that dominated Trump’s presidency, his denial of his 2020 election loss, the January 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s attempt to return to power, all observed through a legal lens that spotlights blatant disregard for the law of the land and our democratic system.”

Chapters Volume One: Chapters Volume Two:

 
1 NEW YORK CITY MEMORIES 16 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2017

 
2 PEOPLE 17 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2018
3 CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, & SOCIETY 18 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2019

 
4 CONGRESS 19 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2020
5 DEMOCRACY 20 PANDEMIC 2020
6 LAW & COURTS 21 ELECTION 2020
7 TERRORISM 22 TRUMP IN 2021
8 MEDIA 23 TRUMP IN 2022
9 REPUBLICAN POLICY 24 TRUMP IN 2023

 
10 GUNS IN AMERICA 25 ELECTION 2024

 
11 POLICING IN AMERICA
12 RACISM & MYSOGNY
13 ELECTION 2016
14 MUELLER REPORT
15 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2016

Project 2025 – The Republican Doomsday Scenario – Part 2

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The core premise of Project 2025 is that the federal government is the enemy of the American people:

The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead.

The authors of these concepts are very bright people with impressive credentials, but they are wedded to the idea that since the Great Depression, the population has lost its moorings by electing federal political leaders who have betrayed the country’s original values, at least the values they fantasize were the founding principles.

Curiously, the manifesto declares that the situation is so fraught that:

Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.” And now, as then, the Republican Party seems to have little understanding about what to do. Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril.

The first expressed goal of Project 2025 is thus to “Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children,” defined by the Project as “the true priority of politics.” Based on the conduct of the Republican Party, they consider Donald Trump and his family of entitled grifters the model for the American family. I am not making this up.

The Project’s hyperventilation over the “carnage” that Trump referenced in his 2016 inauguration speech continues with this pithy observation:

In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatu­ral ones.

I have observed in other writings the curious condition that permits Republicans to keep multiple inconsistent ideas actively working in their minds at the same time without experiencing devastating cognitive dissonance. Here is another example from Project 2025 wherein it observes that Republicans have had long-terms goals of “eliminating marriage penalties in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for food stamps.” Then,

 But we must go further. It’s time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family. [emphasis added for … emphasis]

Sooo, it seems that big government is evil BUT we should use government power to reshape society by establishing government-enforced cultural rules that control the private behavior of adults.

The Republicans’ concern for the welfare of the American family is touching, until you recall this:

Shooting Deaths Shooting Injuries Elementary Schools Middle/Jr High High schools Other2
2000-01 1,676 515 1,305 320 162 777
thru 2021-22
2000-01 47 18 30 4 3 23
2001-02 18 5 17 2 1 14
2002-03 29 13 24 2 6 16
2003-04 45 16 34 5 3 26
2004-05 63 22 44 9 1 32
2005-06 55 13 50 5 6 39
2006-07 91 28 64 9 12 42
2007-08 23 10 16 2 2 11
2008-09 61 19 52 11 6 31
2009-10 15 5 15 1 2 12
2010-11 32 8 18 4 2 12
2011-12 21 9 16 3 3 9
2012-13 55 42 26 7 5 13
2013-14 55 19 46 7 3 32
2014-15 65 20 43 13 4 24
2015-16 45 9 38 7 4 25
2016-17 61 14 48 8 9 31
2017-18 185 52 89 14 8 64
2018-19 116 34 113 35 14 60
2019-20 126 32 116 33 11 70
2020-21 118 46 145 59 21 57
2021-22 350 81 319 82 37 189

And this:

It seems that Republicans are fine with the “acceptable losses” of children due to school shootings, since they resist virtually every attempt to limit access to guns. And we have just learned that the Supreme Court, ruled by a “conservative majority” of six (half appointed by Trump), thinks automatic weapons, or their functional equivalent, are just fine too. Garland v Cargill decided June 14, 2024.

Project 2025 provides many examples of what it would change by government edict. I will address many of them in subsequent posts.

Meanwhile, women of America and everyone who believes in science and the principles of individual liberty, separation of church and state, among others, try on for size these pieces of Project 2025 about the American “family”:

The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi­tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course, the best argument for universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and con­servative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal, parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, princi­pals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.

Every threat to family stability must be confronted. This resolve should color each of our policies. Consider our approach to Big Tech. The worst of these companies prey on children, like drug dealers, to get them addicted to their mobile apps. Many Silicon Valley executives famously don’t let their own kids have smart phones.2 They nevertheless make billions of dollars addicting other people’s children to theirs. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are specifically designed to create the digital dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child abuse to continue.

In particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion. Conservatives should ardently pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women who find themselves in immensely difficult and often tragic situations and the hero­ism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support.

Recall that this part is just about the first prong of Project 2025. These people are deadly serious about using the power of the federal government to reshape the United States into a Christian Nationalist version of Gilead.

If The Scots Can Do This, Why Can’t We?

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A November report in the BBC News indicates that a solar-powered boat has been developed and launched in the Philippines. http://tinyurl.com/52vyjys4

Aside: [I Googled this story and found no indication of coverage by any major U.S. news outlet online or otherwise.]

This is a solar-powered version of the “banca” boat, a traditional vessel typically made of wood and powered by a diesel engine, notorious polluters.

Stromness-based Aquatera, an Orkney company, said this was the first of its kind to be powered by renewables. The banca forms the backbone of coastal communities in the Philippines, providing lifeline sources of food, water, and livelihoods through tourism and fishing.

The new version can carry six passengers and two crew and travel up to five hours with a maximum speed of 11 knots. It has a cold-storage facility for the delivery of perishable goods and temperature-sensitive commodities, such as vaccines, to remote communities.

Ian Hutchison, director of Oceantera, said:

Through this initiative, we plan to work with local businesses, communities, and partners to help establish fossil-fuel-free transportation networks across the Philippines and wider South East [sic] Asia.

The project was included in the Renewable Energy-Powered Marine Transport for Island Communities project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development.

One small step for man ….

Can We Save Ourselves?

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It’s hard to figure out what’s worse: the collapse of the common understanding of how adherence to the U.S. Constitution defines our nation or the collapse of our common understanding of what it’s going take for mankind, as a species, to survive on our dying planet. It’s the classic Hobson’s Choice: both bad.

A recent article (November 2023) in the Washington Post discussed our use and abuse of plastics, the once-miracle material that now threatens to destroy everything. http://tinyurl.com/45cbc7xm  Here are a few mind-numbing facts assembled by Journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, author of “Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have” and the newsletter “News From a Changing Planet:”

Between 1950 and 2021, humanity produced about 11 billion metric tons of virgin plastic — that’s the weight of 110,000 U.S. aircraft carriers. Only about 2 billion tons of this is still in use. The rest — some 8.7 billion tons — is waste: 71 percent has ended up in landfills or somewhere else in the environment, including the ocean; 12 percent has been recycled; 17 percent has been incinerated. At the rate we’re going, global plastic waste will rise 60 percent by 2050.

As things stand, from 2010 to 2050 alone, the world could generate enough to cover all of Manhattan with a pile of plastic more than two miles high.

Microplastics have been found in breast milk and in our blood. Around the world, up to 60 percent of all recycled plastic is collected by waste pickers, often members of poor and marginalized communities, who suffer from inhaling caustic fumes from burning plastic and drinking water heavily contaminated with microplastics.

The author strikes a note of optimism by citing a 175-country agreement in 2022 to “develop a legally binding international treaty to end plastic pollution by 2040.” This is the classic “agreement to agree” scenario, if we can. The author maintains that a combination of a mere nine policies “could reduce annual plastic waste by more than 87 percent.”

I will spare you the agonizing details of what’s possible and let you read for yourself. Then you can decide whether you think any of this will happen. Just note this:

U.N. negotiators just finished meeting again in Nairobi to begin crafting the actual treaty, in hopes of completing it by the end of next year [2024], though progress seems to have stalled, a result of excessive influence from oil and gas industry lobbyists, according to nongovernmental organizations. [emphasis added]

Those folks will no doubt be joined by the likes of Amazon and, in the DC area, Giant Foods, whose packaging practices have zero apparent regard for the efficient use of cardboard and plastic packing materials. As the world’s number-one plastic polluter, we should be able to count on U.S. leadership in this effort to save the planet, but don’t count on it.

It will take, I suggest, a massive public uprising to compel industry to pay attention to this existential threat to the survival of our species. Given everything else going on in American politics right now, such an uprising seems a pure fantasy.

One thing seems certain, when the end comes, it won’t be pretty. The worst dystopian stories you’ve ever read will seem like child’s play. We almost at the irrevocable tipping point on climate change, so add the destruction of the oceans and all the rest and you can begin to imagine what will happen. This is not a movie, and there will be no miraculous “save” just before the end.

On the Precipice

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As we approach with bated breath the change of years on the calendar, the flow of events continues. The calendar is an artificial device invented by humans for counting time but time ticks forward regardless. So, here we are, about to celebrate another “year” lived and with hope, we hope, for a better future for everyone.

Given all that, it’s a good idea to review some things about the recent past that have a large bearing on the near future. For this, I turn to Heather Cox Richardson, brilliant Boston College historian to whose daily newsletter [Letters From an American] I have recently subscribed. I’m pretty sure she’s ok with my repeating her thoughts/information because each issue of the newsletter as a “Share” button at the end with options for email, Twitter, Facebook, and others. And we’re on the same team.

Here are some of HCR’s observations about the Biden administration’s performance:

  • The U.S. economy is stronger than that of any other country in the Group of Seven (G7)—a political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the European Union—with higher growth and faster drops in inflation than any other G7 country over the past three years.
  • … growth accelerated to an astonishing 4.9% annualized rate in the third quarter of the year while inflation cooled from 6.4% to 3.1% and the economy added more than 2.5 million jobs.
  • The S&P 500, which is a stock market index of 500 of the largest companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, ended this year up 24%. The Nasdaq composite index, which focuses on technology stocks, gained more than 40%.
  • … new businesses are starting up at a near-record pace.
  • … holiday sales this year were up 3.1%.
  • Unemployment has remained below 4% for 22 months in a row for the first time since the late 1960s.
  • … unionized workers in the automobile industry, UPS, Hollywood, railroads, and service industries [won] higher wages and other benefits.
  • Real wages have risen faster than inflation, especially for those at the bottom of the economy, whose wages have risen by 4.5% after inflation between 2020 and 2023.
  • the nation has had a record drop in homicides and other categories of violent crime. The only crime that has risen in 2023 is vehicle theft.

One must wonder why this kind of news does not get more attention from at least the so-called Mainstream Media. I get a vast array of news articles from a vast array of sources every day and you would think from the headlines/content of most of them, that the United States is on the brink of economic collapse. I have wondered in other posts why the Democratic Party’s message of progress/achievement/hope is not keeping up with the relentless drumbeat of lies/deceptions/deflections from Donald Trump and his acolytes. I will wonder.

The “new” science of Behavioral Economics [see Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow] teaches us about cognitive biases and the influence of salience on how we generalize our understandings of “reality.” To some significant degree, the repetition of the lies and distortions of Trump’s dark vision of America have led many people to believe we are on the precipice of collapse brought on by immigration, socialism, communism, abortion, and transgenderism, etc etc. The facts say otherwise.

That is not to say, obviously, that there are no problems. One of them, that gets too little attention, is our continued dependence on other countries, most notably but not solely China for many vital products, including critical microchips. See https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_toews_ai_s_single_point_of_failure/transcript?user_email_address=f286772a6726b8e7d0d1da2e91e7f0c9 There are many others but the scale of the United States, its history and its attachment to capitalism inevitably cause problems. For an honest explanation of some by a brilliant scholar who believes in capitalism, see Charles Lindblom’s The Market System (2001), as valid today as when written.

So, as we approach the “New Year,” there is much to celebrate and much about which to be concerned. Maybe this is nothing new, but it feels more ominous for reasons I have discussed in other recent posts. For now, just for today, I will desist from worrying and, with Heather Cox Richardson, accept that we have much to appreciate in our current political leadership, that we still have hope because the good guys outnumber the bad guys, and trust that the good guys will, as they have in past, do what must be done as Americans who still believe in our aspiration set out in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

No Way to Run a Government

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USAToday reports that Republican Senator Tuberville’s hold on over 400 military promotions (excluding four-star nominees) has ended. https://tinyurl.com/yeyvkxk5

The former football coach turned U.S. lawmaker in one of the world’s most important deliberative bodies has stymied the promotions for 10 months while trying to force the Pentagon to yield to his desire to stop the Pentagon from giving service members time off and pay for travel to have an abortion. The policy was put into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

Thus, we have a government in which a single Senator, one of one hundred, can stymy the earned promotions of hundreds of military personnel vital to the nation’s defense because he, one Senator out of a hundred, objects to a Pentagon policy. Not coincidentally, note that the policy he wanted to thwart directly helps only women. And, of course,

The retired college football coach said he has no regrets blocking the nominations in protest of the Pentagon’s policy.

Of course he has no regrets. The Senator will now try to force the Pentagon to his will by having Republicans in the House, where they have a very slim majority, to force the Pentagon’s hand through the annual defense spending bill. After all, who needs defense when you are trying to impose your religious views on the entire government? Even Mitch McConnell apparently thought Tuberville was off base on this one, calling his action “dangerous.”

Among other preposterous and grossly irresponsible aspects of Tuberville’s blockade was that it led a group of senators to spend five hours in November on the Senate floor trying to secure individual votes on each promotion. Apparently, the great deliberative body had plenty of time on its hands, so no problem jumping through procedural hoops trying to overcome the obstinate resistance of one Senator.

This is no way to run a government. A single legislator, elected by 1,392,076 voters, representing 1.7 percent of the 80,821,083 total votes cast for Senators in 2020, is able to dictate policy to the entire government. I rest my case.