Marco Rubio is a child wearing long pants for the first time. His counterparts among our allies and adversaries know that. Trump might just as well appointed Melania.
We should be careful about mourning the loss of USAID. There's no doubt it delivered help and relief to millions over the years. But we can't forget that it's also a supplicant to the CIA and other U.S. spy agencies. It provided intelligence that killed Vietnamese. It's provided intelligence to several place where Americans want to bomb. There's a really nasty and nefarious side to the organization. Just as nasty as most other U.S. foreign-operating three-letter agencies.
I was harassed out of my job at a Bank after 32 years of service. I filed a complaint with the Labor Commission. The Bank wanted to fire me claimed I wasn’t doing my job because they didn’t want an older lady working there. I was able to get 12 months of severance after I filed the complaint. Is the Labor Commission still operating or did they shut that down too? I think they should all file complaints and maybe lawsuits. This is so wrong!
This might be a good time to post this free link to this long but very worthwhile article from Michael Lewis in the Washington Post last September. It's about an award from Partnerships for Public Service, an organization founded to honor the work of civil servants (https://wapo.st/4hLRfFb)
The focus of this article is on a former coal miner, Christopher Mark, who "led the development of industry-wide standards and practices to prevent roof falls in underground mines, leading to the first year (2016) of no roof fall fatalities in the United States."
Our ignorant fellow citizens are about to get a profound and painful civics lesson in why an earlier generation of American leaders chose to professionalize the public service sector.
If you view this situation in another way, the wealthiest man in the world discovered he could buy the Presidency of the U.S. Essentially elon paid djt $270,000,000 so djt could avoid prison. In return, elon has apparently been given carte blanche to invade the U.S. Treasury and, in all probability, various other departments. There is a real probability we will never know what elon and his kids have done.
Slightly less than half the American voting public is dangerously stupid.
Regarding "Inside the Purge at USAID": I have relative who works for USAID and can tell you that everyword in that letter is the truth. Quoting from the letter, this says it all! "They are not aimed at making the government more efficient or effective. Instead, they are about deliberately creating an environment of fear, anxiety, and despair. The emotional toll has been immense. The intention is to cause stress, tears, and deep uncertainty about our futures. We’ve been left in a state of constant fear of losing our jobs, our livelihoods, and our ability to support our families. The deliberate intention is clear: to cause panic, resignations, and internal collapse without having to take responsibility for the cuts."
It's a common theme within the MAGA world. They seem to fail up. Marco has always been a little man, literally and figuratively. Mealy mouthed and two faced. Who is the real Marco? I think he's finally standing up and we see him. Trump only surrounds himself with the best. The ones who grovel, switch sides, show no moral fortitude, allow themselves to be lambasted and put down. And then they take that negative vitriol and spread it to others because it's the way to real power? Gosh, Donald develops the healthiest dynamics in people, doesn't he?
The irony of this is that Donald gave us Marco with the belief that we'd see him as the normal one. We'd let everything else go because he gave us little Marco? As a woman I have to say that I'm getting real tired of insecure men and their fragile egos.
I'm tired today. We warn ourselves not to pay attention to every little rotten thing our leaders and government are doing, to pick the most important thing to focus on. I'm not doing well with that at the moment because it's all seeming like an existential crises. This is grim, and I'm not seeing a point to what's going on other than the destruction of this country. I was looking forward to a new DNC that would start lighting a fire in the party, but we got a chairman who says that "Democrats already have the right message." Really?
If you believe everyone is equal, then you treat every person equally. They don't need qualifiers, definitions or labels. That's what I saw from the DNC: extreme focus on making priorities of the cultural minorities. Labeling them. This probably sounds like I'm anti DEI: I'm not. If anything DEI should be most beneficial to less wealthy and people with less opportunity. In this country that seems to be minority labeling, i.e, not white. However, poverty and lack of opportunity knows no color, but in this country we've allowed that stigma to develop. We've fostered it. Our government promoted it in financial and legislative ways from the state to federal level. Until we own that...
Until we start with a basic premise that we're all the same, have the same kinds of feelings, needs, hopes and dreams despite how we look or who we love, we're never getting out of this quagmire that we then allow parties to politicize. You fight for everyone. You legislate for everyone. You're supposedly the party of the people, Dems. Show it. (End of mini rant.)
I'll be better tomorrow after I take a rest from the news, paint a little and spend time with my aged puppy. We'll go play in the snow. As always, thanks for the look at your puppies. They look happy, which makes my day much brighter.
The thing that sounds ridiculous to me is your assertion, "start with a basic premise that we're all the same." That's a fascist, right-wing notion, like it or not. That's because it fails to recognize decades - no centuries - of bigotry and racism that prevented most non-whites & women to succeed. White male privilege kept others away. Now this has been recognized and at least feeble attempts to actually accomplish what your quote pretends to do, whites don't want a level playing field. They're afraid to compete? That's what white privilege looks and sounds like.
I can understand why you have that perspective. But when do we get to arrive at a place that we can move forward from history? I said we need to own it, the inequities. But at some point if we change, whether in our personal lives or public, we need to recognize, acknowledge and move forward from mistakes. How else do you improve and move on?
I disagree that it’s a fascist notion. I’m not a Christian, but it’s the most Christian notion there is. It’s the premise of “all men are created equal…”
Martin Luther King Jr had the same dream. When we could all walk side by side, color blind and united. I’ve never heard of him referred to as a fascist.
The most christian notions there are are: "Give my your money, let me kill somebody you know and don't challenge me, and let me play with your child all alone for a while, would you?"
Bravo!! I sent a similar less eloquent message to the DNC comment box. I will not donate to them until they drop all the gender labels and pronouns talky talk. Like u, I’m not against the DEI initiatives quite the opposite and I behave and think accordingly- the Laws of our country are being hollowed out by $$$ oligarchy- Focus on these problems! Our country isn’t about being run by a failed fake businessman….
My wife got politically active way back when Dennis Kukinich was pushing for a Dept of Peace and she thought that was a good idea. She quit a couple months later in frustration as she witnessed the organization get in its own way with politically correct minutiae. She learned that liberals have their own flavors of dogma and intolerance and their own means to enforce compliance. She quit because it appeared to her to be a cultural thing that she couldn't possibly change, and changing liberal culture isn't why she signed up anyhow. Sounds to me like things have only gotten worse since.
Dems need pragmatists. Fierce ones, with teeth. They need leaders who will viciously fight for the founding ideals of this country. Biden should have spent his administration installing more guardrails and systemic safety switches, rather than pandering to red state voters and then neglecting to tell them they were being pandered to.
Don't expect change when Dems are busy bickering over gender quotas in leadership.
It strikes me that Senators have an unusual power and that is to place "holds" on legislation. Tuberville was doing it with the rank advancements in the military. I don't know the scope of that power, how it was initiated but I do think it is well established yet rarely used.
I would suggest one US Senator place a hold on a specific odious piece of crap that MAGA, or Trump, or want and the second senator place a similar hold on yet another. Then, begin an "I am Spartacus" movement. All those holds.
Focusing on the new head of the DNC is just stupid. I'm not giving five dollars to anyone. It's actually an insult. AOC seems to be the only one in those buildings able to focus right now.
Come on Charlie, get with the GOP program! It's all about cruelty. Not just against Americans, but everyone else in the world. It's the new Christian mantra. BE MEAN!
Apparently, we want China to take over by funding what we no longer fund. Very short sighted.
christians are the best killers. Have been for centuries. And American christians are particularly vicious. Cruelty is a test for the adherents who'll be pulling out guns later.
Heads out of our asses, please. These purges aren't about "waste and fraud," they are the groundwork for an Orban-style takeover of the entire federal government. In dribs and drabs, right out of the authoritarian playbook. Shock and awe? More like greasing the skids for inserting the Schutzstaffel (SS). Political soldiers.
I’ve been watching this sh*t show while traveling in Europe and I’ve got whiplash. I wake up to tariffs on Mexico and Canada, as I go to bed Mexico tariffs are off. I wake up and Canada tariffs are off too, but China has imposed 25% tariffs. From afar this looks like a bunch of cats chasing after a laser pointer, jumping from place to place, but never completely on all fours. We are truly being governed by the chaos personality cult.
Every day he is proving he is still ‘little Marco’
Marco Rubio is a child wearing long pants for the first time. His counterparts among our allies and adversaries know that. Trump might just as well appointed Melania.
We should be careful about mourning the loss of USAID. There's no doubt it delivered help and relief to millions over the years. But we can't forget that it's also a supplicant to the CIA and other U.S. spy agencies. It provided intelligence that killed Vietnamese. It's provided intelligence to several place where Americans want to bomb. There's a really nasty and nefarious side to the organization. Just as nasty as most other U.S. foreign-operating three-letter agencies.
He’s an ass. W e know him here in Florida. An ASS. Low bar.
Soooo, you mean to say he's a perfect MAGAT.
I was harassed out of my job at a Bank after 32 years of service. I filed a complaint with the Labor Commission. The Bank wanted to fire me claimed I wasn’t doing my job because they didn’t want an older lady working there. I was able to get 12 months of severance after I filed the complaint. Is the Labor Commission still operating or did they shut that down too? I think they should all file complaints and maybe lawsuits. This is so wrong!
In tRumpworld, you don't matter. Get used to it.
This might be a good time to post this free link to this long but very worthwhile article from Michael Lewis in the Washington Post last September. It's about an award from Partnerships for Public Service, an organization founded to honor the work of civil servants (https://wapo.st/4hLRfFb)
The focus of this article is on a former coal miner, Christopher Mark, who "led the development of industry-wide standards and practices to prevent roof falls in underground mines, leading to the first year (2016) of no roof fall fatalities in the United States."
Our ignorant fellow citizens are about to get a profound and painful civics lesson in why an earlier generation of American leaders chose to professionalize the public service sector.
If you view this situation in another way, the wealthiest man in the world discovered he could buy the Presidency of the U.S. Essentially elon paid djt $270,000,000 so djt could avoid prison. In return, elon has apparently been given carte blanche to invade the U.S. Treasury and, in all probability, various other departments. There is a real probability we will never know what elon and his kids have done.
Slightly less than half the American voting public is dangerously stupid.
Regarding "Inside the Purge at USAID": I have relative who works for USAID and can tell you that everyword in that letter is the truth. Quoting from the letter, this says it all! "They are not aimed at making the government more efficient or effective. Instead, they are about deliberately creating an environment of fear, anxiety, and despair. The emotional toll has been immense. The intention is to cause stress, tears, and deep uncertainty about our futures. We’ve been left in a state of constant fear of losing our jobs, our livelihoods, and our ability to support our families. The deliberate intention is clear: to cause panic, resignations, and internal collapse without having to take responsibility for the cuts."
Pete on the throne flanked by his best friends warms my hard little heart! ❤️
It's a common theme within the MAGA world. They seem to fail up. Marco has always been a little man, literally and figuratively. Mealy mouthed and two faced. Who is the real Marco? I think he's finally standing up and we see him. Trump only surrounds himself with the best. The ones who grovel, switch sides, show no moral fortitude, allow themselves to be lambasted and put down. And then they take that negative vitriol and spread it to others because it's the way to real power? Gosh, Donald develops the healthiest dynamics in people, doesn't he?
The irony of this is that Donald gave us Marco with the belief that we'd see him as the normal one. We'd let everything else go because he gave us little Marco? As a woman I have to say that I'm getting real tired of insecure men and their fragile egos.
I'm tired today. We warn ourselves not to pay attention to every little rotten thing our leaders and government are doing, to pick the most important thing to focus on. I'm not doing well with that at the moment because it's all seeming like an existential crises. This is grim, and I'm not seeing a point to what's going on other than the destruction of this country. I was looking forward to a new DNC that would start lighting a fire in the party, but we got a chairman who says that "Democrats already have the right message." Really?
If you believe everyone is equal, then you treat every person equally. They don't need qualifiers, definitions or labels. That's what I saw from the DNC: extreme focus on making priorities of the cultural minorities. Labeling them. This probably sounds like I'm anti DEI: I'm not. If anything DEI should be most beneficial to less wealthy and people with less opportunity. In this country that seems to be minority labeling, i.e, not white. However, poverty and lack of opportunity knows no color, but in this country we've allowed that stigma to develop. We've fostered it. Our government promoted it in financial and legislative ways from the state to federal level. Until we own that...
Until we start with a basic premise that we're all the same, have the same kinds of feelings, needs, hopes and dreams despite how we look or who we love, we're never getting out of this quagmire that we then allow parties to politicize. You fight for everyone. You legislate for everyone. You're supposedly the party of the people, Dems. Show it. (End of mini rant.)
I'll be better tomorrow after I take a rest from the news, paint a little and spend time with my aged puppy. We'll go play in the snow. As always, thanks for the look at your puppies. They look happy, which makes my day much brighter.
The thing that sounds ridiculous to me is your assertion, "start with a basic premise that we're all the same." That's a fascist, right-wing notion, like it or not. That's because it fails to recognize decades - no centuries - of bigotry and racism that prevented most non-whites & women to succeed. White male privilege kept others away. Now this has been recognized and at least feeble attempts to actually accomplish what your quote pretends to do, whites don't want a level playing field. They're afraid to compete? That's what white privilege looks and sounds like.
I can understand why you have that perspective. But when do we get to arrive at a place that we can move forward from history? I said we need to own it, the inequities. But at some point if we change, whether in our personal lives or public, we need to recognize, acknowledge and move forward from mistakes. How else do you improve and move on?
I disagree that it’s a fascist notion. I’m not a Christian, but it’s the most Christian notion there is. It’s the premise of “all men are created equal…”
Martin Luther King Jr had the same dream. When we could all walk side by side, color blind and united. I’ve never heard of him referred to as a fascist.
The most christian notions there are are: "Give my your money, let me kill somebody you know and don't challenge me, and let me play with your child all alone for a while, would you?"
Bravo!! I sent a similar less eloquent message to the DNC comment box. I will not donate to them until they drop all the gender labels and pronouns talky talk. Like u, I’m not against the DEI initiatives quite the opposite and I behave and think accordingly- the Laws of our country are being hollowed out by $$$ oligarchy- Focus on these problems! Our country isn’t about being run by a failed fake businessman….
My wife got politically active way back when Dennis Kukinich was pushing for a Dept of Peace and she thought that was a good idea. She quit a couple months later in frustration as she witnessed the organization get in its own way with politically correct minutiae. She learned that liberals have their own flavors of dogma and intolerance and their own means to enforce compliance. She quit because it appeared to her to be a cultural thing that she couldn't possibly change, and changing liberal culture isn't why she signed up anyhow. Sounds to me like things have only gotten worse since.
Dems need pragmatists. Fierce ones, with teeth. They need leaders who will viciously fight for the founding ideals of this country. Biden should have spent his administration installing more guardrails and systemic safety switches, rather than pandering to red state voters and then neglecting to tell them they were being pandered to.
Don't expect change when Dems are busy bickering over gender quotas in leadership.
It strikes me that Senators have an unusual power and that is to place "holds" on legislation. Tuberville was doing it with the rank advancements in the military. I don't know the scope of that power, how it was initiated but I do think it is well established yet rarely used.
I would suggest one US Senator place a hold on a specific odious piece of crap that MAGA, or Trump, or want and the second senator place a similar hold on yet another. Then, begin an "I am Spartacus" movement. All those holds.
Focusing on the new head of the DNC is just stupid. I'm not giving five dollars to anyone. It's actually an insult. AOC seems to be the only one in those buildings able to focus right now.
Thanks again for the dog pics.
Come on Charlie, get with the GOP program! It's all about cruelty. Not just against Americans, but everyone else in the world. It's the new Christian mantra. BE MEAN!
Apparently, we want China to take over by funding what we no longer fund. Very short sighted.
Just listened to Mona Charen's latest podcast with Jonathan Rauch. Very god discussion on this very topic. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/christianitys-crossroads-faith-democracy
christians are the best killers. Have been for centuries. And American christians are particularly vicious. Cruelty is a test for the adherents who'll be pulling out guns later.
You know ; Trump had it right in 2016- Liddle Marco - but now he’s upgraded to cabronito - little cabron
Hell - may they all get their due
Heads out of our asses, please. These purges aren't about "waste and fraud," they are the groundwork for an Orban-style takeover of the entire federal government. In dribs and drabs, right out of the authoritarian playbook. Shock and awe? More like greasing the skids for inserting the Schutzstaffel (SS). Political soldiers.
I’ve been watching this sh*t show while traveling in Europe and I’ve got whiplash. I wake up to tariffs on Mexico and Canada, as I go to bed Mexico tariffs are off. I wake up and Canada tariffs are off too, but China has imposed 25% tariffs. From afar this looks like a bunch of cats chasing after a laser pointer, jumping from place to place, but never completely on all fours. We are truly being governed by the chaos personality cult.
The chaos personality cult..otherwise know as tRump's fascists.