Republicans love third party candidates and ghost candidates when it helps them. They get Jill Stein to run in every swing state every presidential election. And only during the presidential election. But like all republicans they end up whining when things don’t go their way. Democrats stood up and admitted their loss and conceded with grace. I know people will suffer, but I hope the republicans so over play their hand that even their base turn against them … but it could be like the 1930s Germany all over again. I have a doctor’s appointment today so will not be on the computer until later in the morning. Hugs
Republicans would never use a fraudulent candidate for the purpose of siphoning votes.
Is this the country the maga cult wants? Yes? but what about all the rest who wouldn’t vote for a black woman? Those who claimed that they wouldn’t vote for Harris because she did not say the right words on Gaza? Well Israel now has no restraints, good choice you made for them, right? The brownshirts, the people who want to act like kids in gangs, want to have rule by thugs, that believe might makes right are going to find out it take far more than pretend bravado to keep a country this size running. The movie Idiocracy was not a how to do it show, but a warning. Right now we have moved a lot closer to the movie. Hugs
They always claim to be joking but their intention is to “move the Overton Window” so that when executions do happen, the public is well used to the prospect.
Wallnau cures Rush Limbaugh’s terminal cancer in the name of Jesus. Wallnau claims there are “high levels of angelic activity” at Trump’s DC hotel. Wallnau claims the MAGAbomber was possessed by Satan to make Trump look bad. Wallnau claims the Charlottesville Nazis were “paid actors” because right wing white supremacists do not exist. Wallnau declares that God killed Antonin Scalia to “wake up America” on how much they needed Trump. Wallnau “takes authority” over Hurricane Maria in the name of Jesus, orders it not to hit Puerto Rico. Wallnau claims Hurricane Irma bypassed Mar-A-Lago because Trump is under God’s protection. Wallnau releases the “Jezebel spirit” on Robert Mueller. Wallnau prays to protect Trump from “witches, jinxes, and demons that jump into dogs.” Wallnau prays for God to “unleash his holy sword” and smite Trump’s enemies. Wallnau claims angels literally dusted his face with gold flakes as a reward for loving Trump. Wallnau prays away obstruction of justice charges against Trump in the name of Jesus. Wallnau claims a gay bar owner was “cured of homosexuality” after eating a slice of anointed cake.
DeSantis is the first Florida governor to threaten TV broadcasters with criminal charges unless they stopped running ads he didn’t like. He’s the first governor to send his election police to knock on the doors of Amendment 4 supporters and the first to employ a last-ditch “investigation” of signatures gathered to get that amendment on the ballot. And credit, too, DeSantis for hiring just the right kind of election police.
Read the full editorial. As the paper points out, both measures passed with majority support and DeSantis “only had to shave off a few points” from the required 60% margin.
Why is it only the southern border that the right is concerned with? Most undocumented people in the US are here on visas and flew into the country legally. They just never then went home when the visa ended. Why is it only some country the right whines about immigrating to the US? Racism and bigotry is the answer. Think about it. The right is terrified that white people will be replaced by non-white people. Elon Musk is always claiming white people need to have more babies. But only white people. Also the right fails to understand that Puerto Rico is part of the US and the Puerto Ricoian people are US citizens. But remember how tRump wanted to sell the island because it was full of … those brown people. Hugs
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In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Trump talked about his campaign promise to carry out the largest mass deportation of immigrants in U.S. history.
President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News on Thursday that one of his first priorities upon taking office in January would be to make the border “strong and powerful.” When questioned about his campaign promise of mass deportations, Trump said his administration would have “no choice” but to carry them out.
“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he said. “And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”
As a candidate, Trump had repeatedly vowed to carry out the “largest deportation effort in American history.” Asked about the cost of his plan, he said, “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”
It’s unclear how many undocumented immigrants there are in the U.S., but acting ICE Director Patrick J. Lechleitner told NBC News in July that a mass deportation effort would be a huge logistical and financial challenge. Two former Trump administration officials involved in immigration during his first term told NBC News that the effort would require cooperation among a number of federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the Pentagon.
In Thursday’s phone interview, he partially credited his message on immigration as a reason he won the race, saying, “They want to have borders, and they like people coming in, but they have to come in with love for the country. They have to come in legally.”
“I started to see realignment could happen because the Democrats are not in line with the thinking of the country,” the president-elect said. “You can’t have defund the police, these kind of things. They don’t want to give up and they don’t work, and the people understand that.”
Trump also spoke about his phone calls with Harris and President Joe Biden since the election.
“Very nice calls, very respectful both ways,” Trump said, describing the conversations, adding that Harris “talked about transition, and she said she’d like it to be smooth as can be, which I agree with, of course.”
In her concession speech at Howard University on Wednesday, Harris said she told Trump, “We will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
Biden, addressing the nation in remarks from the White House on Thursday morning, urged voters to “accept the choice the country made” in re-electing Trump.
Trump also said that he and Biden on the phone agreed to have lunch together “very shortly.”
He also said he’s spoken to “probably” 70 world leaders since Wednesday morning, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which the president-elect described as “a very good talk.”
Trump also said that he spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but didn’t divulge details about that conversation.
He added that he had not yet spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but “I think we’ll speak.”
Over the course of the campaign, Trump promised to end Russia’s war with Ukraine if elected, saying in September that he would negotiate a deal “that’s good for both sides.“
“There has to be as many traitors executed as he has days in office,” urged another Gab post. “Build the gallows, restore the REPUBLIC.” “Many many many executions are warranted,” someone wrote on Truth Social. One viral meme that was shared widely across platforms on Wednesday had the caption “RELEASE THE PROJECT 2025 HANDMAIDS TALE RAPE SQUADS.”
Read the full article. Other posts and memes call for executing Nancy Pelosi, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Kamala Harris. A Proud Boys account depicts Harris as “Whore Of The Year.” Hit the link for more.
In a follow-up post, Davis said the following: “Here’s my current mood: I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course.)”
In August 2024, Davis appeared here when he threatened to sue any publication or social media user who referred to Trump as a “convicted felon.”
In April 2024, he appeared here when he vowed to imprison Trump’s critics and prosecute Barack Obama for murder.
In February 2024, we heard from him when he declared, “What’s so bad about Christian nationalism?”
His first appearance here came last year when he threatened to “arrest and deport” journalist Mehdi Hasan and throw gay reporter Tim Miller in a women’s prison.
And he could be the nation’s next Attorney General.
Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks about an unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Donald Trump started this year fighting two federal prosecutions that threatened to send him to prison. But he will end it free and clear of his most significant criminal legal problems.
With his resounding victory at the polls, and a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, the key question is not if, but when, prosecutors move to dismiss or delay his federal election interference case in Washington, D.C.
Trump recently said he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” after he returned to the White House. Now, that won’t be necessary to bring his federal criminal troubles to an end.
Smith is taking steps to end both federal cases against Trump before the president-elect takes office, according to a source familiar with the Justice Department deliberations.
1. What are the outstanding cases the federal government has lodged against Trump?
A grand jury in Washington indicted Trump this year on four felony charges in connection with his effort to cling to power in 2020, culminating in the violent siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judge Tanya Chutkan had set a trial date for March 2024, but that date came and went, after the Supreme Court accepted the case and ultimately handed Trump significant immunity from prosecution for official actions he took in the White House.
The judge is just now beginning to consider what parts of the prosecution’s case amount to official acts, and which are private conduct of a person seeking rather than holding office.
The Justice Department has appealed in a separate criminal case against Trump that accuses the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to the return them to the FBI.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, dismissed the documents case on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention this year, reasoning that the way the special counsel had been appointed violates the Constitution. The Justice Department has been seeking review by a higher court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
2. What does Trump’s election victory mean for these cases?
They’re on life support and likely to end even before the inauguration in January.
On the campaign trial, now President-elect Trump has vowed to fire the special counsel, Jack Smith, on his first day in office. But Trump would not need to dismiss Smith or order any new DOJ officials to fire Smith in order to end the criminal prosecutions.
President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks during the Georgia state GOP convention in June 2023 after a grand jury indicted him on 37 felony counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
In 2000, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the federal government on its powers and boundaries, concluded that a sitting president could not be indicted or prosecuted because that “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
Administrations led by Republicans and Democrats have adopted the DOJ policy against prosecuting presidents.
The Florida case involving classified documents is a bit more complicated. DOJ could file notice with the appeals court that it is abandoning the appeal. But that case involves two other defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira.
Dismissing the appeal outright would also mean walking away from cases that prosecutors built against those two defendants, Trump’s personal aide and the property manager at Mar-a-Lago.
What’s more, the federal government may have a broader interest, because Cannon’s reasoning could upend the way special prosecutors have been appointed for decades.
But one DOJ veteran who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Cannon’s ruling would not be considered binding precedent, so the stakes could be lower.
Former Attorney General William Barr says voters have evaluated the allegations against Trump—and decisively rendered their own verdict.
“Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,” Barr said in a written statement first reported by the Guardian.
3. What happens to the special counsel, Jack Smith?
Special counsels are obligated to file a report on their actions with the Attorney General when they finish their work. The current attorney general, Merrick Garland, has pledged to make most of those reports public.
If Smith’s written report is not complete by Inauguration Day, it will be up to new DOJ leaders to decide its fate.
Mike Davis, a Trump ally, told a conservative interviewer this week that the attorney general “is probably President Trump’s most important appointment.”
Davis told the interviewer that Smith’s entire office should be fired and said, “After today, Jack Smith, you’re going to be the hunted: legally, politically and financially. So lawyer up, buddy.”
4. Trump also faced criminal charges in two states, New York and Georgia. How will the election reshape those cases?
A jury in New York this year convicted Trump on 34 criminal charges related to bookkeeping for an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress shortly before the 2016 election.
Justice Juan Merchan scheduled a hearing for Nov. 12 to assess how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision might affect that case. It’s not clear whether the criminal sentencing for Trump set for Thanksgiving week will occur. Trump’s lawyers may seek to stop it given the election results.
The case against Trump in Fulton County, Ga., over alleged election interference, has been on pause for months while a higher court considers possible conflicts of interest involving District Attorney Fani Willis. There’s a hearing scheduled in that appeal Dec. 5.
It, too, could be overtaken by events — and a strategy of delay and deflection by Trump’s lawyers that appears to have succeeded beyond imagination.
(Honestly, the entire Don-Madison Square Garden “event” idea sickened me, but I didn’t think his campaign could afford to do it. Anyway, it happened, and the fact that there was any crowd at all nauseates me. One of my great grandfathers immigrated to the US before the 1st World War, earning his citizenship in part by fighting for the US and allies in that war. The other side of the family immigrated between the wars, as they could see what may have been coming, and did. I’m fairly certain all their spirits, including each and every US veteran in my family living or dead, are also nauseated and maybe angry about this “event.” I’m happy there are people like Heather Cox Richardson, who put sensible light onto historic events. So everybody do all you can to Get Out The Vote! The facts are all on our side. -A)
I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way.
It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight.
There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.
Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence.
Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024.
On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.
Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.
Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “in a strange way the papers did perform a public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like.”
Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started his career in the U.S. Musk “did not have the legal right to work” in the U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants.
The New York Times has tended to downplay Trump’s outrageous statements, but on Saturday it ran a round-up of Trump’s threats in the center of the front page, above the fold. It noted that Trump has vowed to expand presidential power, prosecute his political opponents, and crack down on immigration with mass deportations and detention camps. It went on to list his determination to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), use the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels “in potential violation of international law,” and use federal troops against U.S. citizens. It added that he plans to “upend trade” with sweeping new tariffs that will raise consumer prices, and to rein in regulatory agencies.
“To help achieve these and other goals,” the paper concluded, “his advisers are vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power.”
On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in giant capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” And then, inside the section, the paper provided the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the paper said.
On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, host Jake Tapper refused to permit Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, to gaslight viewers. Vance angrily denied that Trump has repeatedly called for using the U.S. military against Americans, but Tapper came with receipts that proved the very things Vance denied.
Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden began in the early afternoon. The hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally. Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” He went on: “And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” Hinchcliffe also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins.
The speakers who followed Hinchcliffe called Vice President Kamala Harris “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” They called former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a b*tch,” and they railed against “f*cking illegals.” They insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.”
Trump took the stage about two hours late, prompting people to stream toward the exits before he finished speaking. He hit his usual highlights, notably undermining Vance’s argument from earlier in the day by saying that, indeed, he believes fellow Americans are “the enemy within.”
But Trump perhaps gave away the game with his inflammatory language and with an aside, seemingly aimed at House speaker Johnson. “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over,” Trump said.
It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote.
Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024, this seems his likely plan.
But to do that, he needs at least a plausibly close election, or at least to convince his supporters that the election has been stolen from him. Tonight’s rally badly hurt that plan.
As Hinchcliffe was talking about Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia talking about her plan to spread her opportunity economy to Puerto Rico. She has called for strengthening Puerto Rico’s energy grid and making it easier to get permits to build there.
After the “floating island of garbage” comment, Puerto Rican superstar musician Bad Bunny, who has more than 45 million followers on Instagram, posted Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico, and his spokesperson said he is endorsing Harris.
Puerto Rican singer and actor Ricky Martin shared a clip from Hinchcliffe’s set with his 16 million followers. His caption read: “This is what they think of us.” Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who has 250 million Instagram followers, posted Harris’s plan. Later, singer-songwriter and actress Ariana Grande posted that she had voted for Harris. Grande has 376 million followers on Instagram. Singer Luis Fonsi, who has 16 million followers, also called out the “constant hate.”
The headlines were brutal. “MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally,” read Axios. Politico wrote: “Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks.” “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally,” the New York Times announced. “Speakers at Trump rally make racist comments, hurl insults,” read CNN.
But the biggest sign of the damage the rally did was the frantic backpedaling from Republicans in tight elections, who distanced themselves as fast as they could from the insults against Puerto Ricans, especially. The Trump campaign itself tried to distance itself from the “floating island of garbage” quotation, only to be met with comments pointing out that Hinchcliffe’s set had been vetted and uploaded to the teleprompters.
As the clips spread like wildfire, political writer Charlotte Clymer pointed out that almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the states—about a million in Florida, half a million in Pennsylvania, 100,000 in Georgia, 100,000 in Michigan, 100,000 in North Carolina, 45,000 in Arizona, and 40,000 in Nevada—and that over half of them voted in 2020.
In 1939, as about 18,000 American Nazis rallied inside Madison Square Garden, newspapers reported that a crowd of about 100,000 anti-Nazis gathered outside to protest. It took 1,700 police officers, the largest number of officers ever before detailed for a single event, to hold them back from storming the venue.
As a poll worker, I have been harassed and threatened by Trumpers wearing Trump gear simply for enforcing the law. The fact that Vance is encouraging harassment and threats of poll workers is disgusting. Ugly shit by ugly people, and I hate them. pic.twitter.com/1abY4vv7ch
If the situation were reversed and she was just as crude and gross but voting for Harris, obviously Vance wouldn’t call her a patriot, he’d do his usual demagogic horseshit.
But voting for Trump (and JD) is the only requirement for patriotism according to him. https://t.co/qda1r2aUtU
Just the other day, a guy from Alabama was arrested for threatening to kill volunteer poll workers, calling them 'traitors'. Now, Vance calls this woman a patriot for harassing poll workers. These losers deliberately sow chaos and division, they thrive on it, laugh about it. pic.twitter.com/hbnW6gZHuf
Executives at a major Bezos-owned company seeking federal contracts met with Donald Trump on Friday, the same day The Post announced it would not make a presidential endorsement. pic.twitter.com/XZNFphQQRP
Constitutional sheriffs are duly elected lawmen who believe they answer only to god. They've spent the last six months preparing to stop a "stolen" election—by any means necessary, @daithaigilbert reports.
October 27, 1659 William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers (formally, members of the Society of Friends) who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, were executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law, passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death. Quakers opposed central church authority, preferring to seek spiritual insight and consensus through egalitarian Quaker meetings. They advocated sexual equality and became some of the most outspoken opponents of slavery in early America.
October 27, 1967 Phillip Berrigan, artist Tom Lewis, poet David Eberhardt, and United Church of Christ minister James Mengel, members of the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission, entered the draft board at the United States Customs House and poured duck’s blood on several hundred draft records. Phillip Berrigan pouring blood on draft files The Baltimore Four, as they became known, were arrested and later tried and convicted for the action which they saw as a symbolic act of civil disobedience — a nonviolent attack on the machinery of war. This day later became known as Plowshare Action Remembrance Day. Berrigan in his jail cell drawning by Tom Lewis Read more about Phillip Berrigan
October 27, 1967 120,000 marched against the Vietnam War in London. Violence erupted when a 6,000-strong Maoist splinter group broke away and charged the police outside the United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Read more
October 27, 1969 Ralph Nader set up a consumer organization with young lawyers and researchers (often called “Nader’s Raiders”) who produced systematic exposés of industrial hazards, pollution, unsafe products, and governmental neglect of consumer safety laws. Ralph Nader (center) Nader is widely recognized as the founder of the consumer rights movement. He played a key role in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Freedom of Information Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Read more
October 27, 2002 Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil in a runoff, becoming the country’s first elected leftist leader. Read more
In a terrifying moment for American Jews, the org is nowhere to be found.
(I followed Marisa Kabas’s Substack. She was organizational in working to get Substack to stop allowing Nazis to monetize their Substacks. When Substack decided they weren’t going to do that, she broke away and writes her work on her own Handbasket. I wish I had the money to support her, but I can share her work, and this piece is extra-important. -A)
Did you know that two separate stories dropped this week in which former Trump officials said he praised and admired Hitler while in office during his first term?
No, it’s possible you didn’t. It wasn’t on the front page of major newspapers. It didn’t warrant major cable news segments. The Anti-Defamation League didn’t even consider it worthy of a response. To put a finer point on it: The Republican candidate for the Presidential election taking place in less than two weeks openly praised Hitler and it was met with a yawn. How did we get here? How is this happening?
For background, The Atlantic published a story with details of a disturbing conversation:
As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this.
Then an interview with former Chief of Staff John Kelly published by the Times on Tuesday evening included this bit:
Trump told him that “Hitler did some good things.”
Mr. Kelly confirmed previous reports that on more than one occasion Mr. Trump spoke positively of Hitler.
“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump told him.
Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Trump had little appreciation for history — “I think he’s lacking in that,” he said — but said that he would still try to explain to Mr. Trump why those comments about Hitler were problematic.
It was bad enough that Vice President Harris addressed it in brief remarks from her DC residence Wednesday afternoon. “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler — the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews, and hundreds of thousands of Americans,” she said.
It’s difficult for me to be incredulous anymore after nearly 10 years of a Trump-clogged news cycle, but this one makes me want to yell at the Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times, “We’re talking about Hitler! The man who orchestrated the mass murder of Jews! Your own paper has evidence that Trump admires him! Sound the alarm!”
The interests of media bosses have always been at odds with reporters and readers, but now that conflict has been laid bare.
Though the story failed to be a media priority, I figured the ADL, the country’s most prominent Jewish nonprofit with a mission of combating antisemitism in all forms, would have something to say. Yet when I looked at their website, I saw nothing (aside from an announcement of a “Concert Against Hate” hosted by Ben Stiller and featuring Sia.) Their social media feeds were similarly void of any reference to Trump and Hitler.
So on Wednesday afternoon I reached out with a brief synopsis of Trump’s positive comments on Hitler and asked if the ADL had a comment. More than 24 hours later: silence. I followed up Thursday morning and reached out via multiple social platforms to the organization and its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Still, nothing.
The ADL’s failure to address Trump praising Hitler isn’t shocking, given their selective outrage in the past year about which Jews are worthy of defense, and the fact that they honored Jared Kushner with an award earlier this year. Greenblatt issued a rare rebuke of Trump in September after the Republican candidate said “If I don’t win this election…. the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens.” But other than, Greenblatt has continually shown his willingness to kowtow to power, whether it be Trump or Elon Musk. And the current silence is galling.
Why fixate on the response of one nonprofit organization? Well, because the ADL—with Greenblatt as their public face—has positioned itself as the arbiter of what is and is not antisemitic. Whenever you’re reading an article and it cites a figure about the number of antisemitic incidents in the country, that’s likely a stat from the ADL’s annual audit. In the wake of the October 7th attacks in Israel, they’ve frequently conflated antizionism with antisemitism—so much so that Wikipedia’s editors voted in June to designate the organization as “generally unreliable” source on antisemitism. But still they’re considered an authority on the wants and needs of American Jews.
This dangerous conflation has led to the unfair persecution of Jews against Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians, including a Harvard student who was accused of antisemitism for posting protest posters ahead of Yom Kippur. There is no world in which this makes it safer to be Jewish.
Greenblatt found time in the past two days to tweet about his loathing for Jewish pro-Palestine student protesters, but didn’t have a moment to spare for the single-most terrifying thing an American Jew could read: that the potential next president thinks Adolf Hitler was good.
Hi everyone. Maybe people are getting tired of hearing my daily struggles that break through my normal defenses sometimes and bring me to not a cliff, but a steep hill almost impossible to not fall down, with things to hit and bounce off of hurting more but very few things to grab on to that I can use to stop the falling. Two of those things together stopped my fall Friday night, hopefully giving me something I can hold on to that will stop the falling long enough to get off the mountain slope. I reached close enough to the bottom once in 2014. I don’t want to fall that far again nor see what is below that at the very bottom of that long fall.
I also need to explain that for a week I was running on 4 hours sleep and last night I only got 2 hours and 23 minutes (Friday night Saturday morning). This morning (Saturday) on our walk Ron who also struggled to sleep noticed I was sluggish, slow for me, not talking much. When we got back home my body couldn’t do more. Barely able to take off my jacket and getting Ron’s help taking off a heavy long sleeved sweatshirt that was too small for me, after I put on a tee shirt I fell into bed. I slept all day. Ron also had not slept so came to bed for 3 or so hours. During that time I had a nightmare of my childhood abuse and woke him by crying out for my abuser to please stop, to not hurt me more. Ron woke me as gently as he could. I again felt shame and sorrow over waking him from his slumber over my own trauma. It had slowed down greatly but this last week the nightmares and crying outburst while sleeping, and while awake in my Pink Place, which Ron has tried hard to make a safe space for me. I go through a lot of facial tissues in here.
On Thursday after not sleeping well and having other issues I watched two videos which later was followed by a third A few days later while still trying to recover. I just realized over half of my current tabs open on YouTube are of PSAs on child abuse or testimonies of victims trying to find resolution. I get them in my feed because when I am in a triggered emotional set back I tend to watch these and of course Google / YouTube fills my recommendations with a constant feed of more of them. And I fall down that mountain slope reaching out and read more and more and more of others abuse making the slope steeper with the things to hit that hurt harder, bigger, and the helpful handholds so less. The very same reason I had to stop participating on the Male Survivor site. Once I fall down that mountain slope the more I read / hear of others abuse so much of what happened to me the faster I fall with few things to grab on to that will slow my falling, which seems to get faster the longer I fall.
The first video was the one that set it off. I cut it off after the movie went to “Jesus saved my life from my abusive father who was killing me part” when I watched it. If that saved him I am glad, but Jesus nor religion never stopped my abuse nor were any of my abuser anymore into religion than for a brief period when they got a lot of attention from being involved in the Sunday School teachings they so loved the attention as new members and maybe thought that would wash away all their sins. They soon got disinterested and left, and I was still being abused. Abused before it, during it, and after it. Sometimes I would be abused before we got ready for church and if not before then I knew I would be when we got back home. In my case the power of the lord had no help for me.
So the first video was the worst. It talked about how the father hated the kid because he was another man’s son. In the video the wife had an affair and that left the husband forever taking his violence on the kid. In my case I never thought my adoptive mother was my mother, and from the few records I could find after her death it seems my mother’s father paid for me to be adopted and paid the biological father a large sum of money. But sadly my birth certificate list both of them as my parents. But that was the feeling of my adoptive father, he was not raising another man’s kid. He took that anger out on me and made clear his own kids could also to retain his favor. In the video the other kids snuck him food and comforted him, not mine. Mine denied the food unless I either humiliated myself or sexual pleased them. For a few years the daily abuse was less when the adopting mother was around, which was rare, because I was still her adorable little toddler toy to parade around, yet she explained the bruising and lack of normal interaction I had as I was shy and clumsy falling often into things. The dead eyes and lack of interest in things she explained as being tired because I fought to not go to bed. As I have said before by the time I was 6 years old in first grade she had stopped protecting me and slowly became a participant in my abuse as I aged rather than just turning away ignoring it. It took my school getting involved to change a lot in my life.
But as in the short video, shorter if you don’t watch the Jesus intervention part at the last third, I became aware of the sound of every abuser. Their footsteps with shoes or bare feet, their breathing when hurting me or using me sexually, both oral and anal, and feared being around them or the sound of them getting closer. I also wondered if this was the time they did not stop. I am not sure if I understood if they did not it would be death, I just feared this time they wouldn’t stop and it would keep going on forever. As a child we had no religious beliefs so I had no idea that the abuse might stop in heaven or continue in hell, I knew nothing of death. I just knew I wanted them not to hurt me, I wanted to have food and eat like they did, I wanted someone to hold me and tell me I did a good thing like they got. I wanted affection. I wanted to be able to go to the bathroom without conditions or being told to pee in a glass that as it filled I would have to drink all of it before being able to continue peeing in the glass until finishing, humiliated, crying, sad, hurt, while the hell spawn and their friends gloated over being able to make me do it. The friends may not have understood the punishments if I peed my clothing or on the floor being reported to my adopting parents by the hell spawn, as my view wouldn’t be heard. If they said I just peed myself rather than tell them I needed to go or they made me pee on the floor and said I did it before they could stop me … they would be believed and nothing I said would be heard. Many times I remember them holding me forcing me to pee on something knowing I would take a nude beating with them looking on gloating. It was a way to make me willing to accept what they demanded and willingly give them what they wanted from me.
Sadly the only kind affection I got between late 3 to nearly 7 years old was from a little boy lover pedophile across the street. His abuse I have never seen as traumatic. Yes he used my body for his own needs, but he was kind, gentle, his touch and hugs were warm with good feelings. Even when inside me he was kind, gentle, and constantly praising me as a wonderful boy. It made me want even more to try to make him happy. He told me over and over what a good boy I was, he really seemed to care for me which I never saw from the young hell spawn who hurt me for their enjoyment, nor from either adoptive parents.
One punishment the hell spawn would do when they were home with no adult was to tie a wide belt or rope around my neck and then attach it to the stair banister in a way that my head was jerked into looking up at a painful angle, my hands would be tied to or through the stair rails so I couldn’t use them to defend myself. I would always be nude. I would sometimes be blindfolded, that was when I knew that more than them hitting me, hurting me, other kids would also be there to hurt and rape me. I couldn’t tell where the blows might be coming from, who was grasping me grabbing my hips, who was …, everyone must get the idea. So yes I learned to hear them, to fear them, and the child diddler across the street never seem bad or a threat to me. He was the only bright kind light in my life. Then he killed himself and that kindness when away forever. But it did set me up for looking for kind abusers in my life. Such as the principle at my 1st to 6th grade school. He quickly realized the kid I was and made a friendship with my adoptive mother. Even as he was facilitated a place and way for me to leave class to laydown behind the library shelves along with letting me go with a police officer questions deflected, he was also using me sexually. Only once he was he hurtful, that was when I insulted a female teacher so before he raped me he made me with a bare bottom bend over his knees and spanked me hard as a lesson. Then when I stood up, kissed me, hugged me, told me sternly to always obey my teachers. And then turned me around, lubing my butt hole, and inserted himself inside me to finish … planting his seed there. I was then given an abnormal instruction to pull my pants up, go back to my classroom. That time I was not offered the option to go laydown, nor go to the bathroom to expel his cum. I understood I was being punished. I worried about it leaking and the pain of sitting. Thankfully my teacher never called me out for fidgeting and constant movements in my hard no cushion chair, maybe knowing what was going on with me at home and in school.
Now it is Sunday morning. I couldn’t finish this post last night. I was getting too upset and was too tired. I got another 3 and half hours of sleep before I got up again. So here is the rest of the story hopefully with less emotional upset from me.
Wow just rereading correcting my errors now has me worn out emotionally already. I can not imagine how it must be for everyone reading who don’t know what the life I lived is like. It must be stories from a strange foreign world or harmful different government on earth somewhere far away. Sorry it happened to me here, in New England. But let me continue to get this out before it consumes me again. I have so much unresolved pain from the past. Some want me to ignore it, some want to reveled in it seeing my survival as overcoming it but they lose the point, it still haunts / hurts me. Left undealt with I will be the one left falling down that steep mountain slope with no way of stopping hitting the bottom … which might be death.
So you have read all of the above, no reason not to provide you with the videos. The first was the beatings of a defenseless child, making him the other in the family simply because he was the product of another man’s seed he resented having responsibility to feed or care for. You have read all of the above so here is the video, and again I ask you to make sure you are in a good place to understand that was my daily life so do not take that pain on yourself because I have already done that for all of us. Here it is.
The second video that continued my downward spiral and the steeping of the mountain slope I was trying to find footing and keep from falling further down that slope to the hell I knew to be at the end. This is the one being raped at school. I was by adults but not students, but the older boys were sexually aware enough to act out on me. Not physically hurtful but emotionally building that idea that was my place in life, to serve the more aggressive, more developed male. Lucky for me what they wanted was so silly and quick it meant nothing. And the teachers caught on quicly that if I asked to use the bathroom and other male kids asked right after … they were told to wait until I was back. Which was very frustrating to them and made several to try to be my out of school friend. One night If I could plead for it using my body as currency they never wanted to come back again. No one came to our home and I was not allowed to go to theirs. I have no idea what scared the older kids in grade school from wanting wanting to stay over night again. I was willing to please, but the adopting parents were not willing for me to develop friendships. One of the prices of the “school friend” leaving the next day was instant abuse to make me avoid asking anyone else to stay over again.
The last video that I watched a day or two after trying to absorb / deal with the abuse was again one that religious overtones. But even with that the ending was so shocking / revealing I want to include it. See if I had understood any religion, if I have thought that there was a way to stop the abuse … I would do what so many other kids did. I would have taken my life. That is why this post is so hard to make. It shows how stupid I was at that age, it shows how clueless I was. If I thought there was a way to move beyond my life at that stage I would have gladly let them go all the way and kill me. Sorry for all this. This has been a many day post as I struggled to first write it, reread it and edit it again, then fall some more down the mountain slope to briefly grab something to try to write again. Side note. On the other computer I have 10 videos cued up ready to play about child abuse. Some are PSAs and some are personal survival videos from abuse victims. Mostly male but a few female. YouTuber dumps them into my feed and I open them / watch them or save them … all now send me to the mountain making the slope steeper. There was a time when the slope was not so steep and much easier to walk away from. The force drawing me to the bottom so small. Yet now it is returning to like 2014 and I am no longer having the flat stable land before the slope that I lived on so long. Now I am right at the edge of that slope and far too often I am struggling as I fall down it unable to resist the pull with few handholds and the hurtful things getting ever more / harder as I fall.
This is what I have been fighting for months, I forget how long. I am dealing with my own needing to leave the Male Survivor site, Kamk’s abuse and his now being in the hospital afraid and triggered. I struggle to balance his needs that right now are far more immediate than mine. He feels he is looking at death or worse, life with no way to ever be who he was or wants to be. I want so badly to reach out and hug him, to hold him, to help him … but I again am that child who was forced to ask to be allowed to drink a 14 year old boys urine so I wouldn’t be beaten in the morning. Here is the last video I watched. I wont be sharing the others in my cue … maybe just as links but no commentary, but maybe I will grant myself mercy and not include them at all. I am going to post this and go get a shower I have put off for three days. Much love and warm comforting hugs for those that want them but also simple heartfelt thanks to those that follow and don’t want that physical touch. Trust me I understand how disrupting and jarring unwanted touch can be. I love you even if you don’t want hugs. Here is the last video which was while Rand and Ron were with me providing the handles to grab on to and the way to make the mountain slope less steep. Hugs / best wishes.
Thank you, Ten Bears! I keep pointing out that Project 2024, Agenda 47, and the Republican National Party Platform are all cut from the same whole cloth. It’s important to be aware, even though one need not read each document separately.
Phillip Berrigan pouring blood on draft files
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Ralph Nader (center) 
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Scottie's Playtime 