A message to all sane Republicans:
He pardoned 1,600 violent criminals.
You said nothing.
He bulldozed the East Wing.
You said nothing.
He interfered with the release of the Epstein files. You said nothing.
He took over the Kennedy Center and renamed it after himself. You said nothing.
He accepted a $400 million airplane as a personal gift. You said nothing.
He threatened Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Greenland, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. You said nothing.
He tariffed just about everyone but Russia, causing inflation and instability worldwide. You said nothing.
He attacked a nation during mediated negotiations. You said nothing.
His ill-conceived war killed 175 children on day one. You said nothing.
He alienated and insulted our allies. You said nothing.
His ICE Army terrorized and murdered U.S. citizens. You said nothing.
He committed murder on the high seas. You said nothing.
He co-opted the Justice Department and directed it to prosecute his political enemies. You said nothing.
It’s time to start talking.
During his campaign for first term, Donald Trump was asked how he showed $916 million net operating losses in 1995 and setting it off for next 18 years without paying any federal taxes.
Not knowing what to answer, Trump said:
"I absolutely used it, and so did Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett took a massive deduction."
We've to learn from Buffett as to how to deal with facts and data without being emotional or vindictive.
The very next day Buffett shared his income tax returns and said:
"I have paid federal income tax every year since 1944, when I was 13. Though, being a slow starter, I owed only $7 in tax that year. I have copies of all 72 of my returns and none uses a carryforward."
He further noted that while he made $2.85 billion in charitable contributions in 2015, tax laws properly limited his deductions, meaning more than $2.85 billion of his donations were not taken as deductions and never would be.
He asked Trump to share his tax returns in public. Not knowing what to do, Trump said he is under IRS audit and cannot publicly share his returns.
For which Buffett responsded:
"I have been audited by the IRS multiple times and am currently being audited. I have no problem in releasing my tax information while under audit. Neither would Mr. Trump -at least he would have no legal problem."
Buffett then invited Trump to any place, any time before the election so they could both bring their tax returns, sit down, and let the public ask them questions.
Trump never accepted the invitation.
From then on Trump never once even uttered the name Warren Buffett.
Looks like Trump no longer even eat buffets.
I really miss this kind of America.
Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford ran against each other in 1976.
When Ford passed away, Carter gave the eulogy at his funeral.
When Carter passed away, Ford’s son Steve spoke at Carter’s funeral.
Barack Obama and John McCain ran against each other in 2008.
When McCain passed away, Obama gave the eulogy at his funeral.
They disagreed. They debated. They fought hard for what they believed in.
But at the end of the day, they still saw each other as human beings. As Americans.
That is the part we have lost.
Somewhere along the way, disagreement turned into hatred. Politics turned into teams. And people forgot that respect does not mean you agree with someone on everything.
I still believe we can get back to this.
Not because it will be easy. Not because everyone will suddenly think the same.
But because America is supposed to be better than this.
Bipartisan respect used to be possible.
And someday, I pray we remember how to do it again. 🇺🇸💙
You can crash your yard's mosquito population without spraying a single chemical with a Mosquito Bucket of Doom.
Fill a 5-gallon bucket about two-thirds with water. Drop in a handful of grass clippings, leaves, or hay. Let it sit for a day, then drop in a Bti dunk (also called Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, sold at any hardware store as "mosquito dunks," about $10 for six).
Mosquitoes are powerfully attracted to fermenting water and will lay their eggs in your bucket. Bti is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces a toxin that kills mosquito, blackfly, and fungus gnat larvae only.
This method doesn't harm bees, butterflies, fireflies, fish, frogs, birds, pets, or people. BTI dunks are EPA-approved for organic use and safe in animal water troughs and birdbaths.
One dunk lasts about 30 days. Top off the water as it evaporates. Cover with 1/2-in Mesh Hardware Cloth to prevent animals from getting trapped and put the bucket somewhere shady where pets and kids won't get into it.
The bucket becomes a mosquito magnet and a dead end. Compare that to fogging the entire yard with pyrethroids, which kills every insect in it, including the predators that eat mosquitoes.
Doug Tallamy's Homegrown National Park has been running the "Mosquito Bucket Challenge" since 2021. The more buckets in a neighborhood, the bigger the dent. One bucket per yard is a great start.
Imagine the worst thing you can say about Joe Biden is that he got old while carrying the weight of the country on his shoulders.
He beat Trump when no one else could. He gave America and the world a fighting chance. He rebuilt the economy, passed historic legislation, stood with our allies, and restored dignity after four years of chaos and incompetence.
Yes, he believed he still had more to give. That is not a moral failing. That is a man who loved his country and did not want to walk away from the fight when his nation needed him. In the end, he didn't fail the country, we did, because we fully knew the stakes.
History will be much kinder to 46 than the pundits ever were. That I know.
I’ve got his back. How about you?
When the illusion finally shatters, what’s left isn’t just disappointment,it’s total embarrassment.
The man you invested your faith in wasn’t a savior at all, just an empty act stitched together with arrogance, noise, and relentless self-promotion.
All that confidence, all those grand promises, all the swagger,it collapses into something painfully small the moment it’s tested against reality.
There’s no hidden genius, no bold disruptor underneath it all.
Just a loud, impulsive figure flailing through responsibilities he clearly wasn’t equipped to handle, drowning incompetence in a flood of bluster.
In the end, what once looked like strength turns out to be nothing more than cheap theatrics.
Not leadership,just a gaudy performance.
A caricature.
A spectacle.
And the real sting isn’t that it was absurd,it’s realizing how long it took to admit you were taken in by his bullshit...
These quick thoughts by Michael Jochum on the disturbing reason Trump gets as much support as he does is a must-read 👇
I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.
I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.
If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.
If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.
If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.
It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.
Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”
And that’s the part that should chill us.
Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform?
Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress.
Now the mask is off. Now we know.
And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand.
– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.
Daily reminder:
January 6th was a coordinated, preplanned, and violent attempt to halt the 2020 election certification. The goal was to delay the count and buy time for Trump’s fake electors scheme to subvert the vote. Stop the gaslighting. Don't let them rewrite history.
#NeverForget #Jan6
I keep saying “we are the casinos he bankrupted, or The Plaza hotel, or Trump Shuttle, or the USFL, or Trump University, Trump
Mortgage, and on and on. He’s actually a lousy businessman who inherited a ton of money.
@DavidShuster Voters should never forget that it was Trump who scuttled the successful JCPOA with Iran during his first term. Why? Because it was successful and because that success belonged to Obama. The politics of envy.
There’s so much going on that it’s easy to overlook the fact that the president is telling so many lies.
Here’s a fact check of 28 different false claims President Donald Trump made from Monday through Friday. https://t.co/K0hfbxA7TS
I am a US citizen, but I have never in my life been so disappointed with the US. The reasons are many:
1. The US people have elected a president who represent all the deadly sins. How could they do that? Are they so morally deprived?
2. Lying has been normalized. Trump made it the standard.
3. The US used to claim the non-partisan rule of law, but SCOTUS has been proven utterly corrupt & obedient to Trump.
4. The US used to boast about its checks and balances, but they don't exist. The republicans in Congress are obedient servants of one man.
5. The US used to oppose corruption, but the Trump crime family is probably the most corrupt ruling family in the world. How can SCOTUS & the republicans in Congress accept that?
6. The US used to be considered a democracy, but massive gerrymandering & voter discrimination make US elections not very democratic.
7. Reporters without Broders have rightly lowered the US to rank #64 in its sound World Press Freedom index. the US no longer has media freedom, because of extortion and oppression through defamation court cases.
8. The US used to be the security guarantee of the free world, but Trump only praises Xi Jingping, Putin, Lukashenko & Kim Jong Un.
Is the US able to extract itself from the Trump trap, in which it has fallen so deeply?
In law enforcement, you know a suspect is lying when their story keeps changing.
Look at the J6ers. Over the years, the excuses, conspiracy theories, and justifications for the Capitol riot have constantly shifted to avoid accountability.
Here is the exhausting list of contradictions they’ve used to explain J6:
* It was Antifa/BLM in disguise to make conservatives look bad.
* It was an FBI/Fed setup orchestrating the entire crowd.
* It was just a peaceful tourist visit with people walking between the ropes.
* It was a necessary, patriotic revolution to save the country.
* The Capitol Police waved them in, so no laws were broken.
* The Capitol Police were brutal aggressors who provoked the crowd.
* The election was actively being stolen, justifying the breach.
* They are political prisoners who did nothing wrong.
Pick a lane. You can’t be a peaceful tourist, a victim of a deep-state frame-up, and a revolutionary hero all at the same time. The shifting stories prove the guilt.
Autocrats believe due process is itself a sham. That is why they assume and expect sham trials.
The J6 myth depends on pretending these were sham prosecutions. But as McFarlane notes, not one case was overturned. None. And DOJ had a 100% jury conviction rate at trial.
You don’t get that from “weaponization." But you get that from evidence.
MAGA went from claiming Jan 6 was an FBI and Antifa set up to frame Trump supporters, to cheering on Trump pardoning those insurrectionists and setting up a fund to pay them.
MAGA went from saying the FBI crime numbers were fake as violent crime fell year after year under Biden, but now they're saying how great the same FBI data is that it shows crime continuing to fall under Trump.
MAGA demanded the release of the Epstein files for years. Now they support Trump going after every Republican politician who voted to release the Epstein files.
And somehow they do this while pretending it isn't ridiculous to completely change your beliefs and engage in major hypocrisy in order to continue to support Trump.