What Will You Say When Trump's Henchmen Are Rounding Up Your Neighbors?
Not a single GOP presidential candidate has condemned all this awfulness.
A major political candidate, vying to lead the country, has dropped any pretense of participating in democracy based governance. This isn’t speculation; he’s stating his intentions as campaign promises.
The gloves are off, with adjectives drawn from European fascist dictators being used to describe those who would disagree with Trump. Too many media outlets, including the local daily, have simply not informed their readers of what was said both in person and on social media on Veterans Day.
CNN covered the speech. Here’s Dana Bash:
"We talked to historians, like The Washington Post did, and we just need to say for the record that the term 'vermin' was really effectively used by Adolf Hitler and by Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to go after their opponents."
From today’s Los Angeles Times editorial:
“In honor of our great veterans on Veterans’ Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible — they’ll do anything — whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and to destroy the American dream,” he said to a cheering crowd in Claremont, N.H., after having posted essentially the same thing on Truth Social.
His words are repugnant for their historical connections to acts of racism, slaughter and populist dictatorship. The word “vermin” describes harmful rodents and insects. When turned on human beings, it implies the same response — extermination.
In response to criticism that Trump was calling for violence against his enemies, his campaign doubled down. Spokesman Steven Cheung told the Washington Post that “those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
Going behind the scenes, his lieutenants are filling in the blanks on making this possible.
They’re shooting for the moon, estimating that they’ll deport ten million residents, including children born on US soil to foreign born parents. Local police, federal magnets from assorted agencies, and the National Guard from Republican-run states will assist immigration officials in rounding up non-citizens deemed illegal to put them in camps. (they did not use the word concentration, though they could have)
Over fifty thousand loyalists are being pre screened to take positions in a Trump administration, so that things like invoking the insurrection act to have the military quell public dissent can proceed without bureaucratic obstacles. There was even a recruiting booth at the Iowa State Fair.
The former President promised yesterday to put justice department officials involved in prosecuting him in mental institutions, along with "all the rest of the Radical Left Zealots and Thugs who have been working illegally for years to 'take me down.'"
Sounds awful, yes?
The optimist side of me says if Democrats vote, and third party candidates don’t get taken seriously, Biden will win in 2024. It definitely won’t turn out that way if people twiddle their thumbs rather than get involved.
BUT… In the event Trump doesn’t make it to the finish line, people need to recognize these horrible visions aren’t unique to that campaign. It’s a team effort on the right, aiming for plausible denial should any part draw fire from the public.
It's a REPUBLICAN plan. They're all in on it. The “Project 2025” scheme is being shaped by more than the pointy headed MAGAs at the Heritage Foundation. It’s awful for everybody except rich white guys.
Not a single GOP presidential candidate has condemned all this awfulness. That's because if Trump somehow isn't the nominee next year and they win, they're going to follow through with it themselves. The party’s chair sidestepped the question this past Sunday.
It doesn't matter which Republican is at the helm, it doesn't matter when they win. If they ever win, at least as the party is currently constituted, it's all over. And once in power, they're never leaving office. They’ll start dismantling democracy on Day One so, come re-election time, elections won't mean anything.
As we’ve seen in the House of Representatives, hardly anybody in the GOP has the cojones to call out even the most ridiculous thing if it carries the MAGA brand.
So it’s time to stop this fascist revival. And it’s not all that hard. Thousands of parents and community members nationwide have stood up against elected officials who would ban books and install reactionary lesson plans.
Every Republican everywhere needs to be asked in public if they support an anti-democracy agenda.
Yo, wannabe Supervisor Kevin Faulconer, can you stop lying about what you didn’t do for unhoused folks long enough to say in no uncertain terms that you denounce what your party proposes?
Deflection and denial shouldn’t be accepted. The evidence is all there, documented in many ways.
Steven Beschloss is asking the question, What Will It Take?
What if Trump promises to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight if you’ll vote for him? Would that be enough to convince GOP voters this man is too deranged to ever regain the levers of power? Or is the sheer thought of such a twisted plan so violent, so crazy, so certain to own the libs—so entertaining to them—that they want to see it all play out on live TV?
How many felony convictions will it take to convince voters on the fence that he really is a criminal loser? Are they ready to vote for him even if he's sitting in a jail cell?
Is there such a lack of imagination about what this fascistic plotting portends—how clearly it ends the American project and likely ensures we’ll struggle to ever see a legitimate election again in our lifetimes—that the indifferent and disbelieving among us just can’t accept how far Trump and his anti-democratic sycophants are ready and willing to go?
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It’s Newsy Tuesday Clips Time…
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These companies spent over $100 million to avoid accountability for drinking water contamination Via Popular Information
Between 2019 and 2022, chemical companies spent more than $110 million lobbying against rules to curb potentially harmful “forever chemicals,” according to a new study by Food & Water Watch (FWW). Known as PFAS, these man-made chemicals take years to break down and yet are widely used in everyday consumer goods like cookware, cosmetics, outdoor clothing, and food packaging. Scientists say there are “nearly 15,000” types of PFAS.
Its ubiquity, however, means that today “many PFAS are found in the blood of people and animals and are present at low levels in a variety of food products and in the environment,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry states that most people in the U.S. have PFAS in their blood. Over time, repeated exposure to PFAS can cause some of these chemicals to accumulate in the body. Currently, the EPA says that drinking water is potentially a significant source of PFAS exposure. A government report concluded in July that at least 45% of tap water in the country contains PFAS. Another study found that PFAS contamination in water disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities.
Research shows that PFAS exposure is linked to serious health risks, including cancer, fertility issues, low birth weight, and a decreased immune function. And in 2023, the EPA determined PFOA and PFOS, two of the most well-documented PFAS, to be “likely carcinogens.”
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Is There an Establishment Plan to Repeal Antitrust Laws? Via the Big Newsletter
First, let’s set the context. This week, polling came out again showing Americans oppose monopolies and support antitrust laws, which isn’t a surprise. People dislike junk fees and unfair prices. We’ve all noticed high-profile monopoly-driven problems with episodes like the baby formula shortages, the failure of Ticketmaster’s ability to sell tickets, and ludicrously high prices for EpiPens and asthma inhalers.
This parade of incidents is one reason two-thirds of all Americans support anti-monopoly laws. That holds among both Biden and Trump voters, with more than 70% of both camps agreeing that monopolies are bad for the economy. And only 5% of Americans - across party affiliations - think that antitrust laws should be weakened.
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Insulin injections could one day be replaced with rock music − new research in mice Via the Conversation by Bill Sullivan, Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Indiana University
Bioengineering professor Martin Fussenegger of ETH Zurich, a university in Basel, Switzerland, led a recent study that used a mechanosensitive ion channel as a remote control to signal cells to make insulin in response to specific sound waves.
These “MUSIC-controlled, insulin-releasing cells” – MUSIC is short for music-inducible cellular control – were cultured in the lab next to loudspeakers. His team tested a variety of musical genres of different intensities and speeds.
Among the songs they played were pop songs like Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California”; classical pieces such as Beethoven’s “Für Elise” and Mozart’s “Alla Turca”; and movie themes such as Soundgarden’s “Live To Rise,” which was featured in “The Avengers,” a Marvel film. They found that pop music heavy in low bass and movie soundtracks were better able to trigger insulin release compared with classical music, and cells were able to release insulin within minutes of exposure to the song.
Always spot on Thank you