The state of Missouri killed an apparently innocent man on Tuesday. His name was Marcellus Williams. He was put to death by lethal injection even though the prosecutors who handled his case and the family of the woman he was accused of killing thought him innocent and asked that he be spared the death penalty.
We will find out in November just how sick and evil this utterly broken country really is. I am 75 years old and hoped to live out the rest of my days in peace, but I don't think that's going to happen. I have never been so terrified, and I am too old and too poor to get out. I am beginning to understand in my gut how Jews, intellectuals, trade union members, socialists, and other "outsiders" in Germany felt when the Nazis came to power.
I've been feeling that way since about April of last year when he started the "Vermin" talk. I'm a Political Activist too so my nerves are about shot as you can imagine. The entire world is hanging by what happens on November 5th. The stakes have never been higher. God help us all. 🙏💙🇺🇸
I felt this way when he first got elected. All of my colleagues were depressed. Prior to the election, where I was never sure he would not win, I just did not know, I heard a lot of parents telling their children they would move to Canada if he won. I mean young children like third and fourth graders. I happened to be on a field trip with my class, and hearing a dad had said it to his daughter, who was in my class, I asked him if he was really planning to do this, and he said he did not seriously see Trump getting into office. My daughter actually asked us at the time if we would leave, and my husband told her, we shall see. Trump has never let go, so we see what things will be like if Trump gets back in with the Supreme court at his beck and call. A bad combination that is going to lead to bloodshed to overthrow in my opinion. Otherwise the US will be like Iran. A conservative, limited, theocracy. However, Trump prompted me and others to leave the US. I am not fully gone, but mostly living abroad and have joined Democrats Abroad.
You are right to be concerned. “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men (people) to do nothing.” Quote of disputed origin. But that is not the case in America. There are more of us than the evil racists of trump. We must do everything we can to prevail. And I believe we will.
I am terrified too—if he wins, we can be pretty sure that it will be worse than we can imagine right now. So many of the things that are happening now have happened before, like the rise of the Klan in the early part of the last century. I wish we could do a better job of learning from the past.
I'm just reading Tim Egan's A Fever in the Heartland, about the Klan takeover of Indiana and much of the Midwest during the 1920s. The parallels with our current politics are spot on, a entire swath of the public will believe the most outrageous lies if they involve immigrants or what they consider people not like us.
Just read Keeping the Faith by Brenda Wineapple, about the Scopes "monkey trial" that dealt with the teaching of evolution in Tennessee. The Right has not changed at all since 1925. The book is frightening and reminded me, again, that this country resolutely refuses to be educated or to deal with the truth of its own history.
Further proof, as if we need it, that racism and tribalism are corrosive elements in a diverse society and are easily exploited by evil people like trump/vance
I live in California, in the Bay Area. I think we feel we are separate, because we feel can hold our own against Trump. Maybe that is not true, but I think we will be okay. What I don't like is what I see happened to Marcellus Williams. The Innocence Project fought hard for him. But even if the country is broken, and I think you may be right, we may be able to pull away and stand on our own.
You're fortunate. I don't live in California and I don't have the resources to move there. I live in a blue state (MD) but I just don't know what's going to happen in our Senate race. Larry Hogan is a pig but the race is uncomfortably close.
Berkeley and several ghettoes around the country have lived under martial law, and several extreme actions of the National Guard, county sheriffs and police departments. There have been times when I was very concerned about the FBI. But all this has made me feel like I could deal with a police state if I had to. We always like people to move to California because it seems like such a safe place compared to what it was when Reagan was governor. And we do offer services to make people's lives better--everyone's lives, not just wealthy white people. I can't speak for my city council members, assemblywoman and state senator, but our county supervisor and congresswoman are world class and they stand for justice for everyone.
Amen, Ellen. We Californians feel pretty safe here and even though we are progressive, there are factions that surround us who want to uproot our existence. We cannot let that happen. I have been in CA for over 50 years and never once did I want to return to the state where I was born and raised, NC. In fact, I am from the Western Carolinas that was besieged by Helene.
Linda: You have reason to fear. I'm 79. But it's not just Trump. It's both of them and it's bad. Very bad. It's impossible to know anything past the Orwellian News Speak we have to deal with on a daily basis. Consider this: in a nation as great as we're supposed to be, these are two of the very best we can muster up for to be president? Seriously? Thank God the Nazis are not marching across Europe and the Japanese aren't laying waste to Asia today or we'd REALLY be in trouble.
Unbelievable what is happening to this country! He is not a King and that's why we became independent as we did not want to be controlled by a King and we still don't! I am cautiously optimistic about the election results. The people that believe his lies and his VP lies will get what they deserve! You worded this letter perfectly! I've written 145 letters to the Swing States to encourage people to vote! I hope it helps! I will mail them on October 1!
I’ve heard stuff on both fox and Newsmax that made my skin crawl, my blood boil and my hair - well, you get the picture. People from my original home state (NY) say and believe such outrageous comments espoused by their “exalted leader” one just wonders what they’re eating and drinking. But they’re ready to rampage and in their increasingly enraged state are readying themselves to do some very bad things. Regardless of the outcome of this election we must be prepared for some real ugliness and danger. They’re not fooling around.
They already have slavery in their penal colonies--their for-profit prisons mass incarcerations for lowest cost labor are just like the chain gangs of the Reconstruction era when building the levees, the railroads in Alabama for pig iron transport, and manning Birmingham steel mills. Vagrancy laws to catch any black man out at night and imprison him with no legal recourse, impossible bail costs, public defender to Governor -- all in on the take.
I believe women and youth will rescue us in November. If the Democrats can get control of the government, we have a chance to eliminate the lawless Supreme Court. Then if Citizens United can be defeated the country has a chance. Otherwise forget it.
When the NYT and the rest of the media report the Donald as he is, America has a chance to save itself. No more sane washing. No more nitpicking Kamala to make this appear as a horse race. Say/write it as it is! Not much time left!
The media will not do it. They are invested in another Trump administration and are not even hiding it. Trump is ranting and raving about letting the police go wild on immigrants - have the NYT or the WaPo bothered to report it? I cancelled my subscriptions to both of them so I don't know if they've even noticed.
This is no longer journalism. The corporate-owned media are interested in tax cuts and increasing their profits. I suspect that they are also racist and sexist and absolutely despise the idea of a Black woman President. They are living in a fool's paradise if they think that kissing Trump's ass now will save them from his vengeance if he returns to power. Of course, they all seem to be competing for the prize of being Trump's official mouthpiece. May they all rot in hell.
I'll grant that contributors to this thread ptobably pronounce New York Times correctly. Otherwise, these statements are on exactly the same level as what the big liar says about Kamala Harris (whose name he refuses to pronounce correctly). They've joined djt's chorus in effectively accusing the Times and WaPo of fake news. I can only conclude they've canceled their subs, so are commenting on newspapers they do not read.
I'm trying to figure out how 15,000,000 illegal aliens entering the US is a good thing, regardless of DJT or KH. How is it a good thing? I have several friends internationally who are having a helluva time getting in legally. Should they fly to Ecuador, traipse thru the Darian Gap, toss their passports, and follow the crowd? How is any of this good?
nyt endorses Harris—at length, Monday, 30 September 2024.
"The Only Patriotic Choice for President
"It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks. [ … R]egardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president. [ … ]" —The nyTimes Editorial Board
Oh how I wish Biden wasn't so enamored with "comity" from his 40 years in the senate that he would pursue the logical conclusion of the $CROTUS immunity ruling. Order $CROTUS dissolved and the 6 conservative justices jailed and tried for sedition. Then give them the death penalty no matter what the courts say. See how they like the consequence of their decision. Spoiler alert - they won't like it.
If Joe Biden could go back in time, he would torpedo crooked liar Clarence Thomas’s SCOTUS nomination. Joe knows he screwed that up, much to his great regret
Biden cannot do that because the SC did not give him or any president the authority to do it. He is only protected from prosecution if he tried. If he tried he would fail.
Just as Trump and other Republicans have dropped the pretense that truth matters, so have they dropped the pretense that morality matters. The death penalty has killed innumerable innocent people, but I doubt that the people who administered it (Republicans, including the six on the Supreme Court, in this case) ever did so with full knowledge that their victim was innocent and did so as shamelessly. I think that Trump’s coarsening of Republican politics helped murder Marcellus Williams.
Trump said he wants to be a dictator on Day 1. But what he doesn't say is that every day ending in "y" will be Day 1. No dictator stops at Day 1, least of all Trump.
"We are executing pregnant women...innocent prisoners." Thank you for blaring a brutal truth. From a T-shirt:" I'll believe corporations are persons when TX executes one". [paraphrase} This is facism. A worry is that millions may want this because somehow it may seem an easier path compared with owning up to our reality. That is, until they are among those executed.
I am afraid there is no going back...even if Donvict is defeated, it won't be the end of the slide down the slippery slope to irrelevance as a democracy. He is setting up another attempt at overthrowing an honest election and our courts back him up. Purging all the dishonest and power-mad MAGAt politicians and Donvict's remora is a unwinnable task.
I am stunned and disheartened. We need to feel positive and confident that it's possible to be the kind of country that truly represents the lofty attributes history has claimed. These deliberate injustices simply make all that a farcical lie.💔😥
Beyond chilling. Trump as King Unstoppable. The passivity and numbness of our institutions strikes terror in my heart every day now. I'm glad I'm old.
It really is a colossal failure.
He would not be a king in any way, shape or form. That is a complete misinterpretation of the Supreme Court ruling on immunity.
It's an inaccurate label that reflects our fears should he win. Let's just say the immunity ruling shocked the hell out of all us non-MAGAs
Well, then I've got a bridge to sell you!
We will find out in November just how sick and evil this utterly broken country really is. I am 75 years old and hoped to live out the rest of my days in peace, but I don't think that's going to happen. I have never been so terrified, and I am too old and too poor to get out. I am beginning to understand in my gut how Jews, intellectuals, trade union members, socialists, and other "outsiders" in Germany felt when the Nazis came to power.
I've been feeling that way since about April of last year when he started the "Vermin" talk. I'm a Political Activist too so my nerves are about shot as you can imagine. The entire world is hanging by what happens on November 5th. The stakes have never been higher. God help us all. 🙏💙🇺🇸
I felt this way when he first got elected. All of my colleagues were depressed. Prior to the election, where I was never sure he would not win, I just did not know, I heard a lot of parents telling their children they would move to Canada if he won. I mean young children like third and fourth graders. I happened to be on a field trip with my class, and hearing a dad had said it to his daughter, who was in my class, I asked him if he was really planning to do this, and he said he did not seriously see Trump getting into office. My daughter actually asked us at the time if we would leave, and my husband told her, we shall see. Trump has never let go, so we see what things will be like if Trump gets back in with the Supreme court at his beck and call. A bad combination that is going to lead to bloodshed to overthrow in my opinion. Otherwise the US will be like Iran. A conservative, limited, theocracy. However, Trump prompted me and others to leave the US. I am not fully gone, but mostly living abroad and have joined Democrats Abroad.
I have spent a small fortune renovating my parents former home here in DeSantistan just in case 45 wins...I will flip and leave country.
I've been an activist since I was 15 years old but I never imagined, ever, that things would get this bad.
Amen.
You are right to be concerned. “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men (people) to do nothing.” Quote of disputed origin. But that is not the case in America. There are more of us than the evil racists of trump. We must do everything we can to prevail. And I believe we will.
I hope you're right. But I am still terrified.
I am terrified too—if he wins, we can be pretty sure that it will be worse than we can imagine right now. So many of the things that are happening now have happened before, like the rise of the Klan in the early part of the last century. I wish we could do a better job of learning from the past.
I hope I’m right, too. And yes, I’m worried too
Agree with all you just posted. The problem is, they're both as bad as it gets.
I'm just reading Tim Egan's A Fever in the Heartland, about the Klan takeover of Indiana and much of the Midwest during the 1920s. The parallels with our current politics are spot on, a entire swath of the public will believe the most outrageous lies if they involve immigrants or what they consider people not like us.
Just read Keeping the Faith by Brenda Wineapple, about the Scopes "monkey trial" that dealt with the teaching of evolution in Tennessee. The Right has not changed at all since 1925. The book is frightening and reminded me, again, that this country resolutely refuses to be educated or to deal with the truth of its own history.
Further proof, as if we need it, that racism and tribalism are corrosive elements in a diverse society and are easily exploited by evil people like trump/vance
I live in California, in the Bay Area. I think we feel we are separate, because we feel can hold our own against Trump. Maybe that is not true, but I think we will be okay. What I don't like is what I see happened to Marcellus Williams. The Innocence Project fought hard for him. But even if the country is broken, and I think you may be right, we may be able to pull away and stand on our own.
You're fortunate. I don't live in California and I don't have the resources to move there. I live in a blue state (MD) but I just don't know what's going to happen in our Senate race. Larry Hogan is a pig but the race is uncomfortably close.
Berkeley and several ghettoes around the country have lived under martial law, and several extreme actions of the National Guard, county sheriffs and police departments. There have been times when I was very concerned about the FBI. But all this has made me feel like I could deal with a police state if I had to. We always like people to move to California because it seems like such a safe place compared to what it was when Reagan was governor. And we do offer services to make people's lives better--everyone's lives, not just wealthy white people. I can't speak for my city council members, assemblywoman and state senator, but our county supervisor and congresswoman are world class and they stand for justice for everyone.
Amen, Ellen. We Californians feel pretty safe here and even though we are progressive, there are factions that surround us who want to uproot our existence. We cannot let that happen. I have been in CA for over 50 years and never once did I want to return to the state where I was born and raised, NC. In fact, I am from the Western Carolinas that was besieged by Helene.
Recent poll has Angela Alsobrooks up by 5-6 points 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
With you on that … dismayed … but understand and am with you {I am 78}
Linda: You have reason to fear. I'm 79. But it's not just Trump. It's both of them and it's bad. Very bad. It's impossible to know anything past the Orwellian News Speak we have to deal with on a daily basis. Consider this: in a nation as great as we're supposed to be, these are two of the very best we can muster up for to be president? Seriously? Thank God the Nazis are not marching across Europe and the Japanese aren't laying waste to Asia today or we'd REALLY be in trouble.
Sadly, history repeats...
Unbelievable what is happening to this country! He is not a King and that's why we became independent as we did not want to be controlled by a King and we still don't! I am cautiously optimistic about the election results. The people that believe his lies and his VP lies will get what they deserve! You worded this letter perfectly! I've written 145 letters to the Swing States to encourage people to vote! I hope it helps! I will mail them on October 1!
I have about 400 postcards to mail. That's in addition to the 400 I already mailed. I hope they do some good. Thank you for writing!!
I’ve heard stuff on both fox and Newsmax that made my skin crawl, my blood boil and my hair - well, you get the picture. People from my original home state (NY) say and believe such outrageous comments espoused by their “exalted leader” one just wonders what they’re eating and drinking. But they’re ready to rampage and in their increasingly enraged state are readying themselves to do some very bad things. Regardless of the outcome of this election we must be prepared for some real ugliness and danger. They’re not fooling around.
Actually the are fooling themselves, but they sure as shooting aren’t fooling us!
Abraham Lincoln believed
“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but; you can’t fool all of the people all of the time!”
or some such syllogism.
Williams made the mistake of being Black in a state ran by White Supremacists who support a return of physical slavery.
They already have slavery in their penal colonies--their for-profit prisons mass incarcerations for lowest cost labor are just like the chain gangs of the Reconstruction era when building the levees, the railroads in Alabama for pig iron transport, and manning Birmingham steel mills. Vagrancy laws to catch any black man out at night and imprison him with no legal recourse, impossible bail costs, public defender to Governor -- all in on the take.
Yep
I believe women and youth will rescue us in November. If the Democrats can get control of the government, we have a chance to eliminate the lawless Supreme Court. Then if Citizens United can be defeated the country has a chance. Otherwise forget it.
We all have to help the Democrats. Let’s get out every Blue vote. And vote early! Election day may be disrupted.
When the NYT and the rest of the media report the Donald as he is, America has a chance to save itself. No more sane washing. No more nitpicking Kamala to make this appear as a horse race. Say/write it as it is! Not much time left!
The media will not do it. They are invested in another Trump administration and are not even hiding it. Trump is ranting and raving about letting the police go wild on immigrants - have the NYT or the WaPo bothered to report it? I cancelled my subscriptions to both of them so I don't know if they've even noticed.
Honestly, I just don't understand what has happened to the media.
This is no longer journalism. The corporate-owned media are interested in tax cuts and increasing their profits. I suspect that they are also racist and sexist and absolutely despise the idea of a Black woman President. They are living in a fool's paradise if they think that kissing Trump's ass now will save them from his vengeance if he returns to power. Of course, they all seem to be competing for the prize of being Trump's official mouthpiece. May they all rot in hell.
News Speak, Linda. There's no more unbiased journalism.
I'll grant that contributors to this thread ptobably pronounce New York Times correctly. Otherwise, these statements are on exactly the same level as what the big liar says about Kamala Harris (whose name he refuses to pronounce correctly). They've joined djt's chorus in effectively accusing the Times and WaPo of fake news. I can only conclude they've canceled their subs, so are commenting on newspapers they do not read.
I'm trying to figure out how 15,000,000 illegal aliens entering the US is a good thing, regardless of DJT or KH. How is it a good thing? I have several friends internationally who are having a helluva time getting in legally. Should they fly to Ecuador, traipse thru the Darian Gap, toss their passports, and follow the crowd? How is any of this good?
nyt endorses Harris—at length, Monday, 30 September 2024.
"The Only Patriotic Choice for President
"It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks. [ … R]egardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president. [ … ]" —The nyTimes Editorial Board
[ no paywall 🎁 link ] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/opinion/editorials/kamala-harris-2024.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ok4.PNX7.-guaOVCUwn-W&smid=url-share
Oh how I wish Biden wasn't so enamored with "comity" from his 40 years in the senate that he would pursue the logical conclusion of the $CROTUS immunity ruling. Order $CROTUS dissolved and the 6 conservative justices jailed and tried for sedition. Then give them the death penalty no matter what the courts say. See how they like the consequence of their decision. Spoiler alert - they won't like it.
If Joe Biden could go back in time, he would torpedo crooked liar Clarence Thomas’s SCOTUS nomination. Joe knows he screwed that up, much to his great regret
If only, but the small print says they get the last word.
Biden cannot do that because the SC did not give him or any president the authority to do it. He is only protected from prosecution if he tried. If he tried he would fail.
It's been said we're tanking in slow motion. And, we are...
Just as Trump and other Republicans have dropped the pretense that truth matters, so have they dropped the pretense that morality matters. The death penalty has killed innumerable innocent people, but I doubt that the people who administered it (Republicans, including the six on the Supreme Court, in this case) ever did so with full knowledge that their victim was innocent and did so as shamelessly. I think that Trump’s coarsening of Republican politics helped murder Marcellus Williams.
Defintely!! The Donvict's coursening of American politics has given us this entire nightmare. He is the worst thing/person in American History.
I said coarsening of Republican politics, not of American politics.
When the Potus is a dictator, bending the truth is a prelude to mind control.
As Steve Schmidt said, he was never sent packages of excrement nor was he ever subjected to threats of violence until trump entered politics
Barbarians at the gates. We had better get our asses to the polls. The fate of civilization is in our hands!
Those are givens. There's work to be done between now and Election Day. Volunteer!
Trump said he wants to be a dictator on Day 1. But what he doesn't say is that every day ending in "y" will be Day 1. No dictator stops at Day 1, least of all Trump.
On Day 1, after that declaration wouldn't he just crown himself dictator for life (in every sense)?
You sound exhausted and demoralized here, understandably. Thank you for your faithful reporting.
"We are executing pregnant women...innocent prisoners." Thank you for blaring a brutal truth. From a T-shirt:" I'll believe corporations are persons when TX executes one". [paraphrase} This is facism. A worry is that millions may want this because somehow it may seem an easier path compared with owning up to our reality. That is, until they are among those executed.
I am afraid there is no going back...even if Donvict is defeated, it won't be the end of the slide down the slippery slope to irrelevance as a democracy. He is setting up another attempt at overthrowing an honest election and our courts back him up. Purging all the dishonest and power-mad MAGAt politicians and Donvict's remora is a unwinnable task.
It wouldn't be if Biden just did it. Order the whole lot of them arrested and tried for sedition.
He can't.
I am stunned and disheartened. We need to feel positive and confident that it's possible to be the kind of country that truly represents the lofty attributes history has claimed. These deliberate injustices simply make all that a farcical lie.💔😥