I agreed with this post as the main point, until last night.
I still agree with this post, but a larger headline has erupted, fully aligned with all Steve is doing.
The purge of the FBI is massive, on the same scale as seen in places like Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany, all for the same purpose, to cement a Tyrant's grip on the national police.
As such I think today's most urgent headline is that we are right now in the middle of a coup. Jan6 began this coup, but even though Trump came to office by a vote, he is still pursuing a coup.
Whether Kash gets confirmed or not, the FBI is right now in ruins, with Jim Jordan and Musks' Space X people organizing the firings and their replacements with people in leadership and the field to turn the FBI into an arrest squad that can investigate and destroy anyone Trump wants with a flick of his wrist.
And whether RFK Jr. get confirmed or not, the NIH and CDC are already effectively shut down. Labs are facing closure, epidemics threaten blossoming with no warning or ability to resist.
The list goes on and on, including Musk's emptying out the FAA for daring to punish Space X for raining fiery debris on American communities, Musk now achieving control over the obscure bureau that controls every payment from the United States.
The coup is on. We should all be rising up to stop it before it stops us.
Why are we so short on courage and organization? Are we as spineless as the Rs? Do we actually want to die, individually and as a country? Do we hold on to the secret fantasy that we are somehow immune? That we will win Survivor Island?
Arthur, in fact, as well as doing everything you say, he is going to "privatize" as much of the economy as he can. Of course, the CEO's and wealthiest stockholders will also head government agencies controlling their industries or exercise power over those who do, monopolistic state capitalism with all the corruption and wealth inequality it generates.
“On Friday, speaking about his plan for federal workers during a press conference, Trump stated: ‘It’s our dream to have everyone, almost, working in the private sector, not the public sector.’
Air traffic controllers were emailed by the Trump administration urging them to quit their jobs and take mass ‘buyouts’ just 24 hours after the D.C. plane crash.
‘We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,’ stated the email sent by the Office of Personnel Management,
Does Trump want to move public employees into the private sector because privately owned prisons are charging, as he said, a “fortune” for their services? He has offered federal workers 8 months pay while they seek a new job.
Does he plan to privatize control over air traffic control towers? Does he not realize that public control over certain services (education, health care, national defense, prison system, air traffic control etc.) is most efficient, effective, and safe and should not be run by “for-profit” corporations? Of course he does. He just doesn’t give a damn for anyone but the wealthiest “elite.”
He seems hell-bent on destroying the economy’s support for the working class, lower and middle, while allowing predatory capitalists to exploit them to the max.
It may be too late, corruption and incompetence is burying us like an avalanche. But, we shouldn't give up. The public has the power to make changes; if everyone understoood what is going on, the strikes mentioned in this dialogue would have widespread participation and could result in 2026 mid-terms that lead to impeachment and conviction of Trump, reform of SCOTUS etc.
I agree. Darkest before the dawn. It’s going to devastate so many lives that can see people uniting no matter their party. The republicans have spent decades and billions keeping us separate, divide and conquer but while they are tearing down what took centuries to build, we may just join forces and overthrow THEM
Next to launching our nuclear arsenal, either by malevolent intent or malfeasant accident, nothing poses a greater existential risk to the lives, health, human happiness and meaningfulness of life as an American living within the nation’s borders as the mental pathology of Trump-MAGA science denialism inextricably wed to extremist white Christian theocratic nationalism hellbent on fucking with the freedom we exercise over our own bodies and minds.
A jury in Louisiana just indicted a New York State doctor for prescribing mifepristone. The End of Timers are on the march and the goal is to take down as many of us as possible.
Insanity on Christian theocratic steroids. This is a prime reason why we need to launch our own, humane counterassault on Christo-fascist body and mind control by creating a national Underground Railroad for Reproductive Freedom that will circumvent Trump’s looming, Comstock Act-driven and rationalized effort to ban the distribution of well-tested and perfectly safe abortion medication via the US mail.
I am at the point of wanting to break up the country. With few exceptions, I cannot stand the elected officials in the South. Ask me anything good the two MAGA senators of my state have ever done. You’d be waiting a long time for the answer.
John, you know I respect and appreciate you. However, I would urge you to reconsider the talk of secession or "break up the country". That rhetoric is what maga and trump want...for us to give up on America. We need to strengthen our resolve to defend and fight, not weaken it.
I definitely understand your point, Mike. I was concerned this morning about the NY doctor getting indicted by Louisiana. It is just a strange land these days. Take this quote from the Louisiana prosecutor:
Dr. Carpenter has a date with Louisiana justice and she ought to fulfill it.”
So I do wonder about the people around me and why they are electing such cretins.
Trump is severely mentally ill. His craven lust for ultimate power betrays a deeply disordered personality and malevolent character born of the early childhood trauma wrought by the withdrawal of parental love and attention. This plausibly explains his obsessive and compulsive pathological need to exaggerate his own worth by putting everyone around him down. Such misbegotten, malignantly narcissistic psychotics desperately need long-term professional psychiatric treatment, not investment with the power to destroy human sanity and civilization.
Geez this was hard to listen to, Steve, and how in the hell do these Deplorable's actually get nominated??! What's wrong with the Sensor's who push them through, knowing just how Unqualified and Dangerous they really are?! I only hope each Republican seat gets Voted Out in 2026 !! Thanks for sharing this morning ☕ Steve, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍🇺🇸
What wrong with them? Their loyalty is to trump. Not the Constitution and not the country.
As far as the 2026 election, 1/3 of the Senate is up for election, so 33 Senators. These are done in tiers, or classes, and Class 2 is up for re-election in 2026. 20 of them are maga republicans and 13 are democrats. 1 D has stated he is retiring, Gary Peters of MI. Of the 20 R seats being contested, all but one of them is in a solid R state and the other 19 will not flip from R to D. That one possible flip is in Maine, where they have one R up for reelection (Susan Collins) and Angus King (I), who just won reelection in 2024. Maine is the only state that Harris won in 2024 with a R Senator up for reelection in 2026. The 13 D seats up are relatively secure, but Ossoff in GA is up. That could actually be a loss for the Ds.
So, although it's really hard to predict how bad things will get in the first 2 years of this admin (although pretty bleak if first 2 weeks are any indication), a reality check would be to not count on 2026 elections to bring the desired changes in the Senate
The FBI is no longer functional and an sycophant is taking the reins, HHS is off line and research stopped, a sycophant is taking the reins, the Military a sycophant has the reins, and Musksputin is taking control of the Treasury, OMP computers a sycophant has control of all Americans information, THE GOVERNMENT TAKE OVER is happening and CRICKETS from the Senate and Representatives. Where is the OUTRAGE?
I know it's implicit and obvious, but I hear more about how unqualified and deliberately destructive his nominees are, and less about Trump's judgement in making these nominations , as it demonstrates his many pathologies and, it sure seems, his hatred towards America, certainly towards America's institutions. It's worth remembering. And it's worth holding the senators who give these nominees easy passes, who will in the end by the one who let this happen, accountable. Nothing's going to get better until at least the midterms, if then, but constituents and journalists need to be getting all these officials on record, in as many ways as possible, so they can be held accountable when the whole thing blows up a la Trump University, Trump Casinos, Trump Steaks, etc etc etc
Are you aware of a central repository for these sins against America? Because I'm not and I think such a place in cyberspace ought to exist.
We need more than our memories when it comes to holding accountable those politicians, media, media personalities, officials installed in the government, judges and judicial decions, and the like who are and will be responsible for hurting the nation, its communities and individuals with their bone-headed actions and mouths.
Can we put our collective heads together for the best way to collect the who, what, when, where and how of the many offenses and betrayals now coming our way?
Eighteen months from now, as campaigns are underway for the midterms, the firehose of falsehoods and juggernaut of harm the MAGA wrecking crew is already busy with, will be hard to remember in detail.
Is there a wiki somewhere, call it Promises Made, Promises Broken, or High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Sheep State, or something better.
And we need to collect the best action ideas, a potpourri, a smorgasbord of steps we can take individually or in collective groups to combat these bastids.
I'll join with you in a fight to take back the country we know and love, warts and all, from the arsonists. In the immortal words of future US senator John (Bluto) Blutarsky: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Oearl Harbor? Hell no!"
The Kennedy and Patel effect has already being felt around the world. We dropped out of the WHO and have fired FBI Agents for the simple reason of having the gall and follow orders to investigate crimes committed by Trump.
Since you are talking about the Senate, I don’t think FDR and JFK, are who we need. Give me the likes of LBJ, George McGovern, and William Proxmire running the Senate.
Re: what happened to the Roman Senate, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell summarizes it in his excellent book The History of Western Philosophy. The Roman Republic actually faced a near-perpetual state of civil war (eventually, of course, resulting in the famous triumvirates in the first century BCE). As I'm sure you know, in Rome the Senate did not consist of those democratically elected but instead those who owned the most property (and therefore had skin in the game when it came to running the government). This created its own set of problems, of course, as Russell outlines here:
"In the civil wars, one general would proclaim himself the champion of the Senate, the other of the people. Victory went to the one who offered the highest rewards to the soldiers. The soldiers wanted not only pay and plunder, but grants of land; therefore each civil war ended in the formally legal expulsion of many existing landholders, who were nominally tenants of the State, to make room for the legionaries of the victor. The expenses of the war, while in progress, were defrayed by executing rich men and confiscating their property. This system, disastrous as it was, could not easily be ended; at last, to every one’s surprise, Augustus was so completely victorious that no competitor remained to challenge his claim to power."
To clarify, the civil wars mentioned at the top of this quote refer to the wars fought in the first half of the 1st century BCE. Julius Caesar's famed crossing of the Rubicon occurred in 49 BCE; he became dictator in 46 BCE and was assassinated in 44 BCE. Augustus became emperor in 27 BCE after another triumvirate and more civil war. (Listing those here since, as you mention in your video, it does help to know the exact dates.)
If we are indeed in a late-stage Roman Republic situation, it would appear Trump is the champion of the people, and we desperately need a champion of the Senate/Congress. I wholeheartedly agree with you that Chuck Schumer is clearly not it.
Please keep creating your content. Your voice is desperately needed.
Channeling philosopher Hannah Arendt’s characterization of Hitler’s Nazi henchmen and martinets, Trump and his un-American, seditious appointees like Patel and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. could not more perfectly incarnate the banality -- or mediocrity -- of evil.
I agreed with this post as the main point, until last night.
I still agree with this post, but a larger headline has erupted, fully aligned with all Steve is doing.
The purge of the FBI is massive, on the same scale as seen in places like Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany, all for the same purpose, to cement a Tyrant's grip on the national police.
As such I think today's most urgent headline is that we are right now in the middle of a coup. Jan6 began this coup, but even though Trump came to office by a vote, he is still pursuing a coup.
Whether Kash gets confirmed or not, the FBI is right now in ruins, with Jim Jordan and Musks' Space X people organizing the firings and their replacements with people in leadership and the field to turn the FBI into an arrest squad that can investigate and destroy anyone Trump wants with a flick of his wrist.
And whether RFK Jr. get confirmed or not, the NIH and CDC are already effectively shut down. Labs are facing closure, epidemics threaten blossoming with no warning or ability to resist.
The list goes on and on, including Musk's emptying out the FAA for daring to punish Space X for raining fiery debris on American communities, Musk now achieving control over the obscure bureau that controls every payment from the United States.
The coup is on. We should all be rising up to stop it before it stops us.
We know. Act.
Why are we so short on courage and organization? Are we as spineless as the Rs? Do we actually want to die, individually and as a country? Do we hold on to the secret fantasy that we are somehow immune? That we will win Survivor Island?
Arthur, in fact, as well as doing everything you say, he is going to "privatize" as much of the economy as he can. Of course, the CEO's and wealthiest stockholders will also head government agencies controlling their industries or exercise power over those who do, monopolistic state capitalism with all the corruption and wealth inequality it generates.
“On Friday, speaking about his plan for federal workers during a press conference, Trump stated: ‘It’s our dream to have everyone, almost, working in the private sector, not the public sector.’
Air traffic controllers were emailed by the Trump administration urging them to quit their jobs and take mass ‘buyouts’ just 24 hours after the D.C. plane crash.
‘We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,’ stated the email sent by the Office of Personnel Management,
‘The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.’” https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-admin-emails-air-traffic-193838183.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuam9lbXlnb2QuY29tLw&guce_referrer_
Does Trump want to move public employees into the private sector because privately owned prisons are charging, as he said, a “fortune” for their services? He has offered federal workers 8 months pay while they seek a new job.
Does he plan to privatize control over air traffic control towers? Does he not realize that public control over certain services (education, health care, national defense, prison system, air traffic control etc.) is most efficient, effective, and safe and should not be run by “for-profit” corporations? Of course he does. He just doesn’t give a damn for anyone but the wealthiest “elite.”
He seems hell-bent on destroying the economy’s support for the working class, lower and middle, while allowing predatory capitalists to exploit them to the max.
Our country is finished. Ruined by it's own greed.
It may be too late, corruption and incompetence is burying us like an avalanche. But, we shouldn't give up. The public has the power to make changes; if everyone understoood what is going on, the strikes mentioned in this dialogue would have widespread participation and could result in 2026 mid-terms that lead to impeachment and conviction of Trump, reform of SCOTUS etc.
I agree. Darkest before the dawn. It’s going to devastate so many lives that can see people uniting no matter their party. The republicans have spent decades and billions keeping us separate, divide and conquer but while they are tearing down what took centuries to build, we may just join forces and overthrow THEM
Next to launching our nuclear arsenal, either by malevolent intent or malfeasant accident, nothing poses a greater existential risk to the lives, health, human happiness and meaningfulness of life as an American living within the nation’s borders as the mental pathology of Trump-MAGA science denialism inextricably wed to extremist white Christian theocratic nationalism hellbent on fucking with the freedom we exercise over our own bodies and minds.
A jury in Louisiana just indicted a New York State doctor for prescribing mifepristone. The End of Timers are on the march and the goal is to take down as many of us as possible.
Insanity on Christian theocratic steroids. This is a prime reason why we need to launch our own, humane counterassault on Christo-fascist body and mind control by creating a national Underground Railroad for Reproductive Freedom that will circumvent Trump’s looming, Comstock Act-driven and rationalized effort to ban the distribution of well-tested and perfectly safe abortion medication via the US mail.
I am at the point of wanting to break up the country. With few exceptions, I cannot stand the elected officials in the South. Ask me anything good the two MAGA senators of my state have ever done. You’d be waiting a long time for the answer.
Be glad you don’t live in Tn.
Pool of ignorance!
Every one of them.
John, you know I respect and appreciate you. However, I would urge you to reconsider the talk of secession or "break up the country". That rhetoric is what maga and trump want...for us to give up on America. We need to strengthen our resolve to defend and fight, not weaken it.
I definitely understand your point, Mike. I was concerned this morning about the NY doctor getting indicted by Louisiana. It is just a strange land these days. Take this quote from the Louisiana prosecutor:
Dr. Carpenter has a date with Louisiana justice and she ought to fulfill it.”
So I do wonder about the people around me and why they are electing such cretins.
I agree with you John, break it up, it has always been to big.
Trump is severely mentally ill. His craven lust for ultimate power betrays a deeply disordered personality and malevolent character born of the early childhood trauma wrought by the withdrawal of parental love and attention. This plausibly explains his obsessive and compulsive pathological need to exaggerate his own worth by putting everyone around him down. Such misbegotten, malignantly narcissistic psychotics desperately need long-term professional psychiatric treatment, not investment with the power to destroy human sanity and civilization.
Geez this was hard to listen to, Steve, and how in the hell do these Deplorable's actually get nominated??! What's wrong with the Sensor's who push them through, knowing just how Unqualified and Dangerous they really are?! I only hope each Republican seat gets Voted Out in 2026 !! Thanks for sharing this morning ☕ Steve, and will reStack ASAP 💯👍🇺🇸
What wrong with them? Their loyalty is to trump. Not the Constitution and not the country.
As far as the 2026 election, 1/3 of the Senate is up for election, so 33 Senators. These are done in tiers, or classes, and Class 2 is up for re-election in 2026. 20 of them are maga republicans and 13 are democrats. 1 D has stated he is retiring, Gary Peters of MI. Of the 20 R seats being contested, all but one of them is in a solid R state and the other 19 will not flip from R to D. That one possible flip is in Maine, where they have one R up for reelection (Susan Collins) and Angus King (I), who just won reelection in 2024. Maine is the only state that Harris won in 2024 with a R Senator up for reelection in 2026. The 13 D seats up are relatively secure, but Ossoff in GA is up. That could actually be a loss for the Ds.
So, although it's really hard to predict how bad things will get in the first 2 years of this admin (although pretty bleak if first 2 weeks are any indication), a reality check would be to not count on 2026 elections to bring the desired changes in the Senate
The FBI is no longer functional and an sycophant is taking the reins, HHS is off line and research stopped, a sycophant is taking the reins, the Military a sycophant has the reins, and Musksputin is taking control of the Treasury, OMP computers a sycophant has control of all Americans information, THE GOVERNMENT TAKE OVER is happening and CRICKETS from the Senate and Representatives. Where is the OUTRAGE?
I know it's implicit and obvious, but I hear more about how unqualified and deliberately destructive his nominees are, and less about Trump's judgement in making these nominations , as it demonstrates his many pathologies and, it sure seems, his hatred towards America, certainly towards America's institutions. It's worth remembering. And it's worth holding the senators who give these nominees easy passes, who will in the end by the one who let this happen, accountable. Nothing's going to get better until at least the midterms, if then, but constituents and journalists need to be getting all these officials on record, in as many ways as possible, so they can be held accountable when the whole thing blows up a la Trump University, Trump Casinos, Trump Steaks, etc etc etc
Are you aware of a central repository for these sins against America? Because I'm not and I think such a place in cyberspace ought to exist.
We need more than our memories when it comes to holding accountable those politicians, media, media personalities, officials installed in the government, judges and judicial decions, and the like who are and will be responsible for hurting the nation, its communities and individuals with their bone-headed actions and mouths.
Can we put our collective heads together for the best way to collect the who, what, when, where and how of the many offenses and betrayals now coming our way?
Eighteen months from now, as campaigns are underway for the midterms, the firehose of falsehoods and juggernaut of harm the MAGA wrecking crew is already busy with, will be hard to remember in detail.
Is there a wiki somewhere, call it Promises Made, Promises Broken, or High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Sheep State, or something better.
And we need to collect the best action ideas, a potpourri, a smorgasbord of steps we can take individually or in collective groups to combat these bastids.
I'll join with you in a fight to take back the country we know and love, warts and all, from the arsonists. In the immortal words of future US senator John (Bluto) Blutarsky: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Oearl Harbor? Hell no!"
And so are the compromised senators that are manifestly aiding and abetting America’s ill-fated deconstruction
The Kennedy and Patel effect has already being felt around the world. We dropped out of the WHO and have fired FBI Agents for the simple reason of having the gall and follow orders to investigate crimes committed by Trump.
After ragegasm, work with Indivisible, MoveOn, Working Families.
“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
― Heinrich Heine
Most disturbing is Elon Musk locking out Social Security administrators from the Social Security databases. Who the f@ck does he think he is?
I guess he thinks he's the guy who's getting away with it.
Since you are talking about the Senate, I don’t think FDR and JFK, are who we need. Give me the likes of LBJ, George McGovern, and William Proxmire running the Senate.
There's a difference between doers and leaders. We need both.
The sickness is called psychopathy. It is an anti-social mental disorder. Lack of any empathy is an attribute. As is the odor from the White House.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/white-house-psychopathy?r=3m1bs
Please run for President, Mr. Schmidt!!
Hi Steve,
Re: what happened to the Roman Senate, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell summarizes it in his excellent book The History of Western Philosophy. The Roman Republic actually faced a near-perpetual state of civil war (eventually, of course, resulting in the famous triumvirates in the first century BCE). As I'm sure you know, in Rome the Senate did not consist of those democratically elected but instead those who owned the most property (and therefore had skin in the game when it came to running the government). This created its own set of problems, of course, as Russell outlines here:
"In the civil wars, one general would proclaim himself the champion of the Senate, the other of the people. Victory went to the one who offered the highest rewards to the soldiers. The soldiers wanted not only pay and plunder, but grants of land; therefore each civil war ended in the formally legal expulsion of many existing landholders, who were nominally tenants of the State, to make room for the legionaries of the victor. The expenses of the war, while in progress, were defrayed by executing rich men and confiscating their property. This system, disastrous as it was, could not easily be ended; at last, to every one’s surprise, Augustus was so completely victorious that no competitor remained to challenge his claim to power."
To clarify, the civil wars mentioned at the top of this quote refer to the wars fought in the first half of the 1st century BCE. Julius Caesar's famed crossing of the Rubicon occurred in 49 BCE; he became dictator in 46 BCE and was assassinated in 44 BCE. Augustus became emperor in 27 BCE after another triumvirate and more civil war. (Listing those here since, as you mention in your video, it does help to know the exact dates.)
You can view an overview of the various civil wars throughout the 1st century BCE on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_civil_wars_and_revolts#1st_century_BC
If we are indeed in a late-stage Roman Republic situation, it would appear Trump is the champion of the people, and we desperately need a champion of the Senate/Congress. I wholeheartedly agree with you that Chuck Schumer is clearly not it.
Please keep creating your content. Your voice is desperately needed.
Best,
Eric
Channeling philosopher Hannah Arendt’s characterization of Hitler’s Nazi henchmen and martinets, Trump and his un-American, seditious appointees like Patel and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. could not more perfectly incarnate the banality -- or mediocrity -- of evil.