It is legal in Maine to marry and have children with a second cousin, so why are you making this a problem Steve? I really don't understand. The couple are grown adults in a mutual loving relationship. Some people may have a problem with it, but some people have a problem with LGBTQ candidates too.
Maine Democrat Jackson, 58, and Pelletier grew up together in the town of Allagash, with a population of 230.
The couple share two adult sons, Chace and Camden, and have long presented themselves as husband and wife. But Robinson reported that locals insist the pair has never actually tied the knot.
Relationships between second cousins are perfectly legal in Maine and, in the sparsely populated Northern Maine, are not considered unusual.
Whether or not they are married is no one's business but their own. Many people, myself included, do not feel we need the stamp of approval or permission of any religion or state to form the families we are comfortable with. PERIOD!!!!
Except Kentucky and Nevada. But I was shocked that this was true when I read your comment, because, lately we seem to be getting all up in peoples’ truly personal business. I had a cousin who I hadn’t seen from before puberty. He started walking around my apartment complex looking for me — I turned to my friends and said that kid’s really cute. To be fair when I realized it was my cousin Gary, the kid I spent hours and days and summers and years with being ignored or tortured, he instantly ceased to be cute. But I agree with you. If it’s legal and sometimes,even when it’s illegal, we should stop judging peoples’ love lives (and their sex lives). As long as he’s not hypocritical about that, his personal life is his.
Maine needs representation. someone that will work for these beautiful hard working Americans. The Veterans here are struggling as we encountered many living on the streets.
The focus should be on getting the assistance and help for all Mainers especially as winter soon arrives and the cost of fuel for heat increases and their pay doesn’t.
That's your point of view; most thinking people would disagree. Homo Sapiens emerged in northeast Africa about 300,000 years ago and today they number over 8 billion and have taken over the world. Whether you believe in the biblical myths about our origins or evolution, relations between cousins was commonplace and still is. Some states do prohibit marriage between first cousins because of the increased possibility of passing on negative genes. I get that. But it remains no one's business if the relationships are consensual.
Our problem is the REPUBLICAN PARTY that turned into the TRUMP PARTY. How the Democrats react is certainly going to be our problem if Trump is alive and continues his corrupt regime, but please stop acting like your former party doesn’t own this entire incompetent shit show.
We squander every chance we get. We fumble the ball constantly. Our leadership sucks. We should own both houses of the congress but you watch, our congressional and Senate leadership will fuck it all up again. There are 335,000,000 Americans and this is the best we can do? God damned monkies would do better.
I suspect you might want to reconsider joining Steve in the "sweeping condemnation" race.
When you commented perhaps you had not the benefit of others who slowed down enough to check the facts (not to mention the source, fer crissakes).
These two are second cousins, in a long-term relationship (which many Married People are not). In 48 out of 50 states 2nd cousins are allowed to marry. In 16 -18 states (including Virginia, California, New York, and Florida), FIRST cousins are allowed to marry without legal restriction. And here "marriage" includes the expectation of children.
I hear you, Charlie, and I don't disagree. It's not a BFD. But why can't we just pick a forward leaning, intelligent, empathetic, virtuous person who knows how to communicate effectively and who'll stand behind his words and deliver. Why is it so goddamn hard to line up a good bench. For God's sake, Susan Collins has been our problem for many years. You’d think that by now we'd have figured this thing out and been completely ready long before this election cycle started. Why can't we do anything effective and solid and right from the get-go. Why do the criminals always seem to be able to burst from the gate while we're still wondering if the gate has opened yet. and yes, I'll admit it, Steve is often over the top often, but he does it to wake people up. Most seem satisfied just to listen to the endless punditry, share clips, but almost never take any risks or meaningful action. Shouldn't we at least be more demanding, isn't it timeto fight the good fight. Shouldn't we all be striking, boycotting, taking to the streets by now?
For more than 10 years the Democratic Party has been struggling about its core values. The Hillary-Bernie contest brought it out into the open, for anyone willing to see. Schumer is the Hillary wing, which holds a lot of power (positions, money) still but can't win elections and I'm not certain they really care? It's gotten so bad for so many people (because of who the establishment Dems lost to) there's a vigorous and widespread reaction, which I'd only date to less than 2 years ago. Two years ago my middle of the road incumbent, demi-billionaire senator was already soliciting contributions. Building a warchest, whose primary purpose may have been to discourage a strong primary challenger. The GOP will put up some wackadoodle, who will lose.
Two years is not an overly long runway for a Senate seat. Or for anything in politics! Schumer has been at the helm an awfully long time. He doesn't work for the people of NYState anymore. He has said that making sure Israel gets all the money it wants is his top priority. He intervened in Maine on behalf of a lackluster candidate he was sure he could control. What I'm trying to make clear is that this isn't a "Democratic" problem. It's a civil war between factions, the comfortable big-donor Dems who factually serve the interests of the top 10%, and emerging fighters for the 'bottom' 70-80%. It's *ridiculous* to call anyone the bottom 80%, isn't it? But here we are.
A very similar dynamic is at work in the MI Dem-primaries, where AIPAC (and sympathizers) have spent something like $50 Million (or more) attacking a candidate whose platform is "Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for all." By the way, "Medicare for all" is now officially mainstream. Even my middle of the road senator has gotten such an earful, all around the state, that he's come out in support of it.
So how do we change the Democratic Party? We change out the players. Tellingly, the establishment figures like Schumer and Jeffries (and others) fight the emerging leaders much, much harder than they have fought Trump and the Republicans. There's a crop of promising leaders out there, forward-looking, with the interests of ordinary Americans at heart, all the attributes you mention, rising in various states. To me it's astonishing. And to the old guard, it's alarming! The next several months will be rough, we'll have to keep in mind that dirty stuff will happen, and we'll just have to get up, dust ourselves off, and keep fighting. This election is a hugely important battle, but it is not the war.
I don't know if Steve was tired or upset about something else when he attacked Troy Jackson. But as so often is the case when Person A belittles Person B, Person A is saying much more about himself than his target, and it's not good.
Thank you for this very thoughtful response. I can’t say that I disagree with anything you’ve said. You’ve clearly been thinking about this for a long time, and your perspectives are spot on and appreciated. I too believe that the next months through the end of this year will be some of the most challenging and terrible that I or any of us have experienced. I expect ICE to continue executing decent Americans at an increasing rate between now and November 3, the objective being to get all of us whipped up into a frenzy to create the chaotic predicate he will use to invoke the Insurrection Act and cancel our elections for the first time in history. And that’s just one of the many tactics he will use. Bottom line: if we win, Trump and his criminal cabal are toast. Trumpism will live on well past him and we will have to deal with that for many years, as we slowly build a new and stronger republic. I expect him to shock the world with what he does over the next few months. It’s going to be horrible, and there will be blood. We will never be respected or trusted again. Add AI to the mix and one can predict tragedy on an unprecedented scale. I'm 75. I will never see our ship of state righted. I hope my children and grandchildren will. I never imagined it could come to this. Who would have thought such a vile, sick, clown could have caused such enormous destruction.
Ah, Joe, I am with you, and at 73 I am right behind you. I have known for a long time that the American Empire stood a very high chance of collapsing, because that's what empires do, especially when they get into military “excursions.” One too many and the whole thing comes crashing down. I wish it hadn't happened, because there will be so much suffering and loss, and it is all totally pointless and stupid. I would have much preferred to spend my old years on something productive, like reading, and marveling at my backyard scientific prairie. But, oddly enough, I was born a ‘warrior’ --I’d rather not fight, but this fight has come looking for me and everything good. I think I’m good at fighting, I even enjoy it, and anyway it's the thing I must do if I'm to live with myself. One thing about being this age, we grew up in a simpler, less-monetized world, and we grew up close to the people who experienced brutally hard times. I hope you have a good community around you, family and friends and people who think pretty much like you. That's how we’ll come back down to earth from frizzing out when suddenly it's just too awful unbearably much, how we will rebuild our country better, and how we'll have strength to do what needs doing. For the sake of the youngers!
You should post this as a note — I’d like to restack it — it really expresses what the Dem opposition wants to do. I am no longer baffled about what is happening right now — but in the next 3 years, we have the best opportunity for sweeping growth for the bottom 80% of this country. (It does make you amazed to even think that way). But only if we support the new folks coming in without PACS — getting votes the old-fashioned way. And who are media/tech savvy. We will need also all the true fighters already in Congress. If the Dems win a majority — it won’t matter if there are only Progressive voices — they will be all over — in Committees, on television, doing lives, and telling us who really is preventing shit from getting done. They have listened to the people from everywhere in their states and districts and they have the stamina to bring real and lasting change. Could be Trump’s only positive contribution to humanity.
While it is true that the Republican party has gone fascist, the response and capacity of the Democratic party has been comic/tragic terrible. We want someone to put up a credible fight back. What does the party do when there are credible fighters like Ocasio Cortez and Jasmine Crockett? Punish them. Overlook them. And then promote sick, dying elderly Dems instead.
We can make the Democratic party more progressive by voting for progressive candidates in the primaries. It does no good to harp on the leadership. Calling for a change in leadership is fine, but putting as much blame on them as their Republican counterparts is very wrong and plays into MAGA's hands.
I sometimes worry about the possibility that people who do that frequently are members of a fifth column trying to surreptitiously help Republicans.
Listen, I'm an arts administrator. I'm no party operative. And in the 10th district of WA state, I voted for the progressive Alex Scheel over Marilyn. Not all progressives are competent or capable (see Seattle Mayor as example).
And I never said once in my statement despite your implication, that they are just as much to blame as Republicans. Republicans are to a person, unforgivable fascists. I don't think Democratic Party leadership sees that or think it's just the usual politics (it is not).
Laura, Cool your jets. "And I never said once in my statement despite your implication, that they are just as much to blame as Republicans." I was referring to Steve Schmidt, not you. I have no idea how often or aggressively you bash Democratic leadership.
"Not all progressives are competent or capable...." Of course not. I never said they were. All else being equal, or close to that, I will always vote for the progressive over the moderate candidates.
Reading these comments you would think some of you are very young and have not been through this before. We do not want a democratic Trump, crazy nutballs or far far left insanity candidates. Calm down and let this all play out. We will win in 28 with an intelligent, healthy sane person with integrity and governing knowledge that isn’t a thief. IF EVERYONE VOTES!
What is a "sane person" to you? While your list does include good possibilities, I find it hyperbolic that the candidates who are left of center are democratic trumps. Middling Dems have sat there, without even raising a stink about the criminality of Trump. I HAVE been through this before when Obama was going to save the economy and made organizations compete for the funds in a grant process.
And we all know why Obama couldn’t do a lot that he wanted to, but I’m sure if he had it to do over again he would now…including telling Mitch McConnell to go fuck himself!
Yes, both parties Congressmen/women and Senators have been serving for too long. We the people should vote for term limits for them. People of Iceland voted the referendums and reserved the laws in the past. Why not our beloved country vote the referendums for term limits, US Supreme Court decisions, and Trump’s crazy bills, and ICE funding?? Speak up!! I always image that the people can speak up and stand up.
I am positive that Maine will flip blue. The people of Maine will not vote for Senator Collins cause she keeps changing her mind on the issues. If I was living in Maine, I wouldn’t vote for Senator Collins for many reasons. She is belonged to the Trump Party. I always refer Trump and his crazy allies as Trump Party since 2020. They aren’t belonged to Republican Party period. Susan Collins has been serving as US Senator for too long. It is time for Maine to have a new face and flesh Senator. I am not a big fan of any term Congress and Senate. I think it is time for Congress and Senate to be term limit. For example US Senator Chuck Grassley has been in Congress and Senate since 1975. Come on!! Enough is enough with the longest serving Congressmen or women and Senators like Church Schumer. America needs a very common sense and stable leadership.
My great aunt and uncle were first cousins. They had three well educated children and a host of very successful grandchildren and great grandchildren. Several of them are my good friends. Why so shocked?
Let's not dump a great candidate, acting as if a charge as silly as having children with a second cousin is awful; It is not. Most of us do not even know our second cousins.
I want to be clear I am fine with second cousins being together .. When I was little my second cousin and I asked if we could marry when we grew up.. I am upset with Schumer .. not so much with Maine as with his whole way of being in charge . He was fine when life was normal but now we need a strong younger leader male or female .
Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt were cousins — specifically, fifth cousins once removed. According to History.com, Eleanor was born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and was raised by her extended Roosevelt family in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Franklin’s side of the family (also referred to as a branch) was from Hyde Park in upstate New York.
Thanks Jane. The old royal and aristocratic families of Europe were all interrelated and routinely married and procreated with their second cousins, and occasionally their first cousins. Granted, this was done to keep their bloodlines pure.
Punkette, you are correct. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II were first cousins; their attempt to avert WWI in a series of personal letters ultimately failed. The correspondence is known as the Willy Nicky letters as that was how they addressed each other.
It is a fact to use against MAGAT's to defuse their outrage at Troy Jackson's relationship with his second cousin, perfectly legal and moral and no one's business but his and his partner's
My great great aunt married her first or second cousin. I never knew till I found out during my research for my family tree. But my aunt and uncle never had children.
I really do not care if anyone marries their second cousin, especially if they live in Maine where it is not uncommon and supported by low population or are Orthodox Jews or any other cultural group accepting of the pracice. I'm a paying subscriber but I won't stay if this is the tone.
I agree with your comment and others 💯%. Also I do not like the tone of this post. I too grew up in a very small community in Labrador and remember that relationships between cousins were taboo and don’t recall any in reality. I moved to Nova Scotia and met my husband whose mother and father were second cousins who also grew up in a small town. No issues with the siblings or grandchildren etc. This article in my opinion is over the top. Steve target your outrage where it belongs. This is not a hill to die on. Sounds as if you are exhausted.
Yes, I am sick of it and have been for some time. I spent almost 40 years as a cilvil trial lawyer and now have been forced to watch the death of the rule of law in this country. We need young people to step up. I like Beshear very much. Maybe he is the hope for the future. Jon Ossoff, too and James Talarico. Schumer makes me ill with Jeffries not far behind.
Keep your eye on Jon Ossoff. He's a rising star for good reason. We also have two rising stars here in NC - Josh Stein our current governor, and Jeff Jackson our AG. I'm really glad to see that the Dems have a deep bench of young, talented leaders.
I read this post two more times after the initial one of disbelief and dismay, then conducted a quick search on line. This episode puts you in the same nasty vicious verbal garbage stew-pot that Trump daily sickens America's politics.
Shame on you, Steve Schmidt, for not checking your sources and for failing to undertake anything like exercising caution on the Daily Beast story or its editorial assassination in its choice of the accompanying Jackson photo clearly meant to imply, in this Epstein era of sex trafficking of minors, that Jackson was reacting to being "caught out" in appalling multi-level indiscretions.
FACT: In Maine second cousins may marry without any restrictions other than their age. This is sloppy and scurrilous reporting by the Daily Beast, demands an apology from them and you, and seriously diminishes your reputation. You have done such good work until this. What a shame to have up-ended it all
I sometimes worry about the possibility that people who do what Steve Schmidt did in his commentary today are members of a fifth column trying to surreptitiously help Republicans.
We are told, and the factual (!) evidence supports the contention that the GOP has been planning and working toward this little situation for decades!!! It should not be forgotten that Steve Schmidt was a loyal and active member of the Republican Party for thirty years. He apparently "saw the light" in 2018. One might well ask, "What took you so long?"
I've always believed I could accept genuine changes of mind and direction. aNY JOURNALIST WHO FAILS TO UNPACK a claim as inflammatory as the one the intern wrote for the Beast.whose veracity the rag in question then challenged/distorted by the accompanying photo of Jackson, that I was then able to satisfy to my own satisfaction within fifteen minutes of seeing it in Schmidt's re-rendering was completely scurrilous. I was immediately suspicious. Any responsible journalist would have had the same skeptical response. The clear evidence out of his own fingertips to the keys is that Schmidt did not do that at all. Q.E.D. This one lies squarely at Schmidt's feet! The longer he's silent, the more damning it becomes.
I don’t know enough of Maine politics to know whether this means Collins is on a path to victory.
In North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District, 83 year old Virginia Foxx is running again.
For a quarter century now, her voters have been getting poorer and poorer. But they keep electing her. There isn’t anything you can do for such people, and with the way they vote, they are dismantling the country.
Well I can’t speak for Maine but we are going to kick ass in Georgia with Ossoff,
Bottoms, and Amanda Hollowell. Serious, seasoned and fighting mad. I just came from the Georgia State Democratic Convention in Savannah and watched it in action. If you’re in need of some hope I would welcome and encourage you to come down and take a look for yourself.
Second cousins can legally marry and have children in all 50 states. This is not incest. It is nothing to be ashamed of and we should be attacking Republicans for making an issue of it and ignoring the real and existential threats we face as a result of their continuing support for a demented Donald Trump:
A dialogue yesterday, 7/31/26, between Steve Gruber, a host on Real America’s Voice, and Donald Trump underscores Trump’s ongoing megalomania:
"Here's another question. You're also still looking at Greenland," Gruber said. "I made a prediction on this program that before you left office that Greenland would be under our operational control. It's still incredibly important to defending the Western Hemisphere, isn't it?"
Trump responded by expressing confidence in the prediction: "Yeah, you'll be right if you took that. Yeah, you'll be right. No, we want to do something very important. Greenland's important, you know, from our standpoint, not from their standpoint, but from our standpoint. You should make that bet actually."
After Gruber replied, "I did make that bet and I think it's incredibly important," Trump answered simply: "Good."
When he shares a map of a vastly greater United States, it is time to consider what actions he might take to be the president who gained more territory than any other president:
On Tuesday 7/15/26, President Donald Trump re-shared a peculiar AI-generated image on social media depicting the American flag overlaid across three nations, appearing to revive his ambitions to incorporate Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela into the United States
There's nothing wrong with Troy Jackson's family!! He has stayed with his highschool sweetheart in an apparently happy relationship, raised two children successfully, and - second cousin marriage is legal in Maine! If it's important, they could get a marriage certicate in ten minutes. Where is the scandal here? Is it necessary to have that certificate to have a loving and supportive longtime relationship? For goodness sakes Mr Schmidt - I like you a lot and am a subscriber - please don't do this damage to a good man who has gone to bat for the working people of Maine for thirty years! Troy would be an experienced-in-governing US senator who knows how to represent his constituents! Susan Collins is a real grifter who slept her way into power as a young staffer.
Steve, I generally don't hold it against you as a Bush Republican. But cohabitation with a second cousin is NOT incest. Such a charge is an appeal to ignorance, a slur and a smear. The resulting
controversy could even raise a candidate to prominence, in this time when cross-dressers are exalted. Some ignorant folk might take offense. But then, they're more likely to marry cousins.
It is legal in Maine to marry and have children with a second cousin, so why are you making this a problem Steve? I really don't understand. The couple are grown adults in a mutual loving relationship. Some people may have a problem with it, but some people have a problem with LGBTQ candidates too.
Maine Democrat Jackson, 58, and Pelletier grew up together in the town of Allagash, with a population of 230.
The couple share two adult sons, Chace and Camden, and have long presented themselves as husband and wife. But Robinson reported that locals insist the pair has never actually tied the knot.
Relationships between second cousins are perfectly legal in Maine and, in the sparsely populated Northern Maine, are not considered unusual.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/maine-democrat-troy-jackson-had-194101426.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
Whether or not they are married is no one's business but their own. Many people, myself included, do not feel we need the stamp of approval or permission of any religion or state to form the families we are comfortable with. PERIOD!!!!
It is legal not just in Maine, but in EVERY STATE IN THE UNION!!!!!
Except Kentucky and Nevada. But I was shocked that this was true when I read your comment, because, lately we seem to be getting all up in peoples’ truly personal business. I had a cousin who I hadn’t seen from before puberty. He started walking around my apartment complex looking for me — I turned to my friends and said that kid’s really cute. To be fair when I realized it was my cousin Gary, the kid I spent hours and days and summers and years with being ignored or tortured, he instantly ceased to be cute. But I agree with you. If it’s legal and sometimes,even when it’s illegal, we should stop judging peoples’ love lives (and their sex lives). As long as he’s not hypocritical about that, his personal life is his.
Maine needs representation. someone that will work for these beautiful hard working Americans. The Veterans here are struggling as we encountered many living on the streets.
The focus should be on getting the assistance and help for all Mainers especially as winter soon arrives and the cost of fuel for heat increases and their pay doesn’t.
because It is discussing to say the Least, and it gives me the creeps
That's your point of view; most thinking people would disagree. Homo Sapiens emerged in northeast Africa about 300,000 years ago and today they number over 8 billion and have taken over the world. Whether you believe in the biblical myths about our origins or evolution, relations between cousins was commonplace and still is. Some states do prohibit marriage between first cousins because of the increased possibility of passing on negative genes. I get that. But it remains no one's business if the relationships are consensual.
Not to mention the fact that we're not talking about first cousins.
Our problem is NOT the Democratic Party.
Our problem is the REPUBLICAN PARTY that turned into the TRUMP PARTY. How the Democrats react is certainly going to be our problem if Trump is alive and continues his corrupt regime, but please stop acting like your former party doesn’t own this entire incompetent shit show.
We squander every chance we get. We fumble the ball constantly. Our leadership sucks. We should own both houses of the congress but you watch, our congressional and Senate leadership will fuck it all up again. There are 335,000,000 Americans and this is the best we can do? God damned monkies would do better.
I suspect you might want to reconsider joining Steve in the "sweeping condemnation" race.
When you commented perhaps you had not the benefit of others who slowed down enough to check the facts (not to mention the source, fer crissakes).
These two are second cousins, in a long-term relationship (which many Married People are not). In 48 out of 50 states 2nd cousins are allowed to marry. In 16 -18 states (including Virginia, California, New York, and Florida), FIRST cousins are allowed to marry without legal restriction. And here "marriage" includes the expectation of children.
So what is the BFD?
I hear you, Charlie, and I don't disagree. It's not a BFD. But why can't we just pick a forward leaning, intelligent, empathetic, virtuous person who knows how to communicate effectively and who'll stand behind his words and deliver. Why is it so goddamn hard to line up a good bench. For God's sake, Susan Collins has been our problem for many years. You’d think that by now we'd have figured this thing out and been completely ready long before this election cycle started. Why can't we do anything effective and solid and right from the get-go. Why do the criminals always seem to be able to burst from the gate while we're still wondering if the gate has opened yet. and yes, I'll admit it, Steve is often over the top often, but he does it to wake people up. Most seem satisfied just to listen to the endless punditry, share clips, but almost never take any risks or meaningful action. Shouldn't we at least be more demanding, isn't it timeto fight the good fight. Shouldn't we all be striking, boycotting, taking to the streets by now?
Q: "How do you eat an elephant?"
You know it: "One bite at a time."
For more than 10 years the Democratic Party has been struggling about its core values. The Hillary-Bernie contest brought it out into the open, for anyone willing to see. Schumer is the Hillary wing, which holds a lot of power (positions, money) still but can't win elections and I'm not certain they really care? It's gotten so bad for so many people (because of who the establishment Dems lost to) there's a vigorous and widespread reaction, which I'd only date to less than 2 years ago. Two years ago my middle of the road incumbent, demi-billionaire senator was already soliciting contributions. Building a warchest, whose primary purpose may have been to discourage a strong primary challenger. The GOP will put up some wackadoodle, who will lose.
Two years is not an overly long runway for a Senate seat. Or for anything in politics! Schumer has been at the helm an awfully long time. He doesn't work for the people of NYState anymore. He has said that making sure Israel gets all the money it wants is his top priority. He intervened in Maine on behalf of a lackluster candidate he was sure he could control. What I'm trying to make clear is that this isn't a "Democratic" problem. It's a civil war between factions, the comfortable big-donor Dems who factually serve the interests of the top 10%, and emerging fighters for the 'bottom' 70-80%. It's *ridiculous* to call anyone the bottom 80%, isn't it? But here we are.
A very similar dynamic is at work in the MI Dem-primaries, where AIPAC (and sympathizers) have spent something like $50 Million (or more) attacking a candidate whose platform is "Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for all." By the way, "Medicare for all" is now officially mainstream. Even my middle of the road senator has gotten such an earful, all around the state, that he's come out in support of it.
So how do we change the Democratic Party? We change out the players. Tellingly, the establishment figures like Schumer and Jeffries (and others) fight the emerging leaders much, much harder than they have fought Trump and the Republicans. There's a crop of promising leaders out there, forward-looking, with the interests of ordinary Americans at heart, all the attributes you mention, rising in various states. To me it's astonishing. And to the old guard, it's alarming! The next several months will be rough, we'll have to keep in mind that dirty stuff will happen, and we'll just have to get up, dust ourselves off, and keep fighting. This election is a hugely important battle, but it is not the war.
I don't know if Steve was tired or upset about something else when he attacked Troy Jackson. But as so often is the case when Person A belittles Person B, Person A is saying much more about himself than his target, and it's not good.
Thank you for this very thoughtful response. I can’t say that I disagree with anything you’ve said. You’ve clearly been thinking about this for a long time, and your perspectives are spot on and appreciated. I too believe that the next months through the end of this year will be some of the most challenging and terrible that I or any of us have experienced. I expect ICE to continue executing decent Americans at an increasing rate between now and November 3, the objective being to get all of us whipped up into a frenzy to create the chaotic predicate he will use to invoke the Insurrection Act and cancel our elections for the first time in history. And that’s just one of the many tactics he will use. Bottom line: if we win, Trump and his criminal cabal are toast. Trumpism will live on well past him and we will have to deal with that for many years, as we slowly build a new and stronger republic. I expect him to shock the world with what he does over the next few months. It’s going to be horrible, and there will be blood. We will never be respected or trusted again. Add AI to the mix and one can predict tragedy on an unprecedented scale. I'm 75. I will never see our ship of state righted. I hope my children and grandchildren will. I never imagined it could come to this. Who would have thought such a vile, sick, clown could have caused such enormous destruction.
Ah, Joe, I am with you, and at 73 I am right behind you. I have known for a long time that the American Empire stood a very high chance of collapsing, because that's what empires do, especially when they get into military “excursions.” One too many and the whole thing comes crashing down. I wish it hadn't happened, because there will be so much suffering and loss, and it is all totally pointless and stupid. I would have much preferred to spend my old years on something productive, like reading, and marveling at my backyard scientific prairie. But, oddly enough, I was born a ‘warrior’ --I’d rather not fight, but this fight has come looking for me and everything good. I think I’m good at fighting, I even enjoy it, and anyway it's the thing I must do if I'm to live with myself. One thing about being this age, we grew up in a simpler, less-monetized world, and we grew up close to the people who experienced brutally hard times. I hope you have a good community around you, family and friends and people who think pretty much like you. That's how we’ll come back down to earth from frizzing out when suddenly it's just too awful unbearably much, how we will rebuild our country better, and how we'll have strength to do what needs doing. For the sake of the youngers!
You should post this as a note — I’d like to restack it — it really expresses what the Dem opposition wants to do. I am no longer baffled about what is happening right now — but in the next 3 years, we have the best opportunity for sweeping growth for the bottom 80% of this country. (It does make you amazed to even think that way). But only if we support the new folks coming in without PACS — getting votes the old-fashioned way. And who are media/tech savvy. We will need also all the true fighters already in Congress. If the Dems win a majority — it won’t matter if there are only Progressive voices — they will be all over — in Committees, on television, doing lives, and telling us who really is preventing shit from getting done. They have listened to the people from everywhere in their states and districts and they have the stamina to bring real and lasting change. Could be Trump’s only positive contribution to humanity.
Donna did you mean this for me or @Joe Sireno?
Sometimes with all the lines on the tiny-computer screen, it is difficult for me to tell 😳
YES!!!!!
Right on, girl!
While it is true that the Republican party has gone fascist, the response and capacity of the Democratic party has been comic/tragic terrible. We want someone to put up a credible fight back. What does the party do when there are credible fighters like Ocasio Cortez and Jasmine Crockett? Punish them. Overlook them. And then promote sick, dying elderly Dems instead.
Be patient and optimistic. We have many capable Dems!
Jon Ossoff, Rahm Emanuel, Josh Shapiro, Roy Cooper, JB Pritzker, James Talarico, AOC, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Jasmine Crockett, Stacey Abrams…
We can make the Democratic party more progressive by voting for progressive candidates in the primaries. It does no good to harp on the leadership. Calling for a change in leadership is fine, but putting as much blame on them as their Republican counterparts is very wrong and plays into MAGA's hands.
I sometimes worry about the possibility that people who do that frequently are members of a fifth column trying to surreptitiously help Republicans.
Listen, I'm an arts administrator. I'm no party operative. And in the 10th district of WA state, I voted for the progressive Alex Scheel over Marilyn. Not all progressives are competent or capable (see Seattle Mayor as example).
And I never said once in my statement despite your implication, that they are just as much to blame as Republicans. Republicans are to a person, unforgivable fascists. I don't think Democratic Party leadership sees that or think it's just the usual politics (it is not).
Laura, Cool your jets. "And I never said once in my statement despite your implication, that they are just as much to blame as Republicans." I was referring to Steve Schmidt, not you. I have no idea how often or aggressively you bash Democratic leadership.
"Not all progressives are competent or capable...." Of course not. I never said they were. All else being equal, or close to that, I will always vote for the progressive over the moderate candidates.
Reading these comments you would think some of you are very young and have not been through this before. We do not want a democratic Trump, crazy nutballs or far far left insanity candidates. Calm down and let this all play out. We will win in 28 with an intelligent, healthy sane person with integrity and governing knowledge that isn’t a thief. IF EVERYONE VOTES!
What is a "sane person" to you? While your list does include good possibilities, I find it hyperbolic that the candidates who are left of center are democratic trumps. Middling Dems have sat there, without even raising a stink about the criminality of Trump. I HAVE been through this before when Obama was going to save the economy and made organizations compete for the funds in a grant process.
And we all know why Obama couldn’t do a lot that he wanted to, but I’m sure if he had it to do over again he would now…including telling Mitch McConnell to go fuck himself!
No doubt! But in the most dignified way :-).
I also think that advisors like Rahm thought cutting out the insurance companies was too radical. Hopefully Obama would tell Rahm the same.
Yes, both parties Congressmen/women and Senators have been serving for too long. We the people should vote for term limits for them. People of Iceland voted the referendums and reserved the laws in the past. Why not our beloved country vote the referendums for term limits, US Supreme Court decisions, and Trump’s crazy bills, and ICE funding?? Speak up!! I always image that the people can speak up and stand up.
I am positive that Maine will flip blue. The people of Maine will not vote for Senator Collins cause she keeps changing her mind on the issues. If I was living in Maine, I wouldn’t vote for Senator Collins for many reasons. She is belonged to the Trump Party. I always refer Trump and his crazy allies as Trump Party since 2020. They aren’t belonged to Republican Party period. Susan Collins has been serving as US Senator for too long. It is time for Maine to have a new face and flesh Senator. I am not a big fan of any term Congress and Senate. I think it is time for Congress and Senate to be term limit. For example US Senator Chuck Grassley has been in Congress and Senate since 1975. Come on!! Enough is enough with the longest serving Congressmen or women and Senators like Church Schumer. America needs a very common sense and stable leadership.
Susan Collins should never win another election after taking away women's rights to their own bodies. Absolutely disgusting!
Right. Susan Collins won’t win. She will be voted out.
My great aunt and uncle were first cousins. They had three well educated children and a host of very successful grandchildren and great grandchildren. Several of them are my good friends. Why so shocked?
Let's not dump a great candidate, acting as if a charge as silly as having children with a second cousin is awful; It is not. Most of us do not even know our second cousins.
I want to be clear I am fine with second cousins being together .. When I was little my second cousin and I asked if we could marry when we grew up.. I am upset with Schumer .. not so much with Maine as with his whole way of being in charge . He was fine when life was normal but now we need a strong younger leader male or female .
Well, he wasn't 'fine', unless you mean 'tolerable'....
Truth! I don't even know all my first cousins, let alone any second cousins.
Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt were cousins — specifically, fifth cousins once removed. According to History.com, Eleanor was born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and was raised by her extended Roosevelt family in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Franklin’s side of the family (also referred to as a branch) was from Hyde Park in upstate New York.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both married 3rd cousins. Adams's son, John, married his 1st cousin. Rudy Giuliani was married to his second cousin.
Thanks Jane. The old royal and aristocratic families of Europe were all interrelated and routinely married and procreated with their second cousins, and occasionally their first cousins. Granted, this was done to keep their bloodlines pure.
Punkette, you are correct. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II were first cousins; their attempt to avert WWI in a series of personal letters ultimately failed. The correspondence is known as the Willy Nicky letters as that was how they addressed each other.
Orthodox Jews routinely marry their cousins.
Pretty sure Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins, too. To be really clear here, second cousins share only about 3.2% of DNA.
Let's not include Rudy in this. He is certifiable
He is, but he was still married to his second cousin for 14 years.
That's funny !
It is a fact to use against MAGAT's to defuse their outrage at Troy Jackson's relationship with his second cousin, perfectly legal and moral and no one's business but his and his partner's
I had an aunt and uncle who were first cousins also and their grandchild is a well-known pediatric surgeon in California, Dr. Dean Anselmo.
My great great aunt married her first or second cousin. I never knew till I found out during my research for my family tree. But my aunt and uncle never had children.
I really do not care if anyone marries their second cousin, especially if they live in Maine where it is not uncommon and supported by low population or are Orthodox Jews or any other cultural group accepting of the pracice. I'm a paying subscriber but I won't stay if this is the tone.
I agree with your comment and others 💯%. Also I do not like the tone of this post. I too grew up in a very small community in Labrador and remember that relationships between cousins were taboo and don’t recall any in reality. I moved to Nova Scotia and met my husband whose mother and father were second cousins who also grew up in a small town. No issues with the siblings or grandchildren etc. This article in my opinion is over the top. Steve target your outrage where it belongs. This is not a hill to die on. Sounds as if you are exhausted.
Come on Steve! They're second cousins; nothing illegal or nefarious there. Why perpetuate the bullshit!
Gray Henderson
Bonners Ferry, ID
He fathered 2 children with his second cousin with whom he is in a long term relationship. Marriage between 2nd cousins is legal in all 50 states.
Yes, I am sick of it and have been for some time. I spent almost 40 years as a cilvil trial lawyer and now have been forced to watch the death of the rule of law in this country. We need young people to step up. I like Beshear very much. Maybe he is the hope for the future. Jon Ossoff, too and James Talarico. Schumer makes me ill with Jeffries not far behind.
Keep your eye on Jon Ossoff. He's a rising star for good reason. We also have two rising stars here in NC - Josh Stein our current governor, and Jeff Jackson our AG. I'm really glad to see that the Dems have a deep bench of young, talented leaders.
So, two people who share GREAT-grandparents had kids, and this is the scandal? Seriously?
I read this post two more times after the initial one of disbelief and dismay, then conducted a quick search on line. This episode puts you in the same nasty vicious verbal garbage stew-pot that Trump daily sickens America's politics.
Shame on you, Steve Schmidt, for not checking your sources and for failing to undertake anything like exercising caution on the Daily Beast story or its editorial assassination in its choice of the accompanying Jackson photo clearly meant to imply, in this Epstein era of sex trafficking of minors, that Jackson was reacting to being "caught out" in appalling multi-level indiscretions.
FACT: In Maine second cousins may marry without any restrictions other than their age. This is sloppy and scurrilous reporting by the Daily Beast, demands an apology from them and you, and seriously diminishes your reputation. You have done such good work until this. What a shame to have up-ended it all
. . .
I sometimes worry about the possibility that people who do what Steve Schmidt did in his commentary today are members of a fifth column trying to surreptitiously help Republicans.
We are told, and the factual (!) evidence supports the contention that the GOP has been planning and working toward this little situation for decades!!! It should not be forgotten that Steve Schmidt was a loyal and active member of the Republican Party for thirty years. He apparently "saw the light" in 2018. One might well ask, "What took you so long?"
I've always believed I could accept genuine changes of mind and direction. aNY JOURNALIST WHO FAILS TO UNPACK a claim as inflammatory as the one the intern wrote for the Beast.whose veracity the rag in question then challenged/distorted by the accompanying photo of Jackson, that I was then able to satisfy to my own satisfaction within fifteen minutes of seeing it in Schmidt's re-rendering was completely scurrilous. I was immediately suspicious. Any responsible journalist would have had the same skeptical response. The clear evidence out of his own fingertips to the keys is that Schmidt did not do that at all. Q.E.D. This one lies squarely at Schmidt's feet! The longer he's silent, the more damning it becomes.
I think this is a tempest in a teapot. Who cares. It was second cousins. Good grief --
I don’t know enough of Maine politics to know whether this means Collins is on a path to victory.
In North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District, 83 year old Virginia Foxx is running again.
For a quarter century now, her voters have been getting poorer and poorer. But they keep electing her. There isn’t anything you can do for such people, and with the way they vote, they are dismantling the country.
Well I can’t speak for Maine but we are going to kick ass in Georgia with Ossoff,
Bottoms, and Amanda Hollowell. Serious, seasoned and fighting mad. I just came from the Georgia State Democratic Convention in Savannah and watched it in action. If you’re in need of some hope I would welcome and encourage you to come down and take a look for yourself.
All the Best,
Michael Richter
Second cousins can legally marry and have children in all 50 states. This is not incest. It is nothing to be ashamed of and we should be attacking Republicans for making an issue of it and ignoring the real and existential threats we face as a result of their continuing support for a demented Donald Trump:
A dialogue yesterday, 7/31/26, between Steve Gruber, a host on Real America’s Voice, and Donald Trump underscores Trump’s ongoing megalomania:
"Here's another question. You're also still looking at Greenland," Gruber said. "I made a prediction on this program that before you left office that Greenland would be under our operational control. It's still incredibly important to defending the Western Hemisphere, isn't it?"
Trump responded by expressing confidence in the prediction: "Yeah, you'll be right if you took that. Yeah, you'll be right. No, we want to do something very important. Greenland's important, you know, from our standpoint, not from their standpoint, but from our standpoint. You should make that bet actually."
After Gruber replied, "I did make that bet and I think it's incredibly important," Trump answered simply: "Good."
https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/trump-teases-greenland-takeover-with-challenge-to-maga-host-make-that-bet/
When he shares a map of a vastly greater United States, it is time to consider what actions he might take to be the president who gained more territory than any other president:
On Tuesday 7/15/26, President Donald Trump re-shared a peculiar AI-generated image on social media depicting the American flag overlaid across three nations, appearing to revive his ambitions to incorporate Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela into the United States
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/fact-check-donald-trump-did-024358383.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
There's nothing wrong with Troy Jackson's family!! He has stayed with his highschool sweetheart in an apparently happy relationship, raised two children successfully, and - second cousin marriage is legal in Maine! If it's important, they could get a marriage certicate in ten minutes. Where is the scandal here? Is it necessary to have that certificate to have a loving and supportive longtime relationship? For goodness sakes Mr Schmidt - I like you a lot and am a subscriber - please don't do this damage to a good man who has gone to bat for the working people of Maine for thirty years! Troy would be an experienced-in-governing US senator who knows how to represent his constituents! Susan Collins is a real grifter who slept her way into power as a young staffer.
The scandal in the story is that Daily Beast published it as they did and Schmidt failed in his due diligence to subject it to proper scrutiny.
Marrying your second cousin is legal in all 50 states.
Steve, I generally don't hold it against you as a Bush Republican. But cohabitation with a second cousin is NOT incest. Such a charge is an appeal to ignorance, a slur and a smear. The resulting
controversy could even raise a candidate to prominence, in this time when cross-dressers are exalted. Some ignorant folk might take offense. But then, they're more likely to marry cousins.
WHOA.