There was a curious aspect to the Russian military buildup that prefaced the escalation of Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine in 2014. Mostly, the TV generals, media analysts and foreign policy experts all said there was no chance that the Russians would invade. After the invasion, they unanimously declared Ukraine could not survive. They were mostly all wrong.
What policies? Every time I hear someone say they liked Trump’s policies, I want to know exactly what it is they like. Muslim ban? Taking children out of the arms of Mothers at the border? 100,000’s dying of Covid? Loving Dictators? Could some reporter ask the next time, what exact policies did you like? I was working then and buried in projects and deadlines, maybe I missed something?
Same here. When my right-wing friends claim the economy was so much better under TFG, I remind them that he sailed into office riding on the good economy wave Obama created. But TFG, as usual, will take credit for everything he didn't accomplish and blame others for the bad things he did.
Trump accomplished nothing in four years. He had no policies. All he did was sign off on Paul Ryan’s tax cuts, and McConnells Supreme Court picks. That’s it.
I’ve asked myself many times. What policy? I hear people say I never liked Trump the man. I liked his policies.
Remember what he did to Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, election workers in Fulton County, Georgia? Trump and Giuliani targeted them for something they did not do, namely messing with the vote count to tip favor to Biden. He callously bulldozed their lives and caused them to receive frightening death threats over a long period of time. It still continues today. And all for his own lie to steal the election. That is his Policy. Ruining lives for his own gain.
Those Trump voters who say they don’t like him but they like his policies? I must look like a libtard. Therefore they don’t want to admit they aren’t at all offended by his rancid scumbaggery, but they actually do like him. Secretly or otherwise. My take.
Agree, Susan. The other parroted statement about t-rump that annoys me is that the economy was better. Good gracious, how could anyone say that after CO VID?
I think Rick Wilson's take on No Labels is accurate. They're a Trump PAC. He's done a deep dive on them and I trust hi, judgement on this. Even if that's not their main intention, which I believe it is, that's what their function will be. Whoever is aligned with them deserves our distrust and wrath. They certainly have mine.
No Labels is a false flag ops with a goal to re-elect DJT. Much like RFK Jr. you look for the chinks in the D/I coalition and break off the pieces. Sunlight is a great disinfectant. Expose the group for what it is and it’s true goal
Expose Moms for Liberty alongside No Labels. Certainly the same funding source. All in the effort to sway the other 20 million female voters while not touching the abortion issue, the gun violence and the opioid epidemic. The mission is to kidnap your child’s education and steal the suburban housewife’s vote.
We get a chance to stand up against this vile group next week when they come to Philadelphia. We will do this at the central branch of the Free Library. Though well into our seventies our book group has just agreed to read from a list of their banned books.
Completely agree. Similar funding and political strategy.
Need a Venn diagram to see the intersections (or a network model...network would show all the pieces, so a better option--anyone who can draw the network diagram?)
Indoctrination of the parents with a promise of monetary rewards. Of course that’s what dark money can do. Appeal to humans sinful nature of greed, power and pride. Like the song says … “Teach your children well
Joy Reid did an interesting interview with Dr. Benjamin Chavez Jr., national co-chair, of No Labels. It was tragic, imho, to watch him twist his honorable self into a knot trying to justify this group's existence and nonsense. Even worse, to watch him excuse and justify his association with it.
He is a wise man. He must know this is against his own self interest, and those he has for years sought to represent and protect.
That was a sickening exhibition Chavis put on with Joy Reid and a travesty. He abandoned everything he has ever stood for in his entire political life in that interview. I watched in amazement, and suddenly understood how the French must have felt when Marshall Petain championed a Nazi puppet government. Absolute betrayal. What is going on? How could Chavis become part of anything involved with the likes of the utterly despicable McCrory? Steve is right to sound the alarm over No Labels! I certainly felt alarmed to hear Chavis promoting it with all the smarm and falsity mustered to make No Labels sound like a legitimate political entity given the secrecy and coyness about where the money is coming from, what the intent is and why it’s supposed to be “in our interests” to support it! A total lack of transparency from Chavis was horrifying to me, and even more so now that Steve has offered more info about the group and it’s make up. Things just got worse.
I am so grateful for this information that Steve is providing. My gut told me it was a bad idea, but I really didn't think, in my heart, it could possibly be a POS45 promotion group. I was wrong, oh, so wrong.
The No Labels Party is nothing more than a siphon of votes for Biden so Republicans can regain power. Don't be fooled by their lack of transparency as something new because it is the same old bait and switch. They believe Trump is toxic to the American people but like intoxicating drugs, they can't quit him.
The Supreme Court can not police itself. It has become clear that they believe they are the law instead of following the law. They have become intoxicated with the power given to them by the American people through our Senators. A few of them lied to get on the court and this also has corrupted them even more. Their lifetime appointment needs to be limited along with their ability to self regulate.
This is all part of the Big Agenda - buying off SCOTUS, appointing as much conservative justices as possible to overturn Roe v Wade, lying everyday about President Biden and the successes than this administration has realized, lying everyday about Trump and his crimes against the country.
Now this - looking to siphon off enough votes to swing the election to trump. I really fucking hate the GOP and their minions.
We’ll said! Luckily (maybe) the name “Harlan Crowe” has been aired enough to blunt some of the whitewashing of his association with dark money and corrupt justices.
I’m with you Martin, the problem is Republican money talks, while Democratic policy walks. The dark money, and there’s more than we can imagine, is doing the job intended. The average American is only aware of the visible part of the iceberg, the business end of the iceberg is going to sink our democracy like it sank the Titanic.
It’s ALWAYS about CONTROL, through POWER, purchased by MONEY !
Given what we have seen happen over the last 6 years, do we really think that the American electorate is capable of parsing what is really in their best interest, or will we just be bystanders witnessing a train wreck of our democracy. This 3rd party ploy is absolutely engineered to elect a repugnantkin clown, either the insipid imbecile or desatan, who in a straight up match are destined to loose. If you don’t think our entire democracy and the wellbeing of all democracies is in play here then you are missing the intent of the people pulling the strings.
One more thing to put on the American worry pile. Steve, can there be a “Lincoln Project” that can tell the story of political transparency (or its deadly lack, see SCOTUS and how it got here) as effectively as it told the story of Donald Trump’s faults and failures? Not nearly as definable a target or subject, but much more importantly accomplished. Please.
This project started in earnest with Citizens United. The billionaires have demonstrated that they are not satisfied with having more 💰than 99% of everyone else. They want more. They are not content with going into space on a lark or visiting the Titanic in a tin can. They want power. They want America to be a full on plutocracy. They think having wealth entitles them to remake the political system in their warped image. They see themselves as builders when they are destroyers. The Republican Party has fully joined this project. They count on the rest of us to go along because, someday, you too might be able to join them, or at least have proximity to that wealth in the institutions of government. SC Justices are more concerned with flying private & staying in posh surroundings than they are with Justice itself; GOP MoC want to build their wealth and hang with wealthy donors & to play a starring role in the political version of Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Public service be damned. They are supported in this endeavor by Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes & America’s royals.
One Thanksgiving years ago, I sat at the “kids’ table” with my niece & 2 of her friends. They were 10 or 11 at the time. I asked them, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Practically in unison, they answered, “RICH!” They realized, even then, that wealth bought privilege & that’s what they wanted. They said that being rich allowed you to get away with almost anything. Out of the mouths of babes...
No Labels" is the new and improved con of wealth and privilege. The Republican party IS their project.
We the people have been "groomed" and indoctrinated by these billionaire "think tanks" for decades.
The reframing of "woke" and "sheep" as a derogatory in their propaganda was intentional. Every pitch needs a catchy bumper sticker/slogan.
Stacking the courts to "legislate from the bench" was their "bought and paid for" rebranding.
"No Labels" is not who they say they are. They use notoriety to shift public perception. Steve provides examples of this in every writing of "The Warning".
We must stop feeding the beast and, collectively, we must refuse to fit the perils of conspiracy into our politics with the folly of supposition.
Society is shown daily what we value and who matters.
The search for five billionaire privateers in a prototype submersible commanded the airwaves for four days while an overloaded fishing boat trafficking an estimated 750 migrants sank.
Children murdered by gun totting predators while politicians ban their existence.
Knowledge diverted to religious, home and private schools via vouchers while public education is starved.
We can no longer afford to look away. We must seek the individual wisdom to understand there are many moving parts to this con or perish.
I agree with those who say No Labels is a Trump PAC. More than that, I believe its intent is to run Trump as their candidate in either of two scenarios: Trump does not get the GOP nomination OR Trump decides to take a plea deal on the docs case and say he is doing so only so he can get back to "working for the American people by winning the Presidency," so he can raise $ for his campaign. See Joyce Vance's column on Pat Robertson for more on this strategy. Finally, No Labels might choose Trump as its standard-bearer even if the GOP nominates him, theoretically giving him the chance to appeal to a broader group of voters who are sick of both parties.
I suppose you could say that dead people don’t know they are dead. True. But we know they are dead and how many of them there are because a third party candidate ran in the 2000 election? You might say 3,000 Americans on 9/11, because we know Bush ignored the warnings. You might guess at anywhere from 200,000 to a million because of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But you would only be just beginning. Had Al Gore won in 2000, we would be at least 23 years ahead on Climate Change, a possibly critical number. Gore wasn’t God, he was Gore and was far from perfect but his agenda was consistent with saving the planet and humankind. Ralph Nader’s pointless hubris has had an incalculable negative effect on humanity. What the hell was he doing but spending too much time looking in the mirror and thinking that this was a worthy enterprise? Nader maybe took a half dozen votes away from Bush and something like 90,000 away from Gore in Florida alone where Bush eked out a 500 or so vote margin, so sayeth the Court Supreme. You can bet that today’s remarkably inventive and lethal Right Wing would dig up old Ralph, if they could, and send him into the ring once more and you can bet the result would be many times more devastating than the Bush tea party, which is just the way they like it. Maybe we should remind them that they could go up in flames in the same conflagration they bring down on the rest of us. Maybe they’d notice. Maybe not.
Headline in Ukrainian channel said, “Wagner" is preparing to seize warehouses with nuclear weapons in the Voronezh region.” At the moment, there are no neutral parties in this scenario in Russia and I rather trust the judgement of feeble and old but infinitely wiser Biden to handle the world’s affair.
Dangerous group! And RFK, Jr. is funded by Russian sympathizers and right wingers, so I read. This is seriously worrisome for our country. DJT should not be allowed to run at all!😳
What policies? Every time I hear someone say they liked Trump’s policies, I want to know exactly what it is they like. Muslim ban? Taking children out of the arms of Mothers at the border? 100,000’s dying of Covid? Loving Dictators? Could some reporter ask the next time, what exact policies did you like? I was working then and buried in projects and deadlines, maybe I missed something?
Same here. When my right-wing friends claim the economy was so much better under TFG, I remind them that he sailed into office riding on the good economy wave Obama created. But TFG, as usual, will take credit for everything he didn't accomplish and blame others for the bad things he did.
People say they like Trump's policies because they're too cowardice to say they like his racism.
Simple.
Trump accomplished nothing in four years. He had no policies. All he did was sign off on Paul Ryan’s tax cuts, and McConnells Supreme Court picks. That’s it.
But what do Republicans and MAGA believe he did that was so good?
He made White supremesists feel safe to express their hatred
Cheap flags for a parade and nasty bumper stickers. This is the MAGA fools pride on display.
I’ve asked myself many times. What policy? I hear people say I never liked Trump the man. I liked his policies.
Remember what he did to Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, election workers in Fulton County, Georgia? Trump and Giuliani targeted them for something they did not do, namely messing with the vote count to tip favor to Biden. He callously bulldozed their lives and caused them to receive frightening death threats over a long period of time. It still continues today. And all for his own lie to steal the election. That is his Policy. Ruining lives for his own gain.
It is weird. I could never vote for someone I didn’t like.
Those Trump voters who say they don’t like him but they like his policies? I must look like a libtard. Therefore they don’t want to admit they aren’t at all offended by his rancid scumbaggery, but they actually do like him. Secretly or otherwise. My take.
Agree, Susan. The other parroted statement about t-rump that annoys me is that the economy was better. Good gracious, how could anyone say that after CO VID?
I think Rick Wilson's take on No Labels is accurate. They're a Trump PAC. He's done a deep dive on them and I trust hi, judgement on this. Even if that's not their main intention, which I believe it is, that's what their function will be. Whoever is aligned with them deserves our distrust and wrath. They certainly have mine.
No Labels is a false flag ops with a goal to re-elect DJT. Much like RFK Jr. you look for the chinks in the D/I coalition and break off the pieces. Sunlight is a great disinfectant. Expose the group for what it is and it’s true goal
Expose Moms for Liberty alongside No Labels. Certainly the same funding source. All in the effort to sway the other 20 million female voters while not touching the abortion issue, the gun violence and the opioid epidemic. The mission is to kidnap your child’s education and steal the suburban housewife’s vote.
We get a chance to stand up against this vile group next week when they come to Philadelphia. We will do this at the central branch of the Free Library. Though well into our seventies our book group has just agreed to read from a list of their banned books.
You go, girl. Give these people, who don't stand for anyone's liberty, hell. They deserve that and more.
Give them hell!
This is good. Everything helps. No protest is ever wasted.
Completely agree. Similar funding and political strategy.
Need a Venn diagram to see the intersections (or a network model...network would show all the pieces, so a better option--anyone who can draw the network diagram?)
It's indoctrination and they need to be exposed for it.
Indoctrination of the parents with a promise of monetary rewards. Of course that’s what dark money can do. Appeal to humans sinful nature of greed, power and pride. Like the song says … “Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by”
I hate to think about what most media will do with their “both-Sufism” with this move to split the Democratic vote.
Joy Reid did an interesting interview with Dr. Benjamin Chavez Jr., national co-chair, of No Labels. It was tragic, imho, to watch him twist his honorable self into a knot trying to justify this group's existence and nonsense. Even worse, to watch him excuse and justify his association with it.
He is a wise man. He must know this is against his own self interest, and those he has for years sought to represent and protect.
That was a sickening exhibition Chavis put on with Joy Reid and a travesty. He abandoned everything he has ever stood for in his entire political life in that interview. I watched in amazement, and suddenly understood how the French must have felt when Marshall Petain championed a Nazi puppet government. Absolute betrayal. What is going on? How could Chavis become part of anything involved with the likes of the utterly despicable McCrory? Steve is right to sound the alarm over No Labels! I certainly felt alarmed to hear Chavis promoting it with all the smarm and falsity mustered to make No Labels sound like a legitimate political entity given the secrecy and coyness about where the money is coming from, what the intent is and why it’s supposed to be “in our interests” to support it! A total lack of transparency from Chavis was horrifying to me, and even more so now that Steve has offered more info about the group and it’s make up. Things just got worse.
And Harlan Crow....
I am so grateful for this information that Steve is providing. My gut told me it was a bad idea, but I really didn't think, in my heart, it could possibly be a POS45 promotion group. I was wrong, oh, so wrong.
You can read about No Labels here but not in our major news publications which are part of the corporate world.
A most important acknowledgment.
And thank you for the correction of Dr. Chavis' name. I misspelled. :)
The No Labels Party is nothing more than a siphon of votes for Biden so Republicans can regain power. Don't be fooled by their lack of transparency as something new because it is the same old bait and switch. They believe Trump is toxic to the American people but like intoxicating drugs, they can't quit him.
The Supreme Court can not police itself. It has become clear that they believe they are the law instead of following the law. They have become intoxicated with the power given to them by the American people through our Senators. A few of them lied to get on the court and this also has corrupted them even more. Their lifetime appointment needs to be limited along with their ability to self regulate.
This is all part of the Big Agenda - buying off SCOTUS, appointing as much conservative justices as possible to overturn Roe v Wade, lying everyday about President Biden and the successes than this administration has realized, lying everyday about Trump and his crimes against the country.
Now this - looking to siphon off enough votes to swing the election to trump. I really fucking hate the GOP and their minions.
We’ll said! Luckily (maybe) the name “Harlan Crowe” has been aired enough to blunt some of the whitewashing of his association with dark money and corrupt justices.
I’m with you Martin, the problem is Republican money talks, while Democratic policy walks. The dark money, and there’s more than we can imagine, is doing the job intended. The average American is only aware of the visible part of the iceberg, the business end of the iceberg is going to sink our democracy like it sank the Titanic.
It’s ALWAYS about CONTROL, through POWER, purchased by MONEY !
Steve didn't name this substack "THE WARNING" for no good reason.
Given what we have seen happen over the last 6 years, do we really think that the American electorate is capable of parsing what is really in their best interest, or will we just be bystanders witnessing a train wreck of our democracy. This 3rd party ploy is absolutely engineered to elect a repugnantkin clown, either the insipid imbecile or desatan, who in a straight up match are destined to loose. If you don’t think our entire democracy and the wellbeing of all democracies is in play here then you are missing the intent of the people pulling the strings.
One more thing to put on the American worry pile. Steve, can there be a “Lincoln Project” that can tell the story of political transparency (or its deadly lack, see SCOTUS and how it got here) as effectively as it told the story of Donald Trump’s faults and failures? Not nearly as definable a target or subject, but much more importantly accomplished. Please.
This project started in earnest with Citizens United. The billionaires have demonstrated that they are not satisfied with having more 💰than 99% of everyone else. They want more. They are not content with going into space on a lark or visiting the Titanic in a tin can. They want power. They want America to be a full on plutocracy. They think having wealth entitles them to remake the political system in their warped image. They see themselves as builders when they are destroyers. The Republican Party has fully joined this project. They count on the rest of us to go along because, someday, you too might be able to join them, or at least have proximity to that wealth in the institutions of government. SC Justices are more concerned with flying private & staying in posh surroundings than they are with Justice itself; GOP MoC want to build their wealth and hang with wealthy donors & to play a starring role in the political version of Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Public service be damned. They are supported in this endeavor by Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes & America’s royals.
One Thanksgiving years ago, I sat at the “kids’ table” with my niece & 2 of her friends. They were 10 or 11 at the time. I asked them, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Practically in unison, they answered, “RICH!” They realized, even then, that wealth bought privilege & that’s what they wanted. They said that being rich allowed you to get away with almost anything. Out of the mouths of babes...
Thank you for this article. Your political insight and truths are a lamplight at my feet.
No Labels" is the new and improved con of wealth and privilege. The Republican party IS their project.
We the people have been "groomed" and indoctrinated by these billionaire "think tanks" for decades.
The reframing of "woke" and "sheep" as a derogatory in their propaganda was intentional. Every pitch needs a catchy bumper sticker/slogan.
Stacking the courts to "legislate from the bench" was their "bought and paid for" rebranding.
"No Labels" is not who they say they are. They use notoriety to shift public perception. Steve provides examples of this in every writing of "The Warning".
We must stop feeding the beast and, collectively, we must refuse to fit the perils of conspiracy into our politics with the folly of supposition.
Society is shown daily what we value and who matters.
The search for five billionaire privateers in a prototype submersible commanded the airwaves for four days while an overloaded fishing boat trafficking an estimated 750 migrants sank.
Children murdered by gun totting predators while politicians ban their existence.
Knowledge diverted to religious, home and private schools via vouchers while public education is starved.
We can no longer afford to look away. We must seek the individual wisdom to understand there are many moving parts to this con or perish.
I agree with those who say No Labels is a Trump PAC. More than that, I believe its intent is to run Trump as their candidate in either of two scenarios: Trump does not get the GOP nomination OR Trump decides to take a plea deal on the docs case and say he is doing so only so he can get back to "working for the American people by winning the Presidency," so he can raise $ for his campaign. See Joyce Vance's column on Pat Robertson for more on this strategy. Finally, No Labels might choose Trump as its standard-bearer even if the GOP nominates him, theoretically giving him the chance to appeal to a broader group of voters who are sick of both parties.
I suppose you could say that dead people don’t know they are dead. True. But we know they are dead and how many of them there are because a third party candidate ran in the 2000 election? You might say 3,000 Americans on 9/11, because we know Bush ignored the warnings. You might guess at anywhere from 200,000 to a million because of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But you would only be just beginning. Had Al Gore won in 2000, we would be at least 23 years ahead on Climate Change, a possibly critical number. Gore wasn’t God, he was Gore and was far from perfect but his agenda was consistent with saving the planet and humankind. Ralph Nader’s pointless hubris has had an incalculable negative effect on humanity. What the hell was he doing but spending too much time looking in the mirror and thinking that this was a worthy enterprise? Nader maybe took a half dozen votes away from Bush and something like 90,000 away from Gore in Florida alone where Bush eked out a 500 or so vote margin, so sayeth the Court Supreme. You can bet that today’s remarkably inventive and lethal Right Wing would dig up old Ralph, if they could, and send him into the ring once more and you can bet the result would be many times more devastating than the Bush tea party, which is just the way they like it. Maybe we should remind them that they could go up in flames in the same conflagration they bring down on the rest of us. Maybe they’d notice. Maybe not.
Headline in Ukrainian channel said, “Wagner" is preparing to seize warehouses with nuclear weapons in the Voronezh region.” At the moment, there are no neutral parties in this scenario in Russia and I rather trust the judgement of feeble and old but infinitely wiser Biden to handle the world’s affair.
Dangerous group! And RFK, Jr. is funded by Russian sympathizers and right wingers, so I read. This is seriously worrisome for our country. DJT should not be allowed to run at all!😳