Conservative Peggy And Liberal Thom May 4, 2025May 4, 2025 Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal: We are ruining an international reputation that took more than a century to build. No need to read it all. Isn’t that enough? Thom Hartmann [condensed]: Bondi’s Plan to Jail Journalists Is How Democracies Die and Dictatorships Begin (It’s not paranoia when it’s happening right in front of you.) Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi quietly issued a memo rescinding vital protections for journalists that had prevented the government from forcing reporters to reveal their sources or surrender their notes during leak investigations. This wasn’t just any memo; it was a declaration of war against the very foundation of press freedom in America. Bondi’s justification? The Justice Department “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.” Did you catch that? Not disclosures that threaten national security, but those that “undermine President Trump’s policies.” Since when did the President’s policies become sacred and beyond scrutiny? Since when did exposing wrongdoing by our government become a crime against “the American people”? What we’re witnessing is step one in the dictator’s playbook: silence those who tell the truth about your regime. We’ve seen this pattern in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and countless other countries where democracy has withered into authoritarianism. First, attack the press. Then, criminalize dissent. Intimidate lawmakers, lawyers, and judges. Finally, consolidate power in the hands of a single leader. I’ve been covering American politics for five decades, and just to be very clear: This is not normal. This is not just another partisan policy dispute. This is an existential threat to our constitutional system of government. The time for polite disagreement or “strongly worded letters” is over. The time for waiting to see what happens next is over. We must act now to protect our democracy before it’s too late. > Demand that Congress pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources. . . . > Support independent journalism with your dollars and your attention. Subscribe to newspapers, donate to nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica, and share important stories with your networks. A robust press is our best defense against tyranny. > Contact your representatives and tell them that protecting press freedom must be a top priority. Remind them that their oath is to the Constitution, not to any president or party. The phone number for the congressional switchboard, which can connect you to both your senators and your member of the House, is 202-224-3121. > Prepare to take to the streets if Bondi follows through on her threat to prosecute journalists for treason. That would be a red line from which there is no return to normal democratic governance. We stand at a crossroads in American history. Down one path lies a renewed commitment to our democratic values, including a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. Down the other lies authoritarianism, where “truth” is whatever the leader says it is, and those who disagree face persecution or worse. The time to act is now. Join Indivisible. Support the opposition. Read Thom Hartmann’s bite-sized Hidden History of American Democracy. (Urgent!) Under 3 hours if you listen at1.3X. How, after 16 years of schooling, did I not know all this stuff? Read or listen to Peggy Noonan’s Selected Writings. (A total pleasure.)
Little Marco Predicts May 3, 2025 Watch. Or, if Instagram won’t let you in, here’s what he said: Jake Tapper: You compared Donald Trump to a Third-World dictator yesterday. How so? Marco Rubio: Well, I don’t know about a dictator; I said “a Third-World strongman.” You know, he’s running for president so no matter what he won’t be a dictator unless our republic completely crumbles which I don’t anticipate it will. But, yeah, here’s what happens in many countries around the world: You have a leader that emerges and basically says, “Don’t put your faith in yourselves. Don’t put your faith in society. Put your faith in me. I’m a strong leader and I’m gonna make things better all by myself.” This is very typical. You see it in the Third World, you see it a lot in Latin America for decades. Basically, the argument he’s making is that he single-handedly is gonna turn the country around. We’ve never been that kind of country. We have a president. The president is an American citizen who serves for a period of time, constrained by the constitution and the powers vested in that office. The president works for the people not the people the president and if you listen to the way he describes himself and what he’s going to do, he’s going to single-handedly do this and do that without regard to whether it’s legal or not. Look. I think people are going to have to make up their minds. I can tell you this: no matter what happens in this election, for years to come there are many people on the right, in the media, and voters at large that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump, because this is not gonna end well. — March 13, 2016. Spot on, no? Tony S.: “Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover — ”
May Day! May Day! May 3, 2025 There are so many horrible things happening . . . National Science Foundation stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones They’re Coming for the Truth-Tellers: Bondi’s Plan to Jail Journalists Trump is Revoking Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status Trump has swung a giant wrecking ball through the existing world order . . . that my favorite sign at Thursday’s protest read, simply: No, Donny Just NO There were many issue-specific signs, too, of course and — May 1 being International Workers’ Day — more than a few communists in the crowd. (“Marx was right,” read one sign.) One of the great things about this country — at least between the time the Joe McCarthy / Roy Cohn era ended and the time the Donald Trump / Roy Cohn era went into overdrive* — is that communists and socialists and anybody else can believe and say or write whatever they want . . . and hand out copies of “The Revolutionary Communist Newspaper of Progressive Labor Party” in Foley Square. But having just seen George Clooney in Good Night, And Good Luck on Broadway the night before, I’ll admit I was a little nervous accepting it.** I would note, though, that May 1 is also Law Day here in the United States, “meant to reflect on the role of law in the foundation of the country and to recognize its importance for society.” That’s what so many of us, as politically disparate as Liz Cheney and Bernie Sanders, have been taking to the streets to protect. DONNY 2 DOLLS How ironic that the guy who invented the (non-existent) war on Christmas should now take on the role of Scrooge, dashing the hopes of little girls everywhere — and busting the budgets of their parents: “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of thirty dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” Trump said. Hardship, smardship — toss ’em some paper towels. Hats off to Lawrence O’Donnell for coming up with Trump’s mafia handle — “Donny 2 Dolls.” Here’s one man’s Tik Tok on the theme. Have a great weekend. Join Indivisible. Support the opposition. *Cohn is long dead but clearly lives on in his mentee. **For the record: American communists are, in my view, just as idealistic as Ayn Rand libertarians — and just as wrong. In practice, communism has proven itself to be horrible. Unfettered libertarian capitalism is cruel, immoral — and leads to revolution. The sweet spot that America so successfully inhabited over the past 80 years lies someplace in the middle.
Rising Prices, Falling Poll Numbers, See You Tomorrow April 29, 2025 Trump is thinking about a bigger tax break to help people pay his tariff-inflated prices. What he clearly didn’t think of — or clearly did, if he thought at all — is that those who will need help the most, the hardest hit, will be the working poor who pay no income taxes and for whom tax cuts are of absolutely no use. Perhaps he will throw them paper towels. The good news is that more and more people are losing faith in the miracles he promised . . . falling prices on day one, Ukraine peace within 24 hours, winning so much we’d grow tired of winning . . . and coming to see the chaos and corruption as the incompetence and betrayal they truly are. Have you seen the poll numbers? Patriots of all political stripes — from Liz Cheney to Bernie Sanders — are rising up in non-violent nationwide protest. Click here to find tomorrow’s protest nearest you.
He’s Having A Lot Of Fun April 29, 2025April 29, 2025 In case you haven’t yet read his Atlantic interview . . . ‘I Run the Country and the World’ Trump says he’s “having a lot of fun.” At the same time, he is devastating — among so much else — the medical research on which your loved ones’ health may depend. And for what? Did you see Sunday’s 60 Minutes segment on the National Institutes of Health? Articles of Impeachment have been filed against Trump for the third time. They obviously won’t go anywhere anytime soon; Republican legislators are thus far afraid to say publicly what many of them say privately. (And his conviction would, in any event, leave us with Vance.) But it’s hard to dispute the validity of the 7 articles that have been filed. Join Indivisible! Protest Thursday! BONUS Man Who Fell Asleep at Pope’s Funeral was Already Going to Hell, Says God
A Word from the Wise April 26, 2025 To us Democrats . . . How Four Democrats Who Saved the Party Before Would Do It Again Worth everyone’s time. BONUS QUOTE (Thanks, as always, Tony Seton): No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. … Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. … The peril of this nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope! – Charles Evans Hughes, 1909 Join Indivisible! Volunteer Opportunities, Events, and Petitions Near Me · Mobilize
The Huge, Crucial Difference Between Neville Chamberlain And Donald Trump April 24, 2025 You don’t have to read this one (though it’s spot on): Trump’s Plan to Sell Out Ukraine to Russia — “His proposal to end the war isn’t a peace plan—it’s a reward for aggression.” But you do have to read this one: Ukraine’s fate echoes Czechoslovakia’s in Chamberlain’s appeasement In September 1938 . . . Adolf Hitler had massed hundreds of thousands of troops on the border of Czechoslovakia to reinforce a low-intensity war designed to force Prague to cede the Sudetanland. In an effort to preclude great power war, Chamberlain, in collusion with France and Italy, forced Prague to sign the Munich Agreement which provided for Hitler’s annexation of that territory. Chamberlain returned to London declaring the achievement of “peace for our time.” The reality was that instead Munich catalyzed the dynamics that unleashed World War II. Today, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s approach to ending that unjustified attack echoes eerily . . . Chamberlain’s mistaken response to violent aggression. Trump risks becoming Neville Chamberlain to Putin’s Hitler. The huge difference being that — unlike Chamberlain — Trump likes autocrats, has no problem seeing democracy die, would kinda like to maybe do a little annexation of his own. So that in his third term* — who knows? — maybe he rules Canada and Greenland, too. The author, Ian J. Brzezinski, continues: . . . Like Hitler in 1938, Putin presents Russia as a country unfairly treated by history and, like Hitler, he is determined to reconstitute its great power status through territorial expansion. The central focus of this imperial campaign is Ukraine, which he falsely asserts is “not a real country” but rather an off-shoot of Russian culture and history. Hitler likewise asserted to Chamberlain that Czechoslovakia was not a real nation. Both Hitler and Putin conducted aggressive campaigns of subterfuge and violence to weaken their targets. Each accused Prague and Kyiv, respectively, of extremist actions against German and Russian minorities, respectively. Worth reading in full. If time permits, watch Trump will pay a ‘heavy political price’ if he abandons Ukraine, Wall Street Journal editorial board warns, where Brzezinski likens the situation also to handing Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta. *Steve Bannon on Bill Maher: “On the afternoon of January 20th of 2029 he’s going to be President of the United States.”
Putin Yourself In His Shoes April 23, 2025 But first . . . PEARL Michael G. (another of my classmates, this one, I’m happy to say, alive and thriving): I just read your post and Jesse’s wonderful obituary of his mother Pearl. What a talent. He is missed. In return may I commend Mo’s novel Scarpia’s Kiss. If you haven’t read it, you have a treat in store. When Mo asked if I could help him get it published, I was skeptical as you could imagine. But then I read it and was blown away. PUTS The market rebounded yesterday and may rebound lots more when Trump starts declaring victory with trade deals that perhaps even lower reciprocal tariffs. That would help lower inflation rather than raise it (though not incentivize corporations to move manufacturing jobs to the U.S.) — which he could say was his master plan all along. The market would likely rebound further, the recession (or global depression) might be averted, and our puts could well expire worthless. NOTHING WOULD MAKE ME HAPPIER. But I will probably buy more if the rebound continues. PROTESTS Rachel Maddow — almost always worth the watch — reviewed dozens of this past Saturday’s protests (14 minutes), which serves two purposes: > She pumps us up! We are not alone! We are making our voices heard! The media are beginning to notice! It’s encouraging! You may want to join the next one! (Thursday, May 1. Here’s a map of the ones that have been organized so far. Here’s how to organize one of your own.) But also, by highlighting many of the creative signs . . . > She reminds us of the outrageous, unAmerican, things the Trump/Musk Administration are doing that are causing irreparable harm. This is not normal! Join Indivisible! Democracy, once lost, is incredibly hard to restore. Global depression, once set in motion (see: Smoot-Hawley), causes almost unthinkable suffering — and is awfully difficult to dig back out of. The ship of state needs rescuing. Mayday! Mayday! Watch! PUTIN This is everything he could have dreamed of. America tearing itself apart, declaring trade war on its allies and everyone else except Russia, installing a Fox Weekend News host with a drinking problem to head the Defense Department, disbanding the teams tasked with combating Russian cyber aggression, degrading its ability to fight disease, attacking its globally admired colleges and universities, politicizing the Justice Department and the FBI, surrendering its “soft power” . . . . . . taking a wrecking ball to our flawed but indispensable 250-year experiment with democracy, the rule of law, and “due process.” Putin and his fellow kleptocrats are in seventh heaven.
R.I.P. Francis, Mo, Jesse, and Pearl April 21, 2025 Too many people are dying. Pope Francis was the best pope ever, embodying what this atheist’s reading of the New Testament takes to be the true teachings of Christ — teachings we all should aspire to live by. What a contrast with his last official visitor . . . (“Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, attacked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in January for assisting immigrants, saying their concerns about the Trump administration were due to the fear of losing federal funding.”) . . . or with our Two Corinthians President, a stable genius who throws rolls of paper towels to the needy, whose Easter message read: Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country. Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten! Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing — But to him, and to the person that ran and manipulated the Auto Pen (perhaps our REAL President!), and to all of the people who CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election in order to get this highly destructive Moron Elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and a very happy Easter!!! Needless to say, I never met the Pope. But my brother-in-law-had-marriage-been-legal the priest met His Holiness on multiple occasions, so I’m delighted to think that I came within just one degree of separation from this wonderful man. Two other wonderful men we lost this month, days apart, were my college classmates: Stephen “Mo” Hanan was a tremendously talented actor/singer/everything. One of the privileges of charging no subscription fee for these posts is that I get to do self-indulgent things like telling you, who never knew him, that he will be missed. “Attention must be paid,” as it were . . . though Mo was far more “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” than “Death of a Salesman.” (“Stephen Mo Hanan sparkles as Pseudolous, the freedom-craving slave. His comic timing is impeccable,” raved the Fort Myers paper, “and he literally throws himself into the role, rolling about on the stage. His rubber face expresses delight, shock, dismay, lust, fear and all other shades of emotion in-between.”) Jesse Kornbluth was a spectacular friend whose passing made the New York Times: Jesse Kornbluth, Magazine Writer Who Covered Everything, Dies at 79. Kudos to Penelope Green, who never knew Jesse, for bringing him to life beautifully. And then — if you enjoy great writing — there’s the obit Jesse wrote for his mother Pearl. I never knew Pearl, but now I do. Rest in peace, one and all. Every day is a gift.
Exactly Backwards April 21, 2025 The way to cut the deficit is to (drumroll, please) INCREASE REVENUE and DECREASE SPENDING. (Duh.) The way to INCREASE REVENUE is to let the tax cuts for corporations and on personal income above $400,000 expire . . . and to fully fund the IRS to make sure people and corporations pay what they owe. (Not only would the IRS collect more revenue from delinquent auditees; it would also collect more from those it didn’t audit once word got around there was a real risk of penalties for underpayment.) –> INSTEAD, Trump and his cowed Republican senators have it exactly backwards: working to renew tax cuts for those who don’t need them . . . and to further cripple the IRS. It’s insane. On top of that, the unnecessary recession their tariffs are gliding us into — or possibly worse, if Smoot-Hawley is any guide — will cut tax revenues while raising safety-net outflows . . . thus worsening our deficits. The way to DECREASE SPENDING is not to decimate the government, allow children starve and disease to spread. It is to lower interest rates. (We spend hundreds of billions more on interest than on defense; a trillion more than on the global soft-power and moral high ground USAID provided us.) And the way to lower interest rates is to lower inflation (which Biden handed off to Trump at just a hair over the Fed’s 2% target). –> INSTEAD, Trump and his cowed Republican senators have it exactly backwards: raising inflation by imposing tariffs and by shrinking the labor supply through mass deportation. Meanwhile, the Trump team argue that cutting corporate taxes will create jobs. My brilliant friend Simon Yates, to whose new Substack I’ve just subscribed, explains why that’s wrong: Does Cutting the Corporate Tax Rate Create Investment? Probably not. As the Republicans discuss tax cuts an argument that’s inevitably going to appear is that cutting the tax rate for corporations will create economic growth, and jobs. The argument goes like this: If a company is considering doing ‘Thing A’ (let’s say, building a factory), then it will compare the financials of Thing A against some hurdle rate for investments, X. If Thing A does better than X, then do it. Otherwise not. Hence, if the tax rate is lower, Thing A will have better financials and a greater chance of beating the hurdle rate X. More factories will be built and more jobs created. The problem with this argument is that this isn’t really how companies make decisions. They don’t face absolute, binary decisions like “should we do Thing A or not?” but instead relative decisions like “should we do Thing A or Thing B?”. Thing B might be a very simple alternative like leaving the money in the bank. If the corporate tax rate drops, then this is also more attractive. The company will pay less tax on the interest it earns. So Thing A doesn’t gain any relative advantage. The factory isn’t more likely to be built. What is clear about reducing the corporate tax rate is that less money will go to the government and more will go to shareholders. For somebody like me who’s lucky to be affluent and a shareholder — hey, that’s nice, thank you! But for workers who are looking for a job, beware. The people making this argument don’t have your interests at heart. Join Indivisible. Don’t sell your puts. Have a great week.