Author: A.T.

Why Did You Lock Up His Wife?

ICE has apprehended some really bad people and we’re all the better off for that — especially when they’ve done it the American way (with due process) and not the dictator’s way (disappearing them).

That said, don’t miss this exchange between Seth Magaziner and Kristi Noem.

Magaziner: How many US military veterans have you deported?

Noem: Sir, we have not deported US citizens or military veterans.

Magaziner: We are joined on Zoom by a gentleman who is an Army combat veteran who was shot twice while serving our country in Panama in 1989. He is a combat vet, a Purple Heart recipient, he has sacrificed more for this country that most of us ever have. Can you please tell Mr. Park why you deported him to Korea, a country he hasn’t lived in since he was 7 years old?

Noem: Every law needs to be enforced.

Magaziner:  An individual in the back — his name is Troy Brown from Missouri. He is a Navy combat vet who served in the Gulf War. He’s married to a woman named Donna who came here from Ireland legally when she was 11. She’s lived here 48 years. Because of you, Donna has been in prison for the last 4 months. Why did you lock up his wife?

Noem: It is not my job to pick and choose which laws get enforced. People need to follow the law.

It went on (the landscaper here for 30 years with no criminal record) until the Congressman summed up . . .

Magaziner: You promised America that you would go after the worst of the worst. But these people are not the worst of the worst. A Purple Heart recipient, a military spouse, the father of three Marines. And it’s not just veterans and military families. You are locking up and deporting children with cancer, mothers with babies in the NICU. There are many problems with your leadership, but the biggest problem is this: you don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

. . . and the Cabinet Secretary excused herself to go another (possibly imaginary) meeting.

Filming ICE is the most American thing you can do, argues Scott Hechinger, as he analyzes this photo:

THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE

“Antifa” — short for “anti-fascist” — is not an organized group.  It has no offices, leadership, or website and holds no conferences.  America has been almost unanimously “antifa” throughout its history.  Only now do some see anti-fascism as a threat.  Like these guys, gathered in Tennessee for a conference.

Which group better personifies American values?  The ones whose lives Noem wrecks (above) — or these guys?

 

The Statue Weeps

“Give me your tired, your poor . . . your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .”

Or, to update it . . . “You’re garbage — get the hell out of our harbor.”

This NPR story will get you in the mood:

Report finds ‘inhuman’ conditions at two Florida immigration facilities (4 minutes).

Disappeared to a Foreign Prison, by Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker, goes into more detail.

It begins:

One Saturday morning in early September, I got a WhatsApp video call from eleven strangers locked inside a secretive detention camp in a forest in Ghana. Their faces looked glazed with sweat and stricken with fear. In the background, I could hear birdsong and the drone of insects. An armed guard watched over the group as they huddled around a shared cellphone. “There are big snakes here, and scorpions!” a male voice with an American accent called out.

“My stomach is really hurting, and we have to beg for food,” another man said.

A third added, “We fear we’ll be tortured and killed.”

One of the men, a car salesman and a real-estate agent from Miami, whom I’ll call Jim, gave me a tour of the scene: an open-air military complex known as Bundase Training Camp, some forty miles from Accra. “I have five U.S.-citizen children, and they don’t know where their father is,” Jim said.

Just months earlier, one of these men had a job with UPS in Chicago. Another had lived in Houston, where he worked for his mother’s catering business, composed R. & B. music, and babysat his little brothers. Some had lived in the U.S. from an early age. Jim, a political refugee, had come to Miami from Liberia in the early nineties, when he was twenty-three, after his parents were murdered for their tribal and political affiliations during the country’s civil war. Others, including a twenty-one-year-old woman who had fled Togo fearing genital mutilation, had arrived in the U.S. recently, seeking asylum.

All of them had been taken from the United States against their will. . . .

More and more people are concluding this isn’t the country we want to be.

On so many levels.

(Hundreds Quarantined in South Carolina as Measles Spreads.)

(Desperate Farmers Say the System Is Broken.)

(Local food banks face new strains amid cuts to SNAP benefits.)

(Billionaires growing richer faster than ever . . . while 44% of humanity lives on less than $6.85 per day.)

As previously mentioned, a Democrat won the mayoralty Tuesday for the first time in 30 years — in a blow-out, 59.4% to 40.6%.

Here’s another flip — in a Georgia district that Trump won by 12 points.

The tide is turning.

ANIX

For those of us taking this flyer with money we can truly afford to lose:

Anixa Biosciences Announces Positive Phase 1 Data for Investigational Breast Cancer Vaccine; Primary Endpoints Were Met and Immune Response Observed in 74% of Participants

 

Trump Gets an A+++++

HEGSETH V. HEGSETH

From The Guardian: Hegseth said US military should refuse ‘unlawful’ Trump orders in unearthed 2016 interview

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stated repeatedly in 2016 on Fox News that US service members should refuse “unlawful” orders from a potential president Trump – exactly the position he called “despicable” when Democratic lawmakers said it last month.

But that was before the nation faced a threat from two men clinging to a capsized boat — that had been headed away from us — in the middle of the ocean.

Desperate times, desperate measures.

MEIDAS SUMMARIZES YESTERDAY’S POLITICO INTERVIEW

If you have 43 minutes, watch.

Otherwise, MeidasTouch reports:

Trump began the interview by insisting that the U.S. economy, an economy in which families are struggling with soaring costs, shrinking paychecks, and deep recession-level pain, is worthy of a grade of “A+++++.”

When the interviewer noted that holiday shoppers are feeling strained and are worried about having to choose between paying for their health insurance or holiday gifts, Trump dismissed the concern outright, telling the reporter, “Don’t be dramatic.” He insisted that people “don’t feel that,” a claim that would only make sense if one lived inside the gold-plated isolation of Mar-a-Lago, where the president routinely hosts Gatsby-themed galas while Americans try to figure out how to afford groceries.

Throughout the interview, Trump’s hostility grew. When asked about the devastating September 2 military operation, an attack already condemned by experts around the world as a likely war crime, Trump brushed aside concerns.

The foreign-policy portion of the interview revealed something even more dangerous: a commander in chief openly musing about ground invasions and attacking democratic allies. When pressed on whether he could rule out an American ground invasion of Venezuela or other nations including Mexico and Colombia, he replied, “I don’t want to rule in or out. I don’t talk about it.” He then launched into a tirade against Politico, bizarrely claiming the publication received “$8 million from Obama.” (A lie, of course).

Trump’s disdain for NATO was even more explicit. According to him, “NATO calls me daddy.” His administration’s newly released national-security strategy, an official government document, states plainly that his goal is to “end the perception and the reality of NATO as a permanent organization.” That is not reform. That is dismantling the most successful military alliance in modern history, a move that would leave Europe vulnerable and embolden Russia.

His rhetoric about Ukraine was worse. Trump repeatedly belittled President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him “P.T. Barnum” and describing Ukraine as “losing.” He praised Russia’s position as “stronger,” ignoring the obvious: his own policies have tilted the scales in Moscow’s favor.

On economic policy, Trump made his most reckless admission yet: he will choose the next Federal Reserve chair based on a promise to immediately lower interest rates, regardless of economic conditions. This is the type of political interference economists warn can trigger severe downturns. At a time when most Americans already feel like they are living through a recession, Trump’s approach would all but guarantee even deeper instability.

His trade policies continue the same pattern of self-inflicted harm. After personally crippling U.S. farmers with a disastrous trade war that wiped out soybean exports to China, he is now claiming a “huge win” because China has agreed to buy a fraction of what it purchased under President Biden.

In exchange, Trump rewarded Beijing with something far more consequential: permission to buy Nvidia’s advanced H200 semiconductor chips, the same chips the Justice Department has treated as highly restricted national-security assets. On the very day the DOJ announced a major bust of smuggling operations involving those same chips, Trump told Xi Jinping he could have them legally. It is difficult to overstate how dangerous that concession is. These chips power the next generation of artificial intelligence capability. Handing them to a geopolitical rival in exchange for soybean purchases is a surrender, all in a panicked attempt to get China to try to undo the devastating effects of his own trade war.

Through all of this, the pattern is unmistakable. Trump rewards autocrats. He punishes allies. He lies about the economy. He tries to project strength while revealing profound weakness. And he attacks anyone, from reporters to NATO to members of Congress, who dares challenge him.

LEAVING MAGA

‘My MAGA started to crack’: How one Christian nationalist Mormon broke free of Trump

. . . [W]hen Trump ran for president in 2016, Gage embraced MAGA.

“I will never forget him on my big-screen TV, saying the words, ‘Make America Great Again,” Gage said.

“The first time I heard that, I literally started crying … and I pictured Norman Rockwell.”

What came to mind was the painter’s “Freedom from Want” — “The grandma putting the turkey on the table, the Thanksgiving dinner, the beautiful home and just that American traditional family and conservatism,” she said.

. . . But about two years ago, at 49, Gage had a reckoning, realizing she had been “literally a white supremacist from birth,” based on teachings from the Book of Mormon.

Gage said she came to see Mormonism as “the OG Christian nationalist church.”

So, she flipped her life upside down, leaving organized religion and the Republican party.

She now calls herself “a raging feminist,” hosts a podcast, “Life, Take Two,” and is a member of “Leaving MAGA,” a nonprofit online community for former Trump followers who found themselves lost in conspiracies, losing friends, even committing crimes in the president’s name.

WE’RE GONNA WIN

I know I said that in 2000, when Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush . . . including in Florida* . . . but was denied the presidency.

And other times I’ve said it and been wrong.

But let’s not forget Obama and Biden — or Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.  Or the dozens of special elections in the past year where we’ve either won or wildly overperformed.

Yesterday’s result in Miami — where a Democrat won the mayoralty for the first time in 30 years, and by a margin of 59.4% to 40.6%! — is one more reason to believe normal Americans have grown uncomfortable with today’s Republican leadership . . . and that, yes: we’re gonna win.

Join the next “No Kings” protest!

Next year:

Sign up to be a poll worker (and inspire your kids and grandkids to do the same), plant lawn signs!  Write post cards!

This year:

Fund the Democratic infrastructure on which our 8.000+ candidates depend.

I can’t wait to see what you do to say thanks.

*By tens of thousands, if you count the overvotes that were thrown out because inexperienced voters punched “Gore” — but then, to be doubly sure, wrote in his name.  In most states, including Bush’s own Texas, those votes would have been counted.  In Florida that year, with the entire election (and thus the Supreme Court and so much else) hanging in the balance, W.’s brother Jeb’s team decided the overvotes had to be thrown out because when someone had arguably voted twice, how could you possibly discern their intent?  (Yes: this really happened.)  Not to mention what would have happened if Ralph Nader had told voters in swing states like Florida — where he got 97,488 votes — to vote for the man he considered the least bad alternative.  How entirely different the world today would have been.  Without those tens of thousands of overvotes, and with Nader encouraging progressives to vote for him, Gore “lost” by 537.  

 

 

At Home And Abroad

AT HOME

How Trump Destroyed The Economy In 10 Months (6 minutes).

ABROAD

Charlie Sykes on Trump’s National Security Strategy of the United States of America:

We’ll get to [that] in a moment, but let’s catch up first: (Editor’s note: None of these stories are parodies.)

He continues:

The new National Security Strategy is a foreign policy disaster.  As Anne Applebaum notes, “[It] is a propaganda document, designed to be widely read. It is also a performative suicide. Hard to think of another great power ever abdicating its influence so quickly and so publicly.”

The document is not merely a full-throated rejection of the foreign policy vision of GOP presidents like Ronald Reagan; it is a rejection of the policy vision of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Bush, and actually every president since WWII.

Even so, I’m glad they published it. Because now we have a concrete basis for debating and confronting what’s right in front of us. Republicans would prefer to deflect or rationalize what Trump is doing to America’s place in the world. Now they have to defend it. Critics need not speculate or hypothesize. It’s right there in writing.

Not surprisingly, the Russians are thrilled. And, why not? It gives them everything they could possibly have dreamed of when they embraced Donald Trump and boosted his candidacy.

Support the opposition party.  Adequate funding for infrastructure is not sufficient to assure victory — but it is absolutely necessary.  This year winter: infrastructure.  Next summer: candidates.

RECOMMENDATION

Last month, I told you about The Running Ground — though I am not a runner.  Loved it.  Now I’m telling you about It’s Only Drowning — though I have never surfed.  So good!

BONUS

Trump’s own home mortgage fraud.  At least as bad as Lisa Cook’s — so should they both be fired?

 

Of Narcissism And Ukraine

Apparently, there are two types of narcissists.

Neither is all that appealing.

Trump seems to be both.

And he has company.

From MindWar:

The Psychological War on Democracy.

A quick read.

Where Is the Will to Win in Ukraine?

Certainly not in the Republican Party or its leader — who is now not a fake wrestling hall of fame inductee but also inaugural winner of the world soccer federation peace prize (see: “vulnerable narcissism,” above).

At terrible cost to his own people — and to ours, really — Putin is winning.

Or is he?

From The Guardian:

Putin should have accepted Trump’s deal. Now Russia’s collapsing economy could lead to his downfall

His war of choice in Ukraine is an economic, financial, geopolitical and human calamity for Russia that worsens by the day. For his own murky reasons, Donald Trump, another national menace, offered him a lifeline last week. Yet Putin spurned it. These two fools deserve each other.

. . . The Trump deal, if forced through, would have split the US and Europe; ruptured Nato, perhaps fatally; reprieved Russia’s pariah economy; and probably toppled Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.

These are key Russian war aims. But Putin, suffering from neo-imperial fantasies and legacy issues, said “no”. He reckons he can get it all, and more, by fighting on.

. . . Putin’s economic ruination of Russia, though still a work in progress, is matched by plummeting geopolitical influence. Bogged down in Ukraine, Moscow could only watch as Syria, a prized Middle East ally, turned to the west and Iran came under US and Israeli attack. Now Venezuela, too, looks in vain for support. Ties with China have been upended, with a humiliated Russia relegated to the role of dependent junior partner. Visiting India last week, Putin cut a needy figure in a country that, following US pressure, now boycotts Russian oil.

The “Russia is winning” narrative hinges on supposed battlefield successes. Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin’s aides, claimed recent territorial advances “positively impacted” the Moscow talks – meaning they strengthened Russia’s hand. That’s delusional. The gains are marginal. Despite his surprise, full-scale invasion and overwhelming advantages in manpower and materiel, Putin has utterly failed to subjugate Ukraine – a failure measured in shocking Russian casualty figures: more than 280,000 killed or injured in the first eight months of 2025; about one million in total.

How much longer will the Russian people tolerate their mass-murderer dictator-president – the Salisbury poisoner, the indicted war criminal – who, refusing all peace overtures, is now threatening war with Europe? This question is key. Putin’s readiness to risk the lives and wellbeing of ordinary Russians is only too evident, symbolised by the cynical signing-up fees and death benefits paid to infantry volunteers from poor rural areas – whose average frontline life expectancy is 12 days. Adding insult to injury, pay-outs have been slashed due to budget cuts.

. . . The Russian nation is too big to fail. Its proud history of struggle shows it cannot be beaten. But Putin can. He’s losing, not winning. And sooner or later, like the tsars and totalitarians of old, that same eternal Russia whose name he glorifies will chew him up and spit him out.

If only the U.S. — and the Republican Party — were still on the side of democracy and freedom.  And a world order that forbade one country to invade another.

Worth reading in full.

Support the opposition party.  Adequate funding for the infrastructure it provides all 8,000+ Democratic candidates is clearly not a sufficient condition to assure victory — but it is a necessary condition.  Today would be an amazing day to help.

Thanks!

 

Just wow.

I remember when Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy had to resign from the Clinton Administration because Tyson Foods give his girlfriend a $1,200 scholarship that he urged her not to accept but she accepted anyway . . . and because he sometimes used a Department-leased Jeep for non-government travel.  Later, the government spent $17 million on an independent counsel indicting him on 30 counts of things for all of which he was acquitted.  (Among other things, he was given Super Bowl tickets by the Fernbank Museum of Natural History — which he disclosed.  Details of that scandal here.)

By way of collateral damage, his top aide had his life ruined.

Clinton himself, and his wife Hillary, older readers may recall, lost $30,000 on a real estate investment called Whitewater.  This was enormous national news for, like, forever.

Not to mention the television audience of 60 million when Richard Nixon defended his acceptance of a cocker spaniel (and some some other stuff).

Things like this used to be taken very seriously.

All that has been thrown out the window.

Thom Hartmann reflects on corruption and the Emoluments Clause.

In part:

. . . Donald Trump tried to convince us in his first term that he was complying with the law by calling a press conference where we were treated to huge stacks of papers and manilla file folders supposedly representing his complex estate that he was handing off to his kids, but we soon learned it was entirely a scam: Trump was getting checks to sign every two weeks in the Oval Office, and all that paper and those folders were blank.

This second term he’s not even trying. He extracted millions of dollars from his suckers followers in exchange for his and his wife’s so-called digital coins (they’re just “collectible” digital images); the value of those “coins” has now fallen by 86% (Donald) and 99% (Melania) respectively. And don’t get me started on the so-called “Trump Phones” scam.

But those are chump change compared to the billions he’s accumulated in crypto, and the billions being thrown at Trump-branded/licensed properties being negotiated or built right now in over 20 countries including India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Vietnam, Serbia, Romania, Uruguay, and the Maldives.

Or the $400 million plane Qatar gave Trump, along with the billion-dollar Trump-branded resort they’re building for him, which were followed by the US giving that country — and only that country — an astonishing NATO-style security guarantee that our soldiers will shed their blood to defend that kingdom’s potentates.

So, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that Jared, after taking $2 billion from the Saudis along with his $25 million/year “fee,” would insert a paragraph into the Russia/Ukraine deal that would benefit the Saudi crown prince who’s been his top benefactor. . . .

But he inherited 3% inflation from Biden and has gotten it down to . . . 3% . . . solving what he has called the “affordability hoax” . . . and he has developed (though not shared) “the concept of a plan,” now nine years in development, to provide his followers with excellent health care “at a tiny fraction” of the cost . . . and he has kept taxes low for billionaires . . . and persuaded his followers that immigrants are garbage who should be disappeared without due process  . . . and we are going to take the first step toward ending this unAmerican nightmare on or before January 4 when we retake the House.  And, possibly, the Senate.

An adequately funded opposition party is only one of the things we need to pull that off — but it is an absolutely necessary thing.  Now is the time to fund infrastructure.  Next summer and fall is the time to fund candidates.  Please help in a big way, if you can.  Democracy is hanging by a thread.

Today’s Indivisible call starts at 3pm Eastern.

 

Lying And Unwell

THE PRESIDENT IS LYING

Constantly.  Though maybe it’s not lying in the traditional sense if you’re unhinged from reality, living 24/7 in your own reality.

Whatever it is, it’s disheartening that 36% of our fellow citizens, give or take, are okay with a lying or delusional president.

Case in point from his latest Cabinet meeting: “I inherited the worst inflation in history.”

No, he inherited 3% inflation.  Which is about where it remains today.

(Inflation peaked at 23.7% in 1920 . . . nearly 14% in 1947 and again in 1980 . . . and 9.1% during the worst of the COVID supply chain disruptions in the middle of Biden’s presidency . . . but had dropped to 3% by the time he left, leaving Trump an economy The Economist called “the envy of the world.”)

THE PRESIDENT IS UNWELL

Dr. Gupta: Trump’s MRI Excuse Raises More Questions Than Answers.

(And if you missed Monday:  ‘Trump will not make it to the end of this term compos mentis’ | Psychologist analyses Trump.)

BONUSES (h/t Meidas)

> Conservative columnist George Will in the Washington Post: ‘A Sickening Moral Slum of an Administration’.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.

> Immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:

Juan Orlando Hernandez isn’t just a drug lord, he’s a murderous drug lord. Among the things he was accused of doing was having a former ally hacked to death with a machete while in prison, because he was afraid the man would rat him out. Trump just freed him.

Hernandez served 2 years of his 45-year prison sentence.  Trump determined that was enough.  He didn’t just commute the sentence by 95%, he issued a full pardon.  Hernandez had been convicted of facilitating the trafficking over 360 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

How do Trump’s supporters justify that?  How does it make America great?

 

Time For Criminal Referrals

Trump’s Plan Is Now Out in the Open, writes Peter Wehner in The Atlantic: “It’s getting ever harder to avoid connecting the authoritarian dots.”

Trump is in the process of building his own paramilitary force. He is invoking wartime powers to deport people without due process, even suggesting that American citizens may be sent to foreign prisons. He has deployed National Guard troops to cities over the objections of local officials. In a speech to American troops in Japan, he warned: “If we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard.”

My colleague Tom Nichols, a retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, warns that eventually what Trump is doing will become a new principle for the use of force: “He is acclimating people to the notion that the military is his private army, unconstrained by law, unconstrained by norms, unconstrained by American traditions.”

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the senior judge advocates general, removing the officials who could obstruct the execution of unlawful orders from the commander in chief. Their dismissals will also have a chilling effect on those who remain. The firing of the JAGs is just one element of a broader purge of the military, which started at the beginning of Trump’s second term. In February, five former defense secretaries, including James Mattis, who served under Trump in his first term, wrote a letter to lawmakers, saying the dismissals “raise troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the president’s power.”

Think about it: Senator Mark Kelly, et al, told the military not to break the law — for which Trump said they should be hanged.  And now Kash Patel is investigating them.  Really?

Asking Soldiers to Obey the UCMJ Isn’t a Crime; But Trump Thinks it is.

Before Elissa Slotkin participated in that video, she posted this one (2 very wow minutes) which suggests, as Wehner does, that Trump may just be setting the military up for a change toward a more authoritarian direction.

Wehner concludes:

If America recovers, the path will lie not simply through electoral politics. The fate of the country rests on the recovery of republican virtue, the cultivation of an active passion for the public interest, and a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the common good. Words and phrases such as honor and love of country have to stir people out of their lethargy and into action.

We saw some of that in the “No Kings” protests, but much more needs to happen. My colleague David Brooks, citing the work of the political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, reminds us that “citizens are not powerless; they have many ways to defend democracy.” Whether we step up or not is a matter of civic will and civic courage. Can we summon those virtues at a moment when American ideals are under sustained assault by the American president?

A final thought: As we continue along this journey, into places none of us has ever quite been before, it is worth holding close to our hearts the words of the Czech playwright and dissident Václav Havel. They moved me when I first read them, in the early 1990s, when so much was so different, and I have cited them several times since, but they hold more meaning now than ever.

“I have few illusions,” Havel wrote. “But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.”

Two who are definitely striving in that good cause are Stuart Stevens and Simon Rosenberg.  Their conversation yesterday is not to be missed.  (I’ve saved you the first 80 seconds of “great to see you” stuff.)

It’s past time, they say, for some form of highly publicized criminal referrals . . . now, addressed to some future Justice Department, once we have one again . . . both to call out what’s been done and to make potential perpetrators think twice about doing more.

Support the opposition party?

 

2028

Loads of wonderful young people have decided to Run For Something in 2026, many of them ex-military or CIA, following in the footsteps of people like Senator Elissa Slotkin and Congressman Seth Moulton with a special devotion to support and defend the Constitution.

And then, after we win back the House and quite possibly the Senate (thank you for your help!), there will be 2028.

Among the governors who may be in the running are Gavin Newsom, 58; JB Pritzker, 60; Gretchen Whitmer, 54 . . . and Andy Beshear of Kentucky (47), whose recent Washington Post essay, How Democrats can change rural red to blue, argues that “Democrats should be the party of aspiration — and talk like normal human beings.”  Notions, I dare say, shared by virtually all our potential candidates.

And then there’s the guy who, aged 38 (now 43), won the 2020 Iowa primary.  Can a gay man be elected president?  Scott Galloway and Ezra Klein discuss.

The primaries will be wide open and, quite possibly, inspirational.*

They should help remind people of which party is which.

Ours is the party that — against consistent Republican opposition — gave the country weekends and the 40-hour work week; Social Security and Medicare; the minimum wage and consumer protections; the Affordable Care Act and the Family & Medical Leave Act; the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act; cleaner air and water; a whole suite of equal rights for LGBTQ Americans . . .

. . . and the kinds of policies that led to far stronger job gains (10 of the last 11 recessions began under Republican presidents, not counting the one that may be brewing now).

We’ve not been perfect by any means; but we’re really tried — including on immigration, where Republicans killed needed bi-partisan reform in 2007 and again in 2013 and 2024.

How to encapsulate all this into a single, over-arching theme?

As described here two weeks ago, Strong Floor, No Ceiling, is one possibility clearly gaining traction.

OUR PRESIDENT MAY BE UNWELL 

‘Trump will not make it to the end of this term compos mentis’ | Psychologist analyses Trump

*With at least a touch of this 18-year-old Dutch boy’s youthful idealism (60 seconds).

 

Leaving MAGA — An Off-Ramp

He calls it an “e-book,” but at 9,500 words — and free — My MAGA Odyssey is really just a wonderful short story.

In three parts.

I. Why I Gravitated To MAGA
II. Why I Left MAGA
III. Empowering Others to Leave MAGA

Once a prominent MAGA voice, Rich Logis writes:

I know many will ask: “It took you seven years to leave?”

It’s a fair criticism. I don’t have a good answer as to why I defended, and justified, over and over, the indefensible and the unjustifiable. I was always convinced that MAGA’s adversaries were far worse. I bought into the dehumanization of our opponents. I appreciate that these answers will be unsatisfactory to many.

As I spoke and wrote as much as I could about how I left MAGA, I decided I needed to do more to reach out to others who were in my position. That’s why I founded Leaving MAGA. I want it to provide an off-ramp of sorts to those who are having doubts and/or are considering leaving the movement. It’s also a safe space, a community for those who are ready to return to who they were before MAGA clawed into their hearts and minds.

Finally, Leaving MAGA is a resource for those who want to reach out to friends and/or loved ones in the movement.  I am living proof that it’s possible to leave MAGA. Let’s get to work to again find peace with our family, friends and neighbors in MAGA.

Read his “book”?

Visit his website?

And the many stories you’ll find there of others who’ve left MAGA, like this young man’s, or this young woman’s . . . each one an interesting personal struggle.

I increasingly believe we’re going to win.  Please help if you can.