Rita's Spur to Action

“The problem with life in a Kingdom is we cannot choose the King! If our King is benign, life could be wonderful. But if he is a Darth Vader, it’s good to understand what that might mean for each of us.

Kings, their families and entourages create a small aristocracy that has the power to give itself most of the fruit produced in the entire country, and a vast lower-class that gets whatever’s left over. That’s what we have now…under Trump. The king alone can decide who gets what. He can decide who has rights, and who does not. He can decide who lives free, who lives in prison, and who does not have a right to be alive. He can decide anything and everything. Nobody has a right to object. There is no way to overrule a king (unless he voluntarily relinquishes his power, e.g., a Constitutional Monarchy like England). In the modern world, Dictators have replaced Kings (a Dictator is not bound by bloodlines). 

An alternative is a system where most of the people collectively decide how all the nation’s fruit will be distributed. No single person can decide, and no group of people who are less than most of the people can decide. For much of American history, most of the people adopted rules for distributing the nations’s fruit that rewarded merit, fairness and morality rather than heritage, friendship and whim. The rules adopted by most of the people also provided ways to choose who runs the country and how they run it. This system is a Democracy.

Throughout history, there have been good kings and emperors who took care of most of their people and bad ones who did not. The inherent problem with this kind of ‘authoritarian’ system is the people cannot choose their ruler, and they cannot replace him. Only the ruler is assured of fruit. In contrast, a Democracy does not assure everyone of fruit, but it does assure fruit for most people. When we hear people say, ‘We are risking losing our democracy’, we should all pause, and ask ourselves, ‘How might my life change if the King took my rights from me?’ And, ‘Do I want to take that chance?'”

Trump, at his whim, personally destroyed the White House.

He should personally fund the rebuilding of the White House. Immediately. Along with the White House lawn.

He took the country to war. And in each case, the country comes out with nothing. We don’t have a gain with anything.

In the meanwhile, Trump amassed 3 billion dollars in his first year as president.

Come on America. There is something radically wrong with this country when the president in his first year in office personally gains 3 billion dollars. That ain’t hay!

Thank you, President Trump, you have made America no longer the land of the free and home of the brave.

“Markwayne Mullin vs. Al Otro Lado concerns a 1917 law that requires immigration officers to inspect noncitizens who arrive at ports of entry to determine whether they may enter the United States. Congress amended the law in the Refugee Act of 1980 to allow noncitizens fleeing persecution in their home country to apply for asylum as part of this inspection process…But today, the Supreme Court’s majority held that a president may circumvent these requirements simply by having U. S. immigration officers stand at the border and physically block noncitizens from setting foot on U. S. soil — even if the asylum seeker is certain to be persecuted, or killed, if…turned away.”

This is not America.

Notes:

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-real-plot-of-the-roberts-supreme?utm_source=substack&publication_id=365422&post_id=203608885&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&action=share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1MDA0NDAzMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MjAzNjA4ODg1LCJpYXQiOjE3ODI0MjYyMDcsImV4cCI6MTc4NTAxODIwNywiaXNzIjoicHViLTM2NTQyMiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.e4BL82EKg3zYJ-GKG5e3uSjmSotfNyYFMa5_h18WvaQ&r=tsm7z&triedRedirect=true

America, wake up.

America is on the brink of disaster.

Trump is destroying America.

He’s destroying the world. Destroying all the alliances that for 60 years have kept us all safe, kept us all at peace.

Go to the polls, America.

Save your country.

Vote for a decent congress and senate. My god, people, we pay you, we pay you!

You are hired by we the people to serve us, not to kiss Trump’s ring.

You have elected and supported a man who is a criminal, who is committing crimes against the United States, who has not paid his debt to the United States, who has not served the United States in any capacity.

He has literally committed treason against the United States and pardoned others who helped him.

He must be impeached!

The man who represents the United States of America to the world and chooses to use disgusting language on TV, who is not in full command of the english language. Who is a cheat and a liar and a thief.

A man who has done not one good thing in his life for anybody.

A man who pays people to destroy the nation, and yet, and yet, and yet, you support him.

Shame on America.

From Richard Gephardt, who represented Missouri in the United States House from 1977 to 2005 and served as House Democratic Leader from 1989 to 2003, and Tim Wirth:

“The White House has declined to rule out using lethal force against U.S. citizens designated as members of domestic terrorist organizations, while Trump has fired most of the Department of Defense officials responsible for overseeing the legality of military operations. 

Trump is seeking yet more funding for what appears to be his private army of ICE and Border Patrol agents, to be deployed in numerous target states, at airports and at urban polling places in the states he lost in the 2024 election, where he has now begun to seize voter roles and ballots.”

Americans, we must go to the polls.

Notes:

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/warning-trumps-rolling-coup-is-underway?utm_source=substack&publication_id=365422&post_id=201085220&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&action=share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1MDA0NDAzMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MjAxMDg1MjIwLCJpYXQiOjE3ODEyMTI0OTUsImV4cCI6MTc4MzgwNDQ5NSwiaXNzIjoicHViLTM2NTQyMiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.tNU2lctJfjki_wxKkfggcOw-qbY6eU_9F7yDYdbIHnM&r=tsm7z&triedRedirect=true

America, rise up. For God’s sake. Save yourself. Save the country. Save the world. This is ridiculous. This country has elected a man who is basically fundamentally insane. He is so destructive. If he is allowed to continue, he will totally destroy the country. Americans, wake up. I keep saying that we pay the members of the Congress and Senate. Take control of this ill-gotten president. Put him in the nut house where he belongs. Lock him up forever. He will destroy this country. We cannot afford to have him another day, let alone three more years. He is a disgusting egotist, rapist. Vile man with no principles. That is what this country has chosen. Get Trump out. Dump Trump. Save America. The longer he’s in office. The longer he wins. The closer he comes to destroying us. He is the enemy of the people and only we the people can get rid of him.

We, the people, elect the congress and the senate.

We pay the members of the congress and the senate and we pay them for their entire lives.

What other job pays a person for their entire life?

They are hired by us to do the job.

The job is to serve the people of the United States of America.

The job is not to kiss the ring of Donald J Trump or the ring of any other would-be dictator.

Medicine in America today is shot to hell.

If you have an emergency and require quick medical attention, the doctor will tell you to go to the emergency room.

In the emergency room you can lie around for 24 hours with little to no attention or food and at the end of it all you may be sent home with no more knowledge than you came in with.

Call a doctor for an appointment for a specific symptom: you may be lucky enough to get an appointment one year ahead. This was a recent experience with a well known doctor for neuropathy.

If a doctor is so successful, why does he not have a group of assistants whom he oversees? Pure greed.

They want all the money and feel no need to deliver the required service.

American greed is evidenced even at the supermarket.

If you go to the supermarket and you buy a bag of cookies or crackers, the bag will literally be only half full.

This is somehow very deceptive because you are not getting what you think you are, nor what you need.

What is wrong with just buying a pound of sugar in a pound bag or a pound of cookies in a pound bag instead of buying your cookies in a half empty two pound bag?

Is it really possible that corporations really believe that the public is as stupid and ignorant as they force them to be?

The American public is being duped.

This is true from the measly 15 minutes allotted to you by your doctor or the half full bag that you buy at the grocery store or a nail place that charges $100+ for a basic manicure.

There is no longer any concern for the good of the people. Only how much money a corporation can make with the least benefit to the public.

Words from Joyce Vance on the recent Louisiana v Callais Case

“Here’s the perspective part: Sometimes you need to step back, because when you focus only on the trees, you miss the forest. We are seeing a radical, racist transformation of voting maps in many Republican-led states. The larger question we should be asking is: why?

The answer is self-evident, but it’s important that we say it directly. Republicans are afraid they can’t win elections on the merits of their governance and policies. So now, they’ve turned to moving the goalposts, changing the rules for winning elections so they can try to hold onto power nonetheless.

Earlier this week, CNN reported that 77% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say Trump’s policies have increased their cost of living. His approval rating on the economy stands at just 30%. There’s a reason he keeps overwhelming the public with incompetently conducted wars, belligerent displays of dominance, and aggressive gerrymandering: it’s because the emperor truly has no clothes. And American voters have figured that out.

Georgia’s minority leader, Harold Jones II, put it like this: 

If Republicans ever used their power to help Georgians, they wouldn’t have to waste time and money redrawing the maps every few years to keep their majorities. 

June will be our third redistricting since 2021. Republicans need to undo their last gerrymander because it wasn’t good enough to keep their waffling political party in power. Most parties would try out some new ideas. Republicans choose to strip political power from Black people and undo the progress the South made in the last 60 years.

Let’s sum it up for everybody. The biggest bloc of middle and working class voters are Black people. When Republicans strip Black people’s political power away, it doesn’t just strip one community of power. It strips political power from every single middle and working class person and hands it over to billionaires and big corporations. That’s what redistricting means for you.

That is real wisdom. Republicans have to gerrymander because they can’t win the hearts and minds of enough voters outright. This is the point we should be reinforcing when we talk with friends and family about this race to the bottom. None of this would be necessary if Republicans believed they could win the midterm elections on the merits. But they don’t, and they know it. That’s why we’re seeing all the gamesmanship. That’s why they’re diluting Black voting power. Because they know what the House could look like after November if Americans are allowed to vote in a fair election. That makes our mission pretty clear. We all know what we need to do: vote in record numbers. Vote to hold onto our democracy in the face of people who are only interested in holding onto power.”

Notes:

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-redistricting-race-to-the-bottom?utm_source=substack&publication_id=607357&post_id=197597801&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&action=share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1MDA0NDAzMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTk3NTk3ODAxLCJpYXQiOjE3Nzg3MjI3OTMsImV4cCI6MTc4MTMxNDc5MywiaXNzIjoicHViLTYwNzM1NyIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.u6h1dTsmIzpb11FEUC0AgsgUG8p9Q-g9_hJV0NWgAPk&r=tsm7z&triedRedirect=true