Once more, with feeling. The U.S. was not founded primarily on Judeo Christian principles. The founders were well-read in Greco-Roman materials, as well as the Iroquois Nations compact and early writings of Machiavelli. They also drew on English common law. It is an outright lie to say otherwise.

@www.bsky.social We strengthen ourselves by strengthening our citizens, putting resources into fair housing, affordable food, expanding employment opportunities and training, child care, etc. The Soviet Union fell largely as a result of its overblown military spending. We must not do the same.

I've been off for awhile as I initiated retirement and moved across the country. Hope to be active again soon.

I'm attending No Kings's event, “NO KINGS Winston Salem” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/mobilize/eve...

@www.bsky.social People need to stop wasting time and energy calling for the use of the 25th amendment. It's not going to happen. Resistance needs to be effective and realistic (at least moderately). That isn't. Full stop.

No going back on Greenland?? How in the heck is that supposed to work?? Surely that's not a hill that even our current legislature will allow people to die on?

MLK Day this year should serve as a beacon of inspiration for use to recapture the original meaning and intent of civil rights. The current administration is bastardizing it and weaponizing it against those it was meant to protect. We all need to be active in a new Civil Rights Movement.

Dear Republican Congressional members, What will it take for you to stand up for America against our out of control president? Do you want us to be a pariah in the free world? We're fast heading that way.

What they are doing with immigrants is absolutely unconscionable. When are we going to stop it? This is all at Stephen Miller's feet. He's both unelected and unconfirmed. Not to mention how much money all of this is costing.

Fox News has put together an article claiming that a secret Venezuelan cell in the U.S. has been working for years to drum up opposition to Trump, including through ostensibly progressive organizations. I worry that this will jump start attacks on all forms of organized protest. @www.bsky.social

Regarding all the hoopla about the Confederate statues that were removed and the claim that this is "erasing history." A statue is not about recording history. It's about celebrating/honoring the person or ideal embodied by the statue. I don't know why folks don't understand this.

What they are doing with immigrants is absolutely unconscionable. When are we going to stop it? This is all at Stephen Miller's feet. He's both unelected and unconfirmed. Not to mention how much money all of this is costing.

It boggles the mind that people could support making opposition to fascism against the law, particularly when Antifa has never planted bombs, or taken credit for any violent act. Of course, an Executive Order is not law. We need to remember that all the time.

So now they've pulled Jimmy Kimmel! WTF is going on??? Are we really going to let our democracy be killed as a result of an assassination? Nothing like this happened in the 60s or as a result of any other political killing. Guess I was right about the Reichstag Fire. I didn't want to be.

Charlie Kirk's assassination=Reichstag fire?

An Executive Order is not a law, just in case anyone wasn't clear on that. We do need better training in civics and government, but not for the reasons the hard right thinks we do.

The administration's push to make our public history all flowers and rainbows (oops! not rainbows--okay flowers and puppy dogs) is silly. Without acknowledging the dark, we can't celebrate the light. Without understanding where we went wrong, we can't take pride in righting it.

Cracker Barrel rolls out a new logo and drops like a stone on the stock market. What is wrong with us? Are we that afraid of change if it involves doing away with "olde timey" images? It's a logo for goodness sake!

The University of Georgia has removed sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy from its non-discrimination protected classes. This sort of over-compliance makes me suspect that some never wanted to protect these people in the first place. Why are we so eagerly running backwards?

Apparently Trump used his trade "negotiations" with Vietnam to get a sweet deal for his family company to build a golf course. Where is the outrage that should be on every single news channel and in every single paper? Why do some decent people still support him? This is an actual "crime family."

Insisting on splashing gold all over the "people's house" is in direct opposition to the founding vision, as anyone who knows anything about the Early Republic is aware of. Wake up folks! He is not the torch bearer of liberty and his American roots are exceedingly shallow.

I feel as though I'm screaming into the void. The Trump administration has overstepped (again) in its demand to review college admissions data for evidence of continued DEI. How do you determine this? It will encourage prejudicial data reading by folks who're looking to limit minority enrollment.

I had forgotten that today is the sixth anniversary of the Walmart shooting in El Paso. Sadly, as a nation, we don't seem to be honoring the 23 dead by reducing the hatred and fear of the "other." I guess we may have become numb to it. Perhaps because we no longer have a sense of shared community.

I don't know who's listening but we have clearly landed on the wrong side of history this time. No amount of previous suffering can justify this treatment of others. I cannot believe that those who died in the Holocaust would approve of the Israeli leadership's current behavior.

The Democrats may be doing poorly in the polls, but they remain the party behind much of what Trump is destroying--support for the arts, care for veterans, more accessible healthcare, Social Security, SNAP (so that people can have sufficient food), and, most importantly, true civil rights.

In an example of a world truly turned upside down, the current administration apparently believes that if you hire anyone who's not a White male, then you're in violation of the Civil Rights act. WTF??

Here's a link to sign up to participate in the Good Trouble demonstrations in honor of Congressman John Lewis. www.mobilize.us/john-lewis-a...

Every day we're inundated with examples of government by Trump, for Trump, and of Trump and those who like him. It's embarrassing and should not be treated with the dignity the media insists on giving it.

SIGN: We will continue to resist ICE in our churches act.faithfulamerica.org/sign/ice-rai...

There are major floods in Texas, New Mexico and North Carolina (again). Yet our administration insists that we don't really need FEMA and that climate change is a hoax or exaggerated. Why is the National Guard not where we clearly need it?

If what ICE agents are doing is so legal, valuable, and patriotic, they should be proud to show their faces. Also, if they're in such danger of being "doxed" why don't other law enforcement agents have the same "privilege" of covering their faces?

So now UVA's president has resigned even though the administration has no power over him. Before that, it was the Director of the National Portrait Gallery. Why do these people keep doing what he wants?? I don't understand.

Just FYI, yes, I do have TDS. How could anyone with half a brain, empathy and patriotism not have TDS. That doesn't mean I oppose his actions unthinkingly. It means that when i think about them, they all seem to come from a place of id (and ironically, ego). This is not leadership.

Excellent article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed pushing back on the narrative about the "harms" of DEI. www.chronicle.com/article/what...

A tyrant is only as successful as those he orders allow him to be.

This cause is close to my heart - please sign: sign.moveon.org/petitions/ke...

I read an article arguing that the arrest of David Huerta would ignite the unions and another laying out a good argument for why Trumpism would ultimately fail without Trump. Then I read about what was happening in So.Cal and now I'm scared and depressed again. No violence from protestors. Please!

Just had to repost this!

Hell hath no fury...and, of course, the lies just tumble out. That said, he may just find out what the downside is of using private contractors for work central to the functioning of government.

Every single one of those who support Trump but consider themselves Christians needs to read "The Grand Inquisitor."

It almost literally makes my blood boil (were that a possibility) when I hear "civil rights" used to support white folks and, particularly, white men. It's a perversion of all that people fought and sometimes died for in the Civil Rights movement.

I wish the progressives/lefties/democrats would stop flagellating themselves about their current situation and how we got there. The right is hard enough on us, we don't need to punish ourselves. We need to focus on the real and present danger ahead. Unite and fight.

The quote referenced was Vought's desire to put civil servants "in trauma." It seems to be succeeding. Why would anyone want to do that to another person?

Asked to comment on Vought’s quote, the White House sent a statement: “What about the January 6 defendants and political prisoners who suffered real trauma and committed suicide over the harassment, bullying and imprisonment by bureaucrats who weaponized the government against them?” So very mature.

Just too good.

We may, quite literally, not have a country anymore if we no longer have a national weather service. There seems to be no depth to the ignorance (or is it just greed?) of the current administration.

Just a random thought. Trump keeps saying that "you won't have a country anymore" if the border isn't tightly sealed or if he can't deport all his "criminals." I wonder if we can really say we have a country if we have no national support for the arts, museums, scientific research, or open spaces.

From an article by Thom Hartman about deportations to Libya: "When we build systems of unchecked power and cruelty for use against the most vulnerable, history tells us those systems rarely remain confined to their original targets." Trump said "The homegrowns are next..."

I don't think Trump understands what the music in Le Mis is about, "Master of the House"=celebration of criminality, "Can you Hear the People Sing?"=revolt against a ruler and plutocratic government, "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables=lament for rebels killed by tyrannical forces. He likes the bombast.