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"I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous this is." I might be forgetting, but I don't remember Heather writing this sentence in any of the hundreds of letters she's written these past 17 months. How is it possible that we voted him out, that we won the Senate, and yet it seems we are in more danger than ever? How is it possible that rather than see that as a call to back away from these lies, to back away from all of this poisonous anti-democratic white supremacist horror, they've double down? Quadrupled down? I am spent. I hope I can get unspent so that I can do whatever I can, but I am spent.

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The biggest thing that we have is modern technology that they didn’t have in 1876. The words from the Republicans are really the same: They want to make all of the decisions and to hell with democracy. The only Republican president, in my lifetime, to have made any sense of what was going on in the world was Eisenhower. Too bad he chose Tricky Dick as his VP.

Today, I decided to watch a little of C-Span’s hearing on Merrick Garland. I was seething at Mike Lee and Cruz’s statements about how Garland never answered their questions. Thank goodness for Amy Klobuchar who set them straight! Cruz must be scared of Garland. Fake45 should be also. Praying this will be the seditionists last hurrah when Garland, Letitia, and Cyrus get through with them.

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The wind is fierce this morning. We need to be fierce and laser focused. When Trump became President the news media made him legitimate by not calling him out on his lies. He continues to lie and Cruz and Hawley and others support the lies. Call the lies !! Call CPAC out for what it is a forum to perpetuate the lies and destroy our Democracy.

Saying Joe Biden is not the legitimate President is Not only a lie it is treason. Let’s name it. Joe Biden is the legitimate President of the United States and for Trump to continue to question it is treasonous. He is igniting his supporters for more insurrection. He needs to be held accountable. Enter Merrick Garland. The news in its effort to be fair perpetuates the lies and contributes to legitimizing corruption.

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Dr. Richardson, thank you (again) for articulating the issue so clearly: "Perhaps because it is impossible to imagine, we seem largely to have normalized that the former president of the United States refused to accept his loss in the 2020 election and enlisted a mob to try to overturn the results. Along with his supporters, he continues to insist that he won that election and that President Joe Biden is an illegitimate usurper."

Didn't we "normalize" this "big lie" when during the impeachment trial, Trump was not forced to appear physically by subpoena before Congress and answer for inciting an insurrection? Didn't we show that Trump was indeed "above" Congress and above the law? Are we not doing much the same thing as we are with Saudi Arabia, where we use the euphemism "recalibration" instead of demanding accountability for the butchery of a U.S. based-journalist? Wouldn't the term "emboldened" best describe both Trump and Prince MBS moving forward, astounded by our fear to substantially react? We gift Trump four years to build an army with 70 million followers, all while we gloat at his debt and myriad impending lawsuits, and worry ourselves silly about whether to end the Senate filibuster in order to pass any meaningful legislation. Which Party is delusional?

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The actions of the former president and the attendees at CPAC are classic actions of abusers. Forgive me, I'm a therapist. The abuser never backs down from terrorizing, whether subtly or violently, except to groom or reward the people in their power.

One of the most powerful tools of the abuser is that the people who they are abusing can't believe that abusers are doing what they are doing--it is so out of the realm of accepted behavior, and the motives seem so extreme--as in the January 6 coup.

We all know it was a coup attempt. But we are simultaneously trying to understand and believe that it really happened, while still trying to believe it's not a sign of things to come, and still trying to believe we can stop the abuser's actions and put an end to the escalating abuse.

Seen through the lens of understanding the actions and arsenals of abusers, yes, our nation of laws is in danger of a terrible beating or worse.

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We must convince the two Democratic Senators opposed to ending the filibuster to see the error of their ways. We MUST pass national voter laws stopping voter suppression and gerrymandering.

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Mississippi, where I live, is a state with Republicans as a single, dominant party. It is currently featured in three stories in The Washington Post. One refers to my congressman who is accused of using campaign funds as a personal slush fund. The second is a story about the inability of families to afford diapers for their children. The third is about people in Jackson being without water for going on three weeks. These stories perfectly illustrate the consequences of minority rule.

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Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Seems Stacey Abrams' work is not done. We must follow her lead.

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Like many others, I breathed big sighs of relief after the November, and again after the state by state certification of the electoral votes, then (after a very scary assault on the Capitol) once again after the electoral votes were certified by the Congress. At the same time, our democracy does seem more fragile than I have ever experienced in my 70 years. The Big Lie is truly too crazy to parody. It seems more like a dystopian nightmare. Have the Republicans (almost) all lost their sense of right and wrong? How can they sleep at night? What will their children and grandchildren think of them? I have no answers, only hope that the voters of our country, if not the GOP invertebrates, will come to their senses and relegate Trumpism to a deserving dustbin of history, along with and all who enable and adhere to this cult of devil worship.

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FERN MCBRIDE just now

Finally, The Letters from an American wrote it plainly through the words of William Kristol , “a dangerous, anti-democratic faction” of the Republican Party “is not committed in any serious way to the truth, the rule of law, or the basic foundations of our liberal democracy.” 'He warns that our democracy is in crisis.' Our Democracy is in Crisis. This must be foremost in our minds. It is real. Our lives as citizens of the USA must recognize what is at stake.

Trump, Hawley, Cruz, Blackburn, Cotton, Meadows and Lee may seem at times like cartoon characters, as they forcefully mouth such outlandish lies, but they are real. If you are familiar with some of the fascist leaders in the 20th century: Gentile, Mussolini, Hitler, Gorman, Himmler, and Goebbels, perhaps the Republican Gang will appear to be as dangerous as they are in fact.

Working locally is more important that ever. Local and state governments are where the voter suppression laws have been reignited. The Democratic Party must put a lot more eggs in that basket. The participation of community organizations, media, college campuses, universities and citizens is crucial to keeping our democracy alive. Going small is as important as going big.

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As another writer at the Bulwark, Tim Miller, pointed out yesterday, the truth is CPAC *is* the Republican Party, and all those "rubes" and "kooks" that one sees at CPAC that people like he were laughing about before 2015 were there all along.

I've referred to this article written by Richard Hofstadter 67 years ago, which explains these people perfectly:

Unlike most of the liberal dissent of the past, the new dissent not only has no respect for non-conformism, but is based upon a relentless demand for conformity. It can most accurately be called pseudo-conservative — I borrow the term from the study of The Authoritarian Personality published five years ago by Theodore W. Adorno and his associates — because its exponents, although they believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism, show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions. They have little in common with the temperate and compromising spirit of true conservatism in the classical sense of the word, and they are far from pleased with the dominant practical conservatism of the moment as it is represented by the Eisenhower Administration. Their political reactions express rather a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways — a hatred which one would hesitate to impute to them if one did not have suggestive clinical evidence.

From clinical interviews and thematic apperception tests, Adorno and his co-workers found that their pseudo-conservative subjects, although given to a form of political expression that combines a curious mixture of largely conservative with occasional radical notions, succeed in concealing from themselves impulsive tendencies that, if released in action, would be very far from conservative. The pseudo-conservative, Adorno writes, shows “conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness” in his conscious thinking and “violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere. . . . The pseudo conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition.”

CPAC and the AFPAC conference for white supremacists and Neo-Nazis that went on alongside it prove that the contemporary Republican Party is indeed THE ENEMY OF AMERICA.

I never thought I'd be writing these words but = Bill Kristol is right. Go read what he wrote, you'll see.

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Thank you Heather for staying on this. It is a big relief that Biden is president (and IMO doing a fabulous job) but we cannot afford to take our foot off the gas!

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Any clue to why Sasse voted against Merrick Garland?

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The comparison between the Jim Crow era and now is indeed disturbing. It could become even worse if that unjust system extends to the entire country. (It already does for countless Black Americans.) As Dr Richardson knows, segregation didn't rely just on discriminatory laws and kangaroo verdicts like the Emmett Till case. Its cornerstone was legal and extralegal violence -- often horrifically brutal as with Till's lynching. It was a commonly-used option, made more frequent because perpetrators rarely were held to account.

So too in the present moment. The white supremacist insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, drawing instinctively from past experience, felt entitled to violence almost as a birthright. That heritage must be denied them in the future. The storm troopers of Jan 6 will meet severe justice, but punishing the foot solders is the easy part; we need a minutely thorough investigation going wherever it leads, including the highest-level conspirators. The notion of "cancel culture" is silly and specious -- except for the imperative to cancel treason in all its forms.

P Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown

L Litwack, Trouble in Mind

D Oshinsky, Worse Than Slavery

T Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till

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We still have so much to do. Where to begin. A longer rest would have been nice.

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"Perhaps because it is impossible to imagine, we seem largely to have normalized that the former president of the United States refused to accept his loss in the 2020 election and enlisted a mob to try to overturn the results."

For those of us who live and/or work in Washington, things are far from normal. My office behind a 17' fence topped with razor wire, and patrolled by armed National Guard is not normal. Most of the country is detached from daily life in Washington.

That goes the other way too. DC residents live in a bubble that doesn't always feel recession the way the rest of the country does. (Off topic: One more reason for term limits. Living in DC disconnects our elected from the people they claim to represent)

Even though the news reports indicate little if anything for tomorrow, the Trumpublicans, Qool-Aid intoxicated, and rad-right still believe their supreme commander will be inaugurated as the rightful president on March 4. They've made it clear they are not backing down, and that they have the resources to follow through.

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