Big money owns this country, and that is that. When the idiot Supreme Court "Justice" Roberts let Citizens United pass, the handwriting was on the wall, America changed from a one person, one vote democracy to a one dollar, one vote democracy.

For me, the most scary thing about what is going on in our country is that no one is in charge...it seems that someone put the needs of the 1% over the rest of us, and put all thinking to align with that perspective. Cut taxes for the rich, and when social programs are hurting, blame the poor for their poverty, blame the sick...and so on. We clearly are falling fast to a sort of grand depression for those of us at the bottom and an economic heaven for the Mar a Lago crowd.

Why yes, Rubio is just as corrupt and corrupting as his fascist boss. Important to note that American fascism is the same as Russian fascism, a movement devoted to the rule of the billionaire oligarchs with a dictator with unlimited power running the government.

Well, they are negotiating with a mass murdering psychopath who killed over 80 of their leaders in a sneak attack, a clear war crime, so there is that. One place in the world where strutting about acting crazy doesn't exactly make you stand out.

I get trusting "autopilot" on a highway, with limited access, but on regular roadways, way too many complications and drunk or drugged fellow drivers.

Yeah, time will tell, but the ugly of this second Trump administration sure does seem to be worse than that of the Nixon administration, and Nixon and Kissinger, it turns out, in order to get into the White House, deliberately tanked the 1968 Peace Talks with North Vietnam, so they could get elected in the chaos. Thousands of American troops died from that point on, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people died.
Something about the Republican Party and national politics has it allied with the darkest and the deadliest.

If Trump is able to "decapitate" Cuba and just take over that country, one would expect that would play well in Florida and surrounding areas. Perfectly illegal, of course, to murder a nation's leaders but the ICC will not, can not, apparently, do anything to protect Arabs in Gaza, or Iranians, or Venezuelans.

Fascism is on the march in America, and has been ever since Trump was reelected. Job qualifications really don't enter the picture, all that is necessary is total loyalty to the dear leader, who has to drum up fear and dread by the midterms, to try and wreck voting in some states.

For far right "populist" movements, hatred of "the other" is absolutely on the agenda, day in and day out, and don't think for a minute that the Trump distraction machine is going to stop harassing Black and Brown skinned people.
But if they no longer have prisons to put suspected alien "others" in one wonders what their plan is now to terrorize the vulnerable.

Not sure what Trump has against science, it is politically neutral, and medical science is most likely keeping Trump alive.

Diplomacy as if carried out by sixth graders, with limited access to the internet. Problem is, or rather, one of the problems is, this solves nothing, settles no ones mind, the wars will keep on keeping on.
I sure do wish America just decided to walk away from the Middle East, and tend to our own knitting. Goodness knows our support of apartheid Israel has hurt millions of Palestinian Arabs.

Science. There are now a huge base of studies that show that the shots work, both for oldsters like me for covid and the flu, and for kids with measles. One even gets some protection from cognitive decline from taking some of the shots...real science shows that. Get a Hep B shot...get some protection.
But...Tennessee..

Listening to Talarico is like listening to Barack Obama or Michelle Obama talk, something inside just relaxes and trusts what is being said, as it is being said by someone who cares about Americans and our lives.

Why yes it is as if Putin were at Trump's shoulder telling him how to weaken American and its intelligence services.

Further weakening the dollar and its influence in the world. We are led by utterly immoral people who really, really don't care about Americans, at least those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. We don't know from a Wall Street Market, all we know is counting our pennies or SNAP benefits at the grocery.

There are a lot of us Vietnam War veterans out here, still surviving, watching this debacle unwind in real time, and remembering how America had to somehow pull itself out of the debacle of the Vietnam War and the miserable Presidency of Nixon/Kissinger.
It is going to get a lot uglier before it gets better, is my guess. Trump may have dementia, but he knows how to play his backers for suckers and losers. Hope no more American military personnel are hurt his blundering.

Trump isn't the most creative person in our government...he follows patterns. Look at how he profited mightily by bankrupting casinos, and then demanding a great amount of money to just go away. As I understand the shenanigans, he played his own partners for suckers and losers.
He, I would imagine, will do the same to the present day Republican Party. They want him to go way away, perhaps before the 2028 elections, they let him rig things so he resigns, and the VP becomes President and pardons Trump for every illegal thing he and his family have done, are doing, or will ever do.
Would you want Trump anywhere around come the midterms, never mind the 2028 elections if you were a Republican?

All in all, replacing James Mattis with Hegseth was the shot that may have lost America as a constitutional republic, as sooner or later the military will be run by Trumpian goons for the good of the billionaire oligarchs, as happened in Russia.

The dollar cannot be as strong as it needs to be if it is in competition with crypto...there is just too much cash running around being laundered.

Dementia, it seems, can walk and talk and show a lot of passion, not appropriate passion, but very real stuff nonetheless.
Want to take bets if Trump is able to carry out Putin's grand dream for another two years, with the help of the Republican Party?

For years, many of us have simply pictured Putin at the shoulder of Trump, whispering in his ear, suggesting as to how he can enrich himself by destroying America. This is surely just another helicopter fleeing from the roof of the embassy...

War, above all, is about the murder of the rule of law, and thus war will never die as the tool of the rich to...well, prove wrong the sentiment that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

This is one ugly world, ugly time. It is true, if Iran's enemies have weapons then Iran has the right to defend itself from those weapons...
Let's see, the US has thousands of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and by now the Israeli military must have hundreds...all aimed straight at Iran.
Don't suppose the US could just abandon the entire damn Middle East, and leave that insane asylum to its fate?

MAGA, one wonders if our Constitutional Republic will still be standing after the catastrophe called Donald Trump is done destroying things and murdering people. We murdered, in cold blood, over 80 Iranian leaders, and to get them to slow their attack of reprisal, we said we would bribe them with 300 billion dollars. Insanity in the White House, all thanks to MAGA.

As a veteran, thanks to the VA for still offering the covid shots and for helping in this research. It has been known for a long time that for we oldsters, covid shot save lives.