Weeping, Wailing and Gnashing of teeth

That's correct.

And now there is reporting that Israel may end the war now as a favor to Trump. So, basically Netanyahu was continuing the war and giving Biden and Blinken the middle finger in order to help Trump.

It was on instagram. I believe it came from one of NPR’s accounts but don’t have time to look now.

My very anti-Republican " mother just posted some que sera sera comment on a text I sent about the election. I asked her what antidepressants she is on, I might need some of that to get through the next four years.

I also picked up DS from school and everyone was laughing and smiling, it makes me wonder if anyone read the news this morning.

ETA: she says Effexor.  I knew she was on something 

This is what I'm most afraid of. I feel like this is the end, but I'm not going down without a fight!

This is quoted only as an example, I am NOT calling you specifically out for this hopemax <3.

I'm wondering if folks could mention what it IS that they are linking when they post a link? I won't click into random links from sites I've never heard of, even from a long time and well-respected pea. Especially one like this that has "and yes it moves" as the title which doesn't seem to refer to anything in this thread, KWIM?

I googled so I now know the site is ok, but I wonder how many just scroll on past links posted like that? Anyhow, maybe some food for thought...and now I'm off to read the article.

The red bold part is mine. And yes, as a mom (of a 34YO), he is who I fight for. He is also part of a marginalized community who will, without a doubt, face bigger challenges in the next couple of decades due to this election and it's aftermath.

As I went to bed last night I realized that at age 63, I may never see our country's government as a democracy again in my lifetime. It breaks my damn heart, and I am sorry if I sound dramatic, but it does. But I'm gonna keep fighting for my kids, your kids, and your grandkids and on and on.

Listening to Harris' speech right now. We really missed a great opportunity by not electing her.

So several neighbors have added large TFG flags to their yard. I have seen multiple postings asking where to get them and t-shirts so I assume I will be seeing even more in the coming years.

Still processing and trying to figure out how to snap out of this . I guess I’m going to be numb and sad for a while. I’m sure anger will hit but I just don’t have the energy right now. I’m just in survival mode as many others are. So many on local groups celebrating makes it even harder. I hate feeling hopeless.

One of my sisters voted for Trump because, she says, of the economy and the border. It's such a bullshit answer to me. 

I don't plan on seeing them for awhile. I'm not sure I can come face to face with them without feeling a ton of anger. 

My Ex-SIL keeps putting the 'care' emoji on all of my FB posts today and she's a Trumper. I want to slap her 

Seriously. I knew it was happening. My whole family is Trump supporters and see nothing wrong with anything he does. It bothered me a ton in 2016 and 2020 but now I have a 2 year old and they sure love all over him but it feels fake as hell knowing they will vote for someone that could strip his and my husband's rights away. Not to mention Trump's just a vile, disgusting person with all of the shit he spews. Like, why would I want to associate with you or have my child around you, knowing you support this kind of filth!!

I did a few concrete things: I deleted Twitter, for example. I had to come in today to teach like I always do, and am running an event for students about election results this afternoon. I had to comfort my adult kids who are gay and scared. Like many people, I have to carry on and be there for people, even if I'm not in the best place for it.

My husband and kids have Austrian citizenship; I have the right to live with them if they were to move. I don't think we'll need it. I am glad we have it. I am going to continue educating the best lawyers I can to do the most they can do to protect the most vulnerable among us.

The Hartmann Report

hartmannreport.com/p/the-billionaires-won-the-50-year-841?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=29axqs&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have follow it.

It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them.

As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising — particularly if you are willing to lie — you can sell anybody pretty much anything.

Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies.

America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked. Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1500 hate talk radio stations.

Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by five corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court.

They are responsible for our crises of gun violence, the drug epidemic, homelessness, political gridlock, our slow response to the climate emergency, a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare, the situation on our southern border, even the lack of affordable drugs, insurance, and healthcare.

All track back to a handful of Supreme Court justices who’ve sold their votes to billionaires in exchange for extravagant vacations, luxury yachts and motorhomes, private jet travel, speaking fees, homes, tuition, and participation in exclusive clubs and billionaire networks that bar the rest of us from entry.

For over two decades, Clarence Thomas and his wife have been accepting millions in free luxury vacations, tuition for their adopted son, a home for his mother, private jet and megayacht travel, and entrance to rarified clubs.

Sam Alito is also on the gravy train, and there are questions about how Brett Kavanaugh managed to pay off his credit cards and gambling debts. John Roberts’ wife has made over $10 million from law firms with business before the court; Neil Gorsuch got a sweetheart real estate deal; Amy Coney Barrett refuses to recuse herself from cases involving her father’s oil company.

None of this is illegal because when five corrupt Republicans on the Court legalized members of Congress taking bribes they legalized that same behavior for themselves.

As a result, we have oligarchs running our media, social media, and buying our elections, while the Supreme Court, with Citizens United, even legalized foreign interference in our political process.

Our modern era of big money controlling government began in the decade after Richard Nixon put Lewis Powell — the tobacco lawyer who wrote the infamous 1971 “Powell Memo” outlining how billionaires and corporations could take over America — on the Supreme Court in 1972.

In the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the Court ruled that money used to buy elections wasn’t just cash: they claimed it’s also “free speech” protected by the First Amendment that guarantees your right to speak out on political issues.

In the 200 preceding years — all the way back to the American Revolution of 1776 — no politician or credible political scientist had ever proposed that spending billions to buy votes with dishonest advertising was anything other than simple corruption.

The “originalists” on the Supreme Court, however, claimed to be channeling the Founders of this nation, particularly those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, when they said that “money is the same thing as free speech.” In that claim, Republicans on the Court were lying through their teeth.

In a letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1816, President and author of the Declaration of
“Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government.”

But Republicans on the Supreme Court weren’t reading the Founders. They were instead listening to the billionaires who helped get them on the Court in the first place. Who had bribed them with position and power and then kept them in their thrall with luxury vacations, “friendship,” and gifts.

Two years after the 1976 Buckley decision, the Republicans on the Supreme Court struck again, this time adding that the “money is speech and can be used to buy votes and politicians” argument applied to corporate “persons” as well as to billionaires. Lewis Powell himself wrote the majority opinion in the 1978 Boston v Bellotti decision.

Justices White, Brennan, and Marshall dissented:

“The special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only our economy but the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process.”

But the dissenters lost the vote, and political corruption of everything from local elections to the Supreme Court itself was now virtually assured.

Notice that ruling came down just two years before the Reagan Revolution, when almost all forward progress in America came to a screeching halt.

It’s no coincidence.

And it’s gotten worse since then, with the Court doubling down in 2010 with Citizens United, overturning hundreds of state and federal “good government” laws dating all the way back to the late 1800s.

Thus, today America has a severe problem of big money controlling our political system. And last night it hit its peak, putting an open fascist in charge of our government.

No other developed country in the world has this problem, which is why every other developed country has a national healthcare system, free or near-free college, and strong unions that maintain a healthy middle class. It’s why they can afford pharmaceuticals, are taking active steps to stop climate change, and don’t fear being shot when they go to school, the theater, or shopping.

It’s why they are still functioning democracies.

The ability of America to move forward on any of these issues is, for now, paralyzed with the election of Trump and the GOP taking over the Senate.

This is not the end, though; hitting bottom often begins the process of renewal.

Many Americans will continue to speak out and fight for a democracy uncorrupted by the morbidly rich.

And so will I.