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From The Contrarian

It is So ‘Disconcerting’ that We Have No Congress

Republicans refuse to do their jobs

THE CONTRARIAN OCT 27

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News reports tell us that “ a growing number” of Republicans have “raised concerns” about Donald Trump’s unilaterally murdering suspected drug smugglers on the high seas. Meanwhile, a headline from The Hill announces: “GOP senators disconcerted by possible $230M Justice Department payout to Trump.”

There are so many things about which to be “disconcerted,” including unconscionable misuse of the military against Americans, brutal ICE raids, skyrocketing debt, corruption on a grand scale, and herky-jerky trade wars (complete with Trump’s temper tantrum over an ad accurately reminding us that Ronald Reagan opposed protectionism). One should further “raise concerns” that the Affordable Care Act premiums will “spike on average by 30 percent next year” for 17 million people, so that “along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies… millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026,” as The Washington Postreports.

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo

If only these fretful Republicans belonged to some sort of governmental body that had the ability to limit or even stop these troublesome actions. One could image, say, a separate legislative body to check the executive, control spending, and vet unfit nominees. But they want no part of that.

“Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to put the House on an indefinite hiatus that is now stretching into its second month while the government is shut down is the latest in a series of moves he has made that have diminished the role of Congress and shrunken the speakership at a critical moment,” reports the New York Times. And Trump, in turn, recognizes he effectively is the speaker, as well as president. MAGA Republicans have happily consented to bulldozing the system of checks and balances with the same glee Trump has displayed leveling the East Wing—and with the same level of contempt for our democracy or its rules.

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No one should find credible Republicans’ feigned angst over the unhinged machinations of an autocrat that they have refused to confront—or even complain about on the record. If Republicans were genuinely upset about the serial outrages (or at least more upset about those than incurring the wrath of the bully-in-chief), they would act like members of the legislative branch that the Constitution designed.

Many of Republicans’ professed “concerns” would subside if they, for example, come back to the Capitol to:

• Negotiate a compromise on the ACA subsidies.

• Pass a War Powers Act resolution and use the power of the purse to head off Trump’s unilateral war designs.

• Recapture the power of the purse, disallowing executive rescissions.

• Reclaim the tariff power and end the trade war that will cost global businesses $1.2T (mostly passed on to consumers).

• Conduct oversight hearings on the weaponization of the Justice Department (including bogus vindictive prosecutions of Trump enemies, cases that Americans by a wide margin think are unjustified).

• Hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt if she refuses to answer questions and continues to insult lawmakers.

• Launch an investigation into mismanagement of the Pentagon.

• Pass legislation that halts further White House desecration and bars spending any monies (private or public) on construction without congressional authorization. (Congress could also demand audit of the damage done and tally the cost to restore the historic White House. The next president can send the bill to Trump.)

• Bar any payment to Trump from the Justice Department until he leaves office.

• Start enforcing the Emoluments Clause, prohibiting foreigners’ gifts and “investments” in Trump businesses.

• Shutter ICE facilities unless and until the regime abides by the law to allow immediate access for oversight by lawmakers.

• Investigate Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s spending on two private jets and mismanagement of DHS.

• Release every scrap of paper concerning Jeffrey Epstein and those that participated in or enabled his rape of hundreds of children.

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Well, you say, that will never happen. But all of it could happen under a Democratic Senate and House after the 2026 elections, should voters agree Republicans have failed spectacularly to do their jobs. 

A properly functioning Congress, just as the Framers intended, could stop many of Trump’s tyrannical executive’s outrages.

Republicans’ brazen refusal to do their constitutionally assigned duties should compel voters to boot them out in 2026. Since they have shirked their duties and thereby enabled Trump’s corruption, malfeasance, and replete policy failures, what justification could there be to rehire them?

Perhaps if numbers such as $230M (Trump’s demand) or 3% (new inflation high) or $300M (cost of a garish ballroom) do not impress MAGA members of Congress, some others might:

• 9%: the generic poll advantage for Democrats (50-41) for the 2026 midterms according to the Quinnipiac Poll

• 15%: Congressional approval under the Gallup poll (and also the percentage by which Democrats have overperformed in 2025 races; if you are wondering, more than 40 Republicans won their races by 15% or less in 2024).

• 25%: Trump approval among Hispanic voters in the recent Associated Press-NORC-poll. (Republicans might have unwisely banked on high Hispanic support in Trump’s re-redistricting gambit.)

Put simply, if MAGA lawmakers are not moved by their oaths of office or the health and security of the American people, perhaps the prospect of a blue wave in 2026 will jolt them from their slumber. If Democrats perform strongly next week in elections in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania (state supreme court), and California (Prop. 50), Republicans might become “disconcerted” enough to take up their constitutional obligations.

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Laughter's the Best Medicine

 Posting these for a blogger to share with her husband who is suffering from a rare cancer.

Friday Photos

I didn't get to walk on Wednesday this week because of rain.  Thursday was home school day here for granddaughter #1, so when Friday's weather invited me outside, I went.

After dropping something off at a neighbor's house I took these photos.

The reddish line is blueberry bushes.

Look at the tree colors.  Though the maples have long since dropped all their leaves the aspen, birch, beech are now yellow and the oaks are bronze and brown.

These maple leaves are still hanging on though the top of the tree is bare.

Then cutting through my yard I decided to refill the bird feeder and add support sticks to the snow peas.

If they flower before it snows I may get some snowpeas to enjoy.  I do need to thin the lettuce.

Walking down my road heading north I took a side trip through to my neighbor's field of blueberries.

My leaves got dumped back here.  I'm grateful to my neighbor for offer this dumping site.

Some of the red blueberry bushes.

Continuing down the road I heard destruction ahead and realized this barn was being taken down.

The siding on the south side had been removed and hopefully repurposed  but the rest of the structure is coming down into a dumpster.

Across the road the millionaire owners continue to contract for more stone walls to be built.

This prefab house looks complete now.  It overlooks the barn that's being removed.

The view from this property is lovely. Neighborhood talk is that the millionaires purchased a house and barn in southern NH that's being moved here.  Siting of it is up in the air.

Listen to the wind in the aspen.

On my return trip I detoured again to look at the excavator that looked to be moved.

Too bad the little stream is dry.

This side trip was on a snowmobile trail.

Returning the way I came I thought the yellows in this stand of trees was the best I'd seen.

I wonder how long these crabapples will hang on through the next months.

That's the walk for today.

Books Read

I just finished reading my 70th book for this year.  I wonder if I'll make it to 100?

You'll notice on the list a lot of books by Archer Mayor.  He writes a detective series set south of here in Brattleboro, Vermont. It's interesting to read a book that mentions places I've been and places close to home.  Our library has all his books and I recently discovered them so reading them in order makes sense. I'll be checking out #7 next.

Of the most recent reads I'd recommend:

Northern Spy - set in Northern Ireland before the peace with IRA

The Forest of Vanishing Stars - a very engrossing novel set in Poland during WWII

Original Sin - about Biden and what people knew about him in his last months before bowing out of the 2024 race.

Any book recommendations for me?

Sharing from the Contrarian

 I am not a terrorist and neither was anyone who stood there on the streets of Windsor on Saturday holding our signs saying NO KINGS!.

Words & Phrases We Could Do Without

‘Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals...’ and antifa too!

JENNIFER RUBIN OCT 21

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White House mouthpiece Karoline Leavitt declared last week that Democrats’ “main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” That followed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson smear of 7 million people preparing to turn out for peaceful No Kings Day protests. Johnson declared that millions of fellow Americans were the “Hate America” crowd, the “pro-Hamas wing and the, you know, the Antifa people.”

Who knew there were 7M such people in the United States?! And how cleverthey are—terrorists disguised as grandmothers, babies in strollers, aging veterans, young parents, and spirited folks wearing inflatable animal costumes. Those sly “Hate America” types decided to bring American flags, hold up images of the Declaration of Independence, dress in 1776 garb, and reaffirm in hundreds of thousands of signs proclaiming their love for America. It turns out this hateful crowd is everywhere: in big and small cities, rural areas, mountain ranges, and beach towns. The Villages in Florida; Bozeman, Montana; all across Texas; in hundreds of red cities and counties; and even those beyond our borders are stocked with such signs.

To be clear, ten times the number that turned out on Saturday (roughly 70M) turned out to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. That’s an awful lot of “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”

Photo by Alex Gruber

We have to remember that the worst act of domestic violence in our lifetime was perpetrated by anti-democracy extremists on Jan. 6 at our Capitol, where Trump supporters attacked police, smashed windows, defaced the halls of Congress, and bore the flag of traitors (the Confederacy). Trump pardoned all of them, including the most violent criminals.

Yes, on one level it is absurd—stupid, even—for MAGA Republicans to denounce an entire party, tens of millions of Americans citizens, as outside the body politic. (They no doubt helped drive turnout.) Republicans are now effectively suggest that about half of the country should be arrested, deported, or worse. In going full partisan, Trump is in essence conceding that he is not president of the United States; he is just the leader of an increasingly unpopular cult. Likewise, in declaring it open season during the shutdown to hurt Democrats who benefit from programs, fire Democrats who run them, and dismantle programs Democrats like, Trump is only reaffirming that he only cares about those who support him. (Of course, he is hurting those supporters even more severely, given the overrepresentation of red state Americans who benefit from Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies.)

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This is more than rhetorical hypocrisy. MAGA politicians who, for instance, insist Charlie Kirk’s murder was the result of “hate speech” (notice how—as of yet—no sound evidence has emerged that the killer was motivated by leftwing ideology) have no business demonizing and dehumanizing Democrats. They certainly have no basis to flyspeck Democrats’ accurate descriptions of the views and rhetoric of MAGA politicians (including the vice president, who blithely excuses adults spewing bile about rape, the Holocaust, and Black people, and knowingly fomented baseless vitriol against Haitian immigrants).

If their rhetoric was “merely” irresponsible, hypocritical, and disgusting, MAGA pols’ attacks on millions of Americans would be bad enough, but along with excluding half of the country from “real America,” the administration is simultaneously launching a terrifying legal offensive involving every aspect of federal power from ICE to the IRS to the FBI to the Justice Department.

Trump’s executive order to identify “antifa” as a domestic terror organization becomes all the more dangerous when he and his party label everyone and anyone it dislikes as terrorist, Hamas operative, or a member of antifa. Those phases emerging from the mouths of autocrat bullies have lost all meaning. If “terrorist” or “antifa” can apply to grandmas, parents with kids, veterans, students, teachers, government workers, scientists, elected Democrats, and other patriots who peacefully demonstrate, then these labels applied by Leavitt, Johnson, and Trump apply to millions of Americans become farcical.

It is past time to acknowledge that the whole antifa/Hamas/illegal immigrant/terrorist demonization shtick is a clumsy, unconstitutional maneuver to weaponize the federal government against anyone who does not fall into line in Trump’s autocracy.

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Anti-fascist is the most accurate term to describe the vast cross-section of Americans of different ages, races, creeds, ethnicities, beliefs, geographic locations, jobs, specific complaints, and political affiliations who turned out to demonstrate peacefully (unlike ICE agents who kidnap and brutalize Americans in the streets, use pepper spray and other weapons, and show up masked and unidentified).

If Republicans bothered to pay the slightest attention to what demonstrators say, write, and do, they would know that anti-fascism is what has bound them together, just as anti-fascism bound together the Allies in WW2, the men and women who fought Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan and liberated the death camps, the opponents of dictators like Viktor Orbán and Jair Bolsonaro and Vladimir Putin, and the civil rights protestors who marched and died to liberate the Black population from white oppression, violence, and persecution.

So let’s dump these absurd slurs. In their anger, hatred, and panic in the face of a diverse democracy, MAGA politicians have made a mockery of the vocabulary they are using against their opponents. If MAGA wants to declare war on or silence millions of patriots, they cannot complain when we identify them as autocrats or fascists. They define themselves by what they are against.

That still leaves open a question for Trump and his fellow slanderers: If anti-fascists who pay tribute to democracy, free speech, nonviolence, empathy, the rule of law, and our founding documents are the target of MAGA’s ire, what does that make Leavitt, Johnson, Vance, Trump, and the rest?

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