181 Comments

Thanks Jeff. The media loves this. Instead of having to pay for writers, actors, directors, and a production crew, they can just put a camera and a microphone in front of America’s sociopathic failed reality host circus clown and get ratings and advertising revenue pours in.

When I saw the movie “Idiocracy”, I had no idea it was a speculative documentary, did you?

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I live in the South--I saw the Idiocracy in its Petrie dish stages.

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It’s peach tree dish.

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LOL! For the Gazpacho police!

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I can only wonder if they are indeed this stupid of just doing this kinda of stuff for the lulz.

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😂

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Honestly, we'd be better off with The Undertaker running for president.

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Worse, they're not treating him like a conventional politician, they're treating him like someone deserving of praise and worship.

I keep waiting for this "liberal media" I keep hearing about to make themselves known and start ringing some bells here but either I've gone deaf or the media is leaning so far right they're practically on the ground.

Republicans are openly trying to destroy America while hugging their flags. And all this is just because their average voter wants to be racist in public.

What the actual blistering fuck?

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Nicolle Wallace-MSNBC-rips him DAILY! More people need to watch her and her guests.

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author

Nicole's great (she follows me on Twitter, how could she not be great?) — but she's just one voice. the media needs to rise up en masse.

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Right. She's preaching to the choir. WAPO has turned on us too, I canceled my

subscription.

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I'm considering doing same, but it's killing me. WaPo is my hometown newspaper and Sally Buzbee has turned it into a rightwing hellscape. She obviously wants to give the NYTIMES a run for its money to see who can get Orange Fuckstain back into the Oval first.

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Fuck it Sally, it's the principle of it and if we lose that we're as shitty as they are. The other night they had a fucked-up piece about General Milley, commenters were outraged and were cancelling their accounts.

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I read that horrible piece of trash with my mouth agape the entire time...what a piece of shit that was!!!! SMH!! Haven't cancelled WaPo yet because to me it's still the best of a a bad lot...but I'm close! What then?

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Sad but true!

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Totally agree Jeff!

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She takes no prisoners.

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This ugly scary circus is beyond sick and how it shows us that the tangerine turd is even more incompetent, deranged and dangerous than he was several years ago. Trump's insane behavior should be a top priority for the media these days. It might not be enough to convince some of his dipshit cultists who worship this 300 lb. festering malignancy but hopefully it would help keep him from ever being near the Oval Office again.

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But they can sure the fuck report a simple Biden gaff can't they?

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Isn't that just maddening? I am tired of wrestling with people who get on the "Biden is old and mentally unfit" crowd.

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it's brainwashing propaganda. none of the journalist or politicians can find a

damn thing wrong with him. NO ONE I know thinks he's too old.

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Steve Schmidt does and he has a big bullhorn. This is not the time to switch out horses in the big race!

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i read but DO NOT pay to read Steve's newsletter. I find he's more interested in his use of words than his message. Plus, he's rich ten times over AND he's too fucking aggressive in selling himself. I used to like him but there's something off about him now. Don't think he's on Team Democracy.

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Maddening is the right word!

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For a week straight.

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It's all about the ratings and the money it generates. The media would rather focus on a lying, felonious asshole than the guy who is sincere and gets things done for the good of the country.

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true and it breaks my heart. money will be the thing that takes down our country and the world.

our best hope are the young people on the planet, it will be their world, so they better get cracking.

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Wait wait wait you mean he's not 215 lbs.??

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The cable programs can't sell enough true crime entertainment-documentaries, entire channels on various kinds of murder and one on How to ID a psychopath. Well here is one that we all should be able to identify but not one word on his mental health. Look, these cowards could at least point out the attributes of his personality that are evidence that he IS one. How about not one possible example of him showing empathy? I mean wtf was that in Puerto Rico tossing paper towels if not contempt and cruelty? There are many more. Like his contempt for the military and the recent mentions of General Milley,but they can't call it like it is, his MO forever? One mention but no reporting in any complexity or contrast.

I guess that "Crack out of turn, on the grift" oh, sorry revenue stream & ratings for the next year. Sheesh...

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The "liberal" mainstream media is bending over backwards (to put it nicely) in order to seem "fair" to the Right wing by harping on every breath Joe Biden and his son take, and nothing on Trump and his decrepit brain. Is it mental illness, Alzheimers, some other form of dementia. I don't know. I am not around him (thank goodness) and I cannot observe him up close, or at all for that matter (thank goodness). What I keep hearing does sound like dementia is onsetting. With Reagan, Nancy took over and hid him and who was making decisions from us.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dementia/symptoms-causes/syc-20352013

No one takes over from Donald Trump. In fact, if he does have dementia, as it progresses he could get meaner. He has already called for his ex-Vice President to be hung, a retiring General that he appointed to be executed, and everyone that voted for Biden, or intends to, to be gotten rid of. That includes a huge part of my family, several of them under 25. I assume that is true of the readers of this Substack too.

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I think what we maybe seeing is evidence of "narcissistic collapse " that I have read about but have no professional ability to pronounce.

Trump as a malignant narcissist creates his own reality literally when he is blowing his lie hole at his events but he is mixing up his stories and subjects which maybe an example of the stress of real world reality breaking through. Just a thought.

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Make no mistake, Trump is being controlled. The destruction of our democracy was in the works decades ago.

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I think Joy Reid does a good job, and I have heard Lawrence O'Donnell spout some pretty good rants, he HATES trump! I used to read Mehdi Hasan on the Intercept (still subscribe) and he can rip on trump well too---Alex Wagner has done some good documentaries. I found her first during Covid on a podcast called Six Feet Apart and it was great. IMHO!! of course.

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p.s. Alex W's feature on Florida New College was very well done! again, imo...

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AfuckingMen @Endless Nameless!! Jesus Fucking Christ this Orange ShitStain and his lobotomied brain farts 💨 are destroying this country and his MaggAT infested lemmings don’t give a rats ass about this country.. they want ALL Whiteness ALL the time and anyone of any color other than white can lick their disgusting loafers. They can Fuck all the way OFF !! Racist Asskissers🖕🏽🤙🏽🖕🏽🤡

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I like to be here because I can say what I might not say elsewhere, but the best thing that could happen is Trump gets so stressed he has a cardiac fatal event, or he falls in a well, or a team of rabid bears finds him and rips him to shreds. I have visions.

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founding

The structure was built first, then they looked for some charismatic nimrod to fit the (baggy) suit. When trump is gone, (my personal vision is tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail), someone else will be plugged into the spot and the structure will carry on. It has to be destroyed from the bottom up.

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That is certainly true and we do know that. But I'd like to get rid of trump just because he's trump and I've never. ever liked him.

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founding

I’ll bring the tar and feathers. Meet me at dawn and bring the rail.

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hey, you're my kind of fox. I'll be there. I do have one thing I like, it is obvious from Trump's eyes most of the time now he is sleep deprived. As if we couldn't tell from all the weird new out of his mind utterances all over the place.

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I prefer the Prince Vlad method.(Empale him!!)

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I think they should get the treatment they'd get from Putin if they displease anyone.

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will be WILD!! lolol

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I agree. The plan to drown democracy in the bathtub started decades ago!

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founding

Yep. Exactly. I remember when Nikita Khrushchev said "We will bury you" (I’m old) but Russians didn’t have to go it alone. The (fill in the blank dirty word) was coming from inside the house.

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Agreed

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Even then I'm pretty sure their plan still works as long as any Republican wins the Oval Office. Legitimately or not because I'm sure if they cheat a win their first step will be nuking the evidence.

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I disagree. I believe without trump they will all just fight each other for the crumbs. Shit look at the House right now.

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I hope you're right but as we know, you live in Mexico and I'm leaving the US. Obviously neither of us has enough faith left in America to want to live here.

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That's only a tiny reason I moved here. I live in a beautiful (for now that is) town, I have always loved Mexican culture and its people, the weather is fabulous, the cost of living of course is a third of most of the states.

I was a serious activist for six years before I moved and one of the reasons, was that I wanted to have little to no guilt with leaving my country. Plus, I was fucking sick of all the anger around me up there, I'm too old for it.

But if somehow trump won which I truly do not believe he will. but if he did, there will be a mass exodus in the U.S. and Mexico is a great place to move to. And BTW, where I live, the medical and dentistry is great!

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One of my brothers moved to Patzcuaro with his husband decades ago for all the reasons you mention. Good for you! :)

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I've been here two years now and am still adjusting. I just finished by book about the whys, the how's and the road trip to Mexico with my poodle Pearl and my fashion mannequin riding shotgun in the moving truck. I can’t say I'll live here forever but for now it’s all good.

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The only problem with a mass exodus is the cost of leaving the US. Most will be trapped in a hellscape of unimaginable terror if Trump wins, or someone just like him.

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I have heard good things.

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May I ask where you're moving? I dream of leaving the country but haven't picked a place yet....

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Switzerland is my first pick, but if for some reason that falls through, Germany is my second.

My search was based on Googles for happiest countries, healthiest countries, women's rights and freedoms, top countries for education...Switzerland was top five in everything. Denmark and the Netherlands score highly too.

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Thanks...I know of some folks who have moved to Portugal bc they say its the easiest in the EU to get permanent residency.

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I met a man here who had moved to Switzerland because he married a Swiss woman. They left because he said the Swiss people were a closed off tight bunch. They stuck to the people they knew and grew up with. Thats one person’s opinion. I’ll say this, you can do all the research you can but until you LIVE the consequences you just cannot know the outcome. My biggest disappointment has been the expats. A good third of who i meet I can’t stand!

And another thing I couldn’t have seen coming, was how much the pandemic changed society everywhere.

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Sep 26, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023

I wholeheartedly agree. Fascism is unfortunately alive and well in this country, with or without Trump. Lorraine, I know you and I disagree on this, but unfortunately I think it will play out that someone will step in and take his place. Esp with Project 2025 floating around out there.

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Me too! I keep my visions to myself. It’s NOT only me who wants to wrap a rope around the orange orangutan nightmare’s neck! Good to know I have company. I really do wish him harm...agony...a horrible death. But I’m a Christian otherwise.

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Well...I think that's ok, since he is the devil's spawn...

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I have similar visions. The reality is Trump is nothing but window dressing. If he were to pass away, someone just as vicious and dictatorial will take his place! The evisceration of democracy started decades ago! It is heartbreaking that so many gullible Americans will side with him and the Republican Party, not understanding the extreme dangers these miscreants pose.

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For your visions, I counter with my schadenfreude!!

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I like the rabid bears.

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My visions involve well-aimed lightning bolts.

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Sep 26, 2023Liked by Jeff Tiedrich

Anyone in the media, like myself, who would stand up to a Trump has been LAID OFF.

The media companies laid us all off! All us journalists of a certain age who would speak truth to power. More than 10,000 of us. Blogs like "Paper Cuts" used to try to document it, but guess who didn't report on the decades of layoffs of talent and experience, all the shrinking papers, all the news deserts? THE NATION'S MEDIA DID NOT.

You think Gannett is going to tell you how shitty their product is now? How few reporters they have left in every city, and how cowed and afraid of their own shadows are the reporters who are left? How young and green so many of them are, just learning journalism let alone how to Speak Truth To Power.

For decades, when you got laid off, you had to keep it quiet. Skulk around for another job or learn to "reinvent" yourself. American journalism was blood-letted. And nobody talked about it, not the J Schools, not Poynter Institute, not Columbia Journalism Review, not really. They just let it happen. Acted like it was a necessary correction to literally disable every newsroom right before the election of Trump.

It wasn't a coincidence. Neither is all the slippage you've seen at papers like The New York Times, when it publishes trans-panic stories or unread op-eds by Tom Cotton. Someone High Up wants this. It's not a coincidence that throughout the Trump era, the paper liberals love to love, The Washington Post, had RONALD REAGAN'S CHIEF OF STAFF as their Publisher.

Who can forget Pulitzer-winning Post columnist Kathleen Parker's inane "Settle down, Trump won't issue a Muslim ban or do anything else crazy!" column before the inauguration. Remember? Took her, what, two years to issue a lukewarm non-apology for patronizing the entire nation with untrue BS?

There is rot, and it's at the top of journalism, and it just continues apace and you should be scared....

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I really like the Guardian, seems to have the most timely and accurate reporting.

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Sep 26, 2023·edited Sep 26, 2023

Apparently too many journalists prize their jobs and fame above their country and morals.

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They do want to keep their jobs. Fame, that's for the TV "journalists" to worry about. And we all know where TV journalists get their facts; From the legacy print journalists. Those are, overall, terrific journos trying to do terrific work. What they can't tell you, what they won't tell you because they have some misguided sense that they're protecting Journalism Itself by not complaining, is how GUTTED their newsrooms are, how much their job has changed in the last 15 years, how powerless their understaffed and abused skeleton crews are against the rising tide of Authoritarianism and Autocracy. Their bosses aren't good journalists, they're mercenaries out to destroy Truth.

If reporters could actually turn their powers on their own newsrooms and expose them, but they don't. They're cliques. They turn a blind eye to it all, maybe even tossing out a quip about how watching journalism being made is like watching sausage being made, you shouldn't examine it.

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What cloud are you shaking at, old reporter? lol.

Journalism is a search for truth. We are in a post-truth era. You can be an ugly, lying, sonofabitch and also King of The World, a bestselling author who can't write, a billionaire life coach trainwreck. I would think trying to write Truth with a jaunty institutional voice feels quite paralyzing these days. So ultimately journalists and journalism remain a courageous pursuit, and management is still the devil.

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It’s scary. Damn Scary. Darn fucking scary. It’s a fucking real plan they’re already putting the framework in place. It’s an abomination, already destroying our democracy piece by piece by piece. The country our fathers and grandfathers fought for and many died for. My daughter gave birth to her first child, a son, yesterday. I’m voting for his future.

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Congratulations on your grandson! I, too, am voting for the future of my 3 granddaughters and 6 great grandkids. 💙

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Thank you! And i just found out that yesterday was National Daughter’s Day - oops. This is my 4th grandchild but my only daughter so it’s pretty special. 8 grandkids between me & my husband!

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I’ve read a little of Project25. The media’s hair may not be on fire but mine sure is. Reads like “1984”.

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Remember after the Mueller Report came out there were readings all over the country, even on Broadway? There should be something like that going on soon.

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I hope so. Activists are putting it out on Instagram. At least the youngest voters are seeing it.

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It’s like 814 pages, i just started skimming it. Bad news and also very contradictory in some positions re directions it may take.

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The media is too afraid of not having "access", whatever that means. Apparently, they are willing to pimp themselves out and trade their human dignity. The price tag? Leave your heart, mind, and soul at the door. As was pointed out elsewhere, they also won't mind having someone dictate to them what they should say and how they shroud say it. In other words, they will willingly become a part of state media so long as they get a big fat paycheck. The flipside of this, of course, is if they anger dear Leader, their head will be on a spike right next to William Wallace's. I seriously believe they all have Daddy issues, how else can you explain their eagerness to be ruled. All I can say is they need to find their own little Idaho somewhere else and leave America out of it!

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Access as in granting interviews which then leads to us clicking on the story which leads to advertising dollars for the news outlet. 24/7 'news' is one of the worst things to come along.

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It allowed them to make mountains of the molehills and scare the gullible into spending dollar after dollar on stuff that isn't even real...

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founding

For the record, Nicole Wallace and guests (MSNBC, 4 - 6 PM Eastern time) DO have their hair on fire! If you can’t watch during those hours, record and watch as much as you can later.

Husband and I just got back from early voting in a small local primary election. It used to be so easy to blow these off. No more! When the polls open, we’re there. For the first time photo ID was required and we had to answer a series of questions. There were almost no voters but the process was still noticeably slower than it used to be. As always, I thanked the poll workers for being there. As always, they appreciated it.

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A series of questions? What kind of questions?

(The only question I asked as a poll worker was "are you registered to vote?" Then it was name and year of birth. Verify address and print the ballot. That's it.

I worked the polls for 6 years. I live in New Mexico. It's easy to vote here. And we have same day voter registration.

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Joy Reid has discussed as well.

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Anyone remember Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, who Trump pardoned for war crimes? At the time, it seemed to me like Trump was building his team of strong-arm SS men. I hate to use the comparison to Hitler's rise that so many use because it seems to fall on deaf ears, but Trump has been doing this for a long long while. Jeff is right that this is going on and that no one seems to be paying attention.

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And we have jackass Tubby Tuberville refusing to fill military positions. I'd heard somewhere that he was doing it so when Trump came back into office he could fill them with his sycophantic military worshippers.

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Correct!

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Ding! Ding! Ding! Yes you are absofuckinglutely correct! There is no sense of urgency here. None. I didn't think he would win in 2016 but I was certainly wrong. He lived up to all of the horror, all of the corruption, all of the insanity that I thought he was capable of and more. Much more. Like you stated, he has waaaay more monstrous things in store for those of us who are not in lockstep (goosestep) with him and his goons. Hell, the only thing the media can do is harp on Biden's age when we have a Hitler wannabe waiting in the wings with nary a peep about his insane, murderous plans . They helped to get us this cretin in the first place for ratings and have not learned one thing since then even though, as you say, he wants to take revenge on them(those that are not pandering to him) in the worst way.

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I don't have an intelligent response. I do have an emotional response, though. Fear. This fear will motivate me to write to the decision-makers about this. Money over everything because you just can't be rich enough. News should be just that. Keep opinions to yourself.

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And what’s worse is that there is no shortage of republican voters who think this is not a bad idea, and who will support him at the polls.

The man is a menace indeed and if there are any republicans left with any common sense they will not vote for Trump.

Can you imagine the chaos at schools if there is an election for every principal at every school in the country every year? Such stupidity boggles the mind.

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"In other words, they will willingly become part of state media so long as they get a big fat paycheck."

But...one of the _few_ things Donald was famous for before being a reality TV show dipshit was _not fucking paying people._

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The recipe for how this makes me feel: Two heaping teaspoons of mind-boggled, three cups each of infuriated and terrified, and a gallon of WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!!!

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The media is treating his ACTUAL THREATS as legitimate political discourse! This is so fucking dangerous, and where is the court?!Put this sociopath in jail to shut him up and await his trial. I’m dying to see what color his hair really is!

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He doesn't have any real hair....🙄

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Oh Jeff, it's easy to understand why the media is all in on tRump. Because basically, their oligarch owners don't want to have to pay wealth taxes under Biden's tac plan. See how easy that is to understand.

Rich and ultrarich people love living in the US because the tax code favors them above all others. They get to take advantage of all that this country has to offer, and not want or have to pay for anything. And they know that tRump is as easy to manipulate as a ventriloquist's dummy, and making Republican politicians rich as well helps ensure the tax code stays just the way it is.

And so, we have near silence on just how abnormal tRump is, so that Rs can get back in the WH, and then take over Congress, and away we go with the rich getting richer, while the rest of us pay the bills.

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