WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — In a counterproposal designed to ease tensions with the United States, on Thursday Greenland suggested that Donald J. Trump acquire Jeffrey Epstein’s island instead.
“President Trump has no roots on our island,” Greenlandic government spokesman Hartvig Dorkelson said. “Epstein’s island, on the other hand, must stir many happy memories for him.”
Acknowledging that Epstein’s island “could benefit from rebranding,” Dorkelson said, “More than the Kennedy Center, this is a place that should have Trump’s name on it.”
Meanwhile, Trump ramped up his imperialist rhetoric, declaring that the US needed to own Lapland in order to corner the world market in laptops.
Reminds me of that line about how to respond to bear encounters with various types of bears: If it's black, fight back, if it's brown, lay down, if it's white, say goodnight.
Reenforcing Simon's point (repeatedly made for months and with even more urgency these past weeks), G. Elliott Morris in today's Strength In Numbers post on Substack makes the COMPELLING case for Ds to run ON the immigration issue instead of away from it. As he notes, the "pictures in voters' heads" when the word "immigration" is used have now changed from border chaos and systems overwhelmed to masked ICE agents shooting American citizens in the face. AND THEY DON'T LIKE THOSE IMAGES.
Morris reviews some of the same polling Simon has shared and connects the dots in full boldface type that--as Pritzker's COS said via Simon's post today--this is an issue that now works FOR Ds and in very huge numbers (70-30). Beyond that, it's also the morally right thing to do. And when moral clarity combines with electoral clarity, good things happen. Positive change happens.
All D elected officials--especially those in Congress--need to put this front and center now. Share more videos; tell more truthful stories; keep those images in voters' heads.
I also liked this essay, as well as what Simon has been writing. I’m unclear where Democrats in Congress are now. Is Congress working on another CR to keep the government open? Morris cites Mark Warner in a way that suggests Warner doesn’t want another shutdown. I’m hoping Democrats in Congress realize the situation with ICE is so grave that they may have to press Republicans to rein in ICE.
I'm guessing Warner's unease comes from the fact that he represents Virginia, with its large population of federal employees/contractors, who don't want to endure missed paychecks, etc. from another government shutdown. I sympathize with that view--to an extent. But the fact of ICE abuses--and continued escalation of those lawless abuses--has to transcend other legitimate needs. Warner's government employees/contractors don't want to go unpaid again. But I don't think they want to get shot in the face for peacefully protesting ICE's illegal actions, either. And I think that's what Morris was trying to emphasize. If the only leverage we have to rein in ICE is through government funding, then we need to use it--just as we used it to try to get the ACA subsidies extended. It may or may not work. Some innocent government employees and contractors will be hurt by another shutdown. But the entire country is being hurt by ICE running wild, so we have to try and we have to use whatever leverage we have.
I just made calls today to my Maryland representatives asking, in part, for ICE to be abolished. I recognize that ICE is the successor/merger of the US Customs Service and the US Immigration and Naturalization Service. In other words, I recognize that there are some legitimate functions assigned to ICE that would need to continue. However, I don't think that we, as outraged citizens calling our representatives, need to get into the fine print of how that would be done; our electeds would know better than we laypeople. They just need to hear our anger and our demand that ICE be abolished.
I posted late last night on yesterday's thread, too late for the community, so reposting today:
Boston and a couple neighboring towns have a holiday, Evacuation Day, which honors the day the British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776 after the 11-month siege of the city. We celebrate Evacuation Day annually still, and this year it'll mean so much more as we think about Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, DC, and wherever else they head, including here (they're here already, but yet not in Minneapolis' numbers). At some point, we'll need a holiday marking the end of MAGA/Trump - the only thing named for him - his evacuation day.
Simon, and friends here. These words, in a book called Book and Dagger about the start of the U.S. spying apparatus, helped me earlier this morning when I read them. It is my hope they will offer some small hope to this community today: "Small groups of people really can change the world. Call it the power of small numbers: the unreasonable, improbable, wonderful ability of small groups of outsiders to challenge huge powers precisely because they have strengths that those powers see as weakness…. Authoritarianism is a catastrophic intellectual handicap."
— Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Hello, dear you. This is such an interesting, unexpected book. It has taken me a while to read but I am so glad I continued on, toward these words, which help us remember, in this moment, that we can and will overcome.
100% we will. In Montgomery, and Birmingham, they did not even have the help of the police or the instant power of social media, or the same ability to document the horror. And yet they found ways to make sure the world knew, and not only persisted, they prevailed. Keep going.
I am visualizing everything that you are saying and doing. And I pray that our collective actions will finish this task of keeping our great United States a free democratic nation
Simon How can we support Minnesota in the face of these violent threats by ICE and he is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act without state agreement
I suggest calling your reps, making sure they understand how bad it is here (people really truly do not understand), and asking that they do everything in their power to draw attention to it and rein in ICE.
There are also good organizations on the ground doing great work, but I want to get Simon or Lincoln's approval to post fundraising stuff that's not for Hopium projects.
Words have power. Words do not merely describe our reality but help to construct the world as we perceive it. Thus, the words that we choose to use in our fight against fascism are critically important in shaping public opinion and, consequently, the society that we hope to build.
The current iteration of ICE should never be called a law enforcement agency because it operates in total disregard of the law. Every day now, ICE agents are pulling people out of cars, invading their homes, and kidnapping them off the street, with no apparent risk of discipline or consequence, even though they have no legal cause or basis for their actions. This is no law enforcement organization any more than the KKK was a community group. ICE should be characterized for what it is—a Nazi goon squad or Trump’s personal paramilitary organization, whichever you prefer. These names reflect its essential character and conduct. What would you call it?
“Gestapo, the political police of Nazi Germany. The Gestapo ruthlessly eliminated opposition to the Nazis within Germany and its occupied territories and, in partnership with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; “Security Service”), was responsible for the roundup of Jews throughout Europe for deportation to extermination camps.” Encyclopedia Brittanica online
Judging from the social media posts of the Department of Labor, DHS, and other agencies, I can only infer that they aren't even trying to disguise the connection to white supremacy anymore.
I think all of these names for ICE are great candidates since they call it for what it is. There is, of course, multiple other examples. For instance, every time we address Trump as President, we are advancing a lie and bestowing respect on someone who deserves none. One of the central roles of a president is to faithfully execute and enforce the laws created by Congress. Since his inauguration almost a year ago, Trump has not had any intention of doing so. Laws, whether enacted by Congress or laid out in the Constitution, are of no import to him. Trump is a mob boss directing a massive criminal enterprise. He is Dapper Don II—a worthy successor to the notorious Gambino crime family leader also known as the Teflon Don. What would you call him?
In such a wide-ranging discussion and in such a time of daily, even hourly atrocities delivered by our government, I would really appreciate it if such specific accusations as those made above contained references to reliable sources for verification.
I'm talking about:
"...he has, in his desperation and growing madness, declared himself Emperor of the Western Hemisphere, High Lord of the Western Hemisphere, and has declared that the US Constitution, domestic US law, the UN Charter, international law, and Senate ratified treaties with our allies no longer apply to him and his regime."
John I've put a link back into the piece that will take you to one of the times we discussed it but we literally did 2 full interviews last week on this, and perhaps 4-5 posts.
I agree and I do think we now have a shot at the Senate. But I see it as a sign of weakness that it even got to that point and that they had to drag the odious Vance back to break the tie.
They let a few Senators vote against something, but not enough to defeat it. They give the few like Collins, Murkowksi (I guess especially) the freedom to do this, but only give enough passes so that it is a tie that Vance can break it. None of that is by accident.
Hi all - Minnesotan here. I’ve lived here most of my life, including 17 years in the actual city of Minneapolis.
I want to quantify how much escalation we’re seeing. Chicago was 600 agents in a metro of 9.1 million people. MSP is up to 3000 agents in a metro of 3.7 million people. That is 5x the agents in a metro that is 40% the size of Chicago. This is a 12.5x escalation on a per capita basis. That is an order of magnitude.
What you can do to help is donate money to the various community actions (groceries, toiletries, etc) for people who aren’t safe to leave their homes. Google Wrecktangle Pizza for a good example.
Call your Congress members today and make it a habit. We need to pressure both sides of the aisle to action.
Educate yourself and your networks on what is happening here. Help us sway public opinion against further occupation and escalation.
I emailed my Northern Virginian congressman and Sens. Warner and Kaine the following message:
Please do everything you can to rein in the out-of-control ICE. It is no longer an immigration enforcement agency. It is a blatant militia of heavily armed thugs serving as Trump’s Gestapo. They are marauding gangs with no restraint, ripping people from their cars and homes, assaulting bystanders and arrestees, waving weapons in peoples’ faces, and randomly shooting pepper spray and tear gas at peaceful demonstrators and observers.
--Oppose any increased funding for ICE and seek funding and staffing cuts.
--Support legislation, lawsuits and any other avenues to ensure proper vetting, training, supervision and accountability of ICE and other federal agents being deployed in Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign.
--Support the impeachment and expulsion of Kristi Noem (if not others, too).
One of the themes of the moment for me is about speaking truth. We have so many pundits and politicians who refuse to tell the truth about what we're seeing with our own eyes. And I don't mean Trump and his merry band of fuckwits and fabricators, but everyone who treated (and treats) Trump like a normal politician, and these times as normal. Whether its his autocratic ambitions, his idiocy, his clear decline, the dangers he poses to the economy, to our health, to our safety, to the very structures of our democracy and the world order, the people we count on to be our eyes and ears, to be our voices and our fighters, do not tell the truth.Among everything else, it makes us feel incredibly alone.
This is a very long way of saying how grateful I am to Simon, and to this community, for making sure the truth about what's happening in Minneapolis gets told.
There seems to be a very recent escalation of MAGA chuds taking protests in their own hands. Today our Visibility Brigade held up an "ICE out" banner over the freeway like we do twice a week, revolving messages based national events. We're accustomed to being flipped off or coal rolled by a hand full of POed MAGA. No big deal.
Today however two separate men, (White men 40s-50s) came by in their cars to haze, photograph, attempting to bully us. This is a specific escalation. We've been doing this for many months and this is the first time this has happened. I suspect MAGA is growing frustrated that people aren't just lying back and taking it, still standing, still protesting in spite of the violence.
Keep standing but be aware of this potential and take care.
I’m in eastern Iowa. Our “ICE out for Good” overpass sign two days ago mostly elicited positive responses, but so far the negative responses have been limited to finger gestures.
We get very positive responses in general to our banners. This week quite a few of the big trucks chimed in positively for the first time but those two men were very hostile, also a first. We refused to engage or debate them.
ICE must be Stopped today! There must be someone powerful enough in our government who can stop them now. ICE must be disbanded, all their money is taken away now!
I don't always agree with Plouffe's opinions but boy, I believe he is spot on here. Great article. I wonder if anyone in leadership or their aides read it. Thank you for the gift article!
I recently completed a Great Course on the Civil War, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is so inspiring. For much of the Civil War, Lincoln couldn't find a general with enough ambition and fight, just as our party has been struggling to find leaders who will realize this isn't business as usual. But for Lincoln and for us, the fight has to go on until we win. We just have to keep doing the work.
To that end, I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen and am working on my postcards to NC voters.
Minnesota 's motto is "L'Étoile du Nord," the star of the North. I'm going to focus on that image today.
On a lighter note (perhaps especially needed now), Borowitz nails it once again!
. "Greenland Suggests Trump Acquire Epstein’s Island Instead"
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/greenland-suggests-trump-acquire
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — In a counterproposal designed to ease tensions with the United States, on Thursday Greenland suggested that Donald J. Trump acquire Jeffrey Epstein’s island instead.
“President Trump has no roots on our island,” Greenlandic government spokesman Hartvig Dorkelson said. “Epstein’s island, on the other hand, must stir many happy memories for him.”
Acknowledging that Epstein’s island “could benefit from rebranding,” Dorkelson said, “More than the Kennedy Center, this is a place that should have Trump’s name on it.”
Meanwhile, Trump ramped up his imperialist rhetoric, declaring that the US needed to own Lapland in order to corner the world market in laptops.
This is gold! Thanks. I needed the belly laugh.
Ditto that. Thanks to ArcticStones for posting this necessary comic relief.
It’s always darkest before the dawn. It will take effort, consistent effort, but we shall prevail.
A/S did you see the post about the "special envoy" to Greenland who wants to meet with Stephen Miller?
https://open.substack.com/pub/borowitzreport/p/envoy-from-greenland-offers-to-meet?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Oh, wow! Thank you so much – I missed that. Priceless!
Reminds me of that line about how to respond to bear encounters with various types of bears: If it's black, fight back, if it's brown, lay down, if it's white, say goodnight.
I would've thought for the lap dances.
Even better!
Brilliant!
Reenforcing Simon's point (repeatedly made for months and with even more urgency these past weeks), G. Elliott Morris in today's Strength In Numbers post on Substack makes the COMPELLING case for Ds to run ON the immigration issue instead of away from it. As he notes, the "pictures in voters' heads" when the word "immigration" is used have now changed from border chaos and systems overwhelmed to masked ICE agents shooting American citizens in the face. AND THEY DON'T LIKE THOSE IMAGES.
Morris reviews some of the same polling Simon has shared and connects the dots in full boldface type that--as Pritzker's COS said via Simon's post today--this is an issue that now works FOR Ds and in very huge numbers (70-30). Beyond that, it's also the morally right thing to do. And when moral clarity combines with electoral clarity, good things happen. Positive change happens.
All D elected officials--especially those in Congress--need to put this front and center now. Share more videos; tell more truthful stories; keep those images in voters' heads.
I also liked this essay, as well as what Simon has been writing. I’m unclear where Democrats in Congress are now. Is Congress working on another CR to keep the government open? Morris cites Mark Warner in a way that suggests Warner doesn’t want another shutdown. I’m hoping Democrats in Congress realize the situation with ICE is so grave that they may have to press Republicans to rein in ICE.
I'm guessing Warner's unease comes from the fact that he represents Virginia, with its large population of federal employees/contractors, who don't want to endure missed paychecks, etc. from another government shutdown. I sympathize with that view--to an extent. But the fact of ICE abuses--and continued escalation of those lawless abuses--has to transcend other legitimate needs. Warner's government employees/contractors don't want to go unpaid again. But I don't think they want to get shot in the face for peacefully protesting ICE's illegal actions, either. And I think that's what Morris was trying to emphasize. If the only leverage we have to rein in ICE is through government funding, then we need to use it--just as we used it to try to get the ACA subsidies extended. It may or may not work. Some innocent government employees and contractors will be hurt by another shutdown. But the entire country is being hurt by ICE running wild, so we have to try and we have to use whatever leverage we have.
I just made calls today to my Maryland representatives asking, in part, for ICE to be abolished. I recognize that ICE is the successor/merger of the US Customs Service and the US Immigration and Naturalization Service. In other words, I recognize that there are some legitimate functions assigned to ICE that would need to continue. However, I don't think that we, as outraged citizens calling our representatives, need to get into the fine print of how that would be done; our electeds would know better than we laypeople. They just need to hear our anger and our demand that ICE be abolished.
Cynthia, here's a piece that I think gives a good explanation of where things stand right now in terms of appropriations. https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/democrats-can-stop-or-slow-down-ice?r=2ia0gw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I posted late last night on yesterday's thread, too late for the community, so reposting today:
Boston and a couple neighboring towns have a holiday, Evacuation Day, which honors the day the British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776 after the 11-month siege of the city. We celebrate Evacuation Day annually still, and this year it'll mean so much more as we think about Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, DC, and wherever else they head, including here (they're here already, but yet not in Minneapolis' numbers). At some point, we'll need a holiday marking the end of MAGA/Trump - the only thing named for him - his evacuation day.
SO. MUCH. THIS.
Simon, and friends here. These words, in a book called Book and Dagger about the start of the U.S. spying apparatus, helped me earlier this morning when I read them. It is my hope they will offer some small hope to this community today: "Small groups of people really can change the world. Call it the power of small numbers: the unreasonable, improbable, wonderful ability of small groups of outsiders to challenge huge powers precisely because they have strengths that those powers see as weakness…. Authoritarianism is a catastrophic intellectual handicap."
— Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Beth, this is wonderful.
Hello, dear you. This is such an interesting, unexpected book. It has taken me a while to read but I am so glad I continued on, toward these words, which help us remember, in this moment, that we can and will overcome.
100% we will. In Montgomery, and Birmingham, they did not even have the help of the police or the instant power of social media, or the same ability to document the horror. And yet they found ways to make sure the world knew, and not only persisted, they prevailed. Keep going.
Yes, 100%. I believe this with my whole heart. And you would love this book!!!! It is written for people like us.
I love the line: "Authoritarianism is a catastrophic intellectual handicap."
I absolutely love that line. I want to make a sign and send it to Miller.
Right on, Beth. And, if small groups can make a big difference, imagine what a difference a million small groups can make! There are way more of us.
WOW! I'm totally ordering that book for my library! Not sure how I missed it.
I am visualizing everything that you are saying and doing. And I pray that our collective actions will finish this task of keeping our great United States a free democratic nation
Simon How can we support Minnesota in the face of these violent threats by ICE and he is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act without state agreement
I suggest calling your reps, making sure they understand how bad it is here (people really truly do not understand), and asking that they do everything in their power to draw attention to it and rein in ICE.
There are also good organizations on the ground doing great work, but I want to get Simon or Lincoln's approval to post fundraising stuff that's not for Hopium projects.
I appreciate the care and diligence of vetting referrals.
Is the Immugrant Defense Network one you would recommend?
Words have power. Words do not merely describe our reality but help to construct the world as we perceive it. Thus, the words that we choose to use in our fight against fascism are critically important in shaping public opinion and, consequently, the society that we hope to build.
The current iteration of ICE should never be called a law enforcement agency because it operates in total disregard of the law. Every day now, ICE agents are pulling people out of cars, invading their homes, and kidnapping them off the street, with no apparent risk of discipline or consequence, even though they have no legal cause or basis for their actions. This is no law enforcement organization any more than the KKK was a community group. ICE should be characterized for what it is—a Nazi goon squad or Trump’s personal paramilitary organization, whichever you prefer. These names reflect its essential character and conduct. What would you call it?
I call it ICE Gestapo.
“Gestapo, the political police of Nazi Germany. The Gestapo ruthlessly eliminated opposition to the Nazis within Germany and its occupied territories and, in partnership with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; “Security Service”), was responsible for the roundup of Jews throughout Europe for deportation to extermination camps.” Encyclopedia Brittanica online
ICEstapo for short.
My favorite sign from last weekend's rally was a sign with ICE written in which the E was a swastika.
I like to call them Ice Orcs. Orcs seems to fit.
Judging from the social media posts of the Department of Labor, DHS, and other agencies, I can only infer that they aren't even trying to disguise the connection to white supremacy anymore.
In my emails to my electeds today I said that ICE are domestic terrorists.
I think all of these names for ICE are great candidates since they call it for what it is. There is, of course, multiple other examples. For instance, every time we address Trump as President, we are advancing a lie and bestowing respect on someone who deserves none. One of the central roles of a president is to faithfully execute and enforce the laws created by Congress. Since his inauguration almost a year ago, Trump has not had any intention of doing so. Laws, whether enacted by Congress or laid out in the Constitution, are of no import to him. Trump is a mob boss directing a massive criminal enterprise. He is Dapper Don II—a worthy successor to the notorious Gambino crime family leader also known as the Teflon Don. What would you call him?
Being that we in NJ have dealt with his shite for decades, the list is long of things I could call him. Today, dumba$$ works. :)
JD Vance is a fascist
In such a wide-ranging discussion and in such a time of daily, even hourly atrocities delivered by our government, I would really appreciate it if such specific accusations as those made above contained references to reliable sources for verification.
I'm talking about:
"...he has, in his desperation and growing madness, declared himself Emperor of the Western Hemisphere, High Lord of the Western Hemisphere, and has declared that the US Constitution, domestic US law, the UN Charter, international law, and Senate ratified treaties with our allies no longer apply to him and his regime."
Simon already posted and discussed the NYT interview in which he did just that, and has been referencing it since. It's honestly just in the news.
John I've put a link back into the piece that will take you to one of the times we discussed it but we literally did 2 full interviews last week on this, and perhaps 4-5 posts.
So sick of these 50-51 Vance tiebreaker Senate votes. We have got to work in whatever ways we can to up our numbers. Tired of squeakers.
I agree and I do think we now have a shot at the Senate. But I see it as a sign of weakness that it even got to that point and that they had to drag the odious Vance back to break the tie.
They let a few Senators vote against something, but not enough to defeat it. They give the few like Collins, Murkowksi (I guess especially) the freedom to do this, but only give enough passes so that it is a tie that Vance can break it. None of that is by accident.
Well yeah, but flipping the Senate would change that calculus. :)
I’m all in believe me
Hi all - Minnesotan here. I’ve lived here most of my life, including 17 years in the actual city of Minneapolis.
I want to quantify how much escalation we’re seeing. Chicago was 600 agents in a metro of 9.1 million people. MSP is up to 3000 agents in a metro of 3.7 million people. That is 5x the agents in a metro that is 40% the size of Chicago. This is a 12.5x escalation on a per capita basis. That is an order of magnitude.
What you can do to help is donate money to the various community actions (groceries, toiletries, etc) for people who aren’t safe to leave their homes. Google Wrecktangle Pizza for a good example.
Call your Congress members today and make it a habit. We need to pressure both sides of the aisle to action.
Educate yourself and your networks on what is happening here. Help us sway public opinion against further occupation and escalation.
I emailed my Northern Virginian congressman and Sens. Warner and Kaine the following message:
Please do everything you can to rein in the out-of-control ICE. It is no longer an immigration enforcement agency. It is a blatant militia of heavily armed thugs serving as Trump’s Gestapo. They are marauding gangs with no restraint, ripping people from their cars and homes, assaulting bystanders and arrestees, waving weapons in peoples’ faces, and randomly shooting pepper spray and tear gas at peaceful demonstrators and observers.
Please read this essay (https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/ice-is-enforcing-fear-because-trump?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true) in which the following excerpt appears: “ICE isn’t malfunctioning or confused about its mission. Greg Bovino and his boys are operating exactly as designed for a political system that values dominance over legitimacy and intimidation over consent.”
I urge you to:
--Oppose any increased funding for ICE and seek funding and staffing cuts.
--Support legislation, lawsuits and any other avenues to ensure proper vetting, training, supervision and accountability of ICE and other federal agents being deployed in Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign.
--Support the impeachment and expulsion of Kristi Noem (if not others, too).
One of the themes of the moment for me is about speaking truth. We have so many pundits and politicians who refuse to tell the truth about what we're seeing with our own eyes. And I don't mean Trump and his merry band of fuckwits and fabricators, but everyone who treated (and treats) Trump like a normal politician, and these times as normal. Whether its his autocratic ambitions, his idiocy, his clear decline, the dangers he poses to the economy, to our health, to our safety, to the very structures of our democracy and the world order, the people we count on to be our eyes and ears, to be our voices and our fighters, do not tell the truth.Among everything else, it makes us feel incredibly alone.
This is a very long way of saying how grateful I am to Simon, and to this community, for making sure the truth about what's happening in Minneapolis gets told.
There seems to be a very recent escalation of MAGA chuds taking protests in their own hands. Today our Visibility Brigade held up an "ICE out" banner over the freeway like we do twice a week, revolving messages based national events. We're accustomed to being flipped off or coal rolled by a hand full of POed MAGA. No big deal.
Today however two separate men, (White men 40s-50s) came by in their cars to haze, photograph, attempting to bully us. This is a specific escalation. We've been doing this for many months and this is the first time this has happened. I suspect MAGA is growing frustrated that people aren't just lying back and taking it, still standing, still protesting in spite of the violence.
Keep standing but be aware of this potential and take care.
Cathy, where did this happen?
I’m in eastern Iowa. Our “ICE out for Good” overpass sign two days ago mostly elicited positive responses, but so far the negative responses have been limited to finger gestures.
I 95 central Connecticut.
Thanks!
We get very positive responses in general to our banners. This week quite a few of the big trucks chimed in positively for the first time but those two men were very hostile, also a first. We refused to engage or debate them.
I had to look up "coal rolled." I was today years old when I learned that it means to alter a vehicle engine so it emits thick clouds of smoke.
ICE must be Stopped today! There must be someone powerful enough in our government who can stop them now. ICE must be disbanded, all their money is taken away now!
Simon, what do you think of David Plouffe's op-ed in the NYT this morning?
For those of us who don't subscribe to NYT, can you summarize, briefly, what Plouffe's message was in the op-ed? Thank you.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/opinion/democrats-strategy-elections.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ElA.bD-L.ok3HrLa7Zp2f&smid=url-share
NYT Op-Ed written by Plouffe
And, as always, the comments are priceless.
Thank you! I will read it later.
Thanks for the gift link. Great article.
Thank you. Well said.
I don't always agree with Plouffe's opinions but boy, I believe he is spot on here. Great article. I wonder if anyone in leadership or their aides read it. Thank you for the gift article!
Simon, thank you for last night's discussion!
I recently completed a Great Course on the Civil War, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is so inspiring. For much of the Civil War, Lincoln couldn't find a general with enough ambition and fight, just as our party has been struggling to find leaders who will realize this isn't business as usual. But for Lincoln and for us, the fight has to go on until we win. We just have to keep doing the work.
To that end, I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen and am working on my postcards to NC voters.
Minnesota 's motto is "L'Étoile du Nord," the star of the North. I'm going to focus on that image today.
And remember slaves used the North Star to led them to freedom