"We are now in a crisis that rivals COVID or the global financial crisis of 2008-2010 - and it is all because of one old, addled, idiotic, vainglorious old man."
Catherine, me neither. That TickTok video brought back memories of the day I threw my slippers at the tv. I listened in horror at the stupid utterances of "maybe we could put some disinfectant in the lungs and that would do a number on the lungs." No shit Sherlock. I say that as a Registered Respiratory Therapist who knows the damage of chemical inhalation. Everything with that orange moron is a pick your poison choice. Just called my two AZ senators to remind them that Congress gets to vote on going to war.
To be sure, Simon specifically calls out the GOP Congress. I'm just practicing always making them -- Trump is awful, but the GOP Congress could contain him and hasn't.
My sign for our rally in North Liberty, Iowa read, “Trump Is Insane: Joni, what’s your excuse?” and on the flip side, “ Trump Is Insane: Grassley, what’s your excuse?” (referring to Iowa’s two waste-of-space senators, of course).
I saw a post on Substack, not sure where, urging us to always say, "Trump AND THE REPUBLICANS"... responsible for Iran war, ICE raids/murders, airport lines, skyrocketing prices, gutting our health care to make billionaires even richer, etc. Even if T started it, Rs enabled it. The point was, don't think getting rid of T aline will fix the mess we're in.
Good morning, Simon. Missed being with you at NO KINGS 3.0. Will send our photos with Glenn Kirschner from the fantastic rally at Arlington Cemetery and across across Memorial Bridge into in the city on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, I will echo your headline -- WHERE IS CONGRESS?
I wonder if Democrats shouldn't be using these two weeks to call out the Republicans for going on vacation. Maybe having some core group keep showing up at the Capitol and calling on the Republicans to come back?
I sent a little bit to the Ohio campaign; it would be great to flip JD Vance's state. I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen to say NO more money for ICE or this war. I also asked them to begin to regularly discuss the fact that the president is not in touch with reality. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters about redistricting.
Ditto. Sent money to Ohio today. And to Roy Cooper in NC. Also echo your thoughts about Ds continuing to show up in Congress during this "recess." To highlight Ds are working to solve problems faced by Americans; and Rs are--well, who knows what they're doing on "recess?" Apparently, some are figuring out even MORE ways to cut healthcare coverage for Americans to pay for Generalissimo Trump's war.
If Trump’s executive order to pay TSA employees is illegal, then he has a problem. If it’s perfectly legal, then he has an even greater problem: Why the hell didn’t issue his order earlier?
Either way he’s screwed. And Trump and his MAGA Republicans still have to figure out how to pay for his war!
I sense the waves building to a record-breaking Blue Tsunami. That giant wave going to wash away a lot of Republican detritus in both houses of Congress, as well as at the state level and further down-ballot.
We are going see purple states turn blue, while red states turn purple. And the House and Senate will both launch real investigations and damning public hearings into the Trump Regime’s illegalities.
I wonder if paying this out will mean less money for ICE. I don't support illegal things (slippery slopes are bad) but in this case... maybe it works to our advantage.
To put it bluntly: we are fighting against Trump’s traitorous war on the American people and American democracy. When Democrats win back the Senate, we’ll be able to stop so many of Trump’s horrific policies – and put a stop to his appointment of unqualified federal judges and more.
That’s why supporting Hopium’s Senate candidates is so crucial!
I can't believe any of these states would not vote for any of these great candidates. I mean, they are all great. Come on Texas, Alaska, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia! If we vote, we win.
I am concerned about the baggage Platner has but, if he wins the primary, I truly hope he has changed his ways and wins. I just saw an ad from Seth Bodnar. He is amazing.
I too have deep concerns about Platner, as well as Janet Mill’s age and the lack of energy of her campaign. Frankly, I wish Democrats had some better candidate running in Maine.
Hitting Iranian desalination plants will do almost nothing to hurt Iran, but probably result in them doing the same to other Gulf states, which will cause a real catastrophe. Iran is below 10% dependent on desalination, while other Gulf states are ~90% dependent on it. Also, if anyone cares anymore, what Trump is threatening is a war crime.
If that happens, the people running the chemical plants, including those to generate nitrogen fertilizers, will, I would assume, have to leave. I think a good number of the people who actually do the work in those countries come from elsewhere, including Pakistan and I would assume Bangladesh, maybe India as well. They might just have to go home.
If it was previously mysterious how you could bankrupt 3 casinos, even with using them to launder money, there should be little mystery now. He appears to have done possibly the dumbest, most catastrophic thing he could do as president. And it also appears that our military has been in some stage of rot, along with the Congress and the big corporations that need to sell defense platforms that cost ~$100's of millions, and have not adapted to modern warfare realities, despite being able to watch the Ukrainian war in real time. That spy plane, while outdated, was $300 million, and it was just destroyed by a $20K drone.
And Hegseth canceled the new spy planes, along with, before this Gulf war, decommissioning the minesweepers we had in the region. Nice call Pete!
As a country, we've got to have some standards again. In all areas. This is fucking unacceptable. The next president is going to have to clean out the DoD of the people who have massively failed and put some competent people in there.
But the main disaster is Trump.
I'm glad to see the focus on what I think of as "blocking and tackling" in just putting our head down and supporting our candidates. That's about the most important thing to do now. I'll chip something in later on and report back.
Do you know of anyone tabulating America’s loss of war materiel in Trump’s Middle East war? I’ve only seen the scattered reports.
(For the Russo-Ukrainian war I was following a couple of websites that were keeping a careful count of documented losses on both sides, with each item linked to photos or video evidence.)
I don't know of any. I haven't looked. I listen to Malcolm Nance on substack most mornings and he hits the highlights. He might post something about that. Not sure.
At one of the rallies, there was a loud woman with a sign that was very one issue orientated and could have been divisive. I was happy that everyone ignored her. We said to each other, one issue right now, get Democrats elected first. Well, two issues, get Democrats elected and stop Trump. Which isn't to say we do nothing now. We are stopping him but we can do so much more with Democrats in control of Congress.
At mine there was a guy waving a Palestinian flag. I was the only one there with a really large US flag. I don't care what your views are, waving foreign flags, Mexican, Palestinian, whatever, isn't helpful at all.
I was thinking about buy a Minnesota flag and waving it in Florida. I'm from Minnesota, so why not?
Hey nothing wrong with waving a Minnesota Flag! I really think right now we need to put our single issues aside and see the bigger picture. I was happy to see quite a few American Flags. The sign I carried last rally said, "It's Our Flag Too".
I just made donations to several federal candidates through the Hopium links, and a couple separately from Hopium, including Chris Harden in the Dem primary for the GA 11 seat being vacated by the Repub incumbent McCormick.
Early voting for Shawn Harris began today. I think it will be closer than originally expected. Those scenes from the Villages in FL Saturday made me wonder if he can pull it off.
Thank you Simon for documenting the catastrophe effects Trump’s War is having on the world. We have been suffering under Trump for over a decade (even when he wasn’t President!). Now sadly the world is learning that Everything Trump Touches Dies…
Since the republicans in congress are literally brainwashed like the Manson women, like Jim Jones’ followers, we need a professional deprogrammer to communicate with them to shake them out of their trans. I was in a cult, I was brainwashed. It was a Christian cult but nevertheless I had to keep recommitting myself to the program when my guts were disagreeing. My parents had me see a deprogrammer. I also hired a deprogrammer for my eldest son and daughter in law. Deprogrammers work. They open the eyes of the brainwashed.
This is a weekly podcast segment called Dead Air with Steve Schimdt (former GOP consultant now Democrat) and Dean Blundell, a Canadian with background in national security (formerly a conservative evangelical). This week, they talked about the non-coverage/minimization of No Kings on the Sunday shows, the ballroom, a rating of possible Dem presidential candidates, the CA gov race and the risk of the jungle primary etc. They've done other great segments on Ukraine, Iran, war profiteering recently. Some of the most powerful voices I find come from the apostates, because they've had to have the courage to change. They've had to really rethink everything, examine all their assumptions. And they are smart people with a strong sense of history.
For several days now, various sources have reported that the Iran war is disrupting the supply of helium from Qatar. Helium is not just used in balloons. It's used in the manufacturing of semiconductors, which in turn are used in computers, cars, phones, appliances--you name it. Qatar supplies about a third of the world's helium, and an interruption of its shipments will drive up prices and create supply-chain shortages, further exacerbating the global economic crisis.
For excellent analysis of the Iran war, along with how it's playing out on social media, I recommend Joohn Choe's Facebook page. He does a lot of writing about disinformation campaigns as well. https://www.facebook.com/choejoohn
I just received word from Indivisible Bellingham about our numbers at the rally. In October. at No Kings 2, we had about 9,000 attendees. This time two independent estimators put the number at 13,000. In addition, an AI analysis of a panoramic photo put the most likely number at 11,000-13,000. So we did better than I thought on Sunday.
Whatever the number, we achieved a large, powerful, creative, joyful event despite cold temperatures, I-5 closed south of Bellingham, college students on spring break, and new events in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Today we have the first list of new members to welcome to the movement.
Here are some great photographs from photographer David Johnson:
With everything that's going on, I haven't heard anything more about the California gubernatorial primary since the Democrats publicized their poll last week. Simon, can you speak to this in the Tuesday evening call?
I'm concerned about this race. Is there a functioning state Democratic Party that can intervene and convince some of the people who are polling the lowest to drop out? Or can the national party do something?
It is very concerning. I hope the Democratic Party isn't just assuming it will all work out. Most of us are very concerned but there are also a lot of people that are not that engaged right now. Crazy but true. We have to tell everyone we know to vote.
Many of us at the two rallies I attended here in Los Angeles talked about this. Everyone was concerned. Most of us said we are just voting for whichever Democrat is in the lead - assuming most of them don't drop out.
The key line for me was that party leaders expect to release more polling NLT April 7. I imagine there will be a big push at that point for more to drop out.
Porter, Steyer, and Swalwell (in alphabetical order) seem to be the most viable candidates right now, at around 10% each per poll referenced in the article, with the other five candidates each getting less than 3%.
This is one article about one poll and I’m a total amateur at this stuff. But the gist for me is more polling coming soon followed by a push for more people to drop out.
AND the party that enables him.
"We are now in a crisis that rivals COVID or the global financial crisis of 2008-2010 - and it is all because of one old, addled, idiotic, vainglorious old man."
I will never understand how people could have voted for him after watching him botch COVID so badly.
That and an insurrection. Or raping people. The list is endless.
Catherine, me neither. That TickTok video brought back memories of the day I threw my slippers at the tv. I listened in horror at the stupid utterances of "maybe we could put some disinfectant in the lungs and that would do a number on the lungs." No shit Sherlock. I say that as a Registered Respiratory Therapist who knows the damage of chemical inhalation. Everything with that orange moron is a pick your poison choice. Just called my two AZ senators to remind them that Congress gets to vote on going to war.
I've heard the Meiselas brothers say that those press conferences about bleach and light prompted them to start MeidasTouch.
Yeah inhale some disinfectant and shove a lightbulb up your ass. Great idea.
To be sure, Simon specifically calls out the GOP Congress. I'm just practicing always making them -- Trump is awful, but the GOP Congress could contain him and hasn't.
always NAMING them, I mean
My sign on Saturday:
COMPLICIT GOP COWARDS!
Get A SPINE!!
My sign for our rally in North Liberty, Iowa read, “Trump Is Insane: Joni, what’s your excuse?” and on the flip side, “ Trump Is Insane: Grassley, what’s your excuse?” (referring to Iowa’s two waste-of-space senators, of course).
I saw a post on Substack, not sure where, urging us to always say, "Trump AND THE REPUBLICANS"... responsible for Iran war, ICE raids/murders, airport lines, skyrocketing prices, gutting our health care to make billionaires even richer, etc. Even if T started it, Rs enabled it. The point was, don't think getting rid of T aline will fix the mess we're in.
Which is why we are working so hard to put MAGA in the minority of both houses.
Good morning, Simon. Missed being with you at NO KINGS 3.0. Will send our photos with Glenn Kirschner from the fantastic rally at Arlington Cemetery and across across Memorial Bridge into in the city on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, I will echo your headline -- WHERE IS CONGRESS?
Simon, thank you for the news round-up.
I wonder if Democrats shouldn't be using these two weeks to call out the Republicans for going on vacation. Maybe having some core group keep showing up at the Capitol and calling on the Republicans to come back?
I sent a little bit to the Ohio campaign; it would be great to flip JD Vance's state. I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen to say NO more money for ICE or this war. I also asked them to begin to regularly discuss the fact that the president is not in touch with reality. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters about redistricting.
Thank you from Ohio 🇺🇸
Ditto. Sent money to Ohio today. And to Roy Cooper in NC. Also echo your thoughts about Ds continuing to show up in Congress during this "recess." To highlight Ds are working to solve problems faced by Americans; and Rs are--well, who knows what they're doing on "recess?" Apparently, some are figuring out even MORE ways to cut healthcare coverage for Americans to pay for Generalissimo Trump's war.
If Trump’s executive order to pay TSA employees is illegal, then he has a problem. If it’s perfectly legal, then he has an even greater problem: Why the hell didn’t issue his order earlier?
Either way he’s screwed. And Trump and his MAGA Republicans still have to figure out how to pay for his war!
I sense the waves building to a record-breaking Blue Tsunami. That giant wave going to wash away a lot of Republican detritus in both houses of Congress, as well as at the state level and further down-ballot.
We are going see purple states turn blue, while red states turn purple. And the House and Senate will both launch real investigations and damning public hearings into the Trump Regime’s illegalities.
I wonder if paying this out will mean less money for ICE. I don't support illegal things (slippery slopes are bad) but in this case... maybe it works to our advantage.
Winning the Senate is our Manhattan Project!
To put it bluntly: we are fighting against Trump’s traitorous war on the American people and American democracy. When Democrats win back the Senate, we’ll be able to stop so many of Trump’s horrific policies – and put a stop to his appointment of unqualified federal judges and more.
That’s why supporting Hopium’s Senate candidates is so crucial!
– James Talarico in Texas (flip)
– Mary Peltola in Alaska (flip)
– Sherrod Brown in Ohio (flip)
- Roy Cooper in North Carolina (flip)
- Jon Ossoff in Georgia (incumbent)
I can't believe any of these states would not vote for any of these great candidates. I mean, they are all great. Come on Texas, Alaska, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia! If we vote, we win.
In time there will be a few more promising prospects, amongst them:
– Janet Mills or Graham Platner in Maine (flip, retiring Susan Collins)
– Dan Osborn (Independent) in Nebraska (flip)
– Seth Bodnar (Independent) in Montana (flip)
I am concerned about the baggage Platner has but, if he wins the primary, I truly hope he has changed his ways and wins. I just saw an ad from Seth Bodnar. He is amazing.
I too have deep concerns about Platner, as well as Janet Mill’s age and the lack of energy of her campaign. Frankly, I wish Democrats had some better candidate running in Maine.
I hear you. I really do.
I'm very concerned that Platner is a Fetterman-type plant, that he will turn on us as soon as he's sworn in.
Fetterman has been a drag on our fight against tyranny from the beginning, as has Marie Glusenkamp Perez, and a couple of others.
Let's not get into another red-lined Congressperson!
Fetterman obviously has his person struggles, and he has changed. But I most certainly do not think he was a plant.
Hitting Iranian desalination plants will do almost nothing to hurt Iran, but probably result in them doing the same to other Gulf states, which will cause a real catastrophe. Iran is below 10% dependent on desalination, while other Gulf states are ~90% dependent on it. Also, if anyone cares anymore, what Trump is threatening is a war crime.
If that happens, the people running the chemical plants, including those to generate nitrogen fertilizers, will, I would assume, have to leave. I think a good number of the people who actually do the work in those countries come from elsewhere, including Pakistan and I would assume Bangladesh, maybe India as well. They might just have to go home.
If it was previously mysterious how you could bankrupt 3 casinos, even with using them to launder money, there should be little mystery now. He appears to have done possibly the dumbest, most catastrophic thing he could do as president. And it also appears that our military has been in some stage of rot, along with the Congress and the big corporations that need to sell defense platforms that cost ~$100's of millions, and have not adapted to modern warfare realities, despite being able to watch the Ukrainian war in real time. That spy plane, while outdated, was $300 million, and it was just destroyed by a $20K drone.
And Hegseth canceled the new spy planes, along with, before this Gulf war, decommissioning the minesweepers we had in the region. Nice call Pete!
As a country, we've got to have some standards again. In all areas. This is fucking unacceptable. The next president is going to have to clean out the DoD of the people who have massively failed and put some competent people in there.
But the main disaster is Trump.
I'm glad to see the focus on what I think of as "blocking and tackling" in just putting our head down and supporting our candidates. That's about the most important thing to do now. I'll chip something in later on and report back.
Do you know of anyone tabulating America’s loss of war materiel in Trump’s Middle East war? I’ve only seen the scattered reports.
(For the Russo-Ukrainian war I was following a couple of websites that were keeping a careful count of documented losses on both sides, with each item linked to photos or video evidence.)
I don't know of any. I haven't looked. I listen to Malcolm Nance on substack most mornings and he hits the highlights. He might post something about that. Not sure.
At one of the rallies, there was a loud woman with a sign that was very one issue orientated and could have been divisive. I was happy that everyone ignored her. We said to each other, one issue right now, get Democrats elected first. Well, two issues, get Democrats elected and stop Trump. Which isn't to say we do nothing now. We are stopping him but we can do so much more with Democrats in control of Congress.
At mine there was a guy waving a Palestinian flag. I was the only one there with a really large US flag. I don't care what your views are, waving foreign flags, Mexican, Palestinian, whatever, isn't helpful at all.
I was thinking about buy a Minnesota flag and waving it in Florida. I'm from Minnesota, so why not?
Hey nothing wrong with waving a Minnesota Flag! I really think right now we need to put our single issues aside and see the bigger picture. I was happy to see quite a few American Flags. The sign I carried last rally said, "It's Our Flag Too".
Awesome sign.
Yes. We need to win. Period. We can't protect anyone if we don't win.
💯.
I just made donations to several federal candidates through the Hopium links, and a couple separately from Hopium, including Chris Harden in the Dem primary for the GA 11 seat being vacated by the Repub incumbent McCormick.
Early voting for Shawn Harris began today. I think it will be closer than originally expected. Those scenes from the Villages in FL Saturday made me wonder if he can pull it off.
Thank you Simon for documenting the catastrophe effects Trump’s War is having on the world. We have been suffering under Trump for over a decade (even when he wasn’t President!). Now sadly the world is learning that Everything Trump Touches Dies…
Where are the Republicans? They're supporting Trump. Vote them out of office!!
HOUSE
VA: Jen Kiggans-02, Rob Whittman-01, NY: Mike Lawler-17, OPEN-21,
CO: Gabe Edwards-08, ME: OPEN-02, ID: Mike Simpson-02, TN: Andy Ogles-05,
AK: Nick Begich, KY: OPEN-06, NJ: Tom Kean Jr.-07, OR: OPEN-05,
NV:OPEN-02, NE: OPEN-02, MO: OPEN, MI: John James-10
Since the republicans in congress are literally brainwashed like the Manson women, like Jim Jones’ followers, we need a professional deprogrammer to communicate with them to shake them out of their trans. I was in a cult, I was brainwashed. It was a Christian cult but nevertheless I had to keep recommitting myself to the program when my guts were disagreeing. My parents had me see a deprogrammer. I also hired a deprogrammer for my eldest son and daughter in law. Deprogrammers work. They open the eyes of the brainwashed.
Thank you for sharing that. Were there any specific techniques the deprogrammers used that you think might be useful?
Thune and Johnson sent them home.
This podcast is worth your time.
This is a weekly podcast segment called Dead Air with Steve Schimdt (former GOP consultant now Democrat) and Dean Blundell, a Canadian with background in national security (formerly a conservative evangelical). This week, they talked about the non-coverage/minimization of No Kings on the Sunday shows, the ballroom, a rating of possible Dem presidential candidates, the CA gov race and the risk of the jungle primary etc. They've done other great segments on Ukraine, Iran, war profiteering recently. Some of the most powerful voices I find come from the apostates, because they've had to have the courage to change. They've had to really rethink everything, examine all their assumptions. And they are smart people with a strong sense of history.
https://www.youtube.com/live/bPotiC6FABo?si=TeyrEu9alFqOyCjk
please create more context for recommendations, and don't send folks places they don't know in advance. Thank you - S
Sorry for being lazy in my description.
For several days now, various sources have reported that the Iran war is disrupting the supply of helium from Qatar. Helium is not just used in balloons. It's used in the manufacturing of semiconductors, which in turn are used in computers, cars, phones, appliances--you name it. Qatar supplies about a third of the world's helium, and an interruption of its shipments will drive up prices and create supply-chain shortages, further exacerbating the global economic crisis.
Here's an example source:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/helium-shortage-has-started-impacting-tech-supply-chains-execs-say-2026-03-26/
For excellent analysis of the Iran war, along with how it's playing out on social media, I recommend Joohn Choe's Facebook page. He does a lot of writing about disinformation campaigns as well. https://www.facebook.com/choejoohn
I just received word from Indivisible Bellingham about our numbers at the rally. In October. at No Kings 2, we had about 9,000 attendees. This time two independent estimators put the number at 13,000. In addition, an AI analysis of a panoramic photo put the most likely number at 11,000-13,000. So we did better than I thought on Sunday.
Whatever the number, we achieved a large, powerful, creative, joyful event despite cold temperatures, I-5 closed south of Bellingham, college students on spring break, and new events in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Today we have the first list of new members to welcome to the movement.
Here are some great photographs from photographer David Johnson:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16vVrFvhcPIMIcJMNptMEPfHh8LXbrSZa
great photos!
With everything that's going on, I haven't heard anything more about the California gubernatorial primary since the Democrats publicized their poll last week. Simon, can you speak to this in the Tuesday evening call?
I'm concerned about this race. Is there a functioning state Democratic Party that can intervene and convince some of the people who are polling the lowest to drop out? Or can the national party do something?
It is very concerning. I hope the Democratic Party isn't just assuming it will all work out. Most of us are very concerned but there are also a lot of people that are not that engaged right now. Crazy but true. We have to tell everyone we know to vote.
Many of us at the two rallies I attended here in Los Angeles talked about this. Everyone was concerned. Most of us said we are just voting for whichever Democrat is in the lead - assuming most of them don't drop out.
I found this article on the subject. https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/nation/california/2026/03/25/california-governor-poll-hilton-bianco-democrats-lockout/89316344007/
The key line for me was that party leaders expect to release more polling NLT April 7. I imagine there will be a big push at that point for more to drop out.
Porter, Steyer, and Swalwell (in alphabetical order) seem to be the most viable candidates right now, at around 10% each per poll referenced in the article, with the other five candidates each getting less than 3%.
This is one article about one poll and I’m a total amateur at this stuff. But the gist for me is more polling coming soon followed by a push for more people to drop out.