91 Comments

You are sadly right about trump and his gang of thugs and their behavior towards a world leader yesterday. Absolutely disgusting and shameful behavior. I am heartbroken and furious.

Thank you for your courage to describe this disaster.

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Bravo. I have felt sick to my stomach since I first saw the story. I am mortified and so very sad. If history is any guide, we who oppose the tiny-handed tyrant can fight all we like. But it will be his people who will ultimately take him down. And let it be sooner rather than later.

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Yes but it will be us, our voices that nudge his people along. Keep your eyes on what is and what could be. As much as we hate what has been done we will need some people to change their minds and add their voices to ours.

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Agree

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His people, they are hand picked to do mr. t’s dirty work without question, why? Because they are incompetent & being appointed makes them feel validated & loyal to the current f__king regime. No one is safe here unless you are an a-ss kisser.

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One can hope.

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I miss my dad (1929-2020) every day but I’m thankful he’s not here to see this. It would break his heart. He served in the US Army; from 1954-57 he was stationed in Munich so he got to travel around much of Europe, see the remaining devastation of WW2, and behold the Marshall Plan in progress. He returned over the years to see friends and savor the cultures of our Allies. Europe indeed rivaled my mom as his life’s great love.💔

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I feel as you do, Violet.

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Where can I get my "I'm not playing cards" t-shirt?

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This is brilliant, he is brilliant. Where to order one (but not through Amazon)

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Once again, they have infuriated me. I'm donating to the brave defenders of Ukraine. Who's with me?

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Found out how to do this. Ua24.gov.ua

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I have been thinking this, but Gregg, what is the best way to do.this?

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Spot on. I literally got up and punched the wall after watching that despicable spectacle. Zelensky stood up to the miscreants like no GOP pol has the guts to (except Liz Cheney.) Then again, he has been battling a ruthless dictator who has been desperately trying to annihilate him and his country for years. So facing these two cowards was probably not that hard.

The only one happy today is the ghost of Neville Chamberlain, who no longer is at the top of the list of most pathetically bad diplomatic moves in modern history. And in Chamberlain's defense, he was actually trying to avoid war, unlike Trump and Vance who could give sh*t about how many Ukrainians or Europeans die, because they've already shown they don't care how many Americans die either.

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Yesterday was my birthday. I want to "thank" these assholes for making it a day that will live in infamy. First time I ever went to bed on my birthday angry.

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My 26yo son feels your pain. His birthday is January 6🥴

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Oof.

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My daughter's birthday is January 20. She's had two sad birthdays. First time around was her 21st.

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Yikes.

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See my reply to Violet below. I don't know how substack works very well yet so IDK if you would see it.

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You are not overreacting and I voted that way. in your poll. But my vote is not to disparage the hundreds of thousands of every day people and writers, people who have been sounding the alarm as best they can, trying to educate their neighbors and the general public and working their butts off to keep this from happening, some since 2nd Obama administration when the signs were on the wall but certainly since January 2017. I guess the biggest mistake made was not anticipating M u s k and his $200 million to shore up the campaign but it was not a lack of effort. It was a lack of other butts to join in and a lack of people believing that it could happen here so they would join in too. I hope everyone reading this has or is making a plan to raise their voice in a way it can heard.

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I agree with every syllable you wrote. My sense of disgust for these child-like creatures reaches new depths. That ANYONE would praise these actions, it’s like the Joseph McCarthy cult who only woke up after so many people’s lives were destroyed. But worse.

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I'm so sickened and roiled with anger and shame by yesterday's debacle, I can barely speak.

Here is the official fundraising site for the government of Ukraine, if you are so moved to contribute:

https://u24.gov.ua/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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Thank you. I'm giving up wine for the month and sending my liquor store money to Zelenskyy to buy drones.

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I checked out the u24.gov.ua website and read the Guardian article linked to it, explaining how Yale historian Timothy Snyder began the U24 fund-raising campaign. This two-year-old article quotes Snyder as saying "It turns out that people really like democracy." What a contrast between Ukraine and Trumpland! America will always break your heart.

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THANK YOU, I have been trying to figure out how to do this. I am going to donate now and also share this info on all my socials.

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Whoops! Misread the question and voted wrong and no way to change it. So one of the yes votes should be a no. The one clarifying thing for me about this is that any Trump supporter I was otherwise giving the benefit of the doubt because I knew them to be a be a pretty good person otherwise who continues to support him after this is clearly beyond the pale

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I'm reminded of the old saying, "the bigger they are the harder they fall." The Trump/Vance performance yesterday set them up together for the biggest fall in American history. It's only a matter of when.

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I am sharing a commentary by my Welsh immigrant neighbor that I think worth reading:

The Coward & The Hero: A Day of National Disgrace( edited)

My stomach churns. The bile rises. Never in my lifetime have I seen a more shameful, more disgraceful occupant of the White House. A man who has so thoroughly soiled the seat of power that even history recoils. A traitor. A thug. A liar. A cheat. And yesterday, a pathetic, desperate, pantomime dictator, trying to stare down the leader of Ukraine—Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a man who has stood before death, before the smoking ruins of his homeland, and still refuses to bow.

Trump? Trump isn’t fit to lace Zelenskyy’s boots. The bloated relic of a reality show presidency, slathered in an extra layer of high-polished orange shoe polish, face glowing like a jack-o’-lantern stuffed with state secrets. He sat there playing the part of a South American strongman from the ‘50s, puffed up and empty, all bark and bluster, but no spine, no soul. He thought he could roll over a man who has lived in the trenches of war. But Zelenskyy has seen real men die. He has heard the whistle of missiles meant to tear him apart. Trump has never heard anything louder than the sound of his own mouth.

So what did the orange tyrant do? He rattled on about Hunter Biden’s laptop. In the presence of a war hero, he ranted like an unhinged lunatic about a hard drive. Idiot speak. Straightjacket talk. A man devoid of vision, reduced to the same old grievances, same old conspiracy-laced dementia, as if the fate of nations could be debated on the level of a Fox News fever dream.

And then, the jester arrived—J.D. Vance, a third-rate clown who came not to stand for anything, but to clean Trump’s boots with his lips in pre planned ambush. He sat there, all smug obedience, waiting for his cue, eager to please his master in moments of fitful rage. No dignity. No independence. Just another political parasite feeding off the rot. This was one of the most sickening displays of cowardice and bullying in American history.

History will judge…. But I hope that that the people will wake up.

On one side, men of honour.

On the other, grub worms in suits.

Baited Pathetic pre planned ambush for the cameras and base by thugs and bullies, to put pressure on someone who showed what a leader is by going straight on Fox to do an interview! Doesn’t make someone proud to be a USCitizen ! Rope the dope!

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Trump said it at the end: "This will make great television. " Hard to believe there are people despicable enough to engineer that kind of scene deliberately. But that was the point. Any publicity is good publicity.

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Everything about this shameful (and shameless) episode screamed bad dinner theater with the leads reading from cue cards, helpfully provided by Mad Vlad and inducing the same nausea. When did you ever see a vice president take active part in what is usually a quick, almost perfunctory, assembly? Even "Little Marco" (Rubio), in his new role playing the SecState, appeared embarrassed during the staging, but afterwards did manage to regurgitate the expected platitude. It would have been laughable if it were not so unalterably sad and contemptible.

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Trump doesn’t give a damn about peace. He wants to force a Trump-Putin “peace” agreement on Ukraine for mineral rights, and because he thinks that will get him the Nobel Peace Prize. It still rankles him that Obama was awarded the Prize.

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We suck dead rats.

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