The irony of the party of the educated being so selfishly stupid is not lost on many. Why would anyone vote for such incompetent leadership? The party has developed a high tolerance for being losers. As an independent, if I have to watch 3+ years of Dems and their lawsuits and their “resistance”, I wouldn’t consider them for dog catcher. Maybe in a generation they might become a viable party. From what I see, that is a pipe dream also.
Becoming honest about the intelligence document that launched Russiagate might begin to clear the air. It's impossible for many Democrats to consider the party until this is cleared up. Need to end the use of media sources in questionable ways. This is covered at many Substacks notably , Matt Taibbi at Racket News on July 23, 2025.
This is nonsense. The Steele Dossier was one piece of the pie and many of the allegations were true. Matt Taibbi is a “paid for” troll. He has no credibility whatsoever, and now makes a living off of conspiracy theories.
Are you suggesting a meeting between Don Jr., Kushner, Manafort and a Russian lawyer working on behalf of the Kremlin never took place? In which Don Jr. wanted dirt on Hillary in exchange for lifting sanctions on Russian oligarchs didn’t take place? Emails as part of the investigation prove otherwise. Along with Kushner and Don Jr. wanting to set up direct communications with Putin from the Russian Embassy.
Additionally, Trump’s foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, told an Australian diplomat to the UK that Russia was going to release emails on Hillary and the DNC soon; and sure enough it happened. Furthermore, Manafort gave sensitive polling data to a Putin Oligarch and former FSB agent, Oleg Deripaska. Why?
My point, Trump is using some of the allegations to dismiss all of the Mueller Report which proved there were Russian ties to Trump’s campaign in 2016. Not to mention, the disinformation campaigns run by Russia on social media.
Lastly, Mueller ended his report by saying that because it’s DOJ policy not to indict a sitting president:
"I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met, and I'd like to ask you the reason, again, you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC (the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel) opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?" Lieu asked……”That is correct," Mueller asked.”
Trump was far from innnocent and his campaign was in cahoots with Russia, and the reason more than 14 people pled guilty or were convicted because of the Mueller investigation.
What Mueller didn’t find was that Trump himself was involved because Trump would not cooperate with the investigation and his legal team refused to allow him to be deposed under oath.
That said, this is far different than suggesting Trump innocent and the Steele Dossier was fake!
For example, Taibbi is dismissing the entire Russian investigation because the Steele Dossier was included; yet the report states that their case was solid, and it was unnecessary:
“The two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia argued jointly against including the “aspire” judgment. In an email to Brennan on 30 December, they stated the judgment should be removed because it was both weakly supported and unnecessary, given the strength and logic of the paper’s other findings on intent. They warned that including it would only “open up a line of very politicized inquiry.”
Read this whole quote from what you sent me. The two CIA officers didn’t think it was necessary to include it because it could be deemed political and muddy the entire case. And here we are!
And Is I’ve stated, I provided you proof that this was not just about the Steele Dossier. That was one piece of intelligence, not the only piece. Guys like Taibbi are manipulating the actual report, just like Trump.
And Mueller’s report does not exonerate Trump or his sycophants. 14 people from his campaign pled guilty or were convicted.
This is nonsense, plain and simple! No investigation is without scrutiny. They shouldn’t have included the dossier, but this is the excuse: fruit from the poisonous tree.
If a part of the report is based on speculative intelligence, then you must discard the rest of the report out of hand; even though the CIA’s own investigation proved that several members of campaign were working with the Russian’s.
Additionally, they proved that the Russian’s conducted massive disinformation and misinformation campaigns on social media to get Trump elected, as well dumping the Hillary and DNC, Podesta emails on Wikileaks. These facts are not in dispute!
Durham had nothing. His report concluded when Trump was still president in 2019. Not to mention, he was a Trump appointee. If they had something they would have used it while Trump was in office. This has been litigated.
Interesting enough, you have not disputed anything I’ve said, you just keep sending stuff that’s irrelevant. If you think my facts are wrong, show me. I’m listening; otherwise, I have no idea what we’re arguing about.
The Durham annex had not been released before today. I am not here to argue or repost all the documents, just pointing out that all this has undermined life-long Democrats' faith in the integrity of the party. I was an active member of my DEC until they decided that Michael Avenatti would be the next president and insisted he be the speaker at the Tampa Kennedy-King Dinner in 2018. People would believe anything in spite of actual facts.
From David French's NYTimes article: For those who followed the Russia investigation in its many manifestations, Gabbard’s report was an obvious red herring. It hinged on the claim that there was “no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count.” But the actual vote count was never the basis for the allegations against Russia.
In fact, as John Brennan and James Clapper, two senior intelligence officials in the Obama administration, wrote in a Times Opinion guest essay on Wednesday, “Russian influence operations might have shaped the views of Americans before they entered the voting booth, but we found no evidence that the Russians changed any actual votes.”
In other words, the claim at the time was that Russia interfered with the election by attempting to stir up chaos in the American electorate through inflammatory social media posts and a hack-and-leak campaign that targeted the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic officials.
All of this was true. It’s been acknowledged as true by a unanimous bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report that remains the best single source for understanding both Russia’s efforts to influence the election and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians and suspected Russian agents and assets. When the report was produced, the Senate Intelligence Committee was run by Republicans, and the acting chairman was none other than Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state.
The Russian motivation wasn't to get DJT elected. It was to kick sand in the face of HRC, who the Russians (and everyone else) was convinced would be the next President. This was payback for things HRC did as SecState during a Putin "election." The Russians were as surprised as everyone else when DJT won. I'm sure Putin was thrilled when people started giving them credit for getting DJT elected.
That’s just playing with words. Unlike green party voters, the Russians were not stupid enough to think that anybody other than Trump would get elected if Hillary didn’t. And even if they didn’t realize this, so what? It’s still criminal for a foreign power to interfere In a US election, whatever their motivation. It’s also criminal to know about this and not report it, which is why Trump and many of his minions were guilty of obstruction of justice.
As many have said, when you raise your cultural issues to the status of sacred doctrine, it’s impossible step back and say “my bad.” New moderate leadership is needed, but all the “new” leadership is on the far left. I have a hard time seeing a path back.
It's what we noticed two years before the election........Progressives would rather have that warm inner glow of feeling morally superior than win. And the easiest way of getting that warm inner glow is to be angry at Trump all of the time. Yawn.
You see it all of the time: Progressives promising to "fight." Fight? What does that even mean other than going on and on about Trump all of the time?
We live in Arizona. We liked Kristin Sinema. She wasn't a "fighter." She was a worker, and got things done.
Senator Spartacus has made himself the loudmouthed, arrogant poster child for much of what ails today's Democratic Party. Unable even to do a good imitation of this President, Booker is just loud without substance nor achievement.
Booker actually has a very solid record of achievement as an individual and as a mayor. A Senate where he's unable to participate or lead in significant legislation is a poor fit for him because his oratory seems empty there.
He'd be a better governor. I don't think it's possible in NJ, apparently he thinks so too. It's a surprisingly razor-thin state if you press the wrong buttons. He'd have had more luck before he became nationally known.
I get that this ‘resistance’ plays to the donor base … follow the money. However, maybe Mr Booker needs to be smarter about what he is resisting … a bi-partisan backed bill introduced by a fellow democrat ? And perhaps have an alternative idea … that would be useful
Ruy as always, politely brilliant. Perhaps less politeness, and more come to Jesus would help Dems listen. Both Dems and Reps have underestimated Trump for a decade, and Dems are missing the forest for the trees yet again. Immigration policy has not yet extracted its' entire pound of flesh from Dems.
The reason Trump insisted on the immediate passage of the BBB, was not tax cuts, but Homeland Security funding. $170 billion dollars is not only going to massively increase deportations. It is going to bring to light all kinds of depravity, Dems have been fighting to ignore. The first time a child brothel full of an unaccompanied migrant kids is raided, it will be ignored. Maybe even the 2nd time, but not the 3rd, and with $170 billion dollars in funding, it's coming.
It is only a matter of time before Kristie Noem reads a letter from a 14 year old mother explaining how, at the age of 12, the US federal government handed her to an unvetted man, claiming to be a relative. So he could rape her twice a day, for the next 2 years and father her child, when she was 14. And then another, and another. Eventually trial lawyers are going to come running, and imagine the class actions and the details, when Trump waves sovereign immunity for the raped and enslaved children.
Much of politics and policy is grey. Reasonable people can disagree on most issues. This is no other side to mass child sexual abuse, literally, imported onto US soil. Dems might ask themselves what they are going to do, when 3 months before the midterms, Trump begins showing picture after picture, of children with their faces blacked out, ICE rescued not just from factory floors or fields, but mobile brothels.
In Texas, we knew the effects of the open border 6 months into Biden's term. The fallout was everywhere. It took Dems years to grasp the scope of their mistake. This feels very similar. With little funding, and in a few months, ICE grabbed 200 convicted migrant pedophiles on Houston streets, alone. Now imagine a well funded and concerted national effort for 3.5 years, looking for the 300K unaccompanied minors that the federal government lost, after handing them to anyone who asked for one. Dems might want to consider what their response will be when faced with the living, breathing collateral damage of their immigration policy, because eventually, they are going to need one.
…because what you are going to have is a massive, hastily assembled (and thus in all likelihood poorly trained and poorly screened) army of masked men larger in size than the marines, who are exempt from local state law and operate above the authority of local police, can detain anyone they want without a warrant, don’t have to wear body cameras, and have precedent to send those they round up straight to El Salvadoran gulags without ever putting them in front of a judge. (https://archive.ph/uGbwY) They are going to be given deportation quotas that are in no way realistic over the long term, meaning they will quickly end up having to meet them by ‘bending the rules’—rule-bending the present federal government has given every indication it will shrug off.
We have examples of this kind of thing all throughout modern history, and in no case has it ever failed to result in large abuses of power.
No doubt tales of immigrants eating dogs and other sordid stories will be used to ‘exonerate’ all the bad things this secret police force will wind up doing, just as the blackshirts used stories of secret communist meetings, planned communist riots, etc. to excuse what they did—but rest assured, they are going to wind up doing nasty things. History tells us these kinds of secret police forces always do.
Maybe extreme measures to reverse extreme events (open border invasion allowing in 10 to 20 million illegal migrants of whom are 500,000+ criminals into our communities) is okay with a lot of Americans who are Republicans and independent voters. It's okay with me even if some mistakes are made. When illegal criminal migrants killed Laken Riley and other young women, Democrats considered their murders collateral damage of their policy. So, screw the Democrats who allowed the invasion to happen.
Ruy, as always you are a light that refuses to go out. You are so right that hating isn’t a winning strategy. I remember when the WW1 era term ‘progressive’ started to be used again. The label ‘liberal’ was associated with failed policy ,so the re-branding started with an old label. One tiny step forward is for the Democrats is to ditch the progressive label for something else. Personally I’d like them to become the ‘common sense’ party, but it would never happen.
The solution is to abandon radical left planks and radical left candidates. Move to the middle. Begin to look like the voters. Get some moderates to run. Unlikely they'll do that until they get smacked more.
Yes, but who is going to abandon whom? It seems to me nearly impossible to solve this move-to-the-center problem without cutting loose the progressive left. They don’t hold all the cards, but they hold enough to keep the Pot boiling.
A transformative figure (trump) shredded the existing GOP order and rebuilt it in his own image.
Indeed, the Ds absolutely need such a figure at the helm. Lots of analysts triangulate policy and groups and positions to describe the “Obama coalition” - but in fact, Obama was a transformative leader able to heard all the cats to his flag.
So the question is, who is that person in the moderate wing? There are some talented candidates on the far left - but who can make the middle attractive again.
I nominate Steve Bullock, former Democratic governor of Montana. I supported him in his presidential campaign in the Democratic primary, and I've never lived in Montana! He had a very strong platform, but the progressive left shut him out. Given a chance to rally the Democratic party without being shouted down constantly by the more radical edge, I think he'd make a fantastic transformative figure.
Indeed yes. He hollowed out the party and showed zero party leadership. He was no party man to be sure. But he did have what it takes to win elections. Not always the same thing. :)
I’ll add that this seems to require national level politics. House and senate races won’t provide the framework for such a leader. Who ever heard of Obama outside of Illinois until he ran for president? Which means locusts and wild honey may be on the menu until ‘28.
Obviously, I think, correct. But to return to an earlier topic of the Liberal Patriot, "Good management of cities," we have a disgusting example in Cincinnati as to how detached Democrats are when it comes to ever having "good management." Instead of increasing police presence, and promising safer concert venues downtown in the wake of black ferals beating two whines, a city council woman said they deserved it, and the DEI hire chief of police downplayed the incident entirely. Cincy is beautiful, and I have been to a concert at or near that location. And it's sad that you have to stay in groups and NOT wander outside the zone of protection. Until Democrats fix this, they are screwed. No one will ever view them as a party of "good management."
The Democrats used to be able to win on the economy, inflation and foreign wars. Unless they start running on smart policies in those areas they will clearly loose again. More of the same will not work. Other issues like the Russiagate issue and especially the "democracy" issue will not result in the votes they need. Energy expended on those and other issues will only take away energy needed for a focus on issues which can win over the voters.
I felt like saying it again. Below Ruy's first paragraph he listed issues and how much more trusted Republicans are on those issues. Those issues are certainly important to me, and key I believe to winning elections. The problem is that the Democratic Party has no real solutions.
Trump is doing things, often enough successfully. Just in the past week 15% tariffs on the EU, Korea, Thailand. Trump is deporting people.
The Democratic Party should come up with a way to get a couple million people to leave who shouldn't be here. Instead our solution is to give everyone a visa so they aren't illegal. There are tons of places we could offer solutions like min wages, increasing Social Security, health care that covers everyone instead of offering insurance to everyone. Public Housing. Trump had a good announcement last week about cleaning up our streets via mental hospitals, jails, and housing. We need solutions. Plenty to do.
"There are tons of places we could offer solutions like min wages, increasing Social Security, health care that covers everyone instead of offering insurance to everyone. Public Housing."
Expanding big government is one way to go I guess. And of course you would have to raise taxes by trillions to pay for it all.
I am not hearing a single specific policy, just pie in the sky wish lists.
This is a great example of DJT's ability to change the narrative. Three weeks ago Dems were on fire about Medicaid cuts and ready to make this the #1 topic when Congress went home on summer break. Now all they talk about is Colbert and Epstein.
The irony of the party of the educated being so selfishly stupid is not lost on many. Why would anyone vote for such incompetent leadership? The party has developed a high tolerance for being losers. As an independent, if I have to watch 3+ years of Dems and their lawsuits and their “resistance”, I wouldn’t consider them for dog catcher. Maybe in a generation they might become a viable party. From what I see, that is a pipe dream also.
Becoming honest about the intelligence document that launched Russiagate might begin to clear the air. It's impossible for many Democrats to consider the party until this is cleared up. Need to end the use of media sources in questionable ways. This is covered at many Substacks notably , Matt Taibbi at Racket News on July 23, 2025.
"𝐈𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐚 𝐇𝐨𝐚𝐱 𝐢𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝
𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐏𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧 "𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝" 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐬, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 "𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬," 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐍𝐈 𝐓𝐮𝐥𝐬𝐢 𝐆𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐝"
https://www.racket.news/p/in-brutal-document-release-the-russia
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 (free link, I think).
𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵.
https://www.racket.news/p/racket-library-the-declassified-intelligence
This is nonsense. The Steele Dossier was one piece of the pie and many of the allegations were true. Matt Taibbi is a “paid for” troll. He has no credibility whatsoever, and now makes a living off of conspiracy theories.
Are you suggesting a meeting between Don Jr., Kushner, Manafort and a Russian lawyer working on behalf of the Kremlin never took place? In which Don Jr. wanted dirt on Hillary in exchange for lifting sanctions on Russian oligarchs didn’t take place? Emails as part of the investigation prove otherwise. Along with Kushner and Don Jr. wanting to set up direct communications with Putin from the Russian Embassy.
Additionally, Trump’s foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, told an Australian diplomat to the UK that Russia was going to release emails on Hillary and the DNC soon; and sure enough it happened. Furthermore, Manafort gave sensitive polling data to a Putin Oligarch and former FSB agent, Oleg Deripaska. Why?
My point, Trump is using some of the allegations to dismiss all of the Mueller Report which proved there were Russian ties to Trump’s campaign in 2016. Not to mention, the disinformation campaigns run by Russia on social media.
Lastly, Mueller ended his report by saying that because it’s DOJ policy not to indict a sitting president:
"I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met, and I'd like to ask you the reason, again, you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC (the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel) opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?" Lieu asked……”That is correct," Mueller asked.”
Trump was far from innnocent and his campaign was in cahoots with Russia, and the reason more than 14 people pled guilty or were convicted because of the Mueller investigation.
What Mueller didn’t find was that Trump himself was involved because Trump would not cooperate with the investigation and his legal team refused to allow him to be deposed under oath.
That said, this is far different than suggesting Trump innocent and the Steele Dossier was fake!
You might want to read the documents relating to this at the Racket Library. https://www.racket.news/p/racket-library-the-declassified-intelligence
I actually did read it and it’s nothing new.
For example, Taibbi is dismissing the entire Russian investigation because the Steele Dossier was included; yet the report states that their case was solid, and it was unnecessary:
“The two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia argued jointly against including the “aspire” judgment. In an email to Brennan on 30 December, they stated the judgment should be removed because it was both weakly supported and unnecessary, given the strength and logic of the paper’s other findings on intent. They warned that including it would only “open up a line of very politicized inquiry.”
Read this whole quote from what you sent me. The two CIA officers didn’t think it was necessary to include it because it could be deemed political and muddy the entire case. And here we are!
And Is I’ve stated, I provided you proof that this was not just about the Steele Dossier. That was one piece of intelligence, not the only piece. Guys like Taibbi are manipulating the actual report, just like Trump.
And Mueller’s report does not exonerate Trump or his sycophants. 14 people from his campaign pled guilty or were convicted.
This is nonsense, plain and simple! No investigation is without scrutiny. They shouldn’t have included the dossier, but this is the excuse: fruit from the poisonous tree.
If a part of the report is based on speculative intelligence, then you must discard the rest of the report out of hand; even though the CIA’s own investigation proved that several members of campaign were working with the Russian’s.
Additionally, they proved that the Russian’s conducted massive disinformation and misinformation campaigns on social media to get Trump elected, as well dumping the Hillary and DNC, Podesta emails on Wikileaks. These facts are not in dispute!
Today (7/31/ 2025) the classified annex to Special Counsel John Durham's report was released.
Durham had nothing. His report concluded when Trump was still president in 2019. Not to mention, he was a Trump appointee. If they had something they would have used it while Trump was in office. This has been litigated.
Interesting enough, you have not disputed anything I’ve said, you just keep sending stuff that’s irrelevant. If you think my facts are wrong, show me. I’m listening; otherwise, I have no idea what we’re arguing about.
The Durham annex had not been released before today. I am not here to argue or repost all the documents, just pointing out that all this has undermined life-long Democrats' faith in the integrity of the party. I was an active member of my DEC until they decided that Michael Avenatti would be the next president and insisted he be the speaker at the Tampa Kennedy-King Dinner in 2018. People would believe anything in spite of actual facts.
From David French's NYTimes article: For those who followed the Russia investigation in its many manifestations, Gabbard’s report was an obvious red herring. It hinged on the claim that there was “no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count.” But the actual vote count was never the basis for the allegations against Russia.
In fact, as John Brennan and James Clapper, two senior intelligence officials in the Obama administration, wrote in a Times Opinion guest essay on Wednesday, “Russian influence operations might have shaped the views of Americans before they entered the voting booth, but we found no evidence that the Russians changed any actual votes.”
In other words, the claim at the time was that Russia interfered with the election by attempting to stir up chaos in the American electorate through inflammatory social media posts and a hack-and-leak campaign that targeted the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic officials.
All of this was true. It’s been acknowledged as true by a unanimous bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report that remains the best single source for understanding both Russia’s efforts to influence the election and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians and suspected Russian agents and assets. When the report was produced, the Senate Intelligence Committee was run by Republicans, and the acting chairman was none other than Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state.
The Russian motivation wasn't to get DJT elected. It was to kick sand in the face of HRC, who the Russians (and everyone else) was convinced would be the next President. This was payback for things HRC did as SecState during a Putin "election." The Russians were as surprised as everyone else when DJT won. I'm sure Putin was thrilled when people started giving them credit for getting DJT elected.
That’s just playing with words. Unlike green party voters, the Russians were not stupid enough to think that anybody other than Trump would get elected if Hillary didn’t. And even if they didn’t realize this, so what? It’s still criminal for a foreign power to interfere In a US election, whatever their motivation. It’s also criminal to know about this and not report it, which is why Trump and many of his minions were guilty of obstruction of justice.
Oh please.
Ruy is the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
As many have said, when you raise your cultural issues to the status of sacred doctrine, it’s impossible step back and say “my bad.” New moderate leadership is needed, but all the “new” leadership is on the far left. I have a hard time seeing a path back.
Once again Rui you are spot on.
It's what we noticed two years before the election........Progressives would rather have that warm inner glow of feeling morally superior than win. And the easiest way of getting that warm inner glow is to be angry at Trump all of the time. Yawn.
You see it all of the time: Progressives promising to "fight." Fight? What does that even mean other than going on and on about Trump all of the time?
We live in Arizona. We liked Kristin Sinema. She wasn't a "fighter." She was a worker, and got things done.
Senator Spartacus has made himself the loudmouthed, arrogant poster child for much of what ails today's Democratic Party. Unable even to do a good imitation of this President, Booker is just loud without substance nor achievement.
Booker actually has a very solid record of achievement as an individual and as a mayor. A Senate where he's unable to participate or lead in significant legislation is a poor fit for him because his oratory seems empty there.
He'd be a better governor. I don't think it's possible in NJ, apparently he thinks so too. It's a surprisingly razor-thin state if you press the wrong buttons. He'd have had more luck before he became nationally known.
I get that this ‘resistance’ plays to the donor base … follow the money. However, maybe Mr Booker needs to be smarter about what he is resisting … a bi-partisan backed bill introduced by a fellow democrat ? And perhaps have an alternative idea … that would be useful
Hard to convince people that the Democratic Party is moderate when they are flagrantly not so.
Ruy as always, politely brilliant. Perhaps less politeness, and more come to Jesus would help Dems listen. Both Dems and Reps have underestimated Trump for a decade, and Dems are missing the forest for the trees yet again. Immigration policy has not yet extracted its' entire pound of flesh from Dems.
The reason Trump insisted on the immediate passage of the BBB, was not tax cuts, but Homeland Security funding. $170 billion dollars is not only going to massively increase deportations. It is going to bring to light all kinds of depravity, Dems have been fighting to ignore. The first time a child brothel full of an unaccompanied migrant kids is raided, it will be ignored. Maybe even the 2nd time, but not the 3rd, and with $170 billion dollars in funding, it's coming.
It is only a matter of time before Kristie Noem reads a letter from a 14 year old mother explaining how, at the age of 12, the US federal government handed her to an unvetted man, claiming to be a relative. So he could rape her twice a day, for the next 2 years and father her child, when she was 14. And then another, and another. Eventually trial lawyers are going to come running, and imagine the class actions and the details, when Trump waves sovereign immunity for the raped and enslaved children.
Much of politics and policy is grey. Reasonable people can disagree on most issues. This is no other side to mass child sexual abuse, literally, imported onto US soil. Dems might ask themselves what they are going to do, when 3 months before the midterms, Trump begins showing picture after picture, of children with their faces blacked out, ICE rescued not just from factory floors or fields, but mobile brothels.
In Texas, we knew the effects of the open border 6 months into Biden's term. The fallout was everywhere. It took Dems years to grasp the scope of their mistake. This feels very similar. With little funding, and in a few months, ICE grabbed 200 convicted migrant pedophiles on Houston streets, alone. Now imagine a well funded and concerted national effort for 3.5 years, looking for the 300K unaccompanied minors that the federal government lost, after handing them to anyone who asked for one. Dems might want to consider what their response will be when faced with the living, breathing collateral damage of their immigration policy, because eventually, they are going to need one.
Liking this for the information, but devastated by the information put so starkly.
“It’s going to bring to light all kinds of depravity”
Yes, yes it will: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/25/florida-teen-immigration-arrest
…because what you are going to have is a massive, hastily assembled (and thus in all likelihood poorly trained and poorly screened) army of masked men larger in size than the marines, who are exempt from local state law and operate above the authority of local police, can detain anyone they want without a warrant, don’t have to wear body cameras, and have precedent to send those they round up straight to El Salvadoran gulags without ever putting them in front of a judge. (https://archive.ph/uGbwY) They are going to be given deportation quotas that are in no way realistic over the long term, meaning they will quickly end up having to meet them by ‘bending the rules’—rule-bending the present federal government has given every indication it will shrug off.
We have examples of this kind of thing all throughout modern history, and in no case has it ever failed to result in large abuses of power.
No doubt tales of immigrants eating dogs and other sordid stories will be used to ‘exonerate’ all the bad things this secret police force will wind up doing, just as the blackshirts used stories of secret communist meetings, planned communist riots, etc. to excuse what they did—but rest assured, they are going to wind up doing nasty things. History tells us these kinds of secret police forces always do.
Maybe extreme measures to reverse extreme events (open border invasion allowing in 10 to 20 million illegal migrants of whom are 500,000+ criminals into our communities) is okay with a lot of Americans who are Republicans and independent voters. It's okay with me even if some mistakes are made. When illegal criminal migrants killed Laken Riley and other young women, Democrats considered their murders collateral damage of their policy. So, screw the Democrats who allowed the invasion to happen.
The slight flaw in Roy’s plan is the primary system. Any dem running as a blue dog will end up an electoral dead dog.
Ruy, as always you are a light that refuses to go out. You are so right that hating isn’t a winning strategy. I remember when the WW1 era term ‘progressive’ started to be used again. The label ‘liberal’ was associated with failed policy ,so the re-branding started with an old label. One tiny step forward is for the Democrats is to ditch the progressive label for something else. Personally I’d like them to become the ‘common sense’ party, but it would never happen.
Rebranding is good, but moving to an actual good product is even better.
The solution is to abandon radical left planks and radical left candidates. Move to the middle. Begin to look like the voters. Get some moderates to run. Unlikely they'll do that until they get smacked more.
Yes, but who is going to abandon whom? It seems to me nearly impossible to solve this move-to-the-center problem without cutting loose the progressive left. They don’t hold all the cards, but they hold enough to keep the Pot boiling.
That's a real problem. The right faced a similar problem and seems to have overcome it, at least for now. I will have to figure out how that occurred.
A transformative figure (trump) shredded the existing GOP order and rebuilt it in his own image.
Indeed, the Ds absolutely need such a figure at the helm. Lots of analysts triangulate policy and groups and positions to describe the “Obama coalition” - but in fact, Obama was a transformative leader able to heard all the cats to his flag.
So the question is, who is that person in the moderate wing? There are some talented candidates on the far left - but who can make the middle attractive again.
I nominate Steve Bullock, former Democratic governor of Montana. I supported him in his presidential campaign in the Democratic primary, and I've never lived in Montana! He had a very strong platform, but the progressive left shut him out. Given a chance to rally the Democratic party without being shouted down constantly by the more radical edge, I think he'd make a fantastic transformative figure.
Obama left the Democrat party in absolute shreds.
Indeed yes. He hollowed out the party and showed zero party leadership. He was no party man to be sure. But he did have what it takes to win elections. Not always the same thing. :)
I’ll add that this seems to require national level politics. House and senate races won’t provide the framework for such a leader. Who ever heard of Obama outside of Illinois until he ran for president? Which means locusts and wild honey may be on the menu until ‘28.
He gained national attention when running for the senate and giving a good speech at the national convention in 04.
Good choice. Can he escape the sharks? Here’s hoping.
Obviously, I think, correct. But to return to an earlier topic of the Liberal Patriot, "Good management of cities," we have a disgusting example in Cincinnati as to how detached Democrats are when it comes to ever having "good management." Instead of increasing police presence, and promising safer concert venues downtown in the wake of black ferals beating two whines, a city council woman said they deserved it, and the DEI hire chief of police downplayed the incident entirely. Cincy is beautiful, and I have been to a concert at or near that location. And it's sad that you have to stay in groups and NOT wander outside the zone of protection. Until Democrats fix this, they are screwed. No one will ever view them as a party of "good management."
The Democrats used to be able to win on the economy, inflation and foreign wars. Unless they start running on smart policies in those areas they will clearly loose again. More of the same will not work. Other issues like the Russiagate issue and especially the "democracy" issue will not result in the votes they need. Energy expended on those and other issues will only take away energy needed for a focus on issues which can win over the voters.
We need a MAGA Dem wing. I don’t really have a gripe about any issues that Trump is addressing, but we sorely need a debate on strategy.
Democrats Should Give Up on #Resistance 2.0
I felt like saying it again. Below Ruy's first paragraph he listed issues and how much more trusted Republicans are on those issues. Those issues are certainly important to me, and key I believe to winning elections. The problem is that the Democratic Party has no real solutions.
Trump is doing things, often enough successfully. Just in the past week 15% tariffs on the EU, Korea, Thailand. Trump is deporting people.
The Democratic Party should come up with a way to get a couple million people to leave who shouldn't be here. Instead our solution is to give everyone a visa so they aren't illegal. There are tons of places we could offer solutions like min wages, increasing Social Security, health care that covers everyone instead of offering insurance to everyone. Public Housing. Trump had a good announcement last week about cleaning up our streets via mental hospitals, jails, and housing. We need solutions. Plenty to do.
"There are tons of places we could offer solutions like min wages, increasing Social Security, health care that covers everyone instead of offering insurance to everyone. Public Housing."
Expanding big government is one way to go I guess. And of course you would have to raise taxes by trillions to pay for it all.
I am not hearing a single specific policy, just pie in the sky wish lists.
This is a great example of DJT's ability to change the narrative. Three weeks ago Dems were on fire about Medicaid cuts and ready to make this the #1 topic when Congress went home on summer break. Now all they talk about is Colbert and Epstein.