Not surprising

We spray pesticides everywhere. Just what we do on our lawns is insane. Walk into any Home Depot or Lowe’s. There is a huge aisle stacked with products that contain both herbicides and pesticides.

That fertilizer with pre-emergent in it? Have you ever stopped to think what else it kills? Lizards? Nematodes? Mayflies? What else?

We spray chemicals everywhere and really we have little understanding of the systemic effects. We fight the good fight against mosquitoes. But what if we kill them all? What eats mosquitoes? Surely they will then starve.

We seem to think that somehow we stand apart from the ecosystem. But we are part of it and depend on it to survive.

At some point we will kill too many of the little creatures and then creatures that eat them will starve and then this will ripple up through the system until the apex predator can no longer survive.

And that apex predator is us. As Pogo once said, “I has met the enemy and he is us.”

In the midst of the Trumpocalypse

In the midst all this badness it was good to read and see something so positive and wonderful.

A moderate Republican

I’ve never agreed with Republicans. I always felt that they were racist authoritarians.

But I was never really personally worried. I’m white, college educated, and upper middle class.

But now there is a fascist, evangelical wing of the party. Unashamedly racist, theocratic, hostile to human rights. These people are as close to evil as you’ll see in politics.

Most importantly they’re cheaters. If they can’t win honest they’ll cheat. That’s just one of the many issues and also why they keep winning.

These people are a nightmare.

Im not afraid

I’m not afraid to use that particular “F” word.

He is, as the author notes a fascist by every definition.

In complete agreement

I try to ignore them because they serve no purpose except venting.

The only thing these posts can possibly do is drive wedges between people.

I was all for Bernie and voted for him in the primary. He lost Texas big.

I then voted for Hillary even though I knew the angle of attack they’d take. She lost and disaster is here.

We all need to focus on getting as many Republicans out of office as possible. That needs to be the ongoing focus from here on in. We cannot afford disunity.
Squabbling just wastes energy and creates hard feelings.

Putin's best investment

Trump has paid off handsomely.

Putin couldn't have been completely confident that Trump would destroy American hegemony. But he has.

This creates an unprecedented power vacuum that Russia and China are eager to fill and restores Russia to major power status even though their economy is tiny compared to well...almost any country.

In 8 months Trump has undone decades of U.S. efforts to dominate politically, militarily, and diplomatically the world. Our status is shrinking daily. A key indicator is that the planned UK visit has been scaled back and Trump will not be meeting the Queen.

Sounds trivial but it that is of enormous significance.

The only thing that keeps us in the game at all is our enormous military Our military is small in number of personnel, but very, very large in high tech weaponry including a huge nuclear arsenal.

Gingrich is a stunningly stupid man

Everything Trump has done has been done by fiat--by executive order. Almost every executive order has been to undo something that was done to improve our country. He is dismantling environmental regulations, his Justice Department has signaled that private companies can now treat LGBTQ employees as 2nd class citizens and can even fire them for their sexual orientation. This same Justice department has said that companies can also not comply with regulations that conflict with their religious beliefs. An anti-environmentalist is in charge of the EPA and has announced that "the war on coal is over". The regulation put in place by the Obama administration prohibiting mountain top removal coal mining has been shelved. North Korea, always a problem, is now a nuclear power and Trump has made sure that there will be no diplomacy. We inch closer and closer to war each day. Our long time allies have no idea what will come from Washington day to day and have seen that America can no longer be relied on. The State Department, a key promoter of American interests, is a mere shell. Many ambassadorships are empty and an oil/gas executive is the Secretary of State. Rex Tillerson, in a all-hands-on-deck meeting, said his number one goal was to make the State Department more "efficient"...whatever that means.

Puerto Rico is being left to rot after a category 4 hurricane decimated the US territory. Trump just announced he will stop making the risk corridor payments to insurance companies and may stop subsidizing insurance premiums (not clear on that yet--the news is only few hours old).

Everywhere I look I see destruction and wreckage. It is a poignant irony that we have had 4 natural disasters--Harvey, Irma, Maria, and now the California fire storms--at the same time that Trump is doing everything he can to destroy our system of government. It is as if nature in mirroring the ongoing destruction of our system of government.

So, in a sense, Gingrich is right. Trump has been stunningly effective. But is this the change that the people wanted? I think it is the exact opposite of what the vast majority of Americans were looking for. Maybe to Gingrich, one of the anti-government zealots that stormed the bastions of Washington in the 90's, this looks like progress.

But to most of us this looks like destruction of the last remaining super power. When this is done America will be largely irrelevant in geopolitics with our power and influence almost gone. A huge howling power vacuum is developing with China and Russia standing ready to occupy it.

Even if Trump drops dead today what he has wrought will be with us for a long, long time. We are a people that operate on precedent and he has set a good many. The most damaging is ruling without legislation. The closest we have come to imperial rule was Franklin Roosevelt--but he at least was a very brilliant man. Trump is obviously an idiot. If we do not lumber into a world war we will still be trying to put together some system of government after his passing.

Gingrich is a fool. Trump is a moron. Rex Tillerson hasn't the skills to manage the State Department even if he has benign intentions. Scott Pruitt hates the EPA he is supposed to run and doesn't believe in climate science. Mulvaney, well he's just a mean SOB. Ben Carson, he's just crazy.

Effective? Yes, in fomenting chaos and destruction. God help us all.

Very sad

That Trump thinks that this gathering of wackos is his comfort zone is truly sad. He’s addicted to the adulation that he’ll receive. He fails to take into account that the values of these people express are antithetical to anything that the American republic is about.

Trump is for all intents and purposes a nihilist. He is not the only Republican that is a nihilist. Many names spring to mind… Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Scalise, Ron Johnson, Sam Johnson (my representative), Ted Cruz.... oh hell, maybe the entire house and most of the Republican Senate.

This is just one step short of going to a klan rally. It is amazing to me how far we have fallen and how fast.

But the truth is that this is been building up since the Nixon White House. We’ve always had these amoral zealots out there that would probably sell their own grandmother for pocket money.These zealots definitely have always been racist, anti-immigrant, anti-poor.

I just never expected to see them running the entire country.

Absolutely!!!!

If you against birth control then you are pro-abortion

Try that one out on somebody…

If you are against birth-control then you are pro-abortion.

If you are against gun control then you are anti-life.

If you are against universally available prenatal care then you’re anti-baby and anti-mother.

The Republican philosophy as it is being expressed today is anti-everything that is human.

The only thing I can see that the Republicans are for is the accumulation of wealth at the expense of everything else.