115 Comments

I am shocked….of course I am shocked. I am an old white lady bumbling along in my life thinking RACISM, the blatant kind of lynchings, was somehow over. So privileged! But it’s been creeping under the surface forever and now allowed to burst into the open. The last 5-10 years have allowed me to bear witness to the horrors marginalized people , especially people of color but now also differently gendered people, have faced in our country of freedom. It is disgraceful and sick…so very sick. I am humbled by these two young black representatives. Their words compel me to stand up and fight back. We shall overcome……

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This old white lady agrees.

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Ditto! I called the governor to complain!

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So does this one!

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This one also!

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Another old white woman...agree!

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Thanks, Michael, for all your many great contribution to defend democracy from fascist forces. I'll never forget your very incisive and correct comments of what was happening Jan6, as it happened. You should post them, again, and again, at least at the anniversary. It will be important next year.

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I wish I could recall where I read this so I could give proper credit, but "Tennessee lawmakers just provided the nation with an object lesson in critical race theory."

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I literally just subscribed so that I could like your comment. Thank you.

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You have given me a terrific compliment -- way to pay it forward!

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Welcome to our ever-growing community!

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It was Elie Mystal last night on the 8 pm MSNBC show--a well-known attorney in constitutional law and civil rights

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Yes!! Thank you, Elizabeth -- and someone I've been reading in The Nation for years now. Terrific journalist and pundit.

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Elie Mistal said it this afternoon on Nicole Wallace's show

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So right, Michael. We have strength in numbers. Here in San Luis Obispo County in California, the three-member Republican majority of the Board of Supervisors pushed through a redistricting map that gerrymandered the county to favor Republicans. The public rose up, donated to an organization formed to fight this injustice, and has now won. The gerrymandered map gas been thrown out. The Democrat the Republican supervisors most wanted off the board won the election anyway, by 13 votes, and one of the other Republicans was defeated. This now liberal majority is, after a year of legal struggles, working toward settling the legal issues and adopting a more fair map. https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/slo-county-settles-redistricting-lawsuit-will-replace-patten-map/Content?oid=13739027

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Yes, Claudy. I am sickened over this too. One thing I want so badly is to get out there and sing with everyone! I guess it's from seeing all the photos of people outraged and shouting. I get it, I DO!

Now I want to sing it. Not just me in the car with Pete Seeger and Emma's Revolution etc. but with

many, many more, Moore of us. Maybe we're not ready yet but I'm tuning up the old pipes and going through my protest music and cherishing the spirit of John Lewis. This is good trouble.

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Watching this in real time last evening was STUNNING and SO POWERFUL:

Blatant Racism Exposed.

Children's Lives Don't Matter.

No Justice for Justins.

Guns and Bullets Reign.

Every PTA, Parent, Teacher, Student, Grandparent, Citizen in the country needs to march with child size coffins from their school to their courthouse. Enough.

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These white fascist racist autocrats of the Tennessee legislature have already lost. They need their mugshots and names known and connected to their vile acts daily. They cheated to be there in the first place. Just like in the US house and senate and the 13 States that need the same type of intervention by the DOJ like Ruby Bridges had when Alabama was forced to integrate or something similar. Is that even possible today?

Already the young Black Legislators were not allowed to approach the table/well to have any of their bills heard. Yet, they were able to eloquently voice their positions because they had the hundreds of young and multiracial people voice in large enough numbers to scare these cowards into the only thing they have ever done successfully was to hold a public lynching and expel the young Black Legislators Justin Pearson and Justin Jones.

A vile act in the name if decorum.

This excuse is used in nearly every state legislature to stop bills on climate legislation, gun violence, affordable housing, and even when the ones that cheated and gerrymandered the map to hold power, holds hostage the appropriations bills. Sadly, It’s is both parties that do this in New Mexico.

When they control the mapping, progressives don’t win, they cannot even get their candidates of their choice through a primary.

Sandoval county NM is now in district court for voter suppression and gerrymandering that is being slow walked by the same type of vile white radical autocrats.

The Tennessee Three may serve in the US house or senate and or will go on to lead the change we need to see in this country. There will be others to follow because the wall in the dam of bigotry and hate was cracked open and there is no holding back the flood waters of change that is coming.

The lost cause of the south had one more ugly story to show the nation and the world.

Hold the ground don’t move on too many children are dying from gun violence.

This is what they stood up for our children

dying is a national issue.

We need this type of protest in every legislature in the country.

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If any lesson is to be learned here, it's that we need to constantly be involved in protecting and EXPANDING OUR democracy. At age 77, this old sorta beige white boomer (Japanese ancestry discovered in a closet recently) never thought we could stop. However, many of us were busy raising kids, working (public school teacher here), and after Nixon, The Vietnam/US War, desegregation of public services, registration of disenfranchised voters of color, women's rights etc, etc, I AM tired, BUT know I MUST stay in the fight! Even if I just make coffee and sandwiches for those actively protesting! KEEP THE FAITH!

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I am with you, keep the coffee, water, sandwiches coming. We are all

In this together. We need everyone, our young people rising up need to be supported.

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Thank you Michael. I’m 68 and I want to join young people in their righteous anger about this situation.

Norm Degelman

San Francisco

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As I watched in horror the ousting of the two black representatives and almost the woman in TN I realized the KKK was still alive and well in that state. All they needed to solidify this moment was they forgot and left their white hoods and robes in their offices. What the heck is happening in our country!!? Our only hope is for young people to step up and take charge. And then they are trying to sweep under the rug the education of children about the horrible history of our country?! My God! It’s 1936 all over again!

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I thought the same thing - all they needed was pointy white hoods and the picture would be complete. The good news is they made instant political stars out of those brave young men. The GQP just can't seem to stop touching the third rail. I feel that in the not-too-distant future it will (figuratively) kill them. And I will smile and piss on their grave.

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Patricia and Diane.

If the house hadn't made a big deal of this, the story wouldn't have made it out of TN. As outrageous as the expulsion was, there's an upside! It provides both Justin's a NATIONAL audience for the issue of gun violence. In addition, everyone gets to see a shocking example of overt racism.

It will mobilize Democrats nationwide to actively support the ousting of these shameful Republican House members. Their reelection campaigns are on my radar now. Donations, call trees, postcards.

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Definitely I will be watching and reporting on their racism.

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I agree! It’s time for racism to finally get cut out of our country! It’s over! We demand a free country for every man, woman and child of every color!

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The rats already had a super-majority that could block any kind of common-sense gun legislation, but JUSTIN case, they expelled these two, responsive, responsible, young, Black legislators. We all know that the rats are racists, but JUSTIN case, they expelled these two, responsive, responsible, young, Black legislators. The rats have never care about children, or babies (or fetuses if truth be told), but JUSTIN case, they expelled these two, responsive, responsible, young, Black legislators. The rats are both irresponsible and do not respond to the needs, sentiments, or demands of the people (particularly the young students who marched for their lives in Nashville), but JUSTIN case we didn't know this, they expelled these two, responsive, responsible, young, Black legislators.

We must get rid of the Republican Antidemocracy Terrorists (rats), and support and encourage these JUSTINs and others like them.

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Let's be clear, Almost all pro life people are Pro- Birth, They are NOT pro life. They don't care about the life of the children, mothers or families, it just a power thing.

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Beautifully said!

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"Republican Antidemocracy Terrorists (RATs)"

BRILLIANT! We all must begin to use this term when describing these types of Republicans...which seems to be just about all of them now!

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How are you going to do this.........get out on the streets!

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I first read de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" back in high school circa 1969. A young French nobleman traveling around the world's first and youngest democracy in the 1830s -- and taking very careful notes on all that he witnessed. I felt it was high time for me to start reading it again.

His very first note -- which he believes is central to everything else he saw -- is what he calls the "equality of conditions" in America for the vast majority of (white) people. A vast middle-class enjoying what we today might call "equality of outcomes."

Where we are today, and Tennessee provides the latest example, is in a nation where democracy is failing. (See the YouTube: "Capitalism will eat democracy, unless we speak up.") We're entering an age that the speaker calls "techno-feudalism." It will EAT our young people, unless we start to speak up.

Thank you Michael and all.

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Tocqueville also realised that the US was a culture of money.

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Where in his writings does he convey this "realization?"

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Read it years ago. I think when he first got there.

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It was an absolutely shame to watch, - as if we were in a time-machine. However the bright side is that the Dems will only grow stronger as GUN VIOLENCE and RACISM now join THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE as primary themes for the upcoming elections. Also, yesterday’s antics gave birth to two rising stars: The TWO JUSTINS! Those guys spoke with poise and dignity. They kept their cool. It was just like watching Billy Jack or Easy Rider, - the all-white redneck a-holes displayed how disgusting and perverse racism is in our country. We’re only more energized for 2024...absolutely!

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TheTennessee GOP is clearly racist and anti-democratic. thank. You, Michael for posting this.

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Takes me right back to the sixties, we gotta keep fighting the good fight. Can’t let those shallow ignorant fools win. Not ever!

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Trump is the perfect mob boss and he is proud of it.

He enjoys demanding complete loyalty from his Friends,  (hit men.) If they don't give him their complete loyalty then Trump will turn on them and wrack his revenge on his former friends lives by publicly humiliating them with lies that will turn many of Trumps other misguided followers against these people.

Including Trumps violent followers who will do anything for Trump that they think will make him happy.

Trump's followers love it that Trump is a RACIST, LIAR, CHEATER, and a VIOLENT PSYCHOPATH, because it gives his followers permission to lie, cheat, steal, be racist and use violence whenever they want to.

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And don’t forget that Trump is a racist in chief, raised that way by hi also racist father! It stops now!

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One of the biggest problems American voters face is, most live in their own reality, and are in denial about how the Corporations and Billionaires are running this country. The Republican Party is part of the corporations and Billionaires, they are a division of the corporations and Billionaires, they are the political arm of the corporations, and their job is to pass legislation for corporations and Billionaires. Doing a so called Bipartisanship deal, shows that the corporations and Billionaires have a strong strangle hold on this country.

The corporations and Billionaires are using their political power and the Republican Party to turn this country into a fascist Oligarchy that basically is what we are now. We are fighting for Democracy and Constitutional Law. This country may be too corrupt to have a democracy and have the Constitution as its law base. The corporations and Billionaires are too powerful to over come, they want an authoritarian ultra nationalism fascist, white Supremacist, misogynistic, government where the people have no say in how the government is run, which is characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, with no Constitutional Law. When you have a politician speaking at an event or rally and someone asks a question the politician does not like, or a person has something to say about the politicians policies and that person is forcefully removed, that is not Democracy.

This is why if you look back for decades, you will not see a single piece of legislation written, drafted and passed by any Republicans that benefits the poor or the middle class. Since the Republican Party has done nothing for the people and they still need voters to vote them into office, Republican politicians have created a massive propaganda and disinformation fear factory, with thousands of right wing media outlets preaching hate like Fox News, Jones, Newsmax, OAN, Breitbart, and until his death Rush Limbaugh.

The Republican Party has to constantly lie, to keep their constituents brain washed and most have even become cultists. A republican Politician cannot get in front of a podium and tell the truth which would be something like this, ‘I have given more of your tax money to the corporations I work for then my opponent, and Have voted to give a Trillion Dollars in subsidies from your tax money to corporations and companies each year, some making Billions of dollars in profits, so vote for me’, if Republicans told the truth their party would disappear. Because republicans never do anything for the people they also take credit for legislation the democrats push through that benefit the people, that the republicans voted against, they are truly low life scumbags.

The republicans use their massive propaganda and disinformation media network to blame democrats for the crimes republicans commit while in office. For instance while republicans are in office they will spend taxpayer’s money and severely raise the national debt by 7 or 8 trillion dollars, then when democrats are in power and want to do something for the people, the republicans start crying and screaming about how high our national debt is and how we cannot afford it.

For over a decade I have watched the injustice of using eminent domain to unjustly take land from the owners. The Oil industry buying state governments to take land away from native people and hiring police dressed in combat style uniforms, and weapons to beat, pepper spray, shoot with rubber bullets, and club Native people protecting their land. Police thugs arrest them on made up charges, because we have an autocratic organized crime government, where money and power is the law.

Trump is the poster boy of what the republican party is, they are all either Narcissistic, Pathological liars, Sociopaths traitors to this country, and or Psychopaths who are conducting a coup d'état against Democracy, Freedom, and the Constitution of the United States of America, at the bequest of the Corporations and Billionaires. Their goal is to totally make this country an Oligarchy, with no rights for the poor and Middle Class. The Republicans are currently turning their states into a government of their own, potentially creating the same scenario with the Confederate States against the Federal government that existed before 1865.

When the Republican Party shows their condemnation and hatred of ANTIFA, they are showing us all they are Fascists' (A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism). A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government, Trump was the corporations and Billionaires key to taking total control of this country, and becoming a Fascist Oligarchy.

This country has a severe lack of accountability and law enforcement infrastructure. The Constitution is suppose to be the law of the land, but there is no accountability for those who violate it, the rich and politicians have made sure they cannot be held accountable after committing crimes, only the poor and middle class are held accountable for breaking the law.

Republican states are passing laws that are illegal and unconstitutional, because there is no one to enforce violators of the Constitution. That is because the republicans who work for the corporations and billionaires are setting up their own government with in their states and using voter suppression to the point where no Democrat can win any office in these republican controlled States, this country is headed into another Confederate States against the United States pre Civil War confrontation. The problem is the only one's who can do something about this, are corporate Democrats who also take orders and a lot of money from corporations and billionaires who are conducting a coup d'état for permanent control of the country, and permanently make this country an Oligarchy, with little to no hope of becoming a democracy, having freedom, or Constitutional law.

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...and they wont stop until they get their New World Order.

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"Corporations United" needs to be overturned.

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