Timothy Snyder: No Kings — Freedom (video)

Why Protest Is Patriotic

By Timothy Snyder

Oct 11, 2025

A week from today, on October 18th, millions of Americans will gather in thousands of places to protest the countless ways our current administration is attacking our freedoms. Some elected officials — details in the video — cannot even bear to say the name of the protests out loud « No Kings ». Instead they are trying to message-discipline themselves into the propaganda line that protestors hate their country. Ha! It’s exactly the opposite. Protestors believe that action has meaning. Protestors are exercising the rights enshrined in the Constitution. For me, protest is about love of country, where love means wanting my country to survive and thrive and be the best version of itself. I will be there on October 18th, and I hope you will be too. The video has the thoughts about why lying about protest is harmful and why getting out in public with others is helpful. Thanks for being with me.

Please go here for the original video: https://snyder.substack.com/p/no-kings-freedom-video

TRUMP FACTS

 THIS

On March 12, 2025, JOE VARCK wrote: “I made sure I fact checked these, so feel free to check yourselves, but these may be a good reason not to trust Donald.”

Trump facts:

64 Times Mentioned In Epstein Report.

97 Times Pleaded The Fifth.

34 Felony Convictions.

91 Criminal Charges.

26 Sexual Assault Allegations.

6 Bankruptcies.

5 Draft Deferments.

4 Indictments.

2 Impeachments.

2 Convicted Companies.

1 Fake University Shut Down.

1 Fake Charity Shut Down.

$25 Million Fraud Settlement.

$5 Million Sexual Abuse Verdict.

$2 Million Fake Charity Abuse Judgment.

$93 Million Sexual Abuse Judgements.

$400+ Million Fraud Judgment.

First President in history to serve a full term increase the deficit every year he was in office.

First President in history to maintain a debt to GDP ratio over 100% for his entire term.

Highest annual budget deficit.

Most added to the national debt in a single term.

Most new unemployment claims.

Largest single day point drop in the history of the Dow.

First major party candidate in half a century to lose the popular vote twice.

Longest government shutdown in history (and he did that while his own party controlled both chambers of Congress).

First President in the history of approval ratings to maintain a net negative approval rating for his entire term.

First President to be impeached twice.

First President to have bipartisan support for his conviction after impeachment (which happened both times).

Most indictments, guilty pleas, and criminal convictions of members of an administration.

First president to have a mug shot.

Joe invites us to “go ahead and lookup every claim here.”

ORIGINAL HERE: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=9324006824374032&id=100002944217780&mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=5zf5Z3ku2aTcUhfG

Karen Wells

While Ripping Trump Authoritarianism, Over Half of Senate Dems Help GOP Pass $925 Billion Pentagon Bill

More illuminating information related to which democrats in Congress are voting for or against a higher good for us all. And, yes, we should all be horrified and be involved! — Molly

Protestors demonstrate near a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, on October 10, 2025, after a federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the Chicago area. (Photo by Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

“Congress continues to expand military spending while denying investments in the programs that will truly build a safer, healthier future for working- and middle-class families,” said Sen. Ed Markey, who voted no.

By Jessica Corbett

Senate Democrats are blasting President Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian behavior and congressional Republicans for shutting down the US government to preserve devastating healthcare cuts, but over half of them voted with the GOP late Thursday to give nearly $1 trillion to the Pentagon, which has never passed an audit.

The final vote on the Senate’s $925 billion version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 was 77-20, with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) not voting. The passage tees up talks with leaders in the House of Representatives, where nearly all Republicans and 17 Democrats approved an NDAA last month.

Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Cory Booker (NJ), Maria Cantwell (Wash.) Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Andy Kim (NJ), Ed Markey (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Tina Smith (Minn.) Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Peter Welch (Vt.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.) opposed the bill alongside Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, and Rand Paul (R-Ky).

“Yesterday, the Senate voted to give the Pentagon a trillion-dollar spending package while the Trump administration and MAGA Republicans play politics with troop pay and nuclear security and refuse to reopen the federal government,” Markey said in a Friday statement. “All the while, they are stealing healthcare from American families to fund tax breaks for CEO billionaires. This isn’t a budget that funds America’s real security needs.”

“The Senate voted to give the Pentagon a trillion-dollar spending package while the Trump administration and MAGA Republicans play politics with troop pay and nuclear security and refuse to reopen the federal government.”

 “Republicans rail that we need to cut government spending—for food assistance, for healthcare, for environmental protection—yet they are showering their defense contractor cronies with hundreds of billions for wasteful and destabilizing programs like Trump’s Golden Dome space-based missile system,” Markey continued. “Yet they decry that funding will soon dry up for paying military salaries and for essential nuclear security operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration.”

“In their desperation to score cheap political points, Republicans are undermining vital national security missions,” he added. “Year after year, Congress continues to expand military spending while denying investments in the programs that will truly build a safer, healthier future for working- and middle-class families. The cost of passing this bill in the form of denied rights and wasteful spending is simply too great.”

In posts on Bluesky, journalist Erin Reed called out the Senate Democrats who helped pass the bill, given its attacks on LGBTQ+ Americans and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—common targets of congressional Republicans and the Trump administration.

“In 2024, the NDAA became the vehicle for one of the most consequential betrayals of transgender Americans by national Democrats in recent memory, after Democrats allowed provisions targeting trans military family members and dependents to stand when they had control of the Senate and White House,” Reed noted.

“This year, history is repeating itself,” she said. “Senate Democrats dropped key objections and allowed a vote to proceed on the bill—ultimately passing the Senate version of the bill, complete with anti-trans culture-war riders, an anti-DEI clause, and no limits on the domestic deployment of US troops.”

Early Thursday afternoon, Duckworth, a veteran herself, said that she was blocking the NDAA until she secured a hearing to investigate the president’s “gross abuse of our military” by sending soldiers into American cities. A few hours later—shortly before a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s National Guard deployment in her state, Illinois—Duckworth announced that a hearing is planned.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), one of the Democrats who voted for the NDAA, secured sufficient bipartisan support for his amendment to end the authorizations for use of military force related to the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Washington Post reported that “the House bill also includes a similar measure, bringing Congress to the precipice of repealing the laws.”

Some other Democrat-proposed amendments weren’t successful. According to The Hill:

Amendments that failed to pass included one from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who had hoped to block money for President Trump to retrofit a luxury Qatari jet he accepted as an intended replacement for Air Force One.

"Retrofitting this foreign-owned luxury jet to make it fully operational will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. That's money that shouldn't be wasted," Schumer said.

Still, Schumer ultimately voted for the NDAA—unlike Van Hollen, who proposed blocking Trump and governors from sending National Guard troops to another state if its governor or local leaders don’t agree.

“Presidents and governors shouldn’t be able to deploy National Guard troops from one state to another if that state’s governor objects,” the senator said on social media. “That is common sense, and yet Republicans just blocked my amendment to stop this blatant abuse of power. Another shameful abdication of duty.”

Please go here for the original article: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2026-ndaa

Jane Goodall: Only If We Understand

Photo by Molly

 Only If We Understand

Only if we understand, can we care. 

Only if we care, we will help. 

Only if we help, we shall be saved.

You cannot get through a single day 

without having an impact on the world 

around you. What you do makes a difference, 

and you have to decide what kind of 

difference you want to make.

The greatest danger to our 

future is apathy.

We have the choice to use the gift of 

our life to make the world a better place

—or not to bother.

We have so far to go to realize 

our human potential for compassion, 

altruism, and love. 

— Jane Goodall  

Be Part of the Revolution!

I admit to some disappointment. I posted a list of possible outcomes. The comment thread was extensive, and several people suggested possibilities I had not considered.

But what disappointed me were the comments (only a few) from people (who are intelligent and thoughtful) who assumed that there is no way out from this mess and that the death spiral of the United States is inevitable.

I won't argue with why some people feel that way. Certainly things look grim. Not as grim yet as Germany in the thirties, but certainly it's the same playbook. But the Third Reich collapsed -- not just because the Allies united against it, but because there was significant internal opposition to weaken it enormously. (Here's a clue. Don't put slave labor in charge of making ammunition.)

But where other tyrannical states have mostly dealt with homogenous populations, the weakness of this country is also its strength. We have diversity. And those diverse populations want equality in the eyes of the law. They want inclusion. This is what DEI truly means, despite the reich-wing's attempt to redefine it.

The strength of America is that we are ungovernable -- unless we choose to be governed. I believe (I could be wrong) that no tyrant survives for long. Nixon didn't.

Someone pointed out to me something that I have been saying for a long time -- that this current badministration is the endgame that the reich-wing started planning for in the 50s, when Fred Koch funded the John Birch Society. Nixon's resignation tainted the liberal wing of the rethuglican party and created a vacuum that the reich-wing filled -- with Ronald Reagan, who was never intended to be more than the hood ornament on the battering ram.

So ... some of the comments in the comment thread were the usual garment rending that post-twitler, things will just get worse and worse, there's no way out, we're doomed, let's all run around in circles, screaming and shouting, pissing and moaning --

Sorry, but I don't think that way. Despite all odds, I sold a script to a TV show. Despite all odds, I adopted a little boy. Despite all odds, my family and I moved to a place that is nothing short of paradise. Despite all odds, I'm still here. And ...

History is full of evidence, full of examples where tyrannies ended, one way or the other. In this country, the Great Depression ended the rethuglican monopoly on our politics. We are headed for another Great Depression. While that's not good news, it also represents an opportunity. Just as FDR was able to rebuild the United States in his unprecedented three and a half terms, and Truman was able to continue that -- and Ike understood it too, and JFK and LBJ understood the strength of this nation -- it is possible that this nation will finally and fully reject the attempts of the billionaires to make this their private club.

It is this simple -- this nation, of the people, by the people, and for the people, WILL BE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE.

It won't be easy, it will take vigilance, and we will need to put serious limits on the power of money to buy governments, but it is not impossible.

And those who insist on being short-sighted, on telling me there's no way out, we're all doomed, the ship is sinking, blah blah blah -- I didn't get here by wallowing in that mindset. And I'm too old and too stubborn and too cranky to go down with that ship.

I'll say it this way. If you want freedom, you gotta get up off your fat flabby ass and be a part of the revolution. Be a pebble in the avalanche.

—David Gerrold

We Must Never Accept or Normalize the Violence of Dehumanization

I fact checked the quote shared here because it is so over the top violent, outrageous, misogynistic, psychopathic, hateful, and insane. And it’s true. This profoundly wounded, delusional, and dangerous “expert” really said this. We must NEVER accept or normalize this level of dehumanization and violence directed at anyone much less someone who embodies the integrity, courage, activism, and fierce love that Greta Thunberg does. This madness is NOT OKAY! 😠

Tragically there are countless human beings who have deep unaddressed ancestral and cultural trauma. They are severed from the wisdom of their hearts and are compelled to project their self-loathing and violence and other symptoms of trauma onto others. Their deep untreated trauma is what makes them so profoundly dangerous and incapable of empathy and compassion. 

My own mother was tragically once this narcissistic with devastating consequences to our family. Through my own deeply empowering and transformative healing work that I have engaged in over the decades it is this exactly this understanding of trauma which has freed me to respond — most of the time — to the horrors of our times with compassion and consciousness and a refusal to return hatred with more hatred.

That said, and while some of us are capable of doing the deep work of healing and transforming trauma, some of us aren’t. My twin brother committed suicide many years ago. He was among those who couldn’t. John's tortured life was also largely connected to the impact of on him of our severely wounded and narcissistic mother. The challenge, I believe, is for us to not judge and dehumanize anyone and, for those of us who are able, to heal the trauma we carry in our hearts and ground ourselves in fierce love.

Bless us all,

Molly