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I’m going to read it carefully after a nap so I can concentrate, get the meaning, and share everywhere. This am calling attention to the new Speaker’s close attachments to the NRA; endorsed and funded. Gross mistake, negligence in researching his background and there he sits, second in line to presidency. With such bizarre right wing Christian nationalism, right wing extremist as far as they could go, Trump ally. The whole fascist package. I’ll be back soon.

Thank you, Adam! 💔🇺🇸

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Thank yuu!

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Am with you on the 84%.

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PS yes, I’d be in that 84%!

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Thank You Adam. I live in Maine where authorities are still searching for the mass shooter and an entire community, including Bates College is still, under shelter in place orders.

I read today that they are going to finally begin searching the water which I have been saying they should have done from day one. One of his vehicles was found abandoned at the end of a boat dock. I simply can not understand why this would not have led to an immediate search for any boats missing and a dive team searching the water.

There is of course no reason for this, only excuses. I am sick of all the 'mental health' talk. It's the guns. It is the access to guns. It is the donations to the GOP from the NRA.

Please someone tell me how anyone with a heart could believe money is more important than a life?

As a Mom I'm still trying to deal with Uvalde. I'm still trying to deal with the pain I see in the eyes of Fred Guttenberg.

Adam is correct about political violence. If the people who follow Trump no longer care about our children being slaughtered with an assault rifle to the point where they can't be recognized and must be identified by a sneaker or an article of clothing they were wearing why do any of us think they will hesitate to begin killing any of us in the name of their cult leader?

Adam is a Veteran and I'm sure he knows as well as I do what an assault rifle does to a body. Take those radical MAGA members to a crime scene of a mass shooter, make them work the scene, collect evidence, take photos of the bodies and go every step of the way with that body including the complete autopsy and notification to the loved ones.

Make DJT do it - I'd love to see a judge order him to do so. He might even change his tune where the NRA is concerned. They are all spouting this nonsense from a point of view that doesn't touch them. Put them into the actual nitty gritty of the work and see how long they last.

Thank you for your time.

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Well said. And I agree with you completely except for one small thing. Sadly, there is ZERO hope for DJT. He is a sociopath that is forever irredeemable. No amount of wishing hoping or praying will ever move him toward anything resembling a caring human being.

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You are correct.

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Is it just me? Or does it seem that in our recent history the only time we act as a unified nation is when we are in a war with a foreign entity? Think 911... but only to a point. Then we get back to hating each other.

Come on people. Don't we have better things to do with our short lives?

This is why I have grown to absolutely loath Donald Trump and, frankly, the rest of the far right. They are taking our country to a VERY dark place. It's a cancer that slowly grows until we become aware of it and then have major problems in treating it. We are KEENLY aware of it by now.

There is no way any sensible person that calls themselves a true Democratic patriot and supporter of our great country can try and spin this as being caused by the "other side". It's not the other side. It's simply a lust for power and control. A way to tell themselves that their actions are justifiable.

Today's "Republican" party is an absolute slap in the face to our Founders and to their ideals that shaped the creation of this nation to begin with. To escape the shackles of tyranny and oppression. To create a free, just, and better world to live in.

No, the Republican party we have today is anything but what we need - not only to hold on to - but to build an even stronger and more unified Nation. Instead, they have openly embraced authoritarian rule as a justifiable means to an end in order to create what they think will be a "suitable" future for them. And just for them. Screw everyone else. Right? It is incredibly stupid, myopic, and anti-democratic to just toss our Nation as we've known it aside. All of the unbelievably hard work and bloodshed willingly given by our Founder's and the brave men and women who have come after. To defend our TRUE Democracy time and time again. Are we going to just toss that aside because we are either apathetic that "it won't happen" or that we are too "self-absorbed" to pay attention to what's going on?

The TRUE patriots to this Nation need to get moving in order to save it. To say STOP. We've had enough. We are NOT going to go there. Otherwise, we will allow those zealots to simply take over and lead us into such a hostile place that we devolve into open bloodshed again.

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We all need to hold our elected officials, the ones we went to the ballot box and cast our votes for, hold their feet to the fire and demand answers as to why they did or did not back legislation that benefits ALL the people they represent. Personally I think there should be stricter laws on lobbyists who have tremendous sway in the Capitol. These are just two actions that I can think of off the top of my head. This is why national civil discourse is so important.

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The new “speaker” is another terrifying face for a very false, so-called Christian, white, extreme, right movement that gives the appearance of being ok, but far, far from it! It is scary and delusional and we must do all we can to stop it. No way can we have another Trump presidency or it will be worse than we will ever imagine. Thank you, Adam, for this posting and others you’ve sent and for starting Country First. You and Liz Cheney are the type of leaders we need.

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Thank you, Adam. This is all very disturbing. 💔🇺🇸🇺🇸

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It is, but recognition is the way to fix it

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I appreciate your words Adam, I truly do. But we are way beyond warnings and recognition now. Warnings have long been sounding and from many directions. My adrenal glands are depleted from stress and worry over all the warnings. What I truly need to know is this: what can I do about it? Besides vote, which I do! I suspect many people are asking the same thing. What are some actionable, effective, and meaningful steps that I/we can take to address this horrible march towards disaster? We need guidance from someone with integrity and the right knowledge. We need good, strong leadership from someone who cares more about democracy than power, money or fame. Who can be that person? Can you?

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I feel like so many people that sit here feeling panic and helplessness of what is happening to our country. What can we do? How can this be stopped ? How ? Besides our votes how can this be stopped before its too late? I feel so betrayed by the people who enable MAGA. I can't tell you enough how iam so grateful to have discovered you on here.

There have been warnings and cautions and alarms and everything of how our democracy is in trouble but despite this it continues. This has divided not only the country but my community my friends my family....I dread 2024. I mean the fact that this sick person is still free and will.be the pick for the GOP nomination and has a good chance to come to power again ? How?????

I know this is a ramble but this is truly what I feel

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The seeds of violence and hate can come from places we never even thought of. We keep talking about Donald. In reality Donald is a pawn, a total narcissist but really a small weak person trying to present himself as a man. He's not the guy and by that I mean, take a VERY close look at Steve Bannon.

I never heard of him until Donnie's first campaign and still didn't pay all that much attention until later. He wants it all torn down and not just here, he's been very active in Europe and was part of why Italy now has a far right leader. Bannon's words? "I want to drive a stake through Brussels".

Donald appointed him to be in charge of the US Agency for Global Media and Bannon wanted to turn it into Breitbart 2.0. IF Donnie gets back in DC they will finish making that agency into a Trump right wing propaganda machine. Bannon appointed a far right film maker Michael Pak to be in charge and he purged everyone, like Donnie tried to do the first time and if he has a second chance will do so with impunity.

That Agency is in charge of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Network. Instead of promoting democracy and freedom they wanted to make it the propaganda arm of the Trump Administration. They were not successful, they didn't have enough time but will be if they get a next time.

Those far right principles will follow the Hitler play book that foments fear and loathing of the "other". There are people who are "not like us" with all kinds of evil motives, ungodly creatures, that are the cause of all YOUR suffering or issues that you might have. Lose a job? It's "them". You have a friend who's house gets robbed? It's "them" and proves "those people" are criminals and so on. The only way to save the world and your way of life is to get rid of them.

We see this thought process and we see it being acted on all over the world. I was VERY naïve and for most of my life thought that the US was immune to that. I realized that there were certainly evil people here, racist people here, far right and far left people here but thought they were outliers. I may have been correct at some point, but not anymore. Its' extremely disturbing.

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Hi Adam, thank you for your courage, your moral clarity and your efforts to keep democracy alive.

My Congressman is Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick. All indications are that he's intelligent, and based on his resume should also be moral, brave, clean, and reverent. I would hope that he's not in the QAnon cult. But, for some reason, he's been a coward about standing up to the seditionists. How would you explain this?

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If you don’t already, start sending letters to Fitzpatrick’s office. Do it often. And remember, your audience is not just the congressman but also his staff. Try your hand at knocking some sense into ‘em.

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There has always been divisions among the people of the U.S. We fought a war 160 years ago because of slavery and that division was really geographical (north vs. south). such a bloody time in our nation’s history. I imagine President Lincoln did not relish fighting with soldiers to keep the country together. These current divisions are not so easily isolated geographically as they are ideologically. We’ve all heard the saying “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” (my dad used to say that a lot) or “this country is going to hell in a hand basket” (I heard that often too). But we all saw with our own eyes the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6th and are not ignorant enough to believe it could happen again. That is why it is so very important for all of us to devise ways to combat this thinking. Country 1st is on the front lines of a nationwide grassroots endeavor to bring levelheaded, ordinary citizens together to have civil discourse and listen to each other’s concerns, ideas and possible solutions. We cannot, under any circumstances, ignore it, stick our head in the sand, or just wait to see what happens. Our very way of life and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives depend on us to do the “hard” stuff.

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For the benefit of other readers of this blog who share my contempt for extremists of the right and left, here is a quote from a recent article in The Atlantic by Simon S. Montefiore, supporting the policy goal of a peaceful two state political structure in Israel/Palestine:

"Whatever the enormous complexities and challenges of bringing about this future, one truth should be obvious among decent people: killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200, including scores of civilians, was deeply wrong. The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. It seems odd that one has to say: Killing civilians, old people, even babies, is always wrong. But today say it one must."

As bad as the January 6 insurrection supported by Trump was, at least it was not deliberately targeted against innocent civilians. And Biden/ Harris's weak border enforcement policy has probably resulted in more deaths and misery than Trump's allegedly "inhumane" response to that invasion.

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Agree. I called his office for about 100 days straight in 2017-2018. I posted daily to his Twitter feed. I tried to sit down with him and finally got a chance after a random encounter at the polling place in 2018. I had some hope that he had Rep. Kinzinger’s moral compass, seemingly cut from similar cloth. I think he’s a phony. Says he’s for term limits but is now addicted to sponging off of public funds. And being treated like royalty.

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founding

Sadly this is where we are. Where do we go from here? Answers elude me!

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Oct 28, 2023·edited Oct 28, 2023

The data for this survey were obviously collected before the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish people in Israel, and the subsequent demonstrations by some people in the U.S. in support of Hamas. This revealed a fundamental division in peoples' beliefs in the legitimacy of extreme violence to allegedly remedy anti-democratic abuses of a less lethal nature (by the conservative Israeli government). I suspect that a poll on this issue would reveal a substantially higher tolerance for left-wing violence of this type within the Democratic Party than among Independents and Republicans. That's why I don't criticize MAGA Republicans for having anti-democratic leanings without pointing out that many "Progressive" Democrats are Marxists and anti-white racists who are just as bad.

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I can't speak for every demonstrator but I believe that the demonstrations are for the Palestinians NOT Hamas. They flags shown are Palestinian flags NOT the flags of Hama that are green and white.

As for the Middle East, please show me some clean hands. I can't find any. Hama is no one's friend and they should have been taken care of years ago. There are Israelis right now, laying the blame for this at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu. I'll stop here because this terrible violence between Israel and the Palestinians has been going on, modern version, since 1948 and can't be covered in a paragraph. There is much information, written and in film, telling the entire story from both points of view.

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“...who are just as bad.” No. Absolutely not.

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I strongly recommend everyone read "The Black Swan Coming From A Mile Away" by Jim Stewartson on Substack. There you will find a video of Mike Flynn talking of a Black Swan Event that will prevent the 2024 election.

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