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Public Servant's avatar

Thank you for defending democracy, Michael and Mighty Meidas. Please don't forget all the civil servants who are being fired and furloughed. My partner and I have lost our careers because of the fascists. We had to line up at a food bank last week. Then they ran out of food because so many of us are struggling with DOGE and the MAGA shutdowns.

Help us resist: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/democracy-defender-reader-poem

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Patty Holtke's avatar

Do you know who is the real fascist? Obama, who forced citizens to get his healthcare plan or face heavy fines.

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Nancy Richardson's avatar

Everything seems to be in the billionaires favor with Al. I don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t see into the future, but, I can guarantee you all of the Al stuff is going to crash. There will be problems, hackers, etc., Machines cannot do the jobs like humans and humans prefer to deal with humans on any and all issues. There is and old saying, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it! These politicians do not have an ounce of common sense because if they did our country wouldn’t be in this mess!

Michael thanks again for your report.

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Rhonda L Schneider's avatar

It's called GREED, that's what billionaires are pure and simple or they wouldn't step on everyone and everything to get there.

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Nancy Richardson's avatar

Totally agree!

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

Ditto!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

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Patty Holtke's avatar

YES! We need to start relying much more on poor people who make poor choices in life!

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Michael Cohen's avatar

Patty,

Very Christian of you…fuckin phoney!

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Patty Holtke's avatar

As a Christian I wish for every able-bodied person to be as incredibly self-sufficient as possible with zero need to rely on the government. Why don't you have this same wish?

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Rhonda L Schneider's avatar

We all have that wish it's just not realistic. With the government/Oligarchs out to destroy the American way of life we are up against some pretty heavy hitters.

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Patty Holtke's avatar

Exactly what has been destroyed Rhonda?

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

I'd like to know exactly who these so-called business titans think is going to buy their products and services after they've done away with half the jobs in America, reduced wages in other jobs, and in their greed for tax breaks, caused health care insurance costs to triple while forcing hunger on tens of millions of people. Are they really that stupid?

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Linda Nation's avatar

Yes, they are.

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Derek Smith's avatar

I’d buy stock in the companies making pitchforks and torches.

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Yankee's avatar

Exactly! It's unbelievable that any CEO of any corporate entity that depends on customers for their existence would think the company can survive in a post-human world. Did they equip the LLMs with bank accounts? The whole tech industry is a plague of people who know nothing about economics, and therefore, are not properly educated. In their business culture, moving fast and breaking things resulted in great wealth, but in this case, breaking the government is going to impoverish the nation, as well as themselves.

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C Giza's avatar

I have been thinking the same thing. If people think there are "ghost towns" now, there will be many more in the near future.

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

Stupid is as stupid does! Since these "titans" don't live like us, they don't think!

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Rhonda L Schneider's avatar

Overseas....they don't give a rats ass about the American people.

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Laurie Fendrich's avatar

Meanwhile, AI is sucking electrical power and water like there's no tomorrow, with the result that rates are going up for consumers and ecological disaster awaits. Communities are being destroyed by the AI data processing centers.

Where is the regulation for any of this?

NOWHERE. It's like , "OK, just trust us, this is all for the good you little suckers you."

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patti smith's avatar

This is very salient! If we totally ruin our environment, we have no hope of a good life again.

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Bluesmurf's avatar

The Earth will recover or adapt - we may not be here to see it, but that is what has been going on for millions of years - the Earth will recover.

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

And as usual, we the People are paying for it!🤢🤮🤬🤬

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Level 6's avatar

Rally at the Capital against snap benefits removed and health care soaring? No time for crickets democrats

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Sandra Wallace's avatar

Substitute dems for Americans. This is not about antiquated political parties. It's about our survival as a population, with morality and ethics as our foremost future home base as the goal.

Rally at the Capital - and wave our flag proudly, instead of weaponizing it like Don'ts goons did.

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Julie Olmsted's avatar

Jesus. Help us!!! Too much cruelty and corruption to bear!!! Can’t think of anything more…

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Sandra Wallace's avatar

At this point, we might wish to call on ALL of the religious prophets of the past to come to our aid. This is a world wide crisis.

Err, on second thought, perhaps not. Other countries are doing just fine without us. Hmmm...

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User's avatar
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Oct 29
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Debbie Laveck's avatar

Not ALL by itself. Remember who appointed those judges. It still boils down to the Felon and his sycophant minions.

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Bob Seemueller's avatar

Moscow Mitch McConnell put 3 SCOTUS Justices on the bench and prevented any accountability for an Insurrectionist.

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Sandra Wallace's avatar

That, and the rest of us too.

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

You mean the Nazi Collaborators

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Angela w's avatar

Ain’t nothing clean about anything the republicans do I don’t know what they think Americans are going to do if they fuck up our job force nobody will buy shit and nobody will be working if we don’t work to pay taxes they lose as well

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Greg Pearson's avatar

Trying to fight progress is a fool’s errand. Half the country used to be farmers. Now it’s what, 5%? Yet we produce way more food than we can eat because of machines: one person with a tractor can do the work of dozens with hand tools. Do we want to go back to a world where we do everything by hand, to create more “farm jobs”? He’ll, no.

I’m a radiologist: you know, the profession that 10 years ago Gregory Hinton predicted would be replaced by AI in 5 years. I’m still working, and there is a nationwide shortage of radiologists despite the rollout of dozens of AI tools. When I started films were 14x17” sheets of plastic hung on view boxes. We dictated reports onto tapes that were transcribed by typists, printed, hand signed, and placed in paper charts. Now everything is electronic: exams are reviewed on computers, I dictate with voice recognition software, edit my reports, and sign them electronically, and they go instantly to the patient’s electronic medical record. Turnaround time that used to be days is now minutes to hours. And the number of exams I read in a day has doubled, with similar hours.

But think of all the jobs lost: those who developed the films, filed them away, drove them back and forth to warehouses, hung them on viewboxes, typed the reports. All now doing other things, like maintaining the computers.

It wasn’t a choice to make this change. Once the technology was there, you either adopted it or went out of business. You couldn’t retain the old system and compete. You’re going to offer 3 day turnaround when the other guys are offering 3 hours? No way.

We need to do a better job in helping people adapt to the change. Safety nets. Job retraining. Financed by taxes on the wealthy and corporations. But don’t think you can hold back the tide. Change is inevitable, and in the end desirable. We don’t want to be plowing behind a mule, digging ditches with shovel, or digging coal in pit mines. The key is spreading the benefits.

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Peter Martin's avatar

You are missing the point. Once everybody's jobs are gone then there are no customers. And that means they can't afford healthcare, which means no one will be coming for radiology scans. Which means you're out of a job too.

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C Giza's avatar

I agree. Though it is true that progress and change over the decades have eliminated many jobs, there were still opportunities for people to transfer skills to other areas.

The underlying factor was someone with means was able to pay someone who was transferring those skills. If the "someone with means" is only using AI and robotics, the "skill transfer person" is out of luck, out of the ability to buy anything, including food and healthcare services.

Are we going to have to have a barter system? Where will taxes for the common good come from?

Should companies pay for the use of water and electricity at a rate commensurate with usage?

These are some of the long-term questions our governing bodies should be asking and regulating for the public good, not (as the Maga "republicons" are doing) worrying about ballrooms, autopen signatures etc.

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Carl Selfe's avatar

For Whom the Outrages Toll. Let us not forget the Epstein Files, first. I mean we know a pedophile when we see one dodge, duck, shuck, and jive. For some reason we need the files. I rather think we do not, and we already know what is there. The outrages toll for you as a distraction. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/too-much-two-buckets-to-sanity?r=3m1bs

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patti smith's avatar

I think the file's main value is to maybe convince a few trump-blinded sycophants that their god is not so godly, and maybe will give up handing him the country on a silver platter.

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Robert Lawrence Gioia's avatar

A 26% increase in health care costs would be lethal for millions at a time when thousands are getting laid off. COBRA will unaffordable

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Debbie Laveck's avatar

COBRA has NEVER been affordable, but it has always been a con job.

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

When I got laid off COBRA was already unaffordable in the early 2000s.

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Robert Lawrence Gioia's avatar

In 2003 My wife and I paid $1839 for COBRA a month. Since that point my wife turned 62 and is now collecting Medicare. Now I'm paying $1800 a month for health insurance for myself only. A 26% increase would cost me $2268 a month. I cannot afford Insurance.

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Lynda Rees Kling's avatar

Stop buying the crap the corporations are selling.. if we don’t buy it, they can’t sell it. Buy second hand, repair your clothes. Bake. But local. Grow a garden.. use as little as you can…buy essentials only.. flour , butter, milk, eggs….

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Margaret's avatar

Even eggs, if you live near the edge of the city or in the country and close enough to small farms. I pay $2/doz. Some cities allow you to have a few chickens, too.

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SLMontgo's avatar

Nothing about this present brand of Republicans even remotely deserves the word "clean." Their intentions, their excuses, their language, their open law defiance is FILTHY SEWAGE. They did not drain the swamp; they came up from the swamp.

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Bluesmurf's avatar

Yeah and they will always need sewage workers to clean it up. Can you imagine robots trying to clean up sewage and getting it clogged in their little working parts? What about rust? Who's going to clean the robots when they are covered with the sewage that it's a damned sure thing the richy rich aren't going to clean Up? Who? Who? Who?

***

@Bluesmurf

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SLMontgo's avatar

Additionally, who will construct those robots? AI using 3-D printers?

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

Love this comment ❤️

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Sylvia Arrowood's avatar

And who is going to buy all the things these billionaires want to sell? The middle class that is gone because the lower class won't be able to afford anything. Then what? And computer systems aren't perfect. They crash, they corrupt themselves, they break down. It takes humans to fix the errors. Right now I do transcription work and we are switching to AI voice to written. I cannot tell you how many mistakes AI makes to written, all the times I get come for comma or African attorney when it should be applicant attorney. These billionaires who sit in their ivory towers will wonder where their money is going when no one can afford to buy their crap.

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Bluesmurf's avatar

"And who is going to buy all the things these billionaires want to sell?" - EXACTLY! - or clean up the mess they will make producing and trucking them and selling them?

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Mark Scheithe's avatar

Remember. Voight wants to reduce America's population to 100 million. This nonsense is not nonsense; it's their plan.

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Bluesmurf's avatar

Won't it be funny when they are some of the 100 million? Karma - it's a bitch!

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Bernice Cohn's avatar

A robot president would be better than what we have now.

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Protect the Vote's avatar

The DNC And The “Establishment”

In a recent post Andrew Wilson(https://bit.ly/4qzHsam) takes the Substack audience through the most recent polling numbers of Cheeto’s declining demise But what struck me was American’s faith in Congress This is on top of the numbers earlier in the year of support of the Democratic National Committee which was in the 20’s And it’s taken a diabolical character like Cheeto to awaken the sleeping giant/American electorate to get out of its van Winkel slumber to begin to take back our country hijacked by the DNC “Establishment” ie political strategists like Simon Rosenburg(of Hopium Chronicles which I wouldn’t recommend) who pose as consultant but have a distinct dark underbelly agenda of acceptance of Palestinian genocide and taint the party’s agenda with dishonesty and personal hidden agendas that control the party’s narrative

America is waking up to this dishonesty by the party supposedly supporting the truth and values that WE the People hold dear Now WE witness spikes of consciousness who represent those ideals that have been spurned by the “Establishment” Politicians like Zohran Mamdami, Graham Plattner, and Dan Osborn are not embraced but lead the way to support the ideals and policies that made America great And WE the People who are on the front lines at protests are insisting a return to politicians who have integrity and speak the truth without the need for a “party endorsement” because they know when they speak for the American middle class they will win!!!

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

I don't understand. The Republican president and the GOP is destroying America, destroying the economy, betraying farmers, making health care unaffordable for the majority of Americans, literally taking food out of the mouths of American children, breaking the Constitution, creating enemies around the globe and befriending dictators, and you take time to criticize the DNC establishment????? Really? The Democratic Party has issues but they are nothing compared the the cruel, revengeful, hate fuelled policies of the GOP. The Democratic Party is the only party who cares about the well being of people and their policies show it.

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AK's avatar

Please, it's Democratic Party. "Democrat" party is a slur the Republicans have been using that goes back to 1950s McCarthyism.

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

Will do

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

Thank you!💙💙💙💙

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Laurie Fendrich's avatar

I AGREE. The old adage pertains: The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

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Protect the Vote's avatar

I agree the Nazi/GOP is clearly a threat to the rule of law and democracy My point is that the reason Harris lost....and that's debatable....was that the DNC was performative at best and at worst was led by a group of nonsense political strategists who essentially dropped the ball A surge of new candidate who really do represent the People is on the horizon....not the Establishment Democrats led by Chuck Schumer

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

I agree that the team handling Harris' campaign was partially to blame for the loss but given the circumstances, you don't just pull a new campaign off the shelf at a moment's notice. I blame them more for not sounding the alarm about Biden's difficulties right at the beginning of campaign season early in his term. Biden should not have been allowed to stand for a second term. Another slice of the blame belongs to all the men, black, white and Hispanic, who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a woman and the millions of the party's base who went into a snit, stayed home and didn't vote. I also think that dumping on the Democratic Party now is not only not helpful but also may help the Republicans.

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Protect the Vote's avatar

Again my point is that the candidates of Mamdami Plattner and Osborn represent People's candidates who the "Establishment" has chosen not to recognize yet they represent the true values of the working middle class not the billionaires and certainly are speaking directly to the people they want to represent regardless of what the party thinks

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Laurie Fendrich's avatar

I like them a lot and they go over in places like the Northeast, but I've just spent a week in North Dakota and believe me when I say they do NOT go over well there AT ALL. Keep in mind that North Dakota, with under 800,000 residents, and a population density of 11 people per square mile, although it has only 3 electoral votes, has TWO SENATORS (sigh). This Constitutional requirement that each state gets two senators holds the nation together, but it's awful for states like CA and NY.

Meanwhile, Osborn in theory has a chance in Nebraska, but that's theory, and Plattner has a rough road ahead after the tattoo business. As for Mandami, my bet is he'll win NYC and Trump will then punish NYC by withholding funds, making M's task of being mayor triply difficult.

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

Mamdani, Platner.

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Sandra Wallace's avatar

Trump shouldn't have been allowed to run either.

Both showed signs of decline, but otherwise, Biden is head and shoulders a better man than this incompetent danger to humanity is.

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

Totally agree. Biden is an exemplary person, deserving of high praise for his lifelong service to America. I understand why the party believed he was the one to beat Trump but the debate ended that possibility.

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Margaret's avatar

The Dem Party isn't changing and probably won't. But the GOP is clearly worse and far more harmful/dangerous/hypocritical. I will NEVER vote GOP. What do you suggest?

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Protect the Vote's avatar

I agree the Nazi/GOP is clearly a threat to the rule of law and democracy My point is that the reason Harris lost....and that's debatable....was that the DNC was performative at best and at worst was led by a group of nonsense political strategists who essentially dropped the ball A surge of new candidate who really do represent the People is on the horizon....not the Establishment Democrats led by Chuck Schumer

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Cindy Wiggins's avatar

Excuse me: AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Jaime Raskin, Rashid Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Rho Khanna, Pramilla Jayapal, Robert Garcia, Ayanna Presley, Dan Goldman, Bernie, Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsome, Wes Moore, Mikey Sherrill, Andy Beshear, Pritzker, Pete B.,Raphael Warnock, Gretchen Whitmer, Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Greg Cesar, Mark Veasy, Summer Lee, Delia Ramirez, Jesus Garcia and many more.

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Protect the Vote's avatar

I am not talking about the great D politicians you mention I am speaking about the D party or DNC that manages consultants and where the money goes

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patti smith's avatar

I'm really disgusted by some of our Democratic leaders who won't support Mamdami.

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Protect the Vote's avatar

the same goes for Platner who is being attacked by the "Establishment" of the DNC and they're supporting Janet Mills and the Mainers are not having it WE the People are making our voices heard over the DNC choices The point of the comment was to draw attention to people power over the misrepresenting DNC I'll give virtually nothing in donations to those yahoos

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Edie Sadowski's avatar

So am I! I'm only sorry that I don't live in NYC to give him my vote!

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