From the On Tyranny series by Timothy Snyder, Lesson #17 of twenty. Check here for a lesson every Monday or you can find them on YouTube. They are all short videos, no ads.
“Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.”
I’m thinking of moments where a state of exception or the idea of an exception was used to shift from one kind of political system to another.”
“Something like this can happen to us because something like this did just happen to us.”
“A fake emergency is the cover under which a real coup d’etat can take place and of course a real coup d’etat was attempted.”
Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump for “doing everything” to improve relations between Moscow and Washington, after Trump said the US has had “very good and productive discussions” with Putin in recent days.
Putin told a meeting of his security chiefs that improved relations with the US were now on the agenda. “We know that the new administration headed by President Trump is doing everything to restore at least something of what was basically destroyed by the previous US administration,” he said.
Putin also responded to an appeal by Trump to save the lives of “thousands” of surrounded Ukrainian soldiers, and said he would heed it as long as the soldiers surrendered. But no evidence has emerged to back up Putin and Trump’s claims that there is a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian troops, a claim explicitly denied by military chiefs in Kyiv.
The exchange of warm words between Trump and Putin is likely to cause further alarm in Kyiv and European capitals, already spooked by signs of the new US administration cosying up to Moscow while exerting pressure on Ukraine.
As spring is springing and basketball is breaking out all over, we simply can’t just blow by this anniversary. What Trump and his minions did to this country through covid is one of the greatest crimes in history in my humble opinion. And he got away with that and much, much more.
Who can forget being scared to step out of your own doors? Being afraid to go to grocery stores? Wiping down packages after you got home? Some of us even showered as soon as we got home fearful that we would bring in the virus that might kill our families.
Fortunately we got a new President who got us vaccines. But then we had pockets of people determined to not get vaccinated who would continue the pandemic far beyond the time it could have ended. We learned lot about our fellow Americans during that period, much of it not very nice. We are not who we believe ourselves to be. Just look at who is president today.
On the good side I plan on watching some good basketball for the next two weeks. As much as I would love to see an Iowa team in the finals again, I think the Connecticut Huskies are peaking at the right time on the women’s side. The men’s side looks like a real free-for-all and should be fun.
Buy your Tesla from Honest Donny!
A) The above comment refers to what that happened Wednesday?
B) Mark Carney? That’s the name for the new what?
C) Here in Iowa, a bill in the legislature would require that 80% of what students at the U of Iowa be from Iowa?
D) Speaking of the Iowa legislature, did the bill making administering an mRNA vaccine a criminal offense survive the funnel last week?
E) It is basketball time and it is women’s history month so let’s ask some women’s basketball history questions. What state has had girls competitive basketball in high school the longest?
F) Greenland held an election last week. How many people live in Greenland?
G) Yet another airline close call Thursday. Where at this time?
H) Junior Kennedy had another bad week. What is he promoting as the most healthy substance to make French fries in?
I) Last week and into this week, Junior Kennedy has advised measles could be tamed through what and not vaccine?
J) How long has Bill Fennelly been the head coach for women’s basketball at Iowa State?
K) Stinky Pants threatened that violence involving what would be considered terrorism?
L) What US official was humiliated Thursday when a tiny red rug was rolled out on his “red carpet” arrival in Quebec?
M) In what may be a prelude to privatizing this department, who agreed to cut another 10,000 workers from the Post Office Thursday?
N) In a tweet attempting to make government workers look bad, Elon Musk said who did not kill millions of Jews but “public workers did”?
O) Judges in Maryland and California ruled that the government did not follow proper procedures and therefore thousands of workers must be allowed to do what?
P) At the U of Iowa, what coach in the 1980s put women’s basketball on the map and filled the stands?
Q) President Musk called what wartime fighter pilot, astronaut and now US Senator a traitor in a tweet Tuesday?
R) What former WNBA player and current coach was acting head coach for the NBA’s San Antonio during a game after head coach Greg Popovich was ejected?
S) Hitting them where it hurts. The EU has placed how much of a tariff on American whiskeys?
T) Finally and most despicably, Stink Pants administration is planning to criminally charge what charitable group for getting funds from Pres. Biden’s EPA?
America’s farmers voted by massive margins for Trump to destroy their export markets, so it’s hard to feel too sorry for them. “We cared more about our culture wars than our customers” was the epitaph they chose for themselves. – David Frum
A) To combat tanking Tesla sales, Stinky Pants turned the south lawn of the White House into a Tesla showroom. Claimed he’d even buy one himself, but his credit is really shit
B) The new Prime Minister of our good neighbors to the north, Canada!
C) Medical students – medicine, nursing dentistry etc.
D) Apparently it did. Imagine having to go to Minnesota or Illinois to get a yearly Covid shot because of idiot legislators?
E) Well Iowa of course. We have had a state tourney since 1920 and been playing since early 1900s
F) 52,000 none of whom want to be under US control
G) A plane made an emergency landing at Denver whereupon an engine caught on fire
H) Beef tallow. Apparently Steak’n’Shake is taking his advice
I) Nutrition and exercise, not vaccines
J) He was hired in 1995, so this is his 30th year
K) Teslas
L) SoS Marco Rubio
M) Post Master General Louis DeJoy. Very questionable since the Post Office is not exactly under government control
N) Hitler
O) return to their jobs
P) C. Vivian Stringer
Q) Arizona Senator Mark Kelly
R) Becky Hammon currently the coach of the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA
S) 50%
T) Habitat for Humanity – Jeez these jerks are despicable
Libertarians took over a town in New Hampshire. They gutted the government, slashing every “wasteful” service.
Including garbage pickup.
Due to this, the town was soon overrun by bears. The libertarians fled.
That failed experiment is now happening on a national scale. – Skyler Johnson
I want to give a shout out to Amie Rivers and her group over at iowastartingline.com. Tuesday morning I opened Amie’s email and found a delightful note that really told it like it is. She had me chuckling with remembrances of a young Donald Kaul taking on the comedic stylings of the Iowa legislature some 60 or so years back in his “Over The Coffee” column in the once great Des Moines Register.
Amie caught me by surprise with this:
Iowa starting line logo from email
It’s Mar. 11, 2025.
Amie here, and we’re bringing you the highlights from this week in the Iowa Republican-dominated statehouse!
Q: How is our politics update different from all the other politics updates?
A: We’re not afraid to call a dumb bill a dumb bill.
Maybe that doesn’t make us “objective journalists,” and by “objective,” they mean we have to give legitimacy to things like “transgender people shouldn’t have rights” or “chemtrails are real.” (Meanwhile, we watch sadly as smart, lovely Iowans are fleeing for other states like Minnesota, where they have things like *checks notes* civil rights and mRNA vaccines.)
Those bills, some of which eventually become law, are dumb. And our audience knows they are dumb. Why are we pretending otherwise?
In this newsletter:
We acknowledge that we are Iowans who live here and are affected by the laws our elected officials pass.
2. We look at the consequences of those laws, for people like us and people who aren’t like us.
3. And we envision a better Iowa, one where lawmakers value our rights and our freedoms and our right to pursue happiness—not an Iowa where we pick on children, immigrants, and poor folks just because a rightwing host told you to (or to make rich folks richer).
So, welcome! Avery, Zachary, and I are happy to have y’all.
We appreciate you forwarding this to your friends—and if that friend is you, welcome! You can sign up here (it’s free).
Immediately my mind conjured up a young me starting my day with a cold Pepsi and a donut reading the O. T. Coffee column as Kaul took on the latest foibles of a very inept Iowa legislature as it played at government. This year’s version reminds me so much of the late ’60s and Aime’s direct answer “We’re not afraid to call a dumb bill a dumb bill” brought back memories of Kaul.
I do enjoy the coverage over at ISL. They are very good at clearing out the debris to make the sometimes incomprehensible legislature more understandable. Especially when we have one party rule in this state.
Keep up the good work. And keep fighting and when they are dumb, call them dumb!
On 13 October 1948, President Harry Truman made an appearance in St. Paul, Minnesota, stumping on behalf of both his own re-election campaign and a bid by the mayor of Minneapolis, fellow Democrat Hubert Humphrey, to land a seat in the U.S. Senate. During that appearance in St. Paul, President Truman delivered an address at the city’s Municipal Auditorium which was carried on a nationwide radio broadcast and included the criticism of the Republican Party referenced above:
Today the forces of liberalism face a crisis. The people of the United States must make a choice between two ways of living — a decision which will affect us the rest of our lives and our children and our grandchildren after us.
On the other side, there is the Wall Street way of life and politics. Trust the leader! Let big business take care of prices and profits! Measure all things by money! That is the philosophy of the masters of the Republican Party.
Well, I have been studying the Republican Party for over 12 years at close hand in the Capital of the United States. And by this time, I have discovered where the Republicans stand on most of the major issues.
Since they won’t tell you themselves, I am going to tell you.
They approve of the American farmer — but they are willing to help him go broke.
They stand four-square for the American home — but not for housing.
They are strong for labor — but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights.
They favor a minimum wage — the smaller the minimum the better.
They indorse educational opportunity for all — but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools.
They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine — for people who can afford them.
They approve of Social Security benefits — so much so that they took them away from almost a million people.
They believe in international trade — so much so that they crippled our reciprocal trade program, and killed our International Wheat Agreement.
They favor the admission of displaced persons — but only within shameful racial and religious limitations.
They consider electric power a great blessing — but only when the private power companies get their rake-off.
They say TVA is wonderful — but we ought never to try it again.
They condemn “cruelly high prices” — but fight to the death every effort to bring them down.
They think the American standard of living is a fine thing — so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people.
And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.
Now, my friends, that is the Wall Street Republican way of life. But there is another way — there is another way — the Democratic way, the way of the Democratic Party.
In the Democratic Party, you won’t find the kind of unity where everybody thinks what the boss tells him to think, and nothing else.
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As we have been reminded from various posts this week, this is also the 5th anniversary week of the proclamation of the covid pandemic in the US. Thom Hartmann did a great piece on how the Republican Party, then coalescing into a cult around Donald Trump who chose to use the pandemic as an electoral tool.
Where Truman told the truth about how low Republicans could go seventy-seven years ago, I doubt he could even imagine how low the MAGAs would go in 2020. And certainly he could never imagine how low present day MAGA leadership could go in driving our country into recession while lining our foreign policy up with our enemies.
And the question remains just how could America ever vote for policies that would hurt all but the richest among us? Trish Nelson took a crack at explaining that last Wednesday.
IDP: EXCITING NEWSMinnesota Gov. Tim Walz is headed to Iowa on Friday to host a town hall!Join Gov. Walz and IDP to talk about the issues that matter most to Iowans at 3 p.m. on March 14! Get your tickets here: secure.actblue.com/donate/timwalzdsm
After angry constituents who care about things like health care, jobs, the social safety net, and not having an unelected billionaire such as Elon Musk rummaging through their personal data, stormed Republican town halls during the February break from congress, they were instructed by the NRCC to simply stop holding them. Problem solved! Republicans are nothing if not obedient to their overlords (hint: NOT their constituents).
In response, unrepresented constituents are inviting Democrats from outside their districts to hold town halls. Tim Walz will be holding a town hall in Zach Nunn’s district in Des Moines today (Friday).
Watch this segment of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. Tim Walz punches back at Republicans and caused pro-democracy advocates on social media to call for “MORE OF THIS!!”
Trump:“You won’t have to vote anymore. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.” NYT
Trump talking about Elon Musk:
“He knows those computers better than anybody all those computers those vote counting computers.” Politico
Statistician Nathan Taylor of the Election Truth Alliance, discusses findings that in swing states there were two major statistical anomalies that strongly point to election interference through manipulation of voting-machine tallies.
The content of this video is serious and credible despite the thumbnail making it look like click bait.
I had a conversation about this with someone who said, “If it’s true votes were manipulated, no one’s going to do anything about it anyway, so what does it matter?” I appreciate the sentiment. We have enough battles to fight.
But we still need to know if this happened or not. We need to know if it could have happened. The history books need to accurately record what occurred in the 2024 election. It’s not even a question of will or should anyone go to jail, it’s a question of determining what is the truth.
This has nothing to do with Trump’s 2020 false claims. He was lying about the “stolen” election and this was settled when he lost 60 plus court cases and produced no evidence, and people who helped him lie had to plea bargain to avoid going to jail. This is not that.
Other moments in fairly recent history where it was a good thing the truth came out even though no wrong-doers were punished include the January 6th Committee hearings, Trump’s impeachment, the 2020 election that was handed to George W. Bush by SCOTUS, where we eventually learned that Al Gore won Florida.
Another reason why it would be good to know if voting machines were manipulated would be to safeguard voting for the future. We’ve been fighting for paper ballots since at least 2004 if I recall. Verifiable voting. These have been concerns for at least two decades. So the idea that voting machine counts could be manipulated is not a new one.
And if it were to turn out Kamala Harris got more votes in 2024, Democrats could quit wasting time blaming ourselves for running a bad campaign. It would be a true thing that we did beat Trump after all, and he did have to cheat to win, and Democrats did run a good campaign, and the country would elect a female president, and the nation hasn’t gone completely mad after all.
So I’m giving this idea a chance. Not storming the capitol, not screaming Stop the Steal. I just think we need to know.
“It’s not about challenging, it’s about verifying” it’s not about election denial, its about election security.” – Nathan Taylor
Historian Heather Cox Richardson and political analyst Simon Rosenberg conduct a live discussion of where we are and how we need to proceed at a Commit To Democacy Town Hall. Their perspective and analysis was riveting and their guidance inspiring to over 3000 attendees on a Webinar. – commit2democracy.com
“We have to keep the pressure on our leaders because part of our job is to help explain to our politicians what’s expected of them now. Because their jobs have changed. They used to be legislators and executives, and now they need to be communicators, amplifiers, influencers. and leaders of this new ferocious opposition that we have to build together. – Simon Rosenberg
“Everyone keeps saying as you just did, our leaders have to take the bit in their teeth and actually, in other periods in our history that have been similar to this, not as bad, it’s the complaints of the people that have raised a certain new leader, a new kind of leader. We create them and we create them through the way we talk. And one of the things I want to work through with you today is what does that story sound like? Reagan rose to power with the idea of the individual against the empire which is of course a mythical idea that was encapsulated in 1977 with star wars. What is our narrative?” – Heather Cox Richardson
Urgent action alert from Indivisible Iowa. To join Indivisible Iowa, click here.
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES NOW!
Trump and House Republicans unveiled their latest budget plan, and it’s a disaster for everyday Americans. Their proposal slashes funding for Social Security, veterans’ benefits, disaster relief, cancer research, and aviation safety—all so they can give more tax cuts to billionaires and hand Elon Musk a blank check to do whatever he wants with our government.
If they get their way, this bill will:
Delay Social Security checks for millions of seniors
Gut FEMA resources, leaving communities unprotected in disasters
Cut cancer research funding, putting lifesaving treatments at risk
Make air travel less safe by cutting aviation safety staff
Slash $23 billion in veterans’ benefits, betraying those who served
And with no guardrails, Trump and Musk could hollow out critical programs with zero accountability.
We cannot let this happen. Call your representatives NOW and demand they vote NO on this reckless attack on working Americans!
From the On Tyranny series by Timothy Snyder, Lesson #16 of twenty. Check here for a lesson every Monday or you can find them on YouTube. They are all short videos, no ads.
“We’re all in this together.”
“Institutions are only as good as we are. They only hold up when we prop them up. They only stand for us when we stand for them. The idea that institutions would protect us is a way of stepping back.”
“There is no America out there that can take care of things for you. America only exists insofar as Americans take care of things for themselves.”
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
From the On Tyranny series by Timothy Snyder, Lesson #17 of twenty. Check here for a lesson every Monday or you can find them on YouTube. They are all short videos, no ads.
From the On Tyranny series by 
Blog For Iowa 