Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: MAGAt Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is openly advocating the murder of her Democratic colleagues, MAGAT Representative Matt Gaetz is under investigation for having sex with underage girls, and I could go on and on. It raises the question: Does the Republican Party seek out and promote for party office grifters, the mentally deranged, pedophiles, gun nuts, and the incompetent and stupid? The answer I think is yes. And why is this happening?
I believe because behind the MAGAts, funding them, owning them, are a small group of the uber-rich who, because of Citizens United, have basically purchased a political party, and are now seeking to dismantle democracy so that an authoritarian form of government can emerge that will serve their interests. They don't want smart ethical people who would just cause them problems.
Investigators began seeking evidence and testimony in late 2020 from a former girlfriend of Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida. Credit: Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — A former girlfriend of Representative Matt Gaetz testified on Wednesday before a federal grand jury in Orlando scrutinizing whether he broke sex trafficking laws, according to two people briefed on the case.
The development suggests that the Justice Department may have secured a key witness in its inquiry, which is seeking to determine whether Mr. Gaetz provided goods or payments to a 17-year-old girl in exchange for sex. Mr. Gaetz, a Republican, has represented a district in western Florida since 2017.
The witness, who testified in Federal District Court, dated Mr. Gaetz for about two years, beginning in 2017, and she remained in contact with him after their relationship ended, according to a person who knew the couple at the time.
NBC News and CNN earlier reported that Mr. Gaetz’s former girlfriend was testifying before a federal grand jury.
Dan Witters and Sangeeta Agrawal, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: We are a very sick and stressed country. The Gallup Organization makes this factually clear. This is what I saw and experienced during my many trips to the Soviet Union as it was coming to an end. In my opinion, the only thing that is going to change this for the better is mass action on the part of American citizens, and I mean mass, making it clear they want democracy to survive and be strengthened.
Story Highlights
The percentage of U.S. adults classified as “thriving” drops to 55.1%
Republicans and White Americans lead recent decline
Significant daily worry and stress edge higher
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives well enough to be considered “thriving” on Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index was 55.1% in November-December, down 4.1 percentage points from the 14-year high of 59.2% measured in June. During the initial COVID-19 outbreak and economic shutdown, the thriving percentage plunged nearly 10 points to 46.4% in late April 2020, tying the record low measured during the Great Recession.
The most recent results, from Nov. 29-Dec. 5, 2021, are based on 4,001 U.S. adults surveyed by web as part of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based, non-opt-in panel of about 115,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These interviews were conducted after the omicron variant had been detected in South Africa but before the highly contagious COVID-19 variant had become widespread in the U.S. Cases of the delta variant, however, were rapidly rising during this time frame.
Stephan: The wealth inequality in the United States is greater than any other developed democracy, average American families struggle with debt, while a handful of wealthy men own competitive space programs. This inequality, I think, is part of why a third of the nation appears to have given up on democracy. Do you hear anyone in Congress other than Bernie Sanders,AOC, and Elizabeth Warren talking about this? Neither do I.
U.S. households are spending more on housing, food, gas, transportation and medical care and falling deeper into the red.
From credit cards to car loans, the average family now owes $155,622.
As consumers pay more for everything from groceries to gasoline, household income is failing to keep pace with a higher overall cost of living, according to recent reports.
Over the past two years, median income fell 3% while the cost of living rose nearly 7%, due, in part, to rising housing and medical costs.
More than three-quarters of Americans, or 78%, have received some form of pandemic relief since March 2020, which either went toward buying necessities, savings or paying down debt, according to a NerdWallet poll of more than 2,000 adults.
And yet, more than one-third said their household financial situation has gotten worse over the past year.
“The past year and a half was already tough for the millions of Americans who lost jobs,” said Sara Rathner, NerdWallet’s credit cards expert. “Now, we’re faced with rising […]
Stephan: Five years ago if I had read this article I would have thought it was science fiction. It's not; instead it is another alarm warning us just how fragile our democracy is, particularly as it involves police, and especially sheriffs. Because of the way law enforcement is designed, the kind of people it attracts, and how they are trained Trumpian fascism is built in. And no one is quite sure what that means.
Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty
Everyone surely remembers Donald Trump’s appeals to “law and order” going all the way back to his infamous full-page ad condemning the (innocent) Central Park Five titled “Bring Back the Death Penalty, Bring Back Our Police.” When he ran for office he sought out law enforcement at all levels as a discrete constituency, promising to let them take the gloves off and encouraging them to not “be so nice” to suspects. During the George Floyd protests during the summer of 2020, he told federal law enforcement and military leaders he wanted them to “crack skulls” and “beat the shit out of” the protesters. At one point he said, “just shoot them.” Luckily, they didn’t do that. It took a devoted Trump-loving vigilante named Kyle Rittenhouse to execute that order.
Until the January 6th insurrection, Trump was the nation’s most vociferous defender of police. But on that day he was strangely reserved, tepidly tweeting that the […]
Stephan: A major part of the Great Schism Trend SR has been covering for the past 20 years is the growing separation of values between rural and urban America. Here is how it looks from the rural side. One thing is clear, until we as Americans wake up to what climate change means for all of us, and unify in our commitment to seriously address it, our future is very much in doubt.
The Dinky Diner is a prime gathering spot in Decatur City, Iowa, which had a population of 175 in the 2020 census. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty
I like small towns. I grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York state, just beyond the reach of the commuter trains to Manhattan; spent 15 years in rural Colorado, living in a town with no traffic lights and a population well under 2,000; then moved to a similarly tiny town in southwestern Washington state, where I live today. I could, in theory, settle anywhere with reliable internet service and a reasonable cost of living, and sometimes I wonder why I continue to choose places that by any conventional measure are both inconvenient and unhip.
I’m drawn to the big landscapes that surround them, but most of all, I think, I value my membership in these cranky, intimate communities. I like that my neighbors come from many different walks of life, and that they regularly (and sometimes uncomfortably) puncture my assumptions about their experiences and interests and political […]
