Censuses are used for any number of purposes, including determining infrastructure requirements, healthcare needs, education places and urban planning amongst other things, none of which are determined by nationality, race or citizenship status. Trump's ignorant and bigoted regime continues to inflict harm on the USA.
I TRUST YOU Olivia! As well as some legacy media icons like Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, etc., but I mainly go to substacks for the facts. Heritage media is currently in major need of a backbone, especially among their reporters. True backbone is found in the substacks.
I thought the coverage of the mid-term convention in Dallas a complete embarrassment - what is it with these crazy cultists cheering on the mango Mussolini and JD? They are all indecent humans!
I want to see more fire-in-the-gut from democrat leadership - Schumer, Jeffries. Candidates like Ossoff, Talarico and Al Sayed show more leadership and passion for democracy than current leaders. Mamdani is another impressive leader. We need more like these guys if this Country will ever overcome the evil in our government!
"But elections aren’t the only place trust is eroding. About 6 in 10 Americans have little or no trust in federal information on issues including foreign affairs, the environment, elections and politics, abortion and immigration. It gets worse. Only about 1 in 10 Americans say either party’s campaign messages are always or often factual. Even among partisans, only about a quarter say that about their own party."
It is bad when you have more faith in Iranian and other sources than our own government, starting with Centcom, RapidResponse47 (which is simply a vile spread of poison) and other State Departments.
Watch Leon County FL with mail ballot issues (or created) distance of 0.01 inches on the front. Why is the USPS implementing when there is a blockage in court through Mass.?
The deranged convention (of the clips I saw) was basically a Jim Jones cult meeting.
My 9/11 moment started on the West Coast. I never listened to news while preparing to go to work. I walked to my bus stop and saw the morning edition of a newspaper that has gone out of print since then. The burning twin towers were above the fold. I caught my bus and heard about it from other passengers. Once at work I went straight to my desk to see what was going on. It was numbing to read, listen, and watch.
I was 53 that day with living memory of Vietnam and the Gulf War, Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Jr. Civil Rights battles for years. The attempted assassinations of Ford, Reagan, and George Wallace. The LA riots. Lots of stuff. But this moment, this said to me - the 21st century has its own "day when everything changed."
I have so many thoughts about distrust in the government and AI that I don’t even know where to start… and since this is the comment section and not my own substack I’ll leave it at that. For now…
But I do want to comment on Our Dear Leader’s $5000 for each adult if the republikkklans win the midterms. The moment I heard about it, I started researching and reading about the legality and whether it’s considered election interference. It seems to fall under campaign promises like cutting taxes— Olivia you probably know and understand this way better than I do. But I think that once a figure is attached to a campaign promise, it should be considered bribery. That’s my humble opinion
I was born in '54, the post WWII halcyon days. Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, Donna Reed, The Sound of Music, Schwinn bicycles. Little League baseball.
Then Vietnam, which became the blueprint for American war: False premise (Tonkin Gulf), massive non stop lies, (McNamara and his body counts); cruel murdering of civilians with indiscriminate bombings and incinerating entire villages (My Lai); and finally collapse and retreat after having gained nothing.
And we've now repeated it TWICE with W's Iraq joyride and now Iran.
We never learn. We REFUSE to learn.
And now MAGA, a movement that's fueled by racism, bigotry, misogyny, lies, and the green light to be one's worst self.
I regularly read articles by smart writers like Rick Wilson who insist MAGA is sundowning. 100000% wrong. The numbers might have dipped, but the hate, cruelty and lies will live forever. "But ... Blue Wave". That's what's called a temporary respite. Fox News will keep it alive and they'll bring it back in bigger numbers.
We're $40T in debt, stuck in another forever war - that we're LOSING - with no exit strategy, healthcare is unaffordable for millions, and technology is making us dumber and less safe.
America is dying. Someone please tell me I'm wrong
Only dying if we let it. I believe the majority of true Americans understand the trouble that we are in, but they need to all vote to start turning the tide. The problem is that about one third of registered voters do not cast a ballot; in 2024, it was 36% (how sad). Those of us who are still sane need to encourage these apathetic and lazy folks to get off their asses and VOTE!
We - Dem voters - could have stopped this before it started in '16. And again in '25.
BUT ...
... in both elections >10M Dems didn't vote. In fact in '16 a whole lotta Dems voted for HIM. Because her emails
You're not weak; I'm not weak. I speak out and have volunteered. But a disgustingly large % of Dems are content to do nothing, maybe not even vote. And it doesn't help that we've got two feckless leaders who are ineffective and inspire no one. Pelosi did us a massive disservice backing Jeffries and her other geriatric friends for leadership roles (one of whom is dead).
My confidence that we will rise up in unison and stop this sh** in '28 is minimal. We WILL find something not to like about our nominee. It's in our DNA.
I basically agree, but try to be more optimistic. I am placing my hopes in the younger leaders like Ossoff, Talarico, Al Sayed, Mamdani, etc. We need change so badly, and the examples above have backbone, morality, and INTELLIGENCE. It was the 77 million STUPID folks that failed this Country.
Love all those guys. Terrific leaders. They give me hope
But we've lost the national narrative on so many things. We're non existent in the pod sphere. Fox is still the #1 network. We've been tepid, we message badly, and there is a lack of piss and vinegar in our leaders AND too much of the voter base.
Helping ppl get healthcare is socialism. As if Stalin's picture will be on your insurance card. Kindness and charity are woke. Bad things. Science is all a hoax. The idea of getting rod of automatic weapons? Off the table. I could go on. This stuff doesn't stand up to any intelligent scrutiny of course, but 70-80M Americans believe it.
I hate being a doomsayer, but I look around and it feels like we've been steamrolled. Might win the House, less likely the Senate. There might be some tough House hearings, but there will be no accountability until 1/29, and that's far from certain.
In Copenhagen last week on my way to a museum early in the morning and a man tried to get into my backpack. I felt it, turned around, caught him, yelled and grabbed my phone ( it wasn’t on, but he didn’t know that) and acted as though I were recording him. He ran as fast as he could putting his hoodie up to disguise his face. I never thought of my phone as a weapon, but I do now.
One thing about the AI warnings that never seems to get mentioned: the thing that limits it — energy.
None of this runaway AI growth can happen without colossal amounts of electricity. The tech oligarchs know this, which is why they are floating things like orbiting solar arrays beaming microwave energy back to earth.
What could possibly go wrong?
My point is that the way to stave off the “AI-pocalypse” may not be to try and regulate the AI, but to regulate — meaning tax — the energy.
It's hard not to get too depressed. The trump regime is doing so much damage to the country I can hardly breathe sometimes. Thank you for keeping us apprised of the important things that we should know, things to add to the list for when it's our turn, to undo as much damage as we can and to reform and refashion a better America. BTW, I watched your video with Bobby Jones, Dan Barkhuff and Michael Fanone. It was very moving and inspiring. Your story made me cry. I'm so proud to support you.
Truly one of your most important pieces. A.I. is a threat because we’ve heard from the founder of A.I. that we have to take it seriously and we need guardrails. Then we were warned by Bill Gates. And now this report that in a Decade there’s a 10% chance that this will wipe us out. That’s disturbing and alarming. It’s a terrible thing that we just allow this shit to go on. If I was in charge. I would be subpoenaing all of the companies. And under oath I would want a response to this. I would subpoena the person who resigned and go over their findings publicly so we could know what we are dealing with. Anybody that is continuing this and risking any harm to this country should be prosecuted to the highest extent. This is serious stuff. National security stuff. But because we don’t have a vision of it we just blow it off. But if a nation had something that had a 10% chance of wiping us out in a decade we’d do something about it. And now reports a terroristic group was using A.I. to build a bomb. This is all the stuff we had fear about when this started. Bad actors. In my opinion this should be at the top of country priorities list. And as a voter my question at the mid terms what are you guys going to do to put guardrails up against A.I. to protect our country? Great piece I’m glad you went there. This needs to be talked about.
Thanks, Olivia: The midterm convention was one giant blowout. From Tim Scott's vile rant to JD Vance's racial slurs and bravado, to Trump's blustering babble, twice. I found it nauseating. Nothing was said about the improvement for the masses, just begging for votes and throwing slang at the democratic party. Trump is paranoid about what may be his major downfall. Finally, I realized I had better get a life and shut the TV off.
In regards to the convention. This is politics. The Republicans know what they have to do at the mid terms. Tout fear and they’re coming for you. Talk about Trans and Trans in sports. And pronouns. It’s the blueprint. It’s a cult. But this cycle is different. Americans are pissed. The economy the war. There’s no care about who’s what pronoun or gender or trans. No one cares about that when your lights just got cut off. Or you can’t pay rent. Or you can’t afford gas to go to work. So it’s simple as this what’s the solution? I still haven’t heard one from Republicans.
Censuses are used for any number of purposes, including determining infrastructure requirements, healthcare needs, education places and urban planning amongst other things, none of which are determined by nationality, race or citizenship status. Trump's ignorant and bigoted regime continues to inflict harm on the USA.
Every damn day.
I TRUST YOU Olivia! As well as some legacy media icons like Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, etc., but I mainly go to substacks for the facts. Heritage media is currently in major need of a backbone, especially among their reporters. True backbone is found in the substacks.
I thought the coverage of the mid-term convention in Dallas a complete embarrassment - what is it with these crazy cultists cheering on the mango Mussolini and JD? They are all indecent humans!
I want to see more fire-in-the-gut from democrat leadership - Schumer, Jeffries. Candidates like Ossoff, Talarico and Al Sayed show more leadership and passion for democracy than current leaders. Mamdani is another impressive leader. We need more like these guys if this Country will ever overcome the evil in our government!
Thank you, Olivia. 🩵 So appreciate you and your work.
Good Morning, Olivia,
"But elections aren’t the only place trust is eroding. About 6 in 10 Americans have little or no trust in federal information on issues including foreign affairs, the environment, elections and politics, abortion and immigration. It gets worse. Only about 1 in 10 Americans say either party’s campaign messages are always or often factual. Even among partisans, only about a quarter say that about their own party."
It is bad when you have more faith in Iranian and other sources than our own government, starting with Centcom, RapidResponse47 (which is simply a vile spread of poison) and other State Departments.
Watch Leon County FL with mail ballot issues (or created) distance of 0.01 inches on the front. Why is the USPS implementing when there is a blockage in court through Mass.?
The deranged convention (of the clips I saw) was basically a Jim Jones cult meeting.
Have a great Saturday
My 9/11 moment started on the West Coast. I never listened to news while preparing to go to work. I walked to my bus stop and saw the morning edition of a newspaper that has gone out of print since then. The burning twin towers were above the fold. I caught my bus and heard about it from other passengers. Once at work I went straight to my desk to see what was going on. It was numbing to read, listen, and watch.
I was 53 that day with living memory of Vietnam and the Gulf War, Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Jr. Civil Rights battles for years. The attempted assassinations of Ford, Reagan, and George Wallace. The LA riots. Lots of stuff. But this moment, this said to me - the 21st century has its own "day when everything changed."
Olivia,
I have so many thoughts about distrust in the government and AI that I don’t even know where to start… and since this is the comment section and not my own substack I’ll leave it at that. For now…
But I do want to comment on Our Dear Leader’s $5000 for each adult if the republikkklans win the midterms. The moment I heard about it, I started researching and reading about the legality and whether it’s considered election interference. It seems to fall under campaign promises like cutting taxes— Olivia you probably know and understand this way better than I do. But I think that once a figure is attached to a campaign promise, it should be considered bribery. That’s my humble opinion
On the lack of trust:
I was born in '54, the post WWII halcyon days. Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, Donna Reed, The Sound of Music, Schwinn bicycles. Little League baseball.
Then Vietnam, which became the blueprint for American war: False premise (Tonkin Gulf), massive non stop lies, (McNamara and his body counts); cruel murdering of civilians with indiscriminate bombings and incinerating entire villages (My Lai); and finally collapse and retreat after having gained nothing.
And we've now repeated it TWICE with W's Iraq joyride and now Iran.
We never learn. We REFUSE to learn.
And now MAGA, a movement that's fueled by racism, bigotry, misogyny, lies, and the green light to be one's worst self.
I regularly read articles by smart writers like Rick Wilson who insist MAGA is sundowning. 100000% wrong. The numbers might have dipped, but the hate, cruelty and lies will live forever. "But ... Blue Wave". That's what's called a temporary respite. Fox News will keep it alive and they'll bring it back in bigger numbers.
We're $40T in debt, stuck in another forever war - that we're LOSING - with no exit strategy, healthcare is unaffordable for millions, and technology is making us dumber and less safe.
America is dying. Someone please tell me I'm wrong
Happy Saturday
Only dying if we let it. I believe the majority of true Americans understand the trouble that we are in, but they need to all vote to start turning the tide. The problem is that about one third of registered voters do not cast a ballot; in 2024, it was 36% (how sad). Those of us who are still sane need to encourage these apathetic and lazy folks to get off their asses and VOTE!
This is where my cynicism spikes.
We - Dem voters - could have stopped this before it started in '16. And again in '25.
BUT ...
... in both elections >10M Dems didn't vote. In fact in '16 a whole lotta Dems voted for HIM. Because her emails
You're not weak; I'm not weak. I speak out and have volunteered. But a disgustingly large % of Dems are content to do nothing, maybe not even vote. And it doesn't help that we've got two feckless leaders who are ineffective and inspire no one. Pelosi did us a massive disservice backing Jeffries and her other geriatric friends for leadership roles (one of whom is dead).
My confidence that we will rise up in unison and stop this sh** in '28 is minimal. We WILL find something not to like about our nominee. It's in our DNA.
Just watch
I basically agree, but try to be more optimistic. I am placing my hopes in the younger leaders like Ossoff, Talarico, Al Sayed, Mamdani, etc. We need change so badly, and the examples above have backbone, morality, and INTELLIGENCE. It was the 77 million STUPID folks that failed this Country.
Love all those guys. Terrific leaders. They give me hope
But we've lost the national narrative on so many things. We're non existent in the pod sphere. Fox is still the #1 network. We've been tepid, we message badly, and there is a lack of piss and vinegar in our leaders AND too much of the voter base.
Helping ppl get healthcare is socialism. As if Stalin's picture will be on your insurance card. Kindness and charity are woke. Bad things. Science is all a hoax. The idea of getting rod of automatic weapons? Off the table. I could go on. This stuff doesn't stand up to any intelligent scrutiny of course, but 70-80M Americans believe it.
I hate being a doomsayer, but I look around and it feels like we've been steamrolled. Might win the House, less likely the Senate. There might be some tough House hearings, but there will be no accountability until 1/29, and that's far from certain.
In Copenhagen last week on my way to a museum early in the morning and a man tried to get into my backpack. I felt it, turned around, caught him, yelled and grabbed my phone ( it wasn’t on, but he didn’t know that) and acted as though I were recording him. He ran as fast as he could putting his hoodie up to disguise his face. I never thought of my phone as a weapon, but I do now.
One thing about the AI warnings that never seems to get mentioned: the thing that limits it — energy.
None of this runaway AI growth can happen without colossal amounts of electricity. The tech oligarchs know this, which is why they are floating things like orbiting solar arrays beaming microwave energy back to earth.
What could possibly go wrong?
My point is that the way to stave off the “AI-pocalypse” may not be to try and regulate the AI, but to regulate — meaning tax — the energy.
It's hard not to get too depressed. The trump regime is doing so much damage to the country I can hardly breathe sometimes. Thank you for keeping us apprised of the important things that we should know, things to add to the list for when it's our turn, to undo as much damage as we can and to reform and refashion a better America. BTW, I watched your video with Bobby Jones, Dan Barkhuff and Michael Fanone. It was very moving and inspiring. Your story made me cry. I'm so proud to support you.
Truly one of your most important pieces. A.I. is a threat because we’ve heard from the founder of A.I. that we have to take it seriously and we need guardrails. Then we were warned by Bill Gates. And now this report that in a Decade there’s a 10% chance that this will wipe us out. That’s disturbing and alarming. It’s a terrible thing that we just allow this shit to go on. If I was in charge. I would be subpoenaing all of the companies. And under oath I would want a response to this. I would subpoena the person who resigned and go over their findings publicly so we could know what we are dealing with. Anybody that is continuing this and risking any harm to this country should be prosecuted to the highest extent. This is serious stuff. National security stuff. But because we don’t have a vision of it we just blow it off. But if a nation had something that had a 10% chance of wiping us out in a decade we’d do something about it. And now reports a terroristic group was using A.I. to build a bomb. This is all the stuff we had fear about when this started. Bad actors. In my opinion this should be at the top of country priorities list. And as a voter my question at the mid terms what are you guys going to do to put guardrails up against A.I. to protect our country? Great piece I’m glad you went there. This needs to be talked about.
Of course thank you for what you went through on 9 11. Makes me glad I was no where near either NYC OR Washington DC or for that matter a field in PA.
Pretty much a shit show right now! I hope Dems win bigly in November and then of course we need to push them to do the right things!
Thanks, Olivia: The midterm convention was one giant blowout. From Tim Scott's vile rant to JD Vance's racial slurs and bravado, to Trump's blustering babble, twice. I found it nauseating. Nothing was said about the improvement for the masses, just begging for votes and throwing slang at the democratic party. Trump is paranoid about what may be his major downfall. Finally, I realized I had better get a life and shut the TV off.
In regards to the convention. This is politics. The Republicans know what they have to do at the mid terms. Tout fear and they’re coming for you. Talk about Trans and Trans in sports. And pronouns. It’s the blueprint. It’s a cult. But this cycle is different. Americans are pissed. The economy the war. There’s no care about who’s what pronoun or gender or trans. No one cares about that when your lights just got cut off. Or you can’t pay rent. Or you can’t afford gas to go to work. So it’s simple as this what’s the solution? I still haven’t heard one from Republicans.
Thank you!
We greatly appreciate your insights, Olivia - please also suggest solutions.
What are your suggestions?