Eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the survivors of the horrors perpetrated there by the Nazis had a very clear and moving message to the world. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum summarised it: “Humans gradually developed this hatred. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence.” The descent began by selling racial hate and nationalist hope through misinformation and exploiting economic miseries and technological upheavals. It deepened by normalizing abuses and violence in the public sphere and by deliberately rotting democratic mechanisms from within to replace them with industrial levels of propaganda and brutality. History is about evidence, interpretation, and argument – in order to build understanding. It’s complicated. The gaps in evidence, the differences in interpretation, and the implications of arguments all afford space for dispute.
But some things are beyond credible dispute. When the perpetrators of great evils have their actions or intentions wilfully aped, sanitized, justified, or mischaracterized – or when professional expertise is afforded the same weight as conspiracy theories – alarm bells should ring. The point of this song is to skewer some of the nonsense about Hitler and the Nazis – most prominently aired again by Alice Weidel, co-chairwoman of the growing “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) party, in a fawning conversation with Elon Musk earlier this month. We counterpose these claims & their precursors against the best scholarship & biographies assembled by internationally acclaimed historians in recent years.
For the music, the good news is the audio on our laptop is fixed, the bad that we took on a challenging sing: “Dance of the Knights” has no words (mostly crazy aggravated orchestral flurries). We chose Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet “Romeo and Juliet” – written in 1935 and premiered in Czechoslovakia in 1938, a few months before German troops marched in – because of its epic style, topical relevance (the composer was born in the Donetsk region, and had a conflicted relationship with the murderous propagandistic Soviet regime), and subject matter (tragic battle between factions that ultimately overtakes the lives of innocents).
Nobody’s covering the Resistance better than Rachel Maddow, especially M 2/17 she covered all the protests across the country on President’s Day. MSNBC. I don’t know if you watch The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, M-F at 4p, 7p, and 11p HIT, with Friday’s show repeated on Saturday at 4p, or if you have programmable recording capabilities, but if not I highly recommend it. She not only tells exactly what Trump/Musk are doing but also what the Resistance is doing and what they’re winning. Very encouraging! She may only be daily for Trump’s first 100 days.
Indivisible boycotts that are coming up.
On Friday, February 28th there is a national spending boycott, sponsored by several organizations. Please join them and buy NOTHING on that day. Plan around it by buying before or after, and if you MUST go get something in an emergency please go to a local mom and pop store. Do not shop at the big names.
The next boycott is March 7th – March 14th. Please do not buy anything on Amazon during that time. Please boycott Amazon for the week. And if at all possible reduce or eliminate shopping with Amazon altogether. Jeff Bezos has been taking an active hand in the Washington Post, quashing criticism of Trump or Ad buys that criticize him. Jeff needs to experience a bit of economic pain don’t you think?
Also generalstrikeus.com
IMPORTANT! PLEASE LISTEN POWERFUL SPEECH BY GOV PRITZKER !!!!
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker delivered the 2025 State of the State address on Feb. 19, 2025.
Begin at 26 min where Gov Pritzker speaks about trump musk and our Democracy. It only took Hitler a little over 1 month to dismantle a constitutional democracy.
Cartoonists are leading the way:
Smerconish.com, especially the ones from 2/14/25
And Satirists:
Putin Agrees to Negotiate with Musk over Ownership of Trump
| FEB 18 |
GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Vladimir Putin has entered into negotiations with Elon Musk over the ownership of Donald J. Trump, the Kremlin confirmed on Tuesday.
Those negotiations, however, are proving contentious, as the Russian president is arguing that, having fully owned Trump between 2017 and 2021, he is entitled to a majority stake now.
For his part, Musk claims that he purchased Trump outright by spending nearly $300 million on his 2024 campaign.
In one heated exchange, Musk reportedly told the Russian leader, “You’re being greedy, Vlad—you already own Tulsi.”
Trump/Musk Dictatorship Is Galvanizing the American People’s Resistance – Ralph Nadar https://mailchi.mp/nader/trumpmusk-dictatorship-is-galvanizing-the-american-peoples-resistance?e=67de34ccfa
This week HI’s Governor Josh Green took decisive action to support Hawaii’s workforce in the face of sweeping changes at the federal level. With the launch of Operation Hire Hawaii, Governor Green is hiring qualified federal employees affected by recent job cuts to transition into essential state jobs.
Trump is Repeating Richard Nixon’s Failed Plan to Shutter Federal Agencies
Donald Trump and his allies have used a series of illegal tactics to withhold federal funding and strangle administrative agencies.
The administration has tried to freeze federal funding with an agency memorandum, turned over control of the government’s payments systems to an unelected and unaccountable actor in Elon Musk, and withheld appropriations from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Reportedly, the administration is also preparing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education in the coming weeks.
Richard Nixon used a similar strategy in an attempt to unilaterally shut down the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the federal agency created under President Lyndon Johnson to implement the War on Poverty. Mobilization by unionized federal workers and the courts eventually put an end to Nixon’s efforts.
This history highlights how opponents of Trump’s power grab can potentially fight back—and protect one of the most sacrosanct principles embedded in the Constitution.
Jamie Raskin, who said, “Given that I was marching at age three, you know I’m not letting any coup-plotting, election-denying, insurrection-supplying autocrat, kleptocrat, plutocrat or theocrat, or any techno-feudalist Silicon Valley broligarch aspiring dictator, turn me around now. I am going to honor and participate every day in this urgent national fight for strong constitutional democracy, personal freedom and social progress.”
The People by the Thousands in All 50 States Took to the Streets. President’s Day. 28 Days. That’s all it took for people to want to give up a holiday, make some homemade signs and show up in cities all over the country on Monday.New Slogans, good for sign waving, most from Maui Demonstration on President’s Day at the State Bldg:
DOGE: Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything
F*Elon & the Felon
The Fascistic Muskocracy
Super Callous Fragile Rapist Sexist Nazi Potus
When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
When tyranny becomes law rebellion becomes duty.
Quid Pro No!
Coup is a four letter word!
You have the right to remain silent but I don’t recommend it.
Deport Musk Rat
A woman’s place is in the resistance!
Flush out the turd reich!
Important read. Please share EVERYWHERE.
Report from the Senate Floor:
Last night in the Senate, something really important happened. Republicans forced us to debate their billionaire bailout budget framework. We started voting at 6 PM because they knew doing it in the dark of night would minimize media coverage. And they do not want the American people to see how blatant their handover of our government to the billionaire class is.
So I want to explain what happened last night and what we did to fight back. The apex of Republicans’ plan to turn over our government to their wealthy cronies is a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. And they plan to pay for it with cuts to programs that working people rely on. Popular and necessary programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, are all being targeted.
In order to pass the tax cut, Republicans have to go through a series of procedural steps. Last night, they took the first step which requires them to pass an outline of their plan, but with it, any senator can offer as many amendments as we want. So my Democratic colleagues and I did just that.
Now, we knew that Republicans would largely unanimously oppose them, but we had two objectives here. One, Republicans were forced to put their opinion on record — many for the first time — on the most corrupt parts of Trump and Musk’s agenda. Two, as I’ve been saying, I am going to make every process and procedure as slow and painful as possible for as long as my colleagues choose to ignore the constitutional crisis happening before our eyes.
So what did we propose? We proposed no tax cuts for anyone who makes a billion dollars a year. We made them vote on whether or not Elon Musk and DOGE should have limitless access to Americans’ personal data. We made them vote on whether to protect IVF and require insurers to cover it. Every single amendment Democrats proposed was shot down. On almost every single amendment, Republicans universally opposed it. Every Republican voted against our proposal to prevent more tax cuts for billionaires. The corruption and theft is happening in the open here.
The whole game for Republicans is taking your money and giving it to the wealthiest corporations and billionaires — even if it means kicking your parents out of a nursing home or turning off Medicaid for the poorest children. They know what they are doing is deeply unpopular. They are offering a tax cut to the most wealthy that is 850 times larger than what they are offering working people. Oh and by the way, any tax cuts for working people are going to be washed out by higher costs for basic necessities, like health care and food. It’s a fundamental injustice.
Thanks to your pressure and support, many of my Democratic colleagues have joined my effort to do everything we can to make sure they cannot destroy democracy and steal your money in the dark of the night. We are being loud about what is happening. I’m going to continue to grind the gears of Congress down as much as possible to make it that much harder and slower to get away with this corruption. That’s why the votes lasted until nearly 5 AM.
This is a five-alarm fire. I don’t think we have two years to plan and fight back. I think we have months. It’s still in our power to stop the destruction of our democracy with mass mobilization and effective opposition from elected officials. So we can’t miss any opportunity to take advantage of opportunities to put Republicans on the record and shine a light on what is happening.
And you have a role to play in this as well. I need you to amplify what’s happening, support the leaders who are fighting for you to make sure they can continue speaking truth to power against Musk and Trump’s billionaire cronies, and show up at rallies and town halls. Use every tool at your disposal to send a message loud and clear about how you expect my colleagues to lead and fight in this moment.
Every best wish,
US Senator Chris Murphy (D – CT)
Someday, the true story of Donald Trump’s Russian connection will be told, and it will read like a spy novel worthy of Tom Clancy…
It’s the story of a beauty pageant that led to the election of a President.
In November 2013, Donald Trump held the Miss Universe Contest in Moscow.
At the time, Trump was beyond broke… He was deeply in debt, and after five bankruptcies, no bank in America could lend him money.
For a week, Mr. Trump and a bevy of the most beautiful women in the world partied with all the bigwigs in Russia… politicos, oligarchs, rock stars, celebrities, and even Vladimir Putin himself.
There has been much speculation about what went down in that week of booze, babes, and big money, but whatever it was, it changed the course of history.
A few months later, the Trump organization received a massive infusion of cash from Deutsche Bank… a German banking giant that has routinely paid millions in fines for illegally laundering money for the Russians.
Trump left Moscow with the financial backing he so desperately neede,d and Putin had his hooks in Trump.
In 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for POTUS, and Putin began actively cultivating his assets.
The Mueller report States unequivocally that Russia conducted a systematic misinformation campaign designed to tarnish Trump’s opponents and promote his candidacy.
Russia’s influence in the 2016 election was pervasive, and it worked…
With Putin’s help, Donald J Trump became the 45th President of the United States, and he wasted no time paying off the debt he owed to his pal Vladimir…
Trump spoke glowingly of him every chance he got… every executive decision benefited Putin.
He ceded the Middle East to Russia, withdrew from Syria, and allowed Putin to fill the void.
He turned his back on Ukraine, the last bastion standing between Russia and a free Europe.
He disavowed NATO, the alliance that had held Russia at bay for over 70 years.
He pulled US troops out of Germany… something the Kremlin has always wanted.
At the Helsinki summit, Trump publicly believed Putin over his intelligence agencies.
He attacked America’s friends and embraced her enemies just as Vladimir wanted.
At home, Trump became the divider in chief, driving deep divisions between all the different factions of American society.
To divide America from within… to drive a wedge between blacks and whites, rich and poor, left and right, has long been a part of Putin’s KGB playbook.
Russian hackers are inflaming racial tensions across the country, infiltrating radical groups, and planting disinformation on social media.
We hope the US Intelligence Services are prepared to address this threat because Mr.Trump isn’t.
I know a little something that so many do not appreciate about Donald but that those of us who worked with him in the financial services game have known for many decades—LONG before he ever made a run at politics.
His stated motives rarely reveal his true agenda. His showmanship and charisma bedazzles the uninformed, which is exactly how he likes it.
He never signed a contract or met an agreement he wouldn’t violate or wriggle out of if it suited his hidden agenda. He never met an investor whose purse he didn’t consider his own in some strategic way. And he never met a human being he wouldn’t screw in order to advance or satisfy himself.
If you want to understand his beef with Panama, don’t look at the canal to which he now points. Look at Trump enterprises and their fraught financial and criminal relationship with Panama, and look to the Russian oligarchs who bought condos in his Panama Tower.
If you want to understand his fixation with Gaza, don’t look at the Palestinian or Israeli people; look at the real estate value he now perceives that Gaza holds, and he’d like to unlock.
If you want to understand his insane, obsessive beef with energy renewable windmills, don’t look at the wind energy aspect; look at his beef with Scotland over his golf course and the nearby windmills that damaged his idea of its aesthetics.
If you want to understand his irrational hatred of Obama, don’t look at the policies of the Obama administration; look to the annual press corp dinner where Obama poked fun at him and bruised his ego. If you want to understand his demonization of Democrats, look not to Democratic social policy, but to the fact they didn’t want him to run under color of their party.
If you want to understand his hatred of “immigrants,” don’t look to the actual contributions and challenges related to immigration, but to his own germophobia and personal disgust for all things “dirty and brown.”
What he does SO masterfully, as many sociopaths do, is figure out how to align, however temporarily, his own personal agenda with the drives of those he can then USE to help him execute it. And the GOP fell right in line with that abusive strategy.
The GOP now looks much like a battered wife who would LOVE to quit Trump, but who also knows their financial security, personal comfort, and social status would collapse if they ran away. And they fear they won’t get much sympathy or support from the people who tried to warn them not to marry the dude—a serial, liar, cheater, thief, sadist, and a generally Bad Person.
Many of the GOP politicians today are busily masking their own abuse from the general public; at some point, however, as they watch their power continue to erode, their reputations get smashed, and themselves get blamed for the extensive abuse they now suffer, something’s gonna give.
I don’t know what it is, but every bone in my body FEELS an energetic convergence heading toward a massive, MASSIVE explosion—coming soon.
Author ~ Eilene Workman
