Donnelly/Colt Progressive Resources

12/02/2024

NEW Bumpersticker is in stock now. Product code is S-IAD.

10/03/2024

Go to paypal.me/BeLovedAsheville and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.

07/31/2024

I know this re-post is long, and that few people will take the time to read it, but it's worth taking the time. Heather Richardson has such spot-on insight into what's going on in the rapidly changing
scenarios in the ongoing struggle between the forces wanting an autocratic Big Brother state and those who want a republic built on democracy with checks and balances to prevent a totalitarian coup d'etat.

On Friday, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump begged the members of the audience to “vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine…. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

The comment drew a lot of attention, and on Monday, Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham gave him a chance to walk the statement back. Instead, he said: “I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true.” “Don’t worry about the future. You have to vote on November 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because frankly we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK.”

Trump’s refusal to disavow the idea that putting him back into power will mean the end of a need for elections is chilling and must be viewed against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s July 1, 2024, decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States. In that decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court’s right-wing majority said that presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of a president’s “official duties” and that presidents should have a presumption of immunity for other presidential actions.

John Roberts defends the idea of a strong executive and has fought against the expansion of voting rights made possible by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The idea that it is dangerous to permit minorities and women to vote suggests that there are certain people who should run the country. That tracks with a recently unearthed video in which Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance calls childless people “psychotic” and “deranged,” and refers unselfconsciously to “America’s leadership class.”

The idea that democracy must be overturned in order to enable a small group of leaders to restore virtue to a nation is at the center of the “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy” championed by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán’s imposition of an authoritarian Christian nationalism on a former democracy, in turn, has inspired the far-right figures that are currently in charge of the Republican Party. As Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts put it: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.”

Kevin Roberts has called for “institutionalizing Trumpism” and pulled together dozens of right-wing institutions behind the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to create a blueprint for a second Trump term. Those who created Project 2025 are closely connected to the Trump team, and Trump praised its creators and its ideas.

Today, The New Republic published the foreword Vance wrote for Kevin Roberts’s forthcoming book. Vance makes it clear he sees Kevin Roberts and himself as working together to create “a fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics.” Like others on the Christian right, Vance argues that “the Left” has captured the country’s institutions and that those institutions must be uprooted and those in them replaced with right-wing Christians in order to restore what they see—inaccurately—as traditional America.

That determination to disrupt American institutions fits neatly with the technology entrepreneurs who seem to believe that they are the ones who should control the nation’s future. Vance is backed by Silicon Valley libertarian Peter Thiel, who put more than $10 million behind Vance’s election to the Senate. In 2009, Thiel wrote “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

“The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics,” he wrote. “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”

Thiel set Vance up to invest in companies that made him wealthy and touted Vance for the vice presidential slot, and in turn, the Silicon Valley set are expecting Vance to help get rid of the regulation imposed by the Biden administration and to push cryptocurrency. Trump appears to be getting on board with comments about how the tech donors are “geniuses,” praising investor Elon Musk and saying, “We have to make life good for our smart people.” In a piece that came out Sunday, Washington Post reporters Elizabeth Dwoskin, Cat Zakrzewski, Nitasha Tiku, and Josh Dawsey credited the influence of Thiel and other tech leaders for turning Vance from a Never-Trumper to a MAGA Republican.

Judd Legum of Popular Information reported today that the cryptocurrency industry is investing heavily in the 2024 election, with its main super PAC raising $202 million in this cycle. Three large cryptocurrency companies are investing about $150 million in pro-crypto congressional candidates.

On Saturday, Trump said he would make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.” He promised to end regulations on cryptocurrency, which, because it is not overseen by governments, is prone to use by criminals and rogue states. That regulation is “a part of a much larger pattern that’s being carried out by the same left-wing fascists to weaponize government against any threat to their power,” Trump said. “They’ve done it to me.”

But the problem that those trying to get rid of the modern administrative state continue to run up against is that voters actually like a government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights. In recent days, Minnesota governor Tim Walz has been articulating how popular that government is as he makes the television rounds.

On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies—he passed background checks for guns, expanded LGBTQ protections, instituted free breakfast and lunch for school kids—and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.”

“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.”

The extremes of Project 2025 have made it clear that the Republicans intend to destroy the kind of government Walz is defending and replace it with an authoritarian president imposing Christian nationalism. And when Americans hear what’s in Project 2025, they overwhelmingly oppose it. Trump has tried without success to distance himself from the document.

He and his team have also hammered on the Heritage Foundation for their public revelations of their plans, and today the director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, stepped down. The Trump campaign issued a statement reiterating—in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary—that Trump had nothing to do with Project 2025 and adding: “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should service as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign—it will not end well for you.”

The Harris campaign responded to the news by saying that “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country. Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real—in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”

The reasoning behind the idea of a strong executive, or a “leadership class” that does not have to answer to voters, is that an extremist minority needs to take control of the American government away from the American people because the majority doesn’t like the policies the extremists want.

When Trump begs right-wing Christians to turn out for just one more election, he is promising that if only we will put him into the White House once and for all, we will never again have to worry about having a say in our government. As Trump put it: “The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore.”

—

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/us/harris-trump-election

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/us/harris-trump-election -christians-vote-ingraham

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/politics/john-roberts-donald-trump-supreme-court-immunity-analysis/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/30/politics/supreme-court-john-roberts-trump-immunity-6-3-biskupic/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html

https://www.vox.com/politics/361455/jd-vance-trump-vice-president-rnc-speech

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/28/jd-vance-peter-thiel-donors-big-tech-trump-vp/

https://www.reuters.com/technology/peter-thiels-founders-fund-made-200-million-crypto-investment-before-bull-run-2024-02-13/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/27/us/politics/trump-bitcoin-crypto.html

Popular Information
How the crypto industry is buying political support with 202 million U.S. dollars
15 years after Bitcoin was created, there are still few legitimate use cases. Today, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are primarily used for financial speculation and to facilitate organized crime…
Read more
18 hours ago · 318 likes · 34 comments · Judd Legum
https://newrepublic.com/article/184393/jd-vance-violent-foreword-kevin-roberts-project-2025-leader-book

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2005-pt15/html/CRECB-2005-pt15-Pg20902.htm

Trump’s running mate writes that “it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets.”

07/24/2024

This is from author and anti-authoritarian scholar, Ruth Ben-Ghiat:
Today is the Anti-Autocracy conference I am co-chairing at N.Y.U. You can follow the livestream and I will post the video of it when it is available.

I want to let you read my opening remarks, so here they are:

"This bipartisan conference is designed to inform the public about the grave threat to our freedoms and what we can do about it. We have brought together people from quite different political backgrounds who are united in their dedication to doing whatever we can to save our democracy. This is an anti-autocracy conference because autocracy is what we are looking at if Donald Trump is re-elected.

I know many Americans feel this is hyperbole, even after MAGA attemped to overthrow the government to keep Trump in office illegally. In my line of work, we call this a coup attempt. Even now, Trump is continuing to use his rallies to market strongman rule to Americans. Just a few days ago he praised Xi Jinping, a Communist dictator, as “brilliant” because he rules with an “iron fist.”

I am here as a scholar of authoritarianism because I know the stakes of this election: MAGA dictatorship or American democracy. Repression or freedom. I have seen what happens to societies when corrupt leaders and their allies gain power based on division and hate.

Project 2025 is a recipe for mass chaos, abuses of power, and dysfunction in government. It aligns not only with the agendas of present foreign autocracies, especially the Hungary of Viktor Orban, which was just ranked as the EU’s most corrupt country, but also with the policies of past dictatorships.

Project 2025 includes measures similar to Mussolini’s “Laws for the Defense of the State” that turned Italy into a police state after a series of assassination attempts on him in the mid​-1920s. Among other things, it justified the firing of non-loyal civil servants and the dismissal of judges on grounds of “political incompatibility.”

We don’t have to succumb to the horrors of authoritarianism. We can stop this before it starts, if we are informed of the stakes and best strategies for democracy protection. That’s why we are here today."

06/12/2024

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05/19/2024

My friend emailed this trailer for a film coming out June 6th, called "Where the Olive Trees Weep" If anyone knows how to purchase it on DVD, please let me know. I'd like to show it at the monthly Second Monday Film Series sometime soon –

Where Olive Trees Weep offers a searing window into the struggles and resilience of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation. Following a Palestinian ...

05/16/2024

"Big Banks Have Given Nearly $7 Trillion to Fossil Fuel Companies Since Paris Agreement, Report Says"

How is that possible?

You answer that question with another: How is it possible that coal and oil stocks didn't collapse after the 2016 Paris climate accords?
Right?
To answer that, go watch the movie "The Big Short" if you need to.
Obviously, the big banks took the bets of all the reasonable investors who wisely shorted oil stocks. As the oil stocks tumbled, the dark lords bought them up. And propped them up. And continued to collect on those who shorted the stocks. These dark lords are guys with 7 trillion to gamble. Those are some big dudes. Who all answer to the Rothschilds, who have been big oil since day one. Those guys made nearly a trillion over the course of a few weeks shorting the market just before Covid hit hard. How many trillions do you suppose they have collected in the 8 years since the Paris Accords. 50? 100? 500? 1,000? I'm not confident that 1,000 trillion is the limit.

article:
"Big Banks Have Given Nearly $7 Trillion to Fossil Fuel Companies Since Paris Agreement, Report Says"

– by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes / EcoWatch / 14 May 2024

According to the new "Banking on Climate Chaos Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2024," the largest banks in the world have given $6.9 trillion in fossil fuel funding to the industry since the 2016 Paris Agreement.

The goal of the Paris Agreement — signed by 196 countries — is to limit human-caused global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by lowering carbon dioxide emissions. However, contrary to their pledges, private interests in many countries have kept funding the operations of fossil fuel companies, which have continued to expand, reported The Guardian.

The impacts of climate change most often affect vulnerable communities that are the least responsible for it.

“Climate change hits the frontlines first and worst. People living on the frontlines of climate chaos and the fossil fuel industry are predominantly Indigenous Peoples, Black and Brown communities, low-wage workers, women, fishers or smallholder farmers, often living in poverty,” Banking on Climate Chaos said.

For the 15th edition of the report, the researchers looked at the underwriting and lending of the biggest 60 banks globally to more than 4,200 oil, gas and coal firms that were causing environmental destruction in the Arctic and Amazon, The Guardian reported.

They discovered that, of the nearly $7 trillion given to the companies, almost half supported the expansion of fossil fuel development.

Banks in the United States were the biggest culprits, giving 30 percent of last year’s $705 billion total. JPMorgan Chase’s support of fossil fuels was $40.8 billion in 2023 — the largest financier. The second largest contributor was Japan’s Mizuho with $37.1 billion, while Bank of America was third.

Europe’s biggest donor was Barclays with $24.2 billion. A little more than a quarter of the financing last year came from European banks, the report said.

“Financiers and investors of fossil fuels continue to light the flame of the climate crisis. Paired with generations of colonialism, the fossil fuel industry and banking institutions’ investment in false solutions create unlivable conditions for all living relatives and humanity on Mother Earth,” said Tom BK Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network’s executive director, as reported by The Guardian. “As Indigenous peoples, we remain on the frontlines of the climate catastrophe, and the fossil fuel industry targets our lands and territories as sacrifice zones to continue their extraction.”

Representatives of some of the banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Santander and Deutsche Bank — said their companies were supporting the transition of their clients in the energy sector toward more eco-friendly business models.

“Capitalism and its extraction-based economy will only perpetuate more harm and destruction against our Mother Earth and it must come to an end,” Goldtooth said.

05/14/2024

• Thursday, May 16th will be the first of the monthly 3rd THURSDAY STREE FESTIVALS in Downtown Willimantic for this year, May through September. I'll have a booth set up just wet of ("uptown" from)the bakery "A Cupcake For Later). Visit the 10'x 10' pop-up tent to browse and purchase unique hand-assembled buttons/badges/pins from 1" to 3" round, plus postcards and other gifts you won't find in stores in New England or New York. Open from 6 t 9pm, May, June, July and September (I'm skipping August, but the Street Fest will still be taking place on that 3rd Thursday, August 15th).

• Saturday, June 1st is the annual Veggiestock Vegetable & Flower Sale with vendor booths set up, including our buttons & stickers. 10 am to 2 pm in Lauter Parl on Jackson Street / Rte.195,
in Willimantic

• The buttons, stickers, postcards and miscellaneous
gifts will also be available to purchase at Donna & Michael's Windsong Pick-Yer-Own Blueberry Farm, 54 Tull Lane, PomfretCenter, CT from when they open in June through the month until they're all picked by July. Check for opening date and hours: www.facebook.com/Windsong Farm Blueberries.

• I'll also have a booth at the 36th Annual Falson Ridge Folk Festival held at the Goshen Fairgrounds, 16 Route 63 in Goshen, CT, from Friday, July 26th through Sunday, July 28th. Our tables will be set up inside the Merchandise Building, safe from the sun, wind, and rain. Order tickets for the day or weekend with or without on-site camping. Tickets & all info:

Welcome! The 2024 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival will be held July 26th, 27th, and 28th, 2024, with a pre-festival tastings and farm market day on July 25th, 2024, all at the Goshen Fairgrounds, in Goshen, Connecticut. Tickets are now on sale for this year’s festival from our Tickets page. Our 2023 Ma...

05/06/2024

Boy's lost toy tiger has awesome adventure, thanks to this airport's kind staff: https://bit.ly/3JRKtyG

05/06/2024

The Zinn Education Project, (started by Howard Zinn before he died in 2010) and now administered by Deborah Menkart, is a valuable resource to link to on Facebook.

Throughout U.S. history, young people have protested to demand justice in the United States and around the world. Each time, they face violence from police and vilification by the corporate media.

05/01/2024

Please share this post on your social media: Monday, May 13th at 7:00 pm the Second Monday Film Series will screen the 2023 award-winning dark satire, "AMERICAN FICTION" (1 hr. 57 min. • Rated R) The free showing will be at the Storrs Unitarian Universalist meetinghouse, 46 Spring Hill Road, in Mansfield, CT.
Mixing dark humor, social commentary, and satire, Jeffrey Wright plays a frustrated African-American author who can’t get taken seriously until he writes a spoof book filled with racist stereotypes that becomes a huge best-seller. The film is based on the novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett. The film’s writer/director Cord Jefferson devoured the book, immediately wanted to adapt it, and imagined Wright’s voice as the lead character. It all came together perfectly in this movie.

For more info or to sign up for a free monthly reminder email about the next film that will be shown, text 860 428-4867. You can opt out of the email list at any time. We never share your name or email with anyone.
Follow the Second Monday Film Series on Facebook. To see a trailer for the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0MbLCpYJPA
Monday, May 13th at 7:00 pm the Second Monday Film Series will screen the 2023 award-winning dark satire, "AMERICAN FICTION" (1 hr. 57 min. • Rated R) The free showing will be at the Storrs Unitarian Universalist meetinghouse, 46 Spring Hill Road, in Mansfield, CT.
Mixing dark humor, social commentary, and satire, Jeffrey Wright plays a frustrated African-American author who can’t get taken seriously until he writes a spoof book filled with racist stereotypes that becomes a huge best-seller. The film is based on the novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett. The film’s writer/director Cord Jefferson devoured the book, immediately wanted to adapt it, and imagined Wright’s voice as the lead character. It all came together perfectly in this movie.
For more info or to sign up for a free monthly reminder email about the next film that will be shown, text 860 428-4867. You can opt-out of the email list at any time. We never share your name or email with anyone.
Follow the Second Monday Film Series on Facebook. To see a trailer for the film:

Watch the official trailer for , starring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, and Sterling K. Brown. From Writer/Director Cord Jeffe...

04/29/2024

New: Square Button: "GAZA" (in the style of the "LOVE" statue by sculptor Robert Indiana (1928-2018) is available by texting 860 428-4867. $2 each + postage. Wholesale rates: 100 - $1.50 each; 250 - $1.00 each; 500 - .75¢ each; 1,000 - .49¢ each. Union-made in the U.S. • Production time: 2 working days (excl. weekends & national holidays). Transit time by UPS Ground or Postal Service: : 2 to 7 working days depending on distance being shipped in the U.S. Pre-pay with credit card. Call with how many you want, name & address to send them, and credit card info. These prices are also good for custom printing your own design. Email us a PDF at 300 d.p.i resolution.

04/18/2024

Monday, May 13th at 7:00 pm the Second Monday Film Series will screen the 2023 award-winning dark satire, "AMERICAN FICTION" (1 hr. 57 min. • Rated R) The free showing will be at the Storrs Unitarian Universalist meetinghouse, 46 Spring Hill Road, in Mansfield, CT.
Mixing dark humor, social commentary and satire, Jeffrey Wright plays a frustrated African-American author who can’t get taken seriously until he writes a spoof book filled with racist stereotypes that becomes a huge best-seller. The film is based on the novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett. The film’s writer/director Cord Jefferson devoured the book, immediately wanted to adapt it, and imagined Wright’s voice as the lead character. It all came together perfectly in this movie.
For more info or to sign up for a free monthly reminder email about the next film that will be shown , text 860 428-4867. You can opt-out of the email list at any time. We never share your name or email with anyone.

Follow the Second Monday Film Series on Facebook. To see a trailer for the film:

1h 57m | R

03/27/2024

Donald's desperate appeal to his cult's base and his evangelical acolytes: his new $60 Bible. Always the con artist. There is a photo of him literally wrapped in the U.S. flag and now his "DONALD ENDORSED" BIBLE! At any other time in American history this would be seen as pure satire, Mad Magazine-style. The grifter hawkng his celebrity status as Fake Billionaire and Fascist Dictator-in-Waiting, to his MAGA Rubes, vigilantes and bottom-feeders.
This, after last month's launch of his $400 golden sneakers! , as "Father" John MIsty would say, it's "Pure Comedy" Here's the Official music video from 6 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKrSYgirAhc The video is even more relevant today (let's called it his "Mammon Version") after Donald's launch of his Holy Bible, at the great price of 60 bucks, to help pay his lawyers as they delay his trials as long as they can get away with it!