Roundtable

 Jim: Roundtable time.  Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and you can also use common_ills@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;  Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript. 

 

Jim (Con't): So I think Stephanie Ruhle said last night on MSNBC that Chump's now been president for 218 days.  Anybody else wonder if we're going to survive it?

Isaiah: I worry about that every single day.  He is destroying our country.

Kat: We should win the mid-terms by a landslide.  But I think about the 2020 election and how he was pressuring governors to deliver him X votes after the votes had been counted. I think about that and then I wonder about his scam where he's asking for voter rolls from states right now and I wonder if that's some stunt he plans to pull to overturn elections.  I wouldn't put anything past him.  He's the closest thing to Satan on this earth.

Jim: I hadn't really thought about that.  It's something to be concerned about.

Cedric: I'll note that I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him, think he's scum but even I'm surprised by how outright evil he has become.  And this is the man who led an insurrection against the government.  But I've never seen someone so hateful and so joyless and so determined to destroy the American people.  Kat's right, he's the closest thing to Satan that we have on earth. 

Trina: People like him tend to destroy themselves.  By that I mean, look at him, his skin's rotting, he's taking on water in the ankles, he's morbidly obese and can no longer walk a straight line.  He is a stroke waiting to happen.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had to step down because he became physically and mentally incapacitated.  I also wouldn't be surprise if he had a fatal stroke and passed away.  And I wouldn't shed a tear for a number of reasons but in terms of medical the main reason I wouldn't cry is that his administration has devalued and defunded preventative care.  He, as a patient, is also rejecting preventative care.  So he will have brought any health problems on himself.

Jim: Trina's a nurse.  Can anyone think of a previous president so determined to attack half of the country, half of its citizens.

Ruth: Let me grab that.  No.  I did not care for President Ronald Reagan, for instance.  And I think he did real damage on issues like the homeless and AIDS; however, I would not say that his policies were about attacking the Americans who did not vote for him.  He also did not spew hatred every time he opened his mouth.  I have had it with The Convicted Felon and members of his cabinet constantly attacking former President Joe Biden.  There is no excuse for it.  And it makes our entire country look dysfunctional on the international stage.

Jim: What's been the biggest disappointment in the last 218 days?

Wally: Republicans in Congress.  They've always claimed to have ethics.  They have none.  They vote that Big Bulls**t Bill that destroys America -- for example, destroys medical insurance for so many Americans -- and then they make it worse by going into their districts and lying about what the bill will do.  And then they have a whiney fit when their constituents refuse to go along with them and their break from reality.  That's what the second Chump term is: A break from reality.  A psychotic break. 

Dona: Grace Hall (MIAMI HERALD) cites Pew's latest poll which found his job approval rating has fallen "to 38%" and it was 47% at the start of his second term in January 2025."  It would appear that a large number of Americans are tuned into what he's doing.

Marcia: Yes, but that's not registering with Republicans in Congress -- like Wally pointed out earlier.  And they control both houses of Congress.  So it's hard not to feel as though we're screwed for the rest of this year and next.

Betty: And we've got a corrupt Supreme Court.  Don't forget that.  And let's never forgive John Roberts, Chief Justice, for bringing us to this point.  He is part of the problem.  And he will be remembered in history for presiding over the Court that the American people lost faith in.  For decades, we had seen the Supreme Court as a trusted body.  Now we see it for a collective of right-wing partisan hacks. It doesn't represent the American people and it doesn't even attempt to pretend that it does.  This is a very sad and very risky moment in American history.  And I think we're seeing how little democracy means to a number of people -- some of whom hold elected office.

C.I.: Worth noting, in April, 52% of Americans polled by Public Religion Research Institute agreed with the statement, "President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy."

Jess: That's a majority.  A majority is what Chump didn't get in the 2024 election.  He got 49% to Kamala's 47%,

Ty: It's a majority saying Chump needs his power limited because people have caught on.  Chump is a menace, a threat to democracy.  

 

Betty:  It is prayer.  That's all that's getting me through these days.  He is rejecting even the Supreme Court these days.

 

 

Elaine: Exactly.  He announces that he's got an executive order that now will put anyone burning a flag into prison for one year.  This despite the rulings of the Supreme Court that flag burning is a form of free speech.   Or his attempts to fire Lisa Cool from the Federal Reserve Board -- a move that a Supreme Court verdict earlier this year said he did not have the power to do. 

 

Rebecca: As Ruth and Mike both noted last week, Chump needs to learn his lane. He thinks being president of the United States means he can dictate our medical rights, that he can dictate what's on TV and what's not, that he can dictate what cases attorneys take and do not take, that he can misuse the Justice Dept. to go after his political enemies, that he can dictate what colleges teach, go down the list.  He's out of control.

 

Mike: And while he does all of this, our economy is tanking and our democracy is fading.  He is the worst president this country has ever seen.  

 

Jim: Ever?

 

Mike: Ever, ever, ever. And he doesn't even have one decent appointee in his administration.  He may have the administration that he deserves but it's not one that this country deserves.

 

Jim:  Ann, Stan we need to wrap up.  What disturbs you two the most?

 

Stan: For me, it's the media coverage.  Too much of the media fails to address what is going on and fails to call it out.  You can't both sides Hitler without embracing and backing Hitler.  That's the reality.  You're supposed to be on the side of democracy.  Someone attacks democracy, they've become the enemy and the press needs to grasp that.

 

Ann: And he's certainly attacked the press.  The thing that bothers me is even his attempts to take over business -- to dictate to business -- even this doesn't result in a flurry of press outrage.  The editorial board of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, for example, did come out against that.  But talk to people you know and you'll learn that much of the press has still not even reported on it, let alone weighed in against it.  

 

Jim: And that's going to have to be the last word.  This is a rush transcript.  Ava and C.I. took notes for this transcript.

 

 

 

 

 

ann stan