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Posts Tagged ‘DEMOCRATS’

THE TRUTH ABOUT LIARS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 18, 2022 at 12:10 am

“The Holocaust never happened.” 

“The Sandy Hook massacre never happened.” 

“The MAGAbomber is a Democrat who’s mailing letter-bombs to make Republicans look bad.” 

These are among the lies regularly hurled by “lunatic fringe” Right-wingers—and, more importantly, “mainstream” Republicans.

Many liberals believe Right-wingers simply lack correct information.

They assume that, if only Right-wingers knew the truth about such matters as:

  • The millions slaughtered during the Holocaust;
  • The horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School; and
  • The pro-Trump motives of the MAGAbomber

they would be telling the truth.

There are two motives behind such blatant lying—and mere ignorance is not one of them. 

Motive #1: Right-wingers don’t want to admit the truth about events most people instinctively believe are evil.

Right-wingers intuitively know that shoving huge numbers of naked men, women and children into gas chambers is the arch-example of evil. And so is spraying scores of bullets into scores of helpless men, women and children in churches, nightclubs and schools.

They know they can’t convince decent people that such atrocities are really acts of humanity. So it’s easier (for them) to simply deny that they actually happened.

The tobacco industry paved the way for such arguments. 

The Tobacco Institute—a trade association created in 1958 to pose as a “smoking research” center—cast doubt on scientific studies linking smoking with lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease.

Tobacco Institute ad

Its premise: “We really don’t know if smoking causes cancer. We need more studies to make certain.”

And, for the Tobacco Institute, there could never be enough studies to prove that smoking was a thoroughly deadly habit—that reaped billions of dollars every year for the tobacco industry.

The longer they could convince the public of their lies, the less likely they were to be regulated.

Motive #2: Right-wingers claim Right-wing atrocities didn’t happen to put the victims of such atrocities on the defensive.

This, too, was a major aim of the tobacco industry. By constantly demanding “Prove to us that smoking is deadly” and then arrogantly dismissing all evidence put forward, tobacco executives put the onus on their opponents.

From October 22 to November 1, 2018, Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe-bombs to 10 prominent Democrats—including former President Barack Obama,  former Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

After Sayoc was arrested and his van was found plastered with pro-Donald Trump stickers, Right-wingers reflexively seized on a series of lies to “cleanse” themselves:

  • “He’s a liberal put up to it by other liberals.”
  • “The bombs were fake, to stir up sympathy for liberals before the November elections.”  
  • Right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh: “Would it make a lot of sense for a Democrat operative or Democrat-inculcated lunatic to do it? Because things are not working out the way they thought.”
  • Right-wing propagandist Dinesh D’Souza: “I hear the FBI squeezed lemon juice on the suspicious packages and a very faint lettering revealed a single word: DEMOCRATS.”

Totally ignored was that FBI Director Christopher Wray—a Trump appointee after the firing of James Comey in May, 2017—publicly stated that the bombs were real: “Though we’re still analyzing these devices in our laboratory, these were not hoax devices.”

Chris Wray official photo.jpg

Christopher Wray

So how did Right-wingers react to Wray’s no-nonsense rebuttal of Right-wing conspiracy lies?

They attacked the FBI as part of the “deep state” determined to thwart and, if possible, impeach Donald Trump.

According to one Rightist theory: The FBI made the bombs and sent them out to implicate some poor Trump supporter—if not the President himself.

So how can such liars be defeated? Lawsuits based on the truth.

On August 1, 2018, families of four students and two educators who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre filed a defamation lawsuit against Right-wing broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Jones hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas. He had claimed the mass shooting was fake.  

Twenty children and six adults were killed in the December 14, 2012, attack by 20-year-old Adam Lanza. 

On his program in January, 2015, he said: “Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors.”

Alex Jones Portrait (cropped).jpg

Alex Jones

Michael Zimmermann [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D

According to the complaint: 

“The Jones defendants concoct elaborate and false paranoia-tinged conspiracy theories because it moves product and they make money. Not because they truly believe what they are saying, but rather because it increases profits.” 

Thus, a reasonable person would understand that Jones meant the massacre was staged and the deaths were fabricated.

So Jones responded with another lie: “This is all out of context….And it’s not even what I said or my intent,” he said. “I’m not going to get into the real defects of this, I’m going to wait until it’s thrown out with prejudice.”

Jones’ lies did him no good. On August 4, 2022, a Texas jury ordered Jones pay two plaintiffs $4.1 million in compensatory damages. The following day, he was ordered to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages.

Other trials are pending.

FACEBOOK VS. THE FIRST AMENDMENT, PRIVACY AND FREE ELECTIONS: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 17, 2022 at 12:10 am

As it now operates, Facebook poses a direct threat to the First Amendment, the privacy of its users and democratic elections.

Facebook is the world’s largest social media company, with 2.936 billion users by April, 2022. Its social and political influence on the United States is enormous. According to its profile on Wikipedia:

“The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.

“Posts originating from the Facebook page of Breitbart News, a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.

“Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.” 

To which can be added the following:

  • I was sentenced to “Facebook Jail” for two posts. The first of these stated: “Americans are historical illiterates.” This was labeled “hate speech and inferiority.” The fact that the distinguished historian David McCullough had said exactly the same meant nothing to Facebook.
  • Comedians have long gained laughs at Americans’ historical illiteracy: When Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show, he often did “Jaywalking Tours” where he asked people about seemingly well-known historical events. It was common to see people say the Civil War happened in the 1940s (instead of 1861-1865) or to believe that the Texans won at the battle of the Alamo.
  • A second post deleted showed a group of heavily-armed Proud Boys standing around a cross.  Above this I had posted the caption: “Proud Boys posing with their latest victim.” This was labeled as “hate speech.” 
  • Since this post was bluntly critical of the Proud Boys, the question emerges: Does criticizing the Proud Boys—Fascists who played a major role during the January 6 attempted coup against the Capitol Building—constitute “hate speech”?   

Proud Boys 

Anthony Crider, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

  • I am currently banned from Facebook for posting the following: A Facebook member had posted this solution for achieving universal peace: All enlisted members of all the world’s militaries should refuse to serve. In 2002-3, I had watched President George W. Bush lie the country into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war in Iraq. Thus, I felt the poster’s “solution” required a serious dose of realism. 
  • So I posted a meme below it that contained an image of Herman Goring—chief of the German Luftwaffe (air force) during World War II. As a convicted war criminal, he should, I felt, have insight into how easy it is to lead a nation into war. And he did: “Naturally, the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in every country.”
  • No sooner had I posted this than I found myself once again accused of violating Facebook’s “Community Standards.” As in past cases, Facebook did not deign to state, specifically, what standards I had violated, or how the post endangered other Facebook members. I simply found myself blocked from Facebook.

25+ Best Hermann Goering Memes | Goering Memes, His Memes, Are Memes

  • Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, disclosed tens of thousands of Facebook’s internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Wall Street Journal in 2021. She testified before Congress that Facebook promotes conflict to increase its readership and keep them reading—and buying. So the comment I made fell exactly into that category of exciting controversy. 

People who libel and/or harass others should be banned from social media. It’s precisely because Twitter refuses to do so that its reputation is fatally tainted.

But posting a comment that is based on accurate history should not qualify as hate speech. And none of the examples I have cited fit that definition.

Through its worldwide membership, Facebook exerts an influence that rivals—if not exceeds—that of most government institutions. Its greatest infamy: Allowing Russian trolls to play a lethal role in electing Donald Trump President in 2016. And no doubt they are preparing to do so again in 2024. 

In a highly polarized political environment, Mark Zuckerberg holds the unique distinction of having infuriated both Democrats and Republicans during his appearances before Congress. His secret: The overweening arrogance he routinely displays to those he considers lesser mortals. His motto is: ““Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”

It’s long past time for those at the legislative level to show him that some things—such as the First Amendment, the right to privacy and elections free of foreign influence—should not be broken.  And that there is a high price to pay for those who do.

FACEBOOK VS. THE FIRST AMENDMENT, PRIVACY AND FREE ELECTIONS: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2022 at 12:10 am

There is an urgent need for states—and especially the Federal government—to impose serious regulatory controls on Facebook.

Facebook is the world’s largest social media company, with 2.936 billion users by April, 2022. Its social and political influence on the United States is enormous. According to its profile on Wikipedia:

“The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.

“Posts originating from the Facebook page of Breitbart News, a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.

“Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.”

Meta Platforms Headquarters Menlo Park California.jpg

Facebook / Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California 

LPS.1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

To which should be added the following:

  • Facebook operates as virtually a law unto itself, arbitrarily deciding which posts violate its “Community Standards” and deleting them (and their posters) without warning and right to appeal.
  • No details are ever given as to what about the post, specifically, posed a threat to other Facebook members.
  • Facebook claims that its users have the right to appeal: “You can disagree with the decision if you think we got it wrong.”
  • But then Facebook declares: “We usually offer the chance to request a review and follow up if we got the decision wrong. We have fewer reviewers available right now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. We’re trying hard to priorities reviewing content with the most potential for harm. This means we may not be able to follow up with you, though your feedback helps us do better in the future.” 
  • Using COVID as an excuse to avoid responsible behavior is despicable. If Facebook is going to ban people for supposedly violating its “Community Standards,” there is a moral obligation—if not a legal one—to give them a chance to share their side of the story.
  • Facebook revenues have made its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, worth $71.5 billion. But Facebook refuses to provide its users with an 800 number so they can appeal directly to the Censorship Committee and share their reasons for posting the comments they did.   

Mark Zuckerberg F8 2019 Keynote (32830578717) (cropped).jpg

Mark Zuckerberg 

Anthony Quintano from Westminster, United States, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

  • Nor does Facebook provide even an Instant Messaging capability, so members can do so. 
  • Facebook’s refusal to provide a contact number for its members exposes them to potential fraud. National Public Radio published a January 31, 2017 article on “Searching for ‘Facebook Customer Service’ Can Lead To a Scam.”
  • “According to Google data: “‘Facebook customer service’ gets searched, on average, about 27,000 times a month in the U.S.” Yet on its own “Help Community” page, Facebook admits: “Facebook doesn’t offer a phone number for support.” 
  • Nor do Facebook’s executives deign to respond to letters sent to them. I have sent letters to its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and to Sheryl Sandberg, a member of its board of directors. Neither had the courtesy to reply.
  • Many of those I know on Facebook have been censored for posts that criticize Donald Trump. Apparently, “freedom of expression” exists only for those who support a man who staged an illegal coup to overturn a totally legitimate election.
  • Members can be banned from Facebook for posting entirely legitimate news stories. One such story described how Texas Congressman Joe Burton had sent a series of smarmy emails to numerous women—while posing as a paragon of “family values.”
  • The post was removed and its poster was sent the following message: “We removed content you posted. We removed this content because it doesn’t follow the Facebook Community Standards.” Then the member who posted it found himself blocked from Facebook.

facebook -community-standards-thou-shalt-not-have-personal-opinions-thou-50500808-1.png

  • One Facebook member posted an innocuous anti-Trump cartoon: A group of children are lined up at a house on Halloween. A woman at the door says: “Oh, look. We have a pirate, a witch and a Trump supporter [a boy wearing a white sheet as a ghost].” The post was removed and the poster blocked from Facebook:
  • Many Facebook users have found themselves punished after Facebook’s star chamber censors found a post they didn’t like from four years earlier.
  • Facebook’s arbitrary and punitive actions are so notorious they have become grist for countless memes—some of which are hilarious: “Warning: You have violated a rule we haven’t  made up yet. Because you’re a known troublemaker you’ve been banned for 30 days. Thank you for using Facebook, have a nice day.”

Our Favourite Banned Facebook Memes - The Inappropriate Gift Co

  • I was sentenced to “Facebook Jail” for two posts. The first of these stated: “Americans are historical illiterates.” This was labeled “hate speech and inferiority.” The fact that the distinguished historian David McCullough had said exactly the same meant nothing to Facebook.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion, only comments celebrating the ignorance of ignorant people will be considered acceptable on Facebook.

DIFFERENT LIVES–AND DIFFERENT LEGACIES

In Entertainment, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2022 at 12:12 am

Two deaths. Two entirely different legacies.

The first—of Rush Limbaugh—came on February 17, 2021.  

The second—of Olivia Newton-John—came on August 10, 2022.

Limbaugh hosted The Rush Limbaugh Show, which was nationally syndicated on AM and FM radio stations from 1988 until his death in 2021.

Rush Limbaugh

With 15.5 million listeners, Limbaugh’s radio show was the most popular one in the United States. He became one of the most prominent Right wing voices in the country during the 1990s. 

Among his targets: Blacks; liberals; Democrats; gays; lesbians; feminists (whom he called “feminazis”); consent in sexual relations; environmentalism; climate change; abortion rights; Barack Obama; the need for masking and vaccinations against COVID-19.

Among the personalities and causes he championed: The 2003 Iraq war; torture at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison; eliminating taxes on the wealthy; smoking; Donald Trump; 

His attack on Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student who testified before Congress on February 23, 2012, was typical Limbaugh. 

Fluke said that insurance companies should cover the costs of birth control. As a student at a Jesuit campus that refuses to provide insurance coverage for contraception, birth control costs can be as high as $3,000 during the three years a woman attends law school.

Limbaugh’s response: “So Ms. Fluke and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it.  And I’ll tell you what it is.  We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Sandra Fluke was among the millions who didn’t mourn when Limbaugh died at 70 on February 17, 2021, of lung cancer caused by a lifetime of cigar smoking.

If the legacy of Rush Limbaugh was darkness personified, the legacy of Olivia Newton-John was one of sunshine and joy. 

Olivia Newton-John

Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

She dominated the pop charts of the 1970s and ’80s with mega hits “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “I Honestly Love You,” “Have You Never Been Mellow?” “Magic,” and “Physical.” 

Vanity Fair described her thus:  “Her angelic beam matched with a clear, sweet-yet-supple soprano was vocal satin, giving her a versatile edge in singing feel-good numbers across genres and styles.” 

But her biggest splash came in “Grease,” the top-grossing movie for 1978, where she co-starred with John Travolta. Her role as Sandy, an Australian exchange student, brought her international acclaim and further propelled her musical career. The movie’s soundtrack remains one of the world’s best-selling albums.   

“I don’t think anyone could have imagined a movie would go on almost 40 years and would still be popular and people would still be talking to me about it all the time and loving it,” Newton-John said in 2017.

She won four Grammy awards and racked up five number-one hits and another 10 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Having sold more than 100 million records, Newton-John is one of the most popular singers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

“I love to sing, it’s all I know how to do,” she told CNN in 2017. “That’s all I’ve ever done since I was 15, so it’s my life. I feel very grateful that I can still do it and people still come to see me.”

An animal-rights advocate, she cancelled a 1978 concert tour of Japan to protest the slaughter of dolphins caught in tuna fishing nets.

Among the charities and foundations she supported: Cure Breast Cancer, Red Cross, Healthy Child Healthy World, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was a performer on the 1979 Music for UNICEF Concert for the UN’s International Year of the Child, televised worldwide.

Behind her bright smile and sunny disposition lay the shadow of tragedy. In 2005 Newton-John’s then-boyfriend, Patrick McDermott, disappeared at sea while on a fishing trip off the coast of California.

“It’s very hard to live with that,” she told CNN’s Larry King in 2006. “It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve been through a lot of things.”

In 1992, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She recovered, but for 25 years she lived with the constant threat of its return.

“I draw strength from the millions of women who have faced this challenge successfully,” she said in a statement. “This has been detected early because I’ve had regular examinations, so I encourage other women to do the same.”

Then, in May 2017, she announced that the cancer had returned and metastasized to her lower back. 

Asked during a February 2021 interview if she had contemplated her own death, she replied, “I have quite a few times,” adding it was “sooner than I would have wanted. I mean—we all know we are going to die. I think we spend our lives probably much in denial of it.”

The title of her 2019 autobiography, Don’t Stop Believin’, summed up her attitude toward life.

On August 8, 2022, Olivia Newton-John died from cancer at her home in the Santa Ynez Valley of California. She was 73. 

Euripides, the Greek  tragedian, was right: “When good men die, their goodness does not perish, but lives though they are gone. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies and is buried with them.”

TREASON–PEOPLE WHO NEED TREASON

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 12, 2022 at 12:12 am

On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States.

President Donald J. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes. Biden also won decisively in the Electoral College: 306 votes to 232 for Trump.

Yet more than two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.

Immediately after the election, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results.

Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.

On November 13, nine cases attacking President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.

By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.

Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.

Related image

Donald Trump

On November 19, losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House. The reason: To persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.

The Michigan legislators said they would follow the law.

On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.

Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.

David Perdue and Brian Kemp (cropped).jpg

Brian Kemp

On December 8, the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory.

Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that the state’s 2.5 million mail-in votes were unconstitutional.

The Court’s order read, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”

Although Trump had appointed three of the Court’s Justices, not one of them dissented. 

On December 8, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed his own lawsuit at the Supreme Court. A Trump ally, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges. 

In Texas v. Pennsylvania, he alleged that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin violated the United States Constitution by changing election procedures through non-legislative means.

On December 10, 2020, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. 

“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court said without further comment. It dismissed all other related claims as moot.

Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported the lawsuit. They did so in an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief. 

They feared Trump’s fanatical base would “primary” them if they didn’t publicly declare their loyalty—to a man they knew was slated to leave office within two months.

U.S. Supreme Court building-m.jpg

The Supreme Court

Had the Court acted on Paxton’s request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic. 

“Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices in legal papers. 

“Its request for this court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for president is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy. 

“The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,” 

The outcome of the 2020 Presidential election marked the first time a losing candidate tried to overturn the will of millions of American voters.

It also marked the first time that state Attorney Generals and members of Congress tried to overturn the results of a Presidential election.

The signers represented nearly two-thirds of the House GOP.

Among them: The House’s top two Republicans: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.),

Only 70 Republican House members refused to sign the brief.

By December 11, 2020, only 23 Republicans in Congress—14 Representatives and nine Senators—had acknowledged Biden’s victory.

On January 6, Trump instigated an attack on the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which was certain to prove Biden the winner.

Despite this, Republican members of Congress continued trying to throw the election Trump’s way.  

Six Republicans in the Senate and 121 in the House backed objections to certifying Arizona’s electoral outcome. Seven Republicans in the Senate and 138 in the House supported an objection to certifying Pennsylvania’s electoral outcome.

Not since the American Civil War (1861-1865) has the United States seen a more blatant—and deadly—case of sedition.

In 1861, 11 Senators and three Representatives were expelled from Congress for refusing to recognize Abraham Lincoln’s election—and supporting insurrection. 

Democrats need to summon the same courage and ruthlessness against their sworn enemies.

Trump’s refusal to admit that he lost fuels the danger of another attack on Congress and/or President Biden.

He—and his Republican accomplices—must be forcibly taught there are penalties for treason.

REPUBLICANS: LINCOLN IS DEAD–LONG LIVE BOOTH!

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 11, 2022 at 12:10 am

It’s the racism and sexism, stupid!

That’s how Lilliana Mason, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute, sees the reason for the animosity between Republicans and Democrats.

“Part of the reason that partisan animosity between Democrats and Republicans is so terrible right now is because what the parties are fighting over are really matters of racial and gender equality—the traditional social hierarchy—and whether we’re going to go back to being a country where White Christian men were always at the top of that hierarchy or become a more egalitarian, multiethnic democracy.” 

Lilliana Mason

Lilliana Mason

Referring to the book she co-wrote with fellow political scientist Nathan P. Kalmoe, Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy, she said:

“What we found in our data was that, particularly on the right, Republicans who really hated Democrats the most were also the highest in racial resentment and sexism.

“And those who hated Democrats the least were those who were lowest in racial resentment and sexism. Actually, in our data, racial resentment is one of the most powerful predictors of Republicans hating Democrats.”

Once again—as in the years leading to the Civil War—it’s the South trying to impose a slavocracy mentality and control over the rest of the nation. 

From 1860 to 1865, the South—Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia—produced the greatest case of mass treason in America’s history.

Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories

Union (blue) and Confederate (red) states: 1860 – 1865

According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect.” 

“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.

“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.

It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North refused to do. 

Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln President in 1860.

Portrait of a bearded Abraham Lincoln showing his head and shoulders

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country. 

Southerners found all of this intolerable.

On April 12, 1861—just over a month since Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4—Southern batteries opened fire on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, triggering the Civil War.

More than 750,000.Americans died—when the population of the United States stood at 31,443,321.

Four years later, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Now Southerners are trying to win through political manipulation what they couldn’t by open treason.  

Red states are adopting Fascistic social policies on such issues as abortion, gay rights and classroom censorship. And they are trying to prevent the federal government or their own largest metro areas to resist those policies.

In the case of abortion, Red states are not only outlawing it within their own borders but trying to prevent states where abortion is legal from providing that service.

Thus Republicans, who began as the party of freedom, have mutated into the party now trying to end it.

File:Republicanlogo.svg - Wikimedia Commons

According to Donald Kettl, the former dean of the public policy school at the University of Maryland:

“The only time I can recall in American history even remotely like this [divergence] was after the Civil War when the separate but equal doctrine began to emerge” across the South as a backlash against the attempts of the 13th, 14th and 15th Constitutional amendments to ensure equality for the freed slaves.

CNN Correspondent Ronald Brownstein warns of this development: 

“The real threat in the red state effort to set their own course may be less an advantage for one side or another than a challenge to the nation’s underlying cohesion. 

“As red states grow more aggressive about going their own way, while working to preempt challenges from above (the federal government) or below (blue local governments), they are testing how much divergence the nation’s fundamental cohesion can take before it begins to unravel.”

Thirty-one states voted for Donald Trump in 2024.  Of these:

  • Twenty of these states rank among the least educated in the U.S.
  • They encompass almost all of the top 10 “most religious” states, concentrated in the “Bible Belt” and the South.
  • They are primarily energy-producing, leading to the highest per capita CO2 emissions in the country.
  • These states have long sought to reverse the “rights revolution” of the last 60 years—on such issues as abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception.

Today’s Republican party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It has become the party of John Wilkes Booth, Benito Mussolini and Donald Trump.

“LAW AND ORDER” REPUBLICANS SEEK IMMUNITY FOR TRUMP

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2022 at 12:10 am

On Thursday, August 8, 1974, Richard M. Nixon resigned as the 37th President of the United States.

On Monday, August 8, 2022, for the first time in American history, Donald Trump became the first former President to be the subject of an FBI raid.

The raid came without warning on Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. FBI agents, armed with a search warrant, scoured the premises—reportedly for documents Trump illegally took before he left the White House on January 20, 2021.

In January, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago, including materials that had been identified as classified. 

“I really don’t believe that the department would have taken such a significant step as pursuing a search warrant for the president’s residence about information they already had back,” said Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director on CNN “Newsroom.”

The most famous members of Mar-a-Lago - YouTube

Mar-a-Lago

“There had to be a suspicion, a concern and indeed specific information that led them to believe that there were additional materials that were not turned over.”

Both the FBI and the Justice Department have refused to comment on any aspect of the raid.

But Donald Trump rushed to do so.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.

“After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.

“What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democratic National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”

Donald Trump

There are several differences between Watergate and the FBI raid on Trump’s residence—that is, for anyone who cares about enforcing the law.

First, the burglary at the Watergate hotel—on June 17, 1972—was completely illegal, carried out by a group of men working for President Richard M. Nixon. They had installed illegal bugging equipment in the suite used by the Democratic National Committee—but that had malfunctioned.

So they made a second entry to repair it.

It was during that second burglary that the burglars were arrested.

Second, the raid on Trump’s home was fully authorized by the Justice Department. 

To get judicial approval for the search, investigators had to present to a judge a detailed affidavit that established probable cause that a crime had been committed and that evidence of that crime existed at the property where the search was sought.

But before prosecutors asked a magistrate judge to approve the warrant, investigators had to obtain the approval from the highest levels of the Justice Department. Too much historical and political significance was at stake.

“Not only would the investigators have to suggest it, not only would a line prosecutor have to agree with it, but multiple layers of management would have had to approved of it—all the way up to the Attorney General,” Daren Firestone, a former DOJ attorney, told CNN.

Third, Donald Trump—before and after his Presidency—has amassed a solid record of criminality.

In 2018, Trump was forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds for political purposes at his Trump Foundation. The Foundation was shut down under court-supervised dissolution in 2019.

And his Trump University scammed its students, promising to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement  with many of those students.

The Controversy Surrounding Trump University - ABC News

Trump’s record of criminality during his four years in the White House is too lengthy to catalog here. To cite just two of his greatest crimes:

  1. Refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, and claiming that he was “cheated” by widespread voter fraud; and
  2. Inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol where Electoral College votes were being counted to determine the winner of that election.

More than a year and a half after the 2020 election, no evidence of widespread voter fraud has emerged—even though Trump continues to spread “The Big Lie.”

Meanwhile, “law-and-order” Republicans have rushed to Trump’s defense.

“The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

“There must be an immediate investigation and accountability into Joe Biden and his Administration’s weaponizing this department against their political opponents—the likely 2024 Republican candidate for President of the United States,” said New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of House GOP leadership.

Missouri GOP Senator Josh Hawley—a major instigator of the January 6 attack on Congress—said that President Joseph Biden “has taken our republic into dangerous waters.” He demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland resign or be impeached.

John Adams, America’s second President, coined the phrase “a government of laws, not of men.”

Republicans scurrying for Trump’s favor now support the opposite.

STANDING UP TO FASCISM

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 4, 2022 at 12:10 am

The July 29 edition of The PBS Newshour offered a clear lesson on why so many liberals are unable to cope with a weaponized—and Fascistic—Republican party.

It came during an exchange between conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart .

Judy Woodruff, moderating the weekly “Politics Friday” segment, opened: 

“Well, one of the measures that has hit a bump in the road after this deal emerged was a piece of — it’s called the PACT Act. It’s all about providing government aid to American military veterans who were exposed to toxic substances, toxic chemicals in the war in Iraq and wounded, and eventually — I mean, these are — these were veterans who came home with serious medical problems.

“This looked like it was on the way to passage. It’s now Republicans in the Senate in particular saying, wait a minute. And it’s caused a lot of reaction. Jon Stewart, the former late-night talk show host — he’s now an activist — this is what he had to say just outside the Capitol yesterday”:

Jon Stewart, Comedian/Activist: “These people thought they could finally breathe. You think their struggles end because the PACT Act passes? All it means is, they don’t have to decide between their cancer drugs and their house. Their struggle continues. These people will not give up, they will not give in and they will not relent.

Jon Stewart MFF 2016.jpg

Jon Stewart

“This is an embarrassment to the Senate, to the country, to the founders, and all that they profess to hold dear. “

Judy Woodruff: “He….used much stronger language than that in going after the Republicans, Pat Toomey and others, who are — who he says are holding this up.

“What about this argument he’s making, that, essentially, they said yes, and now they’re saying no, and it’s just….”

David Brooks: “Yes. Well, it’s — let’s say, at best, it’s a mystery. At worst, it’s mind-boggling. The mystery is, just a month ago, the vast majority of Republican senators voted for this thing. And then I think 25 or some large, significant numbers shift and now, suddenly, they’re against it. Is it payback for what Manchin — for what Manchin and Schumer did?”

Shields and Brooks on Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and the debate | PBS NewsHour

David Brooks

And what was it that Democratic West Virginia Senator Joseph Manchin and Democratic New York Senator Charles Schumer did? 

As summed up by Woodruff: “When we were last together last Friday, we all thought that the President’s budget was dead, the package with climate and health care in it. Little did we know that Joe Manchin was having these secret talks with Chuck Schumer.”

But then Manchin decided—for still-unclosed reasons—to back the Democrats’ budgetary bill. And that’s when Republicans decided that helping wounded veterans would be helping President Joseph Biden. And that’s when 25 Republicans who had previously backed the PACT Act changed their minds—and votes.

David Brooks couldn’t imagine that Republicans could be so cruel: “It — that would be mind-boggling. You have got men and women who served this country suffering from cancer and other ailments, and we’re going to take away benefits because of a legislative pique? Who does that?

“[Republican Pennsylvania United States Senator] Pat Toomey, I think, has some principal reasons having to do with budget policy and what we can afford. That’s one thing.

“But if the votes were changed because Mitch McConnell said, we need to screw somebody, that would just be appalling.”

Jonathan Caphart: “And Senator Toomey’s arcane problem was that funding was being moved from discretionary within the bill to mandatory. And he was calling it a budget gimmick.

“But you know who doesn’t care whether it’s a budget gimmick? It’s those families that Jon Stewart was talking about. It’s the….veterans who worked in those burn pits and are suffering with the ailments. It’s the families of those veterans who are sick and/or have died.”

PBS NewsHour | Brooks and Capehart on voting and gun violence legislation | Season 2021 | PBS

Jonathan Capehart

But on August 2, Republicans caved, in a vote of 86-11.

The reason: Jon Stewart kept the public pressure on. And so did more than 60 veterans groups. Many of the veterans had camped on the Senate steps, braving heat, humidity and thunderstorms. 

As a result, veterans will receive expanded lifesaving health care benefits for those exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From this Democratic liberals—and Americans generally—should draw two lessons:

Lesson #1: Republicans are evil. They will viciously hurt anyone—including those constituents (such as veterans) they claim to care about if they believe it will hurt Democrats. What they do care about is gaining—and maintaining—absolute power over Americans.

Lesson #2: Trying to compromise with Republicans is not only useless but dangerous. They regard any effort at compromise as a sign of weakness. The same was true for the Nazis during the reign of Adolf Hitler (1933 – 1945).

The appeasement efforts of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to prevent World War II not only led to the destruction of Czechoslovakia but whetted Hitler’s appetite for further conquest—resulting in World War II.

In short: Standing up to Fascism saved the United States during World War II. It can do the same for the United States today.

WHY REPUBLICANS WILL WIN IN 2022–AND 2024: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 21, 2022 at 12:10 am

Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.

Republicans have turned “illegal alien” into a battle cry. 

This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.

Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions. 

Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade. 

Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.

Davidson County Commissioners approve "heartbeat" resolution on abortions

For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, recently said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.

“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”    

Perhaps the most fatal reason why Democrats consistently lose elections: They believe—or want to believe—that voters are creatures of rationality. 

Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.

From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.

Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,”  “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.

Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy 

Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”

Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.

The World Trade Center on Septemeber 11, 2001

Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.

The most immediate danger facing Democratic candidates: Their unwillingness to fight fire with fire.

Example 1: Republicans are now organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.

Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor is the Biden Justice Department indicting those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.

Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.

More than a year and a half has passed, and not one major Republican supporting such treason has been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.  

The single biggest reason for the coming Democratic rout lies in the Biden administration’s toleration of Donald Trump’s continuing campaign of lies.

Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true. 

Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt. He’s clearly preparing to run again for President in 2024.

An indictment for treason would cast a heavy—if not fatal—blow to that decision. At the very least, Trump would be forced to mount a feverish—and expensive—defense.

And even many of his most fanatical supporters would question the wisdom of voting for a man who might well become a Federal prison inmate.

America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler). 

The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.

The United States cannot afford to make that same fatal mistake.

WHY REPUBLICANS WILL WIN IN 2022–AND 2024: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 20, 2022 at 12:10 am

There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.

A major one: Democrats believe that people can be better than they are—and, given the chance, want to become better than they are.

Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.

If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys. 

Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA TODAY, summed up the popularity of the “Greed Appeal” to voters on the March 13, 2020 edition of “Washington Week in Review”:

“USA Today has conducted a poll about the economic concerns that are out there….And Congress—you’re seeing fear in this country about the economy.

“In fact, when we did this poll this week about how Americans’ lives have been affected by the Coronavirus, people expressed more concern about the economic and financial effect than they did about the health effect. And you know, that goes to why this matters so much to President Trump.

“How many voters have you talked to who said, you know, I don’t really like President Trump’s tweets, but I like what I see happening in my 401(k)?  And when they look at their 401(k) this week, it may not look quite as bright as it did before.”

Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.

Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny. 

This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.

When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”

In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites fear and hatred of blacks.

In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires. 

“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.

“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….

“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’ 

“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”

Lee Atwater 1989.jpg

Lee Atwater

But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:

  • Liberals
  • Women
  • Socialists
  • Secularists
  • Disabled
  • Environmentalists
  • Hispanics
  • Gays
  • Lesbians

And now transgenders.

Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.  

There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.” 

From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him. 

Donald Trump

The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them. 

Among his targets:

  • Hillary Clinton
  • The New York Times 
  • President Barack Obama
  • CNN
  • Actress Meryl Streep
  • The Washington Post
  • Singer Neil Young
  • Democrats
  • Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • Republicans
  • Comedian John Oliver
  • The State of New Jersey
  • Beauty pageant contestants

Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:

  • Women
  • Blacks
  • Hispanics
  • Asians
  • Muslims
  • The disabled
  • Prisoners-of-war

Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.

Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.

That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.

And if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they are even more intolerant toward foreigners who don’t.

This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.

For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance falls on deaf ears. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.

Related image

Illegal aliens crossing into the United States

Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions. 

Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.