This is Trump’s America.
“Couldn’t happen here, right?”
Protestors (American citizens) are being blocked from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
– photo via @MarthaRaddatz,
“… Tin soldiers & Trump is coming, we’re finally on our own…”
Tag: fascism
Trial Runs For Fascism
a scary but important read …
Trial runs for fascism are in full flow
Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism
Tue, Jun 26, 2018
US president Donald Trump: his claim that immigrants “infest” the US is test-marketing of whether his fans are ready for the next step-up in language towards “vermin”.
Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo
To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we need to reflect on two things. One is that we are in a phase of trial runs. The other is that what is being trialled is fascism – a word that should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the horizon. Forget “post-fascist” – what we are living with is pre-fascism.
It is easy to dismiss Donald Trump as an ignoramus, not least because he is. But he has an acute understanding of one thing: test marketing. He created himself in the gossip pages of the New York tabloids, where celebrity is manufactured by planting outrageous stories that you can later confirm or deny depending on how they go down. And he recreated himself in reality TV where the storylines can be adjusted according to the ratings. Put something out there, pull it back, adjust, go again.
Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.
Related:
Fintan O’Toole: The logic of Trump and fascism is escalating violenceFintan O’Toole: Banks are public institutions masquerading as private businesses
Fintan O’Toole: Ireland is becoming the tax haven of choice for profit-shifting multinationals
One of the basic tools of fascism is the rigging of elections – we’ve seen that trialled in the election of Trump, in the Brexit referendum and (less successfully) in the French presidential elections. Another is the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced.
Moral boundaries
But when you’ve done all this, there is a crucial next step, usually the trickiest of all. You have to undermine moral boundaries, inure people to the acceptance of acts of extreme cruelty. Like hounds, people have to be blooded. They have to be given the taste for savagery. Fascism does this by building up the sense of threat from a despised out-group. This allows the members of that group to be dehumanised. Once that has been achieved, you can gradually up the ante, working through the stages from breaking windows to extermination.
People have to be given the taste for savagery. Fascism does this by building up the sense of threat from a despised out-group
It is this next step that is being test-marketed now. It is being done in Italy by the far-right leader and minister for the interior Matteo Salvini. How would it go down if we turn away boatloads of refugees? Let’s do a screening of the rough-cut of registering all the Roma and see what buttons the audience will press. And it has been trialled by Trump: let’s see how my fans feel about crying babies in cages. I wonder how it will go down with Rupert Murdoch.
Children and workers at a tent encampment recently built in Tornillo, Texas: the blooding process has begun within the democratic world. Photograph: Joe Raedle
To see, as most commentary has done, the deliberate traumatisation of migrant children as a “mistake” by Trump is culpable naivety. It is a trial run – and the trial has been a huge success. Trump’s claim last week that immigrants “infest” the US is a test-marketing of whether his fans are ready for the next step-up in language, which is of course “vermin”. And the generation of images of toddlers being dragged from their parents is a test of whether those words can be turned into sounds and pictures. It was always an experiment – it ended (but only in part) because the results were in.
‘Devious’ infants
And the results are quite satisfactory. There is good news on two fronts. First, Rupert Murdoch is happy with it – his Fox News mouthpieces outdid themselves in barbaric crassness: making animal noises at the mention of a Down syndrome child, describing crying children as actors. They went the whole swinish hog: even the brown babies are liars. Those sobs of anguish are typical of the manipulative behaviour of the strangers coming to infest us – should we not fear a race whose very infants can be so devious? Second, the hardcore fans loved it: 58 per cent of Republicans are in favour of this brutality. Trump’s overall approval ratings are up to 42.5 per cent.
Fox News mouthpieces outdid themselves in barbaric crassness: making animal noises at the mention of a Down syndrome child, describing crying children as actors
This is greatly encouraging for the pre-fascist agenda. The blooding process has begun within the democratic world. The muscles that the propaganda machines need for defending the indefensible are being toned up. Millions and millions of Europeans and Americans are learning to think the unthinkable. So what if those black people drown in the sea? So what if those brown toddlers are scarred for life? They have already, in their minds, crossed the boundaries of morality. They are, like Macbeth, “yet but young in deed”. But the tests will be refined, the results analysed, the methods perfected, the messages sharpened. And then the deeds can follow.
from the Irish Times
History …
‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.’ The quote is most likely due to writer and philosopher George Santayana, and in its original form it read, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
So, there’s that …
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
— George Santayana
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
— Joseph Goebbels
A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth
— Joseph Goebbels
“I play to people’s fantasies…People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and it’s a very effective form of promotion.”
— Donald Trump, from ‘The Art of the Deal’
The truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
— Joseph Goebbels
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
— Joseph Goebbels
Fox News Has Completed Its Transformation Into Trump TV
Is Fox News ‘State-Run TV? If So, Which State Is Running It?
All audio is taken from monologues actually uttered on Fox News shows ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine’ and ‘Hannity’.
Yikes …
from Forbes …
In today’s installment of “I’m Not Terrified, You Are,” Bloomberg Law reports on a FedBizOpps.gov posting by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the relatively benign-sounding subject, “Media Monitoring Services.”
The details of the attached Request for Information, however, outline a plan to gather and monitor the public activities of media professionals and influencers and are enough to cause nightmares of constitutional proportions, particularly as the freedom of the press is under attack worldwide.
And “attack” is not hyperbolic.
Every day, journalists face serious consequences, including physical violence, imprisonment and death. A few days ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists launched its annual Free The Press campaign to raise awareness about imprisoned journalists throughout the world. On May 3, UNESCO will once again mark World Press Freedom Day “to inform citizens of violations of press freedom — a reminder that in dozens of countries around the world, publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while journalists, editors and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained and even murdered.”
Meanwhile, the United States government, traditionally one of the bastions of press freedom, is about to compile a list of professional journalists and “top media influencers,” which would seem to include bloggers and podcasters, and monitor what they’re putting out in the public.
What could possibly go wrong? A lot.
DHS’s “Media Monitoring” Plan
As part of its “media monitoring,” the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have “24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.” in order to “identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event.”
“Any and all media coverage,” as you might imagine, is quite broad and includes “online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media.”
The database will be browseable by “location, beat and type of influencer,” and for each influencer, the chosen contractor should “present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for, and an overview of the previous coverage published by the media influencer.”
One aspect of the media coverage to be gathered is its “sentiment.”
Anyone else just pull their blanket up over them a little more tightly? Just me?
Why “Media Monitoring” and Why Now?
DHS says the “NPPD/OUS [National Protection and Programs Directorate/Office of the Under Secretary] has a critical need to incorporate these functions into their programs in order to better reach Federal, state, local, tribal and private partners.” Who knows what that means, but the document also states the NPPD’s mission is “to protect and enhance the resilience of the nation’s physical and cyber infrastructure.”
That line makes it sound as if the creation of this database could be a direct response to the rampant allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election — though President Donald Trump, who has normalized the term “fake news,” can’t seem to decide whether that’s even an issue or not.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks it is. Earlier this week, he announced the social networking site would remove “more than 270 pages and accounts operated by a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency” in an effort “to protect the integrity of elections around the world.”
Within the context of increasing concerns over “fake news” and foreign interference in elections, an action such as the DHS’s database might seem, at first glance, to be a sensible approach.
Not exactly.
Unfortunately, increasing government encroachment on the freedom of the press is the sinister backdrop to all of this. Freedom House, which has monitored the status of the press for nearly 40 years, recently concluded that global media freedom has reached its lowest level in the past 13 years. The independent watchdog organization blames “new threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies” as well as “further crackdowns on independent media in authoritarian countries like Russia and China.” And then it goes one step further.
“But it is the far-reaching attacks on the news media and their place in a democratic society by Donald Trump, first as a candidate and now as president of the United States, that fuel predictions of further setbacks in the years to come,” the report said.
Could the DHS media database be such a setback?
Possibly, and it’s not even the first time potential regulation of journalists has drifted across the American political scene.
Last October, an Indiana lawmaker proposed that journalists be licensed. Representative Jim Lucas’s bill was mostly a publicity stunt, but could this DHS action be a way for the government to keep track of American and foreign journalists as well as “citizen journalists,” threatening not only the freedom of the press but also individual freedom of speech?
The real question, of course, is what the government plans to do with the information it compiles, and there’s been no comment on that beyond what is in the posting, which, by the way, has interest from at least seven companies. Will those on the DHS media database be questioned more harshly coming in and out of the country? Will they have trouble getting visas to go to certain countries for their own reporting or personal vacations? Worse?
Speaking of visas — and showing that social media activity is squarely on the radar of this Administration — earlier this week, the State Department placed two notices in the Federal Register seeking comments on its proposal to require that all visa applicants to the US turn over their social media information for the previous five years.
Regarding the DHS media database, we are entering potentially dangerous territory with the government keeping track of the “sentiment” of citizens and foreign nationals. If not legal challenges from organizations that defend press freedom and freedom of speech interests, the government should expect, at the very least, backlash from the public.
And that means you. If you think the idea of the US government’s compiling and monitoring a list of media professionals and “top media influencers” is a potential threat to democracy, now would be the perfect time to call your local and congressional representatives to let them know how much you value a free press and the freedom of speech, just in case they’ve forgotten.
Sleep tight, kids!
“… wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
Sinclair Lewis from his 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here”
A recap …
1. Trump says Huma should be jailed; calls DOJ to take action
2. DOJ looking into Hillary’s emails, again.
3. FBI Little Rock launches new Clinton Foundation investigation.
4: U.S. Attorney is former Huckabee aide.
Time elapsed … 2 days, 12 hours, 57 minutes.
The GOP isn’t even hiding it anymore.
Justice Department ‘Looking Into’ Hillary Clinton’s Emails— Again
Justice Department officials are taking a fresh look at Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as secretary of State, The Daily Beast has learned.
An ally of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who is familiar with the thinking at the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters described it as an effort to gather new details on how Clinton and her aides handled classified material. Officials’ questions include how much classified information was sent over Clinton’s server … more here
Then we have this …
GOP Senators Target Trump Dossier Author Christopher Steele in Russia Investigation
(WASHINGTON) — Two Republican senators have made the first known criminal referral in congressional investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They’re targeting the author of a dossier of allegations about President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham say they’ve referred former British spy Christopher Steele to the Justice Department for investigation about false statements he may have made about “the distribution of claims contained in the dossier.”
These are exactly the tactics Vladimir Putin uses against former political opponents, their families, and staff. They were used in Nazi Germany, Turkey, North Korea and every other banana republic and authoritarian state in the last 100 years.
Time to get woke people. Srsly. Now.
Thursday Snips
…
The Bottom Line
“Trump’s words remind us that what’s at stake is not just policy, it’s whether objective truth remains the basis of our democracy.”
Ben Rhodes
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Smell The Coffee?
“In 1939, I didn’t hear war coming.
Now its thundering approach cant be ignored”
by: Harry Leslie Smith from: The Guardian August 14th
A chill of remembrance has come over me during this August month. It feels as if the 2017 summer breeze is being scattered by the winds of war blowing from across our world towards Britain, just like they were in 1939.
In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia eviscerates Yemen with the same ferocity as Mussolini did to Ethiopia when I was child in 1935. The hypocrisy of Britain’s government and elite class ensures that innocent blood still flows in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Theresa May’s government insists that peace can only be achieved through the proliferation of weapons of war in conflict zones. Venezuela teeters towards anarchy and foreign intervention while in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte – protected by his alliance with Britain and the US – murders the vulnerable for the crime of trying to escape their poverty through drug addiction.
Because I am old, now 94, I recognize these omens of doom. Chilling signs are everywhere, perhaps the biggest being that the US allows itself to be led by Donald Trump, a man deficient in honor, wisdom and just simple human kindness. It is as foolish for Americans to believe that their generals will save them from Trump as it was for liberal Germans to believe the military would protect the nation from Hitler’s excesses.
Britain also has nothing to be proud of. Since the Iraq war our country has been on a downward decline, as successive governments have eroded democracy, social justice and savaged the welfare state with austerity, leading us into the cul de sac of Brexit. Like Trump, Brexit cannot be undone by liberal sanctimony – it can only be altered if the neoliberal economic model is smashed as if it were a statue of a dictator by a liberated people.
After years of Tory government, Britain is more equipped to change the course of history for the good than we were under Neville Chamberlain, when Nazism was appeased in the 1930s. In fact, no western nation in Europe or North America has anything to crow about. Each is rife with inequality, massive corporate tax avoidance – which is just legitimized corruption – and a neoliberalism that has eroded societies.
Summer should be comforting but it isn’t this year. Looking at the young today, when I watch them in their leisure; I catch a fearful resemblance to the faces of the young from my generation in the summer of 1939. When I am out in town, I listen to their laughter, I watch them enjoying a pint or wooing one another, and I am afraid for them.
This August resembles too much that of 1939; the last summer of peace until 1945. Then aged 16 and still wet behind the ears, I’d go to pictures with my mates and we’d laugh at the newsreels of Hitler and other fascist monsters that lived beyond what we thought was our reach. Little did we know in that August 1939, life without peace, without carnage, without air raids, without the blitz, could be measured in days. I did not hear the thundering approach of war, but as an old man I hear it now for my grandchildren’s generation. I hope I am wrong. But I am petrified for them.
How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late
a repost of a fantastic piece by Maia Kobabe … read, share, support
from:
Strength Through Unity
How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late
Maia Kobabe May 4th, 2017
The Real Plan Unfolds … UPDATE
Just one more step on the road to ‘Trumplandia’
Putin’s plan is being followed to a T …
Just one more example of the Trump/GOP hypocrisy, as Trump is *demanding* that Germany & other countries pay for their “fair” share of NATO while cutting the U.S. financial contribution to the United Nations.
As I have said here before this prick and his sidekick “Whitey” Bannon have such hard-ons for Trump to be a ‘war-time’ president that they are willing to toss EVERYTHING that make America a great country overboard to achieve that goal.
Plus, hey, a war covers up/distracts from all the looting and grifts underway by the gypsies, Trumps and thieves he has ensconced in the White House.
White House Seeks to Cut Billions in Funding for United Nations
Source: Foreign Policy
State Department staffers have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for U.N. programs, signaling an unprecedented retreat by President Donald Trump’s administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen, according to three sources.
The push for such draconian measures comes as the White House is scheduled on Thursday to release its 2018 budget proposal, which is expected to include cuts of up to 37 percent for spending on the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign assistance programs, including the U.N., in next year’s budget. The United States spends about $10 billion a year on the United Nations.
It remains unclear whether the full extent of the steeper U.N. cuts will be reflected in the 2018 budget, which will be prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget, or whether, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed, the cuts would be phased in over the coming three years. One official close to the Trump administration said Tillerson has been given flexibility to decide how the cuts would be distributed.
On March 9 in New York, U.S. diplomats in a closed-door meeting warned key U.N. members, including wealthy donors from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, to “expect a big financial constraint” on U.S. spending at the United Nations, said one European diplomat. “There are rumors of big cuts to the State Department budget, but again, on our side, no figures,” the diplomat said.
Read more: … HERE …
This Week In Fascism
So, a couple of comments made by the great pumpkin overlord himself, Bad Touch Donnie, the emperor of grift and his neo-Nazi buddy Steve ‘Whitey’ Bannon the last day or so seem to be flying somewhat under the radar, and that’s a very bad thing.
First up we have Mr. White Power himself, Stevie B. telling fellow cons conservatives on Thursday that the new administration is locked in an unending battle against the media and other globalist forces to “deconstruct” an outdated system of governance, and that atop Trump’s agenda was the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” He also said “If you look at these Cabinet nominees, they were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”
This is disturbing on so many levels.
And bigly un-American.
This is NOT what the vast majority of Americans want. Not now, not ever.
Second up we have the Velveeta Raccoon telling pretty much anyone who will listen what a tough guy he is and that his administration’s enforcement of its deportation policy is “a military operation.” “All of a sudden, for the first time, we’re getting gang members out, we’re getting drug lords out, we’re getting really bad dudes out of this country,” Trump said during a listening session with manufacturing CEOs. “And it’s a military operation because what has been allowed to come into our country.”
He said that deportations are taking place “at a rate that nobody’s ever seen before, and they’re the bad ones.”
“You see what’s happening at the border,” Trump said. “When you see gang violence that you’ve read about like never before, and all of the things, much of that is people who are here illegally. And they’re rough, and they’re tough, but they’re not tough like our people, so we’re getting them out.”
Aside from the FACT that this scenario that he keeps railing about is all bullshit and delusion, please take note that we have the President of the United States saying that he is mobilizing an ‘army’ against his own constituents. Fascism 101, pure and simple folks. This senile old prick has such a hard-on to be a war President and to be a ‘ruler’ that he’s turning on his own people.
He, and his whole band of racists, thieves and traitors need to go NOW!
This whole crew are nothing more than GOPsies, Trumps and Thieves.
When The Fire Comes
Following is a stark, yet accurate look at where we find ourselves at this moment in time with pieces from Dartagnan at dailykos and Paul Krugman from the New York Times …
Paul Krugman Issues A Warning About What We All Know Is Coming.
Dartagnan at dailykos
In September of 2001 the Administration of George W. Bush was running into trouble. A President who had lost the popular vote, installed into office only through a hotly contested Supreme Court decision, had nonetheless behaved from the start as if he possessed a mandate, eagerly dismantling his predecessor’s achievements and turning the country on a hard rightward course, following a strategy that had been carefully concealed from the public during the campaign.
The public reaction was swift and negative—Bush’s own popularity tanked precipitously as the public reacted to an agenda most had not realized they had voted for. Prior to September 11th his approval levels had dropped to the lowest of his still-young Presidency.
All of that was transformed in a matter of hours, as the nation witnessed the worst terror attack America had ever experienced. Before the rubble had even been sifted to identify the bodies, Bush’s popularity skyrocketed to 90%. Within a matter of weeks he began the process of lying us into an unnecessary war that had been planned prior to the attacks, using those same attacks as his justification. That war destabilized the entire Middle East and resulted in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pointless deaths.
Meanwhile, here at home, dissent was shouted down as unpatriotic. The Right Wing media outlets labeled protesters as traitors, and nearly all the so-called conventional news sources either abetted or encouraged the Administration’s efforts, which soon instigated torture as an accepted practice, threw out the Geneva conventions, and instituted a web of foreign and domestic surveillance, the parameters of which are still undisclosed. Despite the fact that we were spending a trillion dollars for war, massive tax cuts were instituted benefitting only the wealthy.
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times, believes the situation we now find ourselves in, with Donald Trump holding the levers of power, is incomparably worse than anything the country faced with Bush or Cheney:
We’re only three weeks into the Trump administration, but it’s already clear that any hopes that Mr. Trump and those around him would be even slightly ennobled by the responsibilities of office were foolish. Every day brings further evidence that this is a man who completely conflates the national interest with his personal self-interest, and who has surrounded himself with people who see it the same way. And each day also brings further evidence of his lack of respect for democratic values.
The one positive thing that can be said about the Bush Administration is that it did not provoke the attacks of 9/11. Despite clear and well-documented early warning signs (which were ignored by Bush), the attacks, however carefully planned, were a shock to everyone, Bush included. And when the Courts began to rein in Bush and Cheney’s abuses of power, while they were surely displeased—even irate–they never stooped so low as to undermine the basic institution of the Judiciary. As a result, the country slowly returned to a sense of normality because our institutions held up against the onslaughts.
Trump has already gone out of his way to provoke another terror attack on this country. By vilifying and demonizing not just Muslims by attempting to bar their entry into the country, but even equating those those who cross the Mexican border with the worst types of criminals imaginable, he has deliberately laid the groundwork for some type of retaliation. He has, in fact, invited it. And, as Krugman notes, he seems to want it:
The really striking thing about Mr. Trump’s Twitter tirade, however, was his palpable eagerness to see an attack on America, which would show everyone the folly of constraining his power:
Krugman is referring to this “Tweet”:
What Trump has done in attacking the very Judges and Courts that have (thus far) placed restraints upon his arbitrary abuse of power is to tie those restraints directly to the potential for further acts of terrorism against the country. He is telling us, in a very cold, cynical way, that he will consider himself blameless if we are attacked, with the unmistakable implication that such an attack would justify abandoning any constraints or limitations on his own powers:
Never mind the utter falsity of the claim that bad people are “pouring in,” or for that matter of the whole premise behind the ban. What we see here is the most powerful man in the world blatantly telegraphing his intention to use national misfortune to grab even more power. And the question becomes, who will stop him?
It is abundantly clear that the malevolent cast of characters who make up his “inner circle” will do nothing to stop Trump from taking full advantage to exploit the public’s fear and grief in the event of a large-scale terror event. His closest advisors, a white supremacist with a history of anti-Islamic hatred, and a general obsessed with Islamophobia in charge of the military, appear absolutely thrilled at the prospect of provoking an attack. They will not help us. In fact they would author the Orders that would attempt to initiate deportations and surveillance, limit speech and assembly, or otherwise revoke or “suspend” Due Process for certain “targeted” groups.
Neither will the Republican-dominated Senate, which, for all its phony pretensions of disapproval, is well on the way to confirming the most abominably incompetent President’s cabinet in the nation’s history. Neither they nor their ideological compatriots in control of the House of Representatives are going to lift a finger to help us.
The Judiciary does stand in his way, for now. But the nature of the Judiciary is not to be proactive but to react, most often after the damage has already been done. Trump is doing his best to undermine the Judiciary by his now-constant attacks on Judges who stand in the way of his exercise of arbitrary power. Ultimately they can only do so much.
No, when the terror attack comes—and Trump and Bannon are making damned sure that it does come—it will only be the common people, banding together, that will be able to stop him. If we let fear affect our judgments, an aftermath with rules imposed by people who have nothing but contempt for our institutions will be worse than anything terrorists could do to destroy us.
In the end, I fear, it’s going to rest on the people — on whether enough Americans are willing to take a public stand. We can’t handle another post-9/11-style suspension of doubt about the man in charge; if that happens, America as we know it will soon be gone.
We need to be ready. What is coming will literally be the fight of our lives
.and here is the Krugman piece in it’s entirety …
When the Fire Comes
Paul Krugman
What will you do when terrorists attack, or U.S. friction with some foreign power turns into a military confrontation? I don’t mean in your personal life, where you should keep calm and carry on. I mean politically. Think about it carefully: The fate of the republic may depend on your answer.
Of course, nobody knows whether there will be a shocking, 9/11-type event, or what form it might take. But surely there’s a pretty good chance that sometime over the next few years something nasty will happen — a terrorist attack on a public place, an exchange of fire in the South China Sea, something. Then what?
After 9/11, the overwhelming public response was to rally around the commander in chief. Doubts about the legitimacy of a president who lost the popular vote and was installed by a bare majority on the Supreme Court were swept aside. Unquestioning support for the man in the White House was, many Americans believed, what patriotism demanded.
The truth was that even then the urge toward national unity was one-sided, with Republican exploitation of the atrocity for political gain beginning almost immediately. But people didn’t want to hear about it; I got angry mail, not just from Republicans but from Democrats, whenever I pointed out what was going on.
Unfortunately, the suspension of critical thinking ended as such suspensions usually do — badly. The Bush administration exploited the post-9/11 rush of patriotism to take America into an unrelated war, then used the initial illusion of success in that war to ram through huge tax cuts for the wealthy.
Bad as that was, however, the consequences if Donald Trump finds himself similarly empowered will be incomparably worse.
We’re only three weeks into the Trump administration, but it’s already clear that any hopes that Mr. Trump and those around him would be even slightly ennobled by the responsibilities of office were foolish. Every day brings further evidence that this is a man who completely conflates the national interest with his personal self-interest, and who has surrounded himself with people who see it the same way. And each day also brings further evidence of his lack of respect for democratic values.
You might be tempted to say that the latest flare-up, over Nordstrom’s decision to drop Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, is trivial. But it isn’t. For one thing, until now it would have been inconceivable that a sitting president would attack a private company for decisions that hurt his family’s business interests.
But what’s even worse is the way Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, framed the issue: Nordstrom’s business decision was a “direct attack” on the president’s policies. L’état, c’est moi.
Mr. Trump’s attack on Judge James Robart, who put a stay on his immigration ban, was equally unprecedented. Previous presidents, including Barack Obama, have disagreed with and complained about judicial rulings. But that’s very different from attacking the very right of a judge — or, as the man who controls 4,000 nuclear weapons put it, a “so-called judge” — to rule against the president.
The really striking thing about Mr. Trump’s Twitter tirade, however, was his palpable eagerness to see an attack on America, which would show everyone the folly of constraining his power:
Never mind the utter falsity of the claim that bad people are “pouring in,” or for that matter of the whole premise behind the ban. What we see here is the most powerful man in the world blatantly telegraphing his intention to use national misfortune to grab even more power. And the question becomes, who will stop him?
Don’t talk about institutions, and the checks and balances they create. Institutions are only as good as the people who serve them. Authoritarianism, American-style, can be averted only if people have the courage to stand against it. So who are these people?
It certainly won’t be Mr. Trump’s inner circle. It won’t be Jeff Sessions, his new attorney general, with his long history of contempt for voting rights. It might be the courts — but Mr. Trump is doing all he can to delegitimize judicial oversight in advance.
What about Congress? Well, its members like to give patriotic speeches. And maybe, just maybe, there are enough Republican senators who really do care about America’s fundamental values to cross party lines in their defense. But given what we’ve seen so far, that’s just hopeful speculation.
In the end, I fear, it’s going to rest on the people — on whether enough Americans are willing to take a public stand. We can’t handle another post-9/11-style suspension of doubt about the man in charge; if that happens, America as we know it will soon be gone.
Read my blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow me on Twitter, @PaulKrugman.
First They Came For …
and then a hero showed up …
Hey GOP, AND The Horse You Rode In On …
Hey Snitch McConnell, Lyin’ Ryan, Velveeta Raccoon, Backstreet Barbie, Sean Sphincter, Whitey Bannon, Rank Penis and the rest of you low life, useless, fascist grifters …
#GypsiesTrumpsAndThieves
a letter to Dongald J. McTinyhands …
Sometimes it’s just wiser to listen to the people who actually know you …
Mr. Trump, you should listen carefully to someone who does know you well …
A great letter by Clay Aiken, Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative of North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District
Dear Mr. Trump,
Maybe it takes one to know one. Maybe the fact that I have lost three times on a national scale has given me a special insight. But I can assure you, I know one when I see one, and you, Donald Trump, are a loser.
I took the liberty of looking up the word “delusion” for you since your advisors clearly haven’t. According to the dictionary, delusion is “a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary.” Frankly, I can’t think of a better word to describe your campaign.
You can’t win. The majority doesn’t like you.
That being said, I’m going to do something that you have absolutely no capacity to do. I’m going to apologize. Not to you. I’m apologizing to anyone who may have heard me over the past few months imply that you are an inherently good person. You are not. You are an awful, egomaniacal, attention-seeking fool.
I wish I could remember the gracious person I met while doing Celebrity Apprentice.
Unfortunately, the blabber and idiocy that has dribbled from your mouth over the last eight months has completely wiped any positive memory away. Most unfortunately, perhaps, is that it has been wiped away for many millions who at one point may have had some degree of respect for you. You are now virtually impossible to listen to without screaming at the television.
Admittedly, it took me a while to come to my senses. You of all people can certainly understand how difficult it is to see another point of view. The truth is, I didn’t want to accept the arguments that you were a danger to this country. I did not want to believe that you were the hate spewing, violence-inciting demagogue that so many have seen you as from the moment you announced your candidacy. I wanted to believe that, deep down, you were a good person who was just incredibly caught up in the adoration of a very vocal group of supporters. I wanted to believe that you were saying the things you were saying, not because you believed them — not because you truly thought Mexicans were ruining this country or that we should ban Muslims from the United States — but because you were so hungry for attention and power that you would say whatever was necessary in order to get people to cheer for you. And while that in and of itself is a pretty disgusting and narcissistic trait, I hoped it was all for show and not representative of your core values.
I was wrong.
I hate saying that, but at least I can say it.
Campaigning is very difficult. One of the interesting things that I discovered during my campaign two years ago is that often times it’s very easy for a candidate to live in a “bubble”. When you’re surrounded by staff who are optimistic, and you’re always speaking to excited audiences, it’s very easy to miscalculate the level of support that you have amongst the general population. I will be the first to admit that my run for Congress was an incredible long shot. It was not a race that I necessarily expected to win and I certainly lost by a large margin. But even though it was a long shot there were many moments when I would speak to a Republican voter who would tell me how much they liked me and how much they were looking forward to voting for me instead of the Republican. In moments like those it’s very difficult not to get enthusiastic and believe that you can win. What I failed to recognize was that for every voter who came up to me and told me they were going to vote for me there were 10 other Republicans who are absolutely not supporting me.
It’s that damn bubble.
Donald, rest assured, your bubble is about to burst. For every voter who comes to you and enthusiastically cheers on your campaign, there are hundreds that find you revolting. And according to your 68 percent unfavorable rating, the people hate you. They really, really hate you.
If you think you are still in control of this campaign, you are delusional. Uh-oh, there’s that magic word again.
People should not be injured physically when attending one of your rallies. Taking that thought one step further, you should not be condoning brutality at your rallies! The fact that you encourage supporters to punch protesters in the face and then insist you never have — despite video evidence to contrary — is completely … well… you know the word.
If you are scared of Megyn Kelly, how the hell are you going to take on our enemies. Tweet them into submission? That’s not how the real world works.
The only one committing atrocities against your First Amendment rights is you — inciting violence, offering to pay legal fees for anyone arrested for cruelty in your name, harboring woman abusers like your campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, priding yourself in endorsements, some of which come from hate groups like the KKK and bigots like Jerry Falwell Jr.
All is lost.
Your supporters turned to you because they are against establishment politicians who are “on the take” and so easily bought and sold. They want change. What they fail to recognize is that you are one of the ones doing the buying and selling!
I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you believe you answer questions intelligently or the fact you can lie so easily to voters. I have watched all the debates and town halls and it baffles me that you can rattle off untruths with such ease. You look into that camera and tell Americans that the unemployment rate is in the 40th percentile without even the slightest bit of evidence. (Sort of ironic coming from a guy with name recognition linked to the phrase, “you’re fired” and a clothing line that’s manufactured overseas.) The latest statistics show that America’s unemployment rate is 4.9 percent. This isn’t a guess. This is a fact. Remember those?
What does it matter, though? You’ll say something entirely different tomorrow anyway. You change your positions more often than the canisters in your spray tan gun. However, unlike most of your platform, you can’t walk back the hateful things you’ve said to offend vast swaths of the American public — women, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, Latinos, Muslims, pretty much anyone with any common sense. The damage has already been done. Congratulations. You once had a vast and respected empire, and the name “Trump” was once synonymous with luxury and quality. Now it’s just synonymous with bullshit. This is the vile legacy you leave your grandchildren.
And it’s only a matter of time before the American people see to it. “You’re fired.”
d-bag of the week … the douchenami edition
it’s been a week where I can’t even keep up with the right wing douche-rocketry and d-bag behavior of this week’s contenders …
sort of a douchebag tsunami … a douchenami if you will …
so slap on the wellingtons so you don’t get any on ya’ and let’s just wade right on in shall we …
careful though my friends, some shit just don’t wash off …
is everyone comfortably seated? …
good, then we’ll begin …
”Once upon a time … in a mystical make believe land where idiocracy, tiny little hands and bigotry rule the day, there lived a whole bunch of bat shit crazy, angry, fearful, bloviating liars, er, prevaricators if you’d prefer …”
first up, the queen of bat shit crazy vile and bile herself …
Michele Bachmann Says God Sent Brussels Attacks to Humiliate Obama
Have you ever wondered what it would look like if Sarah Palin were held at gunpoint and forced to drunk-tweet slam poetry? Well, then former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann‘s (R-MN) latest WorldNet Daily column is for you. The rambling, stream-of-what-can-only-loosely-be-called-consciousness blog post touches on a wide range of horrible Obama failures, but most notably posits that maybe God sent the terrorists to Brussels to humiliate President Obama:
Or maybe our president’s humiliation comes in a manner so devastating it makes one wonder whether the Creator of humankind isn’t reminding this world of the inferiority of foolishness in the face of wisdom.
The president once again mocked his nemesis, the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, by cleverly turning the international press corps toward his brilliant work in Cuba, instead of covering ongoing Islamic attacks against the Jewish state as outlined that very same day at the annual pro-Israel AIPAC meeting in Washington, D.C.
History changed less than 24 hours later in the blink of an eye, and the rug was pulled out from under his well-laid plans.
Obama’s slavish press corps was forced to turn their uncritical gaze from adoring him to revealing the newest carnage in Brussels.
Our eyes were spellbound.
No, they weren’t, Michele, you’re just looking at the wrong camera.
If this truly is a clash of civilizations, as Bachmann believes, then telling the world that God sent terrorists to make Obama look bad is not great PR for Christianity.
You can read the entire loopy thing here.
then we had Rudy “911!, 911!, 911!!!” Giuliani crawling out of his slime filled bog to make that fucking semi-human noise he likes to make in his ongoing effort to find a reason to keep breathing …do slugs breathe??? …
Giuliani: Hillary Clinton Could Be Considered ‘Founding Member of ISIS …
Rudy 911! Giuliani seen here with long time friend and fellow piece of shit Donald ‘the Fuhrer’ Trump
In an effort to attack Hillary Clinton on foreign policy tonight, Rudy Giuliani told Bill O’Reilly that “Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS.”
He said that Clinton hasn’t shown leadership in the war on terror, saying she had her chance when she was Secretary of State, when she was “part of an administration that withdrew from Iraq.”
O’Reilly pointed out Clinton couldn’t have forced President Obama to do anything short of resigning. Giuliani added, “Which is what a patriot does.”
A little later, O’Reilly took a guess Giuliani’s getting ready to endorse Donald Trump. Giuliani didn’t completely deny it…
Trump Retweets Someone Insulting Heidi Cruz’s Looks
by Josh Feldman
Donald Trump tonight, not content with mere threats, re-tweeted a fan tonight who posted an image insulting Ted Cruz‘s wife’s looks.
Trump is angry at Cruz over an ad an anti-Trump Super PAC (that has nothing to do with Cruz) ran showing a picture from his wife Melania‘s nude photoshoot.
Here’s tonight’s crazy Trump retweet:
in case it’s taken down:
Wow.
UPDATE –– 12:40 pm EST: Cruz responded:
stay classy guys, stay classy! …
The GOP …
There’s a petition to allow ‘open carry’ at the GOP convention …
and it’s not from the Onion!!!!
Believe it or else: Some one has actually posted a petition on Change.org to allow open carry of firearms during the RNC convention.
RECOGNIZE OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO OPEN CARRY FIREARMS AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION AT THE QUICKEN LOANS ARENA IN JULY 2016SUMMARY: In July of 2016, the GOP will host its convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Though Ohio is an open carry state, which allows for the open carry of guns, the hosting venue—the Quicken Loans Arena—strictly forbids the carry of firearms on their premises.According to the policy on their website, “firearms and other weapons of any kind are strictly forbidden on the premises of Quicken Loans Arena.”This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and puts all attendees at risk. As the National Rifle Association has made clear, “gun-free zones” such as the Quicken Loans Arena are “the worst and most dangerous of all lies.” The NRA, our leading defender of gun rights, has also correctly pointed out that “gun free zones… tell every insane killer in America… (the) safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.” (March 4, 2016 and Dec. 21, 2012)
I’m not certain whether this is serious, or an attempt at satire; it’s hard to tell the difference anymore!!!!! Maybe they should just change the name to the ‘NRA Convention.’
original link from The Bitchy Pundit’s Facebook page … Her comment: “A room full of armed, slack jawed Republicans – what could go wrong?”
Pat McCrory Says He Signed the Broadest Anti-LGBT Bill in the Nation to Prevent Government Overreach
On Wednesday, in a special session, North Carolina lawmakers rammed through HB2, a bill that they were granted a mere five minutes to read before beginning debate. A bill that literally made its way through both chambers of the General Assembly, onto the governor’s desk, and signed into law in a mere 12 hours. “The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte,” McCrory trumpeted in a statement after signing the bill Wednesday night.
N.C. House Strikes Down LGBT Protections Statewide
(The Advocate) North Carolina lawmakers voted overwhelmingly today to strike down all existing LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in the state, during a special legislative session called in response to Charlotte passing a trans-inclusive ordinance. The state’s Republican-led House of Representatives passed House Bill 2 by a vote of 83-24 today, according to the anti-LGBT North Carolina Family Policy Council, which supports the legislation that it calls the “Charlotte bathroom bill.” The bill now moves to the state Senate, where it will be heard at 4 p.m. local time.
Koch Brothers Attempt to Kill Single-Payer Health Care in Colorado
(TruthOut) Colorado’s efforts to become the first state to pass a public, universal health care system are facing stiff opposition from right-wing organizations, many of which are funded by or affiliated with brothers Charles and David Koch. As expected, these moneyed interests are doing everything they can to stop the state from amending its constitution with a ballot referendum, Amendment 69, which would implement a statewide version of “single-payer” health care. If approved, ColoradoCare would cover every resident, regardless of employment or ability to pay.
Nixon Policy Advisor Admits He Invented War On Drugs to Suppress ‘Anti-War Left and Black People’
(Jezebel) Dan Baum, writing in support of drug legalization at Harper’s, has unleashed a frank 1994 quote from former Nixon policy advisor John Ehrlichman, and as inadvertently salient an argument for legalizing drugs as any I’ve ever seen:
At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
And so, because the douchebaggery has not abated in any way since our last d-bag award, and all the sliminess and slithering that passes for sentient behavior in the so-called corridors of power still seem to be as rampant as ever, it must be time to single out our d-bag of the week … and, as all good deeds truly deserve some kind of reward, it’s that time again …
and (insert favorite deity here) knows, we certainly did have another week chock bloody full of scheming, lying politicians, incoherent, ass kissing, dog whistle blowing, incessantly blathering, windbag broadcasters, greedy, glamour glomming grifters and pointless, prevaricating and pontificating pricks …
so, it’s time to answer the question that seemingly needs to be answered kids …
just who took their act to the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst, the slimiest of the slimy, the doucheyist of the douchey? … are those even freakin’ words? …
they are now i guess … lol …
who was the king or queen of douchebaggery in the last seven days? …
who was the grandest douche rocket of the bunch? …
it was, as always, a week that was, full of some of the slimiest, sleaziest, slithering, scuzzball serpents the world of poll pandering, petulant and pithy partisan politics, fanatical, frenzied, far fetched faith freaks, and the exorbitant, exaggerated and exuberant elitist acquisitiveness, avarice and avidity that the preening power pricks(aka politics, religion and corporatocracy) has to offer …
and this week was as bad as every other lately, the norm these days it seems, with more than it’s fair share of despicable, degenerate douche bag dancing, misogynistic, mean-minded and mendacious maneuvers, slimy, sickening, sleaze-ball slithering, repugnant, reprehensible, repulsive and revolting rantings and railings, and an out and out torrent of treasonous talk and treacherous temper tantrums …
especially by the so-called “family values” gang over on the right and their bat shit crazy, bullshit bellowing, ideologically inane, greedy and groveling, greasy grifters and their prevaricating, petulant, pompous and pointlessly pious proponents …
in the end, as we always do, we found our winner
…
and a rather deserving one, if I do say so myself …
and even though this week’s douche-off was not without a copiously crammed cornucopia of conniving, classless, clueless, crass and cretinous challengers to that majestic mantle of mediocrity, mendacity, meandering mindlessness and missteps we like to call the ‘d-bag of the week’, we do have a winner …
and who kids is the doucheyist of ‘em all this week? …
the envelope please …
our winner of the always deserved, rarely accepted d-bag of the week is …
ALL OF “EM …
EVERY FUCKING SINGLE ONE OF THESE CRETINS AND GRIFTERS …
AAARRRGGGHHH …
MY BRAIN HURTS JUST THINKING ABOUT THESE LOW LIFE WASTES OF SKIN …
SO …
FUCK YOU DONALD TRUMP …
FUCK YOU MICHELE BACHMANN …
FUCK YOU RUDY 911 GIULIANI …
FUCK YOU NORTH CAROLINA RETHUGS …
FUCK YOU TED CRUZ …
FUCK YOU ALL …
NOW, I NEED TO GO SHOWER AND TRY TO WASH THIS SHIT OFF …
in his own words …
first, an awesome piece by Nick Baumann Senior Enterprise Editor, The Huffington Post, followed by an equally great work by Friend Dog Studios …
the dumpster shows how he can take care of 3 at the same time … not 1 or 2 like some lame ass librul would …
(although with those tiny little hands, he probably has to take a lotta breaks so he won’t cramp up)
I am Donald Trump, I am the best
I am Donald Trump. I am the best.
I am the most successful person ever to run for president. Nobody’s ever been more successful than me. I have the best words. I am the most fabulous whiner.
I am the best builder. Nobody builds walls better than me. I build the best product. Nobody can build a wall like Trump. I’ve always had people say, “Donald, you have the most beautiful hands.” I have the steadiest hands. I have a very good brain.
Somebody made the statement that Donald Trump has built or owns the greatest collection of golf courses, ever, in the history of golf. And I believe that is 100 percent true. I have the best courses in the world.
I went to one of the best schools.
On trade, there’s nobody more conservative than me. I’m the most conservative when it comes to military, when it comes to the border, when it comes to security, when it comes to illegal immigration: all of these things. I think I’m the most conservative person there is. I am the only one who can fix our southern border. There is nobody more against Obamacare than me.
I am the worst thing that ever happened to ISIS.
I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created. Nobody knows jobs like I do. I will create jobs like no one else.
Nobody has more respect for women than I do.
No one has done more for people with disabilities than me.
I will help the veterans like no one else.
No one has done so much for equality as I have.
I am the only one who can beat Hillary Clinton. I am Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare.
Nobody understands politicians like I do.
I am more presidential than anybody, other than the great Abe Lincoln.
Nobody is more pro-Israel than I am. Nobody but Donald Trump will save Israel. I have studied this issue in great detail — I would say actually greater by far than anybody else. I am the most militaristic person on that stage.
I have proven to be far more correct about terrorism than anybody. It’s not even close.
My primary consultant is myself.
I am the least racist person you will ever meet.
Nobody reads the Bible more than me.
I am very modest. I am the most humble celebrity.
I am the only one who can make America truly great again.
I am the worst thing that ever happened to the establishment.
I am the best to win the general election.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
the dumpster file
the daily headlines …
or …
”What’s new in Dumpsterville this fine day” …
(my spell checker suggested ‘Dumpster Vile” – seems appropo eh?) …
Reuters/Screenshot
The Trump Mob …
At Least 52 Arrested Or Cited At Trump Rallies In Past 2 Weeks …
20 Other Instances Of Physical Altercations …
Donald Rejects Responsibility: ‘Nobody’s Been Hurt’ …
Warns Of Riots If He Doesn’t Get Party Nomination …
Warns Of Riots If He Doesn’t Get Party Nomination …
Supporters Ready To Throw Down …
THE DATA: Shut Down In Chicago …
Roughed Up In St. Louis …
Sucker-Punched In Fayetteville …
More …
‘Someone Will Die’ …
North Carolina Sheriff’s Deputies Disciplined Over Trump Rally …
Trump Exploits Civic Ignorance …
I Went Undercover at a Trump Rally, And What I Witnessed Was Horrifying …
PBS News Story on First-Time Trump Voters Prominently Displays Longtime White Power Tattoos …
DONALD J. TRUMP: MAKING AMERICA HATE AGAIN!
stay classy GOP!
big brother comes to canada …and i ain’t talkin’ no t.v. show peeps …
I thought I’d pass this along …
Normally I don’t repost any emails that I receive, but, hey, truth is truth, and sometimes ya’ just need to get to work on something … and this qualifies …
I mean, that old patriot act is workin’ out so well south of the 49th eh? …
So, please read and share as you see fit …
from the good peeps over at Avaaz …
Dear friends across Canada,
They won’t be able to kill or harm us, or “violate our sexual integrity” — but the Prime Minister just introduced a new anti-terrorism act that could let CSIS do just about anything else. Unless we make this Big Brother bill politically untouchable.
And worse, Stephen Harper is using the fear of terrorism to give our spy agency crazy new powers like letting them get secret warrants to break into our houses, copy or take documents, and even install monitoring devices. But we can still show him we wont let trumped up fears override our freedoms.
The Conservative and Liberal parties are planning to vote for the bill — and the only way to stop it is to show them that Canadians value freedom more than fear. When 50,000 join we’ll build a non-partisan coalition of freedom-loving Canadians, and use every tactic in our toolbox to persuade MPs and Senators to split from their parties. Click now to join: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/canada_secret_police/?bxQMkab&v=53646
In 2006, PM Harper warned that “You won’t recognize Canada when I’m through with it”, and now he’s making that promise come true. Under this bill, peaceful protests that break a law and challenge Canada’s economic stability — possibly even protests against a tar sands pipeline — could be considered terrorism. Harper’s poisonous fear mongering threatens our freedoms, but we can make this bill political poison to any MP supporting it.
Harper’s implied that the horrific attacks in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu make this bill necessary. But experts say that our security agencies already have the powers needed to stop terror attacks, and there’s no proven link between these lone killers and terrorist groups.
This is an election year, and analysts say that leaders who oppose this law risk being seen as soft on terror. If we can show our politicians that this isn’t true — that our basic freedoms can not be traded for fear — we can win. Click now to take action: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/canada_secret_police/?bxQMkab&v=53646
Prime Minister Harper is always telling us that we’re at war, and now he’s trying to turn this fear against us and trample on our rights. Our community is bigger than this fear. Let’s stand up to the government and show them that when it comes to our freedoms, Canadians stand united.
With hope,
Danny, Jo, Ari, Ricken, and the rest of the Avaaz team
SOURCES
Parliament must reject Harper’s secret policeman bill (Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/parliament-must-reject-harpers-secret-policeman-bill/article22729037/
Anti-terror bill: Experts worry about sweeping powers for CSIS (Ottawa Citizen)
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/anti-terror-bill-experts-worry-about-sweeping-powers-for-csis
Security bill risks too much (Winnipeg Free Press)
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/security-bill-risks-too-much-290752621.html
Canada Seeks to Strengthen Spy Agency After Attacks (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/world/americas/canada-seeks-to-strengthen-spy-agency-after-attacks.html?_r=0
PM Harper wants to create a new law that would let spies get permission to break into our homes. But there’s time to stop this Big Brother bill if we show our politicians we won’t stand for it — click now to take action:
Support the Avaaz Community!
We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way. Donate Now
Avaaz.org is a 40-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
latest gop strategy: “vote for us or lose your job”
we’ve been seeing a lot of this shit the last few weeks …
i guess when all you have is lies and desperation, this is what it comes to …
this what it looks like when fascism “comes to america” …
Walsh: Vote Republican or Lose Your Job
Source: NBC Chicago
Rep. Joe Walsh last weekend told business owners last weekend that if there were ever a year where they needed to "energize" their employees for the election, it’s this year.
And he told them to let their staffs know they could be out of a job if they don’t cast a vote for the Grand Old Party.
"Spread the word," Walsh boomed. "If you run — if you run, own or manage a company, tell your employees. "What was the CEO this week that said, if Obama is re-elected, I may have to let all of you go next year? If Obama’s reelected, if the Democrats take Congress, I may not be able to cover your health insurance next year."
Walsh, who is in a intense battle for Illinois’ newly-redrawn 8th Congressional District against Democrat Tammy Duckworth, was referring to David Siegel, the founder and CEO of timeshare company Westgate Resorts. Siegel last week sent a note out to his employees telling them that four more years of an Obama Administration threatens the growth of his company and, therefore, their jobs.
from nbc read more here
Lies, voter suppression and now vocally encouraging businesses to engage in flagrant acts of voter intimidation. The Republicans 2012 election theme appears to be the embrace of indentured servitude where American citizens must sacrifice their basic freedoms in exchange for a basic livelihood. Republicans are quick to defend the rights of corporations ("corporations are people, my friend"), but are ready to encourage the abrogation and sacrifice of such freedoms for political advantage.
this is the hypocrisy of the tea party …
romney’s america
“know your gop”– part three
“it can happen here”
or “the more things change, the more they stay the same”
Read part one of “know your gop” here
Read part two of “know your gop” here
The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here"
by Thom Hartmann
Published on Monday, July 19, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents – John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"
Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.
"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" – the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People – instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.
In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" – the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.
Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:
" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. … They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace’s view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. "American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information…"
Noting that, "Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggest that fascism’s "greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest "within the United States itself."
more here …
I think this is Wallace’s NYT piece here …
the 14 defining characteristics of fascism
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes.
Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism – The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined – Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed – Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections – Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
From Liberty Forum
“When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross,”
Sinclair Lewis
“When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’,
it will not be marked with a swastika,
it will not even be called fascism,
it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’”
An un-credited New York Times reporter covering Halford E. Luccock in an article published September 12, 1938.
Did Republicans deliberately sabotage the economy?
by David Pinar
Are the Republican Congressional leaders purposely trying to sabotage the US economy for their own political gain? I think it’s obvious – just look at their single most important item on their agenda:
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
– Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Not jobs, not encouraging our economic recovery, not defeating Al Qaeda. Nope, making sure Americans don’t re-elect President Obama is the single thing uppermost on their minds. In a recent article at The Guardian Michael Cohen points out the obvious:
The GOP’s zealotry on tax cuts is only matched by its zealotry in pursuing austerity policies. In the spring of 2011, federal spending cuts forced by Republican legislators took much-needed money out of the economy: combined with the 2012 budget, it has largely counteracted the positive benefits provided by the 2009 stimulus.
Republicans couldn’t stop the stimulus passed in 2009 when Democrats controlled Congress, so they’ve undone it with forced austerity since they took control of the House. “Austerity” – sound familiar? It’s austerity fiscal policy in Europe that has crashed their economy back into recession. The Republicans won control of the House in 2010 with their fake war cry of “out of control spending!”, when in fact growth in federal spending under President Obama has been much less than under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. And what has happened since the Republicans took control of the House?
Subsequently, the GOP’s refusal to countenance legislation that would help states with their own fiscal crises (largely, the result of declining tax revenue) has led to massive public sector layoffs at the state and local level. In fact, since Obama took office, state and local governments have shed 611,000 jobs; and by some measures, if not for these jobs cuts the unemployment rate today would be closer to 7%, not its current 8.2%. In 2010 and 2011, 457,00 public sector jobs were excised; not coincidentally, at the same time, much of the federal stimulus aid from 2009 ran out. And Republicans took over control of Congress.
The Republicans haven’t done a whole hell of a lot since they took control of the House, but what they have done has only harmed our economy, not helped. And their “crowning achievement” – pushing the country to the brink of default over raising the debt limit – which they raised repeatedly under Reagan and the two Bushes, no questions asked – was the single most damaging event to the economy since the financial crises of 2008 –
This collection of more-harm-than-good policies must also include last summer’s debt limit debacle, which House speaker John Boehner has threatened to renew this year. This was yet another GOP initiative that undermined the economic recovery. According to economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, “over the entire episode, confidence declined more than it did following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008.” Only after the crisis did the consumer confidence stabilize, but employers “held back on hiring, sapping momentum from a recovery that remains far too fragile.” In addition, the debt limit deal also forced more unhelpful spending cuts on the country.
Since that national embarrassment, Republicans have refused to even allow votes on President Obama’s jobs bill in the Senate; they dragged their feet on the aforementioned payroll tax and even now are holding up a transportation bill with poison-pill demands for the White House on environmental regulation.
The Republicans don’t like it when voters put a Democrat in the White House, but they don’t get mad, they get even. Remember the national embarrassment when the Republicans shut down the federal government under President Clinton in 1995? Even the Grand Canyon was closed for business. And just 10 years ago, with George Bush in the White House and the economy was in a mild recession, these same Republicans were clamouring for fiscal stimulus to spur the economy.
Over the next 5 months you’ll see a lot of ads telling you the economy sucks and it’s all Obama’s and “rubber stamp” Democrats’ fault! Elect Mitt Dudley Do Right Romney President and give us the Senate and we’ll come riding to the rescue!
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Translation:
Such words lead some to the conclusion that Republicans will do anything, including short-circuiting the economy, in order to hurt Obama politically. Considering that presidents – and rarely opposition parties – are held electorally responsible for economic calamity, it’s not a bad political strategy.
No, not a bad political strategy – just bad for the economy, bad for you and me, bad for our fellow Americans. And we have a word for people who put their own self interest above the good of their country. Actually, a lot of choice words come to mind when I see what Republican Congressional leaders are doing.
Re-elect President Obama, elect Democrats to a majority in Congress, and get the country moving forward once again.
…
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know your gop … part two
a collection of posts from around the web that highlight just who the right has become …
and who the gop really are today …
the first piece here is a post by a great poster from politicususa that is a MUST read …
it perfectly summarizes exactly what is going on in america these days …
and combined with the hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of the right wing madness that is gripping a large segment of the american population in the last several years …
if this doesn’t scare the shit out of any thinking and caring person, then honestly, i don’t know what will …
read part one of “‘know your gop” here
Republican “Patriots” Terrorize America with Calls for Armed Insurrection
By: Rmuse
June 30, 2012
The sole reason humans progressed beyond cave dwelling was their ability to learn, reason, and communicate to form communities and eventually civilizations. Unless a person is born with a genetic brain defect or are developmentally retarded, they should have the capacity to think rationally and assess situations critically to make choices in their own best interests. Of course, there are circumstances where ignorance plays a role in making bad choices, but unless a person is stupid, there is really no reason to continue reaching conclusions with no basis in fact. There is a notable difference between ignorance and stupidity, but both can lead to unwise acts, and in combination, there are few outcomes that do not produce disastrous results for the person and anyone connected with them.
In their quest to transform the country into a corporatist theocracy, Republicans are using the ignorance and stupidity of a significant segment of the population to incite violent reactions to every policy proposed by President Obama. Americans got a glimpse of the stupidity in the teabagger movement during the healthcare reform debate two years ago, and despite the availability of information about the myriad benefits of the health law, it appears that, coupled with racism, that particular group is still stupid and becoming a hazard to the security of the entire population. In the 24 hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, the combination of ignorance, stupidity, and racism exposed the threat of a violent uprising against the government of the United States.
There are Americans openly discussing armed insurrection to overthrow the government based on the notion that the worst form of tyranny this country has ever witnessed is the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality. A list of comments labeled “Hilarious Reactions to the High Court’s Ruling” on a liberal website are not remotely humorous, and only serve to inspire more hatred toward President Obama among stupid Americans who lack the ability to discern between a legally passed law upheld by the High Court and tyranny against the citizens of the United States. A Michigan lawyer emailed numerous media outlets asking, “Is Armed Rebellion Now Justified? There are times government has to do things to get what it wants and holds a gun to your head. I’m saying we have to ask when do we turn that gun around and say no and resist.” A Breitbart activist claimed, “This is the greatest destruction of individual liberty since Dred Scott… the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration.” A conservative blogger Tweeted, “We don’t just need a new president. We need a revolution.” The Christian extremist Bryan Fischer said Chief Justice Roberts “is going down in history as the justice that shredded the Constitution and turned it into a worthless piece of parchment,” and the teabagger group Freedomworks said, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” Another conservative blogger wrote that “someone got to Roberts and told him he has to vote this way or members of his family – kids, wife, parents, whoever – were going to be killed.”
Now, any semi-conscious American with a rudimentary understanding of the legislative process may find these assertions hilarious, but there are plenty of angry, racist, stupid, and extremely well-armed Americans who perceive the court’s ruling as a threat to themselves and their ignorant concept of American liberty. Their perception of tyranny is being co-opted by Republicans who use coded language and sometimes overt proclamations that the only solution to President Obama’s tyranny is a “2nd Amendment remedy” and armed rebellion. A Republican in the House of Representatives, Michele Bachmann, told residents of Minnesota that she wants them to be “armed and dangerous” if the federal government attempted to implement laws she felt were impinging on their freedoms, and the infamous 2nd Amendment remedy solution to a Democratically-controlled Congress originated with a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nevada. However, there are less overt buzz-words and catch-phrases being used on a daily basis by Republicans that are instigating violence-tinged reactions across the country from seriously stupid and tragically ignorant Americans.
snip//
It is a travesty that the divisiveness raging across America for the past three years has its basis in racism, ignorance, and stupidity, because it is not health insurance reform, consumer protection from predatory banks, less government spending, lower taxes, or the jobs President Obama created. Republicans have seized on America’s racism and stupidity and parlayed them into a perpetual campaign of hate and vitriol to implement their Libertarian vision of America. America is being torn apart by Republicans and their hate-filled teabagger and evangelical bootlickers, and the real shame is that this country could be a truly exceptional nation for all the right reasons, and not because Republicans want to kill Muslims, Liberals, gays, and non-Christians. The proliferation of guns among evangelicals, teabaggers, and Mormons is no accident and there are specific reasons they stockpile assault rifles, machine guns, and a two-year supply of food and ammunition, and it is not for hunting rabbits and pheasants. The lot of the religious super patriots are on standby for a signal that the nation is ripe for armed insurrection and the Supreme Court just gave the “on your mark” warning by ruling that a brilliantly beneficial health insurance reform law is constitutional. Americans are going to need all the healthcare they can get when the shooting starts and one thing is certain, there will not be one Republican on the front line. They will be hiding out in corporate or church-provided bunkers to pick up the pieces and if any American thinks it is a joke, then they are as ignorant and as stupid as those who fire first.
READ HERE
next up, an awesome post by “the ghost of huey long”
Who cares if they want to call health care a tax…what better could we spend our tax dollars on as a nation?
Hmm should we take care of our own people with dignity and respect, or should we go kill some people in another country instead?
I don’t believe they really asked our opinion on that one.
So far, the majority of our tax dollars goes to the military for wars the Republicans started and lied about…to destroy things, kill and maim millions of innocent people
and
Republican Big Government slush funds like Homeland Security and the TSA which use our tax dollars to violate our Bill of Rights, illegally spying on us, illegal detainment, naked photos and groping your grandma at the airport.
I really don’t like how Republicans waste our money, so that is just too damn bad if they don’t want to pay for health care.
We need to call them on their bullshit! Protecting the Constitution my ass!! Who forced the patriot act on us?
Worried about the debt my ass!!!! Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen the Social Security Trust fund for your wars and Big Government.
I say we cancel all your bullshit tax cuts, wars and Big Government programs and use that money to pay for health care. Problem solved.
I am really tired of these hypocrites and their stupid ass corporate media.
And then to claim the moral high ground!!
What would Jesus want for US? Wars and Authoritarianism or health care for all?
Chris Mathews made an interesting and relevant point …
In his "last word" comments, he pointed out just how far right the Republican Party has gone and how they are different from the Democratic Party?
He noted that the Democrats were prepared to lose the Supreme Court decision. Not only the mandate portion but a possibility of losing it all. Yet, they were not ready to clinch their teeth and fists and riot over the decision. They were ready to accept the Supreme Court decision as the rule of law.
But the Republicans…
They were ready to declare Roberts a traitor. They were making all kinds of irrational and volatile comments. They were threatening to repeal it as soon as Romney became President. They were not ready to accept the decision as the law. They believed the Supreme Court belonged to them. They felt betrayed.
It was a stark contrast between the two Parties.
Conservative Southern Values Revived:
How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule
It’s been said that the rich are different than you and me. What most Americans don’t know is that they’re also quite different from each other, and that which faction is currently running the show ultimately makes a vast difference in the kind of country we are.
Right now, a lot of our problems stem directly from the fact that the wrong sort has finally gotten the upper hand; a particularly brutal and anti-democratic strain of American aristocrat that the other elites have mostly managed to keep away from the levers of power since the Revolution. Worse: this bunch has set a very ugly tone that’s corrupted how people with power and money behave in every corner of our culture. Here’s what happened, and how it happened, and what it means for America now.
North versus South: Two Definitions of Liberty
Michael Lind first called out the existence of this conflict in his 2006 book, Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics. He argued that much of American history has been characterized by a struggle between two historical factions among the American elite — and that the election of George W. Bush was a definitive sign that the wrong side was winning.
For most of our history, American economics, culture and politics have been dominated by a New England-based Yankee aristocracy that was rooted in Puritan communitarian values, educated at the Ivies and marinated in an ethic of noblesse oblige (the conviction that those who possess wealth and power are morally bound to use it for the betterment of society). While they’ve done their share of damage to the notion of democracy in the name of profit (as all financial elites inevitably do), this group has, for the most part, tempered its predatory instincts with a code that valued mass education and human rights; held up public service as both a duty and an honour; and imbued them with the belief that once you made your nut, you had a moral duty to do something positive with it for the betterment of mankind.
Your own legacy depended on this.
Gov. Chris Christie limits halfway house monitoring
Source: Star Ledger
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today limited an effort by the Legislature to learn more about the state’s halfway houses, which have been criticized for being rife with mismanagement and violence.
In their budget proposal, Democrats inserted language that would have required the state Department of Corrections to report quarterly on the halfway houses, including the number of inmates convicted of violent and non-violent crimes, and the number of days they were imprisoned.
The Democrats also sought information on the amount of money reimbursed to halfway houses for taking inmates, the rate of reimbursement, the number of escapes and the number of incidents involving physical violence.
The governor, however, struck out language that would have required the department to report the actions taken to protect inmates imprisoned for non-violent crimes from those imprisoned for violent crimes. Christie also batted back a request for disciplinary actions against inmates accused on violence, and actions taken to prevent violence.
read more here
After the New York Times reported on the dreadful conditions at halfway houses run by Chris Christie’s politically connected friends like Bill Palatucci, halfway houses which are really private prisons in disguise, Christie said he’d conduct a full investigation into these state funded private prisons.
So much for Chris Christie’s word. Using his line item veto powers over the budget today he not only limited an effort by the legislature to learn more about the miserable conditions reported by the NY Times, but he struck language that would allow the legislature to learn how violent inmates are dealt with and he deleted requirements that would have had the corrections department make quarterly reports on the halfway houses.
Governor Christie then said he did this all in the interest of inmate safety.
This man is beyond despicable.
Links to the New York Times 3 part series:
As Escapees Stream Out, a Penal Business Thrives
A company with deep ties to Gov. Chris Christie dominates New Jersey’s system of large halfway houses. There has been little state oversight, despite widespread problems, The New York Times found.
At a Halfway House, Bedlam Reigns
The Bo Robinson center in New Jersey is as large as a prison and is intended to help inmates re-enter society. But The New York Times found that drugs, gangs and sexual abuse are rife behind its walls.
A Volatile Mix Fuels a Murder
As financial pressures grow, officials are using vast halfway houses as dumping grounds, The New York Times found. At Delaney Hall in Newark, low-level offenders are thrown together with violent ones.
O’Malley: GOP Likes Mandates When They’re ‘Transvaginal Probes For Women’
Benjy Sarlin
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) accused Republicans of hypocrisy for pairing protests against a health care mandate with demands for increasingly invasive restrictions on women’s health.
“The only health care mandate they can embrace are transvaginal probes for women,” O’Malley said Friday during a press call.
O’Malley was referring to bills like one proposed in Virginia that would have required the procedure for women seeking an abortion, part of a broader effort by pro-life groups to shame patients who wish to end their pregnancy. Other Republican-led states, like Pennsylvania and Alabama, have pushed for similar measures.
The governor also dismissed criticism of the Affordable Care Act from Republicans claiming that the Supreme Court’s ruling that the penalty for not having health insurance was actually a tax, noting Mitt Romney had used the same language in his own legislation in Massachusetts.
“It was a penalty provision that was also in Romneycare,” he said.
“Or, as Gov. (Bobby) Jindal just called it, ‘Obamneycare.’”
read more here
BREAKING:
House Republicans Biggest Donor Approved “prostitution Strategy In China
The Associated Press reports that House Republicans’ single largest donor, Sheldon Adelson, "personally approved of prostitution and knew of other improper activity at his company’s properties in the Chinese enclave" of Macau, China. Sheldon Adelson is giving House Republicans’ election efforts $10 million so far – $5 million to Speaker Boehner’s Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC and $5 million to Leader Cantor’s Young Guns Network super PAC. Adelson’s already given $70,800 to the NRCC as well.
What will Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, and House Republicans do with their Chinese prostitution money?
Sheldon Adelson Approved ‘Prostitution Strategy’: Fired Former Sands Executive
The fired former chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Macau casinos alleges in court documents revealed Thursday that billionaire Sheldon Adelson personally approved of prostitution and knew of other improper activity at his company’s properties in the Chinese enclave.
read more here
Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record
Source: Roll Call
In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
read more here
this is probably the reason they held the vote as they knew DOJ wasn’t going to prosecute.
"Contrary to the Attorney General’s statements, the enclosed wiretap affidavit contains clear information that agents were wilfully allowing known straw buyers to acquire firearms for drug cartels and failing to interdict them-in some cases even allowing them to walk to Mexico. In particular, the affidavit explicitly describes the most controversial tactic of all: abandoning surveillance of known straw purchasers, resulting in the failure to interdict firearms," says Issa.
Issa’s counterpart on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), today took issue with the idea that the wiretap application disclosed any hint of gunwalking. He says Issa is "hiding key information" from the very same wiretap documents.
"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims… His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level," said a Cummings spokesman.
read more here
canada … soon to be the 51st state, eh?
ottawa launches alberta counter-terrorism unit
Source: The Globe and Mail
The federal government has put together a new counter-terrorism team in Alberta to protect infrastructure and natural resources.
The RCMP, which will lead the effort, did not say whether the unit was assembled in response to specific threats, nor did it explain what qualifies as “critical infrastructure.” Alberta hosts the vast majority of Canada’s oil assets, thanks to the controversial oil sands, which have experienced past security breaches. The province also has an extensive pipeline network, as well as upgraders and refineries, which have also had problems with protesters. Pipelines have been bombed in British Columbia.
“Our government has made responsible, effective investments to fight terrorism and protect Canadians, including the creation of INSETs in major Canadian cities that are responsible for criminal investigations involving terrorist activities,” Vic Toews, Canada’s Public Safety Minister, said in a statement as the RCMP announced the new effort Wednesday.
The new unit will be composed of specially trained members of the RCMP, Edmonton Police Services, Calgary Police Services, Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Mounties said in a statement Wednesday.
read entire article here
towards a north american police state and security perimeter:
us-canada "beyond the border agreement"
Source: Global Research
Through the Beyond the Border agreement released in December 2011, the U.S. and Canada are quietly implementing initiatives that are working towards establishing a North American security perimeter. This includes expanding trusted traveler programs, as well as enhancing integrated law enforcement and information sharing cooperation which has raised many privacy concerns that have yet to be properly addressed.
The U.S. and Canada are also scheduled to deploy a land-based version of the Shiprider program at some point this summer. As part of the security perimeter deal, both countries will, “implement two Next-Generation pilot projects to create integrated teams in areas such as intelligence and criminal investigations, and an intelligence-led uniformed presence between ports of entry.” In September 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed plans that would allow law enforcement officers to operate on both sides of the border. He announced that, “the creation of ‘NextGen’ teams of cross-designated officers would allow us to more effectively identify, assess, and interdict persons and organizations involved in transnational crime.” Holder went on to say, “In conjunction with the other provisions included in the Beyond the Border Initiative, such a move would enhance our cross-border efforts and advance our information-sharing abilities.” Both countries continue to expand the nature and scope of joint law enforcement operations, along with intelligence collection and sharing.
read entire article here
…
rise of the robots
excerpts from an interesting article written some time back by chris hedges …
and while it may have seemed improbable or fantastic even 5 years ago, today, well, it seems to explain a lot of what is happening in the “homeland” …
and why …
The Rise of Christian Fascism and Its Threat to American Democracy
We must attend to growing social and economic inequities in order to stop the most dangerous mass movement in American history — or face a future of fascism under the guise of Christian values.
February 8, 2007 |
Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told his students that when we were his age — he was then close to 80 — we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."
The warning, given 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and television evangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts toward taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global Christian empire. This call for fundamentalists and evangelicals to take political power was a radical and ominous mutation of traditional Christianity. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.The Christian right has lured tens of millions of Americans, who rightly feel abandoned and betrayed by the political system, from the reality-based world to one of magic — to fantastic visions of angels and miracles, to a childlike belief that God has a plan for them and Jesus will guide and protect them. This mythological worldview, one that has no use for science or dispassionate, honest intellectual inquiry, one that promises that the loss of jobs and health insurance does not matter, as long as you are right with Jesus, offers a lying world of consistency that addresses the emotional yearnings of desperate followers at the expense of reality. It creates a world where facts become interchangeable with opinions, where lies become true — the very essence of the totalitarian state. It includes a dark license to kill, to obliterate all those who do not conform to this vision, from Muslims in the Middle East to those at home who refuse to submit to the movement. And it conveniently empowers a rapacious oligarchy whose god is maximum profit at the expense of citizens.
We now live in a nation where the top 1 percent control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, where we have legalized torture and can lock up citizens without trial. Arthur Schlesinger, in "The Cycles of American History," wrote that "the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense — not only for their acquiescence in poverty, inequality and oppression, but for their enthusiastic justification of slavery, persecution, torture and genocide."
Two decades later, even in the face of the growing reach of the Christian right, his prediction seems apocalyptic. And yet the powerbrokers in the Christian right have moved from the fringes of society to the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the House before the last elections earned approval ratings of 80 to100 percent from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups — the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. President Bush has handed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid to these groups and dismantled federal programs in science, reproductive rights and AIDS research to pay homage to the pseudo-science and quackery of the Christian right.
The unchecked rape of America, which continues with the blessing of both political parties, heralds not only the empowerment of this American oligarchy but the eventual death of the democratic state and birth of American fascism.
reposted from here (alternet)
the end of the democratic dream
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Historically, the word "fascism" originated in Mussolini’s right wing totalitarian movement, which called on the myth of bringing back the authoritarianism and order of the Roman Empire. The "fasces" were a symbol of Roman authority, a bundle of wooden rods symbolically administering punishment to those who opposed authority.
Wikipedia defines Fascism as:
a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek rejuvenation of their nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood through a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline and indoctrination Fascism seeks to purify the nation of foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture. Fascism promotes political violence and war, as forms of direct action that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality. Fascists commonly utilize paramilitary organizations for violence against opponents or to overthrow a political system. Fascism opposes multiple ideologies: conservatism, liberalism, and two major forms of socialism—communism and social democracy. Fascism claims to represent a synthesis of cohesive ideas previously divided between traditional political ideologies. To achieve its goals, the fascist state purges forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration.
a further definition of Fascism, by Rich Gibson of the “Third World Traveler” website, is portrayed as follows:
1. Fascism is the unchecked rule of a class of the privileged, or relatively rich, in power–a full-scale assault on poor and working people. Parliamentary institutions are usually set aside, or so demeaned as to be meaningless. (The Holocaust was legal). Elites issue direct orders, frequently through a populist leader. Wages, any social safety net, working hour laws, labor laws; all come under legal (and extra-legal) attack. The stick replaces the carrot.
Even between capitalists of the same nation, struggle intensifies.
Fascism in its early stages has been popular among masses of people mystified by nationalism, racism, and sexism. These ideas are key to the construction of fascism. But, "war means work" for some, which may also explain its historical popularity.
Fascism requires and is built on the support of capitalist elites. Henry Ford, the Dulles family, the Catholic Church, and the German Krupps among many others, were early supporters of fascism in the U.S.
Fascism is an element of the modern era, which carries forward elements of feudalism. Fascism has taken the form of state capitalism in Japan, Germany, and in more sophisticated ways, the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. But fascism has also grown in less developed countries, Romania, Bulgaria, most of Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile; and taken significantly different forms.
2. Fascism and capitalism are inseparable. There has never been a form of capital that was not built on a fascist base–from early British action against the Chartists to today’s varieties of imperialism. All major capitalist nations have fascist ties.
Hence, while fascism may not be the dominant form of capitalist government, elements of fascist ideology (biological determinism, rabid nationalism, etc.) and fascist organizations (sectors of the police, KKK, skinheads, etc.) are always present. No capitalist government has ever required a revolution to institute fascism.
Fascism does emerge in capitalist crises, the moments when the struggle for production reaches a point when the workers can no longer purchase the products they produce, a crisis of over-production and declining profits and/or an intense battle for cheaper labor, raw materials, and new markets; that is, war.
However, neither war nor capitalist crisis is a pre-condition of fascism; consider Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. In addition, it is possible to live under fascism within a nation that is not itself entirely fascist, that is, to live as a jobless black youth in Sao Paulo, or Los Angeles.
3. Fascism deceptively calls for the national unity of social classes, class-collaboration, but actually promotes the division of people by race, sex, culture, nation, or religion. Fascism was, under Mussolini and, later, Hitler, conceived as the "corporate state", that is, all the resources of the society were directed toward the support of corporate profits in the name of national unity and economic development. In order to motivate warriors and bolster profits, fascism conceals the real and insoluble tensions between those who own and those who work.
4. Fascism frequently is employed as a strategic base for war. Fascist shifts in government and official ideology grow with war preparations.
5. Violence and terror, made tolerable by racism and sexism (ideas which view people as sub-human) become public policy.
6. Fascism relies on mysticism, organized irrationalism, a culture which turns to superstition, irrationality (extreme religious dogmatism, the fear of sexuality, celebrations of misogyny, death, and hopelessness–serving to explain apparent systematic despair), and retards science and social production in order to mask its own decay. Indeed, fascism is organized decay.
There is a jagged line which runs from conservative Christianity to anti-Semitism to anti-communism which underpins much of fascist writing. But, there is no consistency to fascist ideology, other than to preserve capitalism. Fascism is irrationalism organized to sustain inequality and authoritarianism. Even so, the role of the ideology of irrationalism can become powerful, that is, Nazis sacrificed the productive work of many Jews in order to kill them.
7. Fascism is virulently anti-communist. Communists (and perhaps some anarchists), who have been the only consistent and effective anti-fascist fighters, are the fascist’s first targets.
8. Fascism has only been defeated internally (primarily by the actions of indigenous national resistance), perhaps, twice: in Albania and, maybe, China. However, resistance movements have changed fascism and halted its birth.
9. There is evidence that combined theoretical and physical struggle causes fascism to retreat–in ideology and materially. In ideology, there is a growing body of research which indicates that vocal and written opposition to fascist ideas does cause a reevaluation and moderation of thinking in individuals. In pre-fascist Germany in the 1930’s, areas which actively put people on the streets to fight the Nazis regularly caused Nazi withdrawals–and minimized fascist group membership. There is nothing inevitable about fascism. It is a political movement, reaching from production relations into the mass consciousness, and can be combatted physically and intellectually.
10. If these factors are true, then it seems effective resistance to fascism must be based on a class analysis of society, an internationalist perspective that attacks imperialist war, a multi-racial, anti-racist/sexist, organized approach (as opposed to ephemeral coalitions based on sex, race, religion), willingness to consider violence, and the grasp of the critical role of ideology in combatting fascist practice.
no matter how many times I re-read the previous statements and writings, I come to the same, inevitable and intolerable conclusion …
that we, in the supposed “first world countries” are in danger of slipping quickly into fascism …
and whether you want to call it fascism, corporatism or radical conservative ideology matters not …
the end result will be the same …
ask yourself how different the above definitions of fascism are from the ideologies proffered today by the Republican Party in the United States, or the Conservative Party of Canada, or the plutocratic regime sweeping Europe in the wake of the financial collapses in the last few years? …
as I go through the lists above, I can find NO differences from the madness that has seemed to grip todays “right wing” and “conservative” movements …
none …
every box is checked …
whatever you want to call it, these movements are all defined by the following principles …
(examples included)
and these principles make up the very definition of Fascism …
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism …
the whole “Yer’ for us or against us” mentality that seems to have gripped the Republican Party since at least Reagan and probably even before that …
anyone who even dares to challenge them or question their authority is immediately labeled “unpatriotic” or “the enemy of freedom” …
the notion that “American Exceptionalism” and the American version of democracy MUST be spread world wide … even if by force …
the notion that America is the one and only “leader” of the so called” free world” and the police force of the rest of the planet …
2. Disdain for human rights …
waterboarding, torture, indefinite detainment …
gutting of the social safety nets, refusal to take up health care as a right of the citizens …
stand your ground laws …
laws that are being authored and legislated into law daily, that are antithetical to the rights of the LGBT communities …
3. Identification of “enemies” and “scapegoats” as a unifying cause …
Hispanics, Muslims, any people of color …
the poor, and now women, seniors, the unemployed and students …
China …
North Korea …
Iran …
Al Qaeda …
Syria …
Environmentalists …
Liberals …
Socialism and it’s adherents …
the Occupy Movements …
Labor Unions …
Atheists and agnostics …
the “Intellectual Elite” …
4. Supremacy of the military and the military industrial complex …
the United States has basically been “at war” since World War Two …
the defense department budgets ALWAYS take precedence over social programs and the fiscal well being of the country …ALWAYS…
the Bush Doctrine” of preemptive strikes against any nation that the political and corporate elite deem to be “against the interests” of the United States …
5. Rampant sexism …
the war on women, the contraception, women’s healthcare and ever tightening and misogynistic abortion legislation being proposed and legislated into law in nearly every state that is controlled by Republican legislatures and governors …
the ramping up of attacks on Planned parenthood and any organizations even remotely connected to women’s health …
the willingness to always “look the other way” when a murder or bombing takes place at an abortion clinic, as though these doctors, nurses and patrons somehow “deserved it” because they are exercising their law given rights to an abortion or performing the services attached …
6. Controlled mass media …
right wing radio, Fox News, CNN, and a majority of the nation’s newspapers and wire services …
the constant right wing onslaught on the internet via SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, TPP, and other proposed laws that would stifle the free flow of information and connectivity of people that is the backbone and true power of the Internet …
the ever tightening copyright laws being proposed …
7. Obsession with national security …
this is a constant cry from the right, and almost every move their opponents make is immediately judged by, and ridiculed and delegitimized with reference to this mantra …
8. Religion and government become entwined …
the never ending demands by the right, that leaders must be “christian” and of NO other faith …
and only certain sects of christianity are allowed .. i.e.: evangelicals and fundamentalists …
the constant references to “the founding fathers” and their wish that “America is a christian nation”, even though history shows that this idea is opposite to what the “founding fathers” had in mind when they first wrote the constitution …
9. Corporate power is protected …
the bank, corporate, and wall street bailouts, and NO prosecutions of the parties responsible for the economic crisis of the last few years, all the while continuing to fill the nation’s prisons with people who have committed far less serious and consequential offences …
increasingly unfair taxation on the poor and middle classes so that the very richest 1% of the country gets even more tax breaks … usually at the expense of the social safety nets that made America the country that it is/was …
the gutting and further proposed gutting of the EPA …
food safety, workplace safety and other regulatory agencies designed to protect the population from the corporate greed mentality being constantly defunded or shut down …
the ridiculous, and continuing denial of Climate Change for corporate profit …
the repeal of, and unwillingness to institute any financial regulations that may affect the profit margins of corporate America, no matter what the end cost to the average citizen …
the very idea of “Too Big To Fail” …
the stripping away of any and all regulations governing corporations …
the allowance that corporate entities be allowed to “police and regulate” their own industries …
the “right to work” movements and legislations …
the assault on the minimum wage …
10. Labor power and Unions are suppressed …
the new labor laws, imposed by Republican Governors and Legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio, etc. …
Congress’ refusal to pass FAA funding unless they are allowed to strip out collective bargaining rights from the affected unions employees packages …
the nation wide moves by Republican governors and legislatures to strip collective bargaining rights from all unions involving government employees …
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts …
creationism laws …
the constant defunding of education at both the state/provincial and federal levels …
the constant defunding of student loans/pell grants …
the never ending references to the “Hollywood Elite” and their ideas and political views, as though that by being an actor, musician etc., you somehow give up your right to free speech …
the war on public broadcasting …
12. Obsession with crime and punishment …
the United States imprisons more of it’s citizens per capita than any country in the world …
more than any country in history …
Canada is doing everything it can with the new Harper regime’s omnibus crime bills to catch up …
the merging of legislative action and the prison industry in Arizona, Texas, et al …
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption in and around government …
I don’t have enough space to even begin to list the examples of scandal, corruption and abhorrent behavior of the political elite here …. for that try Google … or your recent memories … or just turn on the news …
any news outlet, at any time, should do …
14. Fraudulent elections …
voter i.d. laws …
voter suppression …
bush v. gore …
voting machines having no “paper trails” …
the fraudulent and corrupt governments ensconced in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq …
and soon to be in Syria …
in summation, ALL of these strategies are used to weaken the power of the citizens, and to strengthen the control and power of the state and it’s corporate masters …
and ALL of these examples lead me to only one conclusion …
that “we the people” are in trouble …
and must stand up now for what’s left of our rights …
before it is too late …
you decide what it all means to you …
while the examples I have used above are mostly taken from the current situation and politics of the United States, they are easily and readily replaced by examples that can easily be found in Europe, Canada, and most of the rest of the “free world” ….
and remember …
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller (1892-1984),a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.
the following article was reposted from “the people’s view” website …
I feel that it is a must read for anyone interested in the truth …
also, the site it was reposted from, “the people’s view” is a great site that is current, smart, informed and fact filled … please be sure to spend a few minutes there whenever you’d like some truth and fact checked info in your day …
Can we call it "fascism" now?
Wednesday, April 04, 2012 |
Posted byLiberal Librarian
In a few decades, when the political history of the early 21st century is written, historians of American politics will try to work out how the Republican Party began and completed its slide from a "business-friendly" conservative party to one that wound up espousing blatantly fascist ideologies.
The "objective" press dare not call it fascism, for fear that they would be labeled with that most damning of epithets: "liberal". And the word itself—"fascist"—has been thrown around by those on the right to describe anyone to the left of them so frequently and with such vehemence that its meaning has been confused in the public’s mind. When Jonah Goldberg can write a book entitled Liberal Fascism, and have it taken seriously in the parlors of the Right, it’s a difficult task to resurrect the word’s true and dark power.
It doesn’t take much research or in-depth analysis to see that today’s GOP has in fact descended into a fascist pathology. And in doing so is laying, or attempting to lay, the necessary infrastructure for a fascist re-ordering of the Republic.
Republicans have adopted a blind nationalism that brooks no criticism of US actions, either in the current state or in history. Consider Pat Buchanan’s statement about slavery:America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
While Buchanan is known for saying whatever is on his mind with no thought to the consequences, he does speak a Republican truth: there is no horror of US history that cannot be explained away as something which was actually good. African Americans and Native Americans should be glad for what happened to them: they were civilized, Christianized, and suckled at the teat of European largesse. This inability to admit that the nation has ever done wrong is a sign of fascism.
In a democratic republic, it is an axiom that the military is subservient to civilian control. Military leaders should be respected as experts in their field of competence; but, in the end, policy is set by civilians. Republicans, however, have turned the military into a totemic fetish, saying that civilian policymakers should defer to military advice, rather than look at military opinion as one of many considerations. This elevation of the military leads to a bloated military budget, which serves Republicans as defense contractors are major donors to the party. The exaltation of the military as the best and truest representative of the nation is a sign of fascism.
After the Tea Party victories in 2010, anti-labor bills were introduced in state houses across the country. Labor, obviously, is a major ally of the Democratic Party. Anything that could be done to decrease its power would serve Republicans to the good. But the assault against labor didn’t start in 2010; it’s been going on in earnest since the air traffic controller’s strike in Ronald Reagan’s first term, where the government broke the union; that event was a signal to private industry that they, too, could go on a frontal assault against labor unions. The past 30 years have seen laws and regulations that limited unions’ ability to organize workplaces and use union dues for political activity. Suppression of labor rights is a sign of fascism.
Of course, the corollary to the GOP’s anti-union holy war is its total enthrallment to corporate power. Therein lie the roots of its slide towards outright fascism. Corporations saw the Republicans—already business-friendly—as the perfect vehicle to forward a more radical view of private corporate power. From Mitt Romney’s "corporations are people" to the Paul Ryan budget which slashes domestic spending for the middle class and poor while giving exorbitant tax breaks to corporations and the rich, the GOP serves primarily as the handmaiden to corporate power. The other aspects of fascism are there: the nationalism, the sexism, the scapegoating of the "Other", the attempt to control elections. All of these are major aspects of the fascist program, but all serve as fuel for the engine of corporate control. Without the corporate money that greases Republican politics, the GOP might still be a relatively responsible conservative party. But the corporatists, the segregationists, and the social conservatives saw the crack-up of the Democrats in the 1960s as their opportunity to take over a political party, and they seized it.
Fascism is a counter-revolution to modernity. The social conservatives who provide the shock troops for the GOP will not benefit from the party’s economic policies; often they are as economically disadvantaged, if not more so, than traditional Democratic constituencies. But their blind hatred to the modern world gives corporate power the soldiers it needs to attempt to implement its program. It is this confluence of corporate power and social fear that has sped the GOP’s descent into a far-right party. It is also this confluence which will doom it both in the near and long term.
Numbers don’t lie. The GOP base is shrinking, while the Democratic base grows. As the GOP primaries wear on, independents are becoming disillusioned and frightened by the Republicans. The favorability of the Democratic Party keeps going up, while the GOP’s craters. Voters are becoming increasingly aware that there is one party that wants to govern for the benefit of the majority of people, and one party that is the political wing of the rich and the intolerant. The GOP will always pull a base of 27%; it becomes increasingly difficult to see how they go much beyond those numbers in the coming years.
Meanwhile, President Obama lays out just how far gone the Republican Party is here:Notice the terms: "far right" and "radical". That is the essence of fascism. It’s time to call the GOP for what it is.
I agree "radical" is more appropriate in the context of the U.S. politics. and it is a word that people get-"outside the mainstream" political covenant.
…
book ‘em dano
that a constitutional law professor [president obama] continues to trample on civil liberties and continues to grow the power of the executive branch in exceedingly and increasingly “anti-constitutional” and “anti-democratic” ways is beyond understanding …
unless of course, the understanding is that big brother really is firmly entrenched and that the corporate-fascist powers that be really have no interest in a democracy, or the good of the people …
that instead, their only concerns are power, profits and control …
now that the president has signed into law the national defense authorization act of 2012, if you use illegal drugs, i.e. marijuana, or if you belong to any group that the government deems politically “anti government”, if you write or promote a blog, news article, movie, album or tv show that they deem “radical”, try to start, or support, any group or rally that the government does not approve of, or do anything else that the government in power decides is against their plans, wishes or agendas, then you could be indirectly “funding or supporting terrorism” and the government and the “authorities” have the power to spy on you without warrant, imprison you indefinitely, rescind all your constitutional rights, hold you without charge, and even possibly, in extreme cases (to be decided by them), even execute you …
at the discretion of this or any future president …
and so can the army, unless the president steps in and stops them with a special order …
all without due process …
no trial …
no explanation for why you are being held …
no lawyer …
they wouldn’t even have to tell anyone that they are holding you …
much like the south american death squads of the sixties and seventies, you could become one of the “disappeared” …
and yeah, I know the government says that they “would never do that, that they would never take it to those extremes”, but then, why must they have the power to take it to those extremes? …
and has history not proved, over and over and over again, that sooner or later, usually sooner than later, a “regime” will entrench itself, either by election or force that will use those laws and powers to do exactly that? to “disappear” any that disagree, any that question, any that might stand in their way? …
since when did the government, whose sole duty is supposed to be “to do the work of the people”, move to an agenda that is so against what the citizens want and are legally and constitutionally entitled to? …
president obama also recently signed H.R. 347 into law, a bill that would drastically limit the ability of americans to assemble and protest … that would also severely limit the press’ right to cover events …
sometimes referred to as the “trespass bill”, the wording in the new law now makes it a federal offense to assemble at many political events, essentially criminalizing protesting …
notwithstanding the first amendment to the u.s. constitution, both houses of congress passed nearly unanimously and with little or no debate, and president obama signed into law, legislation that most people, constitutional scholars included, view as unconstitutional or at least, anti-american …
did anybody involved actually read the first amendment? …
AMENDMENT I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
we also have SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and TPP already on the table and probably all soon to be law in one form or another …
and let’s not forget the most recent version of the patriot act that president obama signed into law on may 26th of 2011 … extending and strengthening the previous bush versions of the bill …
all of which would severely limit people’s right to, and access to, information, free speech and assembly …
no more “wikileaks”, no more “occupy movements”, no more blogosphere, and certainly no more internet as we know it …
even if you live somewhere other than the u.s.a., these changes will affect you and yours …
many of these statutes and laws have far reaching, border ignoring consequences …
it’s time to do something, anything, to stand up for each and every one of us …
speak out …
contact your local and federal representatives …
get informed …
get organized …
get vocal …
make your voice heard …
any way you can …
…
bend over … let’s see what ya’ got
supreme court … strip searches ok for minor offenses
in yet another nod to all the right-wingnuts everywhere the supreme court has now made it okay to strip search people now for minor offenses …
the ruling marks a change in the law in much of the country …
today’s ruling is a victory for the obama administration, which contended that prison and jail officials need wide latitude to fashion security and safety policies …
it is a defeat for albert w. florence, who claimed in a lawsuit that he was strip-searched twice during his week behind bars in two New Jersey counties, burlington and essex …
florence was jailed following his arrest for failing to pay a years-old fine, which in reality he had already paid …
these guys have got to go …
it’s getting just a little more fascist every day with these clowns …
with all the right wing crazies yelling non stop about sharia law lately, maybe we should be far more concerned about “scalia law” taking over …
and mr. obama out to be ashamed of himself for backing this over reach …
Justice Breyer and the 3 female justices: "In my view, such a search of an individual arrested for a minor offense that does not involve drugs or violence—say a traffic offense, a regulatory offense, an essentially civil matter, or any other such misdemeanor—is an “unreasonable search” forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, unless prison authorities have reasonable suspicion to believe that the individual possesses drugs or other contraband. And I dissent from the Court’s contrary determination…
In that New York case, the “strip search” (as described in a relevant prison manual) involved: “‘a visual inspection of the inmate’s naked body. This should include the inmate opening his mouth and moving his tongue up and down and from side to side, removing any dentures, running his hands through his hair, allowing his ears to be visually examined,lifting his arms to expose his arm pits, lifting his feet to examine the sole, spreading and/or lifting his testicles to expose the area behind them and bending over and/or spreading the cheeks of his buttocks to expose his anus. For females, the procedures are similar except females must in addition, squat to expose the vagina.’” Id., at 46.
Amicus briefs present other instances in which individuals arrested for minor offenses have been subjected to the humiliations of a visual strip search…. They include a nun, a Sister of Divine Providence for 50 years… and include victims of sexual violence….
from democratic underground
and here’s the gang you can thank for this …
caricatures by DonkeyHotey
for the supreme court’s opinion >> click here
…
“hope and change” becomes “hype and chains”
okay, so here’s the dilemma …
do you keep the name you already have, or do you change it to something more accurate? …
i mean, “the united states of america” sounds great and all, and it evokes wonderful images of mom’s apple pie, patriotism, a united cause amongst the people, the flag waving in a warm summer’s breeze and all things warm and fuzzy, but to be fair, it’s no longer accurate …
maybe something more along the lines of “the united police states”, or “the goldman sachs states of america”, or maybe even “the united oligarchs of shamerica” …
or …
maybe just call it what it is now …
”the state” …
think i’m kidding, or exaggerating? …
or that i’ve just completely lost it and have become just another conspiracy theorist? …
sorry, none of the above …
i’m not kidding in the least …
and i don’t believe that i’m exaggerating, after all facts is facts baby …
and unlike a conspiracy theorist, i am proposing no theories as to why any of this is happening, nor so i offer any motives here, just facts … you decide what they mean …
i think that ”what it all could possibly mean” is not nearly as important as what you’re left with and where that leaves you …
you decide for yourselves what it all means to you, each and every one of you …
is everyone comfortably seated? …
then i’ll begin …
PART ONE … the great extraction and the extinction of the middle class …
the bailout of the banks and their corrupt oligarchs at the expense of the american middle class …
Bank of America is attempting to rob America blind with the help of the Federal Reserve
By Madison Ruppert
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) is in trouble and any other business which would just go under without any help; the corrupt banksters, with the help of the private Federal Reserve, are attempting to pass off their failures to the American people. Again.
Only three years ago the American people had massive debts piled on our heads by being forced to bail out the biggest lenders in the United States.
During this bailout, Bank of America received a whopping $45 billion and as of midyear had deposits numbering some $1.04 trillion.
Now Bank of America is attempting to protect itself from its derivative exposure through its Merrill Lynch unit by moving derivatives to a subsidiary replete with insured deposits.
This means that if the bank were to fail, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, would be on the hook for paying for the moved derivatives which could be in the neighborhood of $75 trillion, far more than the U.S. GDP.
If the derivatives remained in Merrill Lynch, which is not insured by the FDIC and thus the taxpayer, and the bank were to collapse, the money would be lost.
Unsurprisingly, the private Federal Reserve has absolutely no problem with the move, while the FDIC is objecting according to anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg.
Even more unsurprisingly, Bank of America thinks that no regulatory approval is needed, regardless of the fact that this is an openly fraudulent way of insuring items which should never be insured.
This is surreptitiously timed given Moody’s downgraded Bank of America’s long term credit ratings on September 21st, slashing both the holding company and the retail bank’s ratings by two notches each.
Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act is supposed to act like a firewall, preventing the affiliates of lenders from gaining from the lenders’ federal subsidy and also to protect the bank from risks originating from the affiliate, according to Saule Omarova, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law professor.
This section was created because, “Congress doesn’t want a bank’s FDIC insurance and access to the Fed discount window to somehow benefit an affiliate,” Omarova said to Bloomberg.
However, in September of 2010, Bank of America was officially given a letter of exemption from Section 23A, effectively ending what the Federal Reserve’s general counsel, Scott Alvarez, told Congress in 2008 “is among the most important tools that U.S. bank regulators have to protect the safety and soundness of U.S. banks”.
So, with the help of the Fed, Bank of America is already exempt from one of the most important impediments to banks going out of control.
And now the Fed is once again backing the Bank of America’s attempts to undermine what little regulation we have in the banking system by putting the American people on the hook for their derivative exposure.
read entire article here
NOTE: NONE of the perpetrators of this extraction have gone to jail … think about it … if it were you or i that stole anywhere near this amount of cash from the american public, we’d be so far gone down a black hole of imprisonment, no-one would ever find us again … just sayin’ …
the affordable health care act fraud …
the mandate that everyone must buy from the same corporate crooks that caused health care in the united states to be the ever crippling expense that it has become will only further enhance the problem …
all president obama really did when he signed the ridiculously named “affordable health care act” into law was to ensure that each and every american would now have to pay a private insurance company for their health care … the same private insurance companies that drove america into this mess … trust me, it won’t matter a damned bit that they can’t throw your kids off the plan or that they can’t toss someone off for a pre-existing condition (although a very good argument can be made that the AHCA doesn’t really accomplish either of these in reality) if you have to buy from these companies or be fined by the government …
PART TWO … the stripping of the individual’s power
the patriot act being not only reinstated, but further strengthened …
By Kate Randall
20 October 2010Obama administration officials are pushing to strengthen a federal law facilitating telecommunications wiretapping. The move illustrates how Obama is fine-tuning and expanding the police-state apparatus developed by his predecessors, including Bush.
The New York Times reports Tuesday that an administration task force, including officials from the Justice and Commerce departments, the FBI and other agencies, are working on draft legislation to expand a 1994 law, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), that requires phone and broadband carriers to allow their networks to be wiretapped. Although there is reportedly no agreement yet on details of the changes, the Obama administration intends to submit a package for a vote in Congress next year.
Government officials argue that system upgrades at some telecommunication companies in recent years have thrown up technical obstacles to FBI surveillance efforts. According to the Times, the security agencies want to increase “legal incentives and penalties” to be used against carriers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast to ensure that the government’s spying activities are not thwarted.
Less than a month ago, it was reported that the Obama administration was mounting an effort to bring Internet communication companies like Gmail, Facebook, Blackberry and Skype under the scope of CALEA as well.
To support their claim that the law needs to be beefed up, security agency officials have pointed to two episodes in which major carriers attempting to comply with court-approved wiretapping orders in criminal or terrorism-related investigations were unable to abide by the order for weeks or months due to changes in their telecommunications systems. Under the 1994 law, these companies are supposed to design their services so that surveillance of a target can begin immediately after they are presented with a court orderPete Kasperowicz – 02/25/11
President Obama on Friday signed into law a bill that extends three Patriot Act surveillance authorities until late May.
Obama signed the "FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011," which refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Surveillance authorities under that act were extended in part by amending the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act.
With Obama’s signature, the ability of the United States to access business records, conduct roving wiretaps and monitor individual terrorists is maintained until May 27. The administration has said it supports a longer extension, and the Senate next week will begin working on a three-year extension.
the defense authorization act …
I have been writing recently about the national defense authorization act that is now law…
for those of you who thought that I might have been a little over the top in my concerns as to the ramifications and consequences of this year’s version of the NDAA I present some further opinions …
read them through, click some links, do a little google time and decide for yourself if this isn’t legalizing, and providing a pathway to, fascism …
they did say it would come wrapped in the flag and waving a bible …
and that it would be sold as “security and patriotism” …
i believe that when the president signed this bill it spoke volumes about who he is as a man, a president, and a human being … will it be freedom? … or fascism? … he and the military leaders will now decide …
this bill marks the beginning of the end of america as you and the rest of the world once knew it …
a provision in the national defense authorization act of 2012 (which passed unanimously in the senate) allows the military to, at their discretion and for whatever reasons they deem appropriate, detain terrorism suspects, including American citizens, indefinitely, with no real trial …
welcome to the new regime …
america is no longer a country based on it’s constitution, but instead will be ruled based on the whims of the military and the administration …
if they decide, for whatever reason, you are a threat, in any way, to their idea of what america should be, then you can be picked up and held forever without even being told why …
you will have no right to an attorney, a day in court or appeal …
so throw out the constitution, habeas corpus and any rights you thought you had …
this law goes against everything that made america a once great and free nation …
and any and all duly elected officials who supported this act should, in my own humble opinion, be considered traitors to america, it’s peoples and it’s constitution …
some other links you may find interesting …
National Defense Authorization Act Goes To President Obama
What Occupiers and Tea Partiers Should Fear Most
Obama to sign indefinite detention bill into law
Senate passes new rules on detainees, sends to Obama
The National Defense Authorization Act is the Greatest Threat to Civil Liberties Americans Face
H.R.1540 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country . . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely.
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House that insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
read entire article hereUS President Barack Obama’s apparent decision to not veto a defense spending bill that codifies indefinite detention without trial into US law and expands the military’s role in holding terrorism suspects does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. The Obama administration had threatened to veto the bill, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), over detainee provisions, but on December 14, 2011, it issued a statement indicating the president would likely sign the legislation.
“By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”
The far-reaching detainee provisions would codify indefinite detention without trial into US law for the first time since the McCarthy era when Congress in 1950 overrode the veto of then-President Harry Truman and passed the Internal Security Act. The bill would also bar the transfer of detainees currently held at Guantanamo into the US for any reason, including for trial. In addition, it would extend restrictions, imposed last year, on the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to home or third countries – even those cleared for release by the administration.
read entire article here
the obama administration asking the supreme court to throw out the aclu’s case against the warrantless wiretapping of it’s own citizens…
The Obama Administration wants the Supreme Court to dismiss an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenge to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, an act passed in 2008 that ACLU attorneys contend “allows dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications with none of the safeguards that the Constitution requires.” It filed a petition to the Court asking for an appeals court ruling that permits the ACLU to challenge the law to be overturned.
The Justice Department (DoJ) argues that the plaintiffs in the challenge do not properly establish there could be any “imminent” or “future injury” from an “acquisition” of communications. The DoJ does not find the fear that plaintiffs might have their communications acquired abroad credible because there are other means available for acquiring communications of people outside the United States and they may not use authority granted to the government under the FISA Amendments Act. And, finally, the DoJ does not think that plaintiffs had sustained any “present injury” from “fear that the government will intercept their communications.”
the use of drones to spy on americans …
President Obama last week signed the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act of 2012. Tucked inside the legislation is a provision that could have far-reaching implications in the coming decade: widespread civilian use of unmanned aerial drones.
Until now, the use of unmanned drones has been tightly regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Use has mostly been restricted to government agencies, and applications for private use were considered on a case-by-case basis. As of last summer, the FAA had only approved about 100 applications from private parties to fly unmanned drones.
But that’s about to change. According to the New York Times, the new legislation mandates that the FAA begin allowing the use of small drones (under 4.4 pounds) by law enforcement within 90 days. And the agency must overhaul its drone regulations by September 30, 2015, including allowing more widespread use of drones by private parties.
the war on women …
“pro-zygote” and “personhood”, anti-woman bills are being presented all across the nation, in an effort to awaken the evangelical republican base before the election of 2012 …
most of these bills have been written by, or championed via personhood usa. …
make no mistake, there is a war on women underway …
in canada and the united states …
and it has been going on for years …
Feb 12, 2012 – If you’ve seen any news during the past week or so, you’re no doubt aware that there are a couple of new fronts in the War on Women.
It seems that no aspect of women’s health care is immune from right-wing hysteria. Breast exams for poor women? Why, that’s an opportunity to attack Planned Parenthood. Birth control coverage without co-pays? That’s their chance to brand the Obama administration as an enemy of religious freedom.
Nothing is safe. If it has anything at all to do with women’s access to health care, it’s on the hit list. And although women’s health advocates have won (for the moment) the first battle, the fight over contraceptive coverage continues and we can’t afford to relax yet.
In this instance, opponents have disingenuously framed their objections to the contraceptive coverage requirement as coming from concerns over religious liberty, rather than as overt opposition to birth control. In doing so, they have made statements that are offensive, dismissive and grotesquely out of touch with the real needs and day-to-day lives of women.
While talking about the rule, one pundit actually compared it to the kind of thing that might have happened in 1930’s Germany and dismissed women’s need for birth control as “beside the point.” Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., opined on a talk-radio show that birth control was “unrelated to the basic needs of health care.” The current leader—according to a recent national poll—in the Republican race for president, Rick Santorum, said that the birth control requirement is a step toward “the guillotine.” And, in an unwitting display of irony, the bishop of Phoenix said that the decision is an attempt to turn Catholics into “second-class citizens.”
Women’s health is not beside the point: If you’ve seen any news over the past week or so, you’re no doubt aware that there are a couple of new fronts in the War on Women.
It seems that no aspect of women’s health care is immune from right-wing hysteria. Breast exams for poor women? Why, that’s an opportunity to attack Planned Parenthood. Birth control coverage without co-pays? That’s their chance to brand the Obama administration as an enemy of religious freedom.
Nothing is safe. If it has anything at all to do with women’s access to healthcare, it’s on the hit list. And although women’s health advocates won (for the moment) the first battle, the fight over contraceptive coverage continues, and we can’t afford to relax yet.
In this instance, opponents have disingenuously framed their objections to the requirement as coming from concerns over religious liberty, rather than as overt opposition to birth control. But in doing so, they have made statements that are offensive, dismissive, and grotesquely out of touch with the real needs and day-to-day lives of women.
While talking about the rule, one pundit actually compared it to the kind of thing that might have happened in 1930’s Germany and dismissed women’s need for birth control as “beside the point.” Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R/NE-1) opined on a talk-radio show that birth control was “unrelated to the basic needs of health care.” The current leader—according to a recent national poll—in the Republican race for President, Rick Santorum, said that the birth control requirement is a step toward “the guillotine.” And, in an unwitting display of irony, the Bishop of Phoenix said that the decision is an attempt to turn Catholics into “second-class citizens.”
Women’s health is not beside the point: It is the central point. Every American woman should have the same access to affordable contraceptives. The current rule will save the average American woman some $600 in out-of-pocket health care costs. For families living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to pay for day care or get their car fixed, this could make all the difference.
For millions of American women, preventing unintended pregnancy is the primary health concern: for them, birth control is basic health care. Putting aside the fact that pregnancy is inherently dangerous—in the United States today, 24 women will die for every 100,000 live births, the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world—most women and couples want to have the power to plan pregnancy.
Nearly every American woman will use contraceptives at some point in her life. Indeed, all of the coverage about the opposition by the Catholic bishops ignores the fact that 98 percent of Catholic women do as well. In this discussion of conscience, nobody seems interested in their beliefs and their liberty. Also missing is any recognition that a clear majority of Catholics support giving women employed by Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities the same contraceptive coverage as everyone else.
The administration has already struck a respectfully balanced compromise: Explicitly religious employers are exempt from the new requirement. Some 335,000 churches have always been exempt, and President Obama revised the rule to respond to the concerns of some employers while preserving the promise of contraceptive coverage for the women who work for them.
Both women’s organizations and the Catholic Health Association have endorsed the new policy, but it’s doubtful that the most outspoken opponents of birth control will.
And make no mistake, this is about access to birth control. Just look at the big picture. The same opponents of this policy are working tirelessly to bar Planned Parenthood clinics from reimbursement with public funds; pass legislation to end all public funding for family planning programs in the United States and overseas; reinstate the Global Gag Rule—essentially an international version of the Planned Parenthood ban; and to cut off aid to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for its work to increase access to contraceptives and end harmful traditional practices in the poorest countries in the world.
That we are still arguing about birth control in 2012 is shocking. And very, very troubling.Aspirins and short skirts and contraception, oh my! The last few weeks have seen a slew of Republican gaffes concerning women’s sexuality. From Rick Santorum’s billionaire supporter Foster Friess’s waxing nostalgic about the good old days when women put aspirin "between their knees” in lieu of contraception to an online furor over whether the young conservative women at CPAC dressed too provocatively—the GOP has a major woman problem on their hands. Their fear of sex—of women’s sexuality in particular—has become a major media talking point, and a source of outrage among American women. But what I don’t understand is why anyone is surprised. Republicans have long based their agenda for women in a deep-rooted disdain for all things female. We’ve been down this road many, many times before.
When a picture of Congressman Darrell Issa’s all-male panel on birth control (the make-up of which prompted several Democratic women to walk out of the hearing) hit the Internet and mainstream media—I couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar picture of George W. Bush signing the “partial birth” abortion ban, surrounded by a group of smiling clapping men. All men. (Santorum was one of them.)
Dahlia Lithwick reported last week in Slate on a law that’s poised to pass in Virginia that would make it legal to penetrate abortion-seeking women against their wills by requiring a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound—a procedure that would count as rape under state law. Delegate David Englin told Lithwick that one Republican lawmaker told him that the invasive ultrasound wasn’t an issue because women seeking abortions had already made the decision to be “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.” Apparently once women have been penetrated, all other future penetrations should be no problem, consent notwithstanding.
If this attitude sounds radical, consider that up until 2008, it was the basis for Maryland rape law. If a woman initially agreed to sex, but later withdrew consent, any sex that followed wasn’t rape. The justification was based on archaic legislation that said after the initial “de-flowering” of a woman, nothing could be considered rape because “the damage was done,” she was no longer a virgin and couldn’t be “re-flowered.”
The focus on birth control is not new either. Conservatives and Republican appointees successfully held up emergency contraception for over-the-counter status for three years in the FDA, despite a recommendation from an independent joint advisory committee to the agency to make the drug available. Dr. W. David Hager—appointed by then President Bush to the FDA’s Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs—told the New York Times about why he voted against the drug’s approval, noting, “What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences.” (Hager also penned a book in which he argued that prayer could cure PMS—quite the expert on women’s health!)
It also came out that in an internal memo FDA medical official Janet Woodcock argued against making the contraceptive available over the counter for fear that it would cause “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” (The same fear-based rhetoric over young women becoming promiscuous was used when conservatives tried to hold up Gardasil, the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.)
But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that this is just a problem of men attacking women’s rights. Conservative women’s rights groups, always eager for a patriarchal pat on the head, have long thrown other women under the bus under the guise of protecting them from their own wanton sexuality. The Independent Women’s Forum—who oppose the Violence Against Women Act, Title IX and who don’t believe pay inequity exists—started a campaign years ago to get the award-winning play The Vagina Monologues banned from college campuses, arguing that it’s pornographic and reduces women to their body parts. (Specifically, the one they’d rather not think about.) The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, another right-wing women’s organization, launched a campaign and contest in 2008 to “Bringing Back the Dowry and Hope Chest.” The winner received a “cedar-lined hope chest filled with $1000 worth of dowry items” as well as $500 toward her future wedding. Retro-chic!
Given this long history of paternalism and efforts to rollback women’s rights—I think the calls that the GOP is launching a “war on women” are right on, but years late.
Perhaps today, with the Internet moving information faster than ever before, Republican and conservative sexism doesn’t go as easily unnoticed (just ask the folks at Komen). Perhaps the influx of young women and feminists into self-directed and social media activism has changed the course of the national debate. Or maybe women are just fed up with yet another legislator dictating how they should run their lives and use their bodies.
Whatever the reason, we need to ensure that Republicans are held accountable and don’t get to brush these comments and actions off as mistakes or misunderstandings. Because they’re not simple gaffes, they’re a crystal clear window into the future that the GOP wants for women.
by: Jessica Valenti
Jessica Valenti is the founder and editor of the popular blog and online community, Feministing.com
PART THREE … the stripping of the power of the group
the takeover of the internet … ACTA, SOPA and PIPA …
online freedom and privacy has never been more at risk …
Online privacy at-risk with pending legislation
SOPA sponsor has another Internet bill that records you 24/7
SOPA Is Defeated [For Now], But New Internet Bill Gains Critics
S. 1308: Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011
H.R. 1981: Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011
ACTA is an international trade agreement negotiated by the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, Singapore as well as a few other countries, whose aim is to enforce copyright and tackle counterfeited goods (hence its acronym: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Please Download and read the final version of the text.(2011)
the war on unions …
The bill introduced in the Wisconsin state legislature that would strip state employee unions of their collective bargaining rights, require members to vote to organize every year, allow members to avoid paying dues and put pay raises to a public vote, represents the opening salvo of the final battle in the war against unions in America.
This is not a new war – the battle against private sector unions has been waged successfully for years as the density of unionization in America has been in steady decline since 1955 when the provisions of the union busting, Taft-Hartley Act (passed in 1947) took root.
The shut-down of the US manufacturing base in favor of moving operations –and the jobs they produced – overseas, has resulted in severe job loss in those states where the unions were once strong. Companies willing to continue to manufacture in the United States, or foreign companies bringing production facilities into the US, often locate in those states where ‘right to work’ laws, (created by Taft-Hartley) have pretty much killed off the unions that once existed in those regions.
To get some sense of just how successful the effort to destroy the union movement in the private sector has been, check out this statistic – According to Harvard University expert Elaine Bernard, in 1973, one in every four private sector workers in this country was a union member. Today, just one in thirteen carries a union card.
With this in mind, does anyone imagine that it is a coincidence that worker wages have been falling or remained stagnant since 2001? Is it also coincidental that in this time of union decline, the amount of wealth concentrated in the hands of the top 1% is the largest since 1929, the time in our history immediately preceding the era when the modern union movement was taking hold?
While union strength in the private sector has been in severe decline, the prevalence of unions in the public sector has been on the upswing. Going back again to 1973 for a comparison, we find that, at that time, one in four public workers was a member of the union. Today, at a time when the public employee base has grown considerably, one in three is unionized.
read entire article here from forbes.com
and no-one goes to jail, except the whistle blowers …
The Justice Department’s subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen Monday was the latest sign of how aggressive the Obama administration is being in its campaign against government whistle-blowers. The purpose of Risen’s subpoena is to force him to testify that Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent, gave him confidential information about the CIA’s efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. The extent to which the administration is prosecuting leakers has troubled those who see leakers as speakers of truth to power. "In President Obama’s 26 months in office, civilian and military prosecutors have charged five people in cases involving leaking information, more than all previous presidents combined," reports the Times. Here’s a list of prominent leakers with various agendas currently under pressure from the government.
Thomas Drake A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, Drake is being charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking information to a Baltimore Sun reporter. In the aftermath of 9/11, Drake believed the agency was wasting its resources on a bloated surveillance system called Trailblazer, the NSA’s largest project, instead of a cheaper, more efficient system called "Thin Thread." If the Thin Thread had been deployed, Drake told 60 Minutes the government could’ve prevented 9/11. Now, he could spend 35 years in prison for airing his grievances to the Sun. For more on Sterling, watch this segment from 60 Minutes or check out this piece in The New Yorker.
Jeffrey Sterling A former CIA officer, Sterling was indicted in December for sharing information with an unnamed journalist about a secret operation to undermine unnamed countries’ nuclear weapons programs. It’s become clear that the journalist is James Risen. Though the information shared with him was not published by The New York Times (the government told the newspaper it could jeopardize national security) it was published in Risen’s book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, reports The New York Times.
Bradley Manning A former military analyst, Manning is suspected of leaking the massive trove of classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The cache is thought to include the 250,000 State Department cables, the footage of a July 2007 Baghdad airstrike and Iraq and Afghanistan war documents. In April he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, a move reportedly linked to his rough treatment in solitary confinement. In April it was announced that Manning would no longer have to live in solitary confinement and could eat in the dining room with other inmates at the Kansas facility. NOTE: a military court has now decided that he will face a full court martial …
Shamai Leibowitz A former translator for the FBI, Leibowitz was sentenced for 20 months in prison for leaking classified documents to a blogger. It’s not clear what information Leibowitz shared. According to court documents examined by The Washington Post, the information concerned "communication intelligence activities" and constituted a betrayal of the FBI. What he shared was apparently so top secret, not even the sentencing judge was told what he divulged. Leibowitz eventually plead guilty to his charges. "“This was a one-time mistake that happened to me when I worked at the FBI and saw things that I considered a violation of the law,” he said.
from the atlantic wire
i’m afraid “hope and change” is quickly becoming “hype and chains” …
so here’s your choice in november …
do you vote republican and head quickly down the road to a completely backwards run to the 1930’s, possibly followed by theocracy …
or do you vote democrat and just skip the theocracy and head straight to a corporate controlled, 1%er, owned and ideologically driven, police state …
i mean, either way you guarantee the collapse of the middle class into abject poverty and serfdom, you kiss away all your civil liberties and freedom of assembly, speech and the press, and you forfeit your future and the freedoms and future of your children …
hmmm …
tough decision to be sure …
republicans and democrats …
different paths …
same destination …
so, what can you do? …
read … everything you can on these subjects …
google … don’t trust me or anyone else … fact check everything! …
get informed …
spread the word … tell everyone you know …
contact your elected officials and let them know that unless they do the bidding of the many and not the few, that they will be out of work … and NO second chances or “i’ll do it next time” allowed …
occupy … we are the many, they are the few … and they are YOUR streets ….
don’t give up and don’t give in …
get involved … whether you blog, write emails or letters, run for office yourself or join an action group … just get involved and stay involved …
and start the work that is needed to elect people who will once again serve the people, not the money …
it’s your country and your future … take it back …
WTFville Chronicle 