autocracy

A Radical Plan to Defeat a Radical Takeover Attempt

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    [post_date] => 2024-07-19 17:08:31
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    [post_content] => Dear America,

Recently, the Supreme Court issued a decision on a case involving former president Donald Trump that basically gives any president total immunity from criminal prosecution for virtually any action which he or she chooses. It was a travesty of a decision, made possible by the extreme right-wing judges Trump picked during his term. Legal scholars and lovers of democracy have roundly condemned it as a direct assault on democracy, and an enabling of the rise to power of an autocratic figure in the near future (could be Trump, could be someone else) who would assume dictatorial powers.

Now, ever since his poor debate performance, Democrats have been worrying about Joe Biden’s continuance in the election. However, they in fact now have a golden opportunity to rectify the situation while educating the population, helping citizens to understand our that democracy could be lost unless we take urgent action.

There is an ongoing cabal of people, which includes the extreme right-wing two-thirds of the Supreme Court, who have begun an open-ended attempt to establish a king as dictator in this country. But they made one huge mistake, if President Biden were to take advantage of it. After all, as long as he is president, he can now do basically anything he wants, free from fear of prosecution.

With these new powers, by taking the proper actions, Mr. Biden may be able to assure that, in fact, no dictator ever comes to power in the USA. The president has a golden opportunity: he can come out swinging to smash the onerous cabal which is intent on overturning the US Constitution.

Instead of worrying about Biden vs not Biden, the administration should work with President Biden to shock the nation out of its stupor, by coming out swinging against these traitors to the Constitution, thus saving our democracy for future generations. Since the Supreme Court has opened up this opportunity, Joe Biden as president should take the following actions:

Number One. President Biden should proclaim that each member of the Supreme Court who signed off on presidential immunity should be declared traitors to the Constitution and therefore traitors to the American people. They have reneged on their oath of office and are a danger to our democracy. The president, using his newfound "absolute immunity for official acts," should order their arrest, relieving them of their duties on the Supreme Court. He should then appoint their replacements without going through the usual Senate approval process, citing a national emergency.


Number Two. The president should have the FBI apprehend anyone who is involved in this attempt to create a dictatorship in the United States of America, including much of the Heritage Foundation.


Number Three. The president should relieve Judge Aileen Canon of her duties, citing the lawlessness of her recent decision to throw out the rock-solid documents case against Trump in Florida. He should retroactively restore the indictments, appoint a new judge to the case, and order that it proceed forthwith in an expedited manner, for the good of the country.

People, our government is under attack from within. We are faced with immediate need to protect our democracy. There is no time to waste in order to trounce these traitorous people and stop their attempts to overthrow and destroy our democracy and institute a dictatorship.

Joe Biden, as our president, must show the population that he will not stand or allow any further moves toward dictatorship in our country. As he does this, he will be lauded as a hero and will make history as the person who defeated a treasonous plot to destroy our democracy.

Democrats must rise to the occasion to support him in getting the message out to all Americans that we are not going to allow these traitors to be able to sow discord and disrupt our government for their own personal gain.

Yes, the above will be seen as radical. But in times of great danger, bold action must be taken. We didn't start this fight, an extreme right-wing cabal bent on overthrowing democracy did. But as defenders of all this nation has fought and died for, we must finish it.

Sincerely,
John Thomas
    [post_title] => A Radical Plan to Defeat a Radical Takeover Attempt
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Dear America, Recently, the Supreme Court issued a decision on a case involving former president Donald Trump that basically gives any president total immunity from criminal prosecution for … Read more

GOP ‘Preemption’ Is a Euphemism for Creeping Autocracy

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    [post_date] => 2023-04-16 22:16:33
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In the name of democracy, some claim they must usurp the people's democratic authority. Let's call it what it is: creeping autocracy.

It's always instructive to hear powerful political officials declare that in the name of democracy, they must usurp the people's democratic authority. Let's call it what it is: creeping autocracy.

This has become all too common, as even so-called democratic regimes in France and Israel have infuriated their people by trying to ram vastly unpopular, anti-democratic schemes into law by executive fiat. Luckily, though, our U.S. of A remains committed to The People's rule, right? Moreover, our leaders agree that local government is best, for it is closest to the people, right?

Uh... no... and no. Since the once-conservative Republican Party has turned extremist and downright goofy during the past decade, its governors and lawmakers have become knee-jerk autocrats, imposing their unpopular policies through a crude power play called "preemption."

This is the despotic use of arbitrary state power to cancel any town, city or county policies that Republican politicians don't like. Preemption is an extreme governing tool meant to be rarely used in emergency situations, but GOP-controlled statehouses in Florida, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere now use it routinely as an ideological sledgehammer, crushing the right of local people to govern themselves.

This creeping autocracy has let extremist Republican officials force some of their racist, homophobic and xenophobic nastiness on communities that vehemently oppose them. But most Republican preemptions are issued in service to corporate elites. For example, when local communities try to raise the minimum wage for working families, stop Big Oil fracking abuses or prevent corporate money from corrupting local politics, corporate-serving governors rush to outlaw the people's will and preserve the abusive power of rank profiteers.

Texas lawmakers are even trying to supersize and privatize preemption with a blanket decree that all local ordinances restricting corporations are overruled by state law -- even proposing that corporate executives themselves can overturn local actions. To fight these autocrats, go to www.supportdemocracy.org.

Why Isn't the Death of Local News National News?

My city's daily newspaper has gotten so emaciated it should be in hospice care.

Its front "section" is down to six pages, half of which are cheap ads, and nearly all of its articles are out-of-date, cut-and-paste pieces bought from out-of-state "content providers." This embarrassment, put out by the Gannett chain of over 1,100 cadaverous papers, pretends to be the "news" source for Austin, a vibrant city of a million people and the capitol of the second-largest state in America! Gannett, owned by a multibillion-dollar Japanese hedge fund, profits by buying up local papers, firing most of the news staff, raising prices, selling off the papers' assets and then killing the paper.

If your town's publication is a now a Gannett property, look to Salinas, California for its future. The 152-year-old Salinas Californian was this important region's main news artery until its hedge-funders started hacking. The paper was down to one reporter last December, but that lone journalist quit, and the Californian is now a "newspaper" without reporters -- meaning no coverage of elections, city hall, sports, police, workplace issues... etc.

The Salinas paper is technically alive, overseen until recently by another Gannett paper -- located 300 miles away! Now, says the chain's comically named "Center for Community Journalism," Salinas residents can get their news by reading Gannett's national paper, USA Today.

In fairness, Gannett's bosses are making major investments -- in themselves. CEO Mike Reed's salary this year is $8 million for helping gut local news. And while the global chain's owners won't pay for a reporter in Salinas, they will spend $100 million for a stock buyback scheme that will artificially jack up their own wealth. This is a blockbuster story of real news affecting real people and democracy itself. So, how many Gannett "news" papers do you guess are covering it?
    [post_title] => GOP 'Preemption' Is a Euphemism for Creeping Autocracy
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In the name of democracy, some claim they must usurp the people’s democratic authority. Let’s call it what it is: creeping autocracy. It’s always instructive to hear powerful … Read more

Can GOP Autocracy Outlaw American Democracy?

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    [post_date] => 2021-03-26 17:41:50
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Republicans are banking on a blitz of state bills and their GOP autocracy to intimidate, divert and deny eligible voters the right to vote.

Hey, you, get away from those polling places! No trespassing! We don't want your kind here! Scram!

How's that for a winning political message? It is stupid, shameful and ultimately self-defeating, yet being blatantly anti-democratic and anti-voter is the official electoral strategy being enthusiastically embraced nationwide by Republican officials and operatives. Admitting that they can't get majorities to vote for their collection of corporate lackeys, conspiracy theorists and bigoted old white guys, the GOP hierarchy's Great Hope is crude repression -- rigging the rules to shove as many Democratic voters as possible out of our elections.

They're banking on a blitz of bureaucratic bills they're now trying to ram through nearly every state legislature, using government red tape and the iron fist of a new GOP autocracy to intimidate, divert and otherwise deny eligible voters the ability to exercise their most fundamental democratic right. The main targets of the GOP's vote thieves are people of color, but they're also pushing measures to keep students, senior citizens, union households and poor communities from voting.

Unable to come up with any actual need for these autocratic restraints on certain constituencies, the political perpetrators have all resorted to exclaiming in mock horror: "Fraud! Massive election fraud everywhere! Millions of illegal immigrants, dead people, Chinese, children -- even pets -- are voting! The sky is falling! Lock down the polls!" Again and again, these absurd claims have been thoroughly investigated -- even by Republican judges, committees, media, etc. -- and repeatedly, they've proven to be ... well, absurd. Let's be blunt: You're more likely to find Bigfoot than you are to find a case of mass vote fraud in America.

Even some GOP politicos have quit pretending that they're searching for The Big Cheat, instead bluntly making a right-wing ideological argument for subverting democracy. "Everybody shouldn't be voting," explained Rep. John Kavanagh, the Republican chair of Arizona's election committee. Slipping deeper into doctrinaire doo-doo, he asserts that it's not just the number of votes that should matter in an election. "(W)e have to look at the quality of votes," too.

Call me cynical, but I'm guessing that most Democratic voters would fall into his "low-quality" category.

Ralph Waldo Emerson told of a dinner guest who went on and on about the virtue of honesty, offering his own life as a model of perfect rectitude. "The louder he talked of his honor," said Emerson, "the faster we counted our spoons."

That's my reaction to the cacophony of phony piety now emerging from Republican governors and legislators. They are hellbent on passing more than 250 new state laws to stop progressive-minded voters -- particularly people of color -- from casting ballots. But, they yawp endlessly, their campaign to legalize blatant voter suppression of Black, Latino, Asian American, indigenous and other non-Caucasian voters is in no way racist! Rather, they are righteous crusaders, nobly protecting the "sanctity of the vote" from the unwashed hordes who are fraudulently electing Democrats.

Embarrassingly, though, the GOP autocracy and its soldiers of suppression can't actually find any voting-fraud hordes, so they're simply declaring darker skin color to be proof of villainy. Panicky Georgia Republicans, for example, created a special Committee on Election Integrity this year, clearly to concoct new barriers that reduce Black turnout. One of its edicts oddly outlaws any early voting on Sundays. Why?

It's a flagrantly racist attack on the Black church. For years, a joyous tradition called "souls to the polls" has played out in Southern Black churches on Sundays prior to Election Day. After the sermon and prayers, congregants, ministers, musicians and others in the church family travel in a caravan to early voting locations to cast ballots. It turns voting into a civic, spiritual and fun experience. What kind of shriveled soul tries to kill that?

Apparently, the same shameful souls in the Georgia GOP who want to make voting a physical misery for those in non-Republican precincts. By intentionally understaffing these polling places, election officials have been forcing citizens to endure 10-hour waits in line to vote. Showing compassion and gumption, local groups have been providing water and snacks to those in line. No more, decreed Georgia's House Republicans in March, voting to make it a state crime to give any sustenance to the needy electorate.

Excuse me, but voting in America should not be made hard, turned into a partisan obstacle course or reduced to a regimen of autocratic suppression. Indeed, the goal (and duty) of every public official ought to be maximizing voter turnout -- making it easy, comfortable, uplifting and (why not?) fun. After all, the more Americans who vote, the stronger our democracy. But there's the ugly political truth: Republican officials no longer support democracy, and they hope to outlaw it.
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Republicans are banking on a blitz of state bills and their GOP autocracy to intimidate, divert and deny eligible voters the right to vote. Hey, you, get away … Read more

Where Trump’s Kakistocracy Can Find a Good Farm Policy

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    [post_date] => 2019-10-23 14:09:37
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Trump is running a kakistocracy that can't do anything right, and that includes farm policy.

Government by the rich is called plutocracy. Government by police power is autocracy. Government by thieves is kleptocracy. Government by Trump and the gang, however, is all of the above, which adds up to something called kakistocracy: government by the very worst people in our society.

Forget Trump himself for a moment and look at the freakshow of top officials he's appointed to "manage" our government -- a menagerie of Sleazy, Sleepy, Goofy, Dopey, Larry, Curly and Moe. They're "managing" to enrich the rich (including the Trumps), increase corporate power, knock down the middle class and hold down the poor.

The media has covered the antics of Rudy Giuliani, Betsy DeVos, Steven Mnuchin, William Barr and other prominent political hacks who make up the Trump kakistocracy, but it's time to shine light on the guy Trump appointed secretary of agriculture: Sonny Perdue of Georgia. Hailing from a state renowned for its peanut crop, Sonny turns out to be the biggest goober of all. He'd been a nonentity in the Trump Cabinet, blithely sitting in his ornate office while farm prices plummeted, bankruptcies spread, and farmer suicides surged.

But suddenly, on Oct. 1, his agricultural eminence rose up on his hind legs to address the distress of farm families. Far from offering assistance or words of comfort, though, Trump's ag secretary slapped them right in the face: "In America," he smugly lectured, "the big get bigger, and the small go out." Goobering on, Perdue explained the theoretical framework of Trumponomics: (We don't) for any small business have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability."

What a load of pious BS! Family farmers are not asking for a guaranteed profit -- just a chance at making a profit. Today's ag system has been deliberately rigged by policymakers so that seed monopolists, big banks, oligarchic processors, multinational grain traders, meat conglomerates and other corporate giants that farm farmers can stiff those who actually produce our food and then they can grab the profits for themselves. No wonder the median farm profit last year was -- get this -- minus $1,500!

There's nothing natural or inevitable about the big getting bigger and the small "going out." All it takes is inept or corrupt do-nothing public officials turning their backs while agribusiness powers plow under thousands of good family farmers. That is the essence of the Donnie and Sonny farm policy.

Apparently, Trump's idea of a good farm program is "Hee Haw." On a trip to Wisconsin in July, the New York city-slicker president drew pained guffaws from the state's hard-hit dairy farmers by proclaiming that -- thanks to his trade, tax and ag policies -- the farm economy was looking good. "We're over the hump," he gloated.

Uh ... no, sir. While Trump was patting himself on the back, his audience of dairy farmers was running some real numbers in their heads: It costs them $1.90 to produce a gallon of milk, but the giant processing conglomerates that control the milk market pay them only $1.35 a gallon. That 55-cents-a-gallon loss is exploding throughout dairy country, adding up to not only a huge loss of income but also a devastating loss of farm families -- Wisconsin lost 638 dairy farms last year and another 551 in the first half of 2019.

Meanwhile, far from "over the hump," farmers have had their prices further depressed by being sacrificed in Trump's tariff clash with China -- U.S. dairy exports to China fell by 54% in just the first half of this year. And the monopoly power of predatory dairy middlemen grows ever tighter. One giant, an $8 billion behemoth named Dean Foods, now controls 90% of Wisconsin's dairy market, empowering it to commit daylight robbery, blatantly stealing farmers' income, livelihoods ... and land.

Yet, Ag Secretary Perdue -- the one national official who's supposed to stand up for farmers -- nonchalantly kissed them off, smugly declaring it natural that the big devour the small. So, he professes, there's nothing he can do for family operators but tell them to become big, industrial, capital-intensive operations. Otherwise, says Sonny, "go out" of agriculture.

Perdue and Trump are simply old corporate hacks for the kakistocracy, promoting the status quo of failed ag policies. There is one public official, however, who is offering a path to a revitalized, family farm-based food system that'll break the corporate stranglehold on U.S. agriculture: Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Download a summary of her comprehensive proposal: A New Farm Economy.
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Trump is running a kakistocracy that can’t do anything right, and that includes farm policy. Government by the rich is called plutocracy. Government by police power is autocracy. … Read more

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