Since the days of Ronald Reagan republicans “hitched their wagon” to the so-called “pro life” issue, knowing it was a “winner” to suck in the “evangelical Christian” movement, among others, allowing them to pursue a right wing “trickle down” economic movement which has funneled TRILLIONS up to America’s Oligarchs over the past 40+ years. “Pro-life” was a part of their “plank” over the years and it worked for them to keep a bunch of single issue voters in line as they executed their “trickle up” plan on America – resulting in a more and more bloated national debt. (See Frank Shaeffer’s “Crazy for God”) And, of course, while pushing the debt toward the “stars” they’ve figured out how to put the blame on democrats. (And, of course, their supporters rarely check the facts on who’s the major blame for the deficit)

Then, along comes Trump and then he, with the hypocritical help of “Moscow Mitch” McConnell in the Senate, put three right wing members on the Supreme Court who, despite what they PROMISED in their conformation hearings, managed to pull off the “wet dream” of their “Christian” supporters by overturning Roe v Wade and putting the issue of abortion at the state level. Well, if you’ve been paying attention, the issue of abortion has been driving women and those who support women’s rights to the polls in state after state as initiatives to put the right to an abortion into state constitutions, including in so-called “red states,” have passed overwhelmingly.

So, the issue of abortion went from being a driving force for republicans to, in many places, a “heavy weight” on the backs of candidate after candidate. Republicans had to find an issue their sycophantic voters would latch onto and, at the same time, be able to overcome the “weight” of the abortion issue which has now turned against them. Well, one thing Trump is good at is LYING to his supporters and he chose the “border” as an issue he would use to fire up his supporters. “Biden is in favor of open borders” has been the cry of one republican after another in obedience to the TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING four times indicted (91 alleged FELONIES) ex president who apparently sprays orange coloring on his face daily. (Except when he plays golf – if you’ve seen any of the photos) Oh yes, the Biden administration has deported more people (don’t believe me, click HERE) from the border than Trump. Just sayin……..

It appears a problem arose recently when maybe the most conservative person in the Senate, James Lankford of Oklahoma, negotiated a very “conservative” immigration bill which was designed to create order at the border and, to no surprise, Trump intervened at the last moment and caused the republicans in the Senate to vote the agreement down. Trump even said, “Blame it on me.” (Sound bites to come) Republicans had said this agreement was necessary for them to vote for aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and now that aid is hanging in the balance. Republicans and Trump are actually working to cause their supporters to put their allegiance with Vladimir Putin at the expense of Ukraine. To me, if republicans succeed in blocking aid to Ukraine EVERY one of them will end up in the darkest of pages in our nation’s history.

Will Democrats be able to get out the message that Trump and his republican sycophants in Congress don’t actually want to solve the problems at our Southern border? Will they be able to convince people republican sycophancy to Putin is, well, patriotic? YUK!? Who knows, the MAGA creatures are beyond reasoning with, but maybe the news today that Putin had Alexei Navalny MURDERED – for the capital offense of being in the opposition (reports are he didn’t fall from a hotel window – likely, the other fave of Putin’s Russia – poisoning). I saw video coming from St. Petersburg in Russia of “little old Russian ladies” attempting to lay flowers at makeshift memorials for Navalny being arrested. Yep, like Trump Putin is one tough “cookie.”

The U.S. Senate voted by a 70 – 29 total to approve aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the Palestinians in Gaza and the response by Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, was to send everyone home until February 28th. I’m trying to keep this all appropriate for sixth graders (like Trump) so I’m watching my language. But, the evidence is EVERY day this aid is not forthcoming is resulting in unneeded DEATHS of Ukrainians. To me, I really never thought I’d live to see the U.S. act in such a “deplorable” manner. And, of course, I never thought I’d see the day when someone as “deplorable” as Trump could ever get within breathing distance of the Oval Office.

But, as usual with EVERYTHING republican, there’s always more. Republicans are planning to return on February 28th and two days later the House MUST pass the so-called “omnibus spending bill” (ie budget) to keep the government (well, much of it) open. From this vantage point, that “ain’t” happening. Especially, when one of the leaders of the House republican caucus just came out and said “no more temporary spending bills” (ie “kicking the can down the road”). These republicans have no idea what they’re doing as they attempt to act as if they have a clue how to govern. (Do you wonder how many House republicans miss Kevin McCarthy?)

Do you think ANY of this bothers the presumed republican candidate for president this year, Trump? Not likely. He boisterously said, “Blame me” when it was reported the bipartisan immigration bill was torpedoed – essentially, by Mr. Johnson saying it would be “dead on arrival” in the House. Do you think Trump’s going to make that same claim after House republicans cause the “government shutdown?” He’s incredibly STUPID, so, personally, I suspect he will. But, whether or not Trump claims responsibility for shutting down the government, we KNOW he’ll be the impetus behind it. For heaven’s sake, he’s been quoted as saying he hopes the American economy crashes between now and the election – apparently, believing that will make him look better.

Personally, at this point, there’s NOTHING Trump can do to make himself look better to me – but, wishing for an economy which has performed near miraculously since Biden took the reins of government and immediately attacked the pandemic both economically and via an incredible plan to put the vaccines in places all across the nation where anyone who wanted one had it available to them to fail is ,well, deplorable! There’s been OVER 14 MILLION jobs created, wages are up, as of the past couple of months consumer confidence is up, the stock market is up – and, inflation is down – more-so in America than in virtually any other economically advanced nation.

Yes, inflation has been a problem – but, for those of us who’ve been around since just after WW II it’s not the first time we’ve seen this phenomenon. This round of inflation was caused by pent up demand from the pandemic, a supply chain bottleneck – also due to the pandemic, higher wages for lower to middle level workers, and, of course, the previously mentioned Vladimir Putin and his brazen attack of Ukraine – as major contributing factors. It’s been impressive to me in how quickly, all things considered, inflation has come down. As usual, the Federal Reserve’s way of dealing with it is to keep raising interest rates until enough people have lost their jobs to effect demand. I actually was put out of business in 1984 by that very policy by the Fed. This time, no matter what they have done – every month – more jobs have been created and the predicted recession, at least so far, hasn’t arrived.

But, republicans in Congress may be able to accomplish what the Fed has failed to accomplish – and, that’s bring this BOOMING economy to a halt. (I certainly hope not) By shutting down the government – and, without a plan to get it up and running again, these republican House members may be able to accomplish what Trump wants – and, that’s to crater this BOOMING economy. I’m not sure how long they would need to leave the economy/government “shut down” or how extreme they’re willing to go, but, at this point in time, nothing surprises me. And, of course, as of today Trump is angrier than he’s been for quite some time and, remember, Trump is all about Trump.

This afternoon Trump was levied a fine of $355 MILLION, each of his sons were fined $4 MILLION, and his former CFO was fined $1 MILLION for what was referred to as MASSIVE fraud over an extended period of time in regard to Trump’s business centered in New York. Trump can not be an “officer” of any business in New York (that would apparently include the Trump organization) for three years, his two eldest sons are barred for two years and I believe Allen Weisselberg (and maybe one or two other “officers”) is barred for life. (Although Weisselberg is older than me so, well, who knows how long that ban will last?)

On top of the $355 MILLION Trump was levied a charge for INTEREST of $100 MILLION and when you add all that up to include the $83.3 MILLION he was awarded recently for CONTINUALLY defaming E. Jean Carroll the total is nearing $550 MILLION. Of course, Trump has said he’s going to appeal, but appealing the verdicts is not as simple as filling out the forms. As I’ve pointed out here several times, to appeal a judgement in the state of New York, you have to first put up the “dough.” Trump has a couple options, but neither looks that encouraging to me, at least from my viewpoint as a retired teacher who’s scraping by on a “fixed income.”

His first option is to deposit the money – plus the anticipated interest which will accrue during the anticipated time of the appeal process in an account overseen by the court. Most experts I’ve listened two have said that amount is usually 120% of the judgement amount. So, using the mental math skills I once had (I’m now into approximating) between the Carroll judgement (the second one) and today’s ruling Trump will need to deposit about $675 MILLION – in CASH, if he chooses “option 1.”

The second option is to find a lender or bonding company who will front him MOST of the money. The way that works is he would (likely) have to put up 20% of the judgement amount (In the Carroll case it would be about $16.5 MILLION and in the fraud case it would amount to around $100 MILLION in CASH) PLUS the usual charge for that kind of “bond” would be around another 10 – 20%. Additionally, if he chooses option 2 (and, there’s no guarantee a lender will “touch” this – plus he can not do business with ANY bank chartered in New York for the three years) he will have to put up unencumbered collateral sufficient to cover the amount of the judgement, less the cash put up front, but PLUS whatever the lender’s fee is – likely between $60 and $100 MILLION. For example, that would mean until the appeal process is completed that real estate – or however he comes up with the collateral – will be, in essence, frozen.

For someone who is more likely worth around $1 BILLION than the $10 BILLION he claims, this could be a near “death penalty” on his business. I’ve heard estimates that the total value of his real estate holdings in New York – after considering the mortgages on them (which could be an additional problem possibly forcing Trump to begin liquidating assets in order to cover these judgements) have a combined value of between $600 and $700 MILLION. (Some people I listened to today considered those numbers optimistic) If he decides to liquidate his New York assets it will be under the supervision of the Court appointed “independent monitor.” He won’t be able to abscond with the money until he’s satisfied the judgements.

Should be interesting as Trump has 22 days to post the money if he wants to appeal the Carroll judgement and 30 days with the ruling made today. (Actually, that 30 day “window” might begin at some point next week) Today is February 16 and his “election interference” TRIAL in Manhattan is scheduled to begin on March 25 – giving him a week from when the judgement is due and when the trial is scheduled to begin. And, the trial is supposed to last about 6 weeks, which would give just enough time to schedule in his “January 6th” DC trial regarding his attempt to overturn the 2020 election should the SCOTUS do what myself and MANY others believe they SHOULD do and that’s refuse to grant the “stay” of the DC Court case so Judge Chutkan could put that case back on the docket.

I’m just trying, tonight, to get into Trump’s head as he MUST be realizing the “walls” are closing in around him. And, how pissed off do you think he is thinking about who is holding him to account. Of course, he blames Joe Biden and the DOJ, but Biden has nothing to do with it and the Justice Department has nothing to do with state charges – in fact, I would argue the reason these impending trials are “up against the clock” is due to Merrick Garland’s original position to NOT investigate Trump’s CRIMINAL conduct. But Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis, and Judge Chutkan all have one thing in common that likely riles Trump – they’re all African Americans. I believe the judge in the Manhattan election interference case was born in Colombia and emigrated to America at a young age as was Judge Chutkan who was born in Jamaica (which I believe Trump once referred to as a “shit hole” country) Do you get my drift? Trump is being held accountable to people he despises. Is this karma, or what?

Trump has taken IMMIGRATION off the table, maybe turning it against republicans with his brazenness, he’s again BRAGGING about getting Roe v Wade overturned, he’s been found guilty of sexual assault, serial defamation, and massive fraud, his company has been found guilty of CRIMINAL fraud, he’s likely going to take credit for republicans shutting down the government, and he’s the republican “frontrunner.” What could go “wrong?” My advice to Nikki Haley would be “stay in the race.” Trump either is imploding or it appears to me he will implode – possibly leaving Ms. Haley as the last one “standing.” Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s no way I’d vote for Ms. Haley, but my guess is there are many republicans who are “never-Trumpers” who would. The question would become, how many of the MAGA republicans would vote for her if Trump somehow is “sidelined.” Stay tuned……….

Final Thought: Do you remember when Trump claimed he would NEVER negotiate a lawsuit? Of course, shortly after saying that he paid a $25 MILLION settlement for the fraudulent “Trump University.” He said, he’d build a wall and MEXICO would pay for it – and, his cult followers believed him. He said, “I’m really rich” and don’t need anyone else’s money to run for president – only to be grifting hundreds of MILLIONS from his followers, scamming some of them into recurring payments they didn’t realize they were agreeing to – then using the money for his mounting legal bills. I could go on, but my point is his BS is so deep (and smelly) that anyone who believes a word coming from his pathological LYING mouth is, at this point, choosing to be willfully STUPID.

I point this out because I have some advice for Mr. Trump – at least regarding the two federal cases (and approximately 40 alleged FELONIES). I think he should tell his lawyers to negotiate a plea deal. I believe if he was willing to plead guilty and part of the plea agreement included him withdrawing from the upcoming election and accepting a sentence of home confinement for ???? he would be well ahead of the impending legal tsunami headed his way. He once said, “You’ll get tired of all the winning!” The question I have is he tired of all the LOSING? He’s basing everything on finding a way to “win” (cheat) in November and if that doesn’t pan out the question becomes will he be placed in jail if he’s found guilty in any of these CRIMINAL cases?

I can tell you I’m TIRED of watching all the LOSING and anticipating when the next time he LOSES will come up – apparently, starting on March 25th – and, he’s going to have to be in the courtroom EVERY day of the trial’s six weeks. Would DA Bragg or DA Willis agree to a plea agreement? It seems unlikely in the Georgia case because there are still 14 co-defendents in the case. I’ve heard the prisons in Georgia are not even a place you want to visit and I have no idea how these judges will react at sentencing for any guilty verdicts. So, maybe Trump could negotiate himself out of the remaining part of his predicament (he’s GONNA have to pay the judgements unless he wins on appeal and remember, the interest charges started accumulating TODAY), spend a few years in home confinement and “we the people” would be FINALLY through with this nightmare. I doubt he’s capable of being that level headed, but I can always hope!

I have to add: If Trump somehow withdraws, then I would hope President Biden would withdraw and maybe we could have a Governor Newsome v. former Governor Haley contest in November. That would, I believe, stimulate a lot of us “progressives” to flock to the polls! Call me a “dreamer.” Oh yes, that reminds me, the immigration bill which was torpedoed by Trump was tilted strongly to the “right.” There was NOTHING in it for “Dreamers” and I can tell you I had many of them in my classroom over the years and I pray for them regularly. Those who I knew about at the time were really outstanding students, in almost EVERY case. So, the “torpedoed” bill would have been a start, but until we address the issue of the “Dreamers” and the MILLIONS of other “illegal immigrants” who play such an important role in our economy and our communities, giving them a “pathway to citizenship” the solution will be incomplete!

The Really Big Picture

Sometimes a single very big picture is worth many thousands of words

ROBERT REICH

Share

Friends,

By now you know that I love to draw — not just because it’s fun, but also because I sometimes find it easier to express ideas through drawing than through words.

A while ago I decided to draw the “big picture” of how we got into the mess we’re in. It’s a kind of historical “docurama.”

I arranged to have a huge sheet of paper put up on a wall. (Thanks to everyone who helped!)

Then I drew Part 1 on the far left — representing 1946 to 1979. This was the time when America’s middle class grew, upward mobility was the norm, and America became more equal.

Part 2, the second column on my wall, depicts 1980 to 2000 — the era when neoliberalism, deregulation, privatization, globalization, Wall Street, and Ronald Reagan conspired to reverse the path we’d been on. The result was widening inequality, a shrinking middle class, and stalled mobility.

Part 3, in the middle column on my wall, represents 2008 to 2010, when the financial economy nearly collapsed, exposing the underlying rigging of the system. Banks were bailed out, but millions of people lost their homes, jobs, and savings.

Part 4, the second-to-last column, shows what happened between 2010 and 2016, when the losers of the rigged game expressed their anger through the “Tea Party” movement, the “Occupy” movement, and the sudden appearance of two populists — Bernie Sanders on the progressive left and Donald Trump on the authoritarian right.

Part 5, the final column, represents 2016 to 2050 — an era when I believe America will come to a basic decision about whether it wants authoritarian neofascism to run the country from the top down, or a robust democracy in which the gains from growth are widely shared.

I hope you not only enjoy this but also find it a useful way of framing what’s occurred and the choice ahead. (If you do, please share!)

Thanks again for joining me.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sP0pRIBRcDk?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

The SCOTUS is about to hear the case from Colorado which says Trump is ineligible to run for President because he is an “insurrectionist” (I’ve been saying that’s a “no brainer” since January 6th, 2021) and whether the words of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution really “count.” I’ve also been saying it’s obvious to me the Court will find a way to contradict their own claims to be “originalists” and “textualists” because Section 3 leaves no doubt ANYONE who participated in the planning for and the instigation of the assault on our nation’s Capitol SHOULD be ineligible to hold office in this nation ever again.

Here’s the reality, which SHOULD be obvious to the court. The INSURRECTION is continuing as Trump threatens to discard our constitution should he manage to CHEAT his way back into the Oval Office. Thankfully, he was recently shot down in his claim of “absolute immunity” for the president by the D.C. Appeals Court. However, there’s a growing amount of noise from the MAGA cult that Trump and his sycophants should just ignore the Courts. When we get to that point, well, our democratic republic will be in the ashes. Will “we the people” vote Trump into the History books right next to Benedict Arnold which is where he belongs? In my view, the SCOTUS SHOULD make that a “moot” point by upholding the ruling of the Supreme Court of Colorado.

Of course, that’s a “pipe dream” because the Court has evolved into an arm of the republican party. They gave us GW Bush back in 2000 and they are certainly not going to knock Trump out of the race in 2024. Clarence Thomas, who by all rights SHOULD recuse from the case will be right in the middle of it. For heaven’s sake, his wife was involved in the INSURRECTION and to suggest he was unaware of what she was doing is a bit – check that, way more than a “bit” – on the naive side. After all he’s her “best friend” and that’s who she said she communicates with.

By rights if Jack Smith had thrown a RICO “web” over all of the participants in the INSURRECTION of January 6th, 2021 Ginni Thomas very well could be one of the defendents. Clearly, Mr. Smith limited the indictment to Trump in order to speed up the process of getting to a trial – before the 2024 election so voters know if they’re voting for a FELON or not. (The time issue is the result of Merrick Garland’s failure to start an investigation of Trump almost immediately after taking office. It shouldn’t have taken the J6 Committee to get the “ball rolling.”) Should Trump be aquitted in the trial I’m guessing his chances of winning the election would go up significantly. As many have said, from the progressive side of this country it’s “all hands on deck” up until the November election.

Additionally, knowing that progressives tend to sit back and simply go about their lives preferring to put politics aside, the reality is the MAGA cult will not go away in just one election. If Trump is defeated in 2024 they’ll take a hard look at why they LOST and the answer will be Trump is a deplorable person and a terrible candidate. Of course, voting to put democrats back in control of the House and hopefully increasing the majority of democrats in the Senate – which, at this point appears to be a very long shot – will be requirements of stopping this assault on our country’s foundation.

I’ve reported here about a person I used to meet every week or two for breakfast who is a life long republican and got sucked into Trump’s cult – to the point where he doesn’t even answer my periodic emails because he seems to ACTUALLY believe the “election was stolen.” He was certain Trump would win a second term (had that happened I would have owed him two steak dinners) and that “liberals” would violently react in the streets. I told him I believed the opposite would happen (not knowing at the time the plans for January 6th) and, sure enough, I was correct and we have now lost contact with each other. Republicans seem to be poor LOSERS. (I’m sure he’s fired up for Trump’s “return” after the next election)

I bring this up because one thing which sat in my mind after losing contact with him was some of the stuff he said which, at the time, I just took for nonsense. The first thing he said was he didn’t believe in “democracy” or words to that effect. I didn’t think twice about it at the time, but I have no doubt he’s in the number of (white) Americans who support Trump’s plan to evicerate the Constitution. This guy raised three African American children (I believe he adopted them) yet, when I was talking to him he said some stuff which could only be considered racist – about his own adopted daughter.

He also made the claim there was going to be another “civil war” which led me to believe he was hanging around in the darkest places on the internet. Some of the things he said mirrored things I read when I was doing a bit of research on the “Boogaloo boys” who I suspected as being some of the ringleaders in the violence which occurred during the protests over Police killing Black men after the murder of George Floyd.

I tried to get him to read the Mueller Report – offering to give him my copy – and, of course, he declined. That made it almost impossible to have a rational dialogue on what Trump was ACTUALLY doing because his information was coming from, it seemed to me at the time, Fox “news” or worse. I remember bringing up information from the Southern Poverty Law Center about extremist groups in America and he immediately attacked the character of the founder Morris Dees. I always found that hypocritical of someone supporting Trump. Of course, people like Dees are virtually hated by the MAGA faithful – a movement based on white supremacy – which never sat well with me when I looked back on our relationship.

The reason I point all this out is because it’s people like this who make up the MAGA faithful. And, there are a lot of them and they get their info from the right wing “blogosphere” which starts with Fox “news” and gets more EXTREME as you move to the right in the republican movement. I read the book “Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist” by Eli Saslow which is the story of how Derek Black pulled himself out of the “bowels” of White Supremacy as the son of Don Black, a former “Grand Wizard” of the Klan and Godson of David Duke also a former “Grand Wizard” of the Klan.

After reading that book, which was during the time of Trump’s reign on our nation, maybe in 2018, and Derek’s father was devoted to Fox “news” and Tucker Carlson – for anyone who questions why Carlson is kissing up to Vladimir Putin this should give you a major clue – and in one interview I read about Mr. Black and Mr. Duke sharing their belief that Trump was their “vehicle” into the “mainstream” of American politics. In fact Duke was one of the “Very Fine People” in Charlottesville carrying a Tike Torch and chanting (with all the others) “Jews will not replace us.” And, believe me, this group of Americans will do whatever it takes to put us “liberals” in our “place.” I don’t even like to think where that might be.

My main point is the INSURRECTION has been ongoing since BEFORE January 6th, 2021 and, if (and I’m sure they’re not) the Justices on the SCOTUS have been paying attention they should know their place as the arbiters of America’s 250 year old “experiment” is in jeopary from Trump. They have the opportunity to do what the Senate failed to do after IMPEACHMENT #2 by convicting Trump and upholding Colorado’s Supreme Court, therefore, making Trump ineligible to hold any office in America ever again.

The republicans in Congress continue to show a level of COWARDICE towards Trump which is shameful and disgusting. I don’t know what it will take to motivate democrats, disaffected republicans, and independents to put a stop to all this – but if they are not united in the effort America’s place as “leader of the free world” will have been toppled from within. I believe it was Robert F. Kennedy who warned about the “enemy within” back in the early 1960’s (and, sadly, in my view his son has joined that group) and Trump is the offshoot of that era of American History. Joseph McCarthy, J Edgar Hoover, the John Birch Society, etc. – remember Trump’s “Roy Cohn” which he is always lamenting about was the lawyer for the mafia in New York back when Trump was in his “slumlord” days. (Fined for discriminating against African Americans)

I fully expect the Court to find the most graceful way they can to overturn the Colorado ruling while “tiptoeing” around their commitment to being both “originalists” and “textualists.” Honestly, nothing this Court does surprises me – but, I can virtually guarantee you they’re not going to surprise me on the side of the Colorado Supreme Court. I’m guessing the “conservatives” on the court are also afraid of Trump – most likely it’s Trump’s followers they fear. You’d have to have your head in the sand to not be aware of the death threats, ect. “thrown” at anyone who “crosses” our TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING four times indicted (91 FELONY charges) ex president. I’m sure they don’t want the “swatting,” the people in front of their houses yelling threats, etc. The easy way out is to do what Trump wants and the Constitution clearly prohibits – Trump holding office once again.

Final Thought: Well, as usual, I’ve let this rant sit and now that we’ve heard the arguments before the court it’s clear the decision will likely be 9-0 against Colorado. Even the so-called “liberals” on the court seemed to be looking for reasons to rule against the 14th amendment. And, I have to add I was no fan of the guy arguing for the State of Colorado. For example: When the issue of “insurrection” arose and whether Trump actually participated in the INSURRECTION in a way that was playing semantics with the meaning of INSURRECTION he failed to point out section 3 also says “giving aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” is also disqualifying.

He COULD have added that Trump actually admitted he participated in an attempt to overthrow a free and fair election (that would be an INSURRECTION) when he responded to Congress amending the law which says the Vice President’s role is simply ceremonial by saying “That proves Mike Pense could have overturned the election.” There was LOTS of “stuff” this lawyer could have used to prove Trump participated in an INSURRECTION the topic which SHOULD have been at the center of the argument, but was almost an afterthought.

It seemed like ALL the judges were focused on “why should Colorado” determine the outcome of the election by taking Trump off the ballot. That said to me the Judges were saying they don’t want to be responsible for doing that – which, in reality, is their purvue. It was as if the hearing wasn’t actually focused on Section 3 of the 14th amendment. This is the Supreme Court shying from public scrutiny (yep, after the Dobbs decision overturning Roe – apparently that was different!) Yikes!!

Also: Naturally, we’re in this spot as I’ve said so many times because Merrick Garland seemed so timid about starting the investigation into the people at the top of the INSURRECTION – apparently wanting to work “from the bottom up” so now Trump is hell bent on getting re-elected so he can dispense with his MANY indictments. (Of course, we’ll find out soon whether or not the court is going to slow walk Trump’s appeal of his [ridiculous] claim of absolute immunity) But, now, Garland’s obsession with appearing to be “fair” has spawned another issue which will also be “stuck” to his legacy.

The Special Counsel (Robert Hur) appointed to investigate President Biden’s possession of classified documents came out with his report stating that Biden should not and will not be prosecuted for having these documents because his lawyers discovered them and they were immediately returned to the National Archives. Naturally, Mr. Hur didn’t leave it there. He included a bunch of HIS opinions on Bident’s age and “decline” which had NO place in his report. One former justice Department Official called it “James Comey 2.0.

Mr. Hur even suggested President Biden couldn’t remember when his son, Beau, passed away. That caused the President to show as much anger in public as I’ve ever seen. He said when that question was asked he though “It’s none of your damned business.” Really, have you ever heard about Trump giving an interview to Justice Department investigators? Of course not. His lawyers would NEVER allow it – he’s a pathological LIAR. lying in an official interview is, well, a NO NO! So, President Biden sat down for interviews – on the two days following the savage attack on Israel of October 7th – and the Special Counsel is asking questions like that?

And, then Garland allows that absolutey unacceptable personal (political) garbage to be made public. I’m beginning to think Mr. Garland was a good and respected judge, but he’s using up a lot of his positive “capital” in dealing with these republicans. Mostly Trump, but this special counsel, it appears, crossed the line of Justice Department protocol and Mr. Garland let Hur’s political viewpoint into the public sphere in a Justice Department official document. Stay tuned…….

Was the GOP Plan All Along to “Break” America to Make Room for an Authoritarian Strongman?

You have to break government pretty badly before people are willing to trade in a normal democracy for a dictatorship, but it’s sure happened before…

Thom Hartmann Feb 7

READ IN APP

Leave a comment

Recent reporting suggests that Trump followers, by and large, are fine with him being or becoming a dictator. It seems crazy, but there it is, irrefutable: they’d rather have Trump as a dictator than Biden or any Democrat as a “normal president.” But why?

When I was 22 years old, on the advice of an old friend, I took the Dale Carnegie Course: it was literally a life-changing experience, and I credit that course with a good bit of the successes I’ve enjoyed in business and the media in the intervening years.

In one of the early weeks of the course, we each had to get up in front of the class and act out with great emphasis this statement (almost a mantra):

“I know people in the ranks who will stay in the ranks. Why? I’ll tell you why: Simply. Because. They. Haven’t. The. Ability. To. Get. Things. Done!”

The ability to get things done is a high value for business, but it applies to politics as well. And that’s where authoritarian strongmen come in.

The most appealing thing about a dictator is that he can “get things done.”

Dictators don’t have to worry about bureaucracies hindering them, or pesky laws and regulations. They don’t care about local opposition to their projects, or their impact on the environment.

From making the trains run on time to building an autobahn and a car company to go with it, dictators famously “get things done.”

The corollary to that old nostrum is that when things are going well, when things are working smoothly, when the people are getting what they want from their government, there is little interest in putting a dictator into office.

You have to break government pretty badly before people are willing to trade in a normal democracy for a dictatorship, but it’s sure happened before.

Germany wouldn’t have embraced Hitler if it weren’t for the depression the country had slid into because they lost WWI and were hit with fierce sanctions in the Treaty of Versailles.

Mussolini stepped up to take over Italy during a time of multiple crises: the echo of the flu pandemic, WWI, and an economic crash. The existing government was so weak that when he showed up with his “army” of 20,000 or so militia volunteers, the King essentially handed the country over to him.

Pinochet was able to hold Chile in part because Nixon’s sanctions had crippled the country’s economy and thrown millions out of work.

One of the most successful ways the forces of autocracy and authoritarianism have risen to power throughout history is by creating or stepping into a crisis and promising to be the “strongman” who will fix things and fix them now. 

Which, of course, is why rightwing billionaires and the Republicans they own have been working so hard in the decades since the Reagan Revolution to break our government.

They want a series of terrible crises. And if they don’t happen organically, rightwingers are more than happy to create them, as we saw yesterday when Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to do anything about our southern border or to fund aid to Ukraine and the Palestinians.

Back before the Reagan Revolution — when things were working well, a third of America had a good union job, our schools were brand-new and well supplied and staffed, college was free, healthcare was inexpensive, and the biggest challenge America had was to put a man on the moon and bring him safely home — there was little demand for a dictator in this country.

Sure, women, Blacks, and queer people were demanding rights and their fair slice of the pie, but they wanted part of a pie that was already working (to mangle a metaphor). For the majority of white Americans to adopt a strongman authoritarian, first the country had to be broken and broken badly.

Republicans and their billionaire donors have been working on this project for decades.

It was originally proposed in a memo by Lewis Powell in 1971, the year before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court and he authored the decision legalizing corporate bribery of politicians.

Now the GOP and their billionaire backers are more than 40 years into their project:

Breaking our schools and students: Reagan began the process of breaking our educational system, which was once the pride of the world. He ended free college in California, cut federal aid to education by nearly a fifth, gutted civics, and almost singlehandedly created a nearly $2 trillion black hole of student debt that’s dragging down millions in the last few generations. And now rightwing haters are roiling school boards and threatening teachers to further break schools with their lust for banning books they don’t like.

Breaking our workers: Reagan also shattered the compact between workers and employers that had created and guaranteed a strong and stable middle class, the first and largest in the world. He started early in his presidency by crushing PATCO, one of only three unions that had endorsed his presidential candidacy, and then put an anti-union lawyer in charge of the Labor Department (a practice followed most recently by Trump, who put Antonin Scalia’s notorious union-busting son in that job).

Breaking our manufacturing base: George H.W. Bush broke our nation’s job market by executing the Trade Act that went into effect in 1989 and amplified the “free trade” powers of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which was signed by President Clinton. This began the steady migration of good American jobs to Mexico and China, causing over 15,000 factories to close and move, taking with them over 20 million good jobs.

Breaking our wallets: Pharmaceutical and insurance companies scored major victories during George W. Bush’s presidency. Not only did he begin privatizing Medicare with the Medicare Advantage scam, but he also put into law an absolute prohibition against the government negotiating drug prices with drug manufacturers. As a result, Americans pay as much as ten times more for drugs than do people in other developed countries.

Breaking our environment: Republicans and the fossil fuel billionaires who own them have known since the 1970s that their products were damaging our environment as well as causing tens of thousands of cancer, heart- and lung-disease deaths every year through their pollution. While President Jimmy Carter tried to do something about this in the late 1970s with his solar panels on the White House and his “Solar Bank” program that would have 20% of America’s energy produced by wind and solar by the year 2000, Reagan shut it all down when he came into office in 1981 in exchange for big contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Republicans are still working to break our environment: they regularly lie about global warming and promise to increase our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Breaking our society: Republicans once talked about freedom and individual responsibility, but these were always buzzwords for letting billionaires do what they want and ignoring the needs of the poor. In reality, they delight in pitting Americans against each other, demonizing minority groups (racial, religious, gender), while promoting hateful, racist tropes like the so-called Great Replacement Theory.

Breaking our institutions of democracy: Republicans spent three years promoting the lie that Trump beat Biden in 2020. This is on top of 30+ years of promoting the idea that there is massive voter fraud in America, justifying making it harder and harder for people to vote, when in fact there is no voter fraud crisis in this country and never was (in the modern era).

Breaking our stature in the world: There was a time when Republicans stood strong against dictators: now they embrace them. In a recent rally, Trump openly praised Putin, Orbán, and Xi while trash-talking our actual allies in NATO and the EU. Republicans in the House and Senate are openly opposed to helping democratic Ukraine fight off violent aggression by dictator-run Russia. Allies that long depended on the US are now publicly questioning the wisdom of relying on us for any sort of support for democracies around the world so long as the MAGA faction controls the GOP.

Breaking our public health system: According to the British medical journal Lancet, a half-million Americans died from Covid during Trump’s presidency unnecessarily, all because of the lies he told us to try to salvage the economy for his re-election. Now we’re experiencing outbreaks of measles and other infectious diseases because MAGA Republicans like DeSantis have shattered people’s faith in our public health system. From calls to prosecute Fauci to rejecting masks and vaccinations to supporting price-gouging drug manufacturers and for-profit hospitals, they’re causing widespread death and disability and appear to delight in it.

Breaking women and girls: After a 50-year campaign against Roe v Wade, Trump finally packed the Supreme Court with Catholic fanatics who, based on the writings of a 17^th century witch-burning English judge, let states again prosecute women and doctors for abortion. The GOP has now brought to the Supreme Court a case that could outlaw all birth control in America, and they’re dead serious about getting women out of the boardroom and back into the bedroom and kitchen.

Breaking our children: for the past 40 years, the GOP has led the charge to fill our schools with guns. They have been so effective at this that bullets are now the leading cause of death among our nation’s children, a horror that has not been successfully inflicted on any other nation on Earth. They’ve also fought vigorously against any effort to regulate social media, which is provoking a mental health crisis among our young people and driving an explosion of suicide.

Breaking entrepreneurs: There was a time in America when a good ticket to the American Dream was to open a small local business, grow it, and hand it down to your kids. The corner dry cleaner, pharmacy, dime store, restaurant, hotel, bank, travel agency, electronics or furniture store, etc. But ever since Reagan stopped enforcement of the Sherman Act and other anti-trust laws in 1983, it’s been all “mergers and acquisitions” all the time: every consequential sphere of American industry is now dominated by a small handful of giants who will squash anybody who tries to start a company in their sector like a bug.

Predictably, now that Republicans and the morbidly rich billionaires who own them have broken most of the social contract and systems that held the middle class together (and our middle class has gone from being almost two-thirds of us to fewer than half of us), people are looking for a change.

Politicians have been promising that change — a break with Reagan’s neoliberalism — since the 1990s.

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned on change but missed or ignored most of their chances to stop the disintegration of the middle class, and Bush, Bush Jr., and Trump all doubled down on Reaganomics.

Finally now, many Americans — particularly “low information voters” — have reached a breaking point.

— Their kids carry hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt.

— Forty-one percent of American families have more medical debt than they can handle.

— As Republican governors roll out voucher programs, our schools are failing and simultaneously under attack from fanatic bigots.

— Fox “News” and other hate-driven media have convinced them that the US is being “invaded” by brown-skinned people.

— They’re in a constant state of hysteria about CRT, DEI, BLM, Antifa, drag queens, Taylor Swift, and any other boogeymen they can come up with.

These are the people Republicans are counting on to support transforming America from a democratic republic into a strongman authoritarian oligarchy. The GOP’s bet is that if they can keep things broken and bad enough long enough, then people will demand a dictator “who can get things done.”

They even hatched a scheme called Project 2025 that hyper-concentrates political power in the White House, pre-positioning the next Republican president to be America’s first dictator.

The good news is that President Biden is actually doing something about each of these areas where Republicans have worked so hard for the past 43 years to break our country. And his work is producing good fruit: inflation is down, employment is up, wages are up, and consumer confidence is growing.

It’s a race against time, in a way.

If Democrats can continue to put America back together, there’s hope for a brighter, healthier future.

On the other hand, if rightwingers in Congress and the media can continue to sabotage our country (and other democracies like Ukraine and Taiwan) things may devolve to the point where we elect our first open dictator in the form of Donald Trump or some other authoritarian Republican.

Ten months from now, the choice will be ours.

This COULD be my shortest posting ever. I was paying attention today to the ruling coming down from the D.C. Court of Appeals CONFIRMING what EVERY level headed lawyer in America understood which is that NO president could possibly be “IMMUNE” from prosecution. I mean why would the courts agree to give up their own POWER to the executive to appease the MOST corrupt president in American History. There is a long line of “precedent” which would suggest even attempting to get this past the courts was absurd on its face. However, it’s been clear to virtually EVERYONE paying attention that the argument is laughable on its face. (Of course, Trump, as a pathological LIAR, very possibly – over time – just enough of a nimwit to actually start believing his own LIES)

Here’s my point tonight. In a couple days the Supreme Court is going to be hearing the case revolving around whether or not Trump can be excluded from the ballot based on section three of the 14th Amendment. I believe that is a case probably NONE of the justices wanted to be deciding in this hyperpartisan atmosphere where the court is “approved” by the LOWEST number of Americans EVER. They fully understand they are going to get “heat” no matter how they decide that one – and, I fully expect them to find a way to prove they are ONLY “textualists” when it fits their POLITICAL views. That’s sad I feel I have to write that, but I’ve listened to too many of them violate the testimony they gave in their own confirmation hearings. Suggesting they’re not political is absurd.

However, they have the opportunity to give themselves a bit of credibility when it comes time to decide whether or not to grant “cert” to Trump’s absurd “absolute immunity” claim. They can’t possibly agree to that – it would render them as subservient to every president from here on out. Makes no sense. The ONLY thing they can do (for Trump – if that’s their compulsion) is to delay this to force Trump’s trial to happen after the election – thereby preventing “we the people” from learning whether the republican nominee is a convicted FELON. Keeping in mind, there’s no guarantee he’ll be convicted although you would have to believe Trump believes he will based on all his stall tactics.

I’m suggesting the prudent course of action by the court is to refuse to hear this case because the Court of Appeals made a detailed finding which is difficult – even for someone like me who only studied constitutional law back in the 1960’s – not to understand. I’m probably wrong here, but rationally thinking, I’m guessing the Court doesn’t want to have to deal with this case AND the 14th Amendment case at the same time. These are both cases where the court is going to face HUGE criticism for when they make a decision – no matter how they decide. Refusing cert on this case and then finding a way to keep Trump on the ballot is the off-ramp, in my view. Stay tuned!!!

Recently, I’ve been posting several articles I’ve read by Thom Hartman who, along with Robert Reich, is one of my “heroes” as I attempt to participate in the IMPORTANT process of STOPPING Trump from “getting anywhere near the Oval Office ever again,” in the words of Liz Cheney. I’m really tired of writing about Trump and today, while he was breaking the rules in the defamation trial he’s LOSING (again!), the judge actually said something like “I hope I don’t have to have you removed from the court because that is exactly what you want.” Of course, just as a sixth grade brat/bully would respond, Trump said something like “go ahead” as he waved his arms in the air.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of what caught my attention regarding the words of Ms. Carroll’s lawyers in their opening statement, “How much will it take to get Trump to stop” defaming Ms. Carroll. While Trump was sitting in the courtroom on the first day, apparently thinking he could affect the jury to consider him the “victim,” he posted a reported 22 messages on his “(un)Truth Social further DEFAMING Ms. Carroll. I did some research as to what the jury might award Ms. Carroll in an attempt to SHUT him up. It could easily be in excess of $100 MILLION – maybe even “north” of the judgement against Rudy Giuliani of $148 MILLION. In order to appeal the verdict of the jury I believe Trump must put up the money (an appellate bond which includes interest and is secured, in this case, by Trump real estate) in escrow before he can do so.

If you’re a republican, are you tired of all the LOSING? I still remember Trump saying “you’ll get tired of all the winning.” As Rick Wilson so aptly stated back during Trump’s reign in the “White House” – “Everything Trump touches dies.” Of course, he was speaking metaphorically – those who joined Trump’s administration saw their careers damaged and their lawyer bills grow astronomically. Sadly, many of Trump’s “collateral damage” – like Rex Tillerson, Mark Meadows, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, etc. etc. could be more VOCALLY active in warning “we the people” about Trump’s 2024 danger to our republic, but, don’t hold your breath. (Of course, Mr. Meadows is legally vulnerable due to his going along with the attempted coup d’etat – it’s understandable why he’s reluctant to “tell the truth.” – Cassidy Hutchison did it for him!)

Well, in the next two weeks Mr. Trump is likely to take LOSING to almost unimaginable heights. Trump COULD be facing judgements, in total, exceeding $500 MILLION. Of course Trump will appeal, but, as I said above, he’s going to have to put up collateral for the full amount of the judgements PLUS anticipated interest in order to make the appeals everyone is expecting him to pursue. From my standpoint, I can’t even imagine the interest which will be accruing while he attempts to drag things out. New York, in 2022 reduced the rate of interest on an unpaid judgement from 9% to 2% – which could still exceed one MILLION dollars added to the bill each year any appeal continues.

Trump’s supporters apparently don’t even know he’s been found guilty of sexual assault by a “jury of his peers” and his company has been accused of being GUILTY of fraud – to the amount of something like $2 BILLION each year. As I followed the so-called New York Civil Fraud Trial I can’t remember any discussion of Trump allegedly reducing valuations when it came time to pay taxes but INFLATING them when it was time to get financing or insurance coverage. Both instances, it seems to me, would be fraudulent. The judge in Trump’s fraud case made a “summary judgement” saying he was obviously guilty of FRAUD. Trump’s own lawyers agreed to a “non-jury” trial putting the decision in the “hands” of the judge – who, naturally, Trump has attacked viciously during the trial.

The absurdity that Trump is the likely republican nominee for president in 2024 tells you all you need to know about Americans. There have been numerous polls lately questioning the intellectual competence of “we the people.” One poll found that “15% of Americans believe that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation” – QAnon nonsense at the heart of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s belief system. But, as usual, there’s more: “Almost 30% of Americans, for example, didn’t know that the Earth takes 365 days to orbit the sun” according to a 2021 query by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Brace yourself: “A 2018 survey by the National Science Foundation found that 28% of Americans actually believe the sun orbits the Earth” (a theory debunked by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei back in the 17th century). “The Annenberg Public Policy Center found in 2022 that approximately one in four Americans could not name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. 25% of Americans were also unable to name any of the three branches of government, according to Annenberg. And in 2018, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that a full two-thirds of Americans would fail the US citizenship test, which asks basic questions about US history and the nature of the US government.” I pasted this above info from an interview in “Alter Net” with Chuck Rosenberg. Is it any wonder close to a third of our population actually believes Trump tells them the truth.

I’ve pointed out here numerous times about Trump’s proclivity to use the tactics of Hitler and the Third Reich – focusing mainly on “The Big Lie Theory” and “Projection.” Today my focus is on projection. I was watching TV today and a clip of Trump being interviewed on Fox “news” as he defended his (absurd) claim Presidents must have “total immunity.” He, of course, pivoted to Joe Biden and used the pull out from Afghanistan as an example Biden could be legally exposed for the chaos which occurred during the process. (Trump obviously forgot two things – first, he’s the one who made the deal with the Taliban setting up the withdrawal and secondly, he clearly forgets the withdrawl from Viet Nam which was even more chaotic. It’s a b@#t to remove yourself from a “war” which should never have happened)

Just as his claim of “total immunity” is something concocted by a DESPERATE defendant and is ridiculous on its face, so is his memory lapse regarding the pull out from Afghanistan. And, unfortunately, the “experts” who were on MSNBC (where I saw the clip) also either weren’t aware it was Trump who negotiated the deal with the Taliban or chose not to point out the clear hypocrisy of his comments. “Person, woman, man, camera, TV” – OMG, I forgot Trump is a “very stable genius” – you would have to be a “genius” to claim in a stump speech, “They’re (no idea who he was talking about) going to ‘debank’ you from…???? (your political beliefs?) He didn’t finish the sentence switching to “liquid gold” and then switching to “non liquid gold” – corn. Acting as if that was a brilliant observation. Yikes!!!

This is a man who mistakenly said he was running against Barack Obama, said he would keep us from WW II and that he could solve the Ukraine war in “one day.” Of course, that last one might actually be true because he’s an official “lap dog” of Vladimir Putin. Trump makes absurd claims, slurs his words, often can’t pronounce words any ordinary adult would have no issue with, constantly is showing his ignorance regarding “current events,” and does one thing only – well. He can make absurd ATTACKING comments about those who challenge him with aplomb. This is why the republican party’s members of Congress have chosen COWARDICE to truth. They fear the personal attacks they would face with a negative comment about Trump.

The question I keep asking myself is will democrats, independents, and disaffected republicans join forces in the challenge of making sure Trump never gets near the Oval Office ever again. Not only is Trump a “clear and present” danger to the functioning of a democratic republic with “checks and balances” which “we the people” support just as Americans have for nearly 250 years. Trump, in my view, is simply a product of our corporate interests who could care less about anything beside their bottom lines. It is up to us, (yes, Mr. Trump those are the same letters as in “U.S.”) the VOTERS to decide where “we the people” go in the future. Are we OK with a renegade, corrupt Supreme Court – and, believe me, the rogue decisions of this court will continue until such time as at least two of the “conservative” justices are replaced which makes EVERY election going forward “the most important” of our lives. It will take several elections to extinguish “MAGA.”

For the indefinite future, EVERY time “we the people” go to the polls the results will be more critical to the future of this nation (and the world) since the day Trump used Russian, Saudi, UAE, and Israeli intelligence help him “win” in 2016. From the eyes of the younger VOTERS in this country issues like Climate Change, Civil Rights, Individual rights – including the right of women to control their own bodies, Education, Voting Rights, etc. etc. will be on the ballot – notwithstanding who the candidates are. There is as distinct a difference between republicans and democrats in my lifetime. (Unfortunately, I’ve read younger Americans are abandoning Biden because they believe he should be able to control Netanyahu)

I have always been an “independent voter” but, since the day the Supreme Court crowned GW Bush/Dick Cheney as our president and vice president I’ve been voting AGAINST republicans. Bush/Cheney LIED “we the people” into the worst disaster, maybe, in American History (worst than Viet Nam???) by invading Iraq and they left President Obama an unimaginable mess with the financial Crisis of 2007/2008 for Obama to solve – with, of course, NO help from republicans. That mess paled in comparison to the MESS Trump left for Biden – I mean 4000 Americans were DYING each day from COVID and Trump seemed to be oblivious to the FACT he was responsible for the circumstances President Biden inherited.

The (possibly) one great accomplishment during Trump’s reign was the development of the mRNA vaccines which led the “fight” against COVID. It took a massive (and incredibly impressive) movement originating from Biden’s “White House” to get these vaccines distributed to clinics all across America. I, personally, get my Pfizer vaccine at a community medical clinic close to my semi-rural home. That vaccine required special equipment to keep it refrigerated and, somehow, this (little) clinic has been able to provide the “shot” to me each time it was appropriate. (I’ve had several “boosters” since the first shot) I’m 76 and been able to make it this far (3 years) without contracting the virus. Trump actually backed off recommending the “shot” after getting booed by a group of republican sycophants who were pushing the “anti-vaxx” campaign.

Regarding the “virus” we get a great example of Trump’s propensity for LYING. I’ve listened to him lately suggesting he protected us “all” from a nuclear holocaust – “saving millions of lives.” Apparently that LIE is in response to reports coming out once again that he was responsible for maybe 500,000 lost lives during the height of the COVID crisis – due to his lackadaisical response to the outbreak of the pandemic. I remember watching reports from Worldometer almost daily keeping track of the abysmal record of Trump as he seemed to take offense to the reality of bodies dying at a rate where they were being stored in refrigerated trucks because the morgues were full.

Final Thought: I’ve let this post sit for a couple weeks and, in that time, the Appeals Court in Washington DC made their ruling today – no surprise, Trump can NOT shoot someone on 5th avenue and avoid criminal prosecution. Not only that, he can’t participate in a coup d’etat (ie January 6th, 2021), he can’t STEAL classified documents, he can’t pay off a porn star to block negative info from an election and he can’t hide the payments as a business expense, and he can’t ask a state’s election officials to “find the ballots to give him a victory where it was proved he lost) – NONE of that is OK if a jury of his peers vote to convict him of the charges. He’s facing 4 indictments which include 91 alleged FELONIES. Will this ever cause his cult to begin to break? Well, not likely. Just this morning I brought up with the young lady who cleans our house each week (and is a die hard republican) Trump’s sexual assault (rape?)/defamation issue and $83 MILLION judgement and she immediately brought up Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Neither are the 91 FELONIES an issue for her. Yikes!

As I’ve predicted over the previous three years republicans will be fronting third party candidates in an attempt to peel off democratic leaning voters who, for various reasons don’t see President Biden in the same light I do. This country will be in dire straights if the American people fail to keep this mob boss out of the “White House.” Republicans cower in fear of his social media posts and have totally abandoned their obligation to “we the people” out of fear of this DEPLORABLE person. Sadly there are MILLIONS of Americans who are willfully IGNORANT (I didn’t say stupid – but thought about it) and even go so far as to fund Trump’s legal bills. If you remember when Trump first was running for the presidency he said he wasn’t going to fund raise because he didn’t need to – he said, “I’m really rich.” Just as Mexico was NEVER going to pay for a wall! Stay tuned…..

After Judge Engoran makes his final decision in the New York Civil Fraud Trial Trump is likely to be a LOT less “rich.” I’m speculating that between the E. Jean Carroll judgement and the Fraud trial judgement Trump could easily be out between $400 and $500 MILLION. (It could be even more because it appears Trump’s CFO has pled guilty to perjury in the trial and it doesn’t seem to be sitting well with the judge.) New York’s Attorney General is seeking Compensatory damages of $370 MILLION – I have no idea if there could be “punitive damages.” I’ve heard some estimates the final amount could be approaching $600 MILLION. Trump was operating what appears to be a wannabe organized crime “family” business.

A couple days ago the Secretary of State in Maine determined Trump’s name should be removed from the ballot in her state and, already, I’m getting emails asking me to sign petitions THANKING her for, in essence, doing her job. Only in America! Let’s see! Section three of the 14th Amendment to our constitution couldn’t be any CLEARER. It’s straight forward that if you’ve taken an oath to defend the constitution AND you CHOOSE to participate in INSURRECTION or give “aid and comfort” to those who’ve participated in INSURRECTION, you’re INELIGIBLE to hold any office of any kind, federal or state, PERIOD! Full Stop!

So, why do we have to go out of our way to “thank” someone in elective office for simply “doing their job.” Well, the answer’s easy – there are very few office holders in America who are willing to do their job when it runs into/comes in conflict with Donald Trump. We all know the result. My guess is this Secretary of State is already facing DEATH THREATS from the unhinged MAGA “faithful” and, likely, Trump is egging them on – with his mob style rhetoric where he can’t be held accountable in case one of his “deranged” supporters might happen to do something really naughty. Our TWICE IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING (ex) president facing 91 FELONIES likes to code his words in “dog whistles” and my guess is he’s already doing it toward this lady who’s simply doing her job.

Of course, Colorado’s Supreme Court sent the first “salvo” in the attempt to get Trump thrown off the ballots – well, at least in Colorado. Now Maine! Who’s next? I have to add, from what I’ve read, even the “progressive” legal experts I’ve listened to – and there are many – it seems almost unanimous they think the Supreme Court will find a way to overturn these two decsions – both based on “state’s rights” and a “textual” reading of the constitution (which is what Court conservatives claim to “hold dear,”) And, trust me, I’m with them. I’ve been watching the SCOTUS make politically charged decisions since AT LEAST 2000. So, the only thing which will be surprising is how they go about violating their own principles.

But let’s take a look at the actual definition of insurrection and then compare it to Trump’s own words – From the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government.
2. A rising up; uprising.
3. The act of rising against civil authority or governmental restraint; specifically, the armed resistance of a number of persons to the power of the state; incipient or limited rebellion.

So, if you’ve been paying attention you know Trump continues to (the “Big Lie”) say the 2020 election was “rigged.” Even though there’s been NUMEROUS members of his own administration who’ve pointed out he was told there was virtually NO “fraud” in the 2020 election which could change the outcome. He knew he LOST. He LOST over 60 lawsuits. He just is unable to accept reality due to what appears to be the fact he’s a narcissistic sociopath (alleged). However, that certainly does not mean he’s not culpable for the attack on our nation’s Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021 – which according to the above definition was an “insurrection.”

Of course Trump has been continually attempting to avoid accountability for his participation in that INSURRECTION. His own words are stuck in my head: “We have to go the the Capitol and fight like hell. If you (talking to the mob) don’t fight like hell you won’t have a country anymore.” Obviously, his followers took his words literally and the result was Trump watching (proudly) as his supporters attacked the Capitol and Metropolitan Police officers (in response to his call to action) injuring over 140 of them leading to (I believe) the DEATH of three of them. The Police officers were attacked with a variety of weapons and a torrent of disgusting verbal assaults (especially the African American officers).

Trump watched the INSURRECTION he had incited on TV in the “White House” for something like 3 hours – even sending a “tweet” to his supporters that “Mike Pense didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” as his supporters were chanting “Hang Mike Pense” – they had actually constructed a gallows on the Capitol grounds. Reports are that when Trump was advised his VP was in danger his response was “He deserves it.” Since then, as I said above, Trump has been doing everything he can to avoid accountability – including running once again for president in 2024 as a “get out of jail free card.”

Those of us who’ve been watching this process – meaning the indictments Trump is facing, including four FELONY charges relating to the January 6th INSURRECTION – play out, and who want to see Trump face a jury of his peers regarding his actions after the November 2020 election culminating with the attack on the Capitol prior to the 2024 election – people like me – are confident he’s GUILTY as charged. (I guess I’d be a bad person to sit on the jury) I’ve read MOST of the books pointing out what happened (including recently Cassidy Hutchinson’s book) and the evidence is, in my view, overwhelming Trump belongs in jail.

To be clear, his own words are sufficient to, it seems to me, make the case regarding the 14th amendment issues. I actually heard/saw Trump say the following (on TV) which actually proves his “intent” to overturn a “free and fair election” – “That’s right!! Mike Pence failed us. Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away,” Trump added in his statement. “Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the election!” He said these words in response to the Senate proposing legislation to amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure no Vice President (in the future) could entertain the option of overturning an election (that would include Kamala Harris, by the way) – Trump apparently was thinking the fact Senators felt the need to make it clear Pense’s constitutional role was ceremonial only – proved the two of them COULD have “overturned the election” of November 2020.

So, I refer back to the definition of INSURRECTION – “The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government.” Did he or didn’t he? To me, the evidence is irrefutable – HE DID! participate in INSURRECTION. Full Stop! Do I expect the Supreme Court to agree with Colorado’s Supreme Court and barr Trump from the ballot in the upcoming election. Of course not. They will find a way to say section 3 of the 14th amendment to the constitution doesn’t say what it actually says – which is:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

To me, if you’re a “textualist” as the “conservative” members would have us believe (they are overturning one precedent after another because of what they refer to is the actual “text” of the constitution) it couldn’t be clearer Trump SHOULD be disqualified from holding ANY office in ANY state or the federal government because he’s an INSURRECTIONIST – by his own words and the “text” of the definition of INSURRECTIONIST and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Here’s my prediction: Judge Thomas, who by all accounts SHOULD recuse himself from this case – after all, his wife was a participant in the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election by (allegedly) participating in the “fraudulent elector” scheme – but, he won’t. Also, I expect Judge Gorsuch to reverse himself – in regard to a ruling he made when he was on the Court of Appeals overseeing Colorado (they mentioned his ruling in the majority opinion of Colorado’s Supreme Court ruling Trump SHOULD be disqualified). In 2012 concerning a challenge to a person’s claim of eligibilty to run for president Gorsuch wrote: “it is ‘a state’s legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process’ that ‘permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.”

Just as I expect Judge Thomas to reverse himself in the upcoming challenge to the “Chevron doctrine” (I’ll write more about that later) I expect Gorsuch to find a “creative” way around his own words/decision just over 10 years ago. This court has proven itself to be nothing more than right wing Puppets who are controlled by the billionaire/corporate oligarchs who are attempting to wrest control of America from “we the people.” John Roberts will go down in History as one of the WEAKEST Chief Justices to ever be in that important positions. The CORRUPTION of members of his court – likely including him via the connections of his wife – is, to me, sickening.

Selfishly, I don’t have too much time on this planet, and it grieves me to watch what this court is doing to the established precedents which helped to “make this country great.” We have a long way to go, but the beauty of the constitution is that it’s a “living document” which has been able to evolve over time getting us closer to the original ideals (which I have to add were written down by slave holders). We’ve come a long way in my lifetime and we’re witnessing a concerted attack on America’s late 20th century and 21st century progress – and, much of these gains have been painstaking – especially for those Americans who are part of “minorities.” That is, not “White Anglo Saxon Protestent.” The Roberts Court is attempting to “turn back the clock.” How will they jusify Trump’s INSURRECTION?

Final Thought: Not only is Trump facing 4 CRIMINAL indictments but his, like a true sixth grade bully, attacking our court system as he’s facing – in the words of Bernie Sanders – YUGE civil penalties. Likely over $250 BILLION in the New York Fraud trial plus, who knows how much in punitive damages, likely MORE than Rudy Giuliani was fined, in the E Jean Carroll trial. Trump chose to sit in the court, challenge the judge’s authority, and continue DEFAMING Ms. Carroll from inside the courtroom where the entire purpose is to determine the amount of damages. Is that STUPID or what. Plus, by all accounts his attorney is in way over her head. The judge has had to instruct her on – get this – how to introduce evidence. I believe he used the term “courtroom 101.”

I decided to do a little “checking” and discovered Trump, who will likely appeal whatever the verdict is (meaning the amount he owes Ms. Carroll) PLUS will appeal the verdict in the Fraud Trial. I thought, “can he do that and simply not pay any money until after he pushes an appeal out for – maybe – years?” (Putting the liability on his children) Well, what I discovered is Trump will have to post a bond, secured by real property, in the amount of any judgement he owes PLUS the anticipated interest which will accrue during the appeal as a requirement to appeal the verdicts. It’s not hard to imagine he’ll have to post a bond in the amount of $500 MILLION (the interest in New York on an unpaid judgement accrues at – only – 2% per annum) plus at least a couple MILLION to cover the interest if it appears he’s going to be able to stall the payment a couple of years. Stay tuned….

Does the EPA Die Today?

The Supreme Court, it appears, is planning to gut most of America’s regulatory agencies in what could be the most consequential re-write of the protective “deep state” since the New Deal…

THOM HARTMANN

JAN 17, 2024

Share

Leave a comment

Republicans on the Supreme Court are, it appears, planning to gut most of America’s regulatory agencies, in what could be the most consequential re-write of the protective “deep state” since it was largely created during the New Deal in the 1930s.

The vehicle for this radical transformation of America is a case that will be argued today, in just a few hours, before the Court: Loper Bright Enterprises v Gina Raimondo.

If they pull it off, these six corrupt Republicans on the Court could destroy the ability of:

— the EPA to regulate pollutants,
— the USDA to keep our food supply safe,
— the FDA to oversee drugs going onto the market,
— OSHA to protect workers,
— the CPSC to keep dangerous toys and consumer products off the market,
— the FTC to regulate monopolies,
— the DOT to come up with highway and automobile safety standards,
— the ATF to regulate guns,
— the Interior Department to regulate drilling and mining on federal lands,
— the Forest Service to protect our woodlands and rivers,
— the FCC to protect us from internet predators,
— and the Department of Labor to protect workers’ rights.

Virtually the entirety of America’s ability to protect its citizens from corporate predation through regulation rests on what’s called the Chevron deference (more on that in a moment), which the Court appears prepared to overturn in today’s case.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants to eliminate the Department of Education “on day one” if he’s elected president. If the Supreme Court has its way, he wouldn’t have to bother. It’ll become impotent.

Far-right conservatives and libertarians have been working for this destruction of agencies — the ultimate in deregulation — ever since the first regulatory agencies came into being with the 1906 creation of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, a response to Upton Sinclair’s bestselling horror story published that year (The Jungle) about American slaughterhouses and meat-packing operations.

Gutting these agencies is what Steve Bannon meant when Trump brought him into the White House and he said one of the main goals of that administration was to “deconstruct the administrative state.” If there’s any coherent explanation of the phrase “deep state” as used by Republicans, it’s our nation’s regulatory agencies.

The modern effort to destroy or at least neuter America’s protective agencies began when Ronald Reagan put Anne Gorsuch in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

She directed the agency to dial back restrictions on expansion of factories and other operations that were already polluting the atmosphere. That provoked a challenge to the Supreme Court, Natural Resources Defense Council, v. Gorsuch, where the Court overruled the Reagan administration.

Gorsuch nonetheless continued her efforts to gut the EPA. In her first year heading the agency, there was a 79 percent decline in enforcement cases, and a 69 percent drop in cases the EPA referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. She pushed a 25 percent cut in her own agency’s funding into Reagan’s first budget proposal.

It took Congress years to overturn her cuts to the Clean Air Act “on everything from automobiles to furniture manufacturers,” according to Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.

She took a meataxe to President Carter’s renewable energy programs and “set solar back a decade” according to Clapp.

Gorsuch finally resigned her office to avoid prosecution for what Newsweek described as “a nasty scandal involving political manipulation, [Super]fund mismanagement, perjury, and destruction of subpoenaed documents, among other things.”

Her son, Neil Gorsuch, was devastated by his mother’s resignation. In her memoir Are You Tough Enough? she tells the story of how Neil confronted her when she resigned:

“Neil,” she wrote, “got very upset. Halfway through Georgetown prep and smart as a whip, Neil knew from the beginning the seriousness of my problems. He also had an unerring sense of fairness, as do so many people his age.

“‘You should never have resigned,’ he said firmly. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president [Reagan] ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?’

“He was really upset,” she added.

Now, it appears, her son is preparing his revenge.

To get there, he and the other Republicans on the Court appear hell-bent-for-leather to turn regulatory agency rule-making upside-down, which will please the billionaires who give them luxury vacations, buy them homes, and pay them absurd speaking fees (and paid Roberts’ wife over $10 million).

Here’s how regulatory law — using the example of the EPA and CO2 — is supposed to work (in super-simplified form):

1. Congress passes a law that says, for example, that the Environmental Protection Agency should limit the damage that pollutants in the environment cause to the planet. Congress (the Constitution’s Article I branch of government) defines the broad goal of the legislation, but the Executive Branch (Article II, which encompasses the EPA and other regulatory agencies) has the responsibility to carry it out.

2. The EPA, part of that Executive Branch and answering both to the law and the President, then convenes panels of experts. They spend a year or more doing an exhaustive, deep dive into the science, coming up with dozens or even hundreds of suggestions to limit atmospheric CO2, ranging from rules on how much emission cars can expel to drilling and refining processes that may leak CO2 or methane (which degrades into CO2), etc.

3. The experts’ suggestions are then run past a panel of rule-making bureaucrats and hired-gun rule-making experts for the EPA to decide what the standards should be. They take into consideration the current abilities of industry and the costs versus the benefits of various rules, among other things.

4. After they’ve come up with those tentative regulations, they submit them for public review and hearings. When that process is done and a consensus is achieved, they make them into official EPA rules, publish them, enforce them, and the CO2 emissions begin to drop.

This is a process that simply comports with common sense, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 when they established what’s called the “Chevron deference” to legitimize and defend our regulatory agencies.

That doctrine — established by the Supreme Court and reflecting a century of the will of Congress and presidents of both parties who signed regulatory agencies into existence — says that when a regulatory agency does its due diligence and determines reasonable rules for a substance or behavior they have the legal authority to regulate, the courts should “defer” to the judgment of the agency.

Congress passes laws that empower regulatory agencies to solve problems, the agencies figure out how to do that and put the rules into place, and the solutions get enforced by the agencies. And when somebody sues to overturn the rules, if the courts determine they were arrived at through a reasonable process without corruption, those rules stand.

Then came a group of rightwing Supreme Court justices — including Neil Gorsuch — who overturned rules made by the EPA about CO2 emissions from power plants in their June, 2022 West Virginia v EPA decision. This set up today’s arguments.

Their rationale was that because the legislation that created the EPA doesn’t specifically mention “regulating CO2,” the agency lacks that power. And now it has lost that power, the result of that West Virginia v EPA decision a year-and-a-half ago.

The coal-, oil-, and natural-gas-fired power plant industry has been popping champagne corks for almost two years now, as CO2 levels continue to increase along with the temperature of our planet.

In addition to Gorsuch, the Court’s decision-makers in West Virginia v EPA included Amy Coney Barrett whose father was a lawyer for Shell Oil for decades, and John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh who are all on the Court in part because of support from a network funded by fossil fuel billionaires and their industry (among others).

And, of course, Clarence “on the take” Thomas, who supported the Chevron deference 15 years ago but in 2020 wrote:

“Chevron compels judges to abdicate the judicial power without constitutional sanction. … Chevron also gives federal agencies unconstitutional power.”

Giving us a clue to how this will probably go down, all six Republicans on the Court voted to gut the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2; all 3 Democratic nominees opposed the decision.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the Court:

“[D]oes not have a clue about how to address climate change…yet it appoints itself, instead of congress or the expert agency…the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

Their ruling was, essentially, that all of that research into the specifics of anticipated regulations — all those hundreds of scientists, millions of public comments, and hundreds of thousands of science-hours invested in understanding problems and coming up with workable solutions — must be done by Congress rather than administrative regulatory agencies.

As if Congress had the time and staff. As if Congress was stocked with scientific experts, a much larger budget, and had millions of hours a year for hearings. As if Republicans in the pockets of fossil fuel billionaires wouldn’t block any congressional action even if it did.

Gorsuch, et al, succeeded in the West Virginia v EPA case, but it was narrowly focused on CO2.

In the case being argued today, however, the Court is explicitly preparing to expand that victory by blowing the entire Chevron deference out of the water, thus ending or severely limiting most protective government regulations in America and opening the door to court challenges to every regulatory agency listed at the open of this article (and more).

They’re saying, essentially, that the EPA (and any other regulatory agency) can’t do all the steps listed above: instead, that detailed and time-consuming analysis of a problem, developing specific solutions, and writing specific rules has to be done, they say, by Congress itself.

Specifically, this case the Court is hearing today — Loper Bright Enterprises v Gina Raimondo — has to do with whether or not fishermen should have to pay fees that help cover the cost of the agency that regulates them.

But when you look at the briefs being filed by billionaire- and corporate-funded rightwing groups like the CATO Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Pacific Legal Foundation, Independent Women’s Law Center, Southeastern Legal Foundation, Christian Employer’s Alliance, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Advancing American Freedom, and the Buckeye Institute, you find the real goal of this litigation.

CATO, for example, writes:

“[I]t is now clear that Chevron deference is unconstitutional and ahistorical. Over the past forty years and counting, it has wreaked havoc in the lower courts upon people and businesses.”

Competitive Enterprise writes of the National Marine Fisheries Service:

“The agency lacks inherent legislative power: it may only use the powers that Congress gives it. … Only Congress can decide if a power given to it by the Constitution should be exercised. … The agency’s attempt to exercise this never- assigned power not only goes beyond the authority Congress gave it; it goes beyond any authority that Congress could legitimately give it.”

Pacific Legal Foundation cuts right to the heart of the ability of agencies to regulate anything, saying the case turns on:

“Whether the Court should overrule Chevron…”

The Buckeye Institute writes they’re submitting their amicus brief to the Court:

“[T]o speak on behalf of the thousands of small businesses concerned with agency aggrandizement of power through Chevron deference…”

On the side of you, me, and most other average Americans who just want clean air and water, safe drugs and cars, and reasonable protections in the workplace, the Biden administration has stepped up.

In defense of America’s regulatory agencies, the federal government’s brief filed with the Court lays out what’s at stake:

“Petitioners bear an especially heavy burden in asking this Court to overrule Chevron, which stands at the head of ‘a long line of precedents’ reaching back decades. The Court in Chevron described its approach not as an innovation, but as the application of “well-settled principles” concerning the respective roles of agencies and courts in resolving statutory ambiguities.

“Federal courts have invoked Chevron in thousands of reported decisions, and Congress has repeatedly legislated against its backdrop. Regulated entities and others routinely rely on agency interpretations that courts have upheld under the Chevron framework.

“By centralizing interpretive decisions in agencies supervised by the President, Chevron also promotes political accountability, national uniformity and predictability, and it respects the expertise agencies can bring to bear in ad- ministering complex statutory schemes.

“Petitioners offer no persuasive ‘special justification’ for overruling Chevron, let alone the type of ‘particularly special justification’ that would be required to overturn such a deeply ingrained part of administrative law.

“Petitioners principally contend that Chevron improperly transfers the authority to ‘say what the law is’ from the Judicial Branch to the Executive Branch. But this Court has explained that the Chevron framework rests on a presumption that ‘a statute’s ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation from Congress to the agency to fill in the statutory gaps.’ (emphasis mine)

This could be the big enchilada, the case that fundamentally transforms America and American government from a modern, well-functioning nation into a third-world backwater where massive corporations and the billionaires they made rich, instead of We the People through elected representatives, set the rules. It’s corporate America’s dream.

It could fulfill Bannon’s and Trump’s promise to dismantle — or at least eviscerate — most of America’s regulatory agencies, leaving us all subject to the tender mercies of the country’s CEOs.

Several groups have called on Gorsuch to recuse himself from the case because one of his friends and patrons is a billionaire who’ll profit greatly from the destruction of our regulatory agencies. Not to mention fulfilling his mother’s legacy.

So far, though, he doesn’t seem to care about the apparent conflict of interest: the Republicans on this Court seem incapable of feeling shame or behaving ethically.

Keep an eye on this case and pay attention to the reporting on today’s arguments before the Court. Knowing what’s coming down the road — and why, and from whom — may well be vital for those of us concerned with the future of our country and our children’s safety.

Thank you for reading The Hartmann Report. This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Snowflaking of White Privilege

If America is ever to become a pluralistic, multiracial democratic republic we must come to terms with racism and white privilege…

THOM HARTMANNJAN 11, 2024176

Leave a comment

Some white people really don’t want to hear that if they’d been born Black their lives would have almost certainly been much harder. It shatters their ability to cling to the number one most important aspect/benefit of white privilege. It confronts them with the end of innocence.

This is particularly difficult for America’s elite media. The very idea of calling out, for example, Trump supporters for their racism is “beyond the pale.” And I mean that nearly literally.

A “palus,” the “pale” referenced in that old phrase, was a sharpened stake sticking out from a fence designed to keep people within a certain area: it was the 13th century version of barbed or razor wire. They were called “paling fences.” The British used them back then to keep Irish people from leaving their Gaza-like confinement areas in eastern parts of Ireland, the area that, for the British, was “beyond the pales.”

America’s news media is as wary of calling Republicans racists as the Irish were of getting themselves impaled (also where that word came from) on the British fences. Think about it: when was the last time you heard or read Trump, or his cult followers, being explicitly identified as “racist” by any of our major media outlets.

And yet they are racists.

Even when Trump calls Letitia James “Peekaboo James,” evoking the old “Jigab**” slur from the era of his childhood, they look away. Even when he uses his favorite descriptor for Black people: “thugs.” Or when he talks about brown-skinned immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America. They’ll acknowledge he’s quoting Hitler but appear terrified of calling him a racist or pointing out he’s using racism as a political weapon.

On my radio/TV program yesterday, a caller brought up the topic of Trump’s racism in the context of white privilege. I commented that I was probably in my 50s before I realized that the biggest, most important, most powerful, most impactful aspect of white privilege was that, as a white guy, I didn’t have to think about the color of my skin every day.

I don’t have to worry how the color of my skin will influence the interaction when I’m pulled over by a cop. I don’t have to wonder if the color of my skin was why I was given a crappy seat in a restaurant. If I’m walking around a department store and somebody seems to be interested in the same things I’m looking at, I don’t need to wonder if they’re following me because of the color of my skin.

A few months ago, Karen Hunter — one of the truly top-notch hosts on SiriusXM — was kind enough to invite me on her show. She asked me what white privilege meant to me and I gave her the description in the previous paragraph. Karen seemed thoughtfully amused, suggesting that perhaps I was bragging.

But what I meant was that I was absolutely shocked when this realization hit me: horrified that I hadn’t understood it earlier, that I hadn’t learned about it in school, that my parents had never discussed it with me.

Of course, I knew it at some deep level. I had all the knowledge necessary for that insight. I’d just never applied it to myself and my own life: I’d always told myself the story that I got where I was because I was smart and worked hard: I’d left home at 16 and never went back. Throughout my life, I’d omitted the color of my skin from my personal origin story (which, of course, is the highest expression of white privilege).

Similarly, I’m aghast at all the racist rightwingers on a jihad against any school or teacher who would help the kids growing up today come to what had been a belated realization for me.

They’re on their crusade against DEI, CRT, and Black history because when white kids are hit with that realization it’s usually accompanied by empathy for those people who are forced, every day, every time they leave the house or apply for a job or even get admitted to a hospital, to confront the many ways in which their skin color can make their experience so very different from that of white people.

And G-d forbid white people have empathy for their fellow human beings born with darker skin.

That could lead to America becoming a society where “the content of your character” is more important than the color of your skin. Republicans love to quote that phrase of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but what they’re really saying is that we shouldn’t discuss skin color and its impact at all.

After my riff on the air yesterday about my personal insight, a listener named Donna sent me the following email:

“Stop with the white privilege. Don’t you know every time you mention that and racism you are constantly dividing our great country. Why do progressives always do this. All races are privileged during their lives. Yet you never mention them. Many Muslins, Asians, Jews, Puerto Ricans and many other races are privileged. Do you not know they work from the bottom up to get that privilege. I know many immigrants came here legally like the Irish and Italians etc. that worked damn hard to get here and were treated like the lowest class of people. Yet they worked hard to get that privilege. So cut out your nonsense.

“When you work hard to raise your family and [are] proud of this country you can become privileged. It’s your choice. The opportunity is yours. Stop putting us into different classes. It really harms this country. I believe we were put here to be kind to each other and help each other not to divide. Please stop your nonsense. I’m white and don’t feel privileged. Lost a parent at young age and worked hard. No privilege there. I don’t appreciate your constant rambling about this.”

My point in quoting this email is not to call out or embarrass Donna, but to highlight her almost perfect articulation of how most white people think of their own white privilege. Which is to say, they don’t: “No privilege here.”

And, apparently, no privilege in our media, either.

Dan Froomkin over at Press Watchers has spent a good part of the past year identifying this same type of denial, both among Trump-humpers and in our mainstream media. In his Press Watch newsletter last week, he asked the question, “How much of Trump’s support is due to racism?”

He also explores the problem of the American press’ near-absolute unwillingness to call much of Trump’s and his followers’ behavior and rhetoric what it clearly is: good-old-fashioned all-American racism.

Froomkin points to a recent Washington Post article about how Trump and most GOP politicians regularly take openly racist positions, both rhetorically and on legislative issues. But throughout the article, the authors refused to describe these Republicans as racists. They wouldn’t even quote anybody calling them racists: that would be, by the standards of today’s journalism, beyond the pale:

“When mainstream journalists do address racism,” Froomkin writes, “they do so with euphemisms and denials. These days that means they understate the racist rhetoric from Trump and other leading Republicans, and they actively cover up the racism of his supporters and make excuses for them.”

This is, he notes, even worse than simply ignoring racism because its effect is to normalize it. And he encourages his journalistic peers to take the next step and do some real reporting:

“Reporters should be fanning out to assess racism’s role in the choices the electorate is making. And that doesn’t mean asking: Are you racist? When they say no, that’s meaningless.

“It means asking them what they believe. Do they subscribe to the great replacement theory? They’re racist. Do they believe that white Europeans are more desirable as immigrants than Africans or Asians? Racist. Do they believe that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of the country? Racist. Do they feel like minorities are unfairly getting ahead of them in line for the American Dream? Racist.”

As I was writing the first draft of this article yesterday afternoon, an email came into my in-box from Donald Trump.

It was absolutely dripping with the racism that Trump has proudly exhibited all the way back to the days when he was demanding the death penalty for five innocent young Black men accused of a Central Park rape, a demand he continues to make today, long after they were all exonerated and the man who actually committed the crime was arrested and successfully prosecuted:

“Reports all over the country,” Trump starts out, “show that Obama is hellbent on stopping our 2024 campaign. He’s RETALIATING because I’m the President who ripped his disastrous ‘legacy’ to shreds.” 

Right. Go after the Black guy to raise money and get out the vote in the last weeks of your primary campaign. Nothing racist about that, right?

Trump then features three headlines citing his destruction of President Obama’s legacy:

“How Trump is rolling back Obama’s legacy”
       Source: Washington Post

“Trump Discards Obama Legacy, One Rule at a Time”
      Source: New York Times

“Obama’s Legacy Has Already Been Destroyed”
      Source: NY Mag

Trump wrapped up yesterday’s pitch to his racist base with this:

“Come January 20, 2025, we will FINISH the job and remove the last remnants of Obama’s legacy AND cast Biden’s legacy to the ash heap of history along with it.”

While that email presumably went to millions of Americans, I think it’s safe to say that it won’t be called out by the media. There won’t be a story about it in today’s newspaper or this morning‘s television. Just like most media refused to call him a racist when he told four Black congresswomen to “go back … [to the] places from which they came.”

Politico quoted a few Democrats calling Trump’s “go back” comment racist, but didn’t identify the statement or Trump himself as racist. Ditto for NBC News, CBS News, and USA Today. The New York Times at least identified the phrase itself, but did so by way of correcting an error of Trump’s:

“Wrapped inside that insult, which was widely established as a racist trope, was a factually inaccurate claim: Only one of the lawmakers was born outside the country.”

Last night on Fox News, one of their hosts did a segment asking if DEI was responsible for the door blowing off a Boeing plane. Because, you know, Black people are stupid and if you hire a bunch of them to build airplanes you’re gonna have substandard airplanes.

Nothing racist about Fox “News,” right?

If America is ever to become a pluralistic, multiracial democratic republic we must come to terms with this endemic racism and white privilege.

Our media must stop being terrified of the paling fence Republicans have erected around themselves and their racist rhetoric. So what if these “conservatives” (the modern-day euphemism for “racists”: William F. Buckley Jr., the godfather of modern conservatism, wrote about whites as the “advanced race”) are such snowflakes that they’ll yell, scream, and play victim?

It’s way past time to call racists what they are, teach the actual history of America, and — as a society and culture — make unacceptable the kinds of semi-coded racist rhetoric and racially-targeted Red state anti-voter legislation that’s so common today across the GOP.

And that begins with white people: we must understand our own sordid history, acknowledge our privilege, and strive to remake America into a nation that works for all its citizens.

As President Kennedy said of world peace but also more generally argued when it came to racial reconciliation, “We are not helpless before that task.”

Thank you for reading The Hartmann Report. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene Channeling Centuries of Racist Rhetoric?

What is the opposite of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Whites-only communities, whites-only jobs, and racial segregation…

Thom Hartmann Jan 9

Share

As one of Georgia’s most high-profile racists (a high bar in that state), Marjorie Taylor Greene has a reputation to uphold. Which is probably why this week she posted an attack on the Blackrock investment firm for having DEI or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at that company.

“Corporate communists believe they have to force behaviors,” Greene wrote on her Xitter feed. “They only need to remember as a corporation or business their ONLY job is to SERVE THEIR CUSTOMER with the best job possible to make their customers happy! It’s not about gender, sex, race and blah blah blah.”

In this, Greene is channeling centuries of racist rhetoric that argued it was inappropriate for government or companies to have any concerns about racial fairness or equity. After all, the white customers of Georgia’s segregated 1960s lunch counters were “happy!” What else is necessary?  

There’s a reason why America’s white supremacist Republican politicians like Greene and Stefanik are pushing so hard to get rid of DEI and to fire Black people in academia and the Pentagon: it wins them votes. From the geriatric Fox “News” followers, to white nationalist militias, to the preachers in all-white evangelical churches, the browning of America has provoked a collective freak-out.

And when you put it into the context of presidential administration policies over the past seventy or so years, it just makes sense that at this moment in time we’d see this explosion of exploitative racism from the hard right in America.

Like with any six-decade-old memory (from childhood, no less), I can’t be sure my recollection is as vivid as I think it is, but I have a clear recollection of my Dad pointing out and commenting about a “Colored Entrance Around Back” sign (or words to that effect) at the old RE Olds Hotel (later renamed the Jack Tar) in downtown Lansing, Michigan in the late 1950s.

The hotel housed one of the better sit-down restaurants in Lansing and we went out only rarely, but it was one of my parents’ favorites, that sign notwithstanding. My recollection is that the sign offended my Dad who, although a Republican, was a strong advocate of civil rights (at that time, the segregated South was almost entirely Democratic).

Chattel slavery had only ended about 90 years earlier, the Klan was riding high, and Fred Koch was funding “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards across the country, expressing rightwing outrage over the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v Board decision that required the racial integration of our nation’s public schools.

Virtually every door to opportunity was closed to Black people in the 1950s. Their segregated public schools were substandard; America’s top colleges only occasionally let in women, much less Black people; unions and employers alike opposed African Americans in the workplace; and it was nearly impossible to find a Black doctor, lawyer, college professor (outside of HBCUs), or cop.

In a speech which began the racial transformation of America, President John Kennedy addressed the nation on June 11, 1963 about this issue:

“We are confronted today primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.

“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

“We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

“Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise.”

Kennedy didn’t live to see the legislation he proposed pass Congress: that job fell to Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and 1965 with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. But JFK set the stage for racial reconciliation and Black opportunity, and America is the better for it.

In his speech, Kennedy pointed out how far behind Black people were, as a result of centuries of slavery and nearly a century of legally enforced segregation:

“The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the Nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is 7 years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.”

But just ending legal segregation and discrimination in America wasn’t enough, Kennedy knew. That’s why he originated the term “affirmative action” with his Executive Order 10925, which required any contractor or company that wanted to do business with the federal government to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”  

President Johnson followed up with his own Executive Order, 11246, which spelled out exactly what affirmative action meant:

“Such action shall include, but not be limited to the following: employment, upgrading, demotion, or transfer; recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship.”

Over the loud objections of white supremacists and open racists like George Wallace and Ronald Reagan, affirmative action became a watchword phrase during the 1970s. That decade saw the first wave of Black people getting a quality education and finding good jobs, particularly in the government sector.

Then came the Reagan Revolution, powered in part by white backlash against Kennedy’s, Johnson’s, and Carter’s affirmative action programs.

Reagan’s first official campaign stop had been to speak at an all-white county fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the brutal murder of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, in 1964. The subject of his speech was “states’ rights,” which everybody knew was code for “let the southern states continue their segregation programs.”

On the 1980 campaign trail, Reagan told the story of the “strapping young buck” in line at the supermarket upsetting all the hard-working white people when he whipped out his food stamps to pay for his “steak and beer”; it was the male complement to Reagan’s Black “welfare queen” myth.  Cut off his food stamps, the logic went, and he’ll be forced to look for gainful employment…even if there were no jobs within miles and white employers wouldn’t then hire Black people. 

But Reagan didn’t just talk about stopping affirmative action: he took steps to push America back to the white supremacist 1950s. As The Washington Post noted:

“In the 1980s, the Reagan administration began to roll back civil rights protections and legally designated targets for affirmative action hires, thus bringing the politics of reverse discrimination to the White House. Under the now familiar banner of ‘Let’s Make America Great Again,’ Reagan campaigned vigorously against affirmative action in 1980, promising voters he would overturn policies that mandated, in his view, “federal guidelines or quotas which require race, ethnicity, or sex . . . to be the principle factor in hiring or education.”

As president, Reagan directed his Justice Department to stop promoting affirmative action and instead attack those programs in pleadings before the courts. When the Supreme Court refused to outlaw such programs, though, Reagan began what The Washington Post called “a two-pronged approach to circumvent existing civil rights laws.”

Up and down the line at the DOJ, the Reagan administration simply refused to enforce civil rights laws and affirmative action laws and policies they didn’t like. As the Post article noted:

“Reagan’s secretary of labor, for example, implemented new federal compliance guidelines that exempted as many as 75 percent of companies contracting with the federal government from previously mandatory affirmative action programs.”

Reagan also fired people in the federal government who supported affirmative action, replacing them with opponents of school integration and bussing like the man he put in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, William Bradford Reynolds.

Reynolds and his compatriot Clarence Thomas (then Chairman of Reagan’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) blocked the federal government from using lawsuits to enforce affirmative action.

When Bill Clinton came into the White House in 1993, he re-started the affirmative action programs put into place by Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter.  In a speech, he said:

“My experiences with discrimination are rooted in the South and in the legacy slavery left. … The job of ending discrimination in this country is not done. … We should reaffirm the principle of affirmative action and fix the practices.”

By the time George W. Bush became president, private industry and academia had both begun a serious embrace of what President Kennedy called affirmative action.

A new system, called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” set standards that colleges and companies were eager to embrace in pursuit of a more diverse and fairer educational and work environment. From Ivy League universities to the nation’s largest corporations, DEI initiatives were the hot new thing in the 21st century.

The Bush administration, arguably the first Republican administration since the Civil War to reject racism as a political strategy, embraced DEI, as did the Obama administration which followed.

Donald Trump, however, wanted to put an end to the entire process. This was the guy, after all, who as a teenager worked for his father interviewing people for the subsidized housing project they owned and would write a “C” (for “Colored”) on the applications from Black people so they never got an apartment in Fred Trump’s properties. Fred had, just decades earlier, been arrested at a 1927 Klan rally.

Trump reverted to Reagan’s policies: He issued an executive order banning diversity training on racial and gender biases across government agencies, nonprofits, and institutions with federal contracts. As The New York Times headline noted: “Trump Attack on Diversity Training Has a Quick and Chilling Effect.” The article pointed out:

“Both implicitly and explicitly, Mr. Trump has made race a centerpiece of his bid for re-election, warning suburban voters of the perils of low-income housing and the spreading of ‘anarchy’ in the cities. During the debate, he refused to condemn white supremacy and told the Proud Boys, an organization linked with white supremacy and acts of violence, to ‘stand back and stand by.’

“Beyond rhetoric, the president has mobilized the federal government to prosecute his efforts. Microsoft said this month that the Labor Department had initiated an investigation into its commitment to double the number of Black employees in leadership posts by 2025. The Justice Department sued Yale University last week, accusing the school of discriminating against white and Asian-American applicants in admissions.”

Trump is now running for president again, and his racist base are wildly enthusiastic about the prospect. They hate DEI and affirmative action, and want to see women and Black people returned to their second-class status that preceded the civil rights era.

Republican racists — much like Democratic racists before Kennedy’s presidency — proudly lay it out for all to see. They’re campaigning on their racism.

After all, what is the opposite of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Whites-only communities, whites-only jobs, and racial segregation.

Thank you for reading The Hartmann Report. This post is public so feel free to share it.