Is Power is everything?A successful military requires the trust and support of its citizens. The Iraq war initiated by a Republican President under the pretence of eliminating weapons of mass destruction ultimately transformed Iraq into an Iranian satellite. American citizens realized that the promised liberation had instead sown chaos and instability. Republican voters want to win, and this desire for victory is palpable. They question why should they support any U.S. wars when leadership decisions may negate the potential for enduring achievements. The conversation, regarding increasing isolationism and decline in military recruitment numbers, should include holding failed leaders accountable. While soldiers face the consequences of failed missions, higher-ranking officials often escape scrutiny. Rebuilding trust in the government's ability to conduct successful military campaigns demands accountability for our failures. Simone Ledeen Nations and institutions develop a culture based upon myths of superiority. History books in schools are a teaching tool used as a way to teach historic dates and important events. However, the history that is taught to children is not actually history. The challenge is teaching students that some of what they learned in school is false. Classifying historical people, as good or bad (binary thinking), is how you build a mythology. This creates a problem of not understanding what was the intent of those people and what living in that time period was really like. But because of such mythology being build and taught, the danger is we become ingrained in binary thinking and justify bad deeds of people we like. Historical people, who did great deeds, were also flawed people and did bad things. However, whitewashing slavery in America in recent history is dangerous for everyone, especially when there are so many people who don't understand the problem with statutes honouring confederate leaders (who found for their beliefs) in public streets. One of the great leaders, Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, said the institution of slavery was a "moral depravity and a hideous blot." He assumed that the abolition of the slave trade would weaken slavery and hasten its end. Instead, slavery became more widespread and profitable. By the 1800s, Virginia's most valuable commodity and export was neither crops nor land, but slaves. In 1861, the contest over slavery sparked a bloody civil war and the creation of two nations—Union and Confederacy—in the place of one. The important thing to understand is that statues aren't history, but mythology of 'State's Rights', ignoring that the Confederate supporting states wrote in their founding documents that keeping black people as slaves was the reason for them to unite. Confederate leaders were not real patriots. Revisionists will cry, "states rights, states rights", but chief among the 'state's rights' was the right for white Americans to own black slaves and the right to expand slavery in new states, hence the Missouri Compromise. Statues get build to communicate the values and message of the time the statues were made. No historian believes the message behind the building of statues. Confederate statues got build to put down Black people during the 1920s wave of the KKK inspired by D. W. Griffith’s "Birth of a Nation", based on the 1905 novel "The Clansman" by Thomas Dixon, Jr.; and the 1960s during the US civil right's movement. The message behind the Statue of Liberty, is similarly not true about poor immigrants being welcomed, however it's a myth to make US society aspire to become someday. However, the Confederate statues are not what US society should be aspiring to. What sort of tactics did the John Birch Society (taking their name from a Baptist missionary who had been killed in China by communist forces in 1945) use in their early days to mobilize the conservative grassroots outside of the party apparatus of the GOP? Their mission throughout the 1960s was to try to educate the American people about the communist conspiracy, and many of the Birchers — not all, but many — were suspicious of the two-party system. They didn’t like democracy, and they believed the only way to save the country was through a kind of shock education — through controlling the kinds of texts that kids and college students and other Americans were exposed to — and through direct action: setting up front groups and committees that could attack what they saw as the weak points in the communist line. For example, they set up the Committee Against Summit Entanglements, which was a direct action protest against the Khrushchev-Eisenhower summit in 1959, and they set up the campaign to impeach Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, because they saw Warren as a communist. So it was a combination of trying to create a space where they could spread an alternative message about this alleged conspiracy, but also to shock their enemies and mobilize the public to attack what they saw as their communist foes.Matthew Dallek If you think everyone who does not vote your way is "evil", then that is not democracy, it's demonising people based on ideology and inciting violence against them. However, opposition has to be in good faith. False patriotism is the last refuge of an incompetent, dishonourable person. However, the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. If it walks like and talks like... Every fascist movement is nourished by conservative thinkers who reject modernity & the Enlightenment. They embrace lies to feel better. Fascists believe in action first, and thinking later. Disagreement is treason, and a fascist will call for the death of anyone they disagree with. They fear the 'other' who they believe they must destroy & hence, they will fearmonger about boogeymen to apply pressure so that their followers feel besieged. Fascists have to tell themselves that they are the biggest victims, and their powers are being taken from them to humiliate them. They are obsessed about a deep-secret plot or threat from illuminati-like global network. Fascists paint their enemy as, both too powerful and too weak, at the same time. They believe that life is lived for struggle. The cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. They are intolerant of homosexuality and unchastity in women, and condemn such sexual habits. In fascist movements, there is an undisputed leader who is regarded as the true interpreter of the will of the silent majority of the people. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. No leader can perfect human, but what their flaws were, should be compared to their achievements. Some politician's only skill is in the art of mud slings and smears, in order to defect from their own irresponsibility and sow doubts or discredit leaders who are far better than them, in the minds of the public. Donald suggested that although Lincoln "did good" but the end result was "always questionable". Gandhi & Lincoln were not as perfect humans as their stories make us believe. However, their shortcomings were small, and they were centuries ahead of their time. These were compassionate leaders who never distracted or complained to get ahead and dedicated their life to provide equality for those who have nothing. Remember Gandhi, who fought for our freedom through non-violence, whereas Churchill suggested that Gandhi should be “trampled on by an enormous elephant”. We can still find heroic people, but remember, no human can measure up to an idealised version in your head. There are no people who are perfect, so we need to see the action where inspirational people were great in, and compare it to their flaws in other areas. “If I could save the union by not freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some slaves and not others, I would do it.” https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5060238/pres-trump-i-justicei-retribution https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c5060238/pres-trump-i-justicei-retribution https://archive.org/details/radicalrightthen010584mbp "So even though the fringe was part of the Republican coalition — especially during campaigns — we don’t want to oversell their power historically. On some issues, the fringe and the Republican establishment aligned, especially on culture war issues. But most of the time, the Birchers and their successors were very frustrated. They loathed Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and some Birchers even said that Ronald Reagan was never to be trusted. On immigration reform, on internationalism, on military interventions, on free trade agreements, on conspiracy theories, and on the degree of explicit racism versus more coded or implicit racism, there were significant fissures. The MAGA phenomenon is a more recent development, and I try to explain how our contemporary far right essentially adopted the Birchers’ ideological legacy as an alternative political tradition and eventually took over the Republican Party." Matthew Dallek https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/books/review/birchers-matthew-dallek.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/tracing-the-origins-of-todays-ultraconservatives/2021/12/29/ae14b39a-496c-11ec-b8d9-232f4afe4d9b_story.html https://www.freedominthe50states.org/ Nixonland The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/ 'October Surprise' sabotage of Jimmy Carter's re-election: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/31/the-republican-party-has-lurched-towards-populism-and-illiberalism https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/nixons-china-sell-out/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mcconnell-says-100-of-his-focus-is-on-blocking-biden-agenda-11620257305 https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-obama-had-total-control/985146007/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2015/02/01/a-walk-down-memory-lane-on-republican-obstruction/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/transportation-secretary-elaine-chao.html?action=click&module=Intentional&pgtype=Article A single politician has vowed to make the U.S Senate a 'legislative graveyard'. Drawing out deliberations can cripple the Senate (the world’s greatest deliberative body), which is in session for only 34 weeks or so each year, most of which, in practice, are only four working days. Mitch is a tactician and a pragmatist who has become the undisputed master of the American government machinery. He understood pretty quickly, faster than others, that most politicians were more interested in being sanctimonious and grandstanding i.e being seen as supporting reform rather than actually enacting it. So he got very quickly to the bottom line. You argue on facts and when the facts are against you then you argue that the law is the law (and when you can't talk about it, then you talk about the process being unfair). The job is no longer about good legislative governance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPfrdiZlbps If this was allowed under Democrates, then Republicans would have demand he resign or be fired. Mitch is more than willing to play the villain and courting bad press, for political capital, whenever its required by the caucus. All the damages temporary and survivable. He believes that the systems and institutions is self-correcting and all that really matters is to stay determined on his agenda to get America right of center. But what have they done to solve the everyday issues apart from cheap political stunts to get votes? The distraction intended to divert attention is part of their attack. Currently, Republican party & its elected officials, is all white. Tim Scott is the sole Republican Black politician in U.S Senate. While there are powerful Black Democratic congress men & women in both houses and even 1 Black ex-President. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/business/economy/kentucky-economy.html https://www.newsweek.com/mccaul-admits-gop-has-no-evidence-1827663 http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/23/the-party-of-no-new-details-on-the-gop-plot-to-obstruct-obama/ https://crooksandliars.com/2014/06/south-dakota-republican-party-passes https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/republicans-had-it-in-for-obama-before-day-1/2012/08/10/0c96c7c8-e31f-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_blog.html https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00571703 http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/110118-tv/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-fec-lawsuit-campaign-loan-dc-court https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/07/mitch-mcconnell-georgia-citizens-united/ https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/09/08/2022-19344/repayment-of-candidate-loans https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-strikes-down-campaign-finance-regulation-11652711749 https://www.npr.org/2019/08/01/747368694/mitch-mcconnell-has-long-argued-for-more-money-in-politics https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/fundraising/114852-mccain-and-whitehouse-urge-high-court-to-note-impact-of-citizens-united-decision/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/24/how-citizens-united-gave-republicans-a-bonanza-of-seats-in-u-s-state-legislatures/ Republicans held up 60 judicial nominations (and 14 appeals court seats) during Clinton in 1990s, by flatly refusing to give them a hearing. These were filled up when Republican won the Presidency. When McConnell became majority leader, following the elections, judicial nominations all but ground to a halt, with McConnell confirming barely a quarter of Obama’s court picks. After Obama left, the unprecedented number of conservative-approved judicial nominees waved through the Senate stands to shift much of the burden of conservative policymaking away from an increasingly paralyzed Senate. By controlling both voting litigation and the judges on the federal bench, he could create a system where conservative donors have an avenue to both oppose voting rights and appoint judges to back that effort. The Supreme Court and circuit-courts independence has been undermined after Mitch played dirty. Merrick Garland who has been left out standing even after being nominated by Obama. Under McConnell’s leadership, Republicans insisted on confirming Obama’s nominations individually, drawing out the process enough that, by the summer of 2010, there were 99 vacancies on the federal bench and 40 “judicial emergencies” had been declared by overburdened courts. The Democratic Senate majority leader finally decided to get rid of filibusters for lower-court appointees in 2013. In the coming years, battles over voting rights, health care, abortion, regulation and campaign finance, among other areas, are less likely to be decided in Congress than in the nation’s courthouses. The excuse given by the Republican majority is because of something that happened in the year 1987 under the Democratic Senate. Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement in 1987, and Ronald Reagan soon after nominated Robert Bork. Bork was on record defending Jim Crow era Black voter poll tax and arguing against equal voting rights for women. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) delivered a famous condemnation on the Senate floor, based on facts: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, school children could not be taught about evolution". The Reagan's nominee lost a full vote of the Democatic Senate with the help of 6 Republican senators who believed his views were too extreme. Richard Nixon saw two nominations, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, lose confirmation votes in the Senate. Both men were segregationists, and this was back when that was still distasteful to Republicans. 15 of the 19 Supreme court judges in the last 50 years are already Republicans (Nixon & Reagan got 4 picks each) even though Democrats won 50% of the time, making the radical white conservatism the default. Kavanaugh's is Yale classmate of Rod Rosenstein (r) in FBI. Imagine if they both of them were Dems, you would be calling for heads to roll. Unregulated liberalized market economy and globalization, promotes creation of wealth, and it does not promote liberty, human rights and political freedom. Rich people help powerful people get rich, and powerful people make rich people powerful. Colonial Empire has now been replaced by a global financial empire. 20% of the people get 80% of the success and the rest 20% of the success go to 80% of the people (Pareto 80/20 principle). Democracies & empires don’t mix. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html https://myfox8.com/news/politics/supreme-court-should-reconsider-birth-control-gay-sex-gay-marriage-rulings-justice-thomas-says/ https://taskandpurpose.com/news/military-abortion-rights-supreme-court-roe-v-wade/
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-secretly-attended-koch-brothers-donor-events-scotus By the time election 2010 heated up, two big things had already changed. First, the conservative-majority Supreme Court issued its Citizens United verdict, removing the ban on political donations by Corporations and Unions as their right to free speech, much of it “dark money” impossible to trace back to its original source. Republican judicial adviser Leonard Leo helped conservative nonprofits raise $250 million from mostly undisclosed donors. "Judicial Education Project" alias 'The 85 Fund' alias "The Concord Fund" alias 'Honest Elections Project' is well-funded organization has deftly hidden the changes to its name from public view. “Being branded as neutral but actually having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position.” In 2012, Leo joined the boards of the nonprofit Catholic Association and an affiliated charity, the Catholic Association Foundation. The two Catholic nonprofits launched a third organization called Catholic Voices. It is backed by Leonard Leo, Koch brothers & Betsy DeVos’ family, suddenly announced it was spending millions on ads about voter fraud and accusing Democrats of cheating in the upcoming elections. In the year Leo joined Mercer’s group, and in the two following years, the Mercer family became a leading benefactor of the Federalist Society, donating a total of nearly $6 million, tax filings show. In 2018, more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project’s funding came from a single $7.8 million donation from Donors Trust. The Judicial Education Project is closely aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) who spearheaded the campaigns to get Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court. Both organizations share Carrie Severino (president of Judicial Crisis Network) & both groups have been funded by Leonard Leo's "The Wellspring Committee". Both have also paid money to BH Group (where Leonard Leo once worked). One of his client is CRC’s president, Greg Mueller’s firm, who gained prominence during the presidential campaign of 2004 for helping to promote the “swift boat” allegations, unsubstantiated claims that Democratic candidate John F. Kerry’s war record in Vietnam was exaggerated. They have bought Facebook ads that reached hundreds of thousands of users. “I spend probably close to $800,000 annually on a PR team at the Federalist Society, and we generate press that has a publicity value of approximately $146 million each year.” Leonard Leo. The story of the conservative moneybags kid's rise offers an inside look into the modern machinery of political persuasion. He has defended the practice of taking money from donors whose identities are not publicly disclosed to counter the influence of the 1960s and liberals on education, law and politics. Leo has complained that praising diversity would “disgust any conservative". He also conducts polls to help craft the most persuasive messages and arranged dozens of “background” briefings for reporters. A nameplate on his shelf reads, "The Real Boss." Republicans playbook aka the Liberty Amendments -- control Supreme court with majority conservative "voices" in order to overturn so-called civil rights laws, abolish all coal & oil regulation, & to change voting rules to indirectly elect state senators instead of by majority vote. Republicans have shown a willingness to abandon any and all norms to undermine the judicial nominations process and pack the courts with judges who will help them realize political goals they cannot achieve through the political process. https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/08/kavanaugh-on-the-executive-branch-phh-corp-v-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/
It is a real shame that the U.S. Policing system can use race when assessing suspicion of a crime, but a college admission officer cannot use race when assessing a student's contribution to a college. White folks get a hook-up, while black folks get the hook. https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-rules-against-affirmative-action-c94b5a9c As a nation, we begin by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it, “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. Founded in 1985 by John Tanton, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has gone on to become the go-to think tank for the anti-immigrant movement, with its reports and staffers often cited by media and anti-immigrant politicians. CIS’s much-touted tagine is “low immigration, pro-immigrant,” but the organization has a decades-long history of circulating racist writers, while also associating with white-nationalists. The American patriotic song "God Bless America" was written by a naturalized American composer and lyricist, who was born in Russia (in the area that is modern-day Belarus). https://www.businessinsider.nl/justice-samuel-alito-admits-taking-luxury-fishing-trip-with-gop-billionaire-who-later-had-at-least-10-cases-before-scotus/ https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/us-elections-government/ny-supreme-court-justice-samuel-alito-undisclosed-luxury-fishing-trip-20230621-chj7njf7svafzceppq6i7boosy-story.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/us/politics/justice-alito-luxury-travel-fishing-trip.html https://theweek.com/supreme-court/1024444/alito-did-not-disclose-alaska-private-jet-trip-from-gop-billionaire-with https://www.ft.com/content/a4640200-12c1-4b3f-94ef-d71fa88b41e8
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/2013/03/18/five-takeaways-from-the-growth-and-opportunity-project-report/ Newt Gingrich's entire career was built on partisanship, mudslinging & tearing down American governing institutions! http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,982006,00.html "I have never seen Congress at a lower level of backbiting, knifing each other, partisanship, never in thirty-seven years. Nothing like this. And it's destroying Congress. Negative campaigning becomes a full-time occupation. That's not what this institution is supposed to be all about. It's not healthy. That will suit Gingrich well; he wants to destroy Congress. Then he thinks they can rebuild it." During lewinsky affair, while he talked about morality on the floor. Newt was having an affair with his staffer & 23 years his junior. Gingrich led the party into a disastrous budget fight against President Bill Clinton that resulted in a government shutdown, a move that was widely viewed as backfiring on the party. He said he had learned his lesson and worked with Clinton on a welfare reform bill and new measures to balance the budget. Newt gets $60,000 everytime he appears on Fox News. When a politician can get elected to power by getting only 10% of the votes of their districts electorates, they can do anything or nothing and still expect to get re-elected if they have the complete faith of those 10% voters. https://fox2now.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-federal-appeals-court-deals-blow-to-voting-rights-act-ruling-that-private-plaintiffs-cant-sue/ https://fox5sandiego.com/hill-politics/court-says-private-citizens-civil-rights-groups-cant-sue-under-voting-rights-act/ https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-federal-court-private-lawsuits-00b9c4bb2174aa8077db296c3edf7c79 https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-appeals-court-ruling-strikes-core-landmark-voting-rights-law-2023-11-20/ https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126619000/voting-rights-act-supreme-court https://www.propublica.org/article/the-state-of-section-5 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/us-conservative-group-heritage-action-video-voting-restrictions https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/515320-dejoys-former-employees-were-reimbursed-by-company-for-gop-political https://www.democracydocket.com/2021/05/republicans-use-redistricting-to-their-advantage/ https://redistricting.lls.edu/ "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." George Bernard In 2008, Obama captured Republican stronghold after stronghold. Obama has stated himself that he is more of a Rockefeller "sane" Republican from the 1980s, rather than an old-school New Deal Democrat. Republican re-districting expert Thomas Hofeller's analysis to rig elections to get Republicans elected in down-ballot races, a full Chamber of Congress for a decade. FEC filings showed the Republican Party paid him more than $2 million for his work. Hence, rigging US elections is completely legal. With REDistricting MAjority Project (RED-MAP) Republican candidates will always outperform, even when they get fewer votes than the Democratic candidates. The project uses, previously unavailable, mapping software such as Maptitude, to improve the precision with which district lines are strategically gerrymandered in targeted 107 local state legislative races in 16 states. The project was launched in 2010 and estimated to have cost the Republican party around US$30 million. When Democrats win the popular vote by 3 or 4 points, they barely, barely win control. If Republicans were to win the national vote by 3 or 4 points, they have a very large majority. The problem comes in when you have states like Pennsylvania, in which Democrats get more votes and Republicans take 13 of the 18 seats. Or a state like Ohio, which is the bellwether state that keeps us all up on election night, a 50-50 state. The Republicans have 12 of the 16 seats. So, this is about being sure that elections matter, and that the side getting the most votes wins. And this is the difference between the gerrymander that happens in 2010 and any other gerrymander. Without voting rights, it's taxation without representation. US has become a country that allows the politicians to draw their own lines to essentially choose their own voters. This is redrawing of democracy in America itself. It's why today Republicans have a majority in nearly two-thirds of the country's state legislative chambers. Prior to Election Day 2010, Democrats controlled 60 state legislative chambers to the Republicans’ 36. After REDistricting MAjority Project (RED-MAP) ’s success on Election Day 2010, Republicans held majorities in US House seats and where the legislature played a role in redrawing the state legislative and congressional district map. REDistricting MAjority Project (RED-MAP) ’s effect on the 2012 election is even clearer. Pennsylvanians cast 83,000 more votes for Democratic US House candidates than their Republican opponents, but elected a 13-5 Republican majority to represent them in Washington; Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress. This means elections in “zero years” matter more than others. 2021 will also be the first time that places with a history of voting discrimination will also be able to draw districts without first submitting them to the justice department for approval because of a 2013 supreme court decision, Shelby County v Holder, that struck down a pre-clearance provision at the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That federal courts could not strike down districts on the grounds that they were too partisan, giving lawmakers a green light to virtually guarantee their own re-election. Controlling the re-districting process in these states would have the greatest impact on determining how both state legislative and congressional district boundaries would be drawn for the next decade. Drawing new district lines in states with the most re-districting activity presented the opportunity to solidify conservative policymaking at the state level and solidifying a Republican stronghold. An aggressive and racial gerrymander by Governor Ron DeSantis helped provide Republicans with four of those seats from Florida alone. His map-rigging team was determined to push a 16-11 GOP edge all the way to 20-8. In Ohio, meanwhile, the state supreme court twice rejected congressional maps drawn by GOP lawmakers as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. A bipartisan majority of justices declared these maps wildly out of line with a 2018 statewide initiative backed by more than 70 percent of voters mandating that districts be drawn up with lines that did not favor or disfavor any political party, to better bring them into alignment with the state’s partisan balance. Lawless GOP officials used the maps anyway. A “ratfuck” is a dirty deed done dirt cheap. Stalling is the entire point. Steal a cycle, maybe two. And then let conservative courts handle the rest. Things will only get harder in 2024. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/the-gops-bid-to-claim-a-rigged-house-majority/ https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/09/republican-party-anti-democracy-cost.html
Colonial American society was dominated by elites but independent citizens, neither slave nor master, made up the great bulk of Americans. Nobody had ever tried republican-ism, democracy, liberalism, and constitutionalism at the same time. Many nations had tried this experiment but they failed. US had more democratic institutions and liberal guarantees (such as a free press and no established churches). The corruption of the Roman republic into an empire weighed heavily on the Founders. It’s no coincidence that early state constitutions written by the American Revolution generation, largely favored weak executives and strong legislatures; or that the Bill of Rights largely dwells upon abuses that an executive branch would commit: like, unreasonable searches and seizures, quartering of troops, prosecution without trial by jury. The revolutionaries were fighting against arbitrary power and for checks and balances. The American Revolution was neither a revolt against a 17th-century King or an 18th-century Parliament; it was a revolt against arbitrary power. And this is why preserving a balance of powers between branches of government is at the core of the US Constitution. US had eliminated all property barriers to universal manhood suffrage (at least among white men, and in some states free black men as well) in all but 3 states by the end of the 1830s. The nation’s debates over slavery were so heated precisely because Americans after the Revolution prided themselves on being unlike the class-ridden societies of Europe and the despotisms of Asia. In contrast, Crowned heads still ruled much of Europe all the way to the WW1. Dutch republics were aristocratic oligarchies. Only in 1870–71 did France establish a durable republic, on its third try. US system right now is set up so that minor disagreements become arguments. Arguments become conflagrations. Conflagrations become feuds. Feuds become wars. It never ends Our system right now is set up so that minor disagreements become arguments. Arguments become conflagrations. Conflagrations become feuds. Feuds become wars. It never ends. Have your lines in the sand, but understand: Do you have a phone? There are probably things in the way that your phone is made that are not the greatest in terms of workers’ rights. Approaching it in that manner is not both-sides-ism. The moral high ground is absolutely there, but we can all achieve something higher. It’s too easy to point at the low-hanging moral fruit without doing the work. Every society lies to itself to some extent. Every person does. And sometimes you have to face the truth. The truth of the American experiment is that government is messy. It’s hard to manage. We are melding cultures and religions in a way that most countries don’t. You can’t point a spotlight on the anecdotal and pretend that it’s universal. That’s what drives me bananas. There is an inert racism that exists, and it’s pernicious, but I don’t believe everybody who’s part of it is evil. So it’s more a question of trying to remove a right-left axis from the conversation and instead create a conversation around conditions. Poverty is poverty. The right will talk about poverty a certain way, and the left will talk about poverty a different way, but poor people are still poor people. They’re still without political power. Jon Stewart
https://www.newstribune.com/news/2023/jun/10/indictment-trump-stored-showed-off-and-refused-to/ https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3579787-more-missing-texts-this-time-from-trump-dhs-officials-raise-new-jan-6-questions/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/key-texts-between-trump-dhs-officials-before-jan-6-missing-wash-post-2022-07-29/ https://www.npr.org/2020/02/24/808214593/off-the-record-trump-administration-criticized-for-how-it-keeps-documents https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-02-07/national-archives-retrieve-trump-white-house-records-mar-a-lago-4787288.html https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/former-aide-told-jan-6-committee-trump-tearing-documents-report https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/05/trump-ripping-documents/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/07/trump-records-mar-a-lago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/maralago-witness-trump-boxes-moved/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-wanted-swap-mar-a-lago-documents-russia-investigation-files https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/593645-wads-of-printed-paper-regularly-clogged-white-house-toilet-during https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/10/breaking-law-via-toilet-would-certainly-complete-one-trump-era-story-arc/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/10/trump-papers-toilet-haberman-book/6735023001/ https://www.axios.com/maggie-haberman-book-trump-papers-2d59d593-8b89-4edd-8623-8ef709af524f.html https://theweek.com/donald-trump/1010008/white-house-residential-staff-reportedly-found-wads-of-printed-paper-clogging https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-documents-flushed-down-toilet-presidential-records-act-2022-2?r=US&IR=T https://www.mediaite.com/tv/clearly-in-violation-of-the-presidential-records-act-cnn-commentator-reacts-to-report-mark-meadows-burned-documents/ https://www.businessinsider.nl/a-big-distinction-may-explain-why-the-fbi-searched-trumps-home-but-not-bidens-over-classified-documents/ https://www.newsweek.com/why-joe-biden-was-not-raided-fbi-over-classified-documents-1772506 Republican congress oversight committee got 51 citizens tax-returns & even release it to the public. President Obama & Vice-President Biden’s Tax Returns and Tax Receipts: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/04/18/president-obama-and-vice-president-biden-s-tax-returns-and-tax-receipts https://www.seattletimes.com/business/bidens-paid-24-6-taxes-on-610702-earnings-returns-show/ https://www.outlookindia.com/international/trump-s-returns-reveal-foreign-accounts-no-donations-takeaways-from-long-sought-tax-news-249752 Why be the only President in 50 years to hid his tax-return, if you have nothing to hide? Is he afraid that it will show the illegal money trail from Russian banks to Saudi kings? His top advisers Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort ($12 million in undisclosed payments), Rick Gates, Michael Cohen were all convicted and Scott Pruitt, Tom Price, Brock Long, Ryan Zinke were found to be ethically compromised. His biggest business deals were with Russian banks. Donald told Gen Flynn to go to Ukraine so that the sanctions on Russian govt. banks can be removed. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/29/us/politics/tom-bossert-trump-ukraine.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/us/politics/trump-taxes-income.html https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-organization-entities-found-guilty-all-counts-tax-fraud https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/20/us/trump-taxes-news https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64127825 https://theweek.com/donald-trump/1019520/irs-didnt-launch-audit-of-trumps-presidential-era-taxes-until-day-house https://apnews.com/article/trump-new-york-times-taxes-lawsuit-slapp-f39342501d9a2a5cfd36181f9f336215 https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/benton-trump-russian-vasilenko-guilty/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/28/bolton-alleges-that-trump-helped-out-chinas-leader-zte-whats-zte/ https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-biden-china-debt-205475 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/24/how-a-tycoon-linked-to-chinese-intelligence-became-a-darling-of-trump-republicans https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/business/us-budget-deficit-2022.html Trump’s Attitude Toward Russia Makes a Mockery of the United States: https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-knew-russia-bounties-2019-before-trumps-g7-invite-putin-1514259 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions/trump-administration-holds-off-on-new-russia-sanctions-despite-law-idUSKBN1FI2V7 https://www.apnews.com/470d7c2f054b44d7a3c3a5d91d851ac0 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-white-house-secret-efforts-lift-russia-sanctions-putin-619508 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-mcconnell-backed-effort-to-lift-russian-sanctions-boosted-a-kentucky-project/2019/08/13/72b26e00-b97c-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.ajc.com/news/gen-politics/trump-urged-comey-after-clinton-and-then-fired-him-for/KrViK1BpLr80O9IkNt3KxN/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8464901/Russia-paid-Taliban-BOUNTIES-killing-American-troops-Afghanistan.html https://www.npr.org/2018/02/21/587614043/fact-check-why-didnt-obama-stop-russia-s-election-interference-in-2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.23bdd0f03113 https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/j5wqd3/how-russian-trolls-screwed-with-america-according-to-the-mueller-report?utm_medium=vicenewsfacebook https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-report-ira-internet-research-agency/ https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-10-26/trumps-russiagate-redemption-fizzles-as-durham-probe-limps-toward-a-close
Today’s security environment is characterized by complex asymmetries, multi-domain conflict, and nine nuclear-armed states with widely divergent intentions. Nations with nuclear weapon has can engage their enemy's core strategic interests coercively, well below armed conflict, through non-contact like psychological warfare using internet, satellites, economic (sanctions) and combative diplomacy. The "enhanced" use of sanctions, as well as the so-called "colour revolutions" in the post-Soviet area, which the Russia interprets just as if it were the American "hybrid warfare". Psychological warfare has two forms. The first involves producing mercenaries, used as the new munitions of war — the strategy is to terrorise the enemy population to subjugation. Second is a more covert approach that aims to create a narrative before unleashing psychological instruments to alter the thinking and cultural values, so that they willingly offer themselves to subjugation. The narrative involves the subjugation of the minds of the people and their leaders using force and coercion. The ends of warfare have shifted from a territorial concept of physical domination to the domination of minds of the population. The Arab Spring is an example of psychological attack. In the early 1960s, Soviet intelligence agents mounted a vast anti-Semitic campaign in the West Germany, financing and coordinating with various Nazi nostalgic organizations to demoralize a democracy and undermine the credibility of their leaders. Russia has been studying this concept of psychological attack for the last 15 years and has demonstrated its prowess in Crimea and Chechnya, and through the purported meddling in the last US elections. The future of war is not fighting, but famine, not the slaying of men, but the breakup of the whole social organisation and the bankruptcy of nations. Also biological infection can accomplish precisely what the trade war is supposed to do — exports and stocks prices drop precipitously. 5th Gen War, Whoever is first to recognize, understand, and implement a generational change can gain a decisive advantage. Conversely, a nation that is slow to adapt to generational change opens itself to catastrophic defeat. Democracy can only function properly if electorate are able to make informed decisions (without doubt & confusion). They must be aware of the sources of information they base their decisions on. “a tailored mix of conventional weapons, irregular tactics, terrorism, and criminal behavior in the same time and battlespace to obtain [a group’s] political objectives.” Frank Hoffman. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/04/trump-obstruction-justice-doj-485360 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/us/politics/barr-trump-obstruction-russia-inquiry.html https://www.reuters.com/world/us/leaker-us-top-secret-report-is-released-prison-after-2018-conviction-2021-06-14/ Trump colluded with WikiLeaks to release the private e-mails hacked by Russia. By late 2016, the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signalled to a Trump campaign adviser that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate. And the FBI knew that Russians stole from the Clinton campaign in the beginning in July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails were from the Russians military intelligence. Fbi had also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel — Roger Stone among them. Roger Stone had direct knowledge of what WikiLeaks possessed and gave the Trump and his senior Campaign team a heads-up on what to expect. Congress joint committee assessed that Trump did speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions, despite telling the special counsel in written answers that he had "no recollections" that they had spoken about it. We now have a detailed picture of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Stone became a central figure in our investigation for 2 key reasons:
The special counsel’s office identified 2 principal operations directed at the Presidential election:
The rise of the cyber domain; connectivity of global commerce, finance, and communications; speed and penetration of the internet; and prevalence and intimacy of social media that reaches nearly 40% of the world’s population have reshaped the competitive domain now commonly called the “grey zone”. The Republican majority in the Senate separately pointed out how WikiLeaks' ties to Russia and the campaign's interest in WikiLeaks advanced the foreign influence effort in the 2016 election. Despite "a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives" Senate Republicans insist there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7039336-Report-volume5.html TheFBI also could not directly establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. However, the investigation did, establish that the Russian government and worked to help the Trump campaign. The investigation also established that the Trump campaign expected to benefit electorally from information stolen by the Russians military intelligence and released through Russian government's efforts. We already know from Stone's prosecution that the President likely committed felony perjury in his written responses to the Mueller inquiry. Mueller, in a less redacted version of his report released in June, raised the possibility Trump lied to him in analyzing and documenting potential obstruction of justice by the President. WikiLeaks, released the Hillary Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta's emails on October 7. However, in August itself, Stone had already obtained the information that Podesta was a target. A jury later determined Stone lied repeatedly to members of Congress under oath. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases. When, in fact, he had updated senior Trump campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with Fbi's witness, imploring him in order to stonewall Congress. Because his sentence has been commuted by the President, he will not go to prison. It's an unprecedented, historic corruption, as an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/22/947972044/trump-grants-slew-of-pardons-including-george-papadopoulos-and-duncan-hunter (In contrast, Marine General James Edward "Hoss" Cartwright has 4 Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He also has the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard distinguished service medals.) p.s. Since 2016, Rick Gates had been periodically sending Trump Campaign polling data to the Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik, often using via throwaway phones. Paul Manafort worked closely with Konstantin Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska. Manafort and his associate Gates had a secret meeting with Kilimnik at the Grand Havana Room members-only cigar bar, located at 666 5th Avenue, near Trump Tower. The building is owned by Trump’s son-in-law’s Jared Kushner. Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya's ties were "far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ivanka-trump-used-a-personal-email-account-to-send-hundreds-of-emails-about-government-business-last-year/2018/11/19/6515d1e0-e7a1-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html Russian govt hacked Hillary's campaign just within hours after Donald publicly appealed to Russia for their help to find her deleted emails. Obama actually called Mitch about CIA reports about Russian interference, before the election & asked for bipartisan support but Mitch refused and instead issued a weak statement which did not even mention Russia. Mitch, Reid, Ryan and Pelosi were briefed about it. The day after the election, FBI and CIA also warned the new President about Russia's election interference that tipped the scales to his favour, but he instead asked them to hid the facts from public view! Comey also another Republican, was told to go after Hillary and then fired by Donald on the grounds that he was being too tough with the Hillary investigation! Donald told McGahn to fire Mueller and "falsify records". A single ex-kgb man with a little bit of oil money and a willing fool, got so-called "party of conservatives" to punch itself in the face repeatedly. Donald tried to veto his own party on Russian sanctions so they had to pass it with super majority (419-3 in the house, and 98-to-2 in the Senate) to make it veto proof. He should also really stop using his old non-secure phone but does he ever listen to anyone? So, China if you are listening find his tax returns. Barr said that it's not a crime. You will be rewarded mightily by the media. Current law prohibits an individual from knowing and willful soliciting a foreign government to get any “thing of value” but though the Republican Robert Mueller said he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt any monetary value to the opposition research that Trump Jr. solicitated from Russian agents. Thus the FBI Special Counsel’s Office has opened the door and permitting candidates’ soliciting with foreign governments to provide opposition research on their opponents, without any consequences. Remember how a land deal investigation of Bill Clinton was turned into a perjury trap? During that time Bill Clinton had just put his head down and kept doing his job. A decade of Republican investigations into Dems, millions spent & still nothing to show. Monarchist Barr now says Donald was elected president so there should be no by judicial or legislative authority over him! The 'unitary executive' is a radical belief that there should be unquestionably No checks and balances by the Congress on any President. If the President does anything, it Must be legal, because it’s the Commander-in-chief. In his earlier stint as attorney general, during the George H.W. Bush presidency, Mr. Barr took on the role of helping to disappear the case against Reagan administration officials involved in the Iran-contra affair. Ironically, the same people are fine with wars without approval from Congress (Obama would not start a war in Syria without Congress approval after his "red line" was crossed) but believe that Obama made the biggest "imperial" move by preventing ICE from deporting 700,000 undocumented young immigrants brought to the US before they were 16 years old (and not younger than 12 years and not older than 35 years on 2012) and ONLY if they pass certain educational qualifications/served & criminal background checks (DREAMers for Alien Minors Act). DREAMers who have only known America as their home have been living in limbo when Donald ordered to stop renewing any work permits for DREAMers. Imperialism is when the ruler is above the law and the constitution; i.e. ruler is unimpeachable. That thinking led to the expanded presidential powers beyond oversight, under the guise of national security and led the unchecked Bush jr into the 2003 Iraq war, arguably the single biggest US blunder since Vietnam. In 1974, Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal wrote that “if the Executive Branch were left to itself, the practice [of executive privilege] would surely grow” because “secrecy, if sanctified by a plausible claim of constitutional privilege, is the easiest solution to a variety of problems.” The Presidency have become even more powerful again (zenith under Nixon administration) since the Patriot Act after 9/11, while the is only thing lacking is in moral authority. Today POTUS can detain anybody (even toddlers) forever, allow any prisoner to be tortured and even made order any American citizen to be killed without due process if the President labels the person a threat. You really believe everyone in public office is in on some masterplan against Donald? You think Schiff is so clever that he made Donald commit crimes? Ironically, Donald calls these civilian as traitors to the nation beacuse they have been ordered to disclose under oath about his unlawful actions. These people have the right to speak out atleast in America without fear of retaliation. The 73 yr keeps crying wolf while all his best people go to prison. Once a shady real estate developer, always will be. Where are the madisonian republicans now when devoted public servants from Donald's own administration are pointing out his lawless actions? From the 1970s through the 90s, the Five Families had a chokehold on both major construction firms and most of the unions that represented workers on job sites. Donald’s used hundreds of undocumented workers from Poland. Trump Model Management used foreign models to work ILLEGALLY. In the wake of several bankruptcies, Trump found it hard to raise money in the West, so he gathered money from Russian investors. Trump has business ties in Russia that go back to 1987, when he and his then-wife, Ivana, visited Moscow to scope out a luxury hotel joint venture with the Russian state tourism agency. Trump Jr. said in 2008 that wealthy Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of assets. It's common among Western businesspeople in Russia to be pro-Putin. Russian oligarchs aren't going to do business with anyone who bad-mouths the boss. But it's rare to hear it from someone at the top of Republican politics. Donald tried to become a player close to Russia's big leagues of power, but he didn't know the right people. Despite the lack of significant business success in Russia, his political career has made him an important part of Putin's wider strategy to weaken the West. Putin sees such political forces as useful tools to be manipulated and exploited. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/geoffrey-palmer-trump-donor-los-angeles-214130
https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/trump-cheated-on-his-sats-by-paying-someone-to-take-it-for-him-according-to-mary-trumps-new-book/articleshow/76840482.cms Donald started when his Father signed for $100 million cheap loans. The stock-for-debt tax code say any partnership company can repay just $60 million out of a $100 million loan it borrowed from bank. The company can simply swap stock for the $40 million in debt if it is unable to repay, even if the value of the stock is far less in actual market value. This is a way, in which, on paper it would look as if the entire $100 million loan had been repaid to the bank. Best of all, if that stock, when the company is effectively insolvent, can just become next to worthless. Because of massive abuse, Congress & IRS, after repeated efforts, in the 1980s, was able to ban its use by certain companies (only owned by corporations) in 1993. Trump University get-rich-quick scheme scammed people and was forced to pay $25 million for a settlement. He had paid no income taxes at all for 10 (maybe even 20) years. He did not pay any tax in 1978, 1979, 1984, 1992, 1994 and wrote off $100 million loan. That makes him a welfare queen of NY. In 2012, Donald refinanced the commercial space at Trump Tower with a $100 million loan, on which he still owes the full amount, which is due in 2022. He 'contributioned' loans to his own campaign (that paid to his own companies) which means he eventually got a full refund back from the public donations to his campaign. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/02/19/trump-has-now-shifted-19-million-from-campaign-donors-to-his-business/#2ca8994f67c3 Today, the family-owned business such as golf courses and sales of condos & resorts, has raised Donald's net assets worth to 2.5 Billion. He now paid $750 in yearly federal income taxes while his companies pay more in taxes to other nations, e.g. $188,560 in China, $15,598 in Panama, the $145,400 in India and $156,824 in Philippines. From 2013 to 2015 he paid $188,561 in taxes in China. It turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations, the others are Britain and Ireland, where Donald maintains his foreign bank account but the name of the bank is not known. He is still running his businesses. China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented 3 floors in Trump Tower, a lucrative lease, that has drawn accusations of a conflict of interest for the President. In his first 2 years in the White House Donald also got deals that made him $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey. Donald confirmed that he owes roughly $400 million, some of which might be owed to foreign banks. In 2018, Donald disclosure said that he had made at least $434.9 million but his tax records show a different side, $47.4 million in losses. His IRS records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president. His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor; the records for the first time put precise dollar figures on those transactions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj01Gi22LsM Basically, using such euphemisms (double speak), you can get away with a lot more and make the obscene more palatable. He even made his campaign hold a fundraiser event which was advertised as benefiting veterans but in reality all the donations instead went to his political campaign (courts decided to fine him $2 million but not to impose any permanent ban or punishment). The chief use of euphemism (double speak) is also designed to secret signal to the initiated, and to keep strangers out. Most say it when responding rather abrasively to show they are superior and unique. Cohen is credited using National Enquirer while Stone is credited with using the "investigator" Corsi who started slanderous stories about clintons, obama, kennedys, john kerry, black militants, aclu, catholic church, vicente fox, stephen harper. Stone also generated lies through Cohen confusing facts about the clinton foundation with another unrelated namesake charity. Donald directed Cohen to threaten his high school & colleges, to not release his educational records! Whats he hiding? Donald (and his powerful billionaire Mercer clan backers) took a tiny rumour and amplified it & just won’t let it go: https://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/born-in-the-usa/ https://features.propublica.org/trump-inc-podcast/trump-family-business-panama-city-khafif/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-drug-trafficker-donald-trump-risked-his-casino-empire-to-protect https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-01-27/jared-kushner-s-felon-father-brought-two-fellow-inmates-into-company https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/03/14/trump-tax-returns-maddow-david-rachel-show-cay-johnston-million-income/#53eedf74714b https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tax-avoidance-new-york-times-fred-father-investigation-taxes-dodging-a8565991.html https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2021/05/07/trump-maralago-florida-employee/4944038001/ https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/ https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/eric-trump-funneled-cancer-charity-money-businesses-associates/story?id=47878610&cid=social_fb_abcnp “Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we’re going to develop this guy and 40 years later he’ll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/IuebAR5NeLn9WWhXtl6v7MtoSAQ=/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost/public/SVQFZMXOZNFGZN7K534GA5WGQI.jpg Joe Biden wanted the corrupt prosecutor removed along with EU & Canada because the prosecutor was no longer investigating Burisma. Also the Burisma investigations about its oil contracts were years before Biden's son Hunter joined Burisma. Biden did everything through regular legal channels. Even Barr refuses to investigate Biden. Donald politicians and non-politicians he doesn't like all the time! No other nation can investigate US citizen and soliciting such investigation without going through fbi is illegal. Do your research. FBI carries out investigations into American citizens, not Ukraine or China or Russia. Especially NEVER a politician who is an opponent of the President. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQmqyukTTCU https://www.npr.org/2016/09/16/494231607/the-trump-campaign-s-birther-statement-a-close-reading https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/sep/16/donald-trump/fact-checking-donald-trumps-claim-hillary-clinton-/ https://apnews.com/article/violence-lawsuits-race-and-ethnicity-charlottesville-01d9437ec28ed71b4bae293d7e0d815d https://www.newsweek.com/unite-right-organizers-must-pay-25m-9-injured-during-charlottesville-rally-1652644 https://www.wsj.com/articles/charlottesville-trial-verdict-jury-finds-prominent-white-supremacist-leaders-liable-11637698395 https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4081977-man-accused-of-targeting-obamas-dc-home-after-trump-social-media-post/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/07/21/benefited-slavery-critics-say-some-states-examples-were-never-even-slaves/
http://taxlawgazette.com/irs-audits-of-millionaires-down-72-in-eight-years/ https://www.fa-mag.com/news/millionaires--large-corporations-dodged-irs-audits-in-2020-61054.html https://www.foxnews.com/politics/irs-audited-fewer-tax-returns-in-2017-amid-shrinking-staff-criticism-over-enforcement https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/republicans-should-just-say-no-87000-new-irs-agents (the meme about hiring armed agents is years old and not related to the new hires) Republicans give too much credit to dems 'socialist' plans when it's simple things like elderly care, early child care and paid leave after child birth, and lowering drug prices finally & lowering Medicare costs, insulin at $35/month. 50:50 senate is balanced, and you need both house and the senate to pass a bill. US Soybean & Sugar industry receives as much as $4 billion in annual guaranteed subsidies. That is not free market. Nobody blinked an eye when Trillions were wasted on Afghanistan. For 40 years, GDP was 2.74%. Joe is re-building with GDP at 5.5%. Republicans who voted against Biden's bill are quick to take credit when it helps their constituents. Just like Republicans who boasted that they voted against Obama bills, however, whenever a project was finished, they showed up at the ribbon-cutting to take credit. It's like throwing a pot-luck & asked everyone to bring something, but GOP refuses to bring anything & proceed to eat all the pulled pork, drink all the beer, & eat all the cake. Republicans giddily spent 8 TRILLION IN TAX CUTS: 2.5 Trillion tax cuts budgets, twice under bush Jr. (totally, $4.5 trillion) & one (3 Trillion) under trump. Actually, under Trump, republicans also spent $1.1 trillion additionally, which would bring the total to 8.6 Trillion. Tax cuts were financed by borrowing. 50 biggest corporations have created debt from tax revenue loss. Corporations got trillions for decades, and they still moved out coz they can pay even less to their slave workers in commie China. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/americans-taxes-used-to-be-public-until-the-rich-revolted/ In 1944, the tax rate for the wealthy peaked at 94% on taxable income over $200,000 ($2.5 million in today’s dollars). The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Over the next three decades, the top federal income tax rate remained high, never dipping below 70%. Today the ultra-wealthy pay a true tax rate of only 3.4%, compared to the high tax paying couples (higher than $628,300) pay a rate of 37% & the average household pay 14% of that in federal taxes. Currently, just over half (52%) of US families have some level of investment in the market, mostly through 401ks. Reagan cut taxes from the then-top rate of 70% down to 52% or 53%, and then, later, to 28%. The top corporate tax rate was cut in 1987 from 46% to 40% and the next year to 34%. During Donald, private investment has declined after corporate tax revenue was reduced to the lowest level in 15 years. Currently, the 50 biggest corporates pay just 0%-2%. As a result, government deficits and accumulated debt exploded, and that led to defunding funds for infrastructure and schools which important for innovation and standard of living. US standing had collapsed under trump. I draw the line at commander-in-chief getting supporters to storm the capital after being impeached twice. Trump only cried about how he was really the victim in life, watching cable tv, tweeting & playing golf... n couldn't get on a bicycle. Joe has a much thicker skin and quick to forgive, while Trump can only dish it to those who are weaker than him. Republicans did beg joe for more funds for relief, and he quickly released them. The cult still cannot accept dear leader lost to biden. Biden defeated the nazi. Joe is your President now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/21/biden-federal-deficit-republicans/ https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/federal-reserve-tariffs-manufacturers https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-21/mnuchin-s-2-5-billion-fund-shows-a-need-for-tougher-ethics-rules https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/steven-mnuchin-treasury-secretary-nominee-assets-confirmation.html https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-23/feds-begin-prosecuting-fraudulent-ppp-coronavirus-loans-some-cases-will-be-hard-to-win https://variety.com/2015/biz/finance/relativity-steve-mnuchin-co-chairman-1201557256/ https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/mnuchin-requested-plane-for-european-honeymoon-for-secure-communications-treasury Trump’s Proposed Middle Class Tax Cut Is Not Real. Merry Christmas. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/midterm-elections-trump-claims-hell-propose-cutting-middle/story?id=58670975 https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/21/18005468/trump-tax-cut-middle-class-2-0 https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/04/23/years-tax-cut-cost-some-gold-star-families-dearly.html GOP Plan Retains Tax Break for Golf-Course Owners: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/11/gop-plan-retains-tax-break-for-owners-of-golf-courses.html https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/twice-many-companies-paying-zero-taxes-under-trump-tax-plan-n993046 https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/21/fact-check-was-federal-debt-lowering-before-coronavirus-struck/114456492/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/geoffrey-palmer-trump-donor-los-angeles-214130 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?hp=&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/g1vl91/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-foreclosure-crisis https://www.ehn.org/dupont-c8-parkersburg-2644262065.html https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2014/03/28/sunday-preview-du-pont-heir-stayed-prison/7016769/ Unemployment is 4.7% under Donald before the pandemic, it had dropped from 10% to 5% under Obama. In 2020 the unemployment rate under Donald is 26.1%. For Black Americans, it's 59.2%. Job growth under Donald is slower than Obama second-term monthly average. Unemployment fell 17% among blacks under Obama. During Trump's first 35-months in office, economy gained 6.69 million jobs. While during Obama's first 35 months in office, the economy gained 19% more, with 7.96 million jobs. 250,000 jobs added each month in 2014 & 227,000 jobs added each month in 2015. Donald has not been able to top that (the average is 191,000 jobs). Compare to Donald, at this point President Carter had enjoyed more job growth than Donald! Hourly pay for line workers is same under Obama and Donald. Job loss was the highest under Bush with nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs lost. Bush took 8 years to crash the economy so makes sense Obama took 8 years to rebuild it. https://www.lisep.org/ Donald had promised the economy was going to grow at least 4% to 5% (even 6%) in his first term. The growth is Not even 4% annually. It's 2.8% in 2018 (same as Obama in 2015) and after tax cuts it decline to 1.1 in 2019, as per Donald's own dept. stats (while Obama term it rose to 2.9%). You will need magic to reverse the effects of automation on full time jobs. Remember when Donald laughed at Obama's growth? As of 2019, Donald has changed the growth measure from yearly to a new format of every 4th quarterly and if you measure it in that way then Donald growth is 3% in 2018 but (by the same model, Obama was also 3% in 2015). Unlike Obama, you cannot point to any Donald policy for the okay revenue. Donald had tweaked Obama's NAFTA-2 plan in order to not upset most interest groups. Donald only got Canada to open up its dairy market & increased wages for workers in Mexico! 1) Automobiles must have 75% of their components manufactured in Mexico, the US, or Canada to qualify for zero tariffs. 2) Labor protection such as 40% of automobile parts must be made by workers must be paid at least $16 an hour by 2023. 3) A sunset clause. Without the working people who will run into burning buildings, who will clean and cook, who will treat you when you fall sick, who will serve wearing the uniform? It's important to remember the role of those blue collar workers, technicians and machinists played to take us to the moon. How come there is always resistant to use taxpayer money on teachers raise, healthcare, small business, veterans, school kids, but there is always billions to piss away? Republicans go back to being gentler Americans. If you give corporates extra million dollar tax-breaks, they don't invest it on people but rather buy back their stocks. Where as when there is a thousand more disposable money into middle-class consumers pockets, the better the market grows. It is not only trade market and corporate tax-cuts that needs focus; there has to be more confidence measures for mass consumption in semi-urban markets to boost the national economy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/23/trump-biden-us-economy-compared/ It's better to borrow when the country was in recession and the job lost was highest, rather than borrow now when the market is up just to artificially look good. Do you understand the difference between inheriting an economy where the bottom fell off from one that economy rising? When the economy is healthy, you need to invest in it rather than spending it without paying off the debt, which is at the level of WWII. Remember when wall-street wanted public's money, to bail out their mess? Who suffered & who was sent to prison? Some people actually believe that, instead of understaffed healthcare workers, it's the Corporations that wouldn't survive without 2.2 trillion of bailouts every time there is some crisis. The money corporations saved in tax cuts went to shareholders instead of investment. Socialism for political donors is cheered on the broken backs of common people. Indirect taxes on items, collected whenever there is public purchase, is also real hard-earned money that fills the treasury. Donald had railed against the so-called 'carried interest loophole' but that tax provision loophole is still intact. Republicans have used 'Reconciliation Rules' to change the tax system. Legislation that Trump championed was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, have already spent 1.5 Trillion of tax-cuts for stock-brokers & golf course owners for next 10 years. Whereas, tax deductions for home mortgages will expire after 2025. The annual deficits have added $7 trillion to the debt under Donald, hitting a record $26 trillion. 13% increased under Donald in 2 years. Republicans, who shut the entire govt. because of Obama rising the debt, has now silently "fallen in line" as usual. “The king of debt” promised during his 2016 presidential campaign he would pay off the national debt “so easily”. Obama left with the second-biggest improvement to the economy. Donald had already failed at the federal recovery during Hurricane Maria, which led to thousands of American deaths. His actions and falsely statements exacerbated the chaos. During the deadliest wildfires in California, he threatened to withhold federal aid. US has been slow to improve and develop the human capital. In some instances, the economic has exacted significant costs to both national security and American communities. The U.S. government will also need fresh approaches to managing talent. The largest growth of middle-class and world-class infrastructure after ww2, was due to govt. assistance. During the war, women ran the factories and there was a better ratio of women engineers passing out of universities. Right after the war, more people could afford colleges. Providing greater funding, data, computing power, and other infrastructure support to university researchers, as described above, would open opportunities for students. The federal government should also work with states, universities, and businesses to incentivize job-training pipelines and potentially scholarships or debt-forgiveness programs. An even more ambitious path would be to renew the National Defense Education Act, which helped spur American innovation. Finally, any effort to improve America’s talent pipeline must include reforming K-12 education from a young age. In 1962 (the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis) the top tax rate was 91%. Since then, it's gotten worse for the 1% of poor who actually send their children to enlist. Just 3 people in the US have more wealth than 63 million American families. People have more jobs but no money. Donald lied to the troops in Iraq when he said they will receive a 10% raise. He has done nothing for contaminated toxic water in 126 US bases. https://www.wkrg.com/northwest-florida/more-women-service-members-report-illnesses-after-deployment-to-contaminated-airbase/ Under Trump, the US Army has quietly terminated contracts for immigrants after promising citizenship to those who served. Commander-bone-spurs pretended a disability to avoid serving during war-time and used that to send someone else's son had to go in his place. Trump has lied about veterans health care more than 150 times and claims he created the Veterans Choice program, but in reality, he only modified Obama's 2014 Choice program, using the VA MISSION Act in 2018. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2023-04-26/veterans-debt-ceiling-spending-cuts-9930863.html https://taskandpurpose.com/news/veterans-affairs-budget-cuts-debt-ceiling/ https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/04/24/va-warns-of-potential-harm-veterans-ahead-of-house-vote-gop-debt-ceiling-plan.html Why borrow so much if the economy is so good? The Fed has already cut interest rates twice in response to the loss of momentum in the US economy. Those rate cuts, down to a range of 1.75% to 2%, have eroded the Fed’s limited firepower to fight the next recession. The result is that the US printing of money and the borrowing will leave US with a lot of debt and debt monetization. What has he done but start tariff wars? Instead, higher tariffs = higher tax for the public. The only difference is that the same Chinese manufacturer products are now made 99% in China and then shipped off to a second country, where the 1% is added and that country's label gets stamped to make the product. Donald has appointed ex lobbyist in interior, drug lobbyist in charge of health, energy lobbyist in charge of environment, big bank executives in charge of finance & advisors in treasury, defence executive in charge of defence. Why is it even legal to lobby lawmakers? Republicans refused to pass a law that makes "gifts" to any politicians a crime after they leave office, or to make it illegal for family members of an elected politician from benefiting. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-11-30/mercenary-donor-sold-access-for-millions-in-foreign-money His 5-year government officials ban applies only to lobbying in their former agency and not becoming a lobbyist. He is not draining the swamp. It was never this bad under Obama. Hours before leaving office, Trump undoes one of the few measures he took to ‘drain the swamp’ https://itep.org/notadime/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/chicago-banker-gets-year-prison-bribing-trump-campaign-official-2022-02-07/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lobbying-executive-order/2021/01/20/4a2afd16-5ae9-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html Millions flow to fast-growing lobbying firms with ties to the Trump administration. https://www.opensecrets.org/trump/lobbyists https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ethics/white-house-unveils-list-of-ex-lobbyists-granted-ethics-waivers-idUSKBN18S3P9 https://www.businessinsider.in/investment/news/at-least-182-high-ranking-congressional-staffers-have-violated-a-federal-conflict-of-interest-law-with-overdue-disclosure-of-their-personal-stock-trades/articleshow/88256865.cms https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/richest-americans-pay-almost-no-income-taxes-report-finds-n1270069 Happy Tax Day: Here Are 60 Giant Corporations That Paid Less in Taxes Than You Did http://money.com/money/5641759/tax-day-2019-amazon-netflix-pay-no-taxes/ https://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxes-2019/?utm_campaign=fortunemagazine&utm_source=twitter.com&xid=soc_socialflow_twitter_FORTUNE&utm_medium=social https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/amazon-netflix-chevron-ibm-federal-taxes-trump-tax-law https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/twice-many-companies-paying-zero-taxes-under-trump-tax-plan-n993046 The ultra-wealthy pay a true tax rate of only 3.4%, in contrast, the highest income couples (higher than $628,300) pay a rate of 37% & the average household pay 14% of that in federal taxes. In 2020, under Donald, the gap between richest and poorest citizens in the US has become the largest in 50 years! https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/29/us-economy-workers-paycheck-robert-reich https://www.gazettenet.com/Trump-cancels-pay-raise-due-to-federal-workers-in-January-19836569 https://time.com/5836487/real-estate-tax-break-coronavirus-kushner/ https://itep.org/the-35-percent-corporate-tax-myth/#whospaying https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/23/new-mexico-big-oil-gas-industry https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the-economy https://www.newsweek.com/under-donald-trumps-watch-national-debt-increased-78-trillion-1561627 https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/interactive/2023/national-debt-31-trillion/ Food banks buckle under demand and warn they will run out as millions of Americans go hungry and huge lines for hours form across the country: https://twitter.com/ShannonMFox4/status/1250807741989388289 https://www.foxnews.com/us/feeding-houstons-hungry-1m-pounds-food-daily https://www.unilad.co.uk/news/thousands-of-cars-form-mile-long-line-at-us-food-bank/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/more-americans-shoplifting-to-survive-amidst-coronavirus-pandemic https://www.today.com/food/50-million-people-may-experience-hunger-year-these-organizations-are-t203672 https://www.businessinsider.in/retail/news/hungry-americans-are-waiting-in-miles-long-lines-as-food-banks-struggle-to-keep-up-with-demand-hereaposs-a-look-at-how-rising-unemployment-and-dwindling-volunteer-pools-are-impacting-us-food-pantries-/slidelist/75210096.cms#slideid=75210815 Overdraft Fees Suck Money Out of the Pockets of Those Who Need It the Most: https://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2013/06/11/yes-banks-are-reordering-your-transactions-and-charging-overdraft-fees/?sh=56b2b5816daa https://www.americanbanker.com/list/these-10-banks-are-rethinking-overdraft-fees-heres-why-and-how https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-bank-overdraft-fees-costing-consumers-billions/ “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat-run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help? I am open to discussing anything, but just asking?” Trump wrote on Twitter. 93 of the 100 poorest counties are in rural parts of the US (mostly Texas, Georgia and Kentucky). Mr. Trump set the tone early with the signature tax cut legislation that passed in 2017 and limited the federal deduction for state taxes, effectively raising taxes on many high-income earners in blue states called “an economic civil war” between blue states and red states. Federal income tax levies higher rates on filers with higher incomes. The American dream of a big house with a backyard and a couple of cars is much more achievable in Arizona than in Massachusetts. States, like Texas, Georgia and Utah, can offer a higher standard of living (food, cost of housing, leisure) since they spend far more in federal dollars than they collect in taxes, which is called high 'balance of payments' (IRS data). Mississippi and Kentucky receives $2.39 (Montana and South Carolina receives $1.92) from the federal government for every dollar it pays (each gets $19 to $37 billion more than what they give). 44% of Louisiana, 41% of Tennessee and 33% Indiana, fundings comes from federal dollars. The states with the lowest income per capita are Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, New Mexico and Kentucky. Despite this support, Mississippi has the highest homicide rate, highest infant mortality rates and lowest median household income of any American state. Many Mississippians receiving federal assistance would not be considered “poor” compared to their state’s cost of living, while many Hawaiians not receiving federal assistance may be considered “poor” because of how expensive Hawaii is compared to other states. West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the US. Every year New York City puts in $29 billion more than than they take out. (https://taxfoundation.org/federal-aid-reliance-rankings/) About 60% of National Flood Insurance Program "socialist" policies were issued in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, which all voted for Trump in 2020. The federal program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families provides cash assistance to fewer than 1% of Americans! And even programs relied upon mostly by the poor end up helping a large portion of us because roughly one-third of all Americans are poor at some point in their lives. No wonder, Republicans don't support the minimum wage bill. The minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is nearly 40% lower than in the 1970s, adjusted for inflation. Minimum wage jobs like in restaurants, get paid by their employers in all other countries from the World except the U.S. Tipping, as way to make a living, is only found in US. Only in US it is Not the restaurant employeers responsibility to pay wages for service, so, in U.S customers have to tip. Currently, employeers can actually pay their staff just a min of $2 and 13 cents as wages. Tipping was started in U.S during the 1920s (18th Amendment) when the Italian Mafia controlled the black market. Within the two decades, restaurant employeers began to only hire poor Black freed former slaves, only if they did not have to actually pay them wages. So customers tipping was created for the freed slaves to work like before, but now they had to buy their own uniforms too. Also, the difference between a customer's tip for a good service & and bad one is just 1%. Do you want serfs? The Bracero program, instituted in a bilateral agreement in 1942 amid anticipation of a labor shortage in WW-2, gave contracts to Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. agricultural sector. Many of the farm workers are reported to receive a fraction of the wages of American laborers. Lee G. Williams, the last director of the program under the Department of Labor, refers to the system as "legalized slavery." Amid mounting pressure from activists, the U.S. government lets its Mexican guest worker program expire after 22 years. The end of the Bracero program results in an acceleration of illegal immigration across the border. In 1965 the Hart-Celler Act was passed, suddenly whole groups of Mexico and Latin America people who were already been living in US and whose entrance to the US was considered legal before suddenly became illegal. Ironically, this is when illegal immigration multiplied for a decade. Currently, immigrants made up just 17% of the US workforce. Empires are the product of nation-states who believe that their type of government should be forced on everyone for reasons that usually having to do with making imperialists richer while maybe improving the condition of the conquered areas. Saudi government has worked assiduously to try to block the lawsuit by the 9/11 families, and it has largely done so with the backing of the Trump administration’s Justice Department. Before he became president, Trump had expressed strong support for the 9/11 families and sharply criticized the Saudi government calling the Saudi kingdom “the world’s biggest funder of terrorism.”
First, you’ve got to get the right attorney general. The hard part arises if you screw up initially, starting with someone who’s not up to the task, and your fixer doesn’t come in until the major investigation is well under way, maybe even done. Having one who is ideologically sympathetic to you isn’t good enough—after all, if you’ve made it this far, your main concern should be loyalty, not ideological consistency. Even having one who slavishly worships you isn’t good enough. Such a person, after all, might still recuse himself. He may leave things operationally in the hands of some deputy who actually cares about his reputation, if only a little, and who’s constantly looking over his shoulder worried about what the career folks think of him. You need someone who does not need to be all things to all people—who will, like a honey badger, just not care if the legal community disapproves of him or if the press is appalled or if members of Congress call for his impeachment. You want someone who knows his way around how the department works, who knows what levers to pull, and who will be totally fearless about pulling them. Your right-hand man (or woman) in this endeavor needs to be someone who is willing to reach down to the level of individual prosecutions to get his way. This point is crucial. Because scuttling an investigation isn’t a high-level policy task. If your guy is not willing to do the dirty work, then he’s not serious. If you’ve got this person in from the beginning, you’re golden. There won’t be an investigation to start with—because you’ll have squashed it. This is the ideal outcome. This brings us to step two. Once the investigation concludes, make sure your attorney general snips off any remaining loose threads. You don’t want to leave hanging the possibility that your friends—or you yourself—could face criminal charges when you eventually leave power. Here’s where a really sly operator can turn the Justice Department’s traditions against it. There’s a pretty strong norm against doing this without new evidence, which means that it will be significantly more controversial for some future administration to pursue charges against you with this record on the table. And if a future administration decides to go for it anyway, you’ll be able to point to that contrary record in complaining that you’re facing political harassment. Third, you’ll want to begin a Justice Department investigate the first investigation which you can deploy against any possible counterargument. The longer your investigation of the investigators goes on, the more shadowy and ominous it will seem. And don’t be shy about duplicative investigations either. When one is done, start another. Keep a constant low buzz going about about the conspiratorial nature of the original investigation. Use these investigations to discredit all of the convictions even if the evidence behind them is overpowering and clear. Finally, there’s a last tool for when everything else fails—for the case in which its out of the Justice Department’s hands. You still have the power of clemency. This will actually seem like justice to a lot of people. Bill Barr's first “opinion” as AG was in June 1989, where he reasoned the US President had the right to dispatch FBI agents abroad to arrest foreigners even in violation of international treaties. The second document was issued as US forces geared up to invade Panama, gave a patina of legality to the president’s desire to use the military in similar overseas operations. Together, the two memos enshrine what has come to be known as the president’s “snatch authority.” Writing in the memo, Barr argued that both the president and, through him, the attorney general have an “inherent constitutional power” to authorize certain overseas operations, including abductions (going against provisions of the UN Charter), to fend off “serious threats” to domestic “security” from “international terrorist groups and narcotics traffickers.” When Congress first got wind of these astonishing theories, in November 1989, Barr insisted that they represented no policy change. Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the legality of that action and the conservative majority approved it. Next, Former members of the Reagan & the first Bush administrations were heavily influenced by Project for the New American Century (PNAC) principles developed from Kristol and Kagan's article published in the New York Times under Foreign Affairs titled "Reaganite" and suggested that the US should adopt a stance of "benevolent global hegemony" using pre-emptive "military strength" for "constabular" duties to shape the world and by promoting regime change in Iraq for political and economic "international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles." According to one of PNAC 90-page report advocated the cancellation of "roadblock" defence programs which absorb "exorbitant" amounts of Pentagon funding, but favored the development of "global missile defenses," and the creation of a new sixth military service for "space control." Pentagon planners estimate that the future Space Force will cost $13 billion. 60% of the federal government’s discretionary budget is now spent on the military budget and the 40% is divided among judiciary, education, environmental, agriculture and law enforcement. It is time to stop equating military spending with patriotism when most of it gets wasted by the Pentagon. Long-term US military & government spending, totalled roughly 10 times the country’s GDP. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2023/03/10/gop-blasts-inadequate-biden-defense-budget-as-it-vows-spending-cuts/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-rein-in-inflated-military-budgets/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/07/18/americas-indefensible-defense-budget/ https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-11-16/pentagon-financial-audit-8075353.html https://taskandpurpose.com/news/pentagon-fails-audit-again https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pentagon-audit-idUSKCN1NK2MC https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-year-row-2023-11-16/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSLpwYCByQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVKYceDLA2c https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2017/11/10/cost-911-wars-taxpayers https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/11/14/post-9-11-wars-have-cost-american-taxpayers-64-trillion-study-finds.html Bush's "war on terror" has cost the taxpayers $6.4 trillion. It did not "fall on his head" because of Democrats. Besides Pentagon also gets to maintain a separate slush fund, formerly known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account (only half goes to actual wars, $25 billion is meant to pay for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world). Donald wants 1 Trillion for his military budget which is already stated as $780 billion (half of total U.S. budget), the annual 'black budget' is $500 billion on top of it, at a time when the Cold War is over. Big new agencies like a new Space Force & ICE instead of raising federal workers pay (President refused to raise their pay on Labour Day). That money could have been used to fix all the crisis like lead pipes, fixing healthcare, rebuilding after natural disasters, investing in infrastructure in the past 20 years. The idea during the Cold war, was to break the Soviet economically weak society, as they outspent on their military. The Pentagon’s own Defense Business Board found that cutting unnecessary overhead, including a bloated bureaucracy and a startlingly large shadow workforce of private contractors, would save $125 billion over five years. The Military needs only $50 million to be lean, mean & ready to defend the nation from any attack on the nation's soil. More money doesn't mean better defense (it means more wastage); it's how you optimize the funds. You cannot reduce defense funds simply because readiness, training and maintenance are the first things that go out as this is seen as the easiest to cut. You cannot cancel a ship production because then you alienate a certain amount of people who are sponsors of that project. (https://ourworldindata.org/military-spending) Kim and Putin are laughing now. In 4 years, there is No National intel chief and No head of Homeland security adviser. The largest number of vacancy in history of US ambassadors. Did you know US tax-dollars subsidize defense corporations & also buy the world's most expensive military equipment? DoD employs private contractors doing jobs that could be done far more cheaply by government employees. None of the wars started by neocon hawks (practically, all lost) since WW2 have been legal since has not been approved by the congress, as required by the Constitution. The taliban are back in power in 75% of rural Afghanistan. If it was possible to kill your way to victory than the US would have succeeded in Vietnam, Korea & Afghanistan. "A Republic if you can keep it." Donald-Kim summit failed. North Korea tested perfectly their nukes, are building bombs & fired their new longest-range missiles under Donald. Donald wanted a Nobel prize for picking up the check for the 2 photo-ops with Kim that All Hat & No Cattle, but Donald declared in his tweet that he already managed to solve everything. Failed Yemen & Niger raids. Never imagined the day Russia will be in South America, in the backyard, without getting any push back. Kim & Putin, who made a fool out of him. If Obama was President, Republicans would be chest-thumping that Russians should never be given an inch inside America's backyard. Donald is clearly Not competent. (https://time.com/5565120/russias-presence-in-venezuela/) Trade war with everyone by Donald has already harmed small farmers (down 16% after bailouts) for decades to come. Trade war is an indirect tax but nevertheless raise in tax on the public. Give handout subsidies to farmers is also Socialism. In fact, Farm bankruptcies went up 25% in 2019. (Trump administration is getting sued because USDA has rolled back protections for small farmers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/farm-groups-blast-trump-competition-rule-as-favoring-meat-giants). When you start picking winners & losers instead of trusting the markets to self-correct; everyone ends ups with losing, and the effects are never what you intended. Systemic inequality is when one group of people, gets more advantages than everyone else, just because they have more money. It's always somebody else's fault like BLM, CRT, fake media, dems hoax, it's obamas fault, china, mexico, nato etc. Keep on dreaming, if you trust Donald that Mexico will pay a single peso for the wall. The money comes from taxes to treasury as always. Anything you buy already has tax included, so everyone who buys pays some taxes that go to the treasury. GOP's budget had deep cuts of aids for low-income and first-gen college students. The budget eliminated the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, a 50-year-old program which goes to more than a million poor college kids each year. The budget also reduce Federal Work Study program that helps to ensure that college students who are truly in need of the money get the jobs. Meanwhile, they have cut funds to AmeriCorps, Senior community service employment programs, AIDS programs & Americans with Disabilities (ADA). There is a reason why programs to help the poorest Americans fall under mandatory expenditures. In 2018, the CDC cut 80% of its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks because it was running out of money (and US disease fighting experts went from working in 49 countries to just 10 and cutting the agency's staff by more than two-thirds in China. The NSF closed all foreign offices in 2018 and transferred the manager of animal disease monitoring program in Chinese ports). The Clean Water Act was passed to protect downstream states from upstream states' pollution. Donald has now rolled back Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Protection for Endangered Species, and Protection of Federal Lands. There is a reason why only debt and the programs to help the poorest Americans fall under mandatory expenditures in a well-functioning government. Donald's lies, misinformation, corruption, and sheer incompetence are in full display during the pandemic and recession. And when he could no longer ignore the crisis, he shifted his focus to helping big corporations and the wealthy, while regular Americans and small businesses continue to suffer the worst impacts. Meanwhile, his Treasury department allowed stimulus funds to be diverted directly to private debt collectors. He has sent $1 billion in aid intended for small businesses to large corporations, e.g. Clay Lacy Aviation, the donor’s private jet company, took $27 million in “small business” funds. https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/trump-donors-private-jet-company-reportedly-gets-27-million-bailout-the-largest-of-any-other-private-jet-company/articleshow/75745652.cms "I believe strongly in alliance. I think that's our unique strength. When this town was hit on 9/11 back in 2001 within 60 days I was fighting in Afghanistan; and joining me there were troops from Canada, United Kingdom, Norway and Germany; Turkey and Jordan; New Zealand and Australia. Now, none of their cities had been attacked. They were there, because we were there, because we had been attacked. We don't talk about the values we share among allied nations. We only talk about the things we don't share." Jim Mattis, Former U.S. Defence Secretary in 2019. It was Franklin Roosevelt and a Democratic congress, not the GOP, that had the nation unprepared for war before Pearl Harbor. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, after President Franklin Roosevelt had not squeezed the Japanese into initiating the attack with his oil embargo on Japan.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017 https://www.ajc.com/news/obama-warned-pandemic-threat-2014-but-republicans-blocked-funding/dh2H9HxiuBY05T5uPqtqpI/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-fema-medical-supplies.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-s-bungled-vaccine-rollout-forcing-governors-get-creative-political-n1257174 https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/01/01/mitt-romney-says-trump/ https://www.newsweek.com/vaccine-distribution-plan-did-not-really-exist-under-trump-says-biden-chief-staff-1563988 https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/15/trump-vaccine-reserve-used-up/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/29/nation/personally-im-incredibly-frustrated-dr-ashish-jha-comments-slow-vaccine-rollout/ Trade since WW2, as a share of global GDP, has roughly doubled relative to the 1970s, but quality of life for families in the US has declined. Profits have skyrocketed since 1980s, but medium household wages have hardly increased (vs 400% increase for CEOs) which means families are working harder by getting less because companies are using their yearly tax-breaks to buy back more stocks. What has he done but help his greedy donors in the stock-market? Stocks doesn’t matter when 10% of households owned all 87% of stocks & mutual funds (compared to Black households who own just 1.6%). https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/the-white-house-botched-a-deal-to-lower-prescription-prices-because-drug-companies-wouldnt-budge-on-its-request-to-pay-for-100-gift-cards-that-wouldve-been-mailed-to-seniors-before-the-election/articleshow/78197859.cms Biden had to rescind Trump's executive order because it was only for enhanced coverage plans (with higher premium), and it did not lower prices at the drug store, as it not provide how his executive order was going to factor in regulatory actions (or pricing complexities to come up with a “most-favored nation price”). Trump's order had no teeth to be implemented. Actual drug prices, including speciality drugs, under Trump increased, just at a slower pace. Trump administration had also proposed to allow states and manufacturers to import lower-cost versions of the drugs they sell in other countries. This “gimmick” is a concept has not been embraced by FDA or by HHS. The Canadian government also has expressed reservations, saying it will protect its domestic supply of medication. Allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies is an approach widely endorsed by Democrats and, historically, Republicans. It has bipartisan support of 92 percent among Americans. Biden lower prescription drug prices by allowing the government to negotiate prices, while also capping out-of-pocket and insulin costs in Medicare. Under Nancy Pelosi's Inflation Reduction Act (passed by Democratic-majority in Congress and signed into law by Biden), if you’re on Medicare, your insulin will be capped at $35 a month at Walgreens and CVS; and also caps out-of-pocket drug costs for those enrolled in Medicare at $2,000 per year, starting in 2025. Dems wanted to cut the cost of insulin for everyone, but Republicans voted to strike that out of the bill. Trump's executive order was an empty gesture, whereas the Inflation Reduction Act was a comprehensive drug pricing reform. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/overnights/3678682-health-care-gop-targets-democratic-drug-pricing-law/ https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3678314-senate-republican-bill-would-repeal-dem-drug-pricing-law/ Donald made home ownership more expensive for US households by cutting the mortgage interest deduction, while at the same time driving up interest rates to make mortgage payments more expensive. In fact, Donald has created a $70 Billion deduction for real estate investors. Job loss was the highest under Bush Jr. and Reagan. For all the talk about unemployment being falling to 4%, understand that it fell from 10% to 5% under Obama. He saved the auto industry jobs, but he wasn't perfect. Falling unemployment does not drive up wages anymore. Wage growth has stalled compare to housing costs under Donald. Which means people have more jobs but no money. Reagan took the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. Bush 41 took it to $300 billion. Clinton got it to zero. Bush 43 took it from zero to $1.2 trillion. Obama halved it to $600 billion. Trump’s got it back to a trillion. The 2 to 3 Trillion added debt is a future tax that everyone and their grandchildren will be paying long after Donald is out of office. It's artificial juiced up by borrowing and the compounded, the interest will have to be paid sooner or later. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-in-five-american-households-have-zero-or-negative-wealth-2017-11-11 It's become Republican politician's wet dream to cut SS, FEMA, Medicare & CDC for an income-tax rate that helps donors so that donors get bigger write-offs & permanent tax-breaks. Over the next 10 years, Trump’s 2020 budget proposal aims to spend $25 billion less on Social Security, and $575 billion less on Medicare (of which $269 billion of that figure is reclassified to Department of Health & Human Services). 85% of these cuts will come from reductions in provider payments. The cuts to benefits are being called necessary reform to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. Donald has envisioned changing Medicaid altogether within 10 years; by spending $800 billion less on Medicaid and transforming the current pay-as-needed system to a block grant, where states are given a capped lump-sum fund that doesn’t grow with increased need or rising costs, but which could leave millions more uninsured. https://gizmodo.com/fema-wants-to-cut-disaster-aid-at-the-worst-possible-ti-1845877762 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/republicans-and-trump-owe-east-palestine-apology https://www.khou.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/ohio-train-derailment-ecp-brake-system-mandate-trump-dot-administration-fact-check/536-d0ad26f7-84b6-4707-bcb1-7dc6e0a9f09f https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/feb/17/occupy-democrats/obama-era-safety-rule-high-hazard-trains-was-repea/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-22/trump-s-ohio-visit-prompts-review-of-his-own-rail-safety-record Donald's pay cheque to charity is peanuts (255% more than his salary) compared to how much tax money, one of his children & wives, uses every month. His campaign is giving millions of government/taxpayer's money & Republican donor's funds to pay to his properties for his political events, which goes into his pocket as personal profits. $81 million was spent in his Florida resort alone. The net effect is that the taxpayers' money has turned into his personal money. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/09/11/trumps-businesses-raked-in-19-billion-of-revenue-during-his-first-three-years-in-office/?sh=2cb3344c1e13 Secret Service has paid rates as high as $650 a night for rooms at Trump's properties. $500,000 tax dollars per day for security for NY tower alone has to be paid to him. Ethics laws apply to every government employee except the President and Vice-President. It is an honour system. Normally, federal employees are barred from promoting products, including the President and anyone who is officially his advisor (like his daughter). Do we know how much it tax dollars were spent to fund those vacations to Europe for Donald's sons, daughters, wives & party? He works 3 hours per day. He has played for 575 days in 3 years (86 days in 2019). https://trumpgolfcount.com/displayoutings Donald has spent 1 out of every 5 days as President in his resort. Donald has cost the taxpayers $110 million in 2-years, pumping millions into his own private golf clubs. i.e. Taxpayers have paid the highest bill for this US President's vacation than any in history. Each, Trump’s trip to Ireland, cost taxpayers some $3.6 million, out of which $1.3 million was just for his rental cars. Meanwhile, Obama has played 333 days of golf during 8 years while in office (8-years total cost $90 to $106 million). Obama paid for his own trip whenever he golfed & they were at military bases that DON'T require the use of jets, helicopters, and transport planes to move his motorcade. (source: Freedom of Information Act lawsuits). https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-super-bowl-party-mar-a-lago-cost-taxpayers-a9315296.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/09/16/the-numbers-dont-lie-why-lowering-taxes-for-the-rich-no-longer-works-to-grow-the-economy/#170014b64bf4 https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/11/bad-day-gipper-reaganomics-runs-its-course/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1982/02/06/cbo-sees-big-jump-in-deficit/69bcf4fe-50f6-451b-8453-a9d15bdee0ed/ https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/03/30/3-big-problems-with-raising-social-securitys-full.aspx https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jL66Rc8aIZYJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2014-12-18/i-hear-america-singing-never-pay-taxes-the-inversion-operetta+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Might is right or Survival of the Fittest? How African American land was stolen in the 20th century: https://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/154232 https://aeon.co/ideas/why-the-nazis-studied-american-race-laws-for-inspiration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB0xZWyQHkE https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/government-spending-confederate-graves/277931/ https://www.facingsouth.org/2018/06/group-behind-confederate-monuments-also-built-memorial-klan https://www.history.com/news/how-the-u-s-got-so-many-confederate-monuments https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/blog_confederate_monuments4.gif https://www.newsweek.com/republican-lawmaker-says-he-filed-confederate-flag-legislation-error-1788136 https://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Masters-Planters-Louisianas-1820-1860/dp/0807132470 https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Inside-Antebellum-Slave-Market/dp/0674005392 https://correspondent.afp.com/tale-two-statues A one-time segregationist and opponent of civil rights legislation, in 1952, Robert C. Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.), one of the longest-serving U.S. Senator from West Virginia, repeatedly apologized for his involvement with the KKK: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-C-Byrd-Appalachian-Coalfields/dp/1940425549 “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened” - Byrd said.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/07/21/benefited-slavery-critics-say-some-states-examples-were-never-even-slaves/ The John Birch Society group's host was a former candy manufacturing executive turned anti-communist agitator named Robert W. Welch Jr. He believed that communist agents had infiltrated every level of the government and had seized control of both the parties. The John Birch Society saw the modern Republican Party as un-American. But they had a relationship with the GOP. Welch ran for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts as a Republican in 1950. Bill Grede, who was an industrialist from Wisconsin and a founding member of the society, had fundraised for Eisenhower’s campaign in 1956 and served on a labour management committee that was appointed by Eisenhower. The founders of the John Birch Society, in 1958, were a group of 12 well-to-do men — and almost all of them were very wealthy industrialists. Many of them knew each other from their time together in the National Association of Manufacturers, and they admired Robert Welch as a truth-teller who was speaking out about the communist threat inside the United States. They had one foot very much planted in the mainstream, and they had benefited enormously from the rules and arrangements of the mid-20th-century capitalist system. The great irony, of course, is that they viewed themselves as outsiders. They were colossi bestriding the world, but they also saw themselves as dissidents who were being hounded on the margins of the dominant ideas in America. The Birchers gradually became more willing to work within Republican Party politics in the early 1960s. They were involved, for instance, in the 1962 midterm campaigns, and many of them supported Barry Goldwater’s campaign for president in 1964. Birchers were very careful to say, “Wait a second, we are not officially endorsing anybody, even though we know — wink, wink — that everyone’s going for Goldwater.” But Goldwater did inspire a lot of them. Arizona had a lot of Birchers, and Goldwater said some nice things about the Birchers being decent people, even as he was criticizing Welch. The root cause of all the challenges we face is, the ideology, that glorifies 'Might is Right'. All Murderers see innocent victims as nothing more than fodder to absorb their hate. Don't fall for these. There is a direct link with those "fine" tiki torch marchers to "domestic terrorism". Only you are responsible for your Hate. Personal Loss, suffering & moral guilt > leads to fear, worry & stress > which leads to Anger and complaining & Hate. Just be mindful of it. War will make corpses of us all. A Fox News reporter asked Trump if he was worried that "many people saw that tweet as racist and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point?" He responded, "It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me."
https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_corps/2023-01-20/marines-capitol-riot-congress-trump-8831867.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/agriculture-secretary-sonny-perdue-says-family-farms-might-not-survive/ https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2019/10/03/perdue-to-small-farmers-stop-whining-your-demise-is-inevitable/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-undocumented-immigrant-farmworkers-agriculture.html Before cotton dominated American agriculture, sugar drove the slave trade throughout the Caribbean and Spanish Americas. Sugar cane was a brutal crop that required constant work six days a week, and it maimed, burned and killed those involved in its cultivation. In Honduras, where the United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company were worried about their banana sales, the American Army marched in on seven separate occasions throughout the early 20th century. Troops also moved into Haiti to quell the Cacao Rebellion in 1915, partly to protect the interests of the Haitian-American Sugar Company. When a rebellion in the Dominican Republic, damaged an American-owned sugar cane plantation, American troops were sent in, starting in 1916. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/plantation-system/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/roger-ailes-sexually-harassed-me-i-thought-i-was-the-first-and-last Crony capitalism is hyper-capitalism is irresponsible. If any country has trade with the US, that country must be obligated to extend free trade to the US? What about the US is so unreasonable that you can't trade with them fairly? An American farmer has a huge financial industry behind him when he sells, for example, soybean. US sugar industry also receives as much as $4 billion in annual guaranteed subsidies. Agriculture is no riskier than other industries and does not need an array of federal subsidies. Can you expect a peasant farmer in the 3rd world to compete fairly? No. You end up destroying communities, risk destabilizing the government, and probably end up paying a bunch of aid money! All in the name of not punishing America's farmers are 95% white, and overwhelmingly vote Republican. But the issue here though is also geo-political; and the US does not have a consistent position because it conflates trade issues with geopolitics. Pentagon makes overtures but on the other the State Dept will make some pompous statement about social issues. On one side they ask the military to join in an alliance, but on the other they are threatening sanctions. Did you know that the Obama-Clinton State Department’s overthrew the Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2009 which further exacerbated the instability and misery plaguing Central America? USAid after a natural calamity or epidemic, since the 1950s has been not only used for anti-gov political tool like rewarding pro-US industry violent groups over their non-violent political others, (in exchange for imposing indirectly control over nations - getting trade agreements, removing banking, mining and agriculture competition, forcing hormone-treated food products). U.S.-CAFTA (now CAFTA-DR) had huge negative impact in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/750871/former-defense-secretary-esper-says-onetime-boss-trump-is-threat-to-democracy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/benton-trump-russian-vasilenko-guilty/ https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/trump-firm-eyed-giving-putin-50-million-penthouse-broker-says-1.1176096 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-lot-love-behind-putin-wanting-make-his-country-larger-1687555 Why has Donald sent f-22s and 20,000 U.S troops to protect the Royal Saudis? Donald want to ban every other Muslim nation, except Saudi Arabia, Egypt & the U.A.E. Republicans refused to pass a law that makes "gifts" to any politicians a crime after they leave office. At the same time, does this: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trump-sold-nuclear-tech-to-saudis-in-secret-after-khashoggi-killing-9q39glhwc https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/report-trump-officials-tried-to-fast-track-nuclear-tech-transfer-to-saudi-arabia/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-citizens-caught-saudi-arabia-s-fierce-crackdown-dissenters-n1035536 https://prospect.org/world/trump-white-house-backs-arms-dealers-yemen-raytheon/ https://theweek.com/articles/835754/trumps-yemen-war-veto-moral-horror https://taskandpurpose.com/news/trump-aide-niger-ambush-tape/ https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/corroboration-atlantic-report-trump-troops-soldiers-losers-cemetary-amputees.html trump-aides-on-tape-laugh-about-niger-ambush-that-left-4-us-soldiers-dead https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-coronavirus-pandemic-sexual-assault-robert-wilkie-iraq-d20c51ea31bf052c7460ad465ad70a69 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/veterans-wilkie-resign/2020/12/12/97f9cb80-3c76-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/purple-heart-us-soldiers-iran-al-assad-air-base-attack-traumatic-brain-injury/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/purple-heart-iran-missile-attack-39-soldiers/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/oct/3/john-kelly-confirms-trump-called-soldiers-who-died/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-former-chief-of-staff-john-kelly-fallen-soldiers-losers https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-slams-trump-over-alleged-comments-mocking-us-war-dead-as-losers/ https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-reported-disgust-wounded-veteran-sparks-fury-pure-scum-1828949 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/515062-trump-called-american-war-dead-in-french-cemetery-losers-report/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4235005-john-kelly-confirms-trumps-suckers-remark-about-war-dead/ https://www.axios.com/2023/10/02/trump-troops-fallen-soldiers-john-kelly https://vietfactcheck.org/2020/09/25/did-trump-really-call-members-of-the-military-losers/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-france-memorial-idUSKCN1NF0NU https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-weather-world-war-i-north-america-52462add34fd45ecb16319b564045d61 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-didnt-cancel-visit-to-american-military-cemetery-in-france-over-disdain-for-slain-veterans-sources-say https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/02/john-kellys-full-throated-confirmation-trumps-ugliest-comments-parsed/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2023/10/03/trump-insulted-vets-in-private-former-chief-of-staff-kelly-confirms/ https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1301993506840350720 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/11/esper-book-trump-mchrystal-mcraven/ American Revolution was a radical event for its time. Standing alone in a world of monarchical governments, the new republic was informed by the Founding Fathers’ concept of immigration, which reflected their conviction that the USA would be, in the words of Thomas Paine, “an asylum for mankind.” The new republic’s approach to questions of immigration and citizenship were defined by the Enlightenment doctrine of natural human rights. American Revolution thus enshrined the Enlightenment concept known as jus soli, or birthright citizenship. If you are born in the US, you are a citizen. “What is an American, this new man? Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.” On May 4, 1970, thirteen students were shot, four of them fatally, at Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen as they demonstrated against the US involvement in the Vietnam War and US invasion of Cambodia. In the short-term, Kent State re-energized the anti-war movement. 200 pro-Nixon construction workers chanting “U.S.A.” and “Love It or Leave It”, were mobilized by the New York State AFL-CIO to attack some 1,000 college and high-school students and others who were protesting against the Vietnam War, following the April 30 announcement by President Richard Nixon of the US invasion of Cambodia, and the May 4 Kent State shootings. The Nixon administration likewise framed the counter-protest as a genuine, and organic, expression of support for the war. But in reality, the administration, in concert with New York labour leaders, had helped coordinate the counterprotest and several more that would take place. It also radicalized the Democratic Party, which then nominated George McGovern, who lost to President Richard Nixon in a landslide in 1972. This was the first concerted effort to turn the white working class against the Democratic Party. The Hard Hat riot ended up serving as a launching pad for Peter Brennan’s national career, he worked to deliver labour support to Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign, and was rewarded with an appointment to the post of Secretary of Labor. "Do not be so quick to deal out death and judgement. Even the very wise do not see all ends." May 1970: College Park Explodes: https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2015/04/27/may-1970-college-park-explodes
That was never clearer than when Trump told his new chief of staff, John Kelly — like Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general — about his vision for Independence Day. “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump said. “This doesn’t look good for me.” He explained with distaste that at the Bastille Day parade there had been several formations of injured veterans, including wheelchair-bound soldiers who had lost limbs in battle. Kelly could not believe what he was hearing. “Those are the heroes,” he told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are—and they are buried over in Arlington.” Kelly did not mention that his own son Robert, a lieutenant killed in action in Afghanistan, was among the dead interred there. “I don’t want them,” Trump repeated. “It doesn’t look good for me.” The President’s loud complaint to John Kelly one day was typical: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”“Which generals?” Kelly asked.“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said. Civilised society cannot have thuggish units clad in unmarked paramilitary uniforms & carrying firearms into the city streets, making arrest without a warrant (or miranda rights) and refusing to identify themselves to media. Would Jesus be proud of these men with firearms & gas masks beating vets black & blue? If the people were breaking the law, then why were they let go without any charge? Local say war-tactics are not the right response to handling a simple matter of, as officially stated by the Chad F. Wolf (Acting Secretary of DHS), vandalism & "graffiti" incidents on public property. Instead, it has merely inflamed protest against police brutality and racial injustice. It’s like intimidation tactics of Russia’s mercenaries of little green men have taken over. Whereas pro-Hate protestors, like those "fine" tiki-torch supremacists, are free to protest & are called "fine people". Under the orders from Donald, officers from the DEA, FBI, DHS (created to tackle terrorism in the US) and other federal agencies could be seen around the city, as well as tens of thousands of National Guardsmen. Agents from one of the largest federal agencies the US Marshals Service, tactical response teams of Bureau of Prisons (under DOJ) who are trained to deal with convicts, deputized officers from Office of Field Operations (OFO) & Cargo Conveyance Security under US Customs & Border Protection or Patrol (CBP). https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/several-high-profile-racist-extremists-serve-us-military https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/05/army-vet-oath-keepers-founder-gets-18-years-for-jan-6-capitol-storming/ https://www.vox.com/scotus/24080080/supreme-court-mckesson-doe-first-amendment-protest-black-lives-matter https://www.thedailybeast.com/scotus-strangles-protest-rights-in-3-southern-states-by-refusing-to-hear-case https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/FH_FIW_Report_2018_Final.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287322874_Climate_Change_Denial_Heads_in_the_Sand https://coloradosun.com/2024/01/16/colorado-oil-gas-pipeline-safety-nygrens-firestone/ North Dakota took $16 million coronavirus aid and repurposing it for fracking: https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/government-and-politics/6731621-North-Dakota-officials-look-to-shift-16M-in-federal-coronavirus-stimulus-funds-to-fracking-grants https://www.businessinsider.nl/trumps-white-house-asked-twitter-to-remove-chrissy-teigens-expletive-filled-tweet-insulting-the-former-president-ex-employee-testifies/ https://www.foxnews.com/media/twitter-files-adam-schiffs-office-asked-quite-often-remove-tweets-including-parody-biden-pic https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/29/no-twitter-did-not-violate-trumps-freedom-speech/ https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/trump-wh-asked-twitter-to-take-down-chrissy-teigen-burn.html https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3849819-trump-asked-twitter-to-take-down-derogatory-tweet-from-chrissy-teigen-whistleblower/
https://www.newsweek.com/rick-scotts-connection-massive-medicare-fraud-scandal-resurfaces-1780279 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/ https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240404271.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-philip-esformes-sentenced-nursing-home-fraud-20190912-cumxa7wwb5do7iekg32h2o5thy-story.html Jack Owoc, CEO of Vital Pharmaceuticals, donated millions to pro-Donald super-PAC. Timothy Mellon, the Chairman of New Hampshire-based transportation co. and the heir to the Mellon banking fortune, donated millions to Donald's super-PAC run by Linda McMahon, the former pro-wrestling executive. Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul, donated millions to pro-Donald super-PAC. https://time.com/6092368/americas-frontline-doctors-covid-19-misinformation/ https://deadline.com/2023/01/bbc-interview-anti-vax-aseem-malhotra-praised-by-andrew-bridgen-1235220965/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/bbc-cardiologist-aseem-malhotra-links-covid-jabs-to-heart-disease-deaths https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kelly-ernby-california-deputy-district-attorney-dies-covid-complications/ Multiple private-equity firms, & wealthy investors, profit from marking-up emergency-room-care bills. All the additional money, after covering basic costs, goes to the company, not the doctors who treated the patients. The common excuse given is that these surprise bills are “rare and unintended” but in reality, with millions of patients, it has happened tens of thousands of times. ER doctors say they’re uncomfortable with these common business practices, but the real owners of the hospital, can always replace the doctors with someone else. Donald completely failed to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare patients, which can save the government billions of dollars. He has not even supported the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act. However, he did make it legal to import lifesaving medicine from Canada, which cost higher inside the US. Trump’s supported the plaintiffs in Texas v. US, which attempts to directly end of protections for those with pre-existing conditions. He has also supported congressional bills that aim to reduce pre-existing protections. Remember those lies to replace ACA with "something terrific". Obama was the only one in 100 years to do anything for anyone with pre-existing conditions, and for people that help earn less than $40K and help people in their 50s and early 60s who were being charged 5 times more than young people. Democrats fight each other for better healthcare but nobody talks about the fact that GOP promised but did not keep in their tax plan: child care & elder care as tax-deductions, tax-free dependent care savings accounts for low-income families, on-site child-care services by employers. Republicans still have no comprehensive healthcare plan of their own, since, the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act was gutted 54 times. 67% of bankruptcy are caused by medical bills. Nothing has been done to reduce the decades of high death of infants & young children in US, the richest nation, due to poor healthcare. Republican tax deductions on medical expense will revert to 10% by 2020. Meanwhile Trumpcare is still vaporware. In a semi-democratic republic, federal obligation under the "social contract", is that EVERY person, gets EQUAL voting rights & freedom of thought, religion, marriage, education, food, medicine, work, assemble. Access to healthcare is tied to jobs in US so during a pandemic more people lose their jobs and with it their access to heathcare. Nations that invests in national healthcare system and science are better for taxpayers. Small understaffed government during emergency is do-nothing govt. Trump backed away from his campaign pledge to reduce drug prices. Republicans have to realise that everyone is in it together and if you let the markets bid price on essential medical supplies then manufactures and big pharma will sell them abroad at a time when the nation needs it the most. What these people don't realise is that epidemics doesn't care if you are homeless or live in a mansion. If it infects one, that will spread to the other. It doesn't differentiate the poor, middle-class & rich. US is the only developed nation where life expectancy has declined. Is this how you make America great? Suicide has become the number one violent cause of death in US. The US has turned poorer and sicker under Donald & GoP. Walls and travel bans has never been able to stop non-symptomatic diseases from spreading. It only led the virus to spread as much as American carried the virus, when they rushed to fly back into US (even via from 3rd-party nations) before the ban took effect. Canada has healthcare and no wall. Donald approved 6 Billion which can be used ONLY to stop illicit drugs by law officers and 2 years later gave 1.8 billion to help treat the opioid crisis. The Public Health & Social Services Emergency Fund, not to be confused with the Public Health Emergency Fund. The fund to treat the opioid crisis has only just $57,000. https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/Editorial-Trump-falls-short-on-opioid-crisis-_162060118/ Every nation has figured their healthcare system out- 1. Tax-funded (Britain Spain) -
2. Employment funded (Germany France Tokyo) -
3. National health insurance combines tax & employment funds (Canada) -
4. Private insurance (USA) -
5. Out-of-pocket with no govt. funding -
Open any history to see how, for centuries, God-fearing people have allowed evil actions to be committed in the name of what religious society they believe in. The worst are those who would switch to logic or faith, whichever gives them a fig of justification, in order to fight to hold on to Power. Any resistance by the opposition to slow their march is seen as treacherous. These dedicated fighters, are not known to take a step back, and eventually do get everything they wanted, but ultimately everyone with them suffers, and it weakens the house they stand on. "Politicians are not saints", however, daily politics should rarely allow their hands to get so filthy in order for them to win elections. There is a minimum moral character of a person needed for high public office. Only God can judge people, but we all have a civil responsibility to judge people running for public office, and we should vote in good conscience. Character is what you do for those who have nothing. When you leave your morals, whether republican or democrat, and make a deal to get what you want, you have already lost. Morality and good education is about how we treat each other. What is the use of simply reciting Prayers if you don't follow Jesus? You get a conman who left his pregnant wives to rawdogged Pornstars. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StQx1s9IcFU) Powerful old men can pay $79 per hr for sex from low-income girls. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby live across the same street; & Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were very close friends with both of them. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304554/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast If the Bill Cosby case has taught us anything, it is to not disregard rape cases against famous men. Mr. Epstein’s own sexual crimes and parties with underage girls are well documented, as is Mr. Trump’s relationship with him two decades ago in New York City. You cannot trust any man to be loyal when he broke his wedding vows thrice and shows no sign of changing. Did or did Donald's First Wife not mention marital rape & domestic violence by Donald in her divorce file in a deposition? She later settled in 1991 and changed her story, saying “During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me. I wish to say that on one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited toward me, was absent. I referred to this as a “rape,” but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense." A Trump spokesman said at one point, “You cannot rape your spouse”. On April 25, 1997, Jill Harth, then in her early thirties, filed for $125 million in damages caused by Trump’s alleged sexual assaults (short of rape). 26 Women have accused Donald of sexual assault: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-trumps-accusers-allegations-sexual-misconduct/story?id=51956410&cid=social_fb_abcnp The TRAP laws from Republican men are typically enacted based on the false pretext of protecting women's health and safety, but have a clear ulterior motive of making it more difficult for women right to obtain abortion services (even medication-only before 20 weeks gestation) and jeopardizes women's access to open safe healthcare. Even though a woman's right to an abortion was guaranteed and constitutionally protected under Roe v. Wade exactly 45 years ago, hundreds of TRAP bills threaten the right to choose, for many women, the attacks on doctors can feel constant. The Supreme Court has twice affirmed that a woman has a constitutionally protected right to decide whether to continue or end her pregnancy, first in 1973 and again in 1992. Additionally, an abortion clinic may not get a new license or renew an existing license if the facility is within 2,000 feet of a K-8 public school. All abortion facility personnel, including volunteers, Must "take a 4-hour human-trafficking classes". These excessive TRAP laws require that abortions build far unnecessary and expensive facilities and 'administrative requirements' than are necessary. The air temperature must be maintained between air temperature must be maintained at between 72 and 76 degrees in 'patient areas', "75 and 80 degrees in patient recovery rooms and between 70 and 76 degrees in procedure rooms with humidity between 50% and 60%, and the ventilation system must change air flow 6 time an hour for certain rooms in the facility and 10 times per hour for others. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article235247637.html https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/06/us/sexual-assault-brock-turner-stanford/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/business/jeffrey-epstein-wexner-victorias-secret.html https://www.npr.org/2024/01/04/1222857174/jeffrey-epstein-julie-k-brown-documents-clinton-trump-prince-andrew https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/jeffrey-epstein-associates-names-numbers-b2475257.html https://www.wcpo.com/news/state/state-ohio/documents-list-ohio-billionaire-les-wexner-among-alleged-jeffrey-epstein-associates https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2024/01/03/jeffrey-epstein-court-records/e7786912-aaa2-11ee-bc8c-7319480da4f9_story.html https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/01/ohios-les-wexner-is-among-dozens-of-jeffrey-epstein-associates-named-in-newly-released-legal-papers.html Republican men, who strongly opposes abortion for religious reasons, have no problem with his own wife or mistress having a life-saving abortion. Outlawing abortion & access to the pill, & punishing women for sex & abortion, has never worked. Why not fight to support educational programs that advocate protected sex, which would this lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies & therefore fewer abortions? Life doesn't begin at sex. The egg does not immediately become a human being. A woman is not immediately pregnant. And no women is aborting their full-term, healthy fetus before birth. To reproduce is the woman's choice because only they should have the right to their bodies. It’s now been over 4 years since the Flint water crisis, where babies still don't get clean water. No child care; “pro-lifers” do not care about actual children or mothers. "Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy." Ted Kennedy on President Reagan nominated Robert Bork’s 1987 to the Supreme Court. Ironically, Bork was considered, but it was Scalia who got the nod, — and as it turned out it was Scalia who was approved easily yet became for the left exactly what they feared in Bork. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4594844/senator-kennedy-opposes-bork-nomination https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/23/1177542605/abortion-bans-drive-off-doctors-and-put-other-health-care-at-risk https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/11/15/1054710917/texas-abortion-law-harm-sexual-assault-survivors https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-franklin-roe-wade-supreme-court-leak https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/ https://time.com/6191044/clarence-thomas-same-sex-marriage-contraception-abortion/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-reconsider-contraception-gay-marriage-rulings https://www.foxnews.com/politics/13-states-trigger-laws-automatically-abortion-supreme-court-roe-v-wade https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/abortion-law-exceptions-rape-and-incest/620812/ https://www.wired.com/story/ramifications-of-post-roe-world/ Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta had made an ethically compromised decision by giving Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart deal. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/12/doj-ends-epstein-probe-no-action-against-prosecuto/ https://www.courthousenews.com/prosecution-of-kiddie-traffickers-plummeted-under-trump/ https://www.wired.com/story/ramifications-of-post-roe-world/ https://time.com/6192697/roe-v-wade-maternal-mortality/ https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/if-roe-v-wade-is-tossed-it-would-mark-the-first-time-the-supreme-court-overturned-precedent-to-limit-civil-rights-not-expand-them-expert-says/articleshow/91727649.cms https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/24/arizona-abortion-law-judge-johnson-brnovich/ https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/15/1135882310/miscarriage-hemorrhage-abortion-law-ohio https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/09/22/affidavits-more-pregnant-minors-who-were-raped-denied-ohio-abortions/ https://www.clevescene.com/news/documents-10-year-old-wasnt-only-ohio-minor-forced-to-travel-for-abortion-after-being-raped-40483650 https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/07/01/ohio-girl-10-among-patients-going-indiana-abortion/7788415001/?utm_campaign=social-alert&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newslit https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3705798-austin-woman-trying-for-baby-says-texas-abortion-law-nearly-caused-her-death/ https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/ap-indiana-judge-wont-block-probe-over-10-year-olds-abortion/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-blocks-indiana-abortion-ban-religious-freedom-grounds-2022-12-03/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-judge-blocks-indiana-second-trimester-abortion-procedure-ban https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/11/30/indiana-ag-asks-medical-board-to-punish-caitlin-bernard-doctor-who-helped-10-year-old-rape-victim-get-abortion/?sh=531b19454e10 https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/judge-rules-rokita-violated-law,-but-denies-abortion-care-providers-request-to-halt-investigation.php https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3809346-alabama-ag-says-women-could-be-prosecuted-for-taking-abortion-pills/ https://www.virginiamercury.com/2023/02/14/youngkin-administration-opposes-shielding-menstrual-app-data-from-search-warrants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/14/youngkin-menstrual-data-abortion-virginia/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/youngkin-blocks-bill-keeping-menstrual-histories-private-from-law-enforcement https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/virginia/youngkin-administration-vetoes-menstrual-app-privacy-bill-in-virginia/65-c3fc11c8-8b1e-4512-a8c8-bd97fbd6bf0c https://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-republicans-file-6-week-abortion-limit-bill https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/03/07/abortion-constitution-roe-six-weeks-rape-desantis-grall/ https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/north-texas-dallas-sex-trafficking-operation-nets-46-arrests/287-3a00d521-3339-4343-952b-f999929da794 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/04/26/denied-an-abortion-woman-tells-senators-she-nearly-died-on-their-watch/ https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5068083/amanda-zurawski-criticizes-texas-senators-i-died-watch https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-bans-torture-cruelty/ https://apnews.com/article/abortion-charges-nebraska-sentence-36b3dcaadd6b705ca2315bc95b99bdc1 https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-07/the-reality-of-migrant-women-en-route-to-the-united-states-raped-and-unable-to-access-a-hospital.html In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that states can regulate abortion. US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled to allow 4 abortion restrictions to go into effect in Arkansas, citing Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in the Louisiana abortion case: Medical Services v. Russo. https://turnawaystudy.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/nyregion/carroll-trump-trial-testimony.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-09/trump-barred-from-denying-sexual-assault-at-second-carroll-trial https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/e-jean-carroll-said-she-can-still-feel-trumps-curved-finger-in-rape-trial-testimony/articleshow/99796213.cms https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65531098 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/05/09/nyregion/trump-carroll-rape-trial-verdict#e-jean-carroll-described-an-assault-in-minute-detail https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2023/11/29/donald-trump-new-york-case-fraud-tax-e-jean-carroll-civil/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/02/donald-trump-marueen-dowd-interview-abortion-past-partners?CMP=fb_gu https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/epstein-victim-testifies-she-was-taken-to-trumps-mar-a-lago-when-she-was-14 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/09/epstein-mar-a-lago-trump-1456221 https://www.newsweek.com/who-flew-jeffrey-epstein-lolita-express-plane-full-list-people-named-1654827 https://www.fox5ny.com/news/trump-clinton-flew-on-jeffrey-epsteins-plane-multiple-times-pilot-testifies https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-doe-jeffrey-epstein-documents-unsealed-2024-1?IR=T https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit/ https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-dropped-230770 https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3684907-judge-rules-trump-must-sit-for-deposition-in-rape-accusers-lawsuit-next-week/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/380225-stormy-daniels-says-trump-told-her-she-reminded-him-of-his-daughter/
https://fox5sandiego.com/news/border-report/report-smugglers-in-mexico-are-sawing-through-the-border-wall/ https://www.wivb.com/news/national/smugglers-cut-through-trump-border-wall-over-3000-times-report-says/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/137372/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-parts-of-border-wall/ Leave people who are poor and desperate alone, if you separate so many families that you cannot even provide them soaps etc. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Separating families from toddlers is cruelty by Godless people. Can you imagine the poor families walking 2000 miles to run from these gangs carrying machete? If there was a chance to save your children from drug gangs, even if it meant a life without you, when things got so desperate; what would you do? A southern wall will cost atleast 25 to 30 Billion, which can be better used for vets and to tackle homelessness. The vast nos. of illegals FLY in & never leave. Remember, when they said they could easily get Mexico to pay for $8 Billion to fund building a wall? When Gop controlled congress, they did pass tax-cuts but didn't give 1 cent to fund to build the wall. If Republicans passed the Wall Act with a simple majority of 50 votes, that would allow $25 billion budget through Reconciliatory & Byrd Rule’s. Keep on trusting Donald's words that Republicans have an infrastructure plan or healthcare plan or Mexico will pay a single pesos for the wall. It's just unAmerican to use billions of tax-payer dollars to hid behind a useless Wall when that money can be better used. Unlike real conservatives, Nationalist get a hard-on demonizing and will always find someone to blame for their own incompetence. The child separation camps have been funded by reallocating money from the tornado recovery programs & Ryan White AIDs program. Donald to fund the Wall is siphoning off 4 billion from money given by Congress for school & childcare for military service members; and from coast guard budget; FEMA & Ryan AIDs program. The travel ban as primary means of protecting the nation is useless as Covid-19 virus spread even more American citizens carried the virus, when they rushed to fly back into US (even via from 3rd-party nations) before the ban took effect. Donald's travel ban ONLY for Chinese citizens travelling to the US from China. American citizens and residents and foreigners continued to travel into the US from China without restriction. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-barry-zekelman-trump-border-wall/ https://thehill.com/latino/450076-former-somali-pirate-taliban-captives-slam-reported-immigration-conditions https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2017/0308/Trump-budget-borrows-from-Coast-Guard-TSA-to-pay-for-wall https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-pentagon-idUSKCN1VP2VY https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/04/30/unspent-border-wall-funds-will-be-rerouted-back-to-military-construction-projects/ In US from 2006-12, 25% of all new high technology developed in US private sector, half of it was done by high-skill workers under U.S. visa program. Did you know Steve Jobs was the biological son of a Syrian immigrant or EBay founder Pierre Omidyar parents are Iranian? The ability to keep foreign talent has always been a competitive advantage for US. Even for people who are working for 5 years with papers, Donald "public charge" rules to programs like TANF & SNAP has prevented all LAWFUL immigrant workers from receiving new permanent residence status. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/20/how-does-trump-even-sleep-night-cuts-cancer-research-head-start-and-womens-shelters. Trump Administration is denying housing loans to DACA recipients even though Secretary of HUD, Ben Carson has denied in congressional testimony earlier that Federal Housing Administration (which is part of HUD) was denying federally backed loans to immigrants. American universities, as well as scientific laboratories and relevant private sector companies, should develop robust rules, procedures, and technical guardrails to safeguard intellectual property, research data, and national security information. These measures should apply to all students. To further ensure that the benefits of this large and valuable majority of foreign students are not lost, the government and law enforcement should redouble existing efforts and aggressively prosecute the malicious behavior of the small minority who violate those rules. https://www.wypr.org/post/us-born-children-undocumented-immigrants-increasingly-denied-snap-benefits https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/09/22/undocumented-immigrants-cant-access-government-healthcare-they-age/10367065002/?gnt-cfr=1 Not every veteran receives veterans’ benefits, which include health care for conditions related to military service, education stipends and home-buying assistance — these are not a substitute for benefits that make up the broader social safety net like food stamps, Medicaid and housing vouchers. Census data shows that about 100,000 noncitizen veterans live in US. Noncitizens have long served in the US military. Veterans Affairs have declined to step in to try to exempt veterans and their families from a new immigration rule that would make it far easier to deny green cards to low-income immigrants. The Trump administration has effectively change “public charge” into a wealth test for immigrants seeking permanent residency by rendering inadmissible applicants deemed likely to use a broad range of safety net programs. Kevin K. McAleenan said his agency estimated that this could save the federal government nearly $2.5 billion annually. No exemption exists for veterans and their families. This rule, which has reshaped the face of legal immigration into US, is one of the big changes to the immigration system undertaken by the Donald's administration. Long-term temporary workers & permanent resident workers (who are not green card holders) are already not allowed any social service or benefits for atleast 5 years even Before the new law and their taxes are deducted like everyone. https://www.businessinsider.com/iraqi-refugees-who-worked-for-usg-denied-entry-over-trump-refugee-ban-2017-1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/politics/kushner-china-visa-eb-5.html A lot of generations have died defeat supremacist evil in WW2, Exploited nations & former rulers, came together in solidarity & in sincerity under the UN, so that such injustices doesn't repeat itself. Under the international accepted laws written by the Allies after WW2, these fellow beings, especially, single mothers or grandmas or siblings, trying to live & fleeing from worst cases of being chopped by machete. Noone flees their land, leaves everyone they know, and walks 2000 miles, simply for fun. Turning them around, on international bridges, without allowing them to request or wait in line to request at legal land entry points (and forcing Mexico to do the same), Is a crime. Why would they stay any place where their is danger from the same gangs they are fleeing from? Even through American-citizen children could use such programs in Texas, some undocumented Latino immigrants who have resided in the country for many years fear that using public benefits for their families could undermine their chances of securing permanent residency. If denied a green card, they believe that they would then become vulnerable to deportation. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3752135-pro-israel-group-that-honored-trump-blasts-his-meeting-with-ye-and-fuentes/ Florida district pulls many Jewish and Holocaust books: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-779154 https://www.kpcw.org/npr-top-stories/npr-top-stories/2022-02-09/right-wing-conspiracies-have-a-new-target-a-tool-that-fights-actual-voter-fraud https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-trump-election-lies-explainer-816a43ed964e6d35f03b0930e6e56c82 https://twitter.com/annaliznichols/status/1255899730888011777 https://twitter.com/SenPolehanki/status/1255899318210314241/photo/1 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/twitter-trending-hang-mike-pence https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/politics/enrique-tarrio-jan-6-document.html https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/28/trump-rage-jan-6-hearing/7758901001/?gnt-cfr=1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/06/28/jan-6-hearings-trump-grabbed-steering-wheel-of-limo-attacked-security-chief-in-rage-at-not-being-taken-to-capitol-ex-aide-says/?sh=132744cf6de8 https://www.wltx.com/article/news/national/jan-6-committee-releases-surveillance-videos-loudermilk-capitol-tour-jan-5-capitol-riot/65-a605149e-75f1-411e-a192-0ff0961150e0 https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/proud-boys-1776-returns-plan-revealed-in-court-occupy-federal-government-buildings-demand-new-election-jan-20-2020-capitol-riot-jan-6/65-4413c027-4abc-463d-9d39-1acba4e58eae https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_D1ImLX_A https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22060772-1776returns https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/michigan/ag-nessel-charges-16-with-conspiracy-to-overturn-2020-election https://www.fox29.com/news/oan-admits-no-voter-fraud-settles-defamation-lawsuit https://apnews.com/article/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-prisons-grand-rapids-ap-news-alert-624914ba0414cfebc1c52b3c344f264c https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64103685 https://www.foxnews.com/us/michigan-lansing-coronavirus-protest-capitol-guns-rifles https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-michigan-idUSKBN22C38W https://www.the-sun.com/news/762488/michigan-militia-protest-governor-whitmer-coronavirus/ https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-s-liberate-tweets-extremists-see-call-arms-n1186561 https://www.thestatesman.com/world/protesters-carrying-guns-storm-michigan-capitol-building-seeking-lockdown-end-1502882748.html https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-update-armed-anti-lockdown-protesters-enter-michigans-capitol-building-c-1010450 https://thehill.com/news/campaign/3477112-the-trump-endorsed-candidates-that-have-won-their-primaries/ https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3596517-pro-trump-backlash-to-fbi-search-fuels-concern-over-political-violence/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2022/10/31/misinformation-fuels-false-narratives-about-attack-paul-pelosi/ https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/01/political-violence-424157 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/albuquerque-democrat-officials-shootings-arrest.html https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-mexico-police-arrest-failed-gop-state-house-candidate-shootings-targeting-dem-politicians-homes https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4326743-court-filing-trump-civil-fraud-judge-received-hundreds-threats/ https://apnews.com/article/trump-insurrection-colorado-justices-threat-3f05d134f8cfa14368107fa9dff97117
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e Should prisoners be used for unpaid forced labour in the United States? It's called "convict leasing" and it saves individual states millions of dollars a year through unpaid work. Population matters when it comes to redistricting, and that's why the way people are counted is so important. The Census Bureau provides options for people with non-permanent addresses to be counted – unless you’re incarcerated. Prison-based gerrymandering is the practice of counting incarcerated people as residents of the district in which they’re imprisoned (mostly in rural), rather than as residents of their permanent home state. When districts with prisons receive enhanced representation, every other district in the state without a prison sees its votes diluted. Some redistricting officials have created local voting districts filled mostly with people who are locked behind bars and, in most states, cannot vote. Because prisons are disproportionately built in rural areas but most incarcerated people call urban areas home, counting prisoners in the wrong place results in a systematic transfer of population and political clout from urban to rural areas. 60% of Illinois' prisoners are from Chicago. By counting incarcerated people as non-voting residents of the district in which they’re imprisoned, you can inflate the political power of one rural district at the expense of other districts, both rural and urban, that don’t have prisons to artificially boost their numbers. In a number of places, it has been found that elected officials who owe a majority of their clout to prison populations. https://mcusercontent.com/50c62ac7b40c13a0ef4c28e56/files/621a616b-4da8-484a-bf0d-7306d33143a3/SiX_Prison_Gerrymandering.pdf
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/01/25/desantis-death-penalty-jury-capital-punishment-unanimous-parkland/ https://www.newsweek.com/why-south-carolina-adding-firing-squad-death-penalty-option-1589086 https://www.fox6now.com/news/south-carolina-to-add-firing-squad-as-execution-method https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/the-trump-administration-is-aiming-to-bring-back-firing-squads-and-electrocutions-for-some-federal-executions/articleshow/79415727.cms When so-called pro-cop trump was in power, the FBI found out white supremacist had infiltrated the cop departments in many states. Cop unions have too much concentrated power as they can decide to squeeze the state Govt. to reduce working for the public safety. The department runs on tax dollars, so it's the cops' duty to protect all communities. Why is that so hard to believe, that there are corrupt cops unions? Why is there over reaction to reform? Is it too much to require accountability for those tax dollars? Cops with 'warrior' mentality are dangerous. Otherwise, why even have courts & prisons then? You have to Reform, and give them trauma help that they need. This will solve good cops from being pushed out. Cops are being asked to do too much, and cops can't be a broad specialist or handle everything. They are not suited to tackle every social problem.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boogaloo-bois-arrested-rioting-floyd-protests https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/03/27/removal-ruby-bridges-film-pinellas-school-sparks-outrage/ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4125593-desantis-faces-backlash-from-black-conservatives/ "Segregation is legally over, but it never ended. The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas. We have this so that the rest of us don’t have to deal with it. Then that situation erupts, and we express our shock and indignation. But if we don’t address the anguish of a people, the pain of being a people who built this country through forced labor — people say, ‘‘I’m tired of everything being about race.’’ Well, imagine how exhausting it is to live that." Jon Stewart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wDFydMjR7o
https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-child-workers-lunch-break-louisiana-1891929 https://www.fox26medford.com/arkansas-rolling-back-child-labor-protections-4/ https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2023/04/18/iowa-senate-passes-child-labor-bill-letting-teens-work-more-jobs-longer-hours/70121615007/ https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa-senate-gop-advances-relaxing-of-child-labor-laws/article_15f8e5a0-f236-5716-9bb6-fb4d5c1ac114.html https://www.loc.gov/collections/national-child-labor-committee/ https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/02/19/arkansas-meat-processor-plants-busted-for-child-labor-violations-amid-national-push-to-ease-child-labor-rules https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-23/states-seek-to-loosen-child-labor-laws-that-s-a-travesty?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.iowapublicradio.org/state-government-news/2023-04-18/iowa-senate-republicans-pass-bill-to-relax-some-child-labor-laws https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/02/27/child-labor-department-of-labor-meatpacking-pssi-migrant-children/ https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/meat-plant-cleaning-service-fined-1-5m-employing-over-100-children-across-us-locations https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-urges-meat-companies-ensure-dont-use-child-labor https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/13/arts/new-season-photography-critic-s-choice-career-that-moved-man-machine.html
All I know is anyone who gives joy to children is good. Anyone who treats hungry children like garbage is doing evil. The vast majority of Undocumented are from people who fly in and never leave but I would never fault anyone fleeing to save their family even if means separation from them, atleast children will be away from gangs carrying machete. There are far more good immigrants who unfortunately do not make the news. Their taxes are deducted from undocumented's paychecks yet they never file returns therefore never receive refunds that are due to them. Instead Fox keep throwing red meat to the base shouting: Look there, its a "CARAVAN" of rapist & drug-cartels coming to invade us! Fox news turns the dial up on CARAVAN INVASION as & when its politically convenient. (https://www.justsecurity.org/61544/happening-asylum-seekers-ports-entry-border/) Why do Republicans always plead innocent in court while claiming they are not responsible spreading lies or blaming it on "psychosis"? Donald cannot even give a tv statement without blunders & lies. Even when Donald had no power he refused to accept election results "if he lost". All this political anarchy makes US look weak. America's leadership with partnerships of nations are invaluable in a global crisis as seen by the international policy response after the financial crisis. Infact future policies are unlikely to be effective without such international coordination. Politicians know that solving anything too hard will only help get rid of a useful tool that they can instead use for party's political purpose. These populists are all about Slogans. Nazi Nationalists took over Germany by blaming everything on the left. It begins by justifying investigating opposition leader, Paul Hindenburg & leads to burning of the Reichstag Parliament. Only blind faith has no room for any criticism because criticism acts like a disinfectant and pushes leaders to come up with clear explanation that is supportable. Nationalism comes from arrogance of hunderds of thousands of people who are looking for someone who will give them an excuse to do harm to others because they carry a false perverted sense that life been unfair to them because of someone else. Its the privileged who feel treated so unfairly and voted for a man who sold bombastic lies that reinforces their prejudices. If you want to live in a commie one party rule then live in China or North Korea. The President public comments do have an Impact but there is a difference between speaking plainly and speaking out from where the sun don't shine. You cannot trust someone who said he kept the book about Nazi collection of political speeches, on his bedside. Donald said he has never asked God for forgiveness in his life. In the National Prayer Breakfast he mocked the teachings of Jesus about mercy & love, and nobody dared to say that is unChrist-like. Donald's own dying mother gave him her Bible on her deathbed & Donald still did not read it. Donald has open "My New Order" far more times.
Extracts from the "Funeral Oration" by Pericles (430 BC) on the greatness of Athens, has become a point of reference on the value of democratic tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmYISZwCK9g https://www.seattletimes.com/business/florida-flies-illegal-immigrants-to-marthas-vineyard/ https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2024-01-13/three-drown-in-rio-grande-after-texas-blocks-border-patrol-from-rescue https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/11/texas-border-migrants-greg-abbott-interview-shoot/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/18/texas-troopers-department-public-safety-migrants-rio-grande-border/ Documents Detail ICE Plan to Prosecute Migrant Parents https://theintercept.com/2019/04/29/ice-documents-prosecute-migrant-parents-smugglers/ US Customs & Border Protection officers used money intended to buy food & medical for detainees to instead buy tactical gear https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/707500.pdf https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/12/us/gun-traffickers-smuggling-state-gun-laws.html https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-citizens-not-asylum-seekers https://americasvoice.org/blog/2019-mid-year-review/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/border/2023/11/16/469865/mexico-rejects-texas-proposal-to-allow-state-police-to-deport-undocumented-immigrants/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/15/texas-border-bill-immigrants-crime-mexico-response/ NRA is a lobbyist group for manufacturers, not the gun owners, and these manufacturers the biggest clients are cops. The NRA was founded in 1871 by two Union Civil War veterans and a former NY Times reporter with the intention of training Civil War veterans on marksmanship. In the 1920s, the National Revolver Association, the arm of the NRA, requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, five years additional prison time if the gun was used in a crime, a ban on gun sales to non-citizens, a one-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun, and that records of gun sales be made available to police. In 1939, but Karl T. Frederick, the president of the NRA, testified before Congress stating, “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” A shift in the NRA’s platform occurred when in 1971 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, during a house raid, shot and paralyzed long-time NRA member Kenyon Ballew suspected of stockpiling illegal weapons. The NRA swiftly condemned the federal government. As Winkler points out, following the incident, NRA board member and editor of New Hampshire’s Manchester Union Leader William Loeb referred to the federal agents as “Treasury Gestapo”. The original gun rights advocates were black nationalists in 1960s. The display so frightened politicians—including California governor Ronald Reagan—that it helped to pass the Mulford Act, a state bill prohibiting the open carry of loaded firearms, along with an addendum prohibiting loaded firearms in the state Capitol. The 1967 bill took California down the path to having some of the strictest gun laws in America and helped jumpstart a surge of national gun control restrictions. Including the Gun Control Act of 1968, which adopted new laws prohibiting certain people from owning guns, providing for beefed up licensing and inspections of gun dealers. Governor Reagan commented that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” And after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, the NRA backed the Gun Control Act that passed the same year, which include minimum age and serial number requirements of guns and gun ban to include the mental ill and drug addict. In addition, it restricted the shipping of guns across state lines to collectors and federally licensed dealers and certain types of bullets could only be purchased with a show of ID. NRA had launched a project called Trigger the Vote based on their secret database of gun owners assembled from state and local lists of gun permits and purchasing lists from gun shows and magazines. NRA tracked tens of millions of gun owners, most of them without their knowledge. Legislation in 1952 undocumented people travelling within the US were subject to arrest. Did you know total US prison population is 2.2 million & the US incarceration rate higher than any other nation on earth? Immigrants commit far fewer crimes is a Fact. Did you know Gitmo was the first immigrant camps, which became a Gulag? According to Trump administration's data, around 75% of illegals come back to attended their immigration court proceedings, while just 18% never show up. Want asylum seekers to come legally? Firstly, the normal waiting list for poor asylum seekers is reaching 190 years for an individual. Nobody can live 190 years. And Congress cannot make the process faster due to fear of white majority voters. Census data shows that about 100,000 non-citizen veterans live in the US. More immigrants are needed if the nation has to stay in the game vis a vis Chinese. Most of these families (are not criminals) are raising their American children to become patriotic Americans + put in more money in taxes and Social Security fund & do "essential" work you won't do. The cost of losing America’s competitive edge far exceeds the cost required for keeping migrants/refugees. The inception of the US Border Patrol was in 1924 to restrict the flow of undocumented Chinese trying to avoid the Chinese exclusion laws. They got close co-operation from Texas Rangers. This was also the Prohibition era. Liquor (mostly, whiskey) smuggling was a major concern because it too often accompanied smuggling people into the US. In 1925 Border Patrol duties were expanded to patrol the seacoast. The Border Patrol agents did not have uniforms until 1928. The first Border Patrol Academy opened as a training school in El Paso in 1934. Rise in knives is far better than crime rise due to gun violence. The US has the highest murder rate in the industrialized world. MS13 is 1% of all gangs so show some attention to the 99% (most criminals have been caught on the border, drugs come through the sea or trucks at entry point) but it's all too useful for kabuki theater. What about criminal gangs in the country killing innocent people? Maybe if there was a less demand for drugs in U.S. there would be no incentive for it. What happened to the investigation into 3 million voters? Zilch. Desperate people will try to come. Any chance of voter fraud is 0.002% to 0.03%, which makes No difference to the result. In 1952, the government airlifted 52,000 illegal immigrants back to the Mexican interior. The Mexican government offered train rides into the Mexican interior for nationals being returned. The Border Patrol began expelling adult Mexican males from the US to Mexico in 1954. The project was discontinued two years later after nearly 50,000 illegal aliens had been returned home. Various other flights, train trips, and bus trips originated along the border and terminated in the Mexican interior. In spite of the major successes in repatriation, many deportees simply turned around and recrossed the seriously undermanned border. Ironically, the business of drug smuggling also began to rise. We must remember the reasons for actions in all things. ICE’s original job was to track international criminals & home-grown terrorists in response to 9/11, but slowly it has become America’s Gestapo with nationwide hunting of undocumented workers. The rise in deportations rose when more & more tax dollars were thrown at ICE, while ICE deputized cops to do ICE's immigration work instead of policing! The rise was partly the product of Congress continuing to give ever-more money to ICE, while ICE expanded programs that deputized local police in enforcing federal immigration law — bringing the threat of deportation for any unauthorized immigrant who might go to local law enforcement as a victim or witness. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYPumEXmKd4) https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/right-wing-media-seize-flimsy-voter-fraud-stories-spread-misinformation https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/ice-gang-arrests-operation/index.html Hundreds of millions of dollars was raised by mailing Trump supporters that the 2020 election results can be overturned. 75% of money raised can be pocketed legally by Trump. There are some people say US democracy is strong but factually, the US democratic system worked ONLY because of literally a handful of Republican election officials choose country over party. The Republican controlled Senate must provide more funds to each state for election IT security. Also it's dangerous when election volunteers are getting death threats by Trump supporters. Trump's Justice dept. head Barr has said publicly that there was no major fraud to change the outcome of the election. The state election officials have said, democracy is messy and with a pandemic, this election was challenging; and if anyone is willing to make big accusations, then show us the proof. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-donald-trump-is-ramming-millions-through-a-campaign-loophole-save-america-pac?ref=home https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/us/politics/trump-donations.html https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-emails-show-trump-knowingly-pressed-false-voter-fraud-claims-judge/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-georgia/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-law-enforcement/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/us/election-officials-threats-trump.html https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/pro-trump-news-site-targets-election-workers-inspiring-wave-menace-2021-12-03/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/reuters-unmasks-trump-supporters-terrifying-us-election-workers-2021-11-09/ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4151137-trumps-legal-team-connected-to-georgia-voting-system-breach-report/ https://www.azmirror.com/2022/10/28/drop-boxes-watchers-in-arizona-connected-to-national-effort-from-2000-mules-creators/ https://www.kpcw.org/npr-top-stories/npr-top-stories/2022-02-09/right-wing-conspiracies-have-a-new-target-a-tool-that-fights-actual-voter-fraud https://www.eipartnership.net/ https://www.army.mil/article/134530/absentee_voting_myths_vs_realities https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/02/low-rates-of-fraud-in-vote-by-mail-states-show-the-benefits-outweigh-the-risks/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/01/mail-found-greenville-ditch-did-not-include-any-wisconsin-ballots/5883960002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/daniel-bice/2020/09/30/republican-say-no-bango-bernie-brewer-early-voting-locations/3586556001/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/us/politics/michigan-2020-election.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494189-lets-put-the-vote-by-mail-fraud-myth-to-rest https://www.fox13news.com/news/barr-no-evidence-of-fraud-thatd-change-election-outcome https://www.newsweek.com/gop-aligned-group-finds-no-evidence-wisconsin-voter-fraud-after-10-month-investigation-1657112 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-papers-4-government-inquiries-2-news-investigations-and-1-court-ruling-proving-voter-fraud-is-mostly-a-myth/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/ https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-wisconsin-election-2020-government-and-politics-daa3ac227c936d7fc038996af6e27cbe https://www.cleveland.com/open/2021/07/ohio-refers-13-ballots-out-of-millions-cast-in-2020-for-investigation-as-possible-voter-fraud.html https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/voter-fraud-witch-hunt-kansas/ https://wisconsinwatch.org/2020/11/milwaukee-flash-drive-vote-fraud-misinformation/ https://elections.wi.gov/node/7241 https://www.azmirror.com/2021/09/24/arizona-audit-a-multitude-of-unsubstantiated-claims-and-no-proof-of-fraud/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/10/trump-calls-gop-senator-jerk-after-he-rejects-former-presidents-false-claims-widespread-election-fraud/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/business/media/fox-news-reporter-lawsuit-january-6.html https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1157558299/fox-news-stars-false-claims-trump-election-2020 https://www.fox29.com/news/oan-admits-no-voter-fraud-settles-defamation-lawsuit https://thehill.com/news/media/3483075-oan-acknowledges-no-widespread-voter-fraud-by-georgia-election-workers/ https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3526974-dominion-voting-systems-lawsuit-against-newsmax-can-proceed-judge-rules/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/prominent-conservatives-election-lost-not-stolen https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-doj-officials-election-corrupt-donoghue-notes https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/18/claims-that-drop-boxes-were-vector-rampant-fraud-keep-crumbling/ https://fox59.com/news/national-world/giuliani-concedes-he-made-false-statements-about-2-georgia-election-workers/
http://www.oas.org/dil/treaties_B-32_American_Convention_on_Human_Rights.htm http://www.claiminghumanrights.org/udhr_article_14.html https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/562/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/albums/72157661462319371 https://spectatorworld.com/topic/stephen-miller-interview-afghanistan-refugee-crisis/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/refugee-admissions-trump/569641/ https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/afghan-and-iraqi-allies-v-pompeo-challenging-the-systematic-delay-in-processing-of-special-immigrant-via-applications The current population of migrants living in the U.S. illegally has stayed relatively constant at about 10.2 million over the past several years, even with the large number of new arrivals at the border. As much as 45% of the total illegal migrant population entered the US with visas. While deportations accelerated under the administrations of both Obama and Trump, those numbers were too small to be significant. The data suggests that those residents were not moving to other states but returning to their home countries. Brazilians returned in large numbers when their country’s economy was thriving. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3873367-advocates-say-bidens-asylum-rule-is-a-trump-deja-vu/ As long as there are desperate people in South America, they will come. They have more right to come than Caucasians from Europe. Desperate people will try to come. Ultra-nationalists have praise Tucker Carlson's full embrace of white “replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming Dems are 'importing' immigrants to 'dilute' 'real' voters. This is not true. The fact is, the world's biggest refugee intake (due to wars in the Middle East) has been into the poorest African & west Asian nations. E.U. (except Germany & turkey) has taken together in 1% of refugees. America is far below at 50,000 cut off (but even half of the cap has not been met every year). Of all the Presidents who won by Electoral College, Donald lost the popular vote by the largest margin in 2016. His approval have never reached 50%. Ever. Some mandate. Article 14(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted in 1948, guarantees the right to seek and enjoy asylum in other countries. The “right to seek and be granted asylum in a foreign territory, in accordance with the legislation of the state and international conventions.” American Convention on Human Rights, Article 22(7) The right to liberty and security of the person is important in the context of how asylum seekers are treated within the intended country of refuge. The family is seen as the “natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” e.g., International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 23(1). Thus, where an individual is granted asylum, his or her dependent relatives will also receive protection through him or her. Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution is commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. If the laws do not function from that position then they amount to nothing, noting that "A law, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. James Madison defended the Supremacy Clause as vital to the functioning of the nation.
https://apnews.com/article/texas-border-razor-wire-fainting-7aa811baf2708b89a0316804c3f2e35e The right to apply for asylum is enshrined in U.S. immigration law. The qualifications resemble those for refugee status, but asylum seekers follow a different process. While asylum offers the same protection as refugee status, migrants seeking asylum in the US must apply for it from within the U.S. or at one of its 328 official ports of entry, rather than from abroad. Affirmative asylum seekers composed 58 percent of all asylum grants in 2021. https://www.cliniclegal.org/resources/humanitarian-relief/asylum-and-refugee-law/bia-requires-asylum-seekers-identify In 2022, USCIS asylum officers were given the authority to review and adjudicate the asylum claims of certain migrants facing expedited removal. These migrants were found to have credible fears of persecution when they were interviewed after being caught crossing the border illegally. A claim of persecution must be made based on one of five “protected grounds”: race, religion, nationality or political opinion. The chances of winning asylum increase fivefold when migrants have legal representation. The only jobs for latinos in Texas border areas are in fracking or border patrol. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-narrows-gap-in-heavily-latino-texas-county-that-clinton-won-by-79 https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-11-05/election-2020-latino-votes-democrats https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Trump-gained-significant-ground-in-Webb-County-15703911.php https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/05/how-trump-won-florida-latinos-miami-dade-cuban-americans/ https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/crime-enter-illegally.html https://mijente.net/notechforice/ https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/cbp-security-agency https://gizmodo.com/feds-find-fourth-amendment-workaround-buy-phone-locati-1841516436 https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-engine-for-donald-trumps-deportation-machine/ In 2005, during George W. Bush’s second term, an enterprising Border Patrol chief in Del Rio, Texas, named Randy Hill came up with an idea for how to eliminate unauthorized border crossings for good: He would make the process so unpleasant that no one would want to do it. This initiative, named Operation Streamline, would form the basis of a school of thought that has made “prevention by deterrence” a centerpiece of the United States’ immigration enforcement today. In many ways, the implementation of Streamline was a mess. Courthouses along the border became so overwhelmed that they had to close to the public. Judges began holding mass hearings, with groups of up to 100 shackled defendants being tried at the same time. Arizona declared a judicial emergency in early 2011, temporarily suspending the right to a speedy trial for all federal defendants, including American citizens. Law-enforcement officers argued that the onslaught of misdemeanor prosecutions required by Streamline took resources away. Under the Bush and Obama administrations, DHS officials who were eager to show that they were keeping the nation safe testified before Congress that Operation Streamline was an industry “best practice.” Border Patrol agents embraced the model too, finally feeling empowered after decades of impotence. In one facility, more than 80 teenage boys were passing around water in paper cups and climbing over one another to access a single toilet. During Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security visit to Guatemala City in, John Kelly explained that the mass migration of children and families seeking asylum in the U.S. was not a threat to national security, but said that the crush at the border would continue to build unless jobs became more plentiful, and violence less rife, across Central America. No amount of “deterrence” would outweigh all of the factors driving Central Americans to the US. Tom Homan, the executive associate director of enforcement and removal for Immigration and Customs Enforcement had spent decades in immigration enforcement, beginning in his early 20s as a Border Patrol agent. He wanted to apply the perceived lessons of Operation Streamline to migrant families, by prosecuting parents who crossed the border illegally with their children. Though many of these families came to the U.S. seeking asylum, under this new model they would be treated as criminals. Homan explained that the parents would be taken into federal criminal custody, just like with Operation Streamline—only this time the process would trigger an automatic family separation. Yes, the separated families would suffer, he acknowledged, but at least “they’re not dead.” The goal wasn’t to traumatize. The goal was to stop the madness, stop the death, stop the rape, stop the children dying, stop the cartels doing what they’re doing.” When the official Zero Tolerance policy went into effect, in the spring of 2018, the Trump administration made frequent use of this defense. This makes Tom Homan the father of what might be the Trump administration’s most controversial policy. Jeff Self, the Border Patrol chief in El Paso, Texas, was working with the local counterparts at the Department of Justice on a local initiative was already under way that would soon be used to justify separations on a nationwide scale. Though he likely didn’t realize it at the time, Self was laying the groundwork for a national policy that called for separating families. Though phrased in such a way as to suggest an insignificant administrative change, the email was in fact describing a revival of the idea Tom Homan had proposed to Jeh Johnson in 2014—using prosecution and family separations as a means of deterring would-be migrants. Federal officials would later call his local initiative a “pilot” and use it as a model for expanding the practice nationwide. By the end of 2017, DHS and White House officials say, Stephen Miller appeared to be losing patience with Elaine Duke, who had refused to sign off on any of his major plans. John Kelly worried about someone like Kobach overseeing DHS. So he floated Kirstjen Nielsen, who had worked with him at the agency and come with him to the White House as his No. 2. It is somewhat ironic that the person most associated with the Trump administration’s harshest immigration policy turned out to be Nielsen. She signed the memo allowing Border Patrol agents to take children away from their parents so that the adults could be prosecuted. Soon after Nielsen’s confirmation in December, colleagues of Kevin McAleenan say that he began to agitate for a meeting about rising border crossings, which the White House was pressuring him to contain. Over time he became one of the most vocal advocates for Zero Tolerance. McAleenan and Homan then began to describe an initiative to prosecute all adults—including those traveling with children—who crossed the border illegally, telling Nielsen that a pilot program along these lines had already been successfully implemented in El Paso and that the prosecutions could serve as a deterrent on a larger scale. Sessions’s principal immigration adviser was Gene Hamilton. Jeff Sessions is exactly the sort of person one might expect to be responsible for a policy that would result in widespread family separations. Exactly how much Sessions even understood about Zero Tolerance is unclear. Gene Hamilton and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who are revealed to have pushed persistently for Zero Tolerance in a report published by the DOJ inspector general, told the IG’s office that they did so solely at the behest of Sessions. The shelter workers “don’t even know where the kids are coming from, who the parent is, where the parent is. They are 2, 3, 4, 5 years old.” Border crossings continued to rise. Fox News commentators took note of the trend and blamed Kirstjen Nielsen. Stephen Miller prompted the president to chastise her. Tom Homan and Kevin McAleenan continued to minimize the significance of Zero Tolerance, saying that they merely wanted to increase enforcement of laws already on the books. In early April 2018, Stephen Miller, Gene Hamilton, and Kevin McAleenan (who had recently been confirmed as the CBP commissioner) began citing various documents to insist that Nielsen was violating a lawful order by delaying the implementation of Zero Tolerance. As the Zero Tolerance announcement was hyped to Nielsen for its alleged importance, it was played down to the U.S. attorneys whom it would ultimately affect. Caravans of asylum seekers from Central America had formed, headed for the United States, and 24-hour coverage of them incited a new level of panic in the administration about border crossings. In an email dated April 19, 2018, to Tom Homan and Francis Cissna, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Kevin McAleenan stated his intent to formally recommend the idea to Nielsen. Attached was a legal analysis by John Mitnick, the top lawyer at DHS, who warned that a court could find family separations on a large scale, without any proven mechanism for swift reunification after prosecutions, in violation of “various laws or the Fifth Amendment due process clause.” It seems that no one at the department that would be charged with taking care of thousands of separated children was given any official warning that the Zero Tolerance program was in the offing. Rich Hunter, the second-highest-ranking official in the U.S. Marshals Service in South Texas, anticipated that the system would break down. Marshal supervisors ordered that temporary, stackable overflow beds be crammed into dorms so that the separated parents had a place to sleep. Internal emails show that some assistant U.S. attorneys who resisted prosecuting parents under Zero Tolerance faced reassignment—and the parents whose cases they declined were separated from their children anyway. Now the facilities were suddenly being asked to find housing for hundreds of new detainees every day. At the height of Zero Tolerance, about 300 children were separated each day at a facility. Kirstjen Nielsen and her team argued that some of the separated families were actually part of trafficking schemes in which children were either kidnapped or paired with random adults in order to give both parties free passage into the US. But subsequent investigations into family separation have not yielded too many examples. Family Reunification Task Force had not found a single false-family trafficking case. Another argument Nielsen made is still popular today among veterans of the Trump administration: that separating migrant children from their parents for the purposes of prosecution was no different from what happens in American criminal proceedings every day. “If an American parent is pulled over for a DUI and their child is in the back seat,” this argument goes, “the child doesn’t go to jail with them.” American parents who are arrested in the United States typically have access to a system for getting their children back when they are released from custody. In no place in the American criminal-justice system, would it be considered either ethically or legally permissible to keep children from their parents for punitive purposes after their legal process is completed. “We wouldn’t do that to a murderer,” much less a parent facing misdemeanor charges as a result of their attempt to claim asylum. Recently disclosed internal emails from that time help explain what the U.S. attorneys couldn’t figure out—why the plan for reunifying families was faulty to the point of negligence. Inside DHS, officials were working to prevent reunifications from happening. Within days of the start of Zero Tolerance, Matt Albence, one of Tom Homan’s deputies at ICE, expressed concern that if the parents’ prosecutions happened too swiftly, their children would still be waiting to be picked up by HHS in Border Patrol stations, making family reunification possible. He saw this as a bad thing. Albence also suggested that the Border Patrol deliver separated children to HHS “at an accelerated pace,” instead of waiting for federal contractors to pick them up, to minimize the chance that they would be returned to their parents. When denial was no longer viable, the administration wasted no time looking for someone to scapegoat. As district-level reports—initially tightly controlled—circulated more widely at headquarters, it became clear that “there were some unfair stories out there but even the fairest ones were bad. And with some of the ones that the reporter had gotten wrong, the facts were actually worse than the reporter realized. Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, told John Kelly at a breakfast meeting that if Congress didn’t outlaw family separations, “we will lose the House [in the 2018 midterms]. It will kill the Republican Party.” Miller argued that the program should continue. The White House scrambled to issue an executive order—one that is among the most confusing and nonsensical of all those produced by the Trump administration. It called for the Justice Department to continue exercising “zero tolerance” toward illegal border crossings—but at the same time for the Department of Homeland Security to maintain the family unity of those who were prosecuted. This was executive order as oxymoron. A damage-control working group developed fact sheets suggesting, without evidence, that most of the separated children were trafficking victims. It was still not at all clear what would happen to the estimated 3,000 separated children who remained in government custody, not to mention those who had been released to a sponsor in the US. Some of the children were infants. Some were 1 and 2 years old, 5 years old, 10 years old. The ICE leadership didn’t want family reunification to succeed. They wanted to sabotage it. They were trying to run out the clock and then there is nothing that you can do anymore. Those kids will wait, their parents will be deported, and they will be separated potentially for the rest of their lives. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-family-separation-policy-aclu-1467715 More than 500 separated children remained in federal custody. The Trump government still had made no effort to contact parents who had been deported without their children. The total number of known separations between January 2017 and June 2018 is more than 4,000. After entering the White House, President Joe Biden signed an executive order forming the Family Reunification Task Force, headed by Michelle Brané, to continue tracking down and reuniting the 1,500 families that remained separated when his administration took office. https://www.fox44news.com/news/political-news/ap-us-reunites-nearly-700-kids-taken-from-parents-under-trump/ At least 700 parents have been reunited with their children. Some families still have not been officially reunited. Miller believes that the Trump administration laid the groundwork necessary for a future president to implement harsh enforcement even more quickly and with greater reach than under Trump. Hawks argued that Zero Tolerance had been effective—or that it would have been, if only it had been left in place a little longer. Many of those who were involved in the development of Zero Tolerance are still working at DHS or its subagencies. DOJ has been insisting in a recent hearing that a family-separation policy "never really existed". That lack of accountability for those who participated in separating families means that the practice will restart under another administration.Caitlin Dickerson https://www.voanews.com/a/five-years-later-work-of-reuniting-families-separated-at-us-mexico-border-remains-unfinished/6610677.html
https://immigration.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000023#2000-present https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-postwar-immigration-policy https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/olab/acf_congressional_budget_justification_2020.pdf
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/23/us-immigration-migrant-children-grandparents-separated/11088510002/ The longer that someone gives a damn, 20% are likely to experience compassion fatigue and feeling less empathy for others. Some have described it as a “secondary traumatic stress disorder,” which comes from prolonged exposure to the suffering of others. While it’s an understandable defense mechanism, it can leave many feeling guilty and frustrated. You need to know the limits. Neglecting yourself will hurt you and your ability to be there for someone else.
California’s Democrats playing a leading role—equating immigration with crime, including Bill Clinton’s notorious Illegal Immigration Reform & Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Secure Communities, A Comprehensive Plan to Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens (SCOMM) under George Bush Jr. Barack Obama created DACA protections, but also allowed ICE to deport 3 million people; which is more than all preceding the US Presidents combined. Clinton and Obama administrations, whose ‘deterrence’ policies planted seeds for zero-tolerance immigration by nationalist manure, under Donald and Stephen Miller. They simply relish with his blatantly dehumanizing rhetoric when describing asylum-seekers as “animals” that are “infesting” the US. Meanwhile, he got his 3rd wife, the 'Einstein-class immigrant visa', and got her parents as her dependent. He has used the troops as pawns for his political advantage when he knows troops cannot be used, by law, for domestic security. The cap for asylum seekers allowed by the US is 50,000, but not even half of the cap has been met every year because of the backlog. The asylum seekers into US have to wait time/backlog of 4 to 190 years to apply for asylum, or they get arrested because of the “zero tolerance” policy. The number of asylum grants has fluctuated, from a little over 1 thousand in 1980 to record levels of more than 46 thousand in 2019. In 2022, more than 27,500 asylum applications were denied (roughly, 52 percent). https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/usbp-sw-border-apprehensions Trump started the children separation policy, which sentenced every parent (proved by gene test) as a cartel smuggler of their own children! In 2017, six weeks after Donald's inauguration, John Kelly acknowledged that Donald was considering an undocumented family separation policy. In July of that same year, undocumented family separations quietly began in El Paso, as a test of the concept. They thought that if undocumented families were being treated terribly, then the people would go back to Central America. This prompted a class-action lawsuit in Feb 2018 by a Congolese woman who had been separated for months from her 6-year-old daughter. In April 2018 the "systematic" child-separation policy change was approved by Kirstjen Nielsen. Jeff Sessions announced the policy change publicly in May that year, except he called it the “zero tolerance” policy. Before zero tolerance, illegal entry was maybe a misdemeanour and certainly doesn't require children to be taken away for more than 48 months and counting. The people held as alleged children smugglers, that Donald claims to be fighting, are the parents of those children themselves, and all of them were only legally seeking asylum together. There are documents detail ICE prosecuted migrant parents as human trafficking smugglers of their own children, under the Trump administrations. It's highly expensive and counter-productive. Trump spent 3 billion on each detention camps (holding pens) per month. The "Safe third country agreement" with US is with Canada, Not Mexico. There is zero safe third country agreement with Mexican government. The Mexican government under Enrique Peña Nieto and, after Dec. 1, 2018, under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has consistently stated it will not accept a safe third country agreement with the US. 8 U.S. Code § 1158 adds that, irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum in accordance with the current Attorney General (instead of immigration judges as was the case previously) who has the power to determine if the application for asylum is frivolous or genuine. Also, "Safe third country agreement" shall NOT apply to unaccompanied children. “Pro-lifers” do not care about actual child care. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/23/us-immigration-migrant-children-grandparents-separated/11088510002/ There is a lawsuit against the US Govt. because of Trump's children separation policies. By 2019, more than 50,000 nos. of 3-4 year olds & another 53,000 nos. of 5 -9-year-olds were separated during Trump administration. These children can't even remember their parent's faces. Moreover, nobody can find the Parents of 545 children who were separated under Trump. Its tragic. He falsely wants you to think the same thing happened under Obama. Bush & Obama followed the decades-old Flores lawsuit settlement policy, which requires that children be held in immigration detention no longer than 20 days, which became colloquial known as "catch and release". What immigration officials faced under Obama was largely a rush of unaccompanied children, not undocumented families. US courts ruled that immigration detention can only be used to detain people if they are potentially dangerous criminals, but not as a policy tool. There was no policy deliberately leading to family separations under Obama. US held record number of migrant children in custody: https://apnews.com/article/015702afdb4d4fbf85cf5070cd2c6824 These are holding pens. The difference between cage and pen is that a pen doesn't have a roof, but razor wire at the top. Obama built the cages but did not put separated children in them because he did not separate families. In fact, the Obama administration built new detention centres to house migrant families together. Under Obama, undocumented families were Not separated unless they were known to have a serious criminal record, and those the children were kept few less than 72 hours (a federal consent decree held that families could be detained for a maximum of only 20 days because of the harm that long-term detention does to children) while Donald has thousands of children (first more than 20 days and now) for more than 46 months in those camps. This was possible by getting the justice department & immigration judges to bend according to his will. Undocumented family separation policy itself has gone on since the executive order, under different justifications. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-wife-worked-illegally-during-her-first-weeks-in-the-us-documents-show https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-melania-trump-worked-in-us-without-proper-permit/2016/11/05/3ddc5a8a-a302-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html Ironically, Donald also got his 3rd European wife 'Einstein-class immigrant visa' given to nuclear scientists & got her parents as her dependent. She worked illegally under tourist visa for years. If the US is for legal immigration for poor brown people, then why is the waiting time for asylum reaching 190 years for applicants? There is need for faster processing and more immigration judges. The decades of slow process only helps create a black market to drop children over the fence. An expensive wall is a waste of tax dollars if with a cheap ladder you can cross over. American citizens are smuggling goods over the border even when there are severe penalties. It hardly matters what the goods are: eggs, medicine, fentanyl, humans. American citizens do most of the smuggling because there is a demand. Republicans only focus on more militarization when dealing with illegal immigration and never address the demand that creates the supply. https://www.abc15.com/news/state/arizonas-defunct-border-wall-leaves-questions-about-states-oversight https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2023/06/20/arizonas-defunct-border-wall-leaves-trail-of-runaway-costs-error-filled-invoices/ Gov. Greg Abbott truck inspections turned up zero drugs, migrants but cost Texas $4.2 billion https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2022/apr/23/economist-says-gov-abbotts-border-inspections/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mexico-shifts-trade-railway-from-texas-to-new-mexico-over-abbotts-enhanced-border-checks/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/15/texas-border-abbott-vehicle-inspections/ https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-citizens-not-asylum-seekers
Southern state leaders had made the Black Codes and the Jim Crow Laws, in addition to state-sanctioned black convict leasing using the 13th Amendment (Act which abolished slavery!), a clause gives a legal way to still have covicts used as slaves, while local cops are be used enforce it on the ground. China communist party has said to emulate US to "round up everyone that should be rounded up" and put them into detention camps in the name of law & order. Chinese officials were told to stress to that in the detention camps food and health are free, even better than what "they have back home", and not believe in rumours of mistreatment. In 2019, Xi Jinping told Donald that China was basically building concentration camps for ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Donald said that China should go ahead and build those detention camps. A hospital for infectious diseases in Aksu (or Akesu), in China’s northwest Xinjiang, has been turned into a camp as part of what some experts believe could be a system for harvesting organs from detainees. The camps are part of a vast network of similar facilities throughout the XUAR where regional authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since early 2017. Additionally, a “green corridor” was built at the same time for the expedited transport of human organs at nearby Aksu Airport, an Oct. 14, 2017. The combination of these facilities in the same neighbourhood, along with a new large cremation centre near a hospital that's connected to the camp, directly points to organ harvesting. Camp detainees routinely received DNA and blood tests upon their internment under the guise of a mandatory “health check”. Foreign “organ tourists” are willing to pay significantly higher prices for organs. Hamid Sabi, testified at the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council that China was forcibly harvesting and selling the organs of Uyghurs. He also noted the “commercial aspect” to forced organ harvesting and suggested that Uyghur organs might be sought after by patients in Muslim-majority countries because they are designated as “halal,” or belonging to a fellow Muslim who observes the dietary restrictions of the faith. A total of 1,862 people died from medical problems while in the internment camps. About one out of every 10 of these people died from tuberculosis. In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act to compensate more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent who were incarcerated in internment camps during ww2. The legislation offered a formal apology and paid out $20,000 in compensation to each surviving victim. With about 80,000 individuals claiming compensation, it cost the U.S. government approximately $1.6 billion. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/21/migrant-health-detention-border-camps-1424114 https://mronline.org/2018/06/25/dont-kid-yourselves-u-s-immigration-prisons-are-absolutely-concentration-camps/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/immigration/2020/05/28/370649/in-federal-suit-mexican-woman-says-she-and-two-others-were-raped-by-houston-immigration-officers-before-deportation/ https://theweek.com/speedreads/779977/ice-spends-2-billion-every-year-detain-immigrants-notoriously-unsafe-private-facilities https://thehill.com/policy/finance/453366-six-officials-at-nonprofit-housing-migrant-children-made-at-least-1-million-in https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jpmorgan-stop-financing-private-prisons-detention-centers-after-protests-n979491 https://www.npr.org/2017/11/21/565318778/big-money-as-private-immigrant-jails-boom https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-facilities/trump-administration-barring-tours-of-migrant-detention-centers-democrats-say-idUSKCN1VJ2BT https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/21/brief-history-us-concentration-camps
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-bipartisan-compromise-on-immigration-is-clear-but-the-parties-are-struggling-to-get-there/ Move likely to infuriate base if suddenly endorses amnesty for Dreamers: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/350644-white-house-there-will-be-no-amnesty-under-trump https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-does-us-refugee-system-work-trump-biden-afghanistan America is a nation of immigrants, and is also a nation that continues to wrestle with a hatred of immigrants. If you came from somewhere else, chances are your family has been discriminated against in the South. Every new wave of immigrants has encountered some bigoted resistance. And even the definition of who is White has changed over time. Very few people thought Protestants and Catholics could live side by side with each other in America. After all, they have been slaughtering each other for centuries in Europe. While most spoke English, some spoke Dutch in up state New York, French in parts of Vermont state, and German outside Philly in a place called 'German-town'. America's founding father, Benjamin Franklin even wrote, "why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglicizing them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion". All the fervor of anti-immigrant anxiety, the concern about culture change, resentment over perceived resistance to assimilation and a fixation on 'whiteness' directed at Germans! But of course, the biggest minority population in the US at the time, who were forced immigrants of African descent, brought to America as slaves, who made up as much as 20 percent of the nation's population as per the First census taken in 1790. From 1820-1840, America added 10,000 to 100,000 immigrants every year when the total population was 17 Million. Between 1840-1854, almost 3 Million Irish immigrants arrived in America due to the Great Potato famine, mass starvation and disease in Ireland. This sparked the America’s First nativist political Party in America, better known as the 'Know-Nothing' movement. Within a few short years, they elected a 100 Congressmen and 8 Governors on a platform that included a ban on Irish Catholic politicians, Mandatory bible reading in Schools, forced deportation of foreign born beggars and criminals. But Abraham Lincoln declined to join the 'Know-Nothing' because of its harmful to support discrimination to spread fear of 'other' within the nation. Immigration massively increased as a result of legislation when Lincoln was President during the Civil War. Now Saint Patrick's Day holiday is celebrated in America in recognition of Irish and Irish immigrants cultural tradition and religious culture in the US. There was soon increased immigration in the East Coast with the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. It welcomed 1.3 Million people into America, mostly from Eastern Europe, in 1907 alone. Soon there was a backlash that began and Congress in 1912 debated the waves of immigrants from Italy and what it meant to be 'white'. Currently, there are proportionally fewer immigrants today than in the 1890s. Roosevelt was talking about Italian-Americans & German-Americans not being as loyal as other Americans: “If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries and jealousies and hatreds.” “I appeal to all our citizens, no matter from what land their forefathers came, to keep this ever in mind, and to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischief-makers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, or birthplace or of national origin.” USA used to be known as the only nation to welcome everyone who had nowhere to go, looking for a second chance, that shiny star upon a hill. Exploited nations and former rulers, all came together in solidarity and in sincerity to form UN, so that such injustices doesn't repeat itself. No nation is infallible. It's possible to show love for the people of the country and dislike the government? Independent judiciary and free press are democratic and western liberal values. If any politician cannot understand that, then do not join politics. Powerful people should be held accountable in free society, this comes with the job. If you truly respect the stars and strips, then you should also respect 'secular' institutions. Good politicians built people up and strengthen 'democratic' institutions in the republic. Bad ones quickly burn everything down. Chicago Tribune credited Mussolini with saving Italy from the far left and revitalizing its economy. Yet some journalists like Hemingway and journals like the New Yorker rejected the normalization of anti-democratic Mussolini. The Washington Post judged “the German Mussolini” followers were “impressionable voters” duped by “radical doctrines and quack remedies”. The New York Times wrote that his success in the election would only “let him expose to the German public his own futility.” Though there remained infamous exceptions, like Douglas Chandler, who wrote “Changing Berlin” for National Geographic in 1937. Conspiracy theories flourish when people feel vulnerable. They thrive on paranoia. Instead of living in reality (accepting "the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can" Reinhold Niebuhr), in the post-truth digital age (technology is being leveraged to manipulate primal instincts), many people choose "alternative facts" (genuine is considered fake) to expression themselves inside their own bullshit-world of make-believe. Anyone who thinks that white people are greater than others, is a racist. Donald's father was caught by cops in kkk rally. Did you know that the vast majority of confederate statues (all funded by tax dollars) are not from the time of Civil War and were just built between 1890 and 1920 by white ladies who also published "The KKK Invisible Empire"? Its totally a false choice between straw men propaganda vs economic/physical safety. Those who think they can escape because they are naturalized or native-born, going back generations, are simply fooling themselves. At this rate, one-day, you may wake up and find the nation has become another Russia. The new racist motto is: "Go back to where you came from", is, under federal law, a clear case of harassment based on national origin. Today's most ardent advocates of "America First" share one surprising trait. Very few of them or their grandparents were born in the United States. Mark Steyn and Michael Ignatieff both hail from Canada. Charles Krauthammer was born in Uruguay, but grew up in Montreal before moving to the US. Dinesh D'Souza was born in India. Johnson is from Britain - where he still lives. Did you know in 1885, at the age of 16 and facing mandatory military service, his grandfather Friedrich fled Germany without his mother & illegally entered the US? Friedrich moved in with an older sister, Katherine, and her husband in New York, both of whom had illegally immigrated earlier. And If anyone like his grandfather who was then an unaccompanied minor, LIES on record in order to become a US citizen, that is illegal too, nomatter if its 1892 or 1992. (https://www.amazon.com/Trumps-Generations-Builders-Presidential-Candidate-ebook/dp/B015WNZ1IK) Does it make some people feel big when they cry about 4 young woman in Congress? The MAGA cult talks Big while followers of a man-child who thinks he can grab any women but turns into a wet cat, making googly eyes, in front of Putin & Kim. Are you not bigoted if you spend the day by bulling one of the only two Muslim women ever to be elected into Congress? Show some class. And Republicans talk about character. OBL said modern western liberalism (like anti-slavery, free press & judges) will be quickly abandoned by society, as it's incompatible with a holy book because they believe Democracy to be the devil's work. Don't emulate terrorist supremacist values. Never imagined the day when we would see racist baiting President. After Germany lost in World War One, there was no proof that the German leaders were traitors who were in bed with the left. Yet half of the country believed it because it was emotionally easier rather than accepting the truth. It was easier to get angry and support a new far right leader. The new leader took over the party as politicians fell in line. German society was breeding a cancer call Nazi, and it would destroy the country from the inside. (https://www.dhs.gov/victims-immigration-crime-engagement) America First = White Christian American First & America alone. Donald’s ex-wife Ivana in a 1990 said that “from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.” Donald confirmed that it is true. “My New Order” contains 23 years of Hitler’s speeches, “profusely indexed and filled with details about the speeches’ impact on the media and the political establishment.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgMFLAQJdRc https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/07/over-100-troops-were-oath-keepers-members-months-around-jan-6-analysis-claims.html https://washingtonspectator.org/maga-military/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-military/ https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/terrorism-immigration-risk-analysis#a-appendix https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joint-chiefs-chairman-feared-potential-reichstag-moment-aimed-at-keeping-trump-in-power/2021/07/14/a326f5fe-e4ec-11eb-a41e-c8442c213fa8_story.html https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/573133-trump-lawyer-offered-six-point-plan-for-pence-to-overturn-election https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4145606-twitter-fined-350k-for-failing-to-produce-trump-account-info-in-2020-election-probe/ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/565635-trump-pressured-top-justice-dept-officials-to-call-election-results/ https://www.businessinsider.in/Secret-Service-knew-of-threats-against-Nancy-Pelosi-Joe-Biden-and-Mike-Pence-for-days-before-the-Capitol-riot-CREW/articleshow/93625510.cms
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/military-national-guard-trump-protests.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/11/esper-book-trump-mchrystal-mcraven/ https://thehill.com/policy/defense/500655-democrats-blast-trumps-use-of-military-against-protests/
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/SPAE https://time.com/4561347/presidential-election-results-interactive/ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/upshot/50-years-of-electoral-college-maps-how-the-us-turned-red-and-blue.html https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwDmFkHXcAEFg64.jpg http://energyskeptic.com/2020/republicans-way-ahead-of-democrats-in-voting-apps-radio-tv-trump-may-get-re-elected/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/27/political-campaign-data-targeting/ We don’t just have everything they’re tweeting about, we can even match indiviuals with their consumer purchasing habits information and auto registration records in order to target them through what they see on social media posts and browser bookmarks. Republican candidates always outperform on election day while archaic pollsters on TV always predict either "blue wave" or "blue wall". Nothing in the campaign matters if voters don't show up. Traditional polling has a major drawback in their system, as it doesn't consider first-time voters. Republican National Committee (RNC) depends on, service data-centers (use data from Data Trust and American Made Media Consultants), with vast ground teams of staffers who surgically precise-target each voter detailed issues/topics from real-time 2,000+ enchanced trend-data points about each household. While it sounds complex, it’s actually really simple. The campaign can tailor scripts to best fit the type of person they are talking to. The stratagy of, micro-targeting millions of voters and in-person ground operations, is what has kept all the Republican candidates in their races. Also more canvassing in-person directly leds to doing well in local and down-ballot races. They assign a unique voter score using the data to predictive analyse every voter’s behavior. Moreover, the user interface appeared easy to use, allowing instant, advanced navigation to look into metadata for any county in all 50 states of US. Turning unlikely or infrequent nonvoters within communities, is the biggest key to narrowing Democratic advantage (US is 51% Democrats & 39% Republican). Republican have mastered the art of hammering volume of negative ads that create voter doubt & confusion about the democratic message or deadlines and throw political smears are by-association & false stories. Republican candidates election app often actively deceive people by sending them misinformation in their news and social feeds. They also provide mobile ticketing for in-person events and livestream events for virtual engagement, including redemption capabilities for exclusive merchandise and upgraded experiences. Republicans also take full advantage of the fact that the most effective way to reach a targeted voter is through a printed guide, confidently delivered by hand. The conservative advocacy group CatholicVote drew on information harvested from SDKs in mobile apps to identify people who had set foot in Catholic churches at least twice within 60 days and assigned them a “religious intensity score” based on the frequency of their visits, according to the group and a consulting firm that worked for it. CatholicVote used that information to target roughly 600,000 people with ads for five Senate races, mostly in the Midwest. CatholicVote and its consultants said they didn’t match names with the smartphone data, only individuals’ home addresses. In the future, Mr. Burch said he hopes to use geofencing to select which volunteers to send to visit which homes. Mobile phone and social media app developers already know how much money users have in your bank accounts through in-app purchases. These app also share all your existing contacts on your smartphone. They are often the reason why you get sent unwanted ads (which are very hard to trace back). The most powerful pieces of personal identifiable information available about voters are their location histories. Algorithm can geo-locate voters using phone pings from cellphone towers. They can tie location data to an individual’s identity by matching latitude and longitude data along with an phone ID number to user information. The feedback from mobile's sensors provides "context" on the user's physical behavior, such as if you have gone to planned parenthood, football games, or which dialysis centers or hospitals you frequent. Companies say they delete the location data after using it for targeted ads, but others pass it along to data aggregators, who keep the information stored for years. They sell these information at a premium, without the user's knowledge. Google and Facebook, dominate the market. There are really no consequences for companies that don’t protect the data, other than bad press. Many people don’t know what’s going on as they cannot fully understand the opaque language used in user policies. The Federal Trade Commission can investigate if it believes users should have been told more specifically of certain uses of their data, privacy lawyers say. However, there just aren’t many laws designed to protect our data from politicians. The dirty secret in the industry is that these ads right now are not as effective as we’d want but its “not useless”. Its a Trillion dollar industry. Ads appeal to the respondents underlying psychological disposition and the messaging is able to influence and change opinions. Why do you think corporates and politicians pay billions on dumb 10 sec ads? How do you think tv and print make money? If you think the Russians didn't manipulate you. Yeah, they did. And they pushed all the anti vax 'facts" and you fell for that too. As long as foreign government’s buys broadcast ads that do not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate, it appears that any foreign government, dipping as far as it likes into its coffers, can legally buy inflammatory ads discussing “issues” to attack any U.S. candidate. Political campaigns usually contract an outside behavioral targeting firm like Cambridge Analytica, Deep Root Analytics, or Targeted Victory to further analyze the data, target ads and digital media. Cambridge Analytica & its British counterpart SCL harvested data points of 87 million Facebook users in the U.S. Both the NRA secret database and i360 databases were augmented with Cambridge Analytica data. Facebook announced it had uncovered nearly 300 more Facebook & Instagram pages linked to the Russian propaganda group Internet Research Agency. There are no legitimate grounds for foreign governments to run ads in the US in an election year. Russian strategy was to delegitimize democratic elections in the US, UK, Germany, France. Who is the puppet now? You think Russia has no effect last time, then wait for China to follow up next time. Actions have consequences. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/503817-trump-says-he-held-off-on-sanctions-over-xinjiang-camps-because-of A fundamental tenet of American democracy ever since 1965 is to make sure that minorities are not always on the losing end of voting laws and redistricting laws. Ronald Reagan reauthorized the Voting Rights Act and expanded it. It was reauthorized in 2006, 98 to 0 in the Senate. The business community endorsed it, Walmart led the charge to endorse it. However, now, there are more Republicans in the House today with an “F” rating from the NRA than support voting rights. You can be a Republican in good standing and be for free trade or fair trade. The one thing you can’t be is in favor of voting rights. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/28/georgia-republican-illegal-voting/ https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22252583/twitter-vote-by-text-misinformation-hoax-arrested https://theweek.com/speedreads/969826/arizona-gop-lawyer-tells-supreme-court-party-needs-certain-voting-restrictions-compete-democrats https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3812474-iowa-officials-wife-arrested-charged-with-voter-fraud-in-2020-election/ https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/judge-vegas-mans-vote-fraud-claim-cheap-political-81214281 https://www.newsweek.com/nevada-man-who-claimed-someone-voted-his-dead-wife-charged-voter-fraud-1641477 https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/north-miami-beach-mayor-anthony-defillipo-arrested-charged-with-illegal-voting/article_c25ea992-0067-11ee-bc14-1b35e131744d.html https://www.newsweek.com/judge-calls-vegas-mans-voter-fraud-claim-cheap-political-stunt-that-backfired-1650059 https://www.newsweek.com/ex-state-rep-anthony-kern-who-was-capitol-riot-seen-counting-ballots-arizona-audit-1588010 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/22/biden-robocall-new-hampshire-primary/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/robocall-with-artificial-joe-biden-voice-tells-democrats-not-to-vote/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/fcc-seeks-5m-fine-for-robocalls-telling-black-people-that-voting-helps-the-man/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/24/fcc-robocall-fine/ https://apnews.com/article/florida-5343b101e96d5c7f42d1ee54da7cc0ce https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/voter-fraud-myth-election-lie/620846/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-military/ https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/27/pentagon-and-va-need-do-more-battle-veteran-extremism-congressional-report-finds.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/31/trump-douglass-mackey-guilty-verdict/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/nyregion/douglass-mackey-trial-twitter-misinformation.html https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/twitter-trolls-trial-delayed-after-alleged-witness-intimidation https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-fake-electors-wisconsin-fff7cd21e3083f300874eccd69141f8d https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/michigan-ag-charges-people-claiming-trump-2020-winner https://www.fox28spokane.com/virginia-county-admits-election-tally-in-2020-shorted-joe-biden/ https://www.wilx.com/2023/12/21/report-donald-trump-caught-recording-pressuring-wayne-co-canvassers-not-certify-2020-votes/
Stoking division in other nations isn't just common, it's an obvious tool to make it tear itself apart. For example, the Kurds were used by CIA to tear Syria. Russian intelligence certainly seems to have a good understanding of how to push the US's buttons. The assault on democracy is avoidable, yet it's embraced by millions. Both foreign propaganda and marketing (Rufus Mile's Law of Management) over mass media venues are disguised to look and sound like news. Marketing can make up for a bad product as long as you develop a few "true believers". It's the same play-book, that well-financed groups use to convince a substantial share of the public that lies are true. History repeats itself not as farce, but as click-bait. To believe in a lie, it must be terrifying. When lies repeatedly affect the same segments of the population (and no group is immune), those absorbing this toxicity become distrustful of facts from reputable sources while latching onto even the most far-fetched conspiracy theories that because we all want it to be true. Romans understood propaganda and spin. "The frailest woman will become a heroine when the life of her own child is at stake. And only the will to save the race and native land or the State, which offers protection to the race, has in all ages been the urge which has forced men to face the weapons of their enemies.” "the right understands very well that undermining the credibility of the institutions, that people look to for help defining and making sense of reality, is the key to bending reality to your will. It’s a wonderful rhetorical trick." It’s like saying, ‘‘I’m being praised, but of course I won’t be praised for it.’’ (That) language is utterly meaningless. Poor little billionaire president who can’t catch a break. It’s incredible. He’s a man who has suffered no consequences. ‘‘I am in charge, only I can fix this, and I take no responsibility.’’ You cannot process that. Jon Stewart “There’s a lot of elite discussion of conspiracy theories, but that doesn’t mean that anyone’s believing them any more than they did in the past. People understand what conspiracy theories are. They can understand these theories as political signals when they don’t in fact believe them.” "The media’s job is to deconstruct the manipulation, not to just call it a lie. It’s about informing on how something works so that you understand the lie’s purpose. What are the structural issues underneath the lie? The media shouldn’t take the political system personally, or allow its own narcissism to rise" Jon Stewart If someone says it's raining & another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true. Jonathan Foster https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2023/05/19/migrants-veterans-evictions-new-york-buses-hoax/97a38298-f68c-11ed-918d-012572d64930_story.html https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4012589-story-of-homeless-veterans-booted-from-hotel-for-migrants-was-a-hoax-ny-lawmaker/ https://nypost.com/2024/02/22/us-news/biden-says-katie-couric-colleagues-told-him-theyll-flee-if-trump-wins/ The Birchers or John Birch Society, had a slogan that said, “We’re a republic, not a democracy. Let’s keep it that way.” That meant different things to different people, but they were quite opposed to the idea of multiracial democracy.Matthew Dallek https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/2/17/hall-expert-on-extremism-claims-birchers/
According to President Abraham Lincoln, extending meaningful citizenship so that “all should have an equal chance” was the basis on which the country could be “saved.” Consider that Lincoln, facing a civil war, which he termed the great test of popular government, used constitutional republic and democracy synonymously, eloquently casting the American experiment as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is quaint that so many Republicans, embracing a president who routinely tramples constitutional norms, have suddenly found their voice in pointing out that, formally, the country is a republic. There is some truth to this insistence. But it is mostly disingenuous. The history of democracy as grasped by the Founders, drawn largely from the ancient world, revealed that overbearing majorities could all too easily lend themselves to mob rule, dominating minorities and trampling individual rights. Democracy was also susceptible to demagogues—men of “factious tempers” and “sinister designs,” as Madison put it in “Federalist No. 10”. Dis-union would mean “states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched it may be, in fraternal blood.” Daniel Webster, Massachusetts senator, 1830. The Whig Party, was formed in 1834 as opposition party to challenge Jacksonian Democrats (Andrew Jackson was a vocal proponent of slavery). The extremist right wing ideology is (similar to radical left wing) as it seeks to break-down while looking for constant destabilization. These original "radicals" of the republicans who were also called Jacobins or Vindictives. They opposed even moderate Republicans like Lincoln, and led the charge for civil rights and voting rights for former slaves, from around 1854 until the end of Reconstruction period in 1877. They hated Southerners and they believed that Lincoln's was well-meaning but far too forgiving of Southerners after the civil-war. These "radicals" republicans should not be confused with real abolitionists; as they were motivated more by competition from unwaged slave labor and a possible political threat from wealthy slave owners, than by concern over the treatment of slaves. The Compromise grew out of westward expansion following the Mexican War in the late 1840s, which raised the question of whether slavery would exist in California or any new state formed in the vast southwest territories gained from Mexico. The Compromise, however, was a weak and untenable settlement of the slavery question, and it backfired by stimulating a more militant anti-slavery movement. The end of the Reconstruction period in 1877 enabled the kkk to rise again, until President Lyndon Johnson used the FBI to destroy the kkk a second time. Every terrorist attack, is designed to divide and increase the bigotry within societies. All Murderers (including those who run over people they hate with their cars) see innocent people as nothing more than fodder to absorb Their Hate (because they Hate peaceful protest blocking 'public' highway). Pro-Hate protestors like those "fine" tiki-torch supremacists, who are freely protesting peacefully in a democracy, but they are also a direct link to domestic terrorists. Only you are responsible for your Hate. Extremists in US have been crying since the 1930s. Communism is extreme left wing. Soviets were extreme left wing authoritarians. Nazism is extreme right wing. Just as Hitler’s propaganda relied heavily upon nostalgia for German’s pastoral landscapes and small villages, US Nazis look to the US before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In fact, there are lots of radicals like Ku Klux Klan supremacists, and white nationalists, who are all effectively Nazis, regardless of whether or not they choose to go by that name. That’s because these groups exhibit the fundamental traits of Nazism such as white supremacy, anti-jew, xenophobia & the glorification of violence. Currently, there are neo-Nazi organizations running in the US, including the National Socialist Movement (formerly, the American Nazi Party). You don’t even have to be a member to qualify as a neo-Nazi. Nazi were are extreme Right wing fascist. Every political Party in Germany, right or left spectrum, has the word socialist in their name but do not be fooled. "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" murdered all socialist party members on "night of the long knives". It was an actual hostile take over of the party. They shot anyone they suspected to be communist sympathizer. https://www.amazon.com/War-Before-Fugitive-Struggle-Revolution/dp/1594204055 Christianity is the World's most common religion, i.e. It has the largest number of followers. Conservatives love to talk about how the 1st Amendment is under fire and then forget that also includes freedom of religion. Freedom is the distance between church & state. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." This "Wall" between church & state is obvious in any democratic and secular nation. Nazis thought of themselves as good Christians. The words “Gott mit uns” (God is with us) were engraved on the belt buckle of every Nazi soldier. Nazi honestly believed they were the victims of a global evil conspiracy, all controlled by Jews, homosexuals, baby-killers and communists. Thus, Nazis dehumanised these groups. https://time.com/4179685/in-god-we-trust-currency-history/ "The war we (Nazis) are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx. Christ: the principle of love. Marx: the principle of hate." Joseph Goebbels https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/north-texas-dallas-sex-trafficking-operation-nets-46-arrests/287-3a00d521-3339-4343-952b-f999929da794 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-becomes-largest-state-ban-transgender-care-minors-2023-06-03/ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3917113-parents-bill-of-rights-5-things-to-know-about-the-house-gops-legislation/ The US is not legally a religious nation, as in practice, govt. employees should be secular in public settings. The “first liberty” 1st Amendment (1791) of US is the liberty of freedom for all religion in US and not “religious liberty”. Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution is commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. If the laws do not function from that position then they amount to nothing, noting that "A law, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy". James Madison defended the Supremacy Clause as vital to the functioning of the nation. Thomas Jefferson said: It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god, so long as it doesn't negatively impact me, I don't care. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Jefferson: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. The constitution is laws made by men (like Jefferson) which is why it says clear separation from the church, but you can get quite far in a democracy if you can convince a majority that they are victims of a minority, and that only you can protect them (just like in Islamic nations). The Evangelicals are trying to turn US into a theocracy. The attorney general Barr’s infamous speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School, he blamed “secularists” for “moral chaos” and has defended taxpayer funding for a religious school that says same-sex marriage is wrong. He even compared his idea of religious liberty (forcing landlords to rent to unmarried couples) with Romans forcing Christian subjects to partake in pagan rituals! https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-rules-former-clerk-refused-issue-same-sex-marriage-licenses-pay-260000-legal-expenses You cannot change how God made you. For many people, it's a process of self discovery & realization. Health-workers & Scientists are worth more than any sports persons & religious speakers. Instead of placing emphasis on the Creator, let's focus on the process of creation. We need more science & less b.s. Nations that invest in a national healthcare system are better for taxpayers. Prisoners in jails for petty crimes can be released. Hyper-capitalism is irresponsible. People can work from home. https://www.npr.org/2022/11/28/1138396067/transgender-youth-bills-trans-sports "We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection." Joseph Goebbels Donald's new religious defense Act promises to 'get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment' in order to effectively remove the wall of separation between Church & State but keep in place their tax-exemptions. If organised religion institutions don't pay taxes, they shouldn't be funded by public tax dollars. Barr believes that only a strict interpretation of Judeo-Christian morality can society find the ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct and a solution to problems of modernity. Republicans have rolled back non-discrimination protections by making it legal for healthcare providers & homeless shelters to turn away transgender people on the basis of "biological sex". Meanwhile, 55 undocumented immigrant kids (taken in by Legal citizens) have been kicked out by Ben Carson. It is harmful to support discriminatory actions or agendas (based on different skin colour or religious beliefs) that spread fear of 'other'. If you are a born again Christian, then practice compassion and Treat others as you wish to be treated. You can either side with the right-wing fundamentalists who are trying to isolate us you can stand unite against inequality. Do not lose your moral compass. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2019/06/05/trump-ban-on-government-fetal-tissue-use-may-be-death-knell-for-research/#739beb6a1d76 https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-votes-against-interracial-marriage-despite-asian-wife-1760257 Florida district pulls many Jewish and Holocaust books: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-779154 https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/01/11/escambia-dictionaries-removed/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/21/florida-school-book-bans-escambia-county/ https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/education/2024/01/11/escambia-schools-pull-1600-books-florida-freedom-to-read-project-says/72169101007/ https://www.wlrn.org/education/2024-01-12/escambia-county-school-library-book-ban-lawsuit Amendment II to bear arms Militia is unique to U.S. in the Western world & similar to most of Middle-east. While the so-called Dickey Amendment — named for its author, former Sen. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) — does not prevent federal agencies from studying gun violence, that was its effect for more than 20 years. While leaving the amendment in place, Democrats have broken the complete ban on any federal research into the rise of gun violence & suicide in public & domestic spaces and the ways Americans can reduce it by CDC and National Institutes of Health. Also, the conspiracy theorist who called the Sandy Hook 2012 mass shooting "a hoax by the Obama" will now have to pay $450,000. “It’s not a democracy. He’s a strongman, tough man, but he promised to protect them. And they believed him, because they didn’t want the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt. Because they knew they’d be vulnerable. They felt they were under attack, and the strong guy promised to defend them. And he has. There’s a difference between freedom and democracy. You need to understand this.” Jeff Sessions "Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street." Joseph Goebbels https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/health-news-florida/2023-04-20/florida-lawmakers-target-transgender-rights-one-teen-flees-better-life https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/education/2022/10/04/why-florida-student-athletes-asked-their-periods-play/8084649001/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/01/20/rejecting-ap-studies-restricting-libraries-heres-how-desantis-and-his-anti-woke-policies-are-impacting-florida-education/?sh=e8e520371508 https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/08/08/concerns-over-sex-content-leads-florida-schools-pull-shakespeare/?itm_source=parsely-api https://apnews.com/article/florida-ron-desantis-education-book-bans-65daf4420318a837487976c10bb75d86 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbYah3DZAM https://www.foxnews.com/media/ohio-pastor-facing-criminal-charges-day-house-homeless-what-called-do Reflexive Control: What is dangerous that political propaganda is leveraging the tech industry who now relies on behavioral manipulation to maximize profits on what might be called “personality-disorder marketing” in recognition of the fact that all pleasures are more or less equal to the human brain, whether they originate with a win at the blackjack table, a line of cocaine, or “likes” on social media. Tucker Carlson, playing Goebbels to the Republican fascist movement, broadcasts the obscene concoction of "Replacement Theory". Trump is to blame, but trumpsters cannot handle the truth, so they like big lies. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn_wXZwFcdE The cult of tradition: This is the belief that the truth is already known once and for all. Fascists believe there is no need to advance in learning. The rejection of modernism: Fascists reject the Enlightenment and its evidence-based rationality. The cult of action for action’s sake: Fascist leaders act impulsively, without thinking or planning ahead. No analytical criticism: Fascists ignore nuance and see any disagreement as treasonous. Fear of difference: Fascists fear diversity. Thus, they are racist by definition. Appeal to a frustrated middle class: An economically frustrated and/or politically marginalized middle class is easy to stir to anger. Obsession with a plot: Because the followers must be made to feel besieged, an internal “enemy” is provided: Immigrants, Muslims, Hispanics, Blacks. (Historically, the Jews were often made to be “the enemy.”) Anti-elitism: The followers are made to feel humiliated by the wealth and strength of the educated “elite.” This is used to create resentment. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy: Fascists believe that life is permanent warfare. Therefore, a desire for peace is treasonous. Contempt for the weak: A fascist leader despises his underlings, who in turn despise those under them. They all either mock or ignore the poor, the sick, and the disabled. The cult of heroism: The Fascist is eager to die a hero’s death. In his impatience, he frequently sends other people to their deaths. Machismo: Fascists show disdain for women, disregard for chastity, and condemnation of homosexuality. Selective populism: Under fascism, the “voice of the people” is not the democratic majority, but only the voices of those who support the leader. Newspeak: Fascists use an impoverished vocabulary and an elementary syntax to limit complex and critical reasoning. https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/trump-2025-radical-plan-second-term?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritarian-presidential-election-f27e7e9d7c13fabbe3ae7dd7f1235c72 https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-politics/ap-trumps-vow-to-only-be-a-dictator-on-day-one-follows-growing-worry-over-his-authoritarian-rhetoric/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-lock-up-2024-election-b2402510.html https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981 https://www.thestar.com/news/world/united-states/conservative-groups-draw-up-plan-to-dismantle-the-us-government-and-replace-it-with-trump/article_5d73e688-1143-516b-bed5-d2a42709dd7d.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/trump-power-transfer-2020-election.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/new-evidence-show-trump-was-warned-violence-jan-6/?itid=hp-top-table-main https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/secret-service-jan6-messages-house-committee/ https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-10-13/secret-service-reached-oath-keepers-j6-riot-7681667.html https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-pence-was-subject-of-ominous-oath-keeper-message-before-capitol-riot https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-voting-elections-voting-fraud-and-irregularities-8bb28627b03474a3a5ce2454ae3d1639 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54274115 https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/534329-police-seized-alarming-number-of-weapons-on-capitol-rioters-court https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3540303-white-house-aide-testifies-trump-sent-armed-mob-to-capitol/ https://www.wabe.org/bring-your-guns-probe-uncovers-more-alarming-intelligence-before-capitol-riot/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-weapons-deadly-dangerous/ https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1351686/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1353311/download https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4427105-proud-boys-member-sentenced-prison-jan-6/ https://abc7chicago.com/jan-6-insurrection-riot-us-capitol-investigation/11126614/ https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007606996/capitol-riot-trump-supporters.html https://www.fox29.com/news/mcconnell-to-senate-mob-that-attacked-capitol-was-fed-lies-and-provoked-by-trump https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-georgia-threats/ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/570183-paul-ryan-says-its-really-clear-biden-won-election-it-was-not-rigged-it-was https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/kimberly-guilfoyle-was-paid-60000-from-trump-supporters-donations-for-her-2-minute-january-6-speech-committee-says/articleshow/92191417.cms https://www.foxnews.com/politics/prominent-conservatives-election-lost-not-stolen https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3596517-pro-trump-backlash-to-fbi-search-fuels-concern-over-political-violence/ https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/31/politics/pelosi-attack-right-wing-conspiracy-theories-invs/index.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/30/paul-pelosi-attack-misinformation-elon-musk/ https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3752135-pro-israel-group-that-honored-trump-blasts-his-meeting-with-ye-and-fuentes/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/washington-substation-attacks-alleged-motive-revealed https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/17/us/politics/fbi-security-clearance-jan-6.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/us/politics/house-weaponization-committee-jan-6.html https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-d-c-police-lieutenant-charged-with-tipping-off-proud-boys-leader-180aa227?mod=lead_feature_below_a_pos1 https://www.timesofisrael.com/attacks-on-us-power-stations-spark-fears-of-neo-nazi-campaign-to-ignite-conflict/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/rudy-giuliani-says-he-wont-contest-that-he-made-false-statements-ad706fd6 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/us/politics/giuliani-georgia-election-workers.html https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2023-11-17/colorado-judge-keeps-trump-on-ballot-rejecting-challenge-under-constitutions-insurrection-clause
We all know Memorial’s Day origins lie in the wake of the Civil War, a war for the freedom of all, a war for union, a war for liberty and for the preservation of the constitution. We’re the children of sacrifice made by a long line of American service members, each a link in that chain of honor. We live by the light of the flame of liberty. They kept burning. We’re free because they were brave. Here on these General Rolling Green Hills and across America and around the globe, live buried the heroes of the greatest experiment the world has ever known, ever seen. Here in Arlington lie heroes who gave, what President Lincoln called, the last full measure of devotion. Our freedom and the freedom of numerable others has been secured by young men and women who answered the call of history and gave everything in the service of an idea. This nation was built on an idea. The only nation in the world build on an idea, every other nation is built on ethnicity, geography, religion, et cetera. We were built on an idea, the idea of liberty, an opportunity for all. A great senator, Daniel Webster rose in the Capitol to defend the union. “Liberty in union, now and forever, one and inseparable, liberty and union.” By the legacy, the work we’re charged to carry forward, liberty and union now and forever. Now as then, unity is essential to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3akekk/man-jailed-raped-and-beaten-after-false-facial-recognition-match-dollar10m-lawsuit-alleges '6 shots in the back': Murder trial opens in police shooting death of Casey Goodson Jr. https://www.fox6now.com/news/family-of-black-man-fatally-shot-by-deputy-says-he-was-holding-sandwich-not-gun https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/denver-police-swat-raid-of-grandmothers-montbello-home-angers-neighbors/73-2d6fc6f7-a57e-4d47-b7ed-b75c4163ca19 https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/officer-pinned-timpa-ground-before-died-promoted-dpd/287-a9d01876-dea9-4e3f-9e6f-430de14366a7 https://www.fox9.com/news/kansas-officer-resigned-after-he-fabricated-mcdonalds-coffee-cup-with-f-g-pig-on-it-police-chief https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5gew/shake-shack-manager-falsely-accused-of-giving-poisoned-shakes-to-cops-is-suing-the-nypd https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/15/shake-shack-lawsuit-nypd-poison/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-church-shooting-gunman-cash-requests-anger-vists-minister https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/business/media/seth-rich-fox-news-sean-hannity.html https://www.fox13memphis.com/top-stories/who-is-thomas-mcvicker-man-accused-of-plotting-mass-shooting-at-memphis-church/978238740/ https://www.jpost.com/international/article-725101 https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1047085626/supreme-court-police-qualified-immunity-cases https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-florida-sheriffs-deputy-arrested-after-allegedly-planting-drugs-during-minor-traffic-stops-officials-say https://thewashingtonstandard.com/florida-charges-dropped-against-119-people-after-cop-caught-on-video-planting-meth-on-innocent-grandma-video/ https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/09/29/prosecutor-who-sparked-jackson-drug-planting-probe-resigns-whistleblower/1441015002/ https://www.wtkr.com/news/verdict-reached-in-1-5-million-windsor-police-stop-lawsuit-trial https://www.thetidewaternews.com/2022/08/03/windsor-officers-wont-be-charged-by-state/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-d-c-police-lieutenant-charged-with-tipping-off-proud-boys-leader-180aa227?mod=lead_feature_below_a_pos1 https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/michigan/court-throws-out-conviction-after-judge-says-black-man-looks-like-a-criminal-to-me https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-marine-nicole-gee-arlington-national-cemetery/ https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/07/donald-trump-must-pay-for-what-he-did/
https://legaldictionary.net/circumstantial-evidence/ https://www.loc.gov/law/help/parliamentary-oversight/index.php https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/480730-doj-tells-court-that-congress-cant-sue-to-enforce-subpoenas https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/25/impeachment-investigators-issue-subpoenas-to-3-top-trump-officials-000298 Our story begins, as these stories often do, with a up-and-coming politician. He's a member of the conservative party. He is completely single-minded and has no regard for the political process. The more power he attains the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporter become. He is a man seemingly without a conscience; for whom the ends always justify the means and it is he who suggests that their target should not be an enemy of the country, but rather the country itself. Eventually, his party launches a special project in the name of 'national security'. But if your ultimate goal is power, how best to use such a weapon? Fuelled by the right-wing hosts, fear and panic spread quickly fracturing and dividing the country. Until at last the true goal comes into view. For the end result, the true genius of the plan was the fear. The rest, as they say, is history. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? There is always war, terror, disease in the World. With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty. Fear got the best of you. And I realised we're all part of it, and all trapped by the abusive cycle. https://nypost.com/2024/02/22/us-news/biden-says-katie-couric-colleagues-told-him-theyll-flee-if-trump-wins/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-doj-secretly-seized-phone-records-washington-post-reporters https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/06/16/gathering-metadata-spying-don-mcgahn-white-house-counsel/7700901002/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/us/politics/devin-nunes-twitter-justice-department.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/politics/cnn-trump-barbara-starr.html https://www.rcfp.org/doj-media-guidelines-foia-lawsuit/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/05/21/at-least-5-reporters-had-phone-records-seized-by-trumps-justice-department/?sh=2385a6e9645f https://whyy.org/articles/12-guard-members-removed-from-biden-inauguration-due-to-ties-with-right-wing-militia-groups/ https://www.brookings.edu/book/enemy-of-the-people/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/us/politics/trump-irs-investigations.html https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/7/twitter-lawyers-refute-elon-musks-claims-about-gov/ https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4145606-twitter-fined-350k-for-failing-to-produce-trump-account-info-in-2020-election-probe/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/barr-pressed-durham-to-find-flaws-in-the-russia-investigation-it-didnt-go-well/ Mr. Trump would repeatedly portray the Mueller report as having found “no collusion”. The reality was that the report had detailed “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign,” and it established both how Moscow had worked to help Mr. Trump win. Mr. Barr also said he suspected that the N.S.A.’s “friends” had helped instigate the Russia investigation by targeting the Trump campaign. Durham and Barr sought to recast the scrutiny of the 2016 Trump campaign’s myriad if murky links to Russia as unjustified. Durham’s team found no way to support the allegation. By 2020, it was clear that the hunt for evidence supporting Barr’s hunch about intelligence abuses had failed. Barr wrote in his memoir that Durham investigation’s “failure to deliver scalps in time for the election” began to erode his relationship with Trump. As the focus of the Durham investigation shifted, cracks formed inside the team. Mr. Durham’s deputy, Ms. Dannehy, a long time close colleague, increasingly argued with him in front of other prosecutors and F.B.I. agents about legal ethics. Ms. Dannehy had independent standing as a respected prosecutor. In 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey assigned her to investigate whether to charge senior Bush administration officials with crimes related to a scandal over the firing of U.S. attorneys; she decided in 2010 that no charges were warranted. Now, Ms. Dannehy complained to Mr. Durham about how Mr. Barr kept hinting darkly in public about the direction of their investigation. In April 2020, for example, he suggested to Fox News that officials could be prosecuted, saying that “the evidence shows that we are not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There is something far more troubling here.” Ms. Dannehy urged Mr. Durham to ask the attorney general to adhere to Justice Department policy and not discuss the investigation publicly. But Mr. Durham proved unwilling to challenge him. The strains grew when Mr. Durham used grand jury powers to go after Mr. Benardo’s emails. Ms. Dannehy opposed that tactic and told colleagues that Mr. Durham had taken that step without telling her. By summer 2020, with Election Day approaching, Mr. Barr pressed Mr. Durham to draft a potential interim report centred on the Clinton campaign and F.B.I. gullibility or wilful blindness. On Sept. 10, 2020, Ms. Dannehy discovered that other members of the team had written a draft report that Mr. Durham had not told her about, according to people briefed on their ensuing argument. Ms. Dannehy erupted, according to people familiar with the matter. She told Mr. Durham that no report should be issued before the investigation was complete, and especially not just before an election — and denounced the draft for taking disputed information at face value. She sent colleagues a memo detailing those concerns and resigned. Cracks formed in Mr. Durham’s team as the scope of his investigation shifted. Two people close to Barr said he had pressed for the draft to evaluate what a report on preliminary findings would look like and what evidence would need to be declassified. But they insisted that he intended any release to come during the summer or after the Nov. 3 election — not soon before Election Day. In any case, in late September 2020, about two weeks after Ms. Dannehy quit, someone leaked to a Fox Business personality that Mr. Durham would not issue any interim report, disappointing Trump supporters hoping for a pre-Election Day bombshell. Stymied by the decision not to issue an interim Durham report, John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s national intelligence director, tried another way to inject some of the same information into the campaign. Over the objections of Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Ratcliffe declassified nearly 1,000 pages of intelligence material before the election for Mr. Durham to use. Notably, in that fight, Mr. Barr sided with Ms. Haspel on one matter that is said to be particularly sensitive and that remained classified, according to two people familiar with the dispute. Ratcliffe also disclosed in a letter to a senator that “Russian intelligence analysis” claimed that on July 26, 2016, Mrs. Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal tying Trump to Russia. The letter acknowledged that officials did “not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.” But it did not mention that there were many reasons that suspicions about the Trump campaign were arising in that period — like the diplomat’s tip, Mr. Trump’s flattery of President Vladimir V. Putin, his hiring of advisers with links to Russia, his financial ties to Russia and his call for Russia to hack Mrs. Clinton. The disclosure infuriated Dutch intelligence officials, who had provided the memos under strictest confidence. Mr. Durham accused Michael Sussmann of lying in a meeting with an F.B.I. official. He was acquitted. Late in the summer of 2021, Mr. Durham prepared to indict Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who had represented Democrats in their dealings with the F.B.I. about Russia’s hacking of their emails. Two prosecutors on Mr. Durham’s team — Anthony Scarpelli and Neeraj N. Patel — objected, according to people familiar with the matter. Five years earlier, Mr. Sussmann had relayed a tip to the bureau about odd internet data that a group of data scientists contended could reflect hidden communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank of Russia. The F.B.I., which by then had already launched its Russia investigation, briefly looked at the allegation but dismissed it. Mr. Durham accused Mr. Sussmann of lying to an F.B.I. official by saying he was not conveying the tip for a client; the prosecutor maintained Mr. Sussmann was there in part for the Clinton campaign. Mr. Scarpelli and Mr. Patel argued to Mr. Durham that the evidence was too thin to charge Mr. Sussmann and that such a case would not normally be prosecuted, people familiar with the matter said. Given the intense scrutiny it would receive, they also warned that an acquittal would undermine public faith in their investigation and federal law enforcement. When Mr. Durham did not change course, Mr. Scarpelli quit in protest, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Patel left soon after to take a different job. The charge against Mr. Sussmann was narrow, but the Durham team used it to make public large amounts of information insinuating what Mr. Durham never charged: that Clinton campaign associates conspired to gin up an F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Trump based on a knowingly false allegation. Trial testimony, however, showed that while Mrs. Clinton and her campaign manager hoped Mr. Sussmann would persuade reporters to write articles about Alfa Bank, they did not want him to take the information to the F.B.I. And prosecutors presented no evidence that he or campaign officials had believed the data scientists’ complex theory was false. After Mr. Sussmann’s acquittal, Mr. Barr, by then out of office for more than a year, suggested that using the courts to advance a politically charged narrative was a goal in itself. Mr. Durham “accomplished something far more important” than a conviction, Mr. Barr told Fox News, asserting that the case had “crystallized the central role played by the Hillary campaign in launching as a dirty trick the whole Russiagate collusion narrative and fanning the flames of it.” And he predicted that a subsequent trial, concerning a Russia analyst who was a researcher for the Steele dossier, would also “get the story out” and “further amplify these themes and the role the F.B.I. leadership played in this, which is increasingly looking fishy and inexplicable.” Mr. Durham’s prosecution of Igor Danchenko, a Russia analyst who was a researcher for the Steele dossier, ended in acquittal. That case involved Igor Danchenko, who had told the F.B.I. that the dossier exaggerated the credibility of gossip and speculation. Mr. Durham charged him with lying about two sources. He was acquitted, too. The two failed cases are likely to be Mr. Durham’s last courtroom acts as a prosecutor. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-attorney-ousted-by-barr-and-trump-recounts-effort-to-hold-line-against-political-pressure-for-2-years-till-the-rope-snapped-01662762716 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/general-mark-milley-trump-coup/675375/ Republicans have complained about indirect witnesses and circumstantial evidence but at the same time have supported Donald who has blocked all direct witnesses & documents and without reason. Just 3 witnesses and atleast a few documents is not too much to ask that prove Donald broke the Impoundment Control Act under H.R.7130 by 93rd Congress (1973-1974) for his personal interests. Until now, an executive privilege claim had to be given with proof that it's for very precise national security reasons. It's a crime to totally Obstruct Congress & the constitution says that the remedy is impeachment. Some Senate Republicans have already said what Donald did was wrong (but would not follow their oath to the constitution) as they know well by now that anyone who steps out of line in faces near certain excommunication. Note:- House investigates (like FBI, the accused cannot be part of it) & impeaches the President while Senate has the trial (a trial has witnesses & both sides argue their case in front of judge & jury) & has the power to remove the sitting President, as per the constitution. Democratic House also followed the same rules during Benghazi investigations as set by Trey Gowdy Resolution 567 and reiterated in Republican House Resolution 5 of the 114th Congress. With the Democrats in the "sensitive compartmented information facility", there were 9 Republicans from the House Intelligence Committee, 17 additional Republicans from the House Oversight Committee, and 21 more Republicans from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. All in all 47 Republicans were able to participate & ask questions in the interviews. The proof is also in the transcripts that were publicly released after the interviews were over. Democrats are still clinging to the hope that Republicans will abandon Trump like they did with Nixon. People forget that Nixon's support in the 1972 election endorsed by 90% of the nation's newspaper editorial boards. Unlike the televised Whatergate hearings, there has been no change in public support to push Republicans to join a bipartisan impeachment drive. In 1974, 69% of Americans said that they trusted all 3 major TV networks to report the news "fully, accurately and fairly". We're living in an information age where "alternative" or misinformation & multiple realities has filtered into the mainstream. John Dean, the former Nixon White House lawyer who helped turn the tide on Watergate by testifying against the president, has famously said that Nixon "might have survived if there'd been a Fox News." Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said it's not just polarization, but "tribalism." Americans are now often driven more by wanting to punish the Americans on the other side than what is right on principal for the nation. ‘Friday night massacre’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trumps-quest-for-revenge-could-mean-the-end-of-whistleblowing/2020/02/07/a576b860-4918-11ea-9164-d3154ad8a5cd_story.html Trump’s latest Soviet-style order aims to create loyalty through fear: https://augustafreepress.com/legislation-addresses-trump-order-reducing-federal-employees-to-patronage-status/ https://theweek.com/speedreads/946117/trump-appointee-resigns-over-order-requiring-presidential-loyalty-apolitical-civil-servants https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3639044-fired-federal-prosecutor-pressure-from-trump-allies-unprecedented-and-scary/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/28/ruby-bridges-movie-florida-school/ Trump Issued 1776 Commission Report slammed for slavery propaganda on MLK Day: The "patriotic re-education" curriculum in schools, to build 'loyalty' and national unity in US by, removing any negative references regarding the consequences of slavery from American history textbooks. “We want our sons and daughters to know they are citizens of the best nation in the history of the world”. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/trump-patriotic-education-406521 https://alaska-native-news.com/a-historical-1776-report-issued-by-trump-denounced-as-racist-garbage-and-most-on-brand-thing-possible/53378/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/05/donald-trump-does-not-hate-protests-he-hates-dissent/ https://nypost.com/2024/02/22/us-news/biden-says-katie-couric-colleagues-told-him-theyll-flee-if-trump-wins/ Patriotic education is not a new concept. Patriotic education is what made Japan go to war. Since 2001, school textbooks in Japan have omitted stories about "comfort women" during wars or the Nanjing Massacre. In Japan, under former PM Shinzo Abe, students memorize “the Imperial Rescript” in 1890. The sanitizing resulted in Japanese denying the atrocities of their ancestors during WW2. After the Tiananmen Square Protests in the 1980s, China went on to launch a national patriotic re-education campaign, that aims to instil loyalty and pride in China’s leaders and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Omitting the bad to elevate the good will always result in elevating some groups of people while erasing and further alienating the majority from other groups’ stories and struggles. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-just-defies-logic-the-irs-audited-both-ex-fbi-director-james-comey-and-former-deputy-andrew-mccabe-what-are-the-odds-11657216133?mod=mw_latestnews https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/292453-jill-stein-helps-trump-as-ralph-nader-helped-bush https://apnews.com/article/44dddffe9df548aa9cbbb6fb7691c003 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/20/democrats-shrug-off-potential-green-party-spoiler-in-2020-329170 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/31/nader_elected_bush_why_we_shouldnt_forget_130715.html#!
“Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. Thinking about their families. About what comes next. But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you or worship the way you do or don’t get their news from the same sources you do. We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal.” https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qjm48-RwP8 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-reports-95-bln-profit-q3-plans-raise-dividend-2022-10-27/ When there is no more non-renewable energy and our water & air is poisoned, then where will the children go? (executive order 13789 reduced regulatory authority of FDA) The final exercise involves considering how nightmarish 2028 might become if NATO continues on the same failed trajectory of 2008—with a good number of post-Soviet states falling back into a “Soviet Union Lite,” with Europe re-dividing and aching to settle old border disputes, and with the Black Sea becoming a launch pad for never-ending Russian adventures into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
China continues to execute “Made in China 2025,” an ambitious industrial policy centered around “smart manufacturing,” that seeks to create a vanguard of corporations in the PRC that are global leaders in ten strategic industries. These industries include new generation information technology, high-grade machine tooling and robotics; aerospace equipment; marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships; advanced rail transportation equipment; new-energy automobiles; electric power equipment; agricultural equipment; new materials; and biomedicine and high-tech medical devices. The cost of losing America’s competitive edge in innovation far exceeds the cost of the investment required to keep it. Governments have a unique capacity to facilitate information sharing by opening channels for public-private information sharing and engagement. Doing so would help rebuild the relationships among the innovation triangle — the public sector, private industry, and academia. With AI and machine learning in mind, the U.S. government ought to facilitate access to data by creating more open-source datasets, and expand access to cloud computing resources. When the U.S. government identifies a specific area of need, it should consider not only support for basic and applied research but also ways to provide sustained funding. Government contracts are the most direct means, but the federal government can also help increase access to capital to support innovative small- and mid-size firms. Government-backed venture funds serve that purpose as well. Government should also remove onerous occupational licensing requirements during early innovation cycle, which hinder productivity and limit opportunities for broad-based innovation. We remain mindful of the risks inherent to innovation policy. Close public-private partnerships can become politicized, introducing cronyism and preferential investment. But those risks, and the potential for inefficient capital allocation, can be mitigated somewhat through clear decision criteria, transparency, and oversight. However, risk does come with the territory. There are substantial risks to forming national innovation policies and centralizing authority, but fear of failure should not get in the way of innovation, which is a costly, inefficient process. While accountable parties and regular congressional oversight are necessary, the policymaking process ensures some measure of risk-tolerance. Congress will have to give research and development projects some freedom to fail and learn from those failures, and the government will have to enforce ethics accountability. It will also need to ensure America has the human capital necessary to support continued innovation. When the winds of change blows, some people build walls and others build windmills. LOYALTY WITHOUT QUESTION IS SERVITUDE
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