Category: Politix

Insane attacks on our elected government.

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Supreme Court Okays Ohio Voter Suppression Law


Source: Supreme Court says states can remove voters who skip elections, ignore warnings

The minority party in the United States — the Republicans —

— control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the majority of state governments. Because of this, they have been able to pack the Supreme Court with partisans, who are now assisting the party’s voter suppression activities. Neil Gorsuch is the only the first Trump appointee to side with the one-percenters over the rest of us. There will be more.

Today the Court agreed that the state of Ohio can purge eligible registered voters from the voter rolls if they don’t vote in two elections or if they don’t return a postcard sent to “verify” that they still want to be registered to vote. This is the strictest law in the nation, and — surprise! — it turns out that those most affected are those likely to vote Democratic: students, minorities, disabled and the elderly, for example.

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Treacherous Canadian Stabs US Prez in Back

Source: Trump backs out of joint G7 communique after accusing ‘meek and mild’ Trudeau of ‘false statements’ | The Independent

Kim Jung Un must be pleased to be sitting down with an American president…

…who has, just a few hours earlier, blown off six of America’s closest and strongest allies. Trump has already backed down on joint U.S. – South Korea military exercises at Kim’s demand. This demonstrates not only that Donald Trump is a wimp who is getting outmaneuvered, but also that he doesn’t give a fuck about the rest of the world.

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Roseanne Barr Now Unemployed

I never found Roseanne Barr’s style of nasty redneck humor very funny, and now that she has come out as a racist I’m not particularly surprised about that, either. I’m not a Twitter user (real men don’t tweet), so I have been unaware of her history of walking up to the line of propriety and then stepping back. This time she went too far, and good for ABC Television for dumping her and her show, despite it being a huge “hit” for them.

Roseanne’s “apology” is pathetic, too:

I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.
7:33 AM – May 29, 2018

 

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Is the Second Amendment Really the Last Word on Gun Rights?

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens

Here’s another reason to vote IN EVERY ELECTION, especially the one in November of this year.

After slow-walking President Obama’s judicial appointments for eight years, Republicans are now packing the federal courts with right-wing judges, who will be making decisions about how you may live your life for the next 30 or 40 years. These are lifetime appointments and a handful of these judges will one day sit on the Supreme Court, and make further partisan decisions about gun proliferation in the United States.

In our 250-year history, it has only been ten years since a slim majority of the Supreme Court misread the 2nd Amendment and decided that everybody has a right to own a gun of any kind. That could change if we VOTE THE REPUBLICANS OUT NOW!

At New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore sheds light on how we might one day recover from the damage of the 2008 Heller decision:

Not So Long Ago, the Second Amendment Didn’t Guarantee the Right to Own a Gun

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Nothing Is Sacred

I have tried to write this three times now.

There is so much B.S. surrounding the Trump Condolence Call Controversy that I keep getting sidetracked trying to include all of it. Here’s what I want to say: John Kelly is a dinosaur, and his defense of Trump is dishonest at best.

He says it’s a “sacred” thing to join the U.S. military. Of course he thinks so — he’s been in the Marines all his life. He doesn’t know better. All those young people have their reasons for joining, but it’s absurd to call it sacred. The army represents mankind’s worst failure — the failure to figure out a way to come together in peace. No doubt this was not on the minds of enlistees, but that just goes to show the pervasive influence of patriotic thinking.

Kelly and Trump have both said they knew what they were signing up for, but those kids couldn’t know what they were signing up for. No kid thinks s/he is ever going to die, much less get blown up or torn to pieces by machine gun fire. Snap out of it, General. They are not engaged in a “sacred” mission. Whatever they may think they are doing, you and I know they are defending our right to rule the world. I suppose you could call that a “sacred mission.” But honorable? Maybe not.

Kelly says the people around his son and the four who were killed two weeks ago were “the best people on earth.” How the hell does he know that? No doubt some were great people and some were assholes, but Kelly is telling us that simply by virtue of their participation in the U,S. military, they are sainted.

General Kelly also spent a little time waxing nostalgic about the place of women in the good old days, saying they were “looked upon with great honor.” Who knows why he brought that up, but could any public figure be more out of touch with the reality women have faced and continue to face in this country, from casual sexual harassment to unequal pay and treatment in the workplace? We have a long way to go in this regard, but even though we’ve made some progress Kelly seems to think women were better off in the past.

Kelly also took the opportunity to attack Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson on bogus grounds, which she easily refuted the following day with video evidence. To be clear, I don’t think he was lying about the congresswoman. He probably got misinformation from a staffer in the White House, someone who long ago lost sight of the difference between fact and fiction.

The victim here seems to be the good standing of General Kelly himself, heretofore seen as a stabilizing force amid the chaos of the Trump White House. At first he looked like the life preserver we could cling to for safety from the ignorant, childish president. Now it looks like he’ll be going down with the ship, too.

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Republicans Not Concerned About Flynn

For those who were scratching their heads in December,

Devin Nunes: “MUST track down leaks!”

…wondering why Vladimir Putin did not respond in kind to President Obama’s expulsion of Russian diplomats as part of the sanctions leveled for Russia’s meddling in the presidential election, here’s your answer: Mike Flynn.

In his illegal phone conversations with Russian officials he apparently let them know that they need not worry about those sanctions, once Donald Trump was sworn in. Wink, wink.

Flynn was forced to resign over this but, as I predicted last night, Republicans in Congress are not the least bit interested in investigating this scandal, or making any effort to answer the question “What did Donald Trump know and when did he know it?”

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Out Like Flynn

The Associated Press and New York Times are reporting that General Michael Flynn has resigned as National Security Adviser. (Story here.)

This comes just a couple of hours after he had “the full confidence of the president.” Given his obvious criminal and unethical behavior both before and Michael Flynnafter he (and Trump) took office, this turn of events was inevitable, and I’m sure he was ordered to resign. Trump’s inner circle is no doubt hoping that, now that he’s gone, there will be no investigation, as that would surely implicate others in the new administration. They’ll be saying “It’s over, nothing to see here, let’s move on, the nation has more important problems, blah, blah, blah.”

But can you imagine how this would go down had Hillary Clinton been president? Every committee in Congress would open investigations, and they would continue for eight years. Of course, Republicans control both houses of congress, and run all the committees, so there won’t be any investigations of the Flynn scandal.

It’s time for the mainstream press to hitch up their big girl pants and look into this, no matter how long it takes or where it leads.

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Product Placement

I’m not going to pretend that this pisses me off any more than everything else Donald Trump and the gang are up to.

The Trump Administration is looking less like the second coming of the German Nazi Party every day, and more like a Keystone Kops comedy. Their barrage of Executive Action signings are mostly just photo ops, and the one they really got behind — the Muslim Ban — has now been stayed by a federal judge and the stay has been upheld by a panel of the 9th Circuit. This is not to say that they won’t hurt a lot of people before it’s over, but at least there is hope that they won’t bring down the Republic.

But Donald Trump’s refusal to divest himself from his businesses, create a blind trust and stop hiding his financial dealings from the American people remains the most serious of his betrayals. While the president gets some legal leeway in this matter, there is a reason all previous presidents have taken steps to separate themselves from business activities while in office. Doing a good job at being president should be the only thing on Trump’s agenda. Instead, he remains the owner of his company, and stands to benefit WHILE IN OFFICE from income generated from it.

He has tweeted in support of his daughter’s clothing line. Ivanka herself has advertised jewelry she is selling as having been worn on a 60 Minutes interview. Melania has recently admitted in court that she plans to enhance her own wealth as a result of being First Lady. The whole family, not to mention Trump’s sycophantic staff (see Kellyanne Conway article), is trying to cash in.

Trump has serious ethical and criminal issues. He must address them now. We need a president focused on the nation, not on getting richer. If he wanted to remain in the business world he should not have run for president.

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Separation

Trump wants to do away with the so-called “Johnson Amendment.”

This is an IRS rule that prohibits churches and non-profits from politicking from the pulpit. The current batch of radical Republicans think that is an infringement on their freedom of speech.

Fair enough. Let them exercise their First Amendment right. Cancel the rule and let them tell their parishioners how God wants them to vote. But they must disclose their donors (*cough* Koch Bros. *cough*), and NO TAX EXEMPTION FOR YOU!!!!

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