Politics bits: Possible bipartisan issues; Unsettling videos & commentary about Biden v. Trump

Possible bipartisanship? 

At this point, criticizing radical right Republican Party authoritarianism often seems mostly redundant. At least it is a way to keep tabs on how the threat is developing and the tactics being used to kill democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. Guess there's some value in that.

At present, Biden frames his campaign as one of finishing the job of stopping Trumpist extremism, which he says he was elected to do in 2020. That platform, coupled with Trump's platform of stopping corrupt, evil, socialist Democratic Party tyranny and atheism is probably most of what the public is going to hear from now until the Nov. 2024 elections. Which side is out to defend democracy and oppose tyranny and which is out to destroy democracy and establish tyranny will be the focus. Both sides accuse the other of being the democracy destroying tyranny supporters. Aside from that, there will probably be limited policy debate. 

This list of issues focuses on what PD believes might be a basis for some policy discussion and bipartisanship that might appeal to people looking for something more than which side is evil and which is good.

1. Rural poverty 

2. More food banks 

3. Better hospitals 

4. End social promotion in high schools*  

5. More (equalized) education spending in poor zip codes 

6. Discuss social class concerns and policies to deal with problems, e.g., stagnant wages and cost of living increases 

7. Pass the Afghan Adjustment Act to keep out allies from being sent back and slaughtered by the Taliban in Afghanistan; the Act provides a path to permanent residency for the more than 70,000 Afghans paroled into the United States in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

* I didn't know that was an issue

The problem with Biden

A couple of videos and comments that PD cite have cast the election differently for me, but not in a good way. The problem is that, bad as the Biden vs. Trump possibility is, it seems inevitable to too many people. In this video, Steve Schmidt lays out the problem of Biden vs. Trump.

• Biden failed to stop the American radical right extremist movement or its threat to democracy

• Most people will be voting against the side they believe will hurt them the most

• Biden won the 2020 election by a few thousand votes spread across three states - Trump absolutely can be re-elected

Here Schmidt argues that because of his age, Biden is not a good choice for 2024.

PD comments: You know I have ambivalent feelings about Steve Schmidt. But he made a statement acknowledging that nobody really wants Biden (65% of Dems surveyed would prefer he not run), and that he didn't really "start the job" he wants to "finish" re: putting Trump and his minions out to pasture. However, note the way he frames the "rematch" as almost "inevitable"-- as if the second time there would be a recognition of Biden's victory if he won, and the claims that we have an illegit president could be put behind us. He doesn't say that in those exact words, but I think one can infer the message by paying attention to subtext that lies between the lines. Maybe you'll hear it differently though. So, here's a link to Schmidt's statement on Biden's run. It *might* be an interesting way to raise the question about whether or not DP readers feel let down or not by Biden's performance, and whether they think this "rematch" is a road that could lead to both the GOP moving past the claim that Biden's not our "legit" president as it was "stolen." Also, it might be asked whether they have any faith that Biden and his admin (esp. including the AG) will really do anything more than they did this time. Just a suggestion. Here's the link to Schmidt's insightful but in my personal opinion carefully phrased, ironic endorsement for someone he admits he'd rather not see running: Steve Schmidt: No one wants Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden in 2024 election | The Warning

Biden's re-election announcement.

Biden says he wants to finish the job. But to a large extent he can't finish one key job because he and his useless Attorney General Merrick Garland failed to prosecute Trump. Time for prosecuting the at least the four or five obstruction of justice felonies Trump committed during the futile Mueller investigation has run out. The same is happening with other prosecutable Trump felonies. 

If it were not for the mountain of evidence of treason and crime the House 1/6 Committee forced into the public spotlight, Garland would not have even tried prosecute any Trump crime. Biden and Garland left the head of the snake untouched. Now, it is too late. Poll data indicates that Republicans are going to vote for Trump even if he is convicted of a crime, which GOP propaganda will easily dismiss as a partisan witch hunt. By May of 2021, it was obvious to me that Garland had no intention of even investigating Trump, much less prosecuting him. I was criticized for being too impatient at that time, but I was right. Garland was and still is a total failure and a disgrace. 

Simply put, Biden has failed to deliver on what he claimed was his key reason for running and being in office.

PD comments: Biden and his admin (esp. AG Garland) have done so little about MAGA that as he now concedes, they're not only back but strong enough to get the executive branch, and thus he sells himself as all that stands between US and Trump/ism. How exploitive. How manipulative. So this is one of those occasions where my advice to talk about Dems seems pertinent.

One last open question: Is it really a "done deal" or fait accompli-- this "rematch?" Mightn't Biden -- and for that matter Trump -- lose the primaries?" I mean stranger things happen. Why frame this as "inevitable" which seems to accept the cynical quasi-emotional blackmail of Biden's basic message-- "Hey, it's either me or Donny?"-- and is that really self evident? If everyone who says they don't want him (including those who didn't love him the first time round such as now-Biden supporting Bernie and the Progs) criticized this move by Biden as yet another broken pledge (he strongly implied he would be a 1 term -- transitional president -- a bridge to get us safely past the plague of Trump which, he said, is what made him want to run ) might he not lose credibility on being the anti-maga default to guy??

His anti-democracy talk has been all about East Europe and Taiwan, with nary a word devoted to our own tenuous democratic footing here at home. If media, social media, blogs, etc. all called him out on the BS that he's any kind of MAGA fighter at all, his whole appeal to saving Democracy at home might founder. There may be other qualified and younger, more contemporary thinking candidates being eclipsed by this power hungry guy who has compared himself (seriously) to FDR. Anyway, I'd be interested to learn more about what DP readers think about his launching a campaign so explicitly tethered to "finishing the battle for Democracy at home" against Trump/ism/MAGA. Just a suggestion.

In one of my replies to your question about suggestions, I mentioned another case of Democratic hubris and hypocrisy during a time of emergency level crises in the judiciary. Again we have Biden defending the destructive behavior of Diane Feinstein who has prevented the 1 person majority (hers is the swing vote) Judiciary Committee from making up for decades of lost time in bothering to appoint good democratic judges. Everyday, Biden and most Dems plead powerlessness due to GOP capture of the judiciary, and here we have BIDEN, SCHUMER, PELOSI AND DO-NOTHING DURBIN ALL CIRCLING THE WAGONS AND PROTECTING THEIR FRIEND DF WHO WON'T EVEN BE RUNNING AGAIN (i.e. she knows her health makes it all but impossible). Schumer's cynical ploy to pretend he would get a "temporary replacement" (as if he's so stupid as to not know Repubs won't oblige!); Pelosi's low-shot in suggesting this is all about sexism and ageism (when actually the age question is one that has been discussed openly for both male and female politicians-- including an editorial in the NYT which questioned the wisdom of Biden running again for that reason) and Durbin's strange combination of using DF's absence as an explanation for his own inaction and yet his support that she "have the time she needs to make her own decision" right down to Bernie Sanders stating that nobody should tell her what to do, she should only step down if that's what she wants-- all of this smacks of do-nothingness, of weird complacency as all methods of abortion continue to be stripped away in plain view.

It's hard for me to argue against that. There is no way to deny the failures of Biden and the Democratic Party leadership to defend democracy. 

The question is this, what should be done at this point? Write letters to younger, prominent Democrats asking them to run and be as bipartisan as they can? I'm at a loss.

Satanists bring their abortion extremism to Boston for 'SatanCon'; Christians respond

 As the Satanic Temple kicks off what is billed to be the largest gathering of Satanists in history this weekend in Boston, one pro-life leader warns about the "connection between Satanism and abortion" as churches are bracing for the influx of Satanists in the city.  

Known as SatanCon 2023, hundreds are slated to gather between Friday and Sunday for a sold-out event hosted by a group known for making fun of Christians and theologically conservative beliefs. 

Many of those gathered are likely to display their support for abortion as the Santinic Temple promotes what it calls abortion rituals and has filed legal challenges against state restrictions on legal access to abortion, arguing that abortion is a religious right. 

Priests for Life National Director Frank Pavone said in an interview with The Christian Post that while many attendees will deny that they are coming together to worship Satan, he was "very sensitive to the connection between Satanism and abortion."

"These Satanists who are gathering will claim that they do not worship the devil. In fact, they will claim that they do not even believe in a personal spiritual being called the Devil or Satan," Pavone said. 

"Anything that even appears to be worship of the devil or being elite with the devil is dangerous stuff because the devil is real."   😈 

https://www.christianpost.com/news/satanists-bring-abortion-worship-to-satancon-christians-respond.html

A Christian event called "ReviveBoston" is also planned in Boston this weekend, with organizers calling for thousands of Christians to overcome evil by gathering for worship, prayer and evangelizing the city.

Good Luck, Jamie!

A decent man who has been through a lot.  Mucho respect.

"Tuesday I thanked nurses, doctors & pharmacists at

@MedStarGUH who serve with splendid kindness—and saved my life over 5 months. I finished 6 rounds of 5-day chemo sessions—which they organized so I didn’t have to miss votes or hearings—and I rang the bell! A new chapter begins."

Tuesday I thanked nurses, doctors & pharmacists at @MedStarGUH who serve with splendid kindness—and saved my life over 5 months. I finished 6 rounds of 5-day chemo sessions—which they organized so I didn’t have to miss votes or hearings—and I rang the bell! A new chapter begins. pic.twitter.com/lAtpGyBG5b

— Jamie Raskin (@jamie_raskin) April 27, 2023\

 

 

 

News bits: The radical right movement to crush transparency; The evolving Twitterland hellscape

Clarence Thomas' failure to disclose his financial entanglements reflects his long-standing opposition to public disclosure laws. The Atlantic writes:

The justice has publicly stated that the failure to comply with the law by disclosing his financial entanglements with Crow was an unintended error, but if so, it was a mistake that is remarkably consistent with his ideological position that people who use their money and influence to steer the American political system ought to be able to do so in complete secrecy. This error was curiously convenient, in that it just happened to conceal a deep financial relationship with a very politically active right-wing donor who has bankrolled organizations that have a winning record before the Court. Perhaps more significant, Thomas’s idiosyncratic views about speech, democracy, and accountability have become more popular among the justices themselves as Republican appointments have moved the Court to the right. As Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write at Slate, Thomas has argued over decades that laws compelling such disclosure are unconstitutional.  

In the 2010 Citizens United decision striking down limits on corporate electioneering, Thomas was the only justice to argue that the Court “should invalidate mandatory disclosure and reporting requirements,” because donors to the California anti-marriage-equality referendum Proposition 8 had been subject to threats, harassment, and verbal criticism. The first two are potentially illegal acts, and the last is a form of constitutionally protected speech. The conflation foreshadows the current right-wing discourse on free speech, the core of which is that conservatives have a right to prevent others from disassociating from them because they find their views noxious.  

Put simply, the conservative position had moved from heeding Scalia’s reminder in Doe v. Reed of the importance of transparency and civic bravery in a democracy, to embracing Thomas’s 2010 Citizens United opinion, which conflates threats, violence, and harassment with people thinking you’re a jerk.

I post this to warn about a growing sentiment among elite radical right Republicans and other right wing American extremists.* They increasingly see serious danger to their bigoted authoritarian (fascist IMO), pro-corruption and anti-democracy agenda in public disclosure laws. With that kind of an agenda, they should be concerned. Sunshine kills rot, or at least slows its spread.

Deep corruption like what Thomas operates comfortably with can be disrupted by public disclosure law. This important new front in the radical right's authoritarian war on democracy needs to be made well known to all Americans who fear for the fate of our democracy. 

* Another example of authoritarians imposing secrecy by crushing sunshine laws to hide sleaze and to deceive the public about what radicals are doing is happening in Florida (not surprisingly). There, the state legislature passed a law that shields the travel agendas of the governor's office. A news outlet in Orlando FL recently wrote: Florida Senate approves bill that shields travel records and who visits Gov. DeSantis' mansion -- The measure would create a public-records exemption for information held by law-enforcement agencies related to 'security or transportation services'. Given how broadly one can claim security or transportation services are, that covers just about everything the governor does. In other words, DeSantis has gone mostly dark to the public, but not to corrupt rich elites who always meet in secrecy, behind closed, usually guarded doors.

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Regarding the evolving Twitterlandia hellscape: The NYT writes about the toxic early aftermath of Elon Musk forcing people to pay to have their accounts verified: 

In the 24 hours after Twitter last week eliminated the blue check mark that historically served as a means of identifying public agencies, at least 11 new accounts began impersonating the Los Angeles Police Department.

More than 20 purported to be various agencies of the federal government. Someone pretending to be the mayor of New York City promised to create a Department of Traffic and Parking Enforcement and slash police funding by 70 percent.

Elon Musk’s decision to stop giving check marks to people and groups verified to be who they said were, and instead offering them to anyone who paid for one, is the latest tumult at Twitter, .... 

The changes have convulsed a platform that once seemed indispensable for following news as it broke around the world. The information on Twitter is now increasingly unreliable. Accounts that impersonate public officials, government agencies and celebrities have proliferated. So have propaganda and disinformation that threaten to further erode trust in public institutions. The consequences are only beginning to emerge.  

Some cheered the changes.

“Now you can even find me in the search,” tweeted Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of RT, the Russian state television network that has been accused of rampant misinformation and hate speech aimed at Ukraine. She signed off the tweet by saying, “Brotherly, Elon @elonmusk, from the heart.”

Well, at least people like authoritarian thugs, liars, grifters, rabid theocrats and crackpot QAnon-level conspiracy freaks will probably be mostly OK with Musk's new and improved Twitter. 

Russian professional liar Simonyan is pleased 

with the new and improved Twitter 

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Tales from abortion wars: A WaPo opinion comments on a hearing a Senate committee held to consider real-world impacts of forced birth laws:

The most compelling and heartbreaking testimony came from Amanda Zurawski, who lives in Texas. During her prepared remarks, she explained that after sending out invitations to her baby shower she began experiencing symptoms, her membranes ruptured, and she was “told by multiple doctors that the loss of our daughter was inevitable.” However, her doctors “didn’t feel safe enough to intervene as long as her heart was beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk and permit the standard health care I needed at that point — an abortion.”

Zurawski couldn’t very well drive to a “safe” state. (“Developing sepsis — which can kill quickly — in a car in the middle of the West Texas desert, or 30,000 feet above the ground, is a death sentence, and it’s not a choice we should have had to even consider.”) Instead, she had to wait — for either the fetus’s heart to stop or to get really sick. She nearly died from sepsis, which is why the standard of care in such circumstances is to perform an abortion before the woman gets very sick and risks death.

In a matter of minutes, I went from being physically healthy to developing a raging fever and dangerously low blood pressure. My husband rushed me to the hospital where we soon learned I had developed sepsis — a condition in which bacteria in the blood develops into infection, with the ability to kill in under an hour. Several hours later, after stabilizing just enough to deliver our stillborn daughter, my vitals crashed again. In the middle of the night, I was rapidly transferred to the ICU, where I would stay for three days as medical professionals battled to save my life. I spent another three days in a less critical unit of the hospital — all because I was denied access to reasonable health care due to Texas’s new abortion bans.

If she had been alone or had lacked good medical care to rescue her, she would have died.

As we all know, forced birth laws will kill some women, including even some who want a baby. That blood is on the hands of forced birthers, and if anything, whatever is left of their moral conscience (as I define it, not as forced birthers define it).