News bits: Doing business in Alabama; Biden impeachment vote; Biden responds; Democracy status update

Law and Crime reports about how Alabama treats some or most of its prisoners:

Alabama made $450 million annually from ‘convict leasing,’ forcing 

Black prisoners to work at fast-food chains: Lawsuit

A group of current and former Alabama prisoners filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday saying that they were forced into “a modern-day form of slavery” by working at fast-food chains for next to nothing.

The complaint, which seeks class-action certification, alleged that the prisoners “have been entrapped in a system of ‘convict leasing’ in which incarcerated people are forced to work, often for little or no money,” all while Alabama and its corporate partners reap millions in profits.

Inmates, according to the complaint, “live in a constant danger of being murdered, stabbed, or raped that is so profound that the federal government has sued Alabama for inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, and if they refuse to work, the State punishes them even more.”  

The 129-page complaint alleges it is “no accident” that the people “caught in a labor-trafficking scheme” are Black, comparing it to “like individuals who were enslaved and forced to work Alabama’s cotton fields, and those forced to participate in the sharecropping and convict leasing schemes that followed the end of the Civil War.”

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Reuters reports:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to formally authorize its ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, as Republicans unite behind the effort even though they have yet to find evidence of wrongdoing by the Democrat.

The Republican-controlled chamber voted 221-212 along party lines to approve the probe, which is examining whether Biden improperly benefited from his 53-year-old son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, hours after the younger Biden refused a call to testify behind closed doors. 

“The House has now spoken, and I think pretty loudly, pretty clearly with every single Republican voting in favor of moving into this official impeachment inquiry phase of our constitutional duty to do oversight,” said Republican Representative Jim Jordan.

One can expect that this could be the new normal. If one party controls the House, a president of the other party will at least be investigated for impeachable offenses and maybe impeached, even without evidence. DJT probably has successfully rendered impeachments by the House mere exercises in partisan political theater. That helps DJT sanitize his rotten legacy by claiming that neither a House impeachment investigation or an actual impeachment vote signifies anything significant.

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The Huffpo reports:

Joe Biden Calls Republicans Time-Wasting 

Liars After Impeachment Vote

“I wake up every day focused on the issues facing the American people — real issues that impact their lives, and the strength and security of our country and the world,” the president said in a statement. “Unfortunately, House Republicans are not joining me. Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies.”

That’s a refreshing little blast from Joe. I didn’t know he had it in him to speak blunt truth to the mendacious, corrupt, radicalized, dictatorship-loving GOP. IMHO, he needs to do that a heck of a lot more often. That morally rotted party is so target rich that a person can throw darts at it blindfolded and hit something meaningful.

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A NYT opinion by Charles Blow comments on worldwide democracy:

America’s Thirst for Authoritarianism

Around the world, authoritarianism is ascendant and democracy is in decline.

A 2022 report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that “over the past six years, the number of countries moving toward authoritarianism is more than double the number moving toward democracy” and that nearly half of the 173 countries assessed were “experiencing declines” in at least one metric of democracy.

The United States wasn’t impervious to this trend. The report found that America was “moderately backsliding” on its democracy.

But I fear that we’re now on the precipice of fully turning away from democracy and toward a full embrace of authoritarianism. The country seems thirsty for it; many Americans appear to be inviting it.

Confidence in many of our major institutions — including schools, big business, the news media — is at or near its lowest point in the past half-century, in part because of the Donald Trump-led right-wing project to depress it [In large part IMO]. Indeed, according to a July Gallup report, Republicans’ confidence in 10 of the 16 institutions measured was lower than Democrats’. Three institutions in which Republicans’ confidence exceeded Democrats’ were the Supreme Court, organized religion and the police.

And as people lose faith in these institutions — many being central to maintaining the social contract that democracies offer — they can lose faith in democracy itself. People then lose their fear of a candidate like Trump — who tried to overturn the previous presidential election and recently said that if he’s elected next time, he won’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1” — when they believe democracy is already broken.

News bits: The one-way ratchet to dictatorship moves a notch; COP28 final global warming communique

The NYT reports about what looks to me to be another notch toward some form of an American radical right, kleptocratic autocracy-plutocracy-Christotheocracy dictatorship:

House Set to Approve Biden Impeachment Inquiry 

as It Hunts for an Offense

Republicans are pushing forward with a formal investigation even though their yearlong scrutiny of the president and his family has turned up no proof of high crimes or misdemeanors

G.O.P. leaders refrained for months from calling a vote to open an impeachment inquiry, given the reservations of mainstream Republicans, many of them from politically competitive districts, about moving forward without proof that Mr. Biden did anything wrong. But the political ground has shifted considerably, and most of them are now willing to do so, emphasizing that they are not yet ready to charge the president.

“Voting in favor of an impeachment inquiry does not equal impeachment,” Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, said at a news conference on Tuesday. “We will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead, and if they uncover evidence of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, then and only then will the next steps towards impeachment proceedings be considered.”  

Using their subpoena power, Republicans have obtained more than 36,000 pages of bank records; 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports from the Treasury Department; and dozens of hours of testimony from two of Hunter Biden’s business partners, a senior official from the National Archives and Records Administration, seven federal agents and three U.S. attorneys.

“Republicans’ yearlong fishing expedition has uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden,” said Representative Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York.

At present, the House seems to be set to vote on impeachment tonight. Note the incoherence of Emmer who claims voting to start a formal inquiry is just following the evidence. So far, the evidence says there is no reason for an impeachment. This is how people rationalize the irrational. To me, this exemplifies what I see as a one-way inching of American politics toward some form of deeply corrupt dictatorship.

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Good news! The COP28 meeting wound up with an actual modern day miracle. The final Communique included a modest call to phase out fossil fuels. The pro-pollution oil, coal and gas sectors had fought tooth, claw and poison dagger for decades to keep the phrase “fossil fuel(s)” out of the messaging. Apparently the urgency of the situation finally overwhelmed the polluter’s sophisticated, ruthless propaganda, lies, slanders, money, dirty tricks and threats. The WaPo reports:

Nearly 200 countries struck a breakthrough climate agreement Wednesday, calling for a transition away from fossil fuels in an unprecedented deal that targets the greatest contributors to the planet’s warming. The deal came swiftly — with no discussion or objection — in a packed room in Dubai following two weeks of negotiations and rising contention. It is the first time a global climate deal has specifically called to curb the use of fossil fuels.

Countries agreed to transition from fossil fuels “in a just, orderly and equitable manner” while “accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”

Sultan Al Jaber, the filthy rich rabidly pro-pollution chief executive of 

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., is the president of COP28

He tried, but couldn’t keep fossil fuels out of it

News bits: Life in red states; Pharmacies betray customers; Democracy good news bit

A NYT opinion by Jamelle Bouie:

Where Republicans have gained .... full control over state legislatures and statehouses, they have used that authority in pursuit of policies meant to curtail the ability of people in their states to live as they please.

You know what this looks like. It’s the “anti-woke” policymaking of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Florida, from laws that stigmatize L.G.B.T.Q. students and teachers in public school classrooms to an assault on higher education that has driven professors out of state. “What we are witnessing in Florida is an intellectual reign of terror,” LeRoy Pernell, a law professor at Florida A&M University, said in an interview with a special committee of the American Association of University Professors.

Republican trifectas in states across the country have introduced and passed dozens of bills aimed at the public existence of trans and other gender-nonconforming people. Republicans in Oklahoma banned the use of nonbinary gender identifiers on birth certificates; Republicans in Tennessee, similarly, banned trans people from changing their gender on their birth certificates.  

Abortion . . . .  

The state-level Republican agenda also includes efforts to restrict voting or gerrymander political opponents out of representation. Taken all together, you could say that Republicans are engaged in a comprehensive effort to limit the freedom of entire categories of people. 

.... what we can see in the divergent agendas of Republican-led states and Democrat-led states, is how the differences have far more to do with the actual purpose of government. For Democrats, that purpose is usually the public good. For Republicans, that purpose is harsh social regulation, with little apparent regard for the lives of those who have to endure these policies.

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In the police state’s never-ending war on privacy, all means to nab the bad guys are pursued, sometimes even if they are illegal. The WaPo reports about cooperating pharmacies:

Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds

The revelation could shape the debate over Americans’ health privacy as states move to criminalize abortion and drugs related to reproductive health

The nation’s largest pharmacy chains have handed over Americans’ prescription records to police and government investigators without a warrant, a congressional investigation found, raising concerns about threats to medical privacy.

Though some of the chains require their lawyers to review law enforcement requests, three of the largest — CVS Health, Kroger and Rite Aid, with a combined 60,000 locations nationwide — said they allow pharmacy staff members to hand over customers’ medical records in the store.

It’s good to know that ‘concerns were raised’ but what difference does that make when giant companies don’t care about customer privacy and neither do foaming at the mouth, authoritarian radical right Republican politicians? Raising ‘concerns’ about privacy is like sending thoughts and prayers after another mass slaughter of innocents. These days, concerns by politicians about consumers or the public interest are almost always nothingburgers. The real concern for authoritarian radical right Republicans is obliterating civil liberties to exert more control.

Betraying customers

Betraying customers

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Here’s a bit of good news for democracy. Poland voted out of power its equivalent of the American authoritarian radical right Republican Party. MAGA!! to that. The WaPo writes:

In a cathartic moment for many in Poland, centrist political veteran Donald Tusk got the nod on Monday to be the country’s next prime minister, marking the end of eight years of right-wing nationalist rule and a dramatic shift in the European political landscape.

Tusk’s alliance secured a majority in October elections with a promise to restore Polish democracy and the country’s relationship with European allies.

Tusk faces the daunting task of repairing relations with the European Union, depoliticizing the judiciary, restoring the independence of the media, and bolstering the rights of women and minorities — all without alienating the many who sympathize with the old guard. [does that sound familiar?]

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