Some Minds Slowly Awaken Before Going Back To Sleep

Capitalist 'morals': At a gathering of a business advisory group in 2019, 

Tim Cook of Apple told Mr. Trump that it was “an honor” to serve

Someone allegedly said that when a person's paycheck depends on them not understanding something, e.g., denying an obvious reality or fact, it is hard to get them to understand it. That applies to CEOs, who are usually intelligent, highly educated and reasonably politically informed. The New York Times writes:

Many in corporate America endorsed the president’s economic policies, which were good for them and gave him mainstream business credibility. It was “fool’s gold,” one said on Thursday.

Big business struck a Faustian bargain with President Trump.

When he said something incendiary or flirted with authoritarianism, high-minded chief executives would issue vague, moralizing statements and try to distance themselves from a pro-business president who coveted their approval.

But when Mr. Trump cut taxes, rolled back onerous regulations or used them as props for a photo op, they would applaud his leadership and grin for the cameras.

After Wednesday’s events on Capitol Hill, the true cost of that balancing act was plain to see, even through the tear gas wafting in the rotunda.

The executives who stood by Mr. Trump were ultimately among his enablers, bestowing him with the imprimatur of mainstream business credibility and normalizing a president who has turned the country against itself.

“This is what happens when we subordinate our moral principles for what we perceive to be business interests,” said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a board member at Square and Ralph Lauren. “It is ultimately bad for business and bad for society.”  

“I joined because the president asked me to join, and I thought it was the right thing to do as the C.E.O. of a company like Merck,” Ken Frazier, one of the most prominent Black executives in the country, who was the first to quit the councils, said shortly after leaving. “I just felt that as a matter of my own personal conscience, I could not remain.”

But money has a short memory, and it wasn’t long after Charlottesville that Mr. Trump was back in the good graces of corporate America. Just months later, the Trump administration passed a tax overhaul that delivered a windfall to corporations and wealthy individuals.
By lowering corporate taxes, Mr. Trump delivered the business community one of its most coveted prizes, and business leaders lined up to support the effort.  

By 2019, it was as if Charlottesville had never happened at all, and a new business advisory group was formed, this one with the likes of Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple; Doug McMillon, the chief executive of Walmart; and Julie Sweet, the chief executive of Accenture.  (emphasis added)

What? Moral principles?? Bad for society?? None of has been a problem before, so why it is now? What is different? Is that that the social harm is now so sever and blatant that even CEOs raking in millions from Trump brand politics can no longer deny what has been blatantly obvious for years?

Apparently, what triggered this current spasm of social conscience among some (a few?) powerful business elites is the attempted coup of yesterday. But minds, like money, have short memories. The next radical right GOP candidate who makes a run at demagogue-tyrant will entrance the CEOs with promises of lower taxes and fewer regulations. That will make the social conscience fade back into near non-existence where it usually resides when things are just business as usual.

This brief flash of social conscience is more evidence of why government needs to defend the public interest. The business community can't do it. The stack of cash standing in the way of reality and morality is just too damn big. 

In other words, it's hard to impossible to have a social conscience when your massive paycheck depends on not having one.

A Letter to the Traitors

By email: www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=form&id=16

Dear Senator Cruz,

I write to express my opposition to, and disappointment in, your actions to subvert the 2020 election since November 3. In particular, your participation in the attempted congressional subversion of the election on January 6 and 7 were deeply immoral and frighteningly authoritarian. 

You are educated and intelligent. You know the facts. In view of the facts, how can one rationally explain unjustified support of unfounded allegations of a stolen vote, fraud and/or other widespread irregularities? None of those things exist and you know that. Only false allegations exist. Those unfounded allegations have been rejected at least 60 times in state and federal courts. Apparently, your seditious rhetoric and behavior reflects a burning ambition to run for president. Your false allegations reflect the anti-democratic radical right republican authoritarianism you have come to embrace in your run for power.

It goes without saying that raising the matter of the great shame you should feel for your immoral behavior and rhetoric is futile. You have no shame or morality in you. Your lust for power has swept such weak concerns aside.

Given that sorry state of affairs, when you next run for federal office, I will do everything in my power to oppose you and to support your opponent. Reminding the people of Texas about your unjustified authoritarian actions will be prominent in the criticisms I will publicly level at you.  

You and your despicable authoritarian actions will not be forgotten. Your immoral, authoritarian, deceit-based politics will be called out. You will be opposed by legal means available to me. 

Sincerely,

[Germaine]

San Diego, CA

Email contact info for US Senators is at this link.

Contact info for representatives is messy. Some or most try to limit incoming email by requiring people to put in their zip code as an initial step. Presumably that is used to block correspondence from people outside voting districts. Letters by old-fashioned mail may be the best way to try to contact treasonous representatives.

I plan to write to at least three or four of the senators involved in the attack on the election, Cruz (TX), Hawley (MO), Scott (FL) and Tuberville (AL). Not sure about representatives. The letter will need to be changed to reflect the correct state and for Scott and Tuberville because they may not be planning to run for president in 2024.

Naming the Traitors

After the coup attempt by the radical right mob failed yesterday, congress finished its job can certified the election win for Biden. Some GOP traitors objected in an effort to try to subvert the election on the basis of no facts. They did this to show their loyalty to the traitor Trump and their own corrupt political careers, not to the constitution, their constituents or democracy. Here is how the Washington Post presents the traitors:

The list is partial. The other traitors are listed in the article. 

Is it worth the effort to write to at least some of the traitors, e.g., Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and call them out as traitors and demand their resignations? None will respond, but at least they will get the message that some people see through their self-serving corruption and treason.

Trump's Attempted Coup Is In Progress Right Now

2:25 PM EST

News sources are reporting now on the attack on the US Capitol by enraged Trump supporters. Capitol police have been overwhelmed and pushed back. Congress has been told to shelter in place until more police can be brought in. Meanwhile, the seditionist Trump does nothing because he is a tyrant who wants to topple democracy.

All blood that will be shed, if any, is on Trump's filthy, treasonous tyrant hands. Radical right GOP Republicans in congress are also fully culpable for all violence and deaths, even the ones who feebly pretended to be distressed by this possibility.

He claims to defend your rights by 

breaking laws and supporting a usurper by force

Seditious Trump is the party and the seditious GOP is Trump

they are one in the same, even Susan Collins and 

the other feeble, feeble Trump critics in the GOP in congress

He cannot be convinced that Trump lost

facts just do not matter

Is It Racism Or Just Legal Clarity?

For years, conservatives have argued that proving discrimination in court should require proof of intent to treat people differently. Conservatives also complain that when people are judged by numbers, they feel pressure to make decisions based on racial quotas. Between new rules the president is rushing to establish before Jan. 20 and the new radical right Christian Nationalist supreme court, this cherished conservative goal is likely to become established for years to come. The Washington Post writes:

The Trump administration is pushing in its final days to undo decades-long protections against discrimination, a last-ditch effort to accomplish a longtime goal of conservative legal activists.

The Justice Department is seeking to change interpretation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin by recipients of federal funding. Under these rules, actions are considered discriminatory if they have a discriminatory effect, what’s known as a “disparate impact,” on protected groups. Under the new version, only intentional discrimination would be prohibited.

Typically regulations of this magnitude are published first as proposals and the government collects public comment before publishing its final version. It would be unusual to publish a final regulation — particularly one of this magnitude — without going through that process, but the document says that its proposal falls under an exception and therefore the administration is not required to seek public comment.

Under the concept of disparate impact, actions can amount to discrimination if they have an uneven effect, even if that was not the intent. Regulations across the government implementing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its amendments define discrimination as including this unintentional form of bias.

The Supreme Court has recognized disparate impact claims, but in a 2015 housing case, its use was upheld by a narrow 5-to-4 vote, in an opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who now is retired. Some conservatives have speculated that the new, more conservative court might decide the same matter differently. (emphasis added -- the radical right Christian Nationalist court will decide the same matter differently)

Once again, the matter of proof of intent is front and center in radical right legal thinking. Conservatives know that proving intent to discriminate cannot be proved in court so the new rules will allow discrimination with impunity. Bigots and racists, just like other white collar criminals, know how to discriminate without being held liable.

Grinding civil liberties and democracy down

This is another example of how the radical right is slowly grinding civil liberties protections and democracy down. If the radical right keeps getting its way, the federal government will eventually come to be a shadow incapable of defending civil liberties. When power drains away from government, it inexorably flows to wealthy people and powerful special interests, especially the Trump brand GOP and its major donors. 

Over time, rank and file republicans will come to be almost as adversely affected as the minorities the radical right elites want to be free to discriminate against right now. They generally will not be discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin, but instead they will come to feel the teeth of the power flow from the government to the wealthy and special interests. Those forces are focused on accumulating power and wealth and nothing but that. Modern radical right conservatism has no significant concern for the public interest or general welfare. Radical right ideology is a Darwinian dog-eat-dog society. The losers get crushed and discarded because their plight is their fault in the eyes of their righteous Christian God. Wealth and power trickle up to the top and they stay there.

Get it off your chest...

Help me fill in this word cloud.  Will replace with final answers when the posts dry up.