What America's authoritarian radical right elites want to do

In 2022, the group Documented obtained a 38 minute video that describes what ARR (authoritarian radical right) elites have planned for America. Our future will ugly, unpleasant and constrained if they get their way. The Guardian writes about what the billionaires intend:

‘Get the right cases to the supreme court’: 

inside Charles Koch’s network

Billionaire’s web of rightwing groups works to bring cases to court that could undermine core functionings of the US government

At least two of the biggest cases to be considered by the justices this term have been spurred by groups bankrolled and coordinated within the Koch universe.

Footage of an internal panel discussion between senior operatives from Koch entities held in the summer of 2022 reveals that the network has been quietly planning the current assault on the “administrative state”. The groups are seeking to exploit the supreme court’s new six-to-three rightwing majority secured by Donald Trump to dismantle vital executive powers.

Regulatory controls in their sights include environmental standards to combat pollution and the climate crisis, consumer protections against predatory lenders, and safeguards for workers’ rights. At stake is what the Strict Scrutiny podcast has called “the future of government as we know it”.

The footage, which is made public here for the first time, was obtained by the investigative watchdog Documented and shared with the Guardian. During the 37-minute panel discussion, legal strategists with several Koch-related groups expressed excitement that the new hard-right supreme court supermajority had created the potential for a concerted attack on the functions of federal agencies.  

Casey Mattox, a legal strategist at the main Koch advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, argued that the supreme court was now “primed for a real change in the law” on federal regulations which he said amounted to a “paradigm shift”. Mattox said: “That’s why we are partnering with organizations that can get the right cases to the supreme court.”

The effort appears to have borne fruit. Two of the most significant cases before the court in the 2023-24 term, brought with the backing of Koch-linked organizations, attempt to rein back the government’s power to impose regulations on corporations.

The prominence of the cases underlines how the libertarian empire created by the Kochs is still a force to be reckoned with within US politics.

Warning 1: This is just another warning about what wealthy authoritarian radicals intend for us, regardless of their denials, deflections, distractions, lies and slanders. The USSC alone has the power to destroy democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. That is what the billionaires want. The rule of law will be changed to protect special interests at the expense of the public interest, including the environment, honest government and civil liberties. We will have a kleptocracy where vast corruption is legalized and honest citizens have few or no protections from rape and oppression by unregulated, rapacious corporate, plutocrat and theocrat power.

Warning 2: Always keep eyes on the flow of power. When government regulations are gutted, as the ARR elites want, power flows from government and the people to wealthy special interests, dictators, plutocrats, theocrats and kleptocrats. Anyone who believes that corporations, billionaires libertarian ideologues or Christian nationalist zealots will look out for us is completely mistaken. They look out for themselves and only themselves.

News bits: The bad new speaker; American radicalization update; Etc.

New House speaker Mike Johnson is a radical right authoritarian, a traitor who voted to stop the 2020 election and a deeply corrupt climate crackpot: 

New House Speaker Champions Fossil Fuels 

and Dismisses Climate Concerns

Representative Mike Johnson comes from Louisiana oil country and has said he does not believe burning fossil fuels is changing the climate

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the newly elected House speaker, has questioned climate science, opposed clean energy and received more campaign contributions from oil and gas companies than from any other industry last year.  

Since 2018, Mr. Johnson has received about $240,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.

The vote for Johnson was reported to be unanimous. That's evidence that there are no moderates left in the radical right authoritarian GOP. All that's left is radical right authoritarians and extremely radical right authoritarians.

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This year’s Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) annual American Values Survey indicate that the MAGA movement has radicalized millions of Americans. The WaPo comments in an opinion piece:

The survey’s great value comes as a warning about the radicalization and alienation of a segment of the major parties’ followers. “Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,’ up from 15% in 2021,” the survey found. “PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.” A full third of Republicans believe this, compared with 13 percent of Democrats. Meanwhile, QAnon believers have jumped from 14 percent of Americans to 23 percent, with Republicans twice as likely as Democrats to buy into the extreme conspiracy theory.

Clearly, authoritarianism has made greater inroads among Republicans than other groups. “About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%).”  

Most frightening is how many Republicans buy into white Christian nationalism, a racist ideology that rejects the basic premise of our democracy: “All men are created equal.” One-third of Americans but 52 percent of Republicans agree that “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world.” The number is even higher among White evangelical Protestants (54 percent). Americans who subscribe to white Christian nationalism are more than twice as likely as other Americans to say true patriots might have to resort to violence to save the country.  

When a sizable portion of one of the major political parties, aided by a right-wing propaganda machine and infused with religious fervor, rejects the basis for multiracial, multicultural democracy, we face a severe crisis. Even if Trump does not return to the White House, this radicalized segment will not disappear. How we reintegrate millions of Americans into reality-based, pro-democracy politics in a diverse country remains the great challenge of our time.

On the encouraging side, an overwhelming majority of Americans support teaching the good and the bad of American history, trust public school teachers to select appropriate curriculum, and strongly oppose banning books that discuss slavery or banning Advanced Placement African American History. A solid majority of Americans opposes banning social and emotional learning programs in public schools. The poll data indicates that Republican “anti-wokeism” messaging is deeply unpopular. 

Even more encouraging, public sympathy for radical right authoritarianism, denials of racism and abortion bans, especially among the GOP’s main base of White evangelical Christians, are opposed by a solid majority of Americans.

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The Hill writes about how one House member sees the election of the authoritarian radical Mike Johnson:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) held up newly-elected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a shining example of the strength of the “MAGA movement,” after every GOP member of Congress voted for him to be Speaker on Wednesday, ending three weeks of chaos in the House.

That jives with how the WaPo opinion describes the effect of the MAGA movement on the now fully radicalized, authoritarian GOP in the House.

Amnesty International Finds "Damning Evidence of War Crimes" by Israel as Gaza Death Toll Tops 6,500

Below is a 15 minute interview with Amnesty International reporter and analyst, Budour Hassan, which goes beyond  and behind the staggering numbers of dead and dying Palestinians to humanize the hell on earth that is Gaza now-- as well as discussing ever increasing murders of Palestinians in the West Bank at the hands of settler colonists, many of whom were given arms by the Israeli government. We don't hear much about any of these horrific stories-- the waking nightmares endured by Palestinian in US media. But as the world becomes increasingly fed up with  the unacceptable hypocrisy of talking about Israel's compliance with "the rule of law," while heartbreaking atrocities are being documented by several human rights groups, Biden, Blinken and others are trying to maintain the moral high ground even as they increasingly come under fire.  There is an increasingly pronounced resentment in much of the world --especially the global south-- of Israel and the US.  As Ian Bremmer recently said, we have come to seem  out of touch with most of the world, and especially the global south, where we are seen as defending the last advanced, democratic power that perpetuates apartheid  and the dehumanization of an ethnic population . The sense of US  complicity looms large, and understandably as we enable  the deliberate mistreatment of an entire group  on the basis of ethnicity -- even as our leaders speak loudly and proudly about our role as champions of the "Rules Based International Order of the Free World," which justifies our military and economic warfare all over the world.  The fact is, though, that the US was the ONLY member of the UN Security Council to veto a UN Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire last week. We were the only of 15 nation-states that prevented the Resolution from passing as it did not factor in "the Israeli right to defend itself." France,Switzerland, Japan were among the 12 states that voted for a humanitarian ceasefire. Only 2 powers abstained (Russia and UK). But only ONE country opposed the idea of a humanitarian pause in this devastating and wanton destruction of the 25 by 5 mile strip of overcrowded land that has become an urban killing zone.

The following interview provides both an update on the conditions in Gaza (and also to a lesser degree in the West Bank, where settlers armed by the government round up and kill innocent Palestinians, taking advantage of the chaos to further eliminate them to seize and build on their land). It 's a tough watch, but we should not bury our heads in the sand. Facts and figures; statistics and abstract overview statements-- these cannot convey the extent and utter barbarity of the collective punishment-- torture-- of a population slowly dying of thirst, hunger, rampant disease and a collapsed health system at the hands of the country that long ago made Gaza a dependent concentration camp. Some say it is an open-air prison. The distinction of relevance is that none of those born in Gaza (the majority there are children) ever did anything indicating consent including voting. Gaza is not a prison, because prisons house people accused and convicted of crimes, not newborn babies and random civilians whose sin is their ethnicity. That is, like the US Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 19th and early 20th century, a *concentration camp.* It is punishment enough to be stuck there without any charges brought against you. But in this case, the wardens have decided to starve the captives, deprive them of food, fuel needed to power the last of the functioning hospitals (12 out of 35 hospitals have stopped functioning, and the 23 barely functional ones left are filled beyond capacity according to Doctors Without Borders and other sources . Rather than going on, I am posting 2 videos below. The first is the 15 minute interview with Amnesty International reserarcher, Budour Hassan, followed by a much shorter but very informative video by  a human rights lawyer from the region, Noura Ekarat. Hopefully, these fill in a much needed gap of humane and factual reporting on these things  in MSM.

Below is a video in which human rights lawyer , Noura Erakat, indicts mainstream media for failing to report the many credible findings of human rights and international law organizations that have documented evidence for both genocidal intent and action on the part of Israel's government in its response to the Hamas attacks of 10/7/23. In about 3 minute she summarizes some of the main genocidal war crimes that have simply been ignored by mainstream media. In a future post, I plan to discuss the deliberate and systematic jailing and silencing of Palestinians (including Israeli citizens) in a crackdown and chilling intimidation campaign designed to sideline their voices in the coverage of unfolding events. But for now, this 3 minute video is an important one for those who have only seen MSM and US/UK accounts of the Israeli prosecution of this war.

Analysis of rocket fire and hospital explosion

The NYT published a detailed analysis of what might have happened at the hospital in Gaza. The NYT concludes (full article not behind paywall) that both the competing Palestinian and Israeli versions of events are possible:

The footage has become a widely cited piece of evidence as Israeli and American officials have made the case that an errant Palestinian rocket malfunctioned in the sky, fell to the ground and caused a deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City.

But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times concludes that the video clip — taken from an Al Jazeera television camera livestreaming on the night of Oct. 17 — shows something else. The missile seen in the video is most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital. It actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away, The Times found, and is an unrelated aspect of the fighting that unfolded over the Israeli-Gaza border that night.

The Times’s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab hospital blast, or who is responsible. The contention by Israeli and American intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian rocket launch is to blame remains plausible. But the Times analysis does cast doubt on one of the most-publicized pieces of evidence that Israeli officials have used to make their case and complicates the straightforward narrative they have put forth.

The footage also suggests that Israeli bombardment was taking place and that two explosions near the hospital can be seen within two minutes of it being struck. Maj. Nir Dinar, an Israeli military spokesman, told The Times that military forces were not striking “within a range that endangered the hospital,” but declined to say how far away the nearest strike was.

The death toll, initially put at 500 by Hamas and then lowered to 471, is believed by Western intelligence agencies to be considerably lower — but no number has been verified. The hospital itself was not directly struck; whatever caused the explosion actually hit the hospital courtyard, where people had gathered for safety, and a handful of parked cars.

Moreover, the crater left from the impact was relatively small, a fact that Israel has cited in arguing that none of its munitions caused the blast, and could be consistent with a number of different munitions. Hamas has not produced a remnant of an Israeli munition or any physical evidence to back up its claim that Israel is responsible.

Asked about The Times’s findings, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said The Times and American intelligence agencies had different interpretations of the video.

Israel has fired more than 8,000 munitions into Gaza, in what has become a brutal assault, and had even hit the Al-Ahli Arab hospital with an illumination artillery shell three days earlier, according to video evidence and the hospital’s official Facebook page.

Numerous media outlets have shown the video footage and several have cited it as evidence that a Palestinian rocket hit the hospital.

But The Times concluded that the missile in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli-Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital.

To trace the object in the sky back to Israeli territory, The Times synchronized the Al Jazeera footage with five other videos filmed at the same time, including footage from an Israeli television station, Channel 12, and a CCTV camera in Tel Aviv. These different videos provided a view of the missile from north, south, east and west. Using satellite imagery to triangulate the launch point in those videos, The Times determined that the projectile was fired toward Gaza from near the Israeli town of Nahal Oz shortly before the deadly hospital blast. The findings match the conclusion reached by some online researchers.  

In addition, the videos show that the projectile in the Al Jazeera footage was launched after the barrage of Palestinian rockets Israeli officials assessed was responsible for the hospital explosion.

History bit: Abraham Lincoln's pragmatism & compromise

History doesn't repeat exactly because it can't, but one can see innate human traits causing recurring similar events arising from similar circumstances and reasons. 

A recent Throughline broadcast on NPR, The Contradictions of Abraham Lincoln, discussed how Lincoln dealt with the low priority native American Indian issue while trying to save the Union from dissolution over the critically high priority slavery issue. This is discussed at ~24:00-27:50 of the broadcast.

The comments that Cheyenne Indian chief Lean Bear made to Lincoln (26:36-27:10), and how he died (27:05-27:17) sound a lot like the hopeless situation in the intractable Palestine-Israel conflict. We all know how it ended for the American Indians. At ~30:05-31:25 the broadcast noted that Lincoln said he wanted peace with the Indians but a father (Lincoln himself) could not always control what his children (White settlers) wanted to do. What the children wanted to do, and did, was settle on Indian land and push the Indians out. Lincoln sacrificed American Indians to save the Union.

If history is going to rhyme here, it looks a lot like about the same ending for the Palestinians is imminent. 

 

Throughline describes the broadcast like this: 

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to his best friend, Joshua Speed. Speed was from a wealthy, slave-owning Kentucky family; Lincoln believed slavery was wrong. You are mistaken about this, Lincoln wrote to Speed. But, differ we must."

One way for Lincoln to have dealt with his best friend, I suppose, would be to say you're a horrible person, you're morally wrong, and I shun you," says NPR's Steve Inskeep. "Lincoln did not take that approach, which I think might be a little controversial today."

You might know Steve primarily for hosting NPR's Morning Edition. He also writes histories, and his newest book, "Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America," takes a long hard look at Lincoln the politician: the man who went out of his way to build political consensus, even with people whose views he considered noxious. It's a case for why we should collaborate, and yes, compromise with people across the aisle – not because it's nice or the right thing to do, but because it makes our government work.

News bits: Drug company spending patterns; Global warming update; Etc.

A WaPo article from 2015 commented on how drug companies spend their money to make more money:

Prescription drugs are a massive market: Americans spent $329.2 billion on prescription drugs in 2013. That works out to about $1,000 per person in the U.S., as John Oliver pointed out in his show on Sunday night. Oliver also mentioned that nine out of 10 big pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than on research.

 

A 2017 NYT article commented about research showing that drug companies’ heavy reliance on stock buybacks hurt corporate performance over time:

Under fire for skyrocketing drug prices, pharmaceutical companies often offer this response: The high costs of their products are justified because the proceeds generate money for crucial research on new cures and treatments. It’s a compelling argument, but only partly true. As a revealing new academic study shows, big pharmaceutical companies have spent more on share buybacks and dividends in a recent 10-year period than they did on research and development.

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A Nature paper, Unavoidable future increase in West Antarctic ice-shelf melting over the twenty-first century, reports an analysis that projects the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will inevitably collapse, causing a ~5 meter increase is sea level. That is ~16.4 ft. The researchers' data and analysis indicate that it is probably too late to prevent the collapse, no matter what governments actually manage to do about carbon dioxide emissions.

Qs: How much might that sea level rise cost us? $15 trillion? How much will that cost Exxon-Mobil and other pro-pollution, anti-global warming regulation businesses? Not nearly enough.  

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Israel war: Truthout reports:

The Israeli military has launched one of its most violent attacks on the Gaza Strip since its latest bombing campaign began two weeks ago, further devastating the occupied territory as its overwhelmed healthcare system and humanitarian services teeter on the brink of collapse.

Over just the past 24 hours, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 400 people in Gaza, bringing the enclave’s total death toll since October 7 to more than 4,500. Israeli bombs reportedly hit Gaza’s largest refugee camp on Sunday, killing dozens.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry said Israel also struck “residential apartments in the town of Khan Younis and the Nuseirat refugee camp, both of which are south of the evacuation line,” The Associated Press reported.

But according to The New York Times, the Biden administration is “not making a demand of Israel and still supports the ground invasion.”

On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden joined the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom in issuing a joint statement reiterating their “support for Israel and its right to defend itself” and calling for “adherence to international humanitarian law,” which Israel has been accused of violating repeatedly with its indiscriminate airstrikes and blockade.

The Western leaders’ joint statement said they are “committed to continue close diplomatic coordination, including with key partners in the region, to prevent the conflict from spreading, preserve stability in the Middle East, and work toward a political solution and durable peace,” but they did not call for a cease-fire.

So, Israel bombs places that Palestinians were told would be safe. Israel withholds humanitarian aid, including drinking water. Both are war crimes under International Humanitarian Law. The US seems to be complicit. We don't even ask politely for a cease-fire, at least not in public. Instead the US and other nations feebly call for adherence to international humanitarian law while Israel ignores it. 

A reasonable estimate? If Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis, Israel is probably going for a Palestinian body count of at least 12,000 to satisfy its lust for revenge. One can only wonder what the ratio of non-combatant civilians to Hamas fighters is in the Palestinian body count, maybe 10:1?

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From the Babbling Dictator Files: Trump has gone fully insane:

He says he was never indicted: “We did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “This is all Biden’s stuff … I was never indicted. You practically never heard the word.”

The stable genius thinks deep thoughts: Trump also remarked that “U.S.” and “us” are spelled the same and noted that he’d “just picked that up.” “Has anyone ever thought of that before?” he asked the crowd. “Couple of days, I’m reading, and it said ‘us.’ and I said, you know, when you think about it, us equals U.S. Now if we say something genius, they will never say it.”