1. A key constitutional protection for civil liberties and democracy is due process. Due process is one of the most fundamental safeguards against government unfairness, oppression or abuse of citizens and other people in the US. It appears twice in the Constitution as No person shall be .... deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The 5th Amendment applies this fundamental right to the federal government, and the 14th Amendment applies it to the states.
Being anti-democracy and authoritarian, MAGA elites hate due process for most people. Of course they demand it for themselves. The AP reports that djt continues to directly undermine the idea of due process, with an implicit two-tier system, one for the elites and the other for the rest of us: “Trump, in a new interview, says he doesn’t know if he backs due process rights -- Asked in the NBC News interview whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens both deserve due process as laid out in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, Trump was noncommittal. ‘I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,’ Trump said when pressed by [the interviewer].”
Claiming to “not know” if this fundamental right should apply to anyone is more solid evidence of djt’s authoritarian intentions. His claim of ignorance is another insulting lie. He knows it applies. But he just hates it as any other dictator-kleptocrat-liar would.
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2. In another indication that when companies are given unfettered power to do what they want, the outcomes can be bad by blocking competition and innovation. The American Prospect reports about a court decision that took some power from Apple to control its iOS App Store, which usually charges a 30% fee: “Apple’s Monopoly Is Finally Held Accountable -- And within hours of a Wednesday court ruling, innovation on smartphones is exploding, showing private regulation can be more burdensome to markets than democratic rules CEOs like to condemn. There’s been an enormous amount of discussion about what holds back markets in physical commodities like housing and energy, but also what prevents innovation and invention. One argument is that there are too many government-generated rules and regulations that slow everything down. Another is that the absence of government structuring leads to private regulations, imposed by dominant firms on their own terms to often exclude rivals and extract money. When those private regulations are forced into remission, markets can explode with new products and offers. .... That’s happening right now in real time in the market for mobile phone apps, and particularly the distribution of those apps to customers. It represents the first real, thorough, and permanent consequences to a Big Tech company for monopolizing markets. And literally within 24 hours of a federal court’s Wednesday ruling imposing sanctions for this misconduct, competitors have been rushing into the space in ways that will make the market fairer, more affordable, and more abundant.”
In protecting its monopoly, Apple executives lied to the court and stonewalled discovery demands and compliance with court orders. That bad faith behavior made the judge angry. She wrote: “Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction. Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up.”
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3. In his 2021 book, RFK Jr rejected the germ theory of disease. The theory is that microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi) cause infectious diseases. That is basic mainstream of health science. It is science fact, not theory or opinion. The germ explanation (theory) was first proposed by Athanasius Kircher in 1658, but he could not prove it. The explanation gained mainstream acceptance in health science from empirical evidence generated by Louis Pasteur in the 1860s, and Robert Koch and Joseph Lister between the 1860s and 1880s.
Pasteur's swan-neck flask experiment
This showed that bacteria were present everywhere, and did not generate
spontaneously after they were killed (by heat in these experiments)
ars Technica writes about RFK Jr’s idiotic, crackpot false belief about infectious diseases: “RFK Jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory -- .... Kennedy is the country's top health official, his warped ideas are contributing to the rise of a dystopian reality. Federal health agencies are spiraling into chaos, and critical public health services for Americans have been brutally slashed, dismantled, or knee-capped .... The health of the nation is at stake; the struggle to understand what goes on in Kennedy's head is vital.”
The article points out that acceptance of the germ explanation debunked two alternative theories of infectious disease. One was the miasma theory, which says that infections are caused by miasma, i.e., noxious mists or vapors, or bad air from decaying matter. The other debunked theory was the terrain theory an ill-defined thing that suggests infectious diseases come from imbalances in the internal "terrain" of the body, such as malnutrition or the presence of toxic substances. What the crackpot Kennedy believes is his own personal bastardization of the two incorrect theories. He claims to believe in miasma theory, but he incorrectly describes his hypothesis as something more like terrain theory. He rejects the germ explanation, because it makes trillions of dollars for drugs and vaccines to treat or prevent infections. This idiotic, malicious monster believes in fortifying the immune system to deal with infections.
This is a wonderful example of how mendacious, incompetent, corrupt, authoritarian djt and MAGA elites insult, disrespect and threaten to kill or harm the American people. It is just stupid, morally rotted, corrupt, crackpot MAGA business as usual.
