Mike 03
Mike 03's JournalI'm having trouble keeping up too.
One group of Trump attorneys can't resign fast enough, and the other one or two are all over the media saying Trump has won Pennsylvania and has 400 electoral votes, and if you just don't count urban votes Trump won in a landslide.
It's Crazytown.
We have an enormous problem.
It deserves more space than is possible in a post.
I couldn't possibly agree more with that statement.
Europe is facing a similar crisis. We should see how, or even if, they can beat back the proponents of autocratic systems in nations like Hungary, Poland, Moldova, Georgia and Russia. Even in nations that have managed to preserve Democracy, they face the rising popularity of far right parties and factions (Germany is one example). Italy had a crisis with Matteo Salvini.
The Dictator Playbook is ancient, but it still works. How is it even possible that those old tricks still work on modern people? How gullible and uneducated have we become?
For most of us it seems like a no-brainer: Human beings should naturally prefer Democracy to autocratic forms of government, but it's simply no longer the case.
I've learned from reading the book Unholy by Sarah Posner that the Alt Right and the Christian Nationalists have found common ground, and part of that common ground is a growing rejection of Democracy. It's also global, with Christian Nationalism drawing succor (and outrageous financing) from allies in both Eastern and Western Europe. Russia figures into this crisis too.
IMHO, this issue of protecting Democracy and Global Warming are the two issues of our time.
I want to know more about this person: Trent Benishek
White House attorney dispatched to agency blocking Biden transitionThe agency, which oversees government leases among other administrative tasks, is little known to the general public. Nor is Benishek’s name among those that have become a staple of Trumpworld reporting.
Accordingly, the move attracted no notice as the nation, and the world, focused on the Nov. 3 presidential election, perhaps the most consequential in modern American history.
GSA put out a press release, which said that as the new general counsel of the GSA, as well as its top ethics official, Benishek would “advise in the formulation and promulgation of GSA policies and regulations, oversee the agency’s litigation, and provide overall direction.”
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/white-house-attorney-dispatched-to-agency-blocking-biden-transition-173301811.html
In NO WAY am I letting Emily Murphy off the hook. She is a coward and should resign. But I definitely want to know more about this White House attorney.
We might not be able to prevent it, but we should try to reverse it, and
the legal theory should be that the actions being taken now are in bad faith, efforts to sabotage the incoming administration, including but not limited to:
Lame duck judicial appointments
Trump stuffing "moles" into various agencies
Any removals of people Biden/Harris wish to keep
Any Executive Orders
Miscellaneous cruel and despicable idiocy, like sticking a Holocaust Denier on whatever panel that was yesterday, a panel of historians or Jewish people, or a panel to investigate Nazi history (?) (Sorry, I can't recall what the purpose of that panel is).
And protections for civil servants should be no excuse.
Really, everything Trump is doing now is simply inexcusable and self-evidently "in bad faith."
I'm siding with the people calling her a coward and saying she should quit. But there's
something else, from November 10. There's another person involved in this unholy alliance whose role needs to be ascertained:
White House attorney dispatched to agency blocking Biden transition
The agency, which oversees government leases among other administrative tasks, is little known to the general public. Nor is Benishek’s name among those that have become a staple of Trumpworld reporting.
Accordingly, the move attracted no notice as the nation, and the world, focused on the Nov. 3 presidential election, perhaps the most consequential in modern American history.
GSA put out a press release, which said that as the new general counsel of the GSA, as well as its top ethics official, Benishek would “advise in the formulation and promulgation of GSA policies and regulations, oversee the agency’s litigation, and provide overall direction.”
https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-attorney-dispatched-to-agency-blocking-biden-transition-173301811.html
We get that. The people saying Trump should be punished aren't saying
Biden should go after him.
It would be up to SDNY and the AG. Trump can and should be investigated for breaking laws by the oversight mechanisms already in place (once they are repaired, after being broken and destroyed by Trump).
It is also up to the FBI and Intelligence agencies, if they have cause to believe they need to open counterintelligence investigations (or, worse, counterespionage investigations) into Trump, if they have not already (and Peter Strzok's book gives me reason to believe they may have--at the very least they absolutely considered it).
JFC
It's making me nervous that Trump is in his bunker. He has nothing but time to
"set fires that Joe Biden can't put out" (as he told CNN). I wish he would golf and go to Mar-a-Lago, or else at the very least lose his balance, trip over the carpet, crack his head open on the Resolute Desk, fall into a coma and settle into a permanent vegetative state. I guess that's asking a lot.
Kick, Rec and Bookmarked
When we're taking account of the heroes of the last four years, we can't forget this incredible and remarkably courageous psychiatrist. Dr. Lee faced enormous backlash early on for issuing warnings that Donald Trump was unstable and potentially cataclysmic for our country. The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2nd edition) is still, IMO, one of the four or five most important books to come out about this administration.
She wasn't alone, but she was the first or nearly the first.
I'm not the first person to say this, but...
No matter how good the Constitution is, it doesn't work when people of malign intent and bad faith get into political positions of power. When that happens, Constitutions, amendments and laws are just marks on a piece of paper.
And you've probably noticed, this is also happening in Hungary, Poland, and other nations as well.
So maybe we can learn a few tricks from the EU if they can figure out how you tackle a situation like this when the truth simply has no meaning.
+1
And that playbook is probably thousands of years old.
The only thing shocking about it is that it still works on so many people.
Well, in 2016 Trump did say, "I love the poorly educated!" And it's obvious why.
*Sigh*
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Gender: MaleHometown: Modesto California
Home country: United States
Current location: Arizona
Member since: Mon Oct 27, 2008, 06:14 PM
Number of posts: 16,616
