Will Donald Trump and his enablers be able to accomplish the demolition of democracy in this country if he is permitted to resume his rule following the election coming in November of this year? Many of them certainly hope so. I, for one, do not.
So far, Trump is succeeding in steamrolling through an incredibly lame(intentionally?) primary field setting himself up for an easy trip to the GOP Presidential nomination for the third straight time. He also seems to be successfully delaying prosecution for an unprecedented 91 counts in 4 felony cases in an attempt to avoid facing accountability for his actions since losing the 2020 election to President Biden.
We need to make sure he fails in this attempt and that those elected officials who continue to assist in his efforts – often by making sure that Congress exceeds all expectations when it comes to inability to perform its Constitutional duties – similarly fail to retain their elected offices. Trump losing without the additional election of people seeking to strengthen our democracy rather than destroy it will not be sufficient. The fact that Trump is still in position to try once again to accomplish his nefarious goals after his failures in 2020 proves this.
Check out the link to an excellent document dealing with this topic below:
How an authoritarian president will dismantle our democracy and what we can do to protect it
Below is a link to the speech delivered by President Biden on January 5, 2024 – a day before the third anniversary of Donald Trump’s infamous rally that led to the bloody insurrection on his behalf at the Capitol in Washington, DC. Joe Biden is running for re-election this November. This was his speech to kickoff his campaign.
Donald Trump is running to gain the Republican Party nomination to run against the Democratic nominee (most likely Biden). At this point, nobody is even approaching Trump’s level of support in polls of announced candidates for the Republican nomination. Based on Trump’s refusal to participate in any debates with other Republicans and their steadfast refusal to in any way denounce him publicly for anything he has said or done (with the exception of Chris Christie, who has made little headway thus far) he remains the odd-on favorite to runaway with the nomination.
Donald Trump is not running for the position of President of the United States of America, except to use it as a stepping stone for his lifelong dream of becoming the Greatest Dictator the world has ever known. His words and deeds before his election in 2016, leading up to his term in office and his two impeachments, and continuing since his loss to Biden and his
Biden’s speech points out the dangers America faces if Trump is again allowed to occupy the White House. Listening to Trump’s own words and reading his social media rants make plain to anyone paying attention what he intends to do if he regains power. His path seems hellbent on destroying democracy in this country, the Republican Party as a whole or both. Since the Republican Party seems unwilling or unable to reign in his impulses, the rest of us will have to do so – in the November election or the courtrooms waiting to serve him justice.
Trump needs to be kept company in defeat this November by so-called GOP Congressional leaders and legislators at both federal and state levels who are doing a really piss-poor job of representing the needs and desires of those they pretend to represent in their elected offices. This past year’s boondoggle of a do-nothing Congress – especially the GOP House, which can’t even decide who should be Speaker let alone pass a budget – is a case in point.
Source: Transcript: Biden’s first campaign speech of the 2024 election year | AP News
Below is a link to a transcript of the speech Donald Trump made at a rally just prior to the riot that took place on January 6, 2021, delaying for hours the certification of the vote of the Electoral College following the election held in November 2020 and leading to the inauguration of Joe Biden as President of the United States of America on January 20, 2021. A second impeachment of Trump resulted. Like the first impeachment, this failed to achieve the 2/3 vote in the Senate required for conviction.
Read the words spoken by Trump and decide for yourself if you think he was guilty of inciting the ensuing violence perpetrated by his supporters in the Capitol. It leaves little doubt in the minds of most that not only did the speech incite the riot, but his intentional delaying taking any action whatsoever to halt the violence are direct evidence that Trump was, indeed, a major participant in an insurrection aimed at preventing a peaceful transition between his Administration and that of his successor after the outcome of a legitimate election.
Trump has never publicly stated that he could be defeated in an election unless it was rigged against him. He lost to Clinton in the popular vote by millions. He likely would have attempted some sort of coup had he not prevailed in the Electoral College. He lost the popular vote to Biden by even more than he did to Clinton and this was the result. If he runs this November and loses again, is there any doubt he wouldn’t go even further in his attempt to regain the White House? Four separate indictments with 91 charges (so far), endless court challenges of voter and/or election fraud following the 2020 election suggest he would stop at nothing to regain power.
The constant attempt by Trump and his lawyers to postpone any and all trials until after he actually wins an election and can make most of them disappear by pardoning himself or get the Supreme Court to declare him immune to prosecution indicates to me that he knows he would lose in a fair trial. I don’t care whether his name is on the ballot in my state. He should be ruled ineligible to hold office in this country because of his violating his oath and the US Constitution, in addition to the laws under which he has already been indicted. We deserve better.
Source: Transcript Of Trump’s Speech At Rally Before Capitol Riot : NPR
Below find a link to an essay posted to TomDispatch.com, an excellent source of progressive fact-based opinion. The November American Presidential and Congressional elections are becoming increasingly important for the future conduct of government and the way in which all people in this country are treated in our everyday lives.
Donald Trump was elected President and took office after the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by millions of votes due to the Constitutionally mandated tally of the electoral college. No riots ensued on the part of those who voted for Clinton – nor did she seek to incite her followers to take over the Capitol in order to overthrow the duly elected Trump.
Trump conducted himself in such a manner as to undergo an unprecedented two impeachment trials. He escaped conviction in the Senate and removal from office because there were insufficient GOP Senators willing to publicly vote against him either time. The American people were not so kind when it came to dealing with his anti-democratic antics when he ran against Joe Biden in the 2020 election – which he lost by even more millions of popular votes as well as the electoral college.
The ensuing attempt to use mass violence to prevent Trump’s replacement in office by Biden (very obviously incited by Trump in his rally speech just prior to the official tabulation of the Electoral vote and certification of the results by Congress) resulted in the now infamous deadly riot of January 6, 2021. To this day, the man refuses to acknowledge that he lost that election, despite the failure of each and every claim of election and/or voter fraud in every state he challenged in court. He lost fair and square. That he has managed to maintain an angry minority of believers in anything and everything the man proclaims makes him a remarkable individual – as well as an extremely dangerous one to anyone who dares to oppose him or tries to force him to be made accountable for his heinous crimes.
Far from ensuring an end to his dictatorial aspirations (or at least his ability to wreak havoc detrimental to the health and well-being of most of those he seeks to rule over), his defeat in 2024 is an essential to regaining or attaining political equality and democracy for all of us. He must also face the music in terms of trials to determine if he is, in fact, guilty in the 4 sets of 91 criminal charges made against him at both the state level (Georgia) and federal level (bribing Stormy Daniels, stealing and keeping government classified materials illegally after leaving office and instigating the insurrection of January 6th). He also needs to be forced to deal with the numerous civil lawsuits he faces for rape and business fraud.
Trump’s legal stalling tactics in terms of trying to hold off punishment for his misdeeds in hopes of allowing him to remain a free man until he wins next November so that he may then avoid the fate which befalls others guilty of the charges he is accused of and more fully develop his fascist dictatorial ways must also be halted. The man badly needs to never again reside in the White House or wield the political power of the Presidency of the United States of America. An example must be made of him to help ensure that such behavior will be sternly dealt with against any other budding Hitler wannabees in the future.
Trump will not be easily defeated, but so must be all of the sniveling enablers of his conduct currently employed in any and all positions in government. Enough is enough. That point was met in 2021 and is currently being exceeded on a nearly daily basis by Trump posts on Truth Social (the name itself is a huge oxymoron when judged against what it is actually used for) and rants in his speeches on the campaign trail. Which leads to further discussion of the joke (not a funny one) that the GOP primary “campaign” has become. But I’ll deal with that soon in another post. – rjc
On February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. It initiated a Department of Defense program that resulted in the rounding up and incarceration
Source: Make America Fascist Again (MAFA!) – TomDispatch.com
For those who missed President Biden’s Oval Office speech concerning Israel, Gaza and Ukraine, find a link below. For some strange reason, he neglected to post it on Truth Social. – rjc
Source: Video: President Biden’s full speech to the nation on Israel and Ukraine | CNN Politics
As someone who recently became eligible for Medicare, and as we are all soon to be inundated by television ads concerning Medicare Advantage (open enrollment for which ends, for some ironic reason I find unfathomable, on December 7th), I thought some might find the linked material helpful. – rjc
The Medicare Rights Center is proud to announce the release of a new policy series to help individuals better understand Medicare Advantage and its role within the Medicare system.
Speech given by Frederick Douglass on July 4,1852 – when slavery was still in place in this country. It took more than another decade to end the practice. Ramifications of this horrid state of affairs are still being felt to this day. Lest we forget that millions of people were not seen as equal under the law on July 4, 1776. – rjc
Inspirational speech by President John F. Kennedy just months before his assassination. Has any President equaled it before or since? Please read it and you be the judge. – rjc
What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.
Source: Full Transcript: President Kennedy’s Peace Speech (June 10, 1963)
Much has been discussed of late concerning the possibility of Donald Trump winning the Republican Party’s nomination for the 2024 Presidential election and subsequently winning that election despite facing more than a few extremely serious criminal indictments. The charges range in scope from hush money payments prior to the 2016 election, to election interference when he refused to admit publicly that he had lost the 2020 election, culminating in the riot on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. and then to absconding to his Mar-a-Lago lair with hundreds of classified documents and fighting tooth and nail against ever returning them to their proper place in the National Archives.
It is essential that any further forthcoming indictments are introduced as expeditiously as possible. It is also important that the legal proceedings be conducted with a minimum of interruptions created by a seemingly endless series of delays created by foot-dragging motions submitted by the Trump defense team in an effort to make sure any convictions cannot occur prior to the election or at least prior to the end of the primary election season leading up to the GOP nominating convention. Incentive for such an attempt is the fact that there is nothing in the US Constitution to prevent someone from running for President or being sworn into office should they win – regardless of whether they may have been charged and even convicted of crimes in a court of law.
Most of the noise coming from Trump since his two recent arraignments has taken the form of rants (either by way of televised speeches, interviews or postings to his own Truth Social social media platform created in the wake of being banned from Twitter). The gist has been that he is the victim of the worst witch hunt in the history of the nation, that he is being wrongfully hounded by a politicized Department of Justice and has done absolutely nothing wrong. Many of the claims he has made are contradictory. Many others are seen by legal analysts as actual admissions of guilt – or at least utterly incompetent interpretations of the laws he has been charged with violating.
At this point, some former members of his administration have come forth with damning criticisms of Trump’s conduct – largely with regard to the charges related to his taking of classified documents and obstructing their return to DC. The most important of these former officials is one of his Attorneys General – William Barr, who even went so far as to say that, if the indictments are accurate, Trump is “toast” if the case goes to trial. At least two of the other contenders for the GOP nomination – former governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas – have also criticized Trump’s conduct publicly. Few other Republican have done likewise so far.
Two other major investigations have not yet resulted in indictments of the former President. The Georgia investigation of potentially wrongful election interference in that state prior to the vote of the electoral college could be preparing to indict him in the not-too-distant future. The investigation of the insurrection that occurred on January 6, 2021 in and around the Capitol has resulted in numerous convictions and incarcerations of participants in the physical violence resulting from a rabble-rousing speech earlier that day by Donald Trump, but nothing so far about his personal role in inciting the violence and the attempt to overrule the vote of the people and retaining Trump for (at least) another four years.
The Committee that held hearings and made recommendations to the Department of Justice as to what should come about as a result of the testimony (much of which was televised nationally). While all of the other indictments, and the civil case won recently by E. Jean Carroll based on sexual assault and defamation, are important and should be enough to convince any reasonable human being to vote against giving Trump another four years in office – let alone end all the prosecutions and grant himself a pardon for all the federal crimes he may be guilty of – the events of January 6, 2021 cry out for closure. Convicting and jailing the lower-level participants while ignoring those who helped encourage them to participate, without even trying to end the violence for hours on end, is an unacceptable miscarriage of justice.
I find it amazing that the RNC is demanding that anyone who wants to be on the debate stage for candidates for its Presidential nomination sign a piece of paper that guarantees they will support whoever wins the nomination in the general election. I would not sign such a document. I would not vote for anyone who would do so – even if one of the possibilities for that winner was more despicable than Donald Trump. A typical Trump response to this would be that he would refuse to agree to this provision and not participate in the debate. He is, after all, ahead of his closest rival in the recent polls by double digits.
Mr. Trump whines that the Department of Justice has been politicized to persecute him, not prosecute him. His enablers in Congress, such as Jim Jordan (Chair of the House subcommittee on weaponization of government departments), echo his sentiments wholeheartedly. They don’t even question the hypocrisy of Trump using his next rant to promise that he will use HIS Department of Justice to select a special prosecutor to railroad (by then ex-) President Biden with a witch hunt of his own.
January 6th, 2021 was the event which should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that Donald Trump does not deserve another opportunity to turn this country from a democracy (however imperfect it may be) into his own fiefdom. If nobody is above the law and everybody is subject to it, Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his actions just like the rest of us. I figure he can probably be convicted of at least 50 felonies that have been charged so far. That doesn’t even touch Trump’s actions of trying to rig the election in Georgia and other states and letting his followers chant “Hang Mike Pence” incessantly because he wouldn’t violate his oath of office by re-installing loser of the election in office.
Hopefully, enough convictions occur before the GOP nominee has been chosen and enough MAGA voters open their eyes and vote for someone else. But none of the alternatives inspire confidence that they would be fit for the office. Public pressure will no doubt need to be brought to bear in order for trials to be concluded in a timely manner. This crop of GOP candidates is worse than even the 2016 bunch the gave Trump smooth sailing to the nomination and eventual electoral victory over Hillary Clinton. We must not allow Trump access to the White House ever again. He has already proven that he will openly abuse the power even more than he did the last time. We don’t need a coup and we certainly don’t deserve to be ruled by an authoritarian dictator.
Further Suggested Readings:
‘Disturbing’: 12 Million US Adults Think Violence Is Justified to Put Trump Back in White House
‘Very, Very Damning’: Former AG Barr Says Trump Indictment Not a Witch Hunt
Opinion | Indictments will not save us from the Trump threat
What is the Endgame for a Party of Violence?
Trump Rejected Lawyers’ Efforts to Cooperate With DOJ to Avoid Indictment
The View’s Alyssa Farah Griffin calls out fatal flaw in Trump’s 2024 GOP challengers
Rep. Eric Swalwell: My GOP colleagues’ reaction to Trump’s indictment is chilling
Trump Wants Apology, Charges Dropped, And Classified Docs Returned
Trump’s plan to turn the Justice Department into his personal vendetta machine
A Trump 2024 presidential victory could wash away any federal charges
With what seems to be ever-increasing frequency and deadliness to the least deserving and most vulnerable among us, mass shootings continue to plague American society. Schools, churches, movie theaters, concerts, grocery stores and shopping malls are just a sampling of venues where such events have occurred in the not-too-distant past. Anyone seeking political solutions to the prevalence of such events at the local, state or national level is met with what also seems like an endless stream of the most inane and ridiculous excuses imaginable for why nothing can be done about the matter.
Somehow, in recent discussions concerning these mass shootings, the NRA has been fairly quiet. Their money still goes into political campaigns, but the organization has had some bad publicity in recent years and is not as publicly boisterous about individual rights to gun ownership as it used to be. Likewise, the gun manufacturers continue to support politicians who back legislation which permits Americans to continue to purchase their products to the point where there are more guns than people in this country, with fewer restrictions on how they may be obtained and legally carried.
The main advocates of improved gun control legislation these days seem to be the victims of the violence – those who have lost friends or family due to the ease of obtaining and using these guns and those who have been survivors of such incidents. The main opponents of trying to curtail the violence are GOP politicians in state legislatures, governors and members of.Congress. The extreme lengths to which most of these people go to avoid doing anything whatsoever (or what is worse – passing legislation that makes it even easier to obtain guns – especially assault weapons such as the AR-15) is utterly amazing and totally contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the voters they are allegedly representing.
One of the best examples of such a counterproductive attitude is Greg Abbott, governor of Texas – one of the states among the worst in the nation regarding when it comes to numbers of people massacred by poorly regulated firearms. In the aftermath of the recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde and a large shopping area in Allen, Abbott mused that guns were not to blame. Instead, he declared that the perpetrators’ mental health issues caused them to murder children and teachers and shoppers. While this may be true, using that as an excuse to do nothing at all to make it more difficult for these individuals to obtain assault and other guns. These murders would not have happened had the assailants NOT had the weapons to begin with. Various attempts at both the state and national government levels to institute universal background checks, red flag laws to weed out people with a history of violent behavior, or total bans on certain types of weapons (military assault style weapons, high capacity magazines, etc..). Further restrictions on gun owners; age and whether they are permitted to practice open or concealed carry, also are neglected with similar excuses along with claims that any such restricts would violate individual rights enumerated under the Second Amendment.
When legislation was passed by Congress banning assault weapons nationwide, such mass murder event were reduced. Unfortunately, this legislation was allowed to sunset due to the fact that the NRA and gun manufactures were able to elect enough anti gun-control representatives and senators to make the ban permanent or at least renew it impossible. Similar legislation instituting other restrictions at state and national levels, usually to no avail or only to be struck down but the courts.
Such rightwing ignoring of popular opinion regarding other issues (most recently regarding the overruling of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision) combined with voter suppression laws and and gerrymandering which are designed to allow unrepresentative election of legislatures and Congress (not to mention the Electoral College victories of George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 despite loosing the popular vote by millions).leave us with a significant number of laws that should result in the future defeat of many elected officials who refuse to abide by the will of the people.
When Roe v. Wade was struck down by SCOTUS, primarily red states began passing legislation that made it almost impossible for a woman to obtain abortion care without leave their state of residence and going to another state with less restrictive laws in place. When given an opportunity to vote on issues important to them, voters have participated in record numbers to strengthen women;s reproductive rights in contradiction of potential or real legislation designed to eliminate them. People are discovering that more and more state and national elected state and national legislative bodies are not representative of them at all. Bottom line – many, mainly conservative red states, are not exemplifying democracy at all, but rather represent special interest groups who want laws that help to strengthen their own power (political and/or economic).
We the people, through peaceful protest, enlightening their “representatives” as to what is important to them or by enthusiastic voter participation to vote out those who refuse to legislate in their interests. It is foolish to pretend that democracy exists when large majorities of the populace are being silenced by corrupt politicians hellbent on ignoring us. The real mental health issues regarding these pro-gun and anti-abortion belong not only to the perpetrators of mass shootings but also to the government elected to represent us who blatantly refuse to listen to their constituents. Make them decide to either listen to us or find another way to earn a living.
Suggested Further Readings:
Texas mall shooting witness: ‘Mental health didn’t fire that gun’
Joe: There is a sickness in Texas and that sickness starts at the top with Greg Abbott
CNN’s Tapper demolishes Greg Abbott’s scapegoating of mental illness for Allen shooting
The Texas mall massacre and the disturbing evolution of America’s mass shootings
Jen Psaki nails Texas politicians as TX Rep Colin Allred provides the empowering gun narrative.
Texas Bill Permitting Poll Workers To Carry Guns Moves Forward
Democrat Gives Emotional Plea For Gun Control: ‘No Place Safe’
Deaths from firearms keep climbing in Texas, decades after lawmakers began weakening gun regulations
Trump suggests arming teachers to deal with school shootings at CNN town
‘Moral Madness’: TX Democrat Nails It In Speech On Gun Violence
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