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Mike 03

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This post overlooks something very obvious.

Trump is surrounded by people who are none of these things, who have found someone highly susceptible to influence and easily manipulated at a time when both the interests of Trump and the interests of far right powers within the Republican party have come into perfect alignment. Authoritarianistic aims is the only hope of survival for these people, so expect them to execute authoritarian policies.

When two such entities find their goals in alignment, it is a moot point how "bored" or stupid Trump is. John Yoo isn't stupid. William Barr isn't stupid. Stephen Miller has totalitarian aims, and so do many of Trump's most prolific donors. It is a movement with tremendous money and evil ingenuity behind it.

In my opinion, people downplay the significance of what is unfolding at tremendous risk.

Listen to people like Timothy Snyder.

Check out this NYT piece:

American Catastrophe Through German Eyes

Trump says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, Hitler issued his ‘Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/opinion/trump-germany.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Posted by Mike 03 | Sat Jul 25, 2020, 06:59 AM (1 replies)

American Catastrophe Through German Eyes (NYT Opinion)

New York Times
By Roger Cohen
Opinion Columnist
July 24, 2020

Trump says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, Hitler issued his ‘Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.’

PARIS — No people has found the American lurch toward authoritarianism under President Trump more alarming than the Germans. For postwar Germany, the United States was savior, protector and liberal democratic model. Now, Germans, in shock, speak of the “American catastrophe.”

A recent cover of the weekly magazine Der Spiegel portrays Trump in the Oval Office holding a lighted match, with a country ablaze visible through his window. The headline: “Der Feuerteufel,” or, literally, “the Fire Devil.”

Germans have a particular relationship to fire. The Reichstag fire of 1933 enabled Hitler and the Nazis to scrap the fragile Weimar democracy that had brought them to power. Hitler’s murderous fantasies could now become reality. War, Auschwitz and the German catastrophe followed.

I have known many thoughtful German diplomats over the years, including Michael Steiner, who labored to stop the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and Wolfgang Ischinger, the former German ambassador to the United States. It always seemed to me that their particular passion for freedom, democracy and openness stemmed from the knowledge of how easily these are lost.

Posted by Mike 03 | Sat Jul 25, 2020, 06:54 AM (0 replies)

Here's a link to the Michelle Goldberg/Timothy Snyder piece referred to

in this interview:

Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/opinion/portland-protests-trump.html

“This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire,” said Snyder. “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”

Timothy Snyder's book Bloodlands is monumental; I can't recommend it highly enough.

Posted by Mike 03 | Sat Jul 25, 2020, 06:40 AM (1 replies)

Same here. I feel like we're in that moment now where we're going to have to

admit that we can't stop him, and that creates an impasse that's hard to circumvent.

In past crises we at least pretended we knew what to do next. We'd issue a subpoena, file a lawsuit, hold a hearing, ask for an injunction, take something to a federal judge, demand an investigation, write a report. Or, the Senate "could do something" or "might do something", or we can pass a bill and talk about how we passed a bill. Impeach him. (And we did the right thing).

It's like Mary Trump writes at the closing of one of the chapters in her book: He always gets away it.

We have the federal troop situation, and we also have a legal test coming where John Yoo is going to help Trump rule by decree. We have a president flouting that he's ignoring transgressions by Russia against our troops, our country and our election.

And I think it's getting harder to believe there is any way to stop it. Yesterday I listened to Senator Merkley trying to explain what we could do about the federal police coming into our cities, but in truth, he ended up explaining why we actually couldn't do anything except write letters, make inquiries of DHS and the Border Patrol, and pass bills that the Senate won't take up.

Lastly, what on earth will Trump do to screw up the election? John Yoo believes he can have unlimited power now following the DACA decision by the SCOTUS.

I hate to sound pessimistic, because I'm usually optimistic, but we're hitting an impediment now that will take real ingenuity, creativity and some great legal minds to smash to pieces.

Posted by Mike 03 | Thu Jul 23, 2020, 02:18 PM (2 replies)

Kicking for visibility.

I hope you get an answer. This question has been on my mind for the past few days. What if the president/prime minister of a nation doesn't request or want it?

Living prior presidents plus the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, plus Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? Or would we request intervention from some allied countries, who would request it on our behalf?

Posted by Mike 03 | Thu Jul 23, 2020, 01:24 PM (0 replies)

Good deal! But I thought all or nearly all of the Virginia Giuffre

civil lawsuit documents had been released. Maybe we'll finally see the complete depositions. One thing that was missing from the last dump were large sections of the depositions.

In any event, this should be interesting. Let's see if Dershowitz or any other politicians try to block it (again).

Posted by Mike 03 | Thu Jul 23, 2020, 12:02 PM (0 replies)

You know, I'd bet anything these goons are staying at Trump hotels and

properties, if there are such properties in the areas they are being deployed. Maybe that would be one possible way to track them down to get some identification or a fix on who they are, or catch them doing something embarrassing while off duty at the local bar. They have to park somewhere at night, and it would be tragic beyond comprehension if their tires were slashed or something of that nature. So don't do that!

Posted by Mike 03 | Thu Jul 23, 2020, 09:29 AM (0 replies)

Mike Bloomberg sets out to help flip three senate seats, help Biden win Florida, and more (NYT)

Bloomberg’s Gun Control Group Pours $15 Million Into Races in 8 States
The New York Times
By Reid J. Epstein
July 23, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ET

The group, Everytown for Gun Safety, hopes to help Democrats flip three Senate seats, win control of state legislatures and lift Joe Biden to victory in Florida.

Michael R. Bloomberg’s gun control organization will focus its political advertising spending this fall on eight states where it aims to help Democrats flip three Senate seats, wrest control of state legislatures and lift former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to victory in Florida.

The group, Everytown for Gun Safety, is making an initial $15 million investment in digital advertising in the states, an opening outlay of the $60 million it has pledged to spend during the 2020 campaign.

It includes $5 million earmarked for Florida, the lone state where Everytown plans on advertising in the presidential contest; $3.5 million in Texas, where the group is targeting six House races; and $1 million to $1.5 million in Arizona, Iowa and North Carolina — three states where it will advertise in Senate races — as well as in Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

The group also plans an initial $500,000 investment in Georgia, where, in addition to the state legislative contests, the group will advertise on behalf of Representative Lucy McBath, a suburban Atlanta Democrat who used to work as an Everytown spokeswoman.

Posted by Mike 03 | Thu Jul 23, 2020, 07:22 AM (35 replies)

Companies, institutions and individuals with power who are immune from being

sued are free to take extraordinary risks with other people's lives and to profit by unethical conduct with zero consequences.

Posted by Mike 03 | Wed Jul 22, 2020, 04:21 PM (0 replies)

Just reading about the aftermath of Kent State

Fascinating, and eerie echoes.

Just five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., against the war and the killing of unarmed student protesters. Ray Price, Nixon's chief speechwriter from 1969 to 1974, recalled the Washington demonstrations saying, "The city was an armed camp. The mobs were smashing windows, slashing tires, dragging parked cars into intersections, even throwing bedsprings off overpasses into the traffic down below. This was the quote, student protest. That's not student protest, that's civil war."[10] Not only was the President taken to Camp David for two days for his own protection, but Charles Colson (Counsel to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973) stated that the military was called up to protect the Nixon Administration from the angry students; he recalled that: "The 82nd Airborne was in the basement of the executive office building, so I went down just to talk to some of the guys and walk among them, and they're lying on the floor leaning on their packs and their helmets and their cartridge belts and their rifles cocked and you're thinking, 'This can't be the United States of America. This is not the greatest free democracy in the world. This is a nation at war with itself.'"[10]

President Nixon and his administration's public reaction to the shootings was perceived by many in the anti-war movement as callous. Then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger said the President was "pretending indifference". Stanley Karnow noted in his Vietnam: A History that: "The [Nixon] administration initially reacted to this event with wanton insensitivity. Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, whose statements were carefully programmed, referred to the deaths as a reminder that 'when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy.'" Three days before the shootings, Nixon had talked of "bums" who were antiwar protestors on United States campuses,[49] to which the father of Allison Krause stated on national TV: "My child was not a bum."[50]

There's a lot more just about the aftermath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Aftermath_and_long-term_effects

Posted by Mike 03 | Wed Jul 22, 2020, 01:11 PM (0 replies)

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