Democrats should make this an issue in the run-up to the 2022 midterms. While Republicans rail against the utterly fake danger to the United States of undocumented immigrants voting in American elections, Democrats should rail against the real danger to American democracy of foreign money affecting American elections through foreign investments in American corporations.
Source: How Russian Oligarchs, the Saudis, and China Are Swaying American Elections | The Smirking Chimp
If the LNP in Australia continue down the road of the Republican Party a Nope Nope Nope in opposition will they cease to exist?
America will still be America. But it is fast becoming two versions of itself. The open question is: how will the two be civil toward each other?
Source: The second American civil war is already happening | Robert Reich | The Guardian
When it comes to secrets, the size of a city depends not on the number of people inhabiting it but in the velocity with which secrets flow. By this measure, Washington D.C. is one of America’s tiniest villages with a main street running about a block. Every juicy secret will get out. Every hot memorandum will leak. Every intoxicating paper marked “confidential” will leak even faster.
Source: Psst: Wanna Know the Real Reason Washington Leaks? | The Smirking Chimp
Where will all this end? Not with two separate nations. What America is going through is less like a civil war and more like Brexit – a lumbering, mutual decision to go separate ways on most things but remain connected on a few big things (such as national defense, monetary policy, and civil and political rights). We’ll still be America. But we’re becoming two versions of America. The open question is analogous to the one faced by every couple that separates — how will we find ways to be civil toward each other?
Source: The Truth about America’s Second Civil War | The Smirking Chimp
The beginning of May before midterm elections marks the start of primary season and six months of fall campaigning. The conventional view this year is that Democrats will be clobbered in November. Why? Because midterms are usually referendums on a president’s performance, and Biden’s approval ratings are in the cellar.But the conventional view could be wrong because it doesn’t account for the Democrat’s secret sauce, which gives them a fighting chance of keeping one or both chambers: Trump.
Putin must be stopped. Trump must be held accountable. Rightwing politicians who encourage white Christian nationalism must be condemned. Celebrity pundits who fuel racism and xenophobia must be denounced and defunded. Police who kill innocent Black people must be brought to justice. Powerful men who sexually harass or abuse women must be prosecuted. CEOs who treat their employees badly must be exposed and censored. Billionaires who bribe lawmakers to cut their taxes or exempt them from regulations must be penalized, and lawmakers who accept such bribes must be sanctioned. Norms and laws must prevent such brutality. This is what civilization demands. This is why the fight is worth it.
Source: Stopping the Bullies: The Moral Foundation of a Civil Society | The Smirking Chimp
When the history of this horror is written, NATO and Joe Biden will get enormous credit as well. Their steady hands and steadfast strategy appear to be working. Patience, tenacity, and careful use of every tool available to them — short of putting NATO or American troops into Ukraine — is turning the tide. We have no way of knowing how this will turn out (and I continue to fear what a cornered Putin may resort to), but the courage and intelligence of Ukraine, NATO, and Biden deserve our commendation and thanks.
Trump’s indictment and conviction must occur as quickly as possible. The upcoming midterm elections will not simply be a battle between Republicans and Democrats. They will be a battle between Trump acolytes and fair election supporters over protecting the integrity of our elections and our democracy. The sooner Trump is held accountable, the safer American democracy will be.
Source: We’re running out of time to hold Donald Trump accountable | Robert Reich | The Guardian
The Australian LNP is fast becoming a GOP Republican Party franchise. It operates on and with the same attention to the American characteristics. Just as Murdoch media is doing here following in the footsteps of Fox.
They are now intent on the selling of a brand rather than a service. As a service to the Australian public, they are divided and certainly don’t operate as a team and merely try to appeal to us as one every 3 years. In between times they work for the highest bidder on a quid pro quo basis. Their only certainty going forward is to control the election process. How the fuck did the debate last night become a pay-to-view Murdoch/Skye/News Corp event? The LNP need to control the media, the money, and now even the AEC our very electoral process just as the Bannon Trump Republicans are doing in the US. The only upside is that they are destroying their own Party but with it Democracy.
Donald Trump | Election Integrity | Steve Bannon by Robert Reich | April 19, 2022 – 6:11am
Democracy protects the rights of its enemies to its own detriment at times.
Trump’s indictment and conviction must occur as quickly as possible. The upcoming midterm elections won’t simply be a battle between Republicans and Democrats. They will be a battle between Trump acolytes and fair election supporters over protecting the integrity of our elections and our democracy. The sooner Trump is held accountable for his criminality, the safer American democracy will be.
Source: The United States vs. Donald J. Trump — Why It Must Happen Soon | The Smirking Chimp
Working Americans – many of whom voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 – are being shafted. Biden needs to deliver for them now or risk losing Biden
It appears that Vladimir Putin’s aides have misinformed him about the war, fearful of his reaction.
It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called “cancel culture”. Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the Republican party have blasted for several years.
It’s like watching a three-hundred-pound bully beat up a kid half his size, for no reason — bloodying the poor kid, pulverizing him. Yet you don’t dare try to stop the mayhem because the bully has a gun that he’ll use on you if you intervene. You look for police, but there are none.
Source: Helplessness in the Face of Evil | The Smirking Chimp
I used to believe several things about the twenty-first century that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 have shown me are false. I assumed: Nationalism is disappearing. I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions, and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide.
Source: Putin and Trump Have Convinced Me I Was Wrong about the Twenty-first Century | The Smirking Chimp
Given Australia’s L-NP is little more than a carbon copy of GOP policies Putanism is also breeding in their heart. Surveillance of Australians has never been greater than the degree to which it has under Peter Dutton and he wants it increased. He wants politician’s parliamentary privilege extended beyond Parliament to be able to defend and sue defamation cases at will and taxpayers’ expense.
The L-NP wants criticism stifled by putting restrictions in place on social media for individuals, disallowing the ABC and Independent media a source of income but ensuring the corporate MSM has theirs. Basically guaranteeing their quid pro quo relationship is in tact and will continue. Lets face it, Murdoch is currently Putin, the GOP’s and the Australian Liberal Party’s biggest supporter and Murdoch is Putin’s in the West. Fox News is even being dubbed and replayed on Russian State Media.
Make no mistake: Putin’s authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America. It may be possible to prevent Putin’s aggression from spreading to the rest of Europe. But it is not possible to win a cold civil war inside America without destroying the United States – another of Putin’s objectives when he ordered his spy agencies to help Trump.
Source: Putinism is breeding in the heart of the Republican party | Robert Reich | The Guardian
Contrast this with the toadies at the Republican National Committee who in February censured Republican Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for participating in Congress’s select committee investigating the events of January 6, and who called the January 6 attack on the Capitol “legitimate political discourse.” Also contrast Zelensky’s courage with most elected Republicans who still refuse to stand up to Trump. Just yesterday on national television, Senator Tom Cotton refused four times to condemn Trump for calling Putin “smart” and “savvy” and NATO and the US “dumb.”
8. What is Putin really after? Not just keeping Ukraine out of Nato, because Nato itself isn’t Putin’s biggest worry. After all, Hungary and Poland are Nato members but are governed in ways that resemble Russia more than western democracies. Putin’s real fear is liberal democracy, which poses a direct threat to authoritarian “strongmen” like him (just as it did to Donald Trump). Putin wants to keep liberal democracy far away from Russia. Putin’s means of keeping western liberal democracy at bay isn’t just to invade Ukraine, of course. It’s also to stoke division inside the west by fueling racist nationalism in western Europe and the United States. In this, Trump and Trumpism continue to be Putin’s most important ally.
Source: Eight sobering realities about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine | Robert Reich | The Guardian
The Mid Terms will be all about who will be convinced to come out and vote in defiance of all the voter suppression the Republicans are throwing at America
It’s a good day to contemplate whether Joe Biden has a prayer of keeping a Democratic House and Senate next year. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I think he does.
Source: Why Democrats Will Retain Control of the House and Senate next Year | The Smirking Chimp
The Australian L-NP actually believe we should adopt the American model and been working to that end.
I have no illusions this will happen soon. But the road we’re now on is unsustainable — economically, politically, and socially. Eventually, we’re going to have some version of Medicare for All (and hats off to members of Congress who are leading the way, such as Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Debbie Dingel, and Ro Khanna). The question is how much unnecessary cost and hardship must we bear before we do?
The United States presents itself as the beacon of democracy in contrast to the autocracies of China and Russia. Yet American democracy is in danger of succumbing to the same sort of oligarchic economics and racist nationalism that thrive in both these powers.
More inflation buzz today. The U.S. consumer price index for January is expected to have risen 0.5% — culminating in an annual rise of 7.3%, which would be the largest such increase since 1982. Yes, prices are increasing. But would you prefer a recession? As a practical matter, that’s the choice the Fed gives us. When the Fed puts on the brakes, it often pushes the economy into a ditch. A recession will cause far more hardship for many more Americans than inflation is now causing.
Source: Inflation Isn’t the Problem! The Real Problem Is Employers Are Shafting Workers | The Smirking Chimp
Big corporations like Amazon and Starbucks will continue to do whatever possible to squelch worker power. And if any of these issues get to the Supreme Court you can expect its Republican majority to do the same. But America’s working people outnumber the billionaires and CEOs by a wide margin. If we stand in solidarity, it’s possible to reverse 40 years of stagnant wages, declining economic security, and widening inequality — and build a more prosperous middle class where the gains are shared by everyone. My strong advice to Democratic politicians: Stand up for unions. Fight to strengthen them. Join workers on picket lines. Don’t let Republicans pretend they’re the party of the working class when they’re a trojan horse for the moneyed interests. * * * PS: I thought you might find useful the following video that my colleagues and I at Inequality Media just made about the labor union movement.
Source: So You Don’t Think Labor Unions Have a Future? | The Smirking Chimp
In light of last week’s devastating senate vote on voting rights, I keep hearing “voting rights are dead.” Wrong. If voting rights are dead, American democracy is dead. And if American democracy is dead, the entire project that began (imperfectly, to be sure) in 1776 and has been a beacon for the world, is dead. I will not accept that. Nor, I assume, will you.
Source: The Weeks Ahead: The Future of Voting Rights and Democracy | The Smirking Chimp
We’re not facing the end of work, but we are facing the end of work as we know it. It’s about time.
To put it bluntly, Biden is in deep trouble. So is America. How can Biden regain momentum? Here are ten steps he should take, starting this week:
Source: The Week Ahead: How Biden Can Get His Mojo Back | The Smirking Chimp
Despotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy. My message to every CEO in America: You need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it. It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy — and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.
Source: Why Isn’t Corporate America Behind the Pro-democracy Movement? | The Smirking Chimp
How do reformers maintain their strength and commitment over so many years? Continuous activism is exhausting. Burnout is a constant hazard. What’s the secret to their tenacity? I can think of three:
This is what I mean when I say America has been Potterized: People at the top — top corporate executives and big investors — are doing better than ever. Everyone else is being squeezed.
Yet if we do not strengthen voting rights, and if Trump and his accomplices are not held criminally accountable, we are inviting another attempted coup. Next time, it could succeed. Your thoughts?
Source: The Week Ahead: The Start of Accountability for Trump’s Attempted Coup? | The Smirking Chimp
But in more recent years I’ve come around. As America has moved closer to being an oligarchy — with staggering inequalities of income, wealth, and power not seen in over a century — and closer to Trumpian neofascism (the two moves are connected), “It’s a Wonderful Life” speaks to what’s gone wrong and what must be done to make it right.
Soon after “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released, the FBI considered it evidence of Communist Party infiltration of the film industry. The FBI’s Los Angeles field office — using a report by an ad-hoc group that included Fountainhead writer and future Trump pin-up girl Ayn Rand — warned that the movie represented “rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type’ so that he would be the most hated man in the picture.” The movie “deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. This … is a common trick used by Communists.”
The FBI report compared “It’s a Wonderful Life” to a Soviet film, and alleged that Frank Capra was “associated with left-wing groups” and that screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett were “very close to known Communists.”
This was all rubbish, of course — and a prelude to the Red Scare led by Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, who launched a series of highly publicized probes into alleged Communist penetration of Hollywood, the State Department, and even the US Army.
The movie was also prelude to modern Republican ideology. Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have used Potter-like social Darwinism to justify everything tax cuts for the wealthy, union-busting, and cutbacks in social safety nets. Rand herself became a hero to many in the Trump administration.
Life in a recycled economy would be a lot cheaper. We wouldn’t need to buy nearly as much. So we wouldn’t need to work and earn nearly as much. We’d stop measuring our wellbeing by the Gross Domestic Product or even by the unemployment rate, because part of our wellbeing would be outside the production-consumption system of capitalism. Nor would we be relying on generosity or social solidarity. Most of us already have too much stuff — or we have the wrong stuff for this particular time in our lives. We just need a better system for reallocating stuff already produced that’s not wanted or not being used by the people who have it, and getting it to the people who do want it. Not only would this generate less waste and a cleaner environment. It might also make a dent in poverty by more systematically getting stuff to people who really need it. Stuff is now inundating us. It’s strangling the world. Could a recycled economy be part of the solution? What do you think?
Source: How to Overcome the Tyranny of Stuff | The Smirking Chimp
So what’s really motivating Manchin? Four possibilities: West Virginia is a coal state, and Manchin doesn’t want to do anything that might dampen coal production (the bill has a number of environmental measures). Possibly, but Manchin must know there’s no long-term future in mining coal regardless of what happens to this legislation. There are far fewer coal jobs left in West Virginia than there are jobs in health care. The legislation would, however, help West Virginians transition from coal to new and better jobs. And help them survive in the meantime.
He’s self-dealing. He owns stock valued at between $1 million and $5 million in Enersystems, a coal brokerage firm he founded in 1988? Last year he made half a million dollars in Enersystems dividends (roughly three times the $174,000 salary he made last year as a senator).
He’s takes bribes. He collects more campaign money from coal, oil, and gas companies than any other senator. (In June, Exxon lobbyist Keith McCoy told the Greenpeace investigative unit that Manchin participated in weekly meetings with company operatives.)
He loves the power and attention. Who ever heard of Joe Manchin before the Biden administration?A minor-league Democratic senator from a small, poor state suddenly has the national spotlight and has become the biggest spoiler in the Democratic Party.
Frankly, your guess is as good as mine.
In Australia I follow AIM, IA, Michael West Media all of whom aren’t included in any Morrison Government Media plans to have Big tTech pay.. The Shovel and the The Shot are good for a laugh. There is truth in humor and it often hits the target. These are just a few along with some others listed below.
I follow the mainstream media, but I don’t limit myself to it. And I don’t rely on it to educate the public about bold, progressive ideas that would make America and the world fairer and stronger. I read the Guardian, the American Prospect (which, full disclosure, I helped found thirty years ago), Mother Jones, and The Atlantic. I follow several blogs (Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, for example). I listen to the always thoughtful Democracy Now. And I subscribe to a few newsletters (I hope you like this one and spread word of it). But even with news sources I trust, I still ask myself: how are choices being framed? What’s being left out? What big underlying issues are being assumed away or obscured? When our democracy is under assault from so many directions, I think we need to educate and re-educate ourselves (and our children) about how to learn what’s really going on — how to absorb the news critically. Isn’t this a minimal responsibility of democratic citizenship? What do you think?
Source: Why I Don’t Trust the Mainstream Media | The Smirking Chimp
If there’s any doubt about the partisan hackery of the supreme court’s six Republican appointees, it will be on full display when they overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion and prohibited states from banning the procedure before fetal viability, about 23 weeks.
Source: There Is No Doubt Any More: The US Supreme Court Is Run by Partisan Hacks | The Smirking Chimp
If America falls whose left standing?
Biden must use the full strength of his presidency – his bully pulpit, the power of the executive branch, his influence inside the halls of the Senate (and over his old putative friend, the senior senator from West Virginia), and the credibility that comes with being President of the United States – to end the filibuster, and thereby open the way for voting rights. It is necessary. It is time.
Source: The Most Important Choice Ahead | The Smirking Chimp
Which brings me to today, when the spectrum from left to right is the longest it’s been in my 50 years in and around politics. Despite all the howls from the right about “cancel culture” and “woke-ness” on the left, I don’t think the left has moved much from where it was a half-century ago. Nor, frankly, have I. But the right has moved far, far rightward. Donald Trump brought America about as close as we’ve ever come to fascism. He incited an attempted coup against the United States. To this day, he and most of the Republican Party continue to deny that he lost the 2020 election. And they are getting ready to suppress votes and disregard voting outcomes they disagree with.
At this rate, I can’t help but wonder where the “center” will be twenty-five years from now. What do you think?
Source: The Biggest Change During My 50 Years in and Around American Politics | The Smirking Chimp
But we’re not as generous now. Even though the American economy is far larger than it was then, the middle class is a smaller share of it. For the last four decades America has been dividing into well-off professionals who don’t feel any connection to the poor, and a beleaguered working class that’s easily convinced any help to the poor will cause their taxes to increase. Hence, in 1996 even a Democratic president decided to end aid to poor kids, largely because polls showed that most Americans — including the vast majority of the working class — no longer supported welfare. Twenty-five years later — and even after the awful consequences of that decision have become apparent — a Democratic Congress has chosen not to provide permanent help to the nation’s poor kids. In other words, I don’t think we’ve prioritized the elderly poor over poor children. The big difference is we have become far less equal as a society, which has made us less willing to remedy poverty at all.
Some anti-vaxxers are infected by narcissism that refuses even to consider the risks and costs they’re imposing on others. If we blame the far Right-Wing and the culture that produced them, we’re missing a character trait that may offer a fuller explanation. In fact, I think it’s a stubborn, selfish, me-first individualism. One that ignores family, community, or anything social.
Source: Trump stoked Covid in red states – but there are blue anti-vaxxers too | Robert Reich | The Guardian
One answer might be that expectations were so high that hopes were bound to be dashed
Source: Why are Americans so unhappy with Joe Biden? | Robert Reich | The Guardian
It seems to me that in our haste to blame Trump and the culture that produced him for why the rate of vaccinations in America trails every other wealthy country, we’re missing a character trait that may offer a fuller explanation. This trait is found among Democrats and Independents in blue America as well as Republicans in Trumpland. In fact, I think it’s been near the core of the American personality since before the founding of the nation — a stubborn, selfish individualism. What do you think?
Source: Why America Trails Every Other Wealthy Nation in Vaccinations | The Smirking Chimp
If he runs for re-election in 2024, it will be to rescue and redeem his nation — and once again make himself the center of America’s angry divisiveness. His megalomaniacal ego wants the nation to come apart over him. That millions of dollars are still being spent invoking him in political campaigns – both in support and against candidates – must delight him no end. But unless he is prevented from running again, America may still come apart over him.
Source: Why American Politics Remains Haunted by the Former Guy | The Smirking Chimp
Last weekend, Elon Musk used a twitter poll to make a political point, and it exploded in his and other Tesla investors’ faces.
Source: Elon Musk’s Extraordinary Twitter Poll | The Smirking Chimp
The real lesson from Tuesday’s election results is that Democrats must earn back the trust of working Americans. And the best way of doing so is to make clear whose side they’re on. The wealthy and privileged have socked away a record amount of the nation’s wealth. They must now pay their fair share to fix the rest of the nation.
olddogthoughts 