Rethuglicans

I Hope Jeffrey Epstein Sings Like A Bird, Even If Some Democrats Go Down

  Wherever these questions lead prosecutors and reporters must follow. And the public must demand real accountability, no matter the answers. By Jill Filipovic The Guardian (7/10/19) I hope Jeffrey Epstein sings like a bird. The wealthy and well-connected financier and registered sex offender was arrested this week in New York on accusations of child sex trafficking. He just may bring a lot of bad men – and a few bad women – down with him. Epstein allegedly groomed and recruited dozens of underage girls, many of them vulnerable runaways, for sex with him and his friends. Despite being caught by…


Right Wing’s Religious Ways: OMG! A Biblical Book Of Trump? Really?

Miriam Adelson Longs For A ‘Book Of Trump’ In The Bible By Josefin Dolsten Jerusalem Post (6/29/19) It isn’t news that Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are big fans of President Donald Trump. The Republican mega-donors gave millions to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. But Miriam Adelson took it one step further on Thursday. The Israeli-American physician compared the president to biblical prophets in an article in which she asked why he has not enjoyed higher support among American Jews. “That this has not been the case (so far, the 2020 election still beckons) is an oddity that will long be pondered…


Eugene Debs: “I am suspicious of leaders…”

“I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week. “If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. “I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be…


Trump & Republicans Desecrate July 4th National Holiday

Investigation Of Secret Border Patrol Group Launched As New Degrading Facebook Posts Surface A ProPublica story revealing demeaning posts directed at Latina lawmakers prompted widespread revulsion. By A.C. Thompson & Dara Lind ProPublica (7/1/19) The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has opened an investigation into vulgar and misogynistic social media posts made by members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents. On Monday, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection was made aware of disturbing social media activity hosted on a private Facebook group that may include a number of CBP employees,” said Matthew Klein, head…


Forget Trump’s Carnival Show Fourth: A Lincoln Remembrance Appropriate To July 4th

  “In March 1864, a decade after Alvan Bovay founded the Republican Party in Ripon [WI], a delegation from the New York Workingman’s Democratic Republican Association came to the White House to offer the country’s first Republican president an honorary membership  in their labor organization, “None are so deeply interested to resist the present rebellion as the working people,” Abraham Lincoln told them, after accepting the honor. “Let them beware of prejudice, working division, and hostility among themselves. The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city last summer was the hanging of some working people by other working…


Border Patrol Blocking Americans From Donating Toothbrushes & Diapers For Imprisoned Children

MSNBC’s Mika Scorches Trump Over Sex Assault Denials: ‘What type of woman would you rape?’ ***** “For God’s sake, they’re kids, man.” By Alex Samuels Texas Tribune (6/24/19) On Sunday, Austin Savage and five of his friends huddled into an SUV and went to an El Paso Target, loading up on diapers, wipes, soaps and toys. About $340 later, the group headed to a Border Patrol facility holding migrant children in nearby Clint with the goal of donating their goods. Savage said he and his friends had read an article from The New York Times detailing chaos, sickness and filth in the overcrowded…


Concentration Camp Expert Backs AOC Concentration Camp Statement : ‘Same Thing’ Happening At Southern Border

“If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps ― not the nomenclature.” — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez By Hayley Miller HuffPost (6/19/19) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) controversial comments likening U.S. immigrant detention centers at the southern border to “concentration camps” aren’t inaccurate, a concentration camp expert and author said Tuesday. Andrea Pitzer, who literally wrote the book on the global history of concentration camps, defended the freshman lawmaker against Republican backlash during an appearance Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes.” What the U.S. is doing at the U.S.-Mexico border today by detaining hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants and children “fits…


A Commoner Writes: Demands Of Big Money Politics Block Many Promising Candidates

  Mark Taylor’s commentary [The Price Of Money: Political & Moral Defeat 6/13/19] about the disparity of funding between Clinton and Trump during the 2016 election was well constructed and informative but does not diminish the corrupt influence that money has had on our electoral process, and our democracy as a whole. Greed, PAC’s, billionaire donors have poisoned our democratic principles, and will continue to do so unless our politicians have the courage (quite doubtful) to reconstruct the funding process for political office. Here’s another problem with our current funding system. Many potential, highly qualified candidates for office often lack the…


The Price Of Money: Political & Moral Defeat

“The Democrats have no power to change the system. Yet. So if they want to stay in the game and be competitive they’re going to have to match the Republican’s fundraising juggernaut, otherwise Trump will out-organize, out-advertise and flat out bury us in 2020.” — Facebook post (6/6/19) By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (6/13/19) So let’s take a look at that siren call of money… Two figures to consider from the 2016 presidential race: $1.2 billion and $217.5 million. The first is the amount of money raised by Hillary Clinton. The second is the amount of money raised…


Debate Over NRA Promotion Of Gun ‘Silencers’ Resurfaces Following Virginia Beach Shooting

Opponents note silencers make it harder for potential victims and police to identify gunshots. Pro-gun advocates say they’re important hearing protection. By Julian Shen-Berro HuffPost (6/5/19) The mass shooting in Virginia Beach last week has reinvigorated the debate over the regulation of gun suppressors — also known as silencers — which muffle the sounds of gunfire. The shooter behind the attack, which left 12 people dead on Friday, used a suppressor on his firearm. One survivor described the sounds of his weapon as something like a nail gun. Gun-control advocates have argued that suppressors add to the threat of gun violence…


Law & Disorder: Why Corporatism Will Dominate US Policy For Decades To Come

Democracy in jeopardy By John Atcheson Common Dreams (5/26/19) Remember when Republicans ran on a law and order platform?  Well, nowadays, we’ve got a President – in fact an entire Party — at war with the idea of the rule of law in general, and any constraints on corporations in particular.  Democrats console themselves with the idea that this can all be righted in the next election.  Vote Trump out, retain the majority in the House, and win the Senate.  Problem solved. Except it isn’t.  McConnell and Trump are doing everything they can to hand over the Judiciary — lock, stock and…


Coming To Grips With The Reality Of Who Trump Really Is

New Economic Thinking (10/4/16) The media has failed ask basic questions about the economic thinking — and business record — of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, says Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, author of The Making of Donald Trump. The economic vision that’s being offered on the campaign trail has been crafted with Trump’s peerless salesmanship. Johnston’s book relies on extensive reporting of interviews, public statements, court records and financial statements to build an argument that Trump’s vision is based on what he believes voters want to hear, but has little relationship to his own — or America’s — reality….


Virginia Shooter Attack Featured A Deadly New Twist

Suppressors are currently legal in 42 states and gun activists are pushing to deregulate them. By Matthew Chapman Raw Story (6/1/19) The shooting in Virginia Beach, in which a disgruntled city employee killed 12 people at a municipal building, is the deadliest mass shooting so far in 2019. But it is also “ominous” for one other unusual reason, wrote Harvard professor and former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem in the Washington Post: the shooter used a suppressor, or as it’s known in common language, a silencer. “What ends lives? Gunfire. What saves lives? The sound of gunfire,” wrote Kayyem. “Gun violence in America…


‘This Is About Attacking Journalism,’ Warn Press Freedom Defenders As Trump DOJ Hits Assange With New Espionage Charges

The Editor   By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (5/21/19) In an unprecedented move that journalists and press freedom defenders denounced as “the most significant and terrifying threat to the First Amendment in the 21st century,” the Trump Justice Department announced Thursday that a federal grand jury charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 new counts of violating the Espionage Act. “This is about attacking journalism and the public’s right to information about war crimes done in their name with their dollars,” The Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill said in a series of tweets. “This is about retaliation for publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes and other crimes by…


Washington State GOP Rep Planned Violent Attacks & Harassment Of Political Opponents

By Jason Wilson The Guardian (4/20/19) A Washington state Republican politician took part in private discussions with rightwing figures about carrying out surveillance, “psyops” and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies, according to chat records obtained by the Guardian. State representative Matt Shea, who represents Spokane Valley in the Washington state house, participated in the chats with three other men. All of the men used screen aliases – Shea’s was “Verum Bellator”, Latin for true warrior. The Guardian confirmed the identity of those in the chat by cross-checking phone numbers attached to the Signal accounts. He has associated with conspiracy-minded far-right…


‘Commander In Cheat’ — How Trump Cheated A Teenage Boy To ‘Win’ A Golf Championship

Commander In Cheat (What a sad little man.) By Ryan Bort Rolling Stone (4/2/19) Last month, Golf.com reported that President Trump’s 2018 club championship at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, may not have been totally legitimate. Though a plaque at the club lists the president as the victor, the championship was actually won by a hedge fund manager named Ted Virtue. Trump didn’t even compete in the event, but when he ran into Virtue at the club on a later date, he challenged him to an impromptu nine-hole match for the right to the title. Virtue couldn’t…


Rep. Adam Schiff Comments To Republicans On Trump-Russia: “You might think it is okay…”

Adam Schiff, speaking before the House Intelligence Committee meeting on March 28, 2019: My colleagues might think it’s okay that the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic candidate for president as part of what’s described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s okay. My colleagues might think it’s okay that when that was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help — no, instead that son said he would…


Assault Tally Climbs At Trump/Republican Child Sexual Abuse Camps

By Julia Conley Common Dreams (2/26/19) A House hearing on the Trump administration’s family separation policy on Tuesday revealed that thousands of children in U.S. custody over the past five years have been subjected to sexual abuse in migrant detention centers. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) released documents from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) showing that more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against minors were filed between 2014 and 2018. More than 1,300 complaints were referred to the Department of Justice. “I am deeply concerned with documents that have been turned over by HHS that record a high number…


So, Republicans, You Want To Follow Trump Over The Cliff And Declare A National Emergency. Really?

***** “So let me get this straight: Declaring Election Day a national holiday would be a ‘power grab,’ but declaring a national emergency over a manufactured crisis is totally fine?” — Robert Reich (2/15/19) ***** “I know the Republicans have some unease about it, no matter what they say. Because if the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people. “You want to declare a national emergency, what about the epidemic of gun violence?…


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Exposes Cynical Lobbyist Tricks

  The Young Turks (2/14/19) There’s nothing these people won’t do to influence politicians. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down. Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/… “On Wednesday morning, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted a picture of a line of people outside a House committee hearing on marijuana banking.* According to Ocasio-Cortez, the people in the photo are homeless and were paid by lobbyists to hold their places in line. The practice of lobbyists paying people to stand in line for committee meetings is, according to previous reporting, a longtime practice in Washington, DC. In 2009, CNN wrote…


Cry Me A River: While The Top 1% Cash In, Trump Voters Lose It Over Dramatic Hike In Taxes

“People are going to be very, very happy. They’re going to get tremendous, tremendous tax cuts and tax relief and that’s what this country needs.” — Donald Trump (12/2/17) The Young Turks (2/5/19) “Multiple supporters of President Donald Trump over the past couple of weeks have taken to Twitter to air their grievances about the president’s signature tax cut plan. Even though the 2017 GOP tax cut is leading to spiking federal deficits thanks to its generous benefits to corporations, many middle-class Americans are winding up having to pay more because the bill eliminated multiple deductions used by middle-class families…


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Exposes The Corruption Of DC In 5 Incredible Minutes

  By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (2/11/19) And to think some people — some democrats even — have been saying AOC needs to shut up, sit down and learn from the wise  ‘experienced’ hands in congress. I mean WTH, she’s only 29, what does she know about how congress works? Well, she knows exactly how congress works and nailed those ‘experienced’ hands exposing the rigged game congress has become. And she did it in only 5 minutes of congressional hearings. It’s the old farts in congress — too any of them democrats — who need to shut up,…


Joke’s On You, Suckers! Inside The Bizarre Bipartisan Pro-Corporate ‘Alfalfa’ Political Club

“The marriage of our law makers and corporate interest.” [Editor’s Note: This is both a Republican and Democratic corruption scene. The embodiment of all that is corrupt in American politics. Democrat John Kerry is the president of this rotten little cabal of thieves. Alfalfa Club? Talk about a bad seed! — Mark L. Taylor] The Young Turks (1/28/19) “It’s that time of year again: when the biggest of bigwigs don black tie garb and descend upon the Capital Hilton ballroom to bask in the collective glow of their stunning accomplishments — and consume lots of booze. It’s the 106th annual…


GOP Greed Has ‘No Limit’ — As Millions Go Without Health Care, McConnell Estate Tax Repeal Would Siphon Off Billions To Walton & Koch Families

  “This legislation is insulting to those millions of Americans who are struggling, it is harmful to the fabric of our democracy, and it is blatantly bad policy that is intended only to please ultra-wealthy Republican donors.” By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (1/29/19) Just over a year after the GOP rammed through its $1.5 trillion tax plan—which has predictably rewarded the ultra-rich while doing virtually nothing for workers—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his Republican colleagues were condemned for pushing yet another “blatant giveaway to their wealthy donors” by introducing a bill on Monday that would permanently repeal the estate tax. “Greed has no…


Watch, If You Can, The Tortured Face Of What America Has Become

Screen shot of hysterical toddler Grethshell during a television ‘visit’ with her mother Sindy, a Honduran immigrant separated from her young daughter by U.S. border police. ***** “This type of prolonged exposure to serious stress—known as toxic stress—can carry lifelong consequences for children.”   – American Academy of Pediatrics   [Editor’s Note: All this child abuse is being done in our name, on our dime and thus — as citizens — we all bear moral responsibility for such ongoing brutal travesties to immigrant children and their families. Indeed, young Grethshell is the face of what America has become. — Mark L. Taylor]…


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Panics The Sacred Cash Cows & Rattles Potemkin Politicians

Corporate Dems Tell AOC To Sit Down, Zip The Lip & Learn From The Real ‘Experts’… A group of GOP House members booed her on the floor, to which she replied, “Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me, fellas.” By Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone (1/22/19) One of the first things you learn covering American politicians is that they’re not terribly bright. The notion that Hill denizens are brilliant 4-D chess players is pure myth, the product of too many press hagiographies of the Game Change variety and too many Hollywood fantasies like House of Cards and West Wing. The average American politician would lose at…


Belatedly Condemning Steve King Doesn’t Mean Republicans Suddenly Care About Racism In Their Ranks

An all-too rare moment of truth. ***** By Kurt Bardella HuffPost (1/15/19) Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) issued a defiant statement Monday night after House Republican leadership decided to strip King of his committee assignments following the release of an interview where the congressman questioned why terms like “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” were “offensive.” King characterized the move as an “unprecedented assault on my freedom of speech,” and it makes sense that he would be somewhat mystified. For the better part of this decade, King has openly broadcast his racist and xenophobic views without consequence from the Republican leaders. In September of last…


Perversion Of Justice: The Shocking Story Of Trump’s Sec. Of Labor’s History Of Shielding A Serial Pedophile & Sexual Abuser

  [Editor’s Note: It is also important to remember millionaire Jeffrey Epstein counted both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump as his pals. — Mark L. Taylor] Democracy Now! (1/4/119) We look at the unbelievable story of multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who for years orchestrated a sex trafficking network of hundreds of underage girls and is accused of regularly molesting children as young as 13 at his Florida mansion. But the serial sex offender received a shockingly lenient sentence for his crimes: 13 months in county jail, with many of his days spent at his Palm Beach office with regular visitors. This was…


History Shows The Descent To Authoritarianism Happens Slowly … Then Very Quickly

An out-of-focus, rain and sleet-soaked, twisted half-mast flag tightly wrapped around a Walmart flag pole in the middle of a dark winter night is emblematic of the New Year in Trump’s America. ***** The extent of the brutality exceeds the imagination of people until it is too late. By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (1/3/18) On a recent broadcast of Grit TV’s Laura Flanders Show (12/18) Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chris Hedges spoke about his recent book “America: The Farewell Tour”. Drawing from over 20 years of foreign reporting for the New York Times in places as diverse as Central…


Trump’s Community Of Casual Cruelty

“For them, cruelty is the point.” The Atlantic Argument (12/13/18) The binding agent between Donald Trump and his backers is the president’s consistent demonstration of cruelty, argues writer Adam Serwer in the latest Atlantic Argument. From the president’s mockery of the disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, to his denigration of Christine Blasey Ford, to his villainizing of undocumented immigrants, it has become clear that Trump galvanizes his base with invectives that target those who are suffering. “Trump’s fiercest backers enjoy his cruelty towards people they have decided deserve it,” Serwer says in the video. “For them, the cruelty is the point.”…


How Republicans Like Scott Walker Are Turning The States Into Labs Of ANTI-Democracy

Wisconsin and North Carolina are the canaries in the coal mine of crippled American democracy.  By Andrew Gawthorpe The Guardian (12/8/18) America’s federal system of government is, in theory, key to the strength of its democracy. As opposed to citizens in the more centralized states of Europe, Americans get to vote for a huge array of local offices, policies and ballot initiatives that can influence their lives for the better. Innovation in the states can be healthy for the whole country, such as when healthcare reform in Massachusetts provided inspiration for the Affordable Care Act. The supreme court justice Louis Brandeis…


Rethuglicans Follow An Old Model: Fear, Anger & Simple (Minded) Slogans

“All propaganda should be popular and should adapt it intellectual level to the receptive ability of the least intellectual of those whom it is desired to address. Thus it must sink its mental elevation deeper in proportion to the numbers of the mass who i has to grip. …The receptivity ability of the masses is very limited, and their understanding small; on the other hand, they have a great power of forgetting. This being so, all effective propaganda must be confined to very few points which must be brought out in the form of slogans.” — Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf…


COUP! Unable To Even Name The Foe, Wisconsin Dems Flap Hankies & Rattle Teacups At Fascist Onslaught Against State Govt.

A brass knuckle legislative coup. By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (12/6/18) What has happened in Madison this week with the hard right Republican legislature preemptively kneecapping the administration of Democrat Governor-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kraul before they even have a chance to take the oath of office is a brass knuckle legislative coup. While it is shocking the republicans would take such action it is not surprising; after all, that is what fascists do; abandon legal niceties, tradition and the normal transition of power. All those vestiges of democracy are as dead to the GOP…


Of Lies & Blood Of Innocents: A Dose Of Reality On George H.W. Bush’s True Dark Legacy

  Mehdi Hasan On George H.W. Bush’s Ignored Legacy: War Crimes, Racism & Obstruction Of Justice With the sanctions, with the devastation that came in the ’90s and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi kids who died. That all started on George Bush Sr.’s watch. Democracy Now! (2/3/18) George H.W. Bush died in Houston on Friday night at the age of 94. Bush was elected the 41st president of the United States in 1988, becoming the first and only former CIA director to lead the country. He served as Ronald Reagan’s vice president from 1981 to 1989. Since Bush’s death, the media…


The Crass Hypocrisy, Cynical Mendacity & All-Around Fakery Of Our Very Own Paul Ryan

His record of accomplishing virtually nothing. By Andrew O’Hehir Salon (12/1/18) There’s considerable pathos and dramatic irony to the end of Paul Ryan’s political career — if you are able to view him from a distance, like a character in a Jonathan Franzen novel or a Netflix drama set in Norway. He’s a guy who believed he was out in front of history and positioned to shape it, but wound up being dragged behind the emperor’s chariot while the populace laughed at him and threw unpleasant objects. Until a few years ago, I bet he didn’t even know what “cuck”…


The Reality Of George H.W. Bush’s Legacy: War Crimes, Racism, Weapons Smuggling & Obstruction Of Justice

  [Editor’s Note: This past weekend was awash in high praise for former president George H.W. Bush. The lofty ad infinitum praise of supposed statesmanship, wisdom, decency and ‘public service’ had little tethering to the truth of the man or his administration and earlier gigs as vice-president, head of the CIA and his personal life. The coverage was a cringe worthy display of the mainstream media’s servile deference to the ruling ‘elite’. Fortunately, the Intercept boldly injected a dose of reality about what H.W — and similar grifters of the corrupt corporate ruling class — was really about. — Mark…


‘Corporate Greed At Its Worst’: After Reaping $514 Million From GOP Tax Scam & Billions In Public Subsidies, GM To Fire Nearly 15,000 Workers

  Sweet Deal! By Julia Conley Common Dreams (11/26/18) Tax justice and labor advocates were among those who expressed outrage Monday at the news that General Motors—one of the corporate giants that benefited immensely from the Republican tax plan last year—would cut 15 percent of its workforce, shuttering production facilities in three states as well as Canada to trim costs. The auto maker is closing five plants in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, and Ontario, with plans to cut thousands of office jobs in January—slashing a total of 14,700 jobs. The move comes less than a year after the Republican Party pushed through its…


Neither Republicans Nor Democrats Are Up To The Massive Challenges We Face

By Sarah van Gelder HuffPost (11/8/18) The midterm elections are over. Women won historic gains in the House, which Democrats now appear to be on track to control. Voters in three red states ― Idaho, Nebraska and Utah ― approved expanding Medicaid, a repudiation of GOP efforts to discredit government run health care. And voters in Florida approved a measure giving ex-felons the right to vote ― one of the most significant expansions of voting rights in decades. The most expensive midterm election in U.S. history fired up people on all sides, including many young people who went all out to put…


Why It’s Completely Appropriate To Compare Trump’s America To 1930s Germany

A note to those who think it unfair to compare the Trump White House and the GOP to what happened in Germany 85 years ago. By Michael Winship Common Dreams (10/17/18 On the last full day of two weeks spent in this city, the requisite visit was paid to Checkpoint Charlie, the spot at the Berlin Wall where, from 1961 to 1989, allied forces and other foreigners crossed the uneasy border between East and West Berlin. (Germans had designated checkpoints of their own.) The wall once split this city in two with concrete and barbed wire, dividing people into those…


Things Are Moving Fast Now: With Trump Moving On Mueller & Wisconsin Republicans Looking To Gut Powers Of The Governor It’s Time to Check Where We Are On The Trail To Tyranny

20 Lessons From The 20th Century On How To Survive Trump’s America “Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.” By Timothy Snyder (11/21/16) This article first appeared as a post on the author’s Facebook page. Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are…