Stephan: I published a piece a few days ago showing a comparison of the criminality of the Trump administration, the Reagan administration, and the Nixon administration compared with the administrations of Carter, Clinton, and Obama. It is clear that in the last 50 years Republican administrations have been far more criminal, based on objective facts, than Democratic administrations. But Trump's is a criminal world unlike anything ever seen in American history.
The interesting question is why does that not matter to about a third of the country? Are those people so dim, so willfully ignorant, that they just don't care?
Trump, Pompeo, and Kudlow
At least six Trump Cabinet secretaries are under investigation for violating federal law or are accused of violating federal law, as are an additional eight or more administration officials.The Cabinet secretaries include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Bill Barr, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. In recent days White House officials have been assisting President Donald Trump’s re-election efforts so intensely that at least one has been officially named a campaign advisor – in addition to being paid by the taxpayers for their day job inside the executive branch.
It’s causing a great deal of outrage in some quarters.
An NCRM investigation finds more than a dozen White House officials are either under investigation or according to a government ethics watchdog or others, should be under investigation for appearing to be in violation of the federal law known as the Hatch Act.
Take White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who is now traveling with the president and appearing on Fox News as a Trump 2020 […]
Stephan: Under Trump the thuggery of the police has been greatly exacerbated because his words prompt bullies to bully. It is my view that the entire sheriff structure in the U.S. should be eliminated, ICE and the Border Patrol similarly should be disbanded. And the hiring and training of police should be completely restructured. Other developed nations don't have these problems that we see as routine, and we need to quit lying to ourselves about the fairness of our legal system and admit that it is notably inferior to the rest of the developed world.
An Oregon State Trooper arrests a journalist during a crowd dispersal near the Portland east police precinct on August 30 in Portland, Oregon. Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty
The United States is currently experiencing one of the longest continued periods of civil unrest in generations, after demonstrations sparked by George Floyd’s death expanded to protests against black Americans killed by police and systemic racism in the country.
Retaliation by police against civilians and the press was widely documented in the first wave of protests, but as the protests have continued, so too has the violence. There has not been a single week without an incidence of police brutality against a civilian or a journalist at a protest in the US since the end of May.
Journalist flee Minnesota State Patrol officers as they spray journalists with pepper spray and fire rubber bullets at them […]
Stephan: This is an example of what the Republicans have done to America's judiciary, up to and including the Supreme Court. The idea that the United States is the world's leading system of legal justice if it was ever true is certainly not true today. Denmark and Ghana ranks as the best judicial systems in the world according to the World Justice Project. The United States ranks 19th, below virtually every nation in Europe. The truth is unpleasant but to change things, it must be faced.
Late Monday night, the Supreme Court issued a ruling blocking a lower court’s decision to force Wisconsin election officials to extend the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots, as long as they were post-marked by Election Day. This decision to limit ballot access was unsurprising given the conservative majority on the court, but as I noted, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion disturbed many readers because of the views it seemed to express about voting and elections.
But there’s a related aspect of Kavanaugh’s opinion that has attracted significant attention in addition to its ideological bent. It was, many commentators noted, extraordinarily sloppy for a Supreme Court ruling. The opinion was riddled with errors, embarrassingly so, and some of which even relate to the substance of his argument.
For instance, Kavanaugh wrote:
To be sure, in light of the pandemic, some state legislatures have exercised their Article I, §4, authority over elections and have changed their election rules for the November 2020 election. Of particular relevance here, a few States such as Mississippi no longer require that absentee ballots be received […]
Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi, Reporters - The Washington Post
Stephan: While a surprising number of American politicians, particularly Republicans, have a bizarrely relaxed attitude towards climate change, with a few notable exceptions like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren, other countries, having more intelligent governments, are taking climate change very seriously. Here is some good news from Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attends an extraordinary session to deliver his policy speech in the upper house of parliament in Tokyo on Oct. 26. Credit: Koji Sasahara/AP
TOKYO — Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, committed his country on Monday to reaching a target of zero emissions of greenhouse gases and achieving a carbon-neutral society by 2050, with a “fundamental shift” in policy on coal use.
Suga outlined the major move in his country’s attitude toward climate change in his first policy speech to Japan’s parliament since taking office last month.
“Responding to climate change is no longer a constraint on economic growth,” he said. “We need to change our thinking to the view that taking assertive measures against climate change will lead to changes in industrial structure and the economy that will bring about great growth.”
Suga said innovation was key to achieving the goal, including next-generation solar cells and carbon recycling, and he promised investment in research and development, as well as deregulation and “green investment.”
Stephan: The rape of the wilderness, and the degradation of America's public lands, forests, and parks during the term of Donald Trump is a desecration that will be long remembered. Here is his latest depredation.
The administration’s decision ignores overwhelming public support for keeping protections in place on the Tongass. Credit: Robert Postma/Getty /Design Pics RF
The Trump administration has announced it will lift protections in Alaska’s Tongass national forest, permitting logging in the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest.
Experts call the Tongass the “lungs of the country” and one of nation’s last remaining bulwarks against climate change. Located on the southern coast of Alaska, it is made up of centuries-old western cedar, hemlock and Sitka spruce trees, and is home to immense biodiversity, including the largest-known concentration of bald eagles.
“It’s ironic that this administration is trying to tout this president’s environmental record when [Trump is] unwinding environmental safeguards all over the place,” said Ken Rait, project director of the Pew Charitable Trust, who two decades ago helped win the protections that Donald Trump is now undoing. “And lifting protections on the Tongass, the nation’s flagship forest, is about the most egregious of all of them.”
The administration’s decision ignores overwhelming public support for keeping protections in place on the Tongass, including resolutions […]
