Stephan: This is the first competent survey I have seen on secession. It is appalling. The Great Schism Trend is even more advanced than I had realized. 44 percent, nearly have the people in the South support secession. And a large number of people in the Pacific Northwest similarly would like to secede. I had not fully appreciated the fragility of the United States at this time.
As the country turns 245 years old, Americans have reasons to worry about the state of their democracy. In June 2021, we surveyed a representative sample of Americans and an expert sample of political scientists on the performance of U.S. democracy, the threats it faces, and how their political representatives should address these matters.1 We find deep partisan polarization in perceptions of what is right and wrong with American democracy and the steps that should be taken to fix it. In addition, experts express reservations about current changes to election law at the state level. Still, we find some signs that Americans regard partisan attacks on election administration with skepticism.
Our key findings are:
Constitutional hardball politics like gerrymandering, packing the Supreme Court or blocking Court nominees, voter suppression, abolishing the filibuster, adding new states to the union, or refusing to certify election results enjoy little support among the public and, with few exceptions, among experts. However, these strategies appear to go unpunished by voters when used by elites.
Experts expect these tactics to be used more frequently in the years ahead, rating extreme partisan gerrymandering a near certainty; obstruction of Supreme Court nominations highly likely; […]
Stephan: I hope the Biden administration is successful in turning the bills they are sponsoring into laws and policy. Otherwise I am not sure we are going to survive as one country, and even if we do will we be one country. Trump has released the malignant dark Id of America. And it is trying to create a non-democratic racist society with a world view that is not based on facts and is not focused on fostering wellbeing.
Trump supporters at Stop the Steal rally outside Minnesota State Capitol. Credit: Chad Davis
There is the Big Lie — Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud that are driving all manner of anti-democratic beliefs and behavior. But that Big Lie is supported and reinforced by all the little lies that make it real. In a highly polarized society where one political party is attacking the foundations of democracy and the neofascist movement continues to grow, public opinion is no longer a basic matter of collective beliefs about matters of public concern. Public opinion is now a function of personal identity, existential core values and the understanding of reality itself.
As political scientists and other researchers have shown this dynamic is especially true for Republicans and other “conservatives.”
In that way, the Age of Trump and its aftermath resemble a science fiction dystopia where people exist in their own personal realities, through a type of experience machine that connects them to others who believe the same things — however untrue or fantastical […]
Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: There are some issues around this story, but I think it is going to turn out to be essentially valid. Beyond the fact that Trump saw Putin as the leader he wanted to be, I think Putin had something on Trump. He was in Lenin's words "a useful idiot," and that is how the story is shaping up.
Putin and Trump
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.
Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature.
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.
The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and […]
Steven Rosenfeld , Editor and Chief Correspondent of Voting Booth - the Independent Media Institute - AlterNet/ Independent Media Institute
Stephan: By now it should be clear to anyone that the Republican long-term tactic to take over the American judicial system, as part of a strategy to allow a racial minority to dominate the nation, is paying off.
Associate Supreme Court Justice
In recent decades, voting rights progress has consisted of expanding access to a ballot and the ways to cast it—such as online registration, voting from home with mailed-out ballots and other options to vote before Election Day. Those innovations have been widely embraced, especially during the 2020 election in response to health concerns during a pandemic. In the general election, 56 million people voted in a different manner than they had in 2016.
But the Supreme Court’s latest major decision on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has imposed new standards that election law scholars say are hostile to the more expansive and convenient voting options that have surfaced in recent years. Even more troubling, the court’s conservative majority has done so in a way that is reminiscent of the arguments put forth by last century’s opponents of equal voting opportunities for racial minorities.
Stephan: Today I got three anti-vaxxer emails, and I am disgusted. The politicization by Republicans of, and their spreading grotesque disinformation about what should have been a straightforward health issue is an act of brutal inhumanity that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. If you have been part of this you should be ashamed of yourself. There is a certain karma to it though. This militant willful ignorance has killed tens of thousands of Trumpers, evangelicals, and White racists.
Credit: Adobe.com
The coordinated and rapid COVID-19 vaccination campaign launched in the United States late last year has saved some 279,000 lives and prevented 1.25 million hospitalizations, a new study led by the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) finds.
These gains, however, could be swiftly reversed by the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has the potential to unleash a surge of new cases among the millions of people in the United States who remain unvaccinated.
“The vaccines have been strikingly successful in reducing the spread of the virus and saving hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States alone,” said lead author Alison Galvani, the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at YSPH.
“Yet until a greater majority of Americans are vaccinated, many more people could still die from this virus. The danger is not over. Now is not the time to let down our guard,” she said.
The study is currently published by The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that promotes a more effective and equitable […]
