Robert Reich, Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California - Robert Reich Blog
Stephan: Robert Reich nails the same point I have been making in SR. Capitalism and democracy only work properly when democracy is the defining authority. In this excellent piece he lays out why this is true. The MAGAt Party is owned by corporations and the uber-rich. The MAGAt rabble are ill-educated morons, and the cartoonish MAGAt characters in Congress are there not for their strengths but because they have no honor or ethics, and their clownish behavior distracts from who is really running that party. In the same way the Supreme Court has been transformed into a vehicle to advance the interests of the rich. Nothing will change unless Citizens United is reversed and we have publicly funded elections in which every citizen gets a fair chance to vote.
Credit: Robert Reich
Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.
That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results.
Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.
A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the last year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18 million to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4 million directly to their campaigns or leadership political action committees.
But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a much larger problem.
The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing […]
Stephan: One of the strangest things I have noticed about the Covid pandemic is that it has become a MAGAt disease, and not by chance but by design. The MAGAt Party is doing everything in its power, from the Supreme Court to the MAGATs in Congress, to Red state governors, to create the circumstances where the MAGAt rabble will contract the disease and die.
Don't get vaccinated, don't wear a mask, gather in rallies. The court's decision against vaccine mandates. The medical data is clear, most of the people in the hospitals are unvaccinated, most of the dying are unvaccinated. But why? The obvious answer is that the people that control the MAGAt Party don't care about their faithful rabble. But why?
The answer to that question, I think, can only be understood if two other things are considered. First, while Covid has been a disaster for the hands-on medical personnel who staff the hospitals, it has been breathtakingly profitable for America's illness profit corporations, the pharmaceutical companies, the companies that own most of the emergency rooms in the hospitals (See SR archive for more on that), the equipment and supply corporations, and the rest. Second, the owners of the MAGAt Party are restructuring the government of the United States, and how voting takes place, and reducing the population, and killing off the tedious MAGAt rabble, from that perspective, is desirable.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas listens as Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivers remarks during her swearing-in ceremony Monday, Oct. 26, 2020. Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks
It’s very hard to fathom why the right seems so determined to prolong the deadly COVID-19 pandemic but it’s obvious that they are. From politicians banning mask requirements to media celebrities pushing disinformation about vaccines, there is no escaping the fact that Republicans and their allies simply do not care that more than 850,000 thousand Americans are dead in less than two years from this scourge and that hundreds of thousands of them are still dying because they refuse to take life-saving vaccines. That the majority of them are their own constituents who have died because they believe right-wing conspiracy theories is just mind-boggling, but apparently they are convinced that this is good for them politically and gives them great ratings.
I guess I was hoping against all evidence to the contrary that there was some […]
Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor for Random Lengths News - Salon
Stephan: In this article you see a detailed exposition of how the Fascist corporate owners of the MAGAt Party are using their minions at the state level to transform democracy to autocracy. It is all quite explicit. So, I ask again, what are you doing to stop this? Citizen support for media that tells the full truth, and supporting and voting for Democratic politicians, even though they may not be perfect, is the only thing that is going to stop what is being done to our country.
There’s a booming literature on the erosion of democracy in America, as well as around the world, but David Pepper’s book “Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines” stands out as arguably the most important for three reasons: It brings the subject down to earth, connects democratic erosion to corruption and the decline in America’s quality of life, and provides a wealth of ideas about how to fight back to protect democracy.
Early voters line up outside of the Franklin County Board of Elections Office on October 6, 2020 in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio allows early voting 28 days before the election which occurs on November 3rd of this year. Credit: Ty Wright/Getty
The book’s subtitle is well-earned. Pepper is a former city councilman, mayor, county commissioner and head of the Democratic Party of Ohio, as well as a lawyer who has won important battles defending democracy in court. This is no armchair account — it reads more like a well-organized set of field notes from battles seen first-hand.
Perhaps most significantly, those battles have surprisingly […]
Stephan: Trump's rally gathered MAGAt rabble in one place, and the MAGAt media interviewed them. This allows us to see just how ignorant and crazy these people are. Click on the video. Now you can see why the red states are rewriting voting laws so that the White rural MAGA rabble can vote while the young, the intelligent, suburban women, and people of color will find it difficult or impossible. Your country is being taken away from you. What are you going to do about that?
Attendees at Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona are pushing some wild conspiracy theories, according to clips from the MAGA outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network.
In one clip, a rally-goer explains that California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is “a clone.”
“He’s a puppet for the left,” the reporter from Right Side Broadcasting Network responds.
“Well he’s a different level,” the man says. “The real Gov. Newsom has had his military tribunal at GITMO and he’s been executed.”
“There you go. Thank you for your time,” the reporter responds.
In another clip, a man tells Right Side Broadcasting Network: “It’s my persuasion that it’s clearly the apocalypse, and that the vaccine is made of aborted children. … So it’s literally the mark of the beast, and a lot of people aren’t talking about it.”
Stephan: Here is the latest sabotage by the MAGAt Party. No more presidential debates. Day by day democracy in American drains away.
The intensity of Republican frustration with the debate commission has increased since former President Donald J. Trump first became the Republican nominee in 2016. Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times
The Republican National Committee is preparing to change its rules to require presidential candidates seeking the party’s nomination to sign a pledge to not participate in any debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Republican committee officials alerted the debate commission to their plans in a letter sent on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. If the change goes forward, it would be one of the most substantial shifts in how presidential and vice-presidential debates have been conducted since the commission began organizing debates more than 30 years ago.
The nonprofit commission, founded by the two parties in 1987 to codify the debates as a permanent part of presidential elections, describes itself as nonpartisan. But Republicans have complained for nearly a decade that its processes favor the Democrats, mirroring increasing rancor from conservatives toward Washington-based institutions.
