Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Nick Surgey, - ProPublica
Stephan:
Here is an excellent detailed account of how a small group of oligarchs is plotting and acting to turn the United States into a christofascist anocracy controlled by the oligarchs. As the article lays out Leonard Leo, assisted by the Republican Congressional whores, and the Federalist Society, has already succeeded in turning the Supreme Court into their tool, as well as installing christofacists in subordinate courts both federal. and state. Now, they are moving on to the next phase of their strategy, as described here. Few Americans seem to comprehend what is happening to this country and except for small investigative publications, like ProPublica and SR, media rarely touches this story -- perhaps because most of the major media is, in fact, owned by oligarchs. In any case, unless the Democratic Party takes over both houses of Congress, and retains the Presidency in the upcoming 2024 election I doubt that by 2030 the United States will still be a democracy. Oh, the form will be there, but not the substance.
Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society, in Washington, D.C., in March 2017. Credit:Mark Peterson / Redux
A few months ago, Leonard Leo laid out his next audacious project.
Ever since the longtime Federalist Society leader helped create a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and then received more than a billion dollars from a wealthy Chicago business owner to disburse to conservative causes, Leo’s next moves had been the subject of speculation.
Now, Leo declared in a slick but private video to potential donors, he planned to “crush liberal dominance” across American life. The country was plagued by “woke-ism” in corporations and education, “one-sided journalism” and “entertainment that’s really corrupting our youth,” said Leo amid snippets of cheery music and shots of sunsets and American flags.
Sitting tucked into a couch, with wire-rimmed glasses and hair gone to gray, Leo conveyed his inspiration and intentions: “I just said to myself, ‘Well, if this can work for law, why can’t it work for lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right […]
I thought it very revealing that this morning as the CEO of Norfolk and Southern Railroad was about to testify before the Senate committee looking into the railroad industry Norfolk and Southern had yet another derailment. Why is this happening over and over? Why, because the railroad industry has been bribing morally compromised Republican (and a few Democrats) members of Congress to see that they can operate with as little regulatory oversight as possible and maintenance costs money and reduces profits. Just another example of the corruption that has become the hallmark of America, and it is so great that even the railroad workers have had enough.
Workers survey the damage from a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on February 14, 2023. Credit: Rebecca Kiger / The Washington Post / Getty
Amid heightened national focus on railway safety in the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio disaster and other recent accidents, one railroad workers’ union warned Friday that, while welcome, a bipartisan rail safety bill has “loopholes big enough to operate a 7,000-foot train through.”
The Railway Safety Act of 2023 —introduced earlier this week by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Fetterman(D-Pa.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—is meant to “prevent future train disasters like the derailment that devastated East Palestine.”
The legislation would impose limits on freight train lengths—which in some cases currently exceed three miles. The measure was introduced a day after Democratic U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna(D-Calif.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) put forth a billthat would require the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to impose stricter regulations on trains carrying hazardous […]
This story was published by Axios on 6 March and was out of date by the time I am citing it today. There have been 6 more shootings as of the 9th. This has become the norm in the United States because in this country we value guns more than people. And the mass deaths are overwhelmingly carried out by MAGAts -- basically hate-filled resentful White men and boys. Do you think anything will be done about these massacres in this Congress? I doubt it, what do you think?
The U.S. has surpassed 100 mass shootings in 2023 on Sunday, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which defines mass shootings as situations in which at least four people are shot and either injured or killed, not including the shooter.
Why it matters: Only 64 days have passed so far this year, meaning there have been more mass shootings than days in the U.S. thus far.
The 100th mass shooting of the year left three people, including a child, dead and another person injured in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
The big picture: The U.S. didn’t exceed 100 mass shootings until March 19 in 2022 and March 22 in 2021, according to GVA data.
There were 52 mass shootings in January, 41 in February and 11 so far in March — a total of 104 so far.
At least 7,537 people have also died as a result of different forms of gun violence in the country so far this year.
Flashback: The U.S. didn’t exceed 100 mass shootings until March 19 in 2022 and March 22 in 2021, according to GVA data.
President Biden is proposing something that, in my opinion, should have been done years ago. The American federal tax structure is a racket rigged to so blatantly favor the rich that a school teacher pays a higher rate than an oligarch billionaire. Biden's proposal will also assure the uninterrupted continuation of medicare, and reduce the federal deficit by three trillion dollars. Do I need to tell you that the Republican Congressional members are absolutely opposed to this plan?
President Joe Biden discusses his plan to strengthen Medicare during a speech on February 9, 2023 in Tampa, Florida. Credit: Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency / Getty
President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a plan to extend Medicare’s solvency into the 2050s by raising taxes on high-income Americans and cutting prescription drug costs, a proposal that Biden presented as an alternative to GOP attacks on the healthcare program used by tens of millions of seniors.
“If the MAGA Republicans get their way, seniors will pay higher out-of-pocket costs on prescription drugs and insulin, the deficit will be bigger, and Medicare will be weaker,” the president wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. “The only winner under their plan will be Big Pharma. That’s not how we extend Medicare’s life for another generation or grow the economy.”
According to an outline released by the White House on Tuesday morning, Biden’s proposal would “extend the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund by at least 25 years” by raising the Medicare tax rate from 3.8% […]
While the country including the media is trapped in the Republican hate theater and culture wars serious trends negatively impacting millions are hardly remarked upon. Here is an example I published showing what I mean.
Food and water, are the two essentials for life itself. One might think that while food and water insecurity might be a problem in some third world country, like Afghanistan or Somalia, it could hardly be much of an issue in a country as rich as the United States. And yet, irrefutably, it is. And there is a linkage between food and water insecurity and scarcity and homelessness that needs to be much better understood. The basic processes I am going to describe are taking place all over the world; but here I am going to focus on the United States.
According to a Gallup Organization 2019 study: “55% of Americans worry a great deal about hunger and homelessness.”1 That’s 183,700,000 Americans, and matters have only gotten worse, as the numbers have gone up during the Covid Pandemic. Recognizing and understanding the linkage between water and food insecurity and homelessness, I suggest, have become critically important to social wellbeing of American society.
The president’s Council of Economic Advisers reported in 2019: “Due to decades of misguided and faulty policies, homelessness is a serious problem. Over half a million […]
