Paul Kane , Reporter - Microsoft Start / The Washington Post
Stephan:
Most people don’t seem to have noticed what I see as an alarming trend in Congress, an unprecedented number of Congressional members are either not running in November, or like Republican Representative Ken Buck of Colorado are just quitting and walking away. Why is this happening? In my view it is a byproduct of the conversion of the Republican Party to the Trump Christofascist Party (TCP), and the growing failure of both houses of the Congress to function effectively as a result.
Republicans attempt to win the votes required to elect Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as House speaker on Oct. 25. Credit: Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post
Despite all the congressional gridlock these days, lawmakers have succeeded in one surprising area of productivity: driving their colleagues into resignation.
On Friday, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) will resign outright, becoming the sixth member of the House in the 118th Congress to quit, with no other public office lined up. The onetime renegade conservative, who’s drifted ideologically away from his far-right friends, summed up the feelings of the quitters.
“This place just keeps going downhill, and I don’t need to spend my time here,” Buck told reporters.
The data for congressional resignations is somewhat murky, but it’s clear that over the last four decades, at least, the House hasn’t seen this many people just quit public service in the middle of their term.
It started last May when Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) resigned after more than 12 years in office to lead the Rhode Island Foundation, and soon after Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) resigned to start a lobbying firm. Earlier this year Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) quit to go […]
The lack of literacy and numeracy in American adults is becoming an increasing problem undermining maintaining U.S. democracy. If you can’t read and comprehend a standard newspaper report, or if you can’t understand basic statements about the economy, you can’t really understand why democracy is so important to our society. Authoritarianism, where someone like criminal Trump claims to know how to fix everything, if you put him in power seems a simpler easier solution to the country’s problems than the reality of the actual complexities. As the Trump christofascists (TCP) try to dismantle public fact-based education, this problem is just going to get worse. It is yet another failure on the part of the U.S. Congress, and Red state legislatures as well, I am sorry to say, both the Trump and Biden administrations and corporate media.
The SchwartzReport tracks emerging trends that will affect the world, particularly the United States. For EXPLORE it focuses on matters of health in the broadest sense of that term, including medical issues, changes in the biosphere, technology, and policy considerations, all of which will shape our culture and our lives. Something very insidious is going on in our world today. Something that is directly eating away American democracy. I am speaking here of adult illiteracy, dropping education levels amongst children, and the weaponization of misinformation trends that collectively have combined to create an alternate reality with alternate facts. When the Founders created the First Amendment in 1791 they understood the power of misinformation. Someone spreading a false rumor in a bar, a printer distributing flyers filled with misinformation. A charismatic speaker spewing lies to a crowd in a square. The amendment’s wording itself reveals their thinking. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”1
The idea of an internet containing social media read each day by tens of millions, who carry around a […]
I think Biden has made a serious miscalculation by continuing to support Israel’s attempted genocide of Palestinians and takeover of Gaza. Over 30,000 have died a large percentage innocent women and children, and hundreds of thousands more are facing starvation. That doesn’t justify what Hamas did but if Netanayou had been properly governing the Hamas raid would not have ended as it did. This has become such a big issue amongst Muslim and young American voters it may cost President Biden the election. Senator Schumer’s public statement rejecting Netanayou’s behavior has now placed Biden in a very awkward position.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian-American in Congress, is joined at left by Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., as she speaks at an event to call for a cease-fire by Israel in Gaza, at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 14, 2023. Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP
The Wall Street Journal (2/26/24) is concerned that they live among us. They are Arab Americans. And what are they doing to threaten the United States? Voting.
The Journal’s editorial board sounded the alarm in response to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a Palestinian American and a member of the left-wing voting bloc known as the Squad, calling for Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the Michigan presidential primary. “Will Dearborn, Michigan, Determine US Israel Policy?” the headline wondered ominously. The subhead explained: “The pro-Palestinian Democratic left wants to force Biden to stop the war in Gaza against Hamas.”
At issue was that Tlaib’s mobilization of the large Arab-American community of Dearborn, Michigan, against Biden’s pro-Israel stance could put Michigan in play in the 2024 presidential election, thus potentially swaying the incumbent to be more critical of Israel.
Voting as subversion
Expressing alarm at the idea of a president adjusting policy in response to democratic […]
Robert Reich, Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies - Robert Reich Substack
Stephan:
Robert Reich obviously feels the same way I do. Each of us must not only vote only for Democrats, we must do everything we can to get everyone we know to do likewise. This is not a typical election, Democrat vs Republican. This is a unique election in our history: Democracy vs criminal authoritarianism.
Criminal Trump
At a rally today outside the Dayton International Airport in Vandalia, Ohio, Trump warned that “if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath … for the country.”
He also warned that if he didn’t win, “I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an election that’s meaningful.”
In the rest of the speech he repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which have been utterly discredited.
He praised the people serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol — calling them “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots,” commending their spirit, and promising to help them if elected in November.
He cast migrants as threats to American citizens — claiming without evidence that other countries were emptying their prisons of “young people” and sending them across the border. “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases,” he said. “They’re not people, in my opinion.” He later referred to them as “animals.”
Trump is clearly desperate. He knows that his future freedom and his fortune both depend on winning in November. He has no qualms about turning Americans against […]
Students prefer colleges with more restrictive gun regulations, as this Gallup Survey documents. I’m not surprised, given the U.S. murder rate in schools and colleges. It would certainly be a consideration if I were choosing a college. What this survey doesn’t address is the disproportionate effect this is going to have on colleges and universities in Red states as compared with Blue states. Like the OB/GYN issues that are leading girls to choose Blue state colleges over those in Red states, so this is going to do the same for college headed girls and boys. It is startling to watch voters in Red states destroy the quality of society in their states, but they are doing it year by year with each election.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
81% of current and potential students say gun policies influence enrollment
Most students prefer schools that restrict guns on campus
One in three students worry at least a fair amount about gun violence
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the wake of recent gun violence on college campuses in Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada, as well as a major legal victory for gun rights advocates in NYSRPA v. Bruen, about eight in 10 current and prospective college students say a college’s policies related to firearms on campus are at least somewhat important in their decision to enroll or remain enrolled.
Regardless of age, gender or race/ethnicity, campus gun policies are at least somewhat important to more than three-quarters of current and prospective students. The largest importance gap across subgroups is a nine-percentage-point difference between Democrats and Republicans; however, more than three-quarters of current and prospective Republican students say campus gun policies are important in their enrollment decisions.
The latest results are from the Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2024 State of Higher Education Study, conducted Oct. 9-Nov. 16, 2023, via a web survey with 14,032 current and prospective college students. This includes 6,015 students enrolled in a post-high school education program […]
