A protracted fight beyond the ballot box

CBS News posted an article a few days ago discussing presidential powers, in particular powers a president has in an emergency. A president does need emergency powers because Congress is simply too slow to act when the threat is immediate and dire. But …

Eisenhower created the first presidential emergency action documents. He was facing the threat of Soviet nuclear bombs being dropped on America and needed to be able to respond. Every president since then has updated them depending on the sorts of crises he anticipates might occur. However, they do not consult with Congress and they pretend such documents don’t exist.

The nasty guy, who can’t keep his mouth shut (for good and bad) said this back in March, “I have the right to do a lot of things that people don't even know about.” And this in April, “When somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be – it's total.” He’s declared Muslims coming into the country to be an emergency. He’s declared the need for a border wall to be an emergency.

The idea that the nasty guy has these emergency powers is quite scary, simply because he as a distinct view of what an emergency is – not something that threatens us, but something that threatens him.

Presidents have kept the documents secret because they don’t want to scare the public. Former Senator Gary Hart responded with a solution for these documents:

I want them public, because they affect the freedom and liberty and rights of every American citizen. I can't say it any better. This is a blueprint for dictatorship. Now, I think the more attention it gets, the less likely those in power are going to use them.
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This goes to the core of our country and our founding. And if there is what amounts to the capability to suspend our Constitution, that's not just another issue. That's serious. Keep in mind, the current, incumbent president has declared seven national emergencies. And he has stated repeatedly that he has more power than most people know about.

I add: This might be why the nasty guy believes he can cancel the election.



Here’s more signs of how much the nasty guy hates immigrants, especially those of color. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported he has decimated the staffing of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) so there aren’t enough people to process paperwork. He has nearly doubled the fee for the application to citizenship from $640 to $1170. And he has lowered the income requirements and other rules for fee reductions and waivers. Which means there is a wealth test on citizenship and people of color will have a harder time affording it.



Andrew Airlie tweeted:

America, Nov. 3 it really is as simple - and important - as this

Then he quoted Sarah Kendzior:

We are not voting for a ticket. We are not voting for a party. We are voting for a system of government: democracy over autocracy. If you vote for the Democrats, we have a chance at retaining our democracy.

Mark Sumner of Kos speculates that the current Republican Party, and likely the entire conservative movement is a series of scams from top to bottom. One example is the NRA which was sued to disband because its head Wayne LaPierre and the top leadership was spending the money on themselves. Sumner lists many more. He wrote:

Across all these scams, the M.O. is the same. They start with a pitch that seems to break down into one of two categories:

* You’re missing out on secrets that can quickly give you an advantage over other people
* Your way of life is being threatened by people who are not like you

These are, of course, the classic basis of scams for centuries. The solution to either of these issues is the same—send money.

With money, you can defend the right to bear arms! Or … give millions to Wayne LaPierre while hitting members with frantic messages about a critical need for cash.
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Maybe there was a time when the Republican Party stood for something. If so, it’s hard to locate that time. What’s absolutely clear is at the moment the Republican Party exists only as a marketing organization—a platform for launching scams. The reason that Republicans never get concerned about upholding real knowledge or expertise isn’t secret at all—those things make it more difficult to part fools from their money.

I add: A scammer is a supremacist. He believes he deserves your money more than you do.



A few days ago I heard a report on NPR (and I’m not going to hunt down the link) about Wall Street giving Joe Biden more money than they gave to the nasty guy. They did not go to the conclusion – this makes Biden beholden to Wall Street. And Wall Street was the reason for the previous economic collapse and is a champion of the huge income inequality that cripples our nation.

Bree Newsome Bass tweeted a thread:

There remains a deep level of denialism around both the magnitude of the crises confronting this country, incl. racism, & the reality that the bipartisan political establishment opposes the very policies we need to actually address these crises & to relieve human suffering.

The bipartisan, corporatist establishment has succeeded again in forcing us into a position of having no choice but to pick between the fascism they continually enable or the status quo that has been killing us since before they normalized & enabled Trump’s rise to power.
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Stating the obvious, that the only alternative to Biden is 4 more yrs of Trump, is not a counter-argument but rather proves the point— that the system ultimately operates to crush any effort made toward racial & economic justice by paralyzing us & offering us no real choices.

It is ultimately *the policies* of the government that are killing us & that is where the bipartisan establishment remains most intractable & unresponsive to the needs of average people & especially to the needs of working class Black, brown & Indigenous communities.

The #1 priority of the bipartisan establishment is to maintain the status quo of racial capitalism b/c it is profitable to them personally. They were willing to enable Trump as long as he wasn’t too disruptive to that status quo b/c they view leftism as more disruptive.

Shifting demographics in USA have made it such that “diversity & inclusion” is now essential to preserving the status quo. The establishment refuses to budge much on policy but embraces the idea of PoC legislators enacting the same deadly policies of their white predecessors.
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The mayor being Black does not save anyone’s life when that mayor still gives more funding to the murderous police force than to the housing fund. We can appoint Black people to every political office in the land & we’ll still be dying unless the policies drastically change.
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My hope is folks understand why it’s strategically wise to vote Trump & Repubs out of office

AND ALSO

that November will only mark the beginning of a more turbulent era in this country b/c white supremacy is not going down w/o a protracted fight beyond the ballot box.

Have you been diligent about wearing your mask in public and getting annoyed with those who refuse? Hunter of Kos has a video from Allen Pan of a new invention that will shoot a mask onto a person’s face.



A fun bit to end this post came from the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Back in 1996 Kevin Costner starred in the movie The Postman. It bombed in theaters. I had read and enjoyed the original novella in one of my science fiction magazines on which the movie is based, but when I heard the movie wasn’t very good I didn’t see it.

Colbert’s team think we owe Costner an apology. Yes, he was wrong in 1996, but he was so right in 2020.