THE SANE HALF of the United States must be breathing a huge sigh of relief. Excerpts from I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, published today (15/7/21) in The Washington Post, reveal just how important the character of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has become to the fate of the American republic. Confronted with the demands of an out-of-control Donald Trump, a Chairman lacking in General Mark Milley’s determination to defend his country’s constitution may well have buckled. Fortunately, this general was not the buckling kind.
Informed that Trump and his allies were planning to claim victory in the 2020 presidential election and use their control of the federal apparatus to stage what amounted to a coup d’état, Milley is said to have responded:
“They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
Very true, but in stating reality of the situation with such uncompromising, gun-metal clarity, Milley was opening up a very large can of worms. The guiding constitutional principle in relation to the armed forces of the United States is that they must, at all times, remain under civilian control. The “Founding Fathers”, most of whom had received a classical education, were only too aware of the role Julius Caesar played in the downfall of the Roman republic. Generals, they insisted, must be kept on tight civilian leash.
All well and good, but what happens when the civilians in charge (like the Secretary of Defence) are all the carefully selected political creatures of a man intent on making himself President-for-Life – and to hell with the Constitution! – what then?
Well, then it comes down to an unelected military officer deciding, on his own recognisance, that the orders of his Commander-in-Chief (i.e. the President) are unlawful and therefore unconstitutional, and consequently ought not to be obeyed by him, or anybody under his command. Paraphrasing the notorious formula of the US officer in Vietnam: “It would become necessary to destroy the Constitution in order to save it.”
A grim decision. But, the alternative decision: to obey the orders of a Commander-in-Chief who has just invoked the Insurrection Act, or declared a State of National Emergency, in order to steal the election from his opponent and feed the Constitution of the United States into the shredder; would have been even grimmer.
Perhaps word of Milley’s refusal to go along with Trump’s intended autogolpé (the Spanish term for a self-administered coup-d’état) tested the courage of Trump and his supporters to its breaking-point. After all, and as the failure of the attack on the US Capitol Building revealed, any insurrection attempted without the active co-operation of “the guys with guns” is doomed to fail.
Milley’s love of history stood the American people in very good stead during the final, harrowing weeks of 2020 and the first 20 days of 2021. Trump he insisted, was preaching the “Gospel of the Führer” and the USA was facing what he called “a Reichstag moment”. [The destruction of the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, by a young Communist arsonist, was seized upon by Hitler and his Nazis as proof of an impending Communist uprising requiring the suspension of the German constitution and the authorisation of rule by decree.] A week after the storming of the Capitol Building on 6 January, Milley raged: “These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II”. How Trump must regret his failure to appoint someone other than Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs!
Though America made it through the perilous weeks of Trump’s incipient treachery and celebrated joyously President Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House, the United States military may soon be called upon to rescue the republic a second time.
So wedded has the Republican Party become to Trump’s “Gospel of the Führer” that they have launched an all-out assault on the democratic process in the states it controls. Supposedly convinced by Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen”, the Republicans are now showing every sign of being willing to steal the 2022 mid-term elections.
If the comprehensive voter suppression laws they have passed allow them to reclaim both the House and the Senate, there are those within the Republican Party’s ranks who would not hesitate to have Congress declare the 2020 presidential election result null-and-void and seek to re-instate Trump in the White House. Were this scenario to unfold, President Biden would have two choices: acquiescence; or, to declare martial law, proscribe the Republican Party, and arrest its leaders, congresspeople and senators. Pending the calling together of a new Constitutional Convention, the drawing up of a new and unequivocally democratic (small ‘d’) constitution, and the holding of new elections, Biden would be required to rule by decree – and the US Military, the FBI and the CIA – the “guys with guns” – would have to let him do it.
In order to save the American republic, they would have to destroy it. Off the wall scenario? Let’s hope so. It would be unwise, however, to ignore President Biden’s impassioned speech, delivered earlier this week to constitutional scholars in Philadelphia, the key sentences of which were heavy with foreboding:
“So hear me clearly. There’s an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are, who we are as Americans. But make no mistake, bullies and merchants of fear, peddlers of lies, are threatening the very foundation of our country ….. We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the civil war, That’s not hyperbole. Since the civil war. The Confederates, back then, never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on 6 January. I’m not saying this to alarm you. I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.”
And who prevented the army of the racist, slave-owning, and profoundly undemocratic Confederate States of America from marching into the US Capitol? The United States armed forces and their Commander-in-Chief Abraham Lincoln – that’s who.
This message has the approval of the military industrial complex and the deep state. The Washington post is completely unbiased too.
If you know anything at all about the “Deep State”, OW, you will know that the term originated in Turkey and was used to describe the informal institutional determination (the armed forces, the judiciary, the police and the civil service) to protect Mustapha Kemal’s secular republic from politicised religious extremism, and, following Turkey’s admission to NATO, radical leftism.
If there is an American Deep State, its determination is likely to be very similar: to defend the Constitution and the American republic from all enemies – foreign and domestic – who seek to subvert it. Under Trump, that was Trump. Under Biden, it’s the Republican Party and its retinue of moronic traitors.
Ok Chris, you’re an academic, read that in a book somewhere, we’ll done, erect straw man.
It’s like manufacturing consent doesn’t exist in your world. It’s like ex intelligence agencies operatives don’t work in the mainstream media. Who owns the Washington post?
And then you act like the democrats and republicans aren’t two sides of the same coin.
off white – you’re a classic conspiracy theorist – dismiss fact as the enemy. Ignore the fascism of trump because it doesn’t suit your narrative. Ignore the real conspiracies – the minimisation of climate change harm, deliberate misinformation delivered by the right around covid, vaccinations etc, corporate lobbying that does real damage, and choose to believe fantasy
Wish I could put it that succinctly to my far too close relatives. I need to summon my insight like the witches upon the moor in Macbeth.
See Chris, we even have the Qanon types here in New Zealand.
Bert, I don’t care for qanon, but they sure inhabit your consciousness. You have no point of reference here, you are wholly in lock step with the mainstream narrative. You are the Taylor Swift of politics. Now go on and do what they tell you to do.
I might grab em by the pussy, it’s a Trump thing and no your not the sharpest tool in the tool shed, never have been judging by your unsolicited opinion. Chris was right you know nothing as I’m still trying to find your point of reference.
You’re (not your) obsessed, Bert. I’m starting to think that Trump grabbed you by the {metaphysical} pussy.
Ahh, finally an admission. YOU’RE an idiot.
Daryl add to that his personality is that most unbecoming of a leader of the USA…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iimj0j4NYME
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/7/13205842/trump-secret-recording-women
Meanwhile, back in reality, where it actually means something…
Our primary industry farmers are protesting en mass and judith fucking collins is holding council over them and jacinda adern is nowhere to be seen. I guess grubby old famas present less of a photo op than the despairing families of murdered Muslims?
Crooked cretinous collins is making political capital out of despairing farmers at their wits end and this is it? Me? Writing this? This is the best The Daily Blog can offer? Jesus fucking wept!
Hang in there, CB.
Every ending is followed by a new beginning – Farmers may be at a new beginning – maybe a kind of revolution in itself. We’re seeing the old stuff crash and crumble, but some things are timeless in their value. It’s not over yet, anyway.
So if those sources aren’t reliable Andrew, are the ones YOU tell us are credible?
You’re naïve to believe anything coming from those sources.
Previously the FBI and CIA were found to be donkey deep in the creation of the fake intelligence dossier that enabled them to spy on the Trump election campaign. They actively operated like the intelligence wing of the Democrat Party for four years, trying to undermine the Trump presidency.
These agencies are what Truman warned us about: They’re part of the industrial military machinery that considers itself the real power in DC, and who thought Trump was a threat to their influence.
Who is in charge now?
It certainly isn’t that fossilized old swamp gargoyle shuffling up to the podium with a presidential seal on it, fumbling through notes to answer simple prepared questions from a quiescent and complicit media.
There’s been a coup alright, but not the one you think!
It was President Dwight Eisenhower, Andrew, a Republican, who warned about the growing power of the “Military-Industrial Complex”.
As for the rest of your comment, well, at least TDB readers now know exactly where your coming from.
How are things in the city of Cray?
You’re right Chris! 😎
And yes, I’m sure you know where I’m coming from – Remember I was the “cray” one who said right from the start that the virus was engineered in a lab in Wuhan. The same thing that Trump was denounced as a racist for saying.
Nah. I don’t believe that. China’s food safety standards have been leaking pandemic level disease for decades and they do protect it. All these fucken unemployed online proffesors know fuck all. It’s not hard to predict these things.
FFS chris have you been living under a rock
I agree. The foundation assumption underpinning Chris’ article and all others of its type is that these institutional actors are acting in good faith and are objectively reporting the unvarnished facts without fear or favour. I have no idea why anyone would continue to believe this proposition, given all of the tried and failed attempts to discredit or even remove Trump over the years. They have all failed because they all have no basis in fact.
Trump also said ” you can grab em by the pussy and do whatever you want when your famous”. A tremendous standard of decency to adhere too.
Facts are what you determine for yourself. I’ve heard Trump speak, his history of bankruptcy. I have no idea why anyone would believe Trump whom is of sane mind.
Don’t be to quick to Trumps aid because as you say, you choose to believe in something based on good faith.
Unfortunately getting true facts is often impossible these days, you will rarely find the actual source or know the true intentions in their heart. What you generally get is processed information, the data equivalent of what plastic wrapped processed cheese is to farm fresh raw milk.
You may be able to guess how it has been manipulated, speculate as to what has been left out, wonder if critical bits are actually true, assign possible motivations as to why a certain message has been put into a public forum or ponder as to what story they are trying to tell or what agenda they are trying to push. You can read between the lines. You might think you glimpse the truth out of the corner of your eye, but you never will. The waters run too deep & the currents too turbulent. We live in interesting times.
Completely fucking wrong. Here’s an example of your adulation for Trump…
“Although Trump has said that he “never” settles legal claims, Trump and his businesses have settled with plaintiffs in at least 100 cases (mostly involving personal injury claims arising from injuries at Trump properties), with settlements ranging as high as hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars[1] and recently as high as tens of millions of dollars.[6]
Among the most well-known Trump legal cases was the Trump University litigation. Three legal actions were brought alleging fraud, one by the New York State attorney general and the others by class action plaintiffs.[7] In November 2016, Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle the litigation.[6]”
Donald Trump was found to have defrauded students, and was forced to pay $25 million in restitution.”
You don’t pay 25 million if you’re innocent!!!
Anything he’s done in politics follows his ethics in a previous life although I may be wrong he has no ethics.
Well you’d be insane to believe anything Trunp says. Even before your own eyes Trump stated this was a peaceful protest And they were good people this was not an insurrection.
I cannot believe the intellect of some people to believe such garbage.
Naivety it is not when it is the truth.
Bert, you’ve never heard Trump speak – it’s obvious from what you write.
What you’ve heard are carefully arranged snippets from woke NZ TV or CNN designed to twist what he says.
His one sin is bloviating and this gives the democrat controlled media ample opportunity to cut & paste his comments to rearrange the meaning. The classic example being the “very fine people” quote.
Fuck off Andrew, I’ve heard him speak you idiot, you spend far to much time listening to Fox right wing media snippets. Don’t pretend to know how I see , hear and interpret statements. You clearly fall into the insane category believing everything trump and Fox tells you. The reality will hit home shortly and will highlight the fool you are. Now tell me more about Trumps bankruptcies, or are they just woke media snippets. Trump certainly has you brainwashed, but hey, there’s always one.
So when Trump said, “stop the count”, live on Fox, he used a dummy? Did he use you Andrew?
So tell me Andrew, as now you have me intrigued.If you categorically state …
“His one sin is bloviating”, where does that come from?, your observation, Fox news or a guess, either way, not entirely scientific or an example of critical thinking. One think is obvious you have an ostrich thought process.
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/7/13205842/trump-secret-recording-women
Not sure bloviating is his one sin. If you turn the volume up you may hear with your ears.
Andrew you are a first rate clown, top of your class. I’d go as far as to say you are “off white”
Trump was on his way to impose a white supremacist theocracy in which lynching and and segregation were brought back and LGBT’s were repressed. The guy is an open racist and homophobe who would have banned evolution from US schools.
Looks like you didnt reply to me. I guess you condone racism and homophobia
Still radio silence.
It appears you want:
Segregation and lynching brought back
LGBT rights removed
Total abortion ban
Imposition of christianity at gun point.
Every person who supports Trump want those policy outcomes. Plain and simple.
100% CORRECT ON ALL COUNTS any downvotes are simple ignorance
100 % correct on all counts
Don’t forget that Bush declared: “The Constitution is just a piece of paper” when he decided to promote illegal wars predicated on looting the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Anyway, it’s all academic now. America is so far down the drain -economically, socially, financially, environmentally and militarily- it can truly be described as a basket case.
I personally doubt the Americans will get though the rest of 2021 without collapse. Can’t produce food -got no water where they need it, can’t control fires, can’t engage in the internationally community, can’t maintain credibility as a military power, can’t balance budgets, can’t fix decaying bridges and roads -even buildings are starting to collapse: all they are good at now is ‘printing money’ and directing it to banks, corporations and opportunists. And lying.
There’s no doubt the US voter registration and authentication system is loose, so loose you could drive a bus through it.
The Dems are just making stuff up. Kamala Harris was saying that it wasn’t fair that people had to produce ID because they couldn’t get them photocopied.
Seriously, David, you’re buying into Trump’s Big Lie? I had you pegged for a sensible conservative, not a supporter of Republican Party voter suppression and incipient treason.
Cheers Chris, to be clear, I’m not in support of “voter suppression” or attempts to subvert the voting system for partisan ends. Both sides are engaged in that, the Dems by turning a blind eye to it’s deficiencies (and even adding new ones) and the Repubs by putting difficulties in the way of legitimate voters. I do think the system that has been allowed to develop is faulty and that that in itself gives rise to questions and outrageous conspiracy theories.
They could do worse than copy our system of checks and balances over things like voter ID but obviously it should not be up to the politicians to decide but by a body such as our electoral commission. Unfortunately, I suspect that getting something like that off the ground, something beyond corruption, will be too much for what the US has become.
Hi chris forget about Trump and open your mind to the corruption that is the politics in Amerika
Corruption is Trump and politics.
I stopped reading at “the sane half of the United States”
As a non partisan observer of US Politics I can assure you there is no sane half to America: they are both as bad as each other and equally feral.
Orange Man Bad or Sleepy Joe and his side kick cackling Kamala. Yea Nah.
Ah ha, the old fake false equivalence gambit.
My guess is that 1% of Americans are sane.
The other 99% are nuts -deliberately made so by the toxic, inane culture, the shockingly bad ‘education’ system, the copious quantities of junk food ingested, and the for-profit ‘health’ system.
The sooner Trump is indicted, tried convicted and jailed the better.
It’s a great great shame the USA seems unwilling or too timid to hold a rogue president to account. Trump has already committed numerous criminal offences whilst running for and while in office: Campaign finance offences, numerous counts of obstruction of justice, criminal attempt to bribe and blackmail a foreign power for personal gain.
At least the SDNY and Manhattan have begun proceedings against his criminal family business outfit.
Trump Org will inevitably implode and in normal world that would take him down with it, but this loathsome creature has discovered that inciting his cult with the Big Lie is a fertile source of grift and cash.
USA remains in deep trouble.
Mate, they’ve been breathlessly claiming all of these things, and others, yet all without evidence, for years. Yet nothing. Trump is probably the most investigated man on the face of the earth. When do you finally realise that you are being propagandised? Soon, surely. It’s all just smoke and mirrors.
“they’ve been breathlessly claiming all of these things, and others, yet all without evidence, for years.”
You haven’t read the Mueller report, that’s perfectly obvious.
Neither do you comprehend the impeachment process and its limitations when one party that controls the adjudication is determined to turn it into farce by not even allowing witnesses to be heard at it. Add to that a ridiculous US Justice Dept memo (i.e. opinion) that shields sitting presidents from legal accountability for criminal acts – and Trump has had a perfect protection from criminal accountability.
You simply expose your own naivete and ignorance of events to claim that no evidence has been presented: the legal forums refusal to indict amounts to refusal to even hear evidence no matter how compelling and the political process has been hijacked by a party that puts partisan politics above the rule of law.
The US system in these areas is a farce.
Mueller sounds like an absolute loon and a political opportunist
so much mud has been flung at Trump and none has stuck.
How many more cash grabs disguised as books on Trump must we endure? Everyone trying to make a buck of Trump is just embarrassing to watch
“Mueller sounds like an absolute loon and a political opportunist”
I challenge you to justify that viewpoint with even one coherent argument.
Mueller’s absolute refusal to engage in anything political in conducting and delivering his report refutes your assertion on its face.
RC apologies for my typo but I meant Milley” not mueller.
here are some quotes from Milley:
“Milley, according to the excerpts seen by CNN, drew on numerous World War II cliches, comparing Trump’s rhetoric of a ‘rigged’ election to “the gospel of the Fuhrer,” his supporters to the Nazi “brownshirts,” and Trump himself as “the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose.”
If that is not an indication the guy is unhinged well I don’t know what more you need.
If Trump was an Authoritarian Leader how come he was always getting taken down by the Dems and having the things he wanted to implement blocked?
Comparing Trump to Hitler is plain ridiculous
Trump supporters to Brownshirts is something I expect to hear from an ideologically crazed group like antifa not a high ranking military official
This book is just another cash grab rising on Trumps Legacy
And Qanon isn’t a crazed group?
“This book is just another cash grab rising on Trumps Legacy”
Another Qanon theory.
Exactly the same arguments can be applied to the election and claims of cheating . Last time I looked, though again and again it is claimed that all charges of election fraud brought by Trump’s supporters have failed to be upheld, the fact is that no single court has accepted the responsibility to judge them. Please correct me if that is wrong with a reference to the case and the judgement.
D J S
“Exactly the same arguments can be applied to the election and claims of cheating ”
If you are addressing my comment you are dead wrong.
No cases against Trump have YET been brought before the courts for the very reasons I supplied.
The election fraud claims have been rejected by the courts.
The equivalence you present is totally false.
Yep Trump most certainly has got Antoine with his Smoke and Mirrors. The most gullible are always played.
I do not believe u r this stupid
This constant and fatuous comparison of Trump to Hitler is just ridiculous. If it had any basis in reality, he would not have been banned from social media whilst remaining he sitting president, and, in fact, he would never have left office. So this claim holds no water at all.
Two main points Chris:
1) Milley’s recent stated intention to study the phenomenon of so-called “White rage” (i.e. the plight of the White American) is interesting. He claims that he has also similarly studied Lenin and Marx (providers of the philosophical underpinnings of the US’s two most recent geopolitical rivals, China and the USSR), but adds that he “is not a Communist”. He will thus study the disenfranchised American people in the same way. The implication here is that he doesn’t want to understand their grievance and act to mitigate it or resolve it, but is rather sees himself as being at war with the American people, the very people he is nominally entrusted with defending. It is clear then, that the military protects the Regime now, and sees the population at large as enemy combatants. Chilling.
2) The Reichstag fire was not “seized upon” by the Nazis: it was committed by the Nazis. It provided a pretext for all that followed. Your mysterious “young Communist arsonist” is a fairly direct analogy to the “Jan 6 insurgents.” That is, mostly an invention devised to establish a narrative for political ends. The so-called insurrectionists were not even armed, as the content of their indictments indicate.
“The Reichstag fire was not “seized upon” by the Nazis: it was committed by the Nazis. ”
No, as Chris wrote, it was committed by a young communist arsonist. That fact isn’t in any serious historical dispute. There are however competing hypotheses as to who, if anyone, he (Marinus van der Lubbe) was working with/or for.
“This constant and fatuous comparison of Trump to Hitler is just ridiculous. If it had any basis in reality, he would not have been banned from social media whilst remaining he sitting president, and, in fact, he would never have left office. So this claim holds no water at all”
I agree. It really shows the extent that people have really lost their political and historical marbles that they could think Trump and Hitler are on the same page.
Claims of “Trumpism” being in league with “nazism” are laughable and bewildering in equal measure. As if he was the 4th Reich. Yeah Nah. Not even. Hitler would have considered Trump an absolute clown.
the US political milieu is plain toxic and unhinged from Orange Man Bad through to Nancy “walking Dead” Pelosi, and everyone in between, why so many people in NZ have bought into the US political circus and all the divisive crap that goes with it is beyond me.
Step back and watch the US destroy itself from within and pray NZ doesn’t go down the same path
100 percent
“This constant and fatuous comparison of Trump to Hitler is just ridiculous…. blah blather blah…”
Your entire comment that followed that could be used as a case study of non sequitur.
Good try, but wrong. The first sentence was a totally separate point to the specific two I went on to address, an aside to begin my comment proper of you like. This is why I then said “two main points Chris.” On this basis, the rest wasn’t a “non sequitor” at all, as it was never intended to be related to the first sentence.
Hey mastermind, we can scroll up and read what you wrote. Your second sentence was predicated on the first. As such it was non sequitur. You didn’t even attempt an argument, just made an absurd assertion regarding Hitler, Trump and social media.
The two following points were equally absurd.
“The sooner Trump is indicted, tried convicted and jailed the better.” of course, but in order that this process reach the proper conclusion, the process has to be thorough.. Any missteps, or oversights will be latched on to by the enemies of democracy in the USA….. The job is being done, but it also has to be seen to be done by the book, or the whinging and false claims will continue at an increased level as a result… Everything else I’m seeing that passes for informed comment here is laughably shallow and trite, to a level that actually bothers me, as these are supposed to be adults with real world experience making them… I prefer to get my info from my friends living in the US, as they, at least are living in that situation, and have insights that we can’t have from distance… And yes, there is a “sane” half in the US.. It’s actually the height of ignorance, and bigotry to suggest otherwise… Those “sane people are actually situated in all factions outside the truly deluded fringe groups that owe their existence to inbreeding and/or growing up in isolation from what passes for modern democracy… To assume that All Americans are crazy is nothing more than exposing ones own bigotries, and shallow intellect.. That’s about as useful as projectile diarrhea…
History repeats itself. Google Smedley Butler to see an earlier incarnation of this kind of coup attempt and it’s prevention by a military hero. I’m an ex Yank who has lived here for over 40 years, and am ashamed of the situation in the US these days and very grateful to be here.
The general knew his history and so his facts.
Amusing how there is nothing firm beneath the feet of our ridiculously short-term species. Reason and the rule of the people are my rock. Why the pulled pin grenade of America has drifted into a danger to us all.
I posted a comment about this on youtube. The yanks didn’t even understand the basics of reason and democracy. It’s more likely they’ll become an authoritarian state than do the rational. I don’t care about the form of the state as long as it confronts the tidal wave of reality. More likely with a democracy?
This reminds me of the adage that by and large you don’t realise you’re living through a revolution until it’s halfway through. If they had to call a constitutional convention, well, that would be a revolution.
Perhaps everyone should look at this on General Milley to understand who we are talking about.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/battle-atlantic-citing-nazi-germany-model-us-military-chief-hails-new-nato-command/5750294
D J S
Here’s the US Progressives’ take on Biden’s speech:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/13/one-speech-isnt-enough-progressives-call-biden-get-tough-voting-rights
From that link:
“It is not enough for the president to talk about voting rights,” journalist and author John Nichols said in response to Biden’s speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “He has to come out, explicitly, unequivocally, for overturning the filibuster in order to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”
Ahead of Biden’s speech, Indivisible highlighted three things they wanted to hear from the president:
– Explain to the American people why federal legislative action in the form of the For The People Act is essential in this moment;
– Call on the U.S. Senate to send the For The People Act to his desk for his signature before breaking for recess in August; and
– Outline what the White House is doing to ensure the Senate passes the bill.
On the first point, Biden delivered. The GOP’s state-level voter suppression push—which has been fueled by former President Donald Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him—is “the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history,” the president said. He explained why federal protections are needed, declaring that “it starts with continuing the fight to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act.”
The For the People Act is a popular bill that would counter Republican lawmakers’ attacks on the franchise and increase ballot access nationwide by establishing minimum electoral standards in every state. Provisions of the bill include implementing automatic voter registration, limiting states’ ability to purge voters from the rolls, requiring states to adopt independent redistricting commissions to combat partisan gerrymandering, and setting up a publicly financed small-dollar donation matching system for candidates who reject high-dollar contributions.
Emphasizing that “17 states have enacted, not just proposed but enacted, 28 new laws to make it harder for Americans to vote,” Biden said that Republicans “want make it so hard and inconvenient that they hope people don’t vote at all. That’s what this is about… the 21st century Jim Crow assault is real. It’s unrelenting. And we’re gonna challenge it vigorously.” …
…
However, despite describing the For the People Act as a “national imperative,” drawing attention to the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest weakening of the Voting Rights Act, and making other references to the urgency of the moment, the president didn’t specify that Congress should pass the legislation before the August recess, nor did he describe the necessary steps to get there.
On Monday night, after fleeing the state in order to deny their Republican colleagues the quorum needed to ram through a sweeping voter suppression package, Texas state Democratic lawmakers implored congressional Democrats to act immediately to protect U.S. democracy from the GOP onslaught.
Biden, however, made no mention of the filibuster on Tuesday, even though that anti-democratic rule—which requires a 60-vote supermajority to advance most legislation—allowed the Senate’s Republican minority to prevent debate on S. 1, as the upper chamber’s version of the For the People Act is called, last month.
Responding to Biden’s speech, MoveOn executive director Rahna Epting called the GOP’s attacks on voting “a five-alarm fire for our democracy,” and said that despite Biden’s refusal to mention the filibuster, suspending or abolishing it through a simple-majority vote remains key to any legislative victory. – more at the link
another idiot
…”And who prevented the army of the racist, slave-owning, and profoundly undemocratic Confederate States of America from marching into the US Capitol? The United States armed forces and their Commander-in-Chief Abraham Lincoln – that’s who”…
Hardly.
As I posted before there were many, many mitigating circumstances regarding the simplistic issues of ‘slavery’ precipitating the American civil war…
* Lincoln saw a future half a million to a million loyal votes from freed Afro Americans guaranteed to vote for him and his Republican party. It would be difficult to overlook the political benefits he saw.
* Crucially, the hypocritical industrial North relied on the agrarian produce of the South to produce textiles for on sale to England and France and to the people of America themselves.
* Many tout and think slavery as being the only cause of the civil war but a close runner up was the issue of states rights and self determination, a fact that is buried in time, changed by revisionists, dismissed as Southern apologetics, yet ignored when taken in context for that period of history.
* In many Southerners eyes when the North declared war it was akin to a looming invasion, so naturally they resisted – as would we or anybody else.
* The so called ‘reconstruction’ of the South was seen in many peoples eyes as nothing more than an occupation and land grab by the victors, and a form of early open air ‘reeducation camp’.
* Among those advocating ‘reconstruction’ were the usual gaggle of financiers, bankers, speculators, land grabbers and opportunists waiting in the wings like hawks from both the North, Europe and even the South to loan and invest in the coming bonanza they saw.
* Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation was shelved for a long time because fellow political colleagues did not want it released because they were unsure if they could win against the South and could lose them votes in the advent of a détente being reached and a preservation of the Union of sorts….
It was one reason why Lincoln pressured his generals for intensifying the war, sacking one (General George McClellan) and replacing him with (Ambrose Burnside) then ( General Joseph Hooker) then (George Meade)- and not forgetting Ulysses S. Grant and General William T. Sherman who went on to play major roles in the theory of manifold destiny, westward expansion and the genocide of many native Americans. Admittedly, the South also had its sackings but not nearly as many. They seemed to have been more unified in purpose with examples of dissent or disorderly conduct less common.
Interestingly, the modern day Democratic party had its origins in the South and was pro slavery, whereas the Republicans ( Lincolns party) were opposed to it. These days that is all reversed and the Democrat’s are the ‘good guys’ and the Republicans are the ‘bad guys’. Slavery was a hideous thing for those who were abducted and suffered. Yet, some were treated well. Many Afro Americans fought for the confederates, strangely enough. Yet one cannot ever justify selling human beings, nor slavery , nor the initial abductions. The American civil war is a complex piece of history when taken in historical context and there were many vested interests both at home and abroad who wanted the war. It was never simply just about slavery. Money and political power were also major influences for both sides. And while Abe Lincoln is seen today as a virtuous, ethical leader and which I believe he essentially was ( Yet confederate General Robert E Lee was equally viewed as such ), he still intensified the war effort and is inadvertently yet ultimately, responsible for the deaths of around half a million American lives in the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil, and for the population of that time, – the toll was horrendous.
Lincoln was no haloed philanthropist but simply more of the same political opportunists we have all come to view in the year 2021 with cynicism. We have all become very, very weary of the Bushes , Nixons and the Bidens and the Johnsons. All of them.
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