Il Duche

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were at a memorial for a friend of a friend yesterday.  It was held in a west Austin country club right on Lake Austin with a great lap pool and work out facilities. It had survived the long freeze well.  Gene Anne, the woman who had passed, was married to John the Oncologist.  

So as you might imagine, there were a lot of Doctors there including my partner. It was a Civil affair, not a Priest or a robe in site. Doctors, lots of Doctors.  

We were talking to David, one of my favorites because he actually was on the basketball team at UCLA in the late sixties during those glory days.  Coach Wooten told him to get a good education and he did.  As we chatted, we talked about retirement, but he couldn't imagine it, not right now, not while we have this dictator in our country.   

Yes, there you have it.  If a aging Doctor in a swanky West Austin Tennis Club knows, I guess most of us know it. Like David, We probably try to avoid thinking about it.  

This North Carolina professor knows it too.

Donald the First: Trump the dictator has arrived 

We have launched a war against Venezuela — apparently because we can. We have provided no justification, no rationale, no candor. Their oil, we claim, is now ours. We’ll sell it and, Donald Trump explains, the “money will be controlled” by him. If the Venezuelans don’t bend quickly enough to our command, we’ll kill more of them. It’s like a video game to us. You know, like blowing up the boats. The U.S. military has proven its mastery — in an illegal and blatantly unconstitutional and brutal cause. 

Next, Trump explains, “we’re going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” If we “don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.” Cuba and Mexico are, perhaps, after that. As Stephen Miller oozes — who is going to stop us? It’s a real world out there. “You can talk about international niceties, but we live in a world governed by strength, by force, by power,” Miller says. The strong, apparently, take what they want and the weak, in turn, bear what they must. (I think the ancient Greeks said that.) The Western Hemisphere is reportedly ours. So is any other nation that has anything we want. The only limit is Trump’s moral compass. Imagine, if you can.

ICE continues to terrorize Democratic cities — killing a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, because, in this new era, that’s how you look manly, lethal. (a ICU nurse would follow her) We advertise for agents on TV. Give ‘em signing bonuses. Le mercenaire. 

The president of the United States extorts like Al Capone. 

Universities, law firms, corporations, media folks, researchers, artists, nonprofits, cities (Democratic ones), states (blue ones) and countries (weak ones). If you don’t do what he wants, he’ll bring bombers and gunships to your shore to see if that changes your mind. Maybe he’ll take the money, or maybe he’ll give it to his family. 

The corruption is so outlandish, we’ve quit keeping track. A surpassingly gutless House and Senate bless the effort. Their only apparent actual oath is to Donald J. Trump. A supine Supreme Court utters immunity. There is, literally, nothing beyond his power. And if there was, he could hire goons to do it and then pardon them.

We have fretted, as a nation, over whether Trump would become a dictator. 

He has. 

Donald The First. 

Anyone who thinks he and his crew will surrender power is three shades past delusional. At least the mystery is gone. The only question is whether he will be cabined, suppressed, rejected — legally — by the constitutional democracy he seeks to undo. That will require an actual Congress, resolute state governments, faithful and independent federal courts, but, most of all, a massively engaged, courageous and patriotic citizenry. It’s not yet clear whether we can manage to deliver these undoubted and foundational requisites. I wish I knew the answer. I do know it’s the most important question we face. 

Maybe that we’ll ever face.

Surveying my home — a state that I love and that counts for the nation — the North Carolina Republican Party must now denounce President Trump. If they don’t, all Tar Heels, citizens and officeholders, must abandon the party. This day. 

There could be no stronger proof that an institution is unfit to govern than the continued embrace of Donald Trump — the gravest single threat to constitutional democracy in American history. No patriot can support dictatorship. And no honest human can any longer pretend that’s not what is happening here.

* Gene Nichol is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Last night at dinner, we talked about it.  We talked about the horrible movie made for Il Duce's wife. We talked about how the Europeans don't like us anymore.  We talked about how screwed up we are with Canada and Mexico.  I said we now have a dictator and everyone just simply agreed and we went on about our holidays.

The Atlantic says:

President Drumph prosecutes his political opponents; deports immigrants, including some here legally, to foreign prisons without due process; solicits tribute payments from corporations and foreign governments; deploys soldiers to American cities that are not, in fact, in civil-war-level chaos; and puts his name and image on government buildings that quite obviously don’t belong to him.

So, a question: What do you call this form of government? Authoritarian? Kleptocratic? Totalitarian? Fascist?

A Dictatorship 

Read it from the man who lived it. 

“The definition of fascism is the marriage of corporation and state ” Il Duce said.

It is the core concept of

corporatism, where the state and large private entities form a symbiotic partnership to control the economy and society. 

And the best of us demonstrate against it. 

But we are like indoor cats chasing a laser beam

that came from space to change our elections. 

And we eat our canned gourmet meals.

And play on our high rise kitty condos.

And crap in our self cleaning internet connected sandbox.

And in the distance I hear drumming.

and Minnesota is on my mind. 

And Il Duce is alive. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earthfamilyalpha.earth

Earthfamily Principles

Earthfamilyalpha you tube channel  
 

Earthfamilyalpha Content V

Earthfamilyalpha Content IV 

Earthfamilyalpha Content III

Earthfamilyalpha Content II
 
Earthfamilyalpha Content

 

 

 

Minority Rule

It's been going on for a while now.  Most of us remember that dreary day in December 2000 when the Supreme Court of the United States instructed the state of Florida to stop counting votes as Bush's lead in the recount of the state dropped to 537 votes.  Thus, Albert Gore would win the popular vote that year by a half a million votes and yet  lose the election by five electoral votes 271 to 266; thus making him the first person since Grover Cleveland (another D) in 1888 to win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College.

Republicans have lost the popular vote in six out of the seven last presidential elections.  Yet they now have a super majority in the Supreme Court. When Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 50–48,  Only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted with the  Republican majority, which represented just 44 percent of the country’s population. 

Indeed, when Americans last voted for their senators (over a period of six years), Democrats won the popular vote by more than 8 percent. It’s that disproportionality—and the reality that a majority of the country’s population is represented by just 18 senators that demonstrates that both the Presidency and the Senate can be dominated by a Republican minority.

Because of gerrymandering, even the House of Representatives no longer conforms fully to principles of majority representation. At least one report says Democrats need to win by double digits to gain a majority. By contrast, Republicans could win just 45 to 46 percent of the overall House vote and still hold on to the lower chamber.

 And they are a minority.

 As of May 2020, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republican, and 40% as Independent.^[3] However, polling showed that 50% are either "Democrats or Democratic leaners" and 38% are either "Republicans or Republican leaners" when Independents are asked "do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?

And we wonder why the R's want to suppress the vote?

And why Democrats want everyone to vote?

There is a general rule that turnouts of 60% or above will bring a Democratic victory.  Turnouts below 55% almost always bring a Republican President.  Between 55% and 59 % is a toss up. Turnout in 2000 was under 55%.  2016 turnout was 57%. Total votes in 2016 was over 130 million. (Hillary 66 M, Trump 63M)

As of tonight, is looks like the early vote will get close to 100 million, well beyond any other year -primarily due to the Pandemic.  In Texas, there are already more early votes than votes in all of 2016. This may make Texas actually in play as a battleground state.

This from the Austin Independent:

"Texas has burst into the national headlines over the last few days for something absolutely, totally unprecedented — high voter turnout. More Texans voted early this year than voted in the entire 2016 election — that is more than the 2016 early, mail-in and election day vote combined. As readers have probably seen, this transformed Texas into a swing state in the 2020 presidential election. Move over Florida and Pennsylvania. (clip)

Trump simply cannot win a second term without winning Texas. And, I simply cannot avoid pointing out that back on March 1, in the Independent’s first issue, I wrote: 

“Imagine if Texas went blue: the networks would likely call the race right then. . . If and when it did happen, people all over the nation, all over the world, would burst into the streets to celebrate. The focus would then shift to whether Donald Trump will accept the verdict of American voters and peacefully vacate the White House come January 20, 2021.”

The Cook Report says that Biden is going to win. They even believe that the Senate will flip.

Michael Moore even says it.

Go vote and bring a friend.

Let's end minority rule.

Before it gets really scary.

arthfamily Principles

Earthfamilyalpha you tube channel  

Earthfamilyalpha Content IV 

Earthfamilyalpha Content III

Earthfamilyalpha Content II
 
Earthfamilyalpha Content

 

 

 

Your Pledge

I pledge allegiance to The Constitution of the United States of America and to the Republic for which this flag stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

One day, hopefully, the pledge can be changed to reflect the fact that The Constitution is the foundational bedrock of this country, while still acknowledging the importance of the flag.

Until that time, I intend to make my pledge to The Constitution and the Republic directly, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

What we pledge to is no small issue in a country where less than half of adults can correctly name the three branches of government.

I posted this same diary with a poll on dailykos.

Some people would prefer to not pledge under God, some would prefer not to pledge at all, but almost all of those willing to pledge would prefer to make their pledge directly to the Constitution and to the Republic for which the flag stands.

All these options are guaranteed under the Constitution.

I believe in a God that believes in the Constitution.

Jonathan Turley on the Constitution.