The US of A is now officially in a Constitutional Crisis. That’s not the rant of a Southern California beachtown raq, that’s what the top Democrats in Congress are saying.
On Wednesday, Representative Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that the nation was in a constitutional crisis after his committee recommended the House hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over an unredacted version of the special counsel’s report, along with the report’s underlying evidence.
And today, Thursday, Speaker of the House Pelosi said she agreed with Nadler. She said the United States was in a “constitutional crisis” and warned that House Democrats might move to hold more Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress if they continued their refusals to comply with committee subpoenas. New York Times
Pelosi stated:
“We’re going to do the right thing, that’s just the way it is, and it is going to be based on fact and law and patriotism, not partisanship or anything else,”
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
We will not be in a Constitutional crisis UNTIL something happens that the Constitution has provided no mechanism to resolve. If the courts rule against the administration on a matter and the administration then defies the courts . . . THAT would be a Constitutional crisis.
But it IS very, very scary.
Editordude:
Everyone in DC is crazy. Their derangement, their values, their focus…are not mine. I will not let their words and deeds drive me nuts.
My life in OB will not change. I’ll focus and vote on local issues. And I’ll enjoy my weekly stroll down to Hess to quaff a delicious Habitus.
That’s a bit overblown. Was the US facing a constitutional crisis when Eric Holder was held in contempt in 2012? It wasn’t then, it isn’t now.
I agree with Peter. It’s not a Constitutional Crisis until the administration fails to follow a reading/interpretation/direction by the SPOTUS. Just more hyperbole by the Dems to muddy the waters as to why they can’t, won’t impeach.
I love it when people claim we’re not in a constitutional crisis because the system is working. How many times have we actually impeached a president in the 240 years of the republic?
So we wait until something that’s not in the constitution? How about upholding the law of the land? Trump is not doing that now. He is acting unconstitutionally right now, not to mention all the details unearthed by Mueller. The system is not working, folks, and I’m quite surprised by thequeenlizard in calling the con crisis “more hyperbole by the dems”.
Ah, Frank. My whole point is that the rule of law is going to be either enforced by the courts or not. If the COURT does not rule in favor of black-letter law, then we are in a Constitutional crisis. If the Court does rule in favor of the law (a pretty likely result) and the clown car that is this administration refuses to comply, then we are in a Constitutional crisis.
I am encouraged by the Mazars case (Trump’s accountant that has been subpoenaed by Congress). Trump sued to slow down the process. Judge said after review that she was going to rule (no need for any testimony, arguments by lawyers, etc.) next week.
So, the system is creaking along, although wounded by a madman.
The system is working, and it is working fast. Judge Mehta (who is in fact, a HE, not a she) ruled against the Administration with a 41 – page history lesson that is well worth the time to read:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/999-mazars-usa-decision/f3bc28123dd74a1843ef/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
Today another judge will rule in a similar case where Trump’s lawyers are trying to block DoucheBank (sic) from turning over records to another committee.
Don’t be distracted by shiny objects. Watch the results play out in the courts.
I’m simply stating facts according to the Constitution on what exactly is Constitutional Crisis. Just saying it doesn’t make it true.
As for the Dems, when they get the fortitude to impeach the prick, perhaps my position will change.
That would be after they change their new policy of not giving support to any other democrat that runs against a Democratic incumbent, even if the incumbent is a bigot, racist, or votes with the Republicans more than the democratic party, just so the seat remains democratic. That’s just self-serving bullshit that exposes how scared they are of the new left/socialist leaning democrats elected in the “Blue Wave”.
Really? The constitution defines “crisis”? And just saying it isn’t a crisis doesn’t make that true. I believe we are in one because Trump is getting away with all kinds of unconstitutional stuff, and up to now, no other branch of gov’t has been able to step in and check him. Sure, the subpoenas are a start, and threats of going to court are a necessity. But I fear the Dem leadership in Congress may not be up for the tasks at hand. Well, as we’ve debated, there’s all kinds of dems, and the corporate ones make me sick as well.
yeah, I agree with that. About 80% of current Democratic politicians are more or less re-homogenized Republicans! The political spectrum has shifted so far to the right that there isn’t much difference between the the current “centrist” Dems (that paranoid Democratic voters keep wanting to back), and the slightly to the left Republicans from 20 years ago. People need to get over the fear and angst of anything having the phrase “social…” in it. As a WaPo columnist said “The Republicans want to paint everything green as red”. Its stale, its old, and its frankly globally destructive. We need to quit applying old concepts to new glossary!
Tomato tomahtoh . . . can we agree that we are teetering on the VERGE of a Constitutional crisis? Nothing that is happening does not have a Constitutional remedy at this juncture.
FiveThirtyEight has a great analysis of the four types of Constitutional crisis’
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/constitutional-crisis/
Excellent article, Peter, thx for the share! And interesting reading it now, given that it was written in 2017… a lot of relevance has shown up downstream since!
And I might point out that the situation w/ Holder was very different, although there is no question that case was also a valid contempt charge, and is in fact still pending. In that instance, DOJ was refusing to release information regarding how the DOJ makes its decisions internally (in particular with respect to how the fast and furious gun deal got green lighted and who-all made those decisions). Congress was being denied procedural information, which is unacceptable given that their job is oversight and checks and balances. Its a weird one b/c typically Congress would hire DOJ lawyers to pursue that, but obviously they can’t hire DOJ to investigate or indict itself. So its not clear who is handling that matter on behalf of Congress…
In the current contempt case, the info is, as we all know, an unredacted Mueller report (and I guess the requested tax information). Given that most of the report has been distributed (and per constraints on specific Grand jury disclosure and ongoing investigations) this is a muddier situation.
But what is patently clear in both situations is that the DOJ is not representing the people, has bias, and is obstructing the performance of Congress. Call it what you want, but it completely undermines the intent of the Constitution and the function of the government laid out therein. :-(
Hey, I know, and maybe we’re playing semantics here. Personally I believe we’ve been in a constitutional crisis ever since the Russians helped to manipulate the 2016 election in favor of Trump. Not that Clinton didn’t make mistakes.
I think also that Trump believes he has his guys on the Supreme Court who will allow him to get away with everything he’s done unconstitutionally.
yeah, I concur and, fwiw, I think crisis has been fulminating now for about 20 years. We simply cannot sustain the two party, excessive campaigning and $, and decades long Congressional stalemates for another 8 years with no meaningful legislation getting created and passed. Heck, at this point since we’re on our 120th mass gun shooting of 2019 already, nobody is gonna be around to even see climate change or any of the other crises we’re facing….
When have we NOT been in a Constitutional crisis? Never in my entire life, Frank!
In the words of Wanker Bush, that ‘damned piece of paper’ has been whittled down by every single president as far back as I can remember, and even farther in what I read of history!
President Dick ‘Go F**k Yourself’ Cheney and his sockpuppet Wanker Bush are guilty of War Crimes, and the unSupreme Court is guilty of breaking the Constitution to put little Wanker in office in 2000 along with breaking the Florida Constitution! Nixon bombed Cambodia which broke the Constitution.
But of course nobody pays any attention, and the schools don’t even teach anything about it or the Bill of Rights that is in that piece of paper.
My youngest step-daughter at one of those Cali ‘excellence award’ high schools with a straight A 4.5 GPA, who was skipped over an MS after her BS to go straight into the PhD program and graduated 6th in her class at UC Davis as a surgical vet, couldn’t even cite the Bill of Rights. Our late night talks about the world in the late 90s during high school, and the books I handed her she handed back because if she didn’t answer the tests the way she was supposed to she’d get a failing grade. She got an A- once and she nearly had a panic attack.
Two quotes for the readers here:
“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.”
– Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
“For it is evident that those who regard the whole earth as their future territory will stress the organ of domestic violence and will rule conquered territory with police methods and personnel rather than with the army.”
? Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
And read this:
We Are All Sandra Bland
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/10/we-are-all-sandra-bland/
Then one can go to Robert Perry’s investigative journalism site and read this:
‘Turnkey Tyranny’ on the Streets of Washington
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/05/09/turnkey-tyranny-on-the-streets-of-washington/#comment-365963
Happy Wake-UP call!
sealintheSelkirks
And retired botanist, PLEASE quit using the term ‘climate change!’ Here is who invented the horrible term:
Note To the Environmental Community
by Ralph Nader
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/06/note-to-the-environmental-community/
Seal – I know you sent us something to publish but this week has not been good; my back has been out.
Um, no, Frank, I didn’t send anything to publish as I’m buried in the 4th rough draft of my second book the ‘Massacre Sites: Working for the Dead’ one I told you about. Plus #3 that I’ve started which is a really cool fun kids’ book and #4 that is in my head wanting to get out… Maybe it was the note saying I commented on the wrong article and asked for it to be moved correctly?
Since you published two of my stories and the Reader Rant about the STVRs the last two years, I’ve had two more pieces published in two other magazines. But working off & on 3 years now on book number two and it’s feeling like it’s nearly completed. At least the 15 people who’ve read one or another of the drafts said so! Retired Prof, PhD, and published Native author Katherine the Inuit/Eskimo friend up here has contacted a publisher she knows about it and gave him my email but I haven’t heard anything from there yet. It’s definitely one of those niche-type life stories but I’m around 70,000 word count at this point with more going in along with the editing…
The only thing I have sitting here that relates to OB is that Southside of the OB Pier surfing story that you said last year might be more of a Halloween story…not really as even though the find was…unsettling, the reality of the experience in early 1986 wasn’t…but if you want that one I can clean it up and send you a rough draft of it!
retired botanist: can you imagine what kind of radical positive life-affirming changes this country would have gone through with Nader as president? Or else he would have been immediately taken out by a ‘lone crazed gunman’ no doubt. Unless he would have had a VP like FDR had in Henry Wallace…that the wealthy leisure class clowns that were around him replaced Wallace with Truman and look where that got this country…
It was mid-80s here today, waaaaay too freaking warm in these mountains for being 70 air miles from the Canadian border. I guess we aren’t going to see our last frost in June this year again, ya know? Yeah, Catastrophic Climate Chaos definitely sums it up…
sealintheSelkirks
Yep, Seal. Sigh, I CAN imagine a Nader presidency and, haha, I’m STILL getting shade 20 yrs later from Dem friends (and others who can’t think outside the box) who dissed me for voting for him! And they’re basically the same folks who have more recently said the same thing about Bernie’s Independent status…
I admire Nader for the work he has done but I will never forgive him for giving us George Bush. Voting for ideals makes little sense to me when you look at the stark alternatives, one of whom will win and affect history. I also admire Bernie and I’m not huge Hillary fan, but compared to what Bernie gave us, I’d take her any day. Ideals have to be tempered by realism. No offense retired botanist, just my two cents.
No offense taken, Geoff, I’m well-galvanized. :-). Equally unpopular, I also respect the view of those who simply will not vote if they do not have the choice of a candidate they think can do the job. This, too, is a highly criticized viewpoint… haha, and I spring from a Republican mother who constantly reminded me that it was my “duty to vote”, and heretofore I have voted in every election since I was 18. But that may change.
Btw, I just watched Netflix’s Bring Down the House, which is not just about AOC (for those who deride her) but, rather, perhaps more about bringing politics back to the streets, which is frankly where it belongs :-)
And Geoff, in a PS, I just read Jim Miller’s latest article here in the Rag, and have to say his final comment hits home with me:
“…Consequently, when approaching this primary election of our lifetimes, no person of good conscience should vote for any candidate who refuses to acknowledge the colossal stakes of the climate question. No one who fails to offer solutions big enough to actually save the future deserves to lead this country.”
Well, that’s no problem for me, retired botanist. I’m a Democrat at heart, although I became unaffiliated when the Gray Davis/Arnold fiasco happened. If the Republicans nominate someone other then orange hair, who actually believes in climate change, there will be two choices for the voters on that issue because I have yet to see a leading Democrat deny climate change. And, if they nominate that idiot again, there is only once choice. I’m not a fan of single issue voting but sometimes the position on a particular issue is a good indicator of a candidate’s overall view of the world. Dealing with climate change is a compassionate issue, the future of our children and grandchildren. The Republican box of compassion on this issue is empty.
Haha, Seal, duly noted and will do! What a great letter; I love Nader, and its a perfect trifecta of the well-spoken: Nader, McKibben, and Confucious! Moreover, I need to avoid referring to it as something ‘coming up’ or ‘in the future’…its already here and the ‘change’ is already happening!!
Geoff Page: Please do not blame Ralph Nader for what the right wing unSupreme Court justices chose to do!
They not only were breaking the US Constitution by intervening to stop the lawful recount of the ballots, but in doing so they broke the Florida State Constitution. That is factual history. So why are you throwing crap at Nader? He would have made a great president unless he got JFK’d.
You ever read the last 6 months of JFK’s public speeches? I have. You should. everybody should.
2000 was a coup, dude. Literally what is called a ‘soft’ coup d’etat. Remember all those Republican operatives pounding on the doors of the recount building in Florida screaming to stop the recount? I do. Only later did we find out who they worked for but by then the corporate news had ‘moved on.’
Three later independent recounts of the 2000 election gave the election to Al Gore. THREE! The discounted by Republicans who rule Florida’s Hanging Chad crap alone put Nader waaay over the top.
My two cents.
I will start by saying I enjoy your comments here, sealintheSelkirks, they are thoughtful and well written. But, in this case, I think you are conflating two different things. There is no argument from me about what the Supreme Court did. But, that would not have even occurred had Nader not received almost 100,000 votes in Florida. Bush only beat Gore by 537 votes in Florida. Nader himself said that his exit polls showed 38% of the people who voted for him, more than 12,000, would have voted for Gore and the story would have ended there. It’s hard for people who like Nader to admit it but those are the facts. Not only did his siphoning of votes cost Gore Florida, it also set up that Supreme Court debacle.
Let me start by saying that I enjoy your comments here, sealintheSelkirks, they are thoughtful and well written. But, I think in this case you are conflating two different issues. I will start by saying I admire Ralph Nader. There is no argument from me about what the Supreme Court did. But, that would not have even occurred had Nader’s votes not gone to him. Gore lost to Bush by only 537 votes in Florida. Nader got almost 100,000 votes in Florida. Nader himself said that his Florida exit polls showed 38% of his voters would have voted for Gore and 25% for Bush, a net of 13% or over 12,000 votes. Another poll put it much higher at 47% of Nader’s voters.
The Supreme Court debacle would never have occurred had Nader not siphoned off those votes. It is hard for Nader fans to admit it but those are the facts. Not only did he cost Gore the election in Florida and the country, he set up that shameful decision by the Supreme court.
Sorry for the repeat, it looked like my first version disappeared so I rewrote and reposted.
Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think Nader should be an apologist for the actions of SCOTUS. Moreover, whether Nader, Ross Perot, or any other “outlyer’- there is so much fundamentally wrong with the election system, whether its hanging chads, the electoral college, the campaign spending and current total disregard for the matching govt campaign funds (which no candidate takes anymore), the gerrymandering, the illegal poll site ambushing…I mean, seriously? It is SO rigged now, not to even mention disenfranchising thousands of voters b/c they don’t have the right “ID”, not to mention why should an inmate incarcerated for some petty marijuana offense not be allowed to vote? The election process lies in the hands of a select group of politicians and a nosegay of of absurd legislation that protects a corrupted process, and no longer sits in the hands of the American public. Let’s go back to simple majority vote- nothing wrong with that, and that seems a true democracy!
I was about to go open a bottle of whiskey after reading all that, retired botanist, but then I relaxed because what you have described has been going on in this country for a long, long time. That’s why I love reading history, it gives me a perspective. We hear about oligarchs today but that is nothing new either. It’s always been a constant battle between those with money, and hence power, and those without. It’s just important to keep up the fight.
Haha, yeah sorry Geoff to incite you towards that bottle- it was a bit of a rant! :-) And in fact, you are right, these are not very new problems (other than SCOTUS allowing unlimited spending on campaigning), and I guess that’s what makes it so frustrating for me.
We keep saying that issues like gerrymandering and the electoral college are too hard to change, we’d have to re-write the Constitution, etc. We keep saying that the only way to bring about change is to work within the system, a system that has been stalemated and lobby-rigged for decades: our Congresses seem to be able to pass laws about seatbelts, smoking age, missing children, manicure scissors on airplanes, but we can’t regulate guns? provide decent affordable healthcare? support public education? streamline our convoluted tax code? reduce our outrageous defense budget during times of ‘non-war’?
We keep saying that voting for the lesser of two evils is the only action that will work. We keep saying that our individual vote counts, when it is increasingly nullified by the electoral college. It seems that our elections are becoming more tainted, whether by domestic skullduggery, ineptitude, technology fail, and now foreign influence.
We continue to profile ourselves as the only country in the world with true voting rights, yet this seems more illusory each time around.
I ain’t giving up the fight yet, but I’m more than ready to subscribe to a new way to tackle it! :-)
Elected Republicans have for many years been doing everything that they can to keep people of color and many others from voting. Think about how evil that is. The best way to overcome that evil is to make sure that we not only vote, but encourage and help others to vote. Let’s think positive and practice good civics.
Geoff Page:
While I appreciate the sentiment you expressed for my writing, I’m at a loss with why you didn’t actually understand the meaning of what I wrote. So I’m going to use the ‘But’ you put in after complimenting my writing back at you here in a few seconds.
My words: “Three later independent recounts of the 2000 election gave the election to Al Gore. THREE!”
And your reply from the middle of your first paragraph said: ” Gore lost to Bush by only 537 votes in Florida.”
BUT, I say again: “Three later independent recounts of the 2000 election gave the election to Al Gore. THREE!”
My sentence means Gore DID NOT lose to Wanker Bush so the base foundation of your reply is invalid. I’m sorry if this is confusing to you.
Elsewhere, conflating two different issues? By expressing your belief of something that is not factual and laying the blame on someone who had nothing to do with what the unSupreme Court did…now there is a perfect example of conflating issues!
The election WAS STOLEN by the partisan Republican judges on the unSupreme Court. That’s pretty clear-cut and precise, yes? When combined with multi-state disenfranchisement, radically gerrymandered districts, incredibly easy-to-hack Diebold so-called ‘voting machines’ (which a 12 year old girl hacked at a computer convention in Vegas in under 12 minutes and changed the vote count), and tons of corporate (wealthy USA oligarchs) money…. really, it’s all Nader’s fault that a partisan neoliberal Clinton political hack lost? It’s obvious you are having a really hard time with this concept.
It’s called cognitive dissonance. It’s okay, there’s a lot of that going around.
As ex-president Jimmy Carter keeps repeating (mostly in Europe), we do NOT live in a functional democracy. And his view on democracy is that the best election system he has ever observed (over 90 elections now in I don’t know how many countries) is Venezuela’s.
And Obama dropped huge sanctions on that country and now Bolton and El Pomposito blew a CIA coup they started and are now getting ready to invade a country that elected their president with a large majority using the cleanest election system on the planet. Go figure that twisted mind sickness out because I certainly can’t!
Geoff, please read the link below (I’ve probably posted it on the Rag before) because, as for voting and expecting anything to fundamentally change, this is a very troubling read:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
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retired biologist: back to a simple vote system…which has never been simple in this country? Not ever sorry to say. I mean, you being female haven’t had the right to vote for even a measly hundred years yet…while the white male property owners…and you only get to vote for corporate tweedledum or corporate tweedledee…well, you know! Poor Geoff seems locked into the two party system mindset (that is actually a one corporate party state with two faces) but then so many are in this country it’s embarrassing. But that just goes to show how well socialization of tyranny works?
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Jan Michael: Please read the link I pasted above for Geoff to read, and realize that one cannot practice “good civics” when only given two choice, poop or doo-doo. Not much of a choice there I’m afraid as both are equally stinky nasty. Stir in an almost complete lack of critical thinking skills and a dearth of factual information on the tv news where 85% of the US voters get their not-so-information from, I’m sure you can build a picture in your head of that!
sealintheSelkirks
seal, I will say the tone of your response does not invite a friendly discourse so I only have a few things to say.
The “But” was not used in the context of devaluing my compliments on your writing, perhaps you should reread that part.
The independent counts would have been as unnecessary as the Supreme Court action had the votes that went to Nader gone to Gore.
Finally, I do read so I am well aware of the the reality of the voting system in this country as opposed to how it is described and presented to the world. I am not naive.
Geoff,
Okay, I agree that I did get a little snarky when trying to point out the inherent contradictions in your reply. But in my defense I plead frustration trying to understand your convoluted logic. You “admire” Nader but still blamed him for losing the election for Gore when that did NOT happen! I’m assuming you voted for Gore by your reply…
Wasn’t it Albert Einstein who said that to continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result is a sign of insanity? Then voting corporate neoliberal democrat or voting corporate neoliberal republican over and over is surely a sign of insanity in this country. If a democrat commits war crimes it’s okay (Clinton & Obama), but if a republican does exactly the same thing (Reagan, HW Bush, W Bush) it’s bad? That…makes Einstein’s hypothesis absolutely correct.
You said you are not naive on the totally corrupt voting ‘system’ in place in this country so I’m again assuming you would agree with this statement.
Of course the voting system is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, keep the status quo going that profits the Leisure Class that stays in power. Yep, Einstein was brilliant. So was Twain a hundred years earlier for that matter…
I for one voted for Nader. I refused to vote for one or the other of the corporate-owned militaristic war candidates. As a matter of fact I still have my MCGOVERN for president button from a previous fight against these kind of people. Yeah, I know, nothing but another loser, right? But I was far more proud of McGovern and certainly of Ralph Nader than of any other presidential candidate over the last fifty years.
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To be honest, how can I not get a little bit snarky when you write: “Let me start by saying that I enjoy your comments here, sealintheSelkirks, they are thoughtful and well written. But, I think in this case you are conflating two different issues. ”
First sentence is a compliment and the second sentence that starts with a But… isn’t “conflating two different issues’ be a polite way to tell me that I don’t know what I am talking about? Y/N?
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Please answer this: If the recount would not have been stopped by the Republican SCOTUS judges, Gore would have won the election. Y/N? Remember that three independent recounts said Gore would have won. Why else would the corrupt SCOTUS judges break the US Constitution? So… your answer should be yes. Agreed?
Since the answer is yes, then your 537 votes complaint would be completely irrelevant? Y/N?
If yes, then you being angry with Nader and blaming him for ‘losing the election for Gore’ is incorrect. And not only that but is an attack on someone who is completely innocent of your accusation. And, in my opinion, Nader was a far more worthy candidate than Gore deserving of my vote.
Another question: Would you like to be blamed for stealing something you didn’t steal, and then publicly blamed without the possibility of a defense (since I doubt Nader is reading the Rag)? You politely worded a very hostile comment impinging on the ethical stance he took going against the corporate candidates Gore & W Bush. And blamed him for the results of the election!
Look Geoff, I took a Deductive Logic class at the university decades ago, and it affected how I look at my own thinking and writing. It taught me to clarify, to dig below the emotional crap and understand why I am thinking like I do, and I apply what I learned to other people’s writing. I’ve used it on every politician since and not a single presidential candidate of the last 40+ years that I found worthy of my vote has taken office. But I refuse to bow down to the status quo.
Freedom to vote! But when you only are ‘given’ a choice of Lucifer or Satan? That isn’t freedom, and this country ain’t. Lesser evil voting? That’s pitiful and sick.
I read this somewhere, and it stuck in my memory:
I don’t fight Fascism because I think I’ll win. I fight Fascism because it is Fascism.
Until the under-educated and over-propagandized population of this country figures this out, we will continue to suffer the insanity of a political system that Einstein and Twain implicitly understood. So I apologize for being snarky, but I do not apologize for pointing out murky logic.
sealintheSelkirks
seal, you wrote:
“I for one voted for Nader. I refused to vote for one or the other of the corporate-owned militaristic war candidates.”
That was exactly what we got in 2000 because of misplaced idealism. We got war in Iraq. Do you think Gore would have done the same thing?
That’s about all I care to say, the variety of carefully worded insults in your response don’t inspire me to discuss anything with you.
Yep, ok guys, let’s keep our discourse elevated and informative :-). There have been some great links to good further reading from all of of us. Thanks for that. And I have to reiterate my link to Speth’s book Bridge To The Edge, which so clearly connects the dots between politics, economics, and environment, chiefly b/c the environment is a top issue on my list of things to get flapped up about, and b/c economics continues to overwhelm my understanding. But, even taking the environmental component out, the clear-spoken overview he provides on the infiltration of big business into government is hard to ignore.
What occurred to me yesterday, in a scary moment of penny-dropping vis a vis Iran and the prospect of yet another “undeclared war” and the unilateral shifting of defense $ to whatever Trump wants to spend it on, is that, at the moment, all three branches of our government right now are dysfunctional: legislative, executive, and judicial. So, nevermind elections and politics, what are we facing at the moment?! (Sorry for the badly constructed sentence, but there is SO much to construct in one breath!)
I am trying mightily to see our way forward, and for the Democrats to wait for a Republican “change of heart” to get something done, they’re waiting for Godot am I’m not sure we’ve got the time.
On an aside note, per Seal’s comment re the Suffragist movement- coming up (2020) is the centenary on the eventual ratification of the 19th amendment ( hullo, e.g.it wasn’t ratified until 1952 and even later in some states, just fyi) – women’s right to vote- but, once again, the stuff my generation learned in US history class about that doesn’t even BEGIN to accurately tell the whole tale, there’s a dark side, there’s a race card played, and it has (for me) raised a whole muckle of other questions re just what IS citizenship? When did it actually start? Who got it, who didn’t?
All to say, its really time we all re-examine our history, our practice, and our traditions, with a more objective, less “rose-colored democracy” eye, and confront the necessary fundamental changes we need to make if we want to call ourselves a democracy, because its getting phonier by the minute, and that is heartbreaking.
Finally, to Jan Sauer, I say positivism is absolutely right. And educating about voting is useful, but only if it is truthfully disclosed.
Geoff, this is my last post to this comment section.
I noticed that you did not answer any of my questions in my last post, but I will answer your question about my ‘misplaced’ idealism and war on Iraq.
Your question: We got war in Iraq. Do you think Gore would have done the same thing?
My answer: Who knows? Since Al Gore was the Vice President during the Clinton regime who bombed the crap out of Yugoslavia and was also bombing Iraq nearly every day for 8 years for HW Bush’s no-fly zone & economic sanctions…And Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright is quoted replying to the question about causing the death of 500,000 Iraqi children due to those US sanctions on medicine & food etc (war by any other name) by saying “It was worth it”…I would have to say that your question is problematical since Gore never spoke out against these atrocities.
All presidents in my lifetime have started wars around the world, without exception. They were all Democrats or Republicans and not independents or of other party affiliations. Enough said?
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retired botanist: all FOUR branches of the government are corrupted. You forgot the media who is supposed to keep their eye on the other three and report when they lie and cheat to us the Citizens. I.F. Stone would be appalled at the state of the 6 giant corporations that own and control all of the MSM.
And yes, I did know that the women’s voting rights kept stretching on and on after 1920. And all the dots that thread throughout politics & economics & war definitely lead to catastrophic climate collapse.
Hey, even the UK Guardian has said they will no longer use ‘Climate Change!’ A cut:
“the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”, although the original terms are not banned.”
Watch what is about to hit the Rockies and Plains States. Keep your eye on the Arctic. If what the climatologists are saying comes about this week, it’s…the Arctic Heat Dome of 85’F is a really freaking scary de-stabilzation… 85’F at the north pole at the start of May? AYFKM?
sealintheSelkirks