Category: Politics

We live under oligarchy. Yes, we have elections, but the interests of a tiny opulent minority are far better represented in our government than the concerns of the vast majority of Americans.

That conclusion was the central takeaway of a Benjamin Page and Martin Giles study published a few years ago that grimly observed, “economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.”

What happened one week ago cannot be over-stated. Yeah, those mid-term results – whose vote totals are still coming in. And despite pundit declarations there wasn’t a “blue wave”, Democrats continue to be declared winners.

Yet, we must underscore and duly acknowledge the two huge things that happened last Tuesday. A majority of American voters rejected the one-party rule we’ve had these last two years, at least on the Federal level, – and in the process created the most diverse Congress in history. Or vice-versa.

The results were devastating to Trump. That’s why – the very next day – he fired Attorney Jeff Sessions

The Attorney General of the U.S., Jeff Sessions, has just resigned effective immediately. In his resignation letter, Sessions states he wasr being asked to do so by President Trump.

“At your request, I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions wrote in an undated letter to the president. He also wrote:

News reports from this morning indicate that Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation is now very likely because the whitewashed FBI report is giving cover to swing Republican Senators. This despite the failure of FBI investigators to interview neither Christine Blasey Ford nor Kavanaugh and nor at least 40 other witnesses who could give corroboration to Ford’s sexual assault allegations.

The newly-released 46 page FBI report is being called “incomplete” by Democrats and the White House is being blamed for restricting the scope and breadth of investigators. Reportedly, 10 people were contacted and only 9 interviewed by agents. That’s 9 people in the 5 day period (less than 2 a day – wow!). Also, the third woman to come forward, Julie Swetnick, was not contacted by the FBI. Also the second accuser Debra Ramirez gave agents a list of 20 people who come corroborate her accusations against Kavanaugh.

From the MSNBC YouTube website:

Senator Jeff Merkley talks with Rachel Maddow about a document showing that the Trump administration took ten million dollars from FEMA’s budget ahead of the 2018 hurricane season and gave it to ICE to pay for detentions.
Come inside for the video

It’s already being called “Terrible Tuesday” – August 21, 2018 – the day the Trump presidency was body slammed with the simultaneous guilty plea to 8 felony counts by Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, and the jury finding Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign manager, guilty of 8 felony counts – and then the indictment of Representative Duncan Hunter – the second congressman to endorse Trump, on campaign crimes.

It was a bad day for Trump.

Yet, it was a good day for the country.

It’s time for straight talk. The American nation had a moment of Epiphany during Trump’s Helsinki press conference a week ago while he stood next to a smirking Russian dictator. Our president’s collusion with Putin and the Kremlin government was open for all to see.

Let’s not mince words. Trump and Putin had a 2-hour secret meeting and made some kind of agreements and then Trump openly supported the Kremlin version of things and denied the analysis of Russian intervention and credibility of the US national security networks.

This is treasonous.

And the answer to this treason is impeachment. But the only why we’re going to have Trump impeached is with a mass movement for his impeachment.

Time for Democrats to go on the offense
By Anna Daniels

Remember how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Merrick Garlanded Obama’s Supreme Court pick? Let’s do McConnell one better:

Any Trump SCOTUS pick is void while he and his campaign are under a criminal investigation for obstruction and conspiracy against the United States.

Imagine the scenario in which criminal charges are brought by Mueller and the case ends up before the Supreme Court. Now imagine the loyalty oath which Trump would extract in some form from his pick for Supreme Court justice to replace Anthony Kennedy. Any question in your mind that Trump not only has his thumb but both feet on the scale?

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

In a move denounced by immigrant rights advocates and legal experts as an effort to “undercount communities of color” that could have an enormous impact on the drawing of congressional districts, the Trump administration announced late Monday that the 2020 Census will ask respondents whether or not they are U.S. citizens.

“This is an attempt to racially rig the census,”

By Bob Dorn

The Republicans seemed always to have maintained the fiction that all of them live in one big uprighteous tent. Donald Trump, alone above public figures, has proved that even the Republicans can’t restore credit to that myth.

It took someone as outrageous as Trump to bring down this shibboleth. Somehow, for some reason, they survived their own fetid combination of industrial-strength exploitation of working people with imagery of their own responsible, sober natures. All this survived until the mixture became impossibly hypocritical.

The National / July 13, 2017

Robert Grodt died fighting alongside Kurdish units in battle around the Syria extremist stronghold of Raqqa

An American activist who had previously played a role in anti-capitalist protests in the United States has been confirmed as having died in battle fighting against ISIS in Syria.

The 28-year-old Robert Grodt of Santa Cruz, California, had been operating as a volunteer medic for the Kurdish military group known as the People Protection Units, referred to by their initials in the local language as the YPG.

Major news organizations – including the Washington Post – have announced that President Donald Trump is now under investigation for possible obstruction of justice by special prosecution, Robert Mueller. The Post ran:

The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.