Category Archives: Election 2020

Two Cases of Voter ‘Fraud’

Posted on by under Election 2020, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

I’ve got a couple of stories about ‘voter fraud’ for you to think about today.

Georgia Republican Party official voted illegally nine times, judge rules

Brian Pritchard, first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, was fined $5,000 for voting illegally and registering to vote while serving a sentence for a felony, a judge ruled.

Mr. Pritchard, the Vice Chairman of the Republican Party in Georgia, and who was already a convicted felon for check forgery, voted illegally no less than nine times, for which he was fined $5,000 … a slap on the wrist.  To add insult to injury, Mr. Pritchard, who hosts a conservative talk show, had been a loud voice in support of the Big Lie claiming widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.  Now who’s the fraudster?

Now, compare that to this story …

Crystal Mason is a convicted felon – convicted of tax fraud, inflating returns for the clients in her tax preparation business.  Having served her sentence, she was out on parole in 2016. Unaware that as a parolee, she was not allowed to vote, Crystal headed to her polling place in Rendon, Texas. When her name failed to appear on the voter rolls, a helpful poll worker gave her a provisional ballot to fill out. No one, including her probation officer, ever told her that being a felon on supervision meant she couldn’t vote under Texas law, so she cast her ballot.  What happened next will stun you …

Mason was indicted on a charge of illegal voting in Tarrant County, Tex., last year and found guilty by State District Judge Ruben Gonzalez on Thursday, despite her protestations that she simply was not aware that she was barred from casting a ballot and never would have done it had she known.

Mason was sentenced to five years in prison.  Just yesterday an appeals court threw out her conviction, but not before the sentence cost her a job and she had already spent several months in prison.

Brian K. Pritchard is white. Crystal Mason is black. just a coincidence, I guess.

“The Facts, Ma’am … Just The Facts”

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

There aren’t, contrary to what some believe, always two sides to every story.  Sometimes there are facts … just the facts.  When a television network such as … oh, let’s pick on NBC … or a newspaper … say, just for example, the New York Times … decide that it’s so important to show both sides of an issue that has only one side, the facts, they not only openly cheat their viewers/readers, but desecrate their reputation with the public.

Robert Hubbell, in a snippet from his daily newsletter, does a good job of analyzing the rather idiotic decision of NBC to hire (and fire two days later) former Republican National Committee chairperson Ronna McDaniel, as well as the response to this lunacy by the New York Times.  Let’s see what Hubbell has to say …

NBC rescinds offer to Ronna McDaniel

NBC executives listened to network viewers and on-air talent about the ill-advised hiring of Ronna McDaniel and rescinded her offer of employment. As noted by the New York Times,

Fans of MSNBC, NBC’s left-leaning cable arm, were particularly outraged, citing Ms. McDaniel’s leadership of the Republican Party under former President Donald J. Trump and her handling of his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

Readers of this newsletter sent emails of protest by the thousands—as did tens (hundreds?) of thousands of other MSBNC / NBC viewers. Everyone who protested should feel satisfaction and pride in preventing a participant in coup from being platformed at a legitimate news outlet. Take a bow!

But . . . the backsliding and revisionist history has already started. The NYTimes article on the termination of McDaniel included the following editorializing:

The episode underscored the deeply partisan sphere in which news organizations are trying to operate — and the challenge of fairly representing conservative and pro-Trump viewpoints in their coverage, if major Republican Party figures like Ms. McDaniel are deemed unacceptable by viewers or colleagues.

Hmm . . . the authors of the Times’s article believe that part of being “fair” is to represent “pro-Trump viewpoints”? First, let’s be clear: The firing of McDaniel had nothing to do with her political viewpoints and everything to do with her knowledge of and participation in the plot to overturn the 2020 election. It’s not about politics; it’s about complicity in a coup attempt. Don’t let anyone obscure that fact.

More importantly, casually assuming that “fairness” requires a “pro-Trump” viewpoint is precisely the type of both-siderism and false equivalency that threatens our democracy. Trump has said he wants to be a dictator. There is no “pro” side to that issue. Trump has called for the “termination” of the Constitution. There is no “pro” side to that issue. Trump has said he would “encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want” to our NATO allies. There is no “pro” side to that issue. Trump has called for the execution and jailing of current and former Biden administration officials. There is no “pro” side to that agenda.

The New York Times reporters just don’t get it—just as the NBC executives didn’t. Trump is not running for the presidency from within the constitutional framework. He is seeking to destroy the constitutional framework from the outside–to escape accountability for his crimes and corruption.

Fairness does not dictate comparing Trump’s desire to destroy the Constitution with Joe Biden’s age or his son’s drug addiction. For all the education, sophistication, and advantages enjoyed by the journalists at the NYTimes (and much of major media), their insistence on treating Trump as a “normal” candidate is itself a threat to our democracy that should not be tolerated—as NBC’s executives found out today.

Good Bye Mitch … Hello WHO???

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, History, Political commentary

Yesterday Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will be stepping down from his leadership position at the end of this year.  Note that he is not retiring from the Senate, only from his leadership role.  It is tempting, at first glance, to feel empathy for Mitch who has some obvious health problems as well as problems with his own cohorts in the Senate who seem to feel that Mitchie isn’t quite radical enough, not quite committed enough to Trump and the far-right agenda.  But a reminder of all the damage Mitch has done throughout the years quickly erases much of that empathy, as Robert Reich reminds us in his newsletter today.  BUT … let the buyer beware … there is a nightmare in the last sentence.

Goodbye, Mitch: You were the worst

But the Republicans might find someone even worse to replace you

By Robert Reich

29 February 2024

He will be remembered as one of the most dangerous politicians in living memory. He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo.

No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. The politician I’m referring to is Mitch McConnell, who yesterday announced he will step down as Republican leader in November. Who’s worse — Trump or McConnell?

Like Trump, McConnell hasn’t been just a garden-variety bad public official. He’s been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? The fact that he hasn’t always kissed Trump’s backside has infuriated the former furor-in-chief.

Despite his opposition to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — admitting publicly that Trump “provoked” the attack on the U.S. Capitol — McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

So who’s worse? It’s a tough call. Trump defaced and defiled the presidency, but no person has done more in recent years to undermine the functioning of the U.S. government than McConnell.

Remember, this is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland.

Then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault.

This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans — a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, and failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock.

McConnell earned the nickname “Moscow Mitch” because he has done almost everything Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump wanted him to do, except abandon Ukraine. McConnell has refused to support what’s needed for comprehensive election security, although the U.S. intelligence community says Moscow is continuing to weaponize disinformation through social media on behalf of Trump.

McConnell has also blocked bipartisan background-check legislation for gun sales, even after repeated mass shootings have scarred and scared the nation. He secured a right-wing takeover of the U.S. federal court system — giving conservatives power to shape the law on the climate, reproductive rights, voting rights, and other issues affecting millions of people across the country.

McConnell has consistently received low approval ratings from voters in Kentucky because he has repeatedly sacrificed Kentucky to the Republican agenda — for example, agreeing to Trump’s so-called emergency funding for a border wall, which took $63 million away from projects like a new middle school on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee.

McConnell even cut funding for black lung disease suffered by Kentucky coal miners. I know from my years as labor secretary that coal mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and the number of cases of incurable black lung disease has been on the rise. But when a group of miners took a 10-hour bus ride to Washington to ask McConnell to restore the funding, McConnell met with them for one minute and then refused to help them.

Am I being too harsh on Mitch? I felt bad for him when he froze before the cameras because of some kind of seizure. I’m sure he loves his children. I met his current wife, Elaine Chao, when she was secretary of labor, and she seemed like a nice person. He’s a human being.

But history will not be kind to him.

Who will replace him?

I’m hearing that Senators John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, and John Barrasso of Wyoming will vie for the party leadership role. All three will do Trump’s bidding. All have endorsed Trump in the 2024 election in recent weeks.

But Trump is more likely to want a Senate leader who’ll serve him as a fierce MAGA lapdog — someone who will further tighten Trump’s grip on the party, who’s sufficiently young and telegenic to help Trump sell his authoritarianism to the public, and so unprincipled and ambitious that he’ll flush democracy down the toilet to promote Trump and himself.

Who fits the bill? Ohio’s Senator J.D. Vance.

NOOOOOOO!!!!  I can think of nobody worse to fill that role than the ignominious, unqualified, bigoted J.D. Vance!!!  NOBODY!

Be Prepared To Be Chilled …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary, voting rights

Elections are a healthy way for the people in a nation to make their voices heard, to ensure that governments are attuned to the will of the people.  At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.  And it does work, as long as the playing field is level, as long as one side isn’t using tricks and throwing billions of dollars into various schemes to alter the outcome, and as long as one candidate isn’t being thrown to the wolves by his own party.  Politics in the U.S. has become a very dirty business, as our friend Annie tells us in her latest post.  Take a look …

The Radical Supreme Court Majority, Teneo Network, and the Urgency of a Biden/Harris Win

Despite all this, or perhaps because of all this, it is imperative to remember that every vote counts!  Don’t let the detritus get you down or make you throw your hands up and stay home on election day.  Vote early, vote by mail if you can, but please … VOTE!

Black History Month — The First Black Voter

Posted on by under Black History Month, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

black-history-2020

I first did this post four years ago …

The year 2020 marks the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment and the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement.  The year 2020 also marks the sesquicentennial of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and the right of black men to the ballot after the Civil War.  The theme speaks, therefore, to the ongoing struggle on the part of both black men and black women for the right to vote. This theme has a rich and long history, which begins at the turn of the nineteenth century, i.e., in the era of the Early Republic, with the states’ passage of laws that democratized the vote for white men while disfranchising free black men. Thus, even before the Civil War, black men petitioned their legislatures and the US Congress, seeking to be recognized as voters. Tensions between abolitionists and women’s suffragists first surfaced in the aftermath of the Civil War, while black disfranchisement laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries undermined the guarantees in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments for the great majority of southern blacks until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The important contribution of black suffragists occurred not only within the larger women’s movement, but within the larger black voting rights movement. Through voting-rights campaigns and legal suits from the turn of the twentieth century to the mid-1960s, African Americans made their voices heard as to the importance of the vote.  Indeed, the fight for black voting rights continues in the courts today.  The theme of the vote should also include the rise of black elected and appointed officials at the local and national levels, campaigns for equal rights legislation, as well as the role of blacks in traditional and alternative political parties.

So, today let’s take a look at the very first African-American to cast a vote in the United States …

Thomas_Mundy

America’s first Black vote was cast in New Jersey

On Feb. 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting “the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s race, color, or previous condition of servitude” giving Black men the right to vote across the nation.

Just under a month later the first African American vote was cast in Perth Amboy, N.J. on March 31, 1870 by Thomas Mundy Peterson.

Born in 1824 in Metuchen, N.J., Peterson was the son of ex-slave Lucy Green. Peterson worked as a janitor and handyman in Perth Amboy.

After the Fifteenth Amendment was enacted, Peterson participated in Perth Amboy’s local election held at city hall over the city’s charter. A member of the Republican and Prohibition Parties, he cast his ballot in favor of revising the existing charter, making him the first African American to vote in any election in the nation.

Along with being the first Black person to vote in America, he was also the first Black person in Perth Amboy to serve on a jury. Peterson would go on to be one of seven people appointed to make amendments to the charter’s revisions he voted in favor of.

In 1884, in honor of his history-making ballot, the Perth Amboy community raised the equivalent of $1,800 in modern dollars to buy Peterson a gold medallion featuring Abraham Lincoln’s profile.

“Presented by the citizens of Perth Amboy, N.J. to Thomas Peterson the first colored voter in the provisions of the 15th Amendment at an election held in that city March 31st 1870,” the medallion’s inscription states.

Peterson died in 1904 at the age of 79. The medallion Peterson received is housed at the historically Black Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. In 2017, the university loaned the medallion to the City of Perth Amboy for a presentation at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

“During the 19th century, and even up to the present day, many communities have attempted to stop African Americans from voting. Perth Amboy is different, that is, we encouraged the right to vote,” said local businessman and historian John Kerry Dyke. “The Thomas Mundy Peterson medal is more than just an award. It represents the efforts of all good people that want to enfranchise America’s voters. It embodies the concept that all men are created equal.” – Cyril Josh Baker, New York Amsterdam News, 30 January 2020

Two Cases Show That NOBODY Is Above The Law

Posted on by under Election 2020, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary

It is one thing for a president to make poor choices, bad decisions.  Every president will, if for no other reason than that he did not have all the information needed at the time the decision needed to be made and he had to use his best judgment.  This is forgivable, though it might render him a liability to his political party.  But it is quite another thing for a president to knowingly commit a crime, expecting that “shield of immunity” to protect him.

During his time in office, Donald Trump committed a crime … actually probably many crimes, but let’s focus just on the one at hand:  inciting an insurrection, attempting to overturn the votes of We the People, inciting violence against the very people sworn and duty-bound to protect this nation.  Those who followed his marching orders are paying the price, while Trump insists he is protected, that he is ‘immune’ from prosecution.

On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Donald Trump is criminally liable for any illegal acts he committed as president.  Score one for justice, but it isn’t over yet, for he will appeal to the full appeals court, and if they deny his claim for immunity, he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In times past, I would have bet money that the Supreme Court would “do the right thing” and deny his immunity claim, but today’s Supreme Court is as corrupt as any has ever been.  We have a Court comprised of Justices who have taken millions of dollars worth of bribes, Justices who believe they themselves are above the law, and three of those Justices were appointed by Trump.  Chief Justice John Roberts seems to be made of Silly Putty and can be plied first in one direction, then in another.  Integrity?  Values?  HAH!!!

Even so, it is quite possible that, not wanting to come under any additional bad press, the Supreme Court will actually do the right thing and send li’l Donnie on to his trial.  Just don’t hold your breath.  And how long might this process take?  Well, let’s see … 271 days left before the election … they say the wheels of justice turn slowly and it’s already been 1,128 days since the crime was committed … need I say more?  Somebody needs to give those wheels of justice some WD-40!

And speaking of people who think they are above the law, I was pleased to see the court find Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday.  In case you aren’t aware of the case, Crumbley is the mother of Ethan Crumbley, the then-15-year-old boy who, in November 2021 shot and killed four fellow students and injured seven others in Oxford, Michigan.  The father bought him the gun, a Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol, and the mother took him to the shooting range to teach him how to use it.  By law, Ethan Crumbley was too young to own a gun.  Twice that we are aware of, the parents had been called to the school because Ethan was showing troubling signs of depression or mental illness.  After the first call, when school officials told Ms. Crumbley that Ethan had been found looking up images of bullets at school, Ms. Crumbley texted her son …

“Lol I’m not mad, you have to learn not to get caught.”

She laughed … and told him ‘not to get caught.’  And now she wonders why she is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.  No, she didn’t tell him to go on a shooting rampage at school, but she and the father might as well have.  According to one text that was offered into evidence at trial, Ethan texted to a friend …

“I actually asked my dad to take me to the doctor yesterday, but he just gave me some pills and told me to ‘suck it up.’”

On the day of the shooting, just hours before, the Crumbleys were once again called to the school, this time to discuss their son’s drawings of a gun and bullet-riddled body on a math worksheet. The parents and son attended a meeting with a school counselor that lasted less than 15 minutes, and after they left one of the first things Jennifer Crumbley did was send a message asking after the health of her horse.  Four hours later four children were dead, seven were injured, and Ethan Crumbley’s life was forever ruined, for he has been sentenced to life in prison.

And then, to add insult to injury, once they learned of the shooting, what did the Crumbleys do?  They ran and hid from the law.

So yes, Mr. and Mrs. Crumbley are guilty.  They did not pull the trigger, but they gave Ethan the wherewithal to do so and knew, or should have known, that he was a danger to himself and others – if only they had paid attention to their son more than their extra-marital affairs and horses.  Mr. Crumbley has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter and will be tried in March.

Many object to Ms. Crumbley’s conviction, saying that a parent cannot be expected to know what’s in their child’s mind, but the warning signs were all there, and still, these two people bought this child a gun and taught him to use it.  They are guilty of far worse than just bad parenting … they are not above the law.

Because “Good Faith Can No Longer Be Assumed”

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, voting rights

When I saw the title of Robert Reich’s newsletter yesterday morning, my jaw dropped (it’s been dropping a lot lately … might need to get it wired back into place soon!)  As I read, I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I have had this concern but with so many more immediate concerns, it had been pushed to the back of my mind … as Scarlett O’Hara says in Gone With The Wind, “I won’t think about that now, I’ll think about it tomorrow.”  Well, folks, tomorrow will be here before you know it and we probably better think about this sooner than later.

How Trump could win the presidency even if he loses the popular vote AND the Electoral College

Michael Johnson and other House leaders must pledge to certify the election results

By Robert Reich

01 February 2024

I worry that those of us who are dedicated to democracy and therefore committed to playing by the rules are underestimating the willingness of House Republicans to break the rules to elect Trump.

Remember: Most current Republican members of the House, including Speaker Michael Johnson, refused to certify the outcome of the 2020 election. In fact, Johnson helped organize 138 Republican House members to dispute that outcome, despite state certifications and the nearly unanimous rulings from state and federal courts that it was an honest election.

If Johnson and his cronies had so few scruples then, why should we assume they’ll have more scruples in the weeks following November’s elections?

What happens if, in the wake of the elections, the House’s election-denying Republicans find that they can retain their majority in the next Congress only by denying certification of Democratic candidates who have won by close margins, and do so?

Then, on January 6, 2025, what if the new Republican majority refuses to certify as president any Electoral College results from states that went for Biden by close margins — thereby ensuring that no candidate receives an Electoral College majority?

Presto! The decision about who’s to be the next president is made on a state-by-state delegation vote — almost surely delivering it to Trump.

Is this scenario really so far-fetched? Two astute Washington veterans conclude in a recent article in The Washington Spectator that it’s not at all far-fetched, because “good faith can no longer be assumed.”

Long before we reach this constitutional crisis, Speaker Johnson and others in the Republican House leadership must pledge to certify the results of the November elections.

They should be asked by the media to make this commitment. If they won’t, Americans need to know — and know why.

It’s worth noting in this regard that Rep. Elise Stefanik, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, recently refused to commit to certifying the results of next November’s elections, saying “we will see if this is a legal and valid election.”

She then claimed that the 2020 presidential race “was not a fair election” despite multiple legal reviews sought by Trump and his allies confirming that it was.

Why hasn’t this been more widely reported?

GUILTY!!! As Charged

Posted on by under Election 2020, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Yesterday, our friend Keith wrote an important post showing how many people have paid and are paying the price for violently attempting to overthrow the 2020 election.  Many have pleaded guilty … except for the one who quite obviously carries the lions’ share of the guilt.  It’s important we not lose sight of what happened on January 6, 2021, and that we remember how many are paying the price, many of whom have said, under oath, that their actions were a result of the words of the chief insurrectionist — a ‘man’ who has thus far avoided legal consequences for his actions.  The comment thread that follows the post is also well worth taking a few extra minutes to read.  Thank you, Keith, for reminding us all …

Just a few insurrection facts

The Hypocrisy Of Wealth

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Social commentary

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of great wealth or those who possess it.  Some may have earned their wealth honestly, others (the majority) were born into it or obtained it in ways that were less than honest.  Either way … I don’t understand how anyone can justify having a million dollars or more when that money could provide food for the hungry, build homes for the homeless.  If that line of thinking makes me a socialist, then so be it.  This week is the annual ‘World Economic Forum’ held in Davos, Switzerland, where the wealthiest people on the planet get together to … who knows what?  I’ve yet to find anything meaningful that ever came out of this ‘forum’ other than the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by all the private jets going to and from Davos.  This year’s theme is particularly hypocritical, and Robert Reich shares his thoughts on the topic …

Davos duplicity

They say they want to build public trust and avoid political upheaval, but they’re bankrolling election deniers

By Robert Reich

18 January 2024

Senior executives of America’s largest corporations have spent this week in Davos, Switzerland, at the annual World Economic Forum, whose 2024 theme is “Rebuilding Trust.”

Hello?

It’s hard to come up with any group of Americans, outside of Trump and his congressional loyalists, who have done more to destroy public trust than the senior executives of America’s biggest corporations — corrupting democracy by pouring money into political campaigns, fighting unions and suppressing wages, monopolizing their markets and price-gauging consumers, and siphoning off almost all gains to shareholders.

In the 1990s, the Davos World Economic Forum actively promoted the idea of stakeholder capitalism, in which corporations pledged to advance the interests of workers, consumers, communities, and the environment — not just shareholders. (The Forum still promotes the idea on its website.)

Adding to the rank hypocrisy of this week’s Davos meetings are American CEOs who say they fear a second Trump administration and the political upheaval it might bring.

Multiple attendees have told the New York Times’s DealBook that they view the outcome of the U.S. election as a business risk, particularly after Trump beat his Republican rivals in the Iowa caucuses by such a wide margin.

Yet many of them are fueling Trump and political upheaval in America by continuing to bankroll the 147 members of Congress who refused to certify Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021.

Recall that after the certification vote and storming of the Capitol, a cavalcade of big corporations announced with great fanfare that they had stopped making political contributions to these 147.

Since then, most have resumed campaign donations to them — thereby helping the deniers get reelected and threatening the stability of American democracy.

All told, at least 228 of America’s biggest (Fortune 500) corporations — representing more than two-thirds of some 300 companies with political action committees — have given $26.3 million to election deniers during the 2021-2024 election cycles.

Shortly after January 6, 2021, Amazon pledged to suspend political contributions to members of Congress who objected to certifying the 2020 presidential election results according to CNN. By Sept. 22, 2022 — one year, eight months, two weeks, and five days later — Amazon resumed funding them.

Boeing made the same pledge but since May 3, 2021, has given $652,000 to 85 members of Congress who refused to certify Joe Biden as president.

Comcast made the pledge but since then has given $585,000 to election deniers. Delta made the pledge but has since donated $325,000 to them.

Other giant corporations that announced they wouldn’t support election deniers but reversed course include FedEx, which has given the deniers $303,000 since January, 2021. Home Depot, $602,500. Johnson & Johnson, $138,000. McDonald’s, $107,000. UPS, $575,000. Verizon, $250,500. Walmart, $297,000. Wells Fargo, $244,500.

The list goes on.

ProPublica has created an app that’s tracked all of the campaign contributions that Fortune 500 corporations have made to the 147 deniers over the past two years. If you’re interested in knowing which large corporations are devoting money to undermining our democracy, I urge you to use it.

Government watchdog Accountable.US has compiled a list of corporate political donations to election deniers categorized into five major industries. Click to see their findings: 1) Aerospace and Defense; 2) Telecommunications; 3) Oil, Gas, and Electric Utility; 4) Pharmaceutical; 5) Financial.

Note that these numbers show only the donations that corporations are openly disclosing — not funds they’re channeling through trade associations, super PACs, and dark money groups.

So when you hear pious pronouncements coming out of Davos about the importance of “rebuilding trust” and maintaining a stable democracy in the United States, watch your wallets.

As to your wallets, you might think twice before buying anything from a big American corporation that’s using some of the profits from its sales to destroy trust and destabilize American democracy.

On That Question Of Immunity … 🙄

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is considering whether or not Donald Trump has immunity from being prosecuted for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.  This morning the three-judge panel appeared skeptical as they heard from Trump’s lawyers pleading for complete immunity for Trump.  One of Trump;s lawyers, John  Sauer, claims that a president cannot be convicted of a crime if he was acting in an official capacity.  One of the questions Judge Florence Pan asked of Sauer was, “Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That is an official act, an order to SEAL Team Six.”  Sauer responded that yes, a president could do that and would have immunity from prosecution unless first impeached and convicted of the impeachment charges in the Senate.

So, under that (false) premise, Donald Trump could have ordered a National Guard unit or any other military unit under his command to murder Joe Biden prior to January 20th when Biden was officially sworn into office and would have immunity so long as he wasn’t impeached and convicted by Congress.  Trump’s lawyers all seem to have a knack for twisting the law into a pretzel of their own making.

BULLSHIT!

The U.S. Constitution does give the president broad powers, but there are limits!  Now, let me throw something out here for you to think about.  What if President Obama had lost his re-election bid in 2012 and had done something similar to what Trump did, claiming the election was “rigged” and plotting to install fake electors to override the will of the people, then inciting an insurrection by loyalist thugs?  Can you even begin to imagine the outrage that would have taken place?  The difference?  Simple:  skin colour.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that systemic racism in the U.S. doesn’t exist.  Oh yes … it is a large part of the reason we are where we are today, in a courtroom attempting to hold a former president accountable for crimes he committed.

Senator Mitch McConnell and the others who refused to vote to convict Trump on the impeachment charges back in 2021 did this nation a great disservice and left the door open for the current chaos that is costing the taxpayers both money and sleep.

After the hearing, Trump and another of his attorneys, John Lauro, spoke to the press … more lies, nothing worthy of repeating here, but Trump had one last parting shot, saying that if he loses this appeal, “It will be bedlam in the country.”  And this is the man that most Republicans want to see elected in November???

The judges on the Appeals Court seemed skeptical of Trump’s immunity claims, with Judge Karen Henderson saying, “I think it is paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care of the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law.”  Let us hope they reject the immunity claims, but even so, this is merely another step in the process, for next up will be an appeal to the Supreme Court – more time wasted while the clock is ticking ever closer to election day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch … while there is critical work to be done on appropriations bills and border security issues, Congress is busily filing more and more impeachment charges … so far they are attempting to impeach President Biden, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and most recently, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.  Have I missed anybody?  Who will be next in their sham impeachments?  In ten days, parts of the government will shut down because the Republicans in the House of Representatives are too busy playing mindless games to do the jobs we’re paying them to do.  Note to readers:  None of these ‘impeachments’ are likely to go anywhere … they are merely distractions intended to rile the Republican masses.

And on that note … have a great afternoon!