Tag: Dictators

Is This Our Fate Now?

+++Note:  If you want to comment at least read the whole thing links and all….there are a few that make comments that really have nothing to do with what was written….I realize that we live in an age of closed minds…..but please let a little light in.+++

For seven months we have been traveling a path that looks like ‘political dictatorship’….and it just keeps getting worse.

Just in words alone…..take a look at Donny’s….

Donald Trump has always admired tyrants a lot more than democratically elected leaders who are restrained by pesky obstacles like parliaments and laws, and it is quite clear that he would rather be a Führer, Duce, or Generalissimo (especially because he thinks of himself as a “war hero”) than a mere president. Therefore, it must be maddening for him that most Americans refuse to recognize him as a dictator, no matter how hard he tries. For the past few days, Trump worked overtime to convince them that he is, indeed, a president-in-name-only (PINO™).

Let’s take a look at just some of the things he said and did.

On Sunday alone, he said that the licenses of NBC and ABC should be revoked because they are being mean to him, threatened to withhold critical infrastructure funding for a state whose governor criticized him, and suggested he may sic his Department of “Justice” (DO“J”) on a former governor who, you guessed it, panned him on TV.

That comes on top of armed troops patrolling the street of the nation’s capital (with military takeovers of other “blue” cities planned), the raid of the home of his former national security adviser who possibly criticized Trump (you may detect a theme here), and his vow to take “harsh measures” if Colorado did not free an election-denying Trump supporter convicted for her role in trying to breach voting equipment.

What More Does Trump Have to Do to Prove He Wants to Be a Dictator?

Is there a new movement afoot?

“Presidential Dictatorship”……

“A lot of people are saying that maybe we’d like to have a dictator.”

So spoke Donald Trump on Monday, during another one of his rambling Oval Office press conferences.

It may be time to invent a new terminology that describes the amazingly rapid political transformation now underway in the United States.

Seven months ago, America was a functioning democracy. Today, it is governed by a much-despised bully who has no respect for the rule of law and feels emboldened to do anything he wants.

Donald Trump, on an almost daily basis, launches policies and executive orders that violate the law, the Constitution, and turn upside down the norms and practices of American democracy.

Until a few months ago, my principal fear was that Trump would transform America into an illiberal democracy, in the style of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. He would weaken the Justice Department, the FBI, and the courts, and then use the Supreme Court to do his bidding. This he has done. But Trump has exceeded every limit, crossed every red line, and is now pushing America away from democracy altogether. He has arrested judges who disagreed with him, intimidated and humiliated America’s leading corporate leaders, from Mark Zuckerberg to Tim Cook, and may well have had a hand in pressuring Paramount to cancel The Late Show simply because he disliked the biting satire of Stephen Colbert. He sent the FBI to raid the home of John Bolton, his own former national security adviser, soon after Bolton dared to say on CNN that the victor in the Alaska summit had been Vladimir Putin, and that Trump was incompetent.

Why America Risks Becoming a ‘Presidential Dictatorship’

For those interested (sorry had to pause….like anyone gives a shit about what all this means)….there was a bit of a mash-up in 1`788 in the Federalist Papers #70-77….

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp

Federalist 70 Alexander Hamilton and the Executive Branch:

  • Most referenced federalist paper concerning the presidency
  • Hamilton argued for “energy in the executive”
  • This energy is the justification for expansion of president’s powers
  • Power of president meant to provide energy, secrecy and dispatch seen in monarchs
  • Government is meant to provide for the common or public good
  • President must be able to protect against foreign attack, administer the laws, and protect property, and secure liberty (thus why he must be energetic)
  • President must protect liberty against factions, anarchy, and greed
  • Example of Roman consuls with power to be dictator in emergency
  • One executive is preferable; more than one will encourage conflict and dissention, the president needs to be able to act quickly and factions are bad here (but they are okay in Congress as seen in Federalist 10)
  • Once Congress passes laws, arguments are over and execution of laws need to be swift
  • Single executive makes fault easier to establish and hold responsible
  • Multiple executives would require a huge expense
  • New York had a single executive and it worked well

Do not know why I bother but I guess I hope someone will actually care.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Donny/Elmo At Warp Speed

In the lead let me say that this is an op-ed from a site known as “Public Catholic”….not my personal opinion….although I see some similarities….

Trump is set about dismantling the very government that most of us pretend to support…..Personally I do not see any benefit in what he is doing except for Trump personally…..

It took Hitler six months to completely destroy German democracy. Trump is moving much faster than that. Many of the things he and Elon are doing are flat-out illegal. But no one raises that question because no one believes that the law applies to Trump or Elon or any of the gang of thugs who are now running our country.

They are dismantling our country and setting up an absolute dictatorship.

it’s too much to discuss in detail and too obvious to deny. I don’t see any reason except MAGA fantasies, to doubt that Trump plans to use the military, the FBI and the CIA against the American people, to control and oppress us.

What Trump and Musk are doing is completely illegal. Going into sensitive government systems and unilaterally canceling appropriations passed by Congress, doing away with whole government agencies that were created by laws passed by Congress just by personal say-so, putting an unelected billionaire in control of our whole government and letting him just say “this agency is gone, we won’t honor these contracts, I’m firing these thousands of people” on his say-so is open dictatorship.

Every time you read about Elon Musk firing people and shutting down agencies, you are reading about a clear violation of the law and an equally clear action by a dictator. Every. Time.

We the People are losing our country. It is being destroyed right in front of our eyes.

If you aren’t worried, you’re either not following what is happening, or you are a MAGA who is under such strong demonic influence that you can’t comprehend what is right in front of you.

The Trump/Musk Dictatorship is Coming at Warp Speed

Once again this is an op-ed from another site that I posted purely as FYI for people to see.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

We Don’t Want No Stinking Dictator

We can say a lot of things about the upcoming election…..for me it is a contest between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dummer….on one side we have a person that spews hatred and bias and on the other we have a spineless tool that makes promises only to work on them just before an election….so for me this election is a lose-lose scenario.

Beyond my personal opinion a dictatorship looms and many Americans say they do not want such and all the while they are helping create the thing they do not want.

Whether a glass is half full or half empty is a matter of perspective. The same can be said about the half of Americans who oppose the idea of allowing presidents to rule unilaterally—an exercise of monarchical power favored by only a fifth of us. I like to look on the bright side, so I take it as a win that those opposing unrestrained executive power far outnumber those who favor it. Still, it would be better if, in a republic established two and a half centuries ago, more than half the population would commit to the proposition that turning the country into a dictatorship would be bad.

“About half of the public think it would be a bad idea if the next president is able to act on important policy issues without the approval of Congress or the courts,” the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reports of the results of a survey of 1,282 adults conducted March 21-25. “Only 21% think it would be a good thing, and about 30% think it’s neither good nor bad.”

In the poll, 48 percent overall oppose unilateral presidential rule, including 58 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans. The 21 percent favoring the idea include 17 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans. Support for unrestrained executive power rises to 39 percent among Democrats in the case of a Biden win in November, and to 57 percent of Republicans if Trump wins.

Interestingly, the AP-NORC results are nearly identical to those found by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics in 2021. At the time, pollsters reported “roughly 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree it would be better if a ‘President could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or courts.'” Among Biden voters, 22 percent strongly agreed with the idea, compared to 19 percent of Trump voters (over 40 percent of both at least “somewhat agreed” with the idea of an unrestrained presidency).

Americans Don’t Want a Dictatorship, but They’re Creating One Anyway

Maybe it is time to take a hard look at your political priorities….the thing that you dislike the most may be the very thing you are helping create.

Just a lowly observation….

Pay Attention!

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When Did We Get A Dictator?

I remember from high school history class and the man that would be named “Dictator For Life”…Julius Caesar….and that did not end well for him.

What made me think about this was the latest Presser from Donald the Orange when he stated that his power was absolute…..

President Trump used his briefing on the pandemic Monday to angrily defend his administration’s response, rip critics and the news media, and argue the presidency includes the power to decide when states can reopen for business. Governors immediately disagreed, the AP reports, saying public safety falls under their duties constitutionally. “When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total,” Trump said. “The governors know that.” Trump declined to say where that authority is articulated; he’d disagreed with governors on that point earlier in the day. Legal experts said the Constitution does not agree with Trump’s view, and the president said he’d release reports documenting his position, per CNN.

Before discussing the day’s pandemic news, Trump presented his defense, which included a campaign-like, 3-minute video of cable news clips in support of his arguments. He said the video was produced by aides in the White House, per the Hill. “So our tax dollars and the presidential mansion we own are now being used to broadcast campaign ads?” tweeted a former chief of the Office of Government Ethics. The video opened with type against a white background saying, “The media minimized the risk from the start,” per the Daily Beast. When it ended, Trump pointed to reporters and said, “I’ll ask you some questions because you’re so guilty.” His defense of his administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak was sweeping. “Everything we did was right,” Trump said, per the New York Times.

Trump has never impressed me that he has much intellect….but even 10 year olds know that his statement is a LIE (but that should surprise no one).

I worry that Donald the Orange will try to exert his “absolute power” over the society…including try to force the country to open up and disregard all the expert warnings against such a move.

When will the US get back to business? The simple question has a nuanced answer, but the White House appears to be aiming for at least a partial easing of the shutdown in a span that can be measured in weeks. “The next month or two, we should be able to restart, at least on a rolling basis,” is how White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow put it on Fox Business Thursday afternoon, per CNN. Coverage:

  • New target? A report at Axios says “there’s a lot of internal energy” in the White House toward the date of May 1. For one thing, that marks the end of the current “30 Days to Slow the Spread” federal advisory. The story, though, quotes White House officials as saying the decision will be driven by data, not arbitrary deadlines. Generally, though, political and economic aides are aiming for a quicker reopening than public health officials.
  • Or this: Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin said Thursday on CNBC that he thought businesses could get rolling again by the end of May, “as soon as the president feels comfortable with the medical issues,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Record jobless claims and disastrous economic forecasts were behind the impetus. “We need to have a plan nationally for reopening the economy,” said Fed chief Jerome Powell on Thursday. “Most people expect that to happen in the second half of this year, after the second quarter, which of course ends on June 30.” He did not get more specific.
  • What Trump says: “We’re looking at the concept where we open sections of the country, and we’re also looking at the concept where you open up everything,” Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Tuesday, per Fortune. Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told Fox News that the White House task force discussed the issue at length on Tuesday night. “You don’t want to let up at a time that’s premature,” he said, but “it makes sense to at least plan what a reentry into normality would look like.”

Donald the Orange has NO idea what his powers are…the Constitution means nothing to this slug….when he is told that he cannot be a dictator he doubles down on the rhetoric of a ……you guessed it….dictator….

Early Tuesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused President Trump of behaving more like a “king” than a president in asserting authority over the states on the coronavirus outbreak. Trump himself later floated a different comparison, that of a ship captain. A very specific ship captain. “Tell the Democrat Governors that ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ was one of my all time favorite movies,” he tweeted. “A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!” Coverage:

  • Another: Trump’s tweets came after Cuomo’s “king” criticism, and the president directed another rejoinder directly at the governor: “Cuomo’s been calling daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the state’s responsibility, such as new hospitals, beds, ventilators, etc.” he wrote. “I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won’t happen!”
  • About that captain: Vanity Fair is among those who found Trump’s reference to the movie (there were two, one in 1935 and another in 1962) a little perplexing. That’s because the infamous Capt. Bligh was “an arrogant, nasty, paranoid, freakishly obsessive, and brutal man,” and things didn’t end well for him.
  • Skeptics: Trump was expected to lay out his arguments on exerting presidential authority, but in the meantime, the skeptics were out and NPR rounds up the opinions of legal experts. “It’s so plain and obvious it’s not even debatable,” says Kathleen Bergin, a professor at Cornell Law School. “Trump has no authority to ease social distancing, or to open schools or private businesses,” she adds. “These are matters for states to decide under their power to promote public health and welfare, a power guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.”
  • Republicans, too: Rep. Liz Cheney and Sen. Marco Rubio were among prominent Republicans to say that Trump cannot force the states to do his bidding, reports USA Today. “The federal government does not have absolute power,” tweeted Cheney, and she included the text of the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Rubio wrote that federal guidelines “will be very influential,” but “the Constitution & common sense dictates these decisions be made at the state level.”

Does Trump know why we fought a revolutionary war?  Does this slug know what is meant by states rights?

The Orange Man just does not know when to STFU!

Time to consider what needs doing and just f*cking DO IT!

Leave the campaign rhetoric in the bathroom where it belongs…..and leave Donald the Orange on the curb for the trashman to pick up.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”