Name: Anonymous 2020-02-18 17:33
I'm so sad right now.
spending a huge portion of payroll expenses on their employees' medical insuranceCo-pay and deductibles. Also, a single-payer system would give much more bargaining power to negotiate saner prices by removing divide-and-conquer.
America too does it today, but sneakily and only against very high profile people like Jeffrey Epstein,
The more power government has the more authoritarian it is.If you mean this as an empirical observation on the state of humanity, then this is true. But as an inference it is not. It needs the additional condition that you take care to fill your power structures with authoritarian followers, which is what long-lived dynasties did long before we had this name for them. If your local library has a copy, I recommend reading The Legacy of Ieyasu.
Check-mate, commie!Your strawmen are quite boring.
Soviet government wasn't filled with authoritarian followers.Of course it was. That was the entire point of Stalin's administrative and military purges, to remove anyone who wasn't. Erdogan also did this a few years back.
revolutionaries (who painted themselves as fighting against authoritarianism), but in a few years they turned more and more authoritarianThey painted themselves as fighting the bourgeoisie, not authoritarianism. What they painted themselves as has nothing to do with what they were, that's just marketing aimed at sheep.
mistreated and beaten by an authoritarian drunkard dad in his youthA standard way to become the abuser of your childhood, even though if I remember correctly his mother left his father and took young Stalin with her.
preferring to fight to freedom insteadThis won't pass as an unqualified assertion. Early on he used kidnappings and as you say robberies. Even though he might have been "free spirited" enough to reject church doctrine, he was not above obtaining what he wanted through force and violence. His brand of revolution was never to depose the authorities to free the people, even though that was the marketing spiel. It was to depose the authorities and replace them with new communist authorities, him among them. So it seems to me that you are stretching "free spirited" quite a bit to apply it to him.
that free spirited leader
This won't pass as an unqualified assertion. Early on he used kidnappings and as you say robberies.
But Stalin kidnapped bad guys (Tsarist officers), who oppressed common folk.I very much doubt he had any moral compass in choosing whom to kidnap or rob. The purpose is to get money, and you pick your targets based on expected payoff versus risk. There is no freedom-fighting noblesse in kidnapping and robbing people, and you don't get to claim any sort of moral high ground when resorting to such methods to obtain funds. He wasn't any sort of free-spirited folk hero who was later corrupted by power and turned into a monster. He turned into a monster as a natural continuation of proclivities he showed early on.
by some miracle the former gangster becomes a presidentYou are glossing over a lot here. You kill rivals for your position, not people "who funded [your] presidential campaign". Even when these happen to coincide, the former is the defining characteristic that picks thmm out.
orders the execution of his gang mates, who funded his presidential campaign
rigs all the follow-up elections to maintain him lifetime presidencyThis is such a standard practice in various parts of the world that it does not contribute anything toward making someone "Stalin". The ones you would call "Adolf" do the same thing. You would call them authoritarian strongman leaders, who are most likely totalitarian as well. This does not have an automatic political color, and if you look at a head count throughout history, these types are far more likely to be far-right.
Such Black president would be deserving the title of Stalin.Most of the things you listed do not differentiate between the far-left and far-right. It is ludicrous to make such an enumeration and then pick a far-left monster, especially when you included banning workers' unions and "the Jews". Also notice how your fictional president's stance on corporations is conspicuously absent.
Why do cops come to protests early?
To beat the crowds.
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-may-aug.html#15_August_2020_(The_wrecker_admitted_to_sabotaging_vote_by_mail) -- The wrecker admitted that he is undermining the USPS to sabotage voting by mail. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/13/donald-trump-usps-post-office-election-funding -- Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail -- The president says he opposes providing additional money to the postal service to help it deliver mail-in ballots -- Thu 13 Aug 2020
Donald Trump admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots. Trump’s comments lend evidence for critics who say the president is deliberately trying to hamstring the USPS in advance of the November elections to help his re-election bid. Trump said on Thursday that congressional negotiations over stimulus aid were held up in part because of Democratic proposals to provide $3.6bn to states to run elections and $25bn in aid to the postal service. The president, who has falsely claimed that widespread mail-in voting will lead to fraud, suggested that without the funding it would be harder to vote by mail.
“They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.” Congress has allocated just $400m to help states run elections, a small fraction of the $4bn the Brennan Center for Justice estimates is needed this year. Many election officials are scrambling to figure out how they will run an election where there is expected to be an unprecedented level of mail-in and in-person voting. The lack of funding may already be having an effect; in Kentucky, the state’s top election official said this week he did not support expanding mail-in voting for the fall because the state did not have the capacity to do so.
The president’s comments also come amid accusations that Louis DeJoy, the new postmaster general and a major Republican donor, is making cuts at the agency to intentionally slow down the mail. There are reports of severe mail delays in places across the country and the Washington Post and other news organizations published internal USPS documents last month saying there was a blanket ban on overtime and that workers were being told to leave mail behind if it will delay them on their routes. A USPS spokesman denied there was a blanket ban on overtime, but did not address questions about whether employees were being told to leave the mail behind.
A slower mail service could have a big impact this fall because an unprecedented number of Americans are expected to vote by mail and many states require a ballot to arrive at an election office by election day, regardless of when it was put in the mail, in order to be counted. At least 65,000 ballots were rejected during the 2020 primaries because they arrived too late.
“If we don’t make a deal that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it. Sort of a crazy thing,” Trump said on Thursday.
Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement Trump was attacking the US economy and democracy.
“The president of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies and for delivery of medicines, because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in over 100 years,” he said.
USPS officials have not said they need additional funding to deliver mail-in ballots this fall. “The Postal Service has ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on-time in accordance with our delivery standards, and we will do so,” DeJoy said at a meeting of the USPS board of governors on Friday.
In a separate interview on Thursday, Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, dismissed efforts to make it easier to vote in negotiations over stimulus money.
“So much of the Democratic asks are really liberal left wishlists,” he said. “Voting rights, aid to aliens and so forth. That’s not our game.”
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-may-aug.html#18_August_2020_(The_bullshitter_told_cronies_he_would_defund_Social_Security) -- The bullshitter told cronies he would defund Social Security. The White House says we should ignore that. We cannot determine what the bullshitter will really do from anything he said, but we can deduce one thing from that statement: defunding Social Security is not unthinkable for him. Thus, if his aides are saying he certainly won't, they are mistaken. He might like to do it, and he might do it.
Trump Just Admitted on Live Television He Will 'Terminate' Social Security and Medicare If Reelected in November -- https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/08/trump-just-admitted-live-television-he-will-terminate-social-security-and-medicare -- One progressive critic called the president's promise "a full-on declaration of war against current and future Social Security beneficiaries." -- Saturday, August 08, 2020
President Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon openly vowed to permanently "terminate" the funding mechanism for both Social Security and Medicare if reelected in November—an admission that was seized upon by defenders of the popular safety net programs who have been warning for months that the administration's threat to suspend the payroll tax in the name of economic relief during the Covid-19 pandemic was really a backdoor sabotage effort.
"We just heard it straight from Trump's own mouth: If reelected, he will destroy Social Security." —Social Security Works
Announcing and then signing a series of legally dubious executive orders, including an effort to slash the emergency federal unemployment boost by $200 from the $600 previously implemented by Democrats, Trump touted his order for a payroll tax "holiday"—which experts noted would later have to be paid back—but said if he won in November that such a cut would become permanent.
The Trump campaign was apparently so satisfied with the public acknowledgement of the president's promise to make the payroll tax permanent—a move that would inherently bankrupt the Social Security system—that it clipped the portion of the press conference and shared on social media immediately after it concluded. The president's critics did as well, though they carried a different message:
Friendly reminder, if victorious on November 3rd, @realDonaldTrump will GUT Social Security and Medicare.#TrumpPressConference #trumppresser pic.twitter.com/9iNJ7sNYvo — American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) August 8, 2020
Defenders of the program, including the advocacy group Social Security Works, were quick to point out the implication of what the president said and condemned Trump for threatening the program that has kept countless millions of people out of poverty—during retirement years or due to disability—since it was created over 75 years ago.
"We just heard it straight from Trump's own mouth," the group responded: "If reelected, he will destroy Social Security."
Commonly known as the payroll tax, those are taxes paid both by employers and employees—as dictated by the The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)—that go to pay for both Social Security and Medicare.
"Trump's executive order, which seeks to defer Social Security contributions, is bad enough," said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works. "But his promise to 'terminate' FICA contributions if he is reelected is a full-on declaration of war against current and future Social Security beneficiaries."
"Social Security is the foundation of everyone's retirement security," Altman added. "At a time when pensions are vanishing and 401ks have proven inadequate, Trump's plan to eliminate Social Security's revenue stream would destroy the one source of retirement income that people can count on. Moreover, Social Security is often the only disability insurance and life insurance that working families have. If reelected, Trump plans to destroy those benefits as well."
As the Trump administration has foreshadowed this kind of move for months, economists on Friday warned again that any effort to undermine the payroll tax would do practically nothing to help struggling workers and families, but everything to sabotage two of the most popular and successful programs in the country.
"It's like borrowing money from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to give to employers just to hold," Seth Hanlon, a tax expert and senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, explained to Business Insider. "They're just gonna hold the withheld taxes because they'd have to pay it eventually."
As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, retirees and their advocates have vowed to fight any "attempt to gut" the program.
On Saturday, Altman called on every lawmaker in Congress to denounce what she called Trump's "unconstitutional raid on Social Security." In the upcoming election, she said, "voters should treat any Senator or Representative who is silent as complicit in destroying Social Security. Furthermore, every American who cares about Social Security's future must do everything they can to ensure that Trump does not get a second term."
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-may-aug.html#13_August_2020_(Facebook_suspended_one_of_the_cheater's_PACs) -- Facebook has suspended one of the cheater's PACs for false advertising. -- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-election/facebook-bars-pro-trump-pac-from-advertising-citing-repeated-false-posts-idUSKCN25236I -- Facebook bars pro-Trump PAC from advertising, citing repeated false posts -- August 6, 2020
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc is temporarily banning a Republican political action committee, the Committee to Defend the President, from advertising after it repeatedly shared content that was deemed false by external fact-checkers, the social media company said on Thursday. “As a result of the Committee to Defend the President’s repeated sharing of content determined by third-party fact-checkers to be false, they will not be permitted to advertise for a period of time on our platform,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement. The company declined to specify the length of the advertising ban or which posts prompted it.
Politicians’ ads and posts are not subject to Facebook fact-checking, a policy that has drawn heat from lawmakers, but content from political groups like PACs can be fact-checked. The committee’s Facebook page, which has almost 1 million “likes,” has had four “false” or “partly false” fact-checking labels attached to content since the start of July. Founded as the Stop Hillary PAC in 2013, the group has spent more than $15 million to advance the agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump, according to its website. It claims to reach millions of Americans via digital and telemarketing channels. Committee chairman Ted Harvey said in a statement the group would not be “silenced by ‘woke’ Silicon Valley elites” and would reallocate its Facebook budget to other platforms.
Reuters, a Facebook fact-checking partner, determined last month that one of the group’s advertisements took a quote from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden out of context, misleadingly claiming he made racist comments in 1985.
The Biden campaign last year wrote to Facebook asking the company to reject an ad by the PAC that it said was false, according to a CNN report.
The Trump and Biden campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-may-aug.html#7_August_2020_(SEC_launches_probe_into_kodak) -- SEC Launches Probe Into Kodak After Warren Raised Questions Over Lucrative Covid-19 Deal With Trump. -- https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/04/sec-launches-probe-kodak-after-warren-raised-questions-over-lucrative-covid-19-deal -- SEC Launches Probe Into Kodak After Warren Raised Questions Over Lucrative Covid-19 Deal With Trump -- Tuesday, August 04, 2020 -- "If investors or Kodak employees were trading based on the unauthorized disclosure or discussion of nonpublic information, then it would appear to be a clear violation of securities law. The SEC should hold them accountable."
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday reportedly launched an investigation into Kodak after Sen. Elizabeth Warren demanded a probe of possible insider trading at the tech company, which gifted its CEO nearly two million stock options just a day before President Donald Trump last week handed the company a $765 million federal loan to produce generic pharmaceuticals to combat Covid-19.
"Good," Warren tweeted in response to reports of the SEC's investigation. "If investors or Kodak employees were trading based on the unauthorized disclosure or discussion of nonpublic information, then it would appear to be a clear violation of securities law. The SEC should hold them accountable."
Trump's announcement of the $765 million deal on July 28 sent Kodak shares surging by more than 1000%, increasing the value of CEO Jim Continenza's new stock options to around $50 million.
In a letter (pdf) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Warren said the decision to grant Continenza stock options was just one of "several instances of unusual trading activity prior to the announcement, raising questions about whether one or more individuals may have engaged in insider trading or in the unauthorized disclosure of material, nonpublic information regarding the forthcoming $765 million loan awarded under the Defense Production Act."
Kodak's stock began to surge a day before Trump's announcement of the massive federal loan, drawing suspicion from analysts who saw the sudden spike in activity as abnormal.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the stock activity can be explained by a Kodak media advisory announcing an unspecified and historic new initiative with the federal government. Because the advisory did not indicate that the information was not yet supposed to be released to the public, local media outlets ran stories on the announcement, causing Kodak's stock to jump.
Warren said that while the Journal report "may resolve questions about the individuals who purchased the stock after seeing those public disclosures, it also opens up new questions about how Kodak handled what appears to be 'non-intentional disclosure of material nonpublic information.'"
The Massachusetts Democrat noted that SEC regulations require companies to "publicly disclose the information promptly after it knows (or is reckless in not knowing) that the information selectively disclosed was both material and nonpublic." Instead of adhering to SEC rules, Warren wrote, Kodak simply asked reporters to remove their stories on the inadvertent announcement.
Warren went on to point out that Continenza and other members of Kodak's board of directors also purchased stock while Kodak and the Trump administration were "negotiating the deal in secret." As the New York Times reported, Kodak granted 240,000 stock options to board members on May 20.
"The purchase of stock... while the company was involved in secret negotiations with the government over a lucrative contract raises questions about whether these executives potentially made investment decisions based on material, non-public information derived from their positions," Warren wrote.
"If investors or Kodak employees were trading based on the unauthorized disclosure or discussion of nonpublic information," Warren added, "then it would appear to be a clear violation of securities law."
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-may-aug.html#2_July_2020_(Commando_disbanded_due_to_far-right_culture) -- German [army] commando company is disbanded due to far-right culture. -- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/german-commando-company-disbanded-after-extremist-rightwing-culture-discovered -- German commando company is disbanded due to far-right culture -- Wed 1 Jul 2020 -- KSK soldiers to lose their jobs or be moved after reports of Hitler salutes and extreme attitudes
Germany’s defence minister has disbanded a company of special forces, saying a culture of rightwing extremism had been allowed to develop behind a “wall of secrecy”. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters on Wednesday that “toxic leadership” in the company was found to have fostered an extreme rightwing attitude among some members of the Kommando Spezialkraefte, or KSK, unit. Around 70 soldiers will be distributed among the KSK’s other three combat companies, while “those who made clear they are part of the problem and not part of the solution must leave the KSK”, she said.
The entire organisation’s training and deployments are being scaled back as the investigation into extremism continues, and reforms are implemented. It comes at a time of broader concerns that Germany has not done enough to tackle rightwing extremism within its Bundeswehr military in general. Kramp-Karrenbauer emphasised, however, that she felt reform was the right course rather than the dissolution of the entire KSK. “The vast majority of the men and women in the KSK and in the Bundeswehr as a whole are loyal to our constitution, with no ifs or buts,” she said.
The KSK was formed as an army unit in 1996 with a focus on anti-terrorism operations and hostage rescues from hostile areas. It has served in Afghanistan and the Balkans and its operations are kept secret. Military investigators have been looking into the unit since a group of public German broadcasters reported in 2017 that at a going-away party, members displayed the Hitler salute, listened to rightwing extremist music and participated in a game that involved tossing a pig’s head. In January, the military reported 20 soldiers were under suspicion of being rightwing extremists.
Kramp-Karrenbauer established an independent commission in May to investigate the KSK and propose reforms after a cache of weapons, explosives and munitions were found at one of the suspected extremist’s homes in Saxony, which she said revealed a “new dimension” to the problem.
She said the investigation has revealed “grave deficiencies” in the unit’s record keeping and that there were many missing items, including ammunition and explosives. It was not clear whether the munitions were used, left behind after deployments or pilfered, she said.
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#2_September_2020_(Making_Secret_Service_pay) -- The corrupter makes the Secret Service pay his companies in order to protect him. -- https://boingboing.net/2020/08/27/how-trumps-company-charged.html -- How Trump's company charged the U.S. government more than $900,000 -- Thu Aug 27, 2020 -- Room rentals, resort fees, and furniture removal
Trump managed to grift the United States government for nearly a million bucks. This is quite an amazing report by The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, Josh Dawsey, and Joshua Partlow, with all the receipts. Trump has now visited his own properties 270 times as president, they report at the Washington Post — "with another visit planned for Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet GOP donors at his Washington hotel."
Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump's businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president's travel, according to a Post analysis. Now, new federal spending documents obtained by The Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service — a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere. In addition to the rentals at Mar-a-Lago, the documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily "resort fees" to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 "furniture removal charge" during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland. In addition, campaign finance records have provided new details about the payments the Trump Organization received from GOP groups, as a result of the 37 instances in which Trump headlined a political event at one of his properties. Those visits have brought the company at least $3.8 million in fees, according to a Post analysis of campaign spending records. -- http://archive.is/Basbu
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#2_September_2020_(Private_documents_from_the_saboteur_in_chief's_Covid-19_task_force) -- Private documents from the saboteur in chief's Covid-19 task force show that when he said it would disappear, he knew the opposite was true. -- https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/31/white-house-cover-covid-19-task-force-reports-withheld-public-reveal-trump-knew -- Covid-19 Task Force Reports Withheld From Public Reveal Trump Knew of Threats as He Spread Lies -- Monday, August 31, 2020 -- "Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national plan to fix the problem, the president and his enablers kept these alarming reports private while publicly downplaying the threat to millions of Americans."
As President Donald Trump and administration officials have been publicly downplaying the Covid-19 crisis and even predicting its imminent disappearance over the past several months, the White House task force formed to coordinate the federal pandemic response has simultaneously been issuing dire assessments of the nation's fight against the pandemic behind the scenes. Those assessments were kept secret from the public until Monday, when the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a trove of task force reports dated between June 23 and August 9 that highlight the extent to which Trump's public proclamations about the Covid-19 crisis have diverged from the findings of experts operating in the White House. "Another indication of how Donald Trump could care less how many people die due to his malfeasance on protecting lives from the Covid-19 pandemic." —Chuck Idelson, National Nurses United
"The task force reports released today show the White House has known since June that coronavirus cases were surging across the country and many states were becoming dangerous 'red zones' where the virus was spreading fast," said Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), chairman of the subcommittee. "Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national plan to fix the problem," Clyburn continued, "the president and his enablers kept these alarming reports private while publicly downplaying the threat to millions of Americans." Each of the eight task force reports released by the subcommittee on Monday contain analyses and conclusions that run counter to the recent public statements of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, the chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The White House sent its reports privately to states but never made them available to the public until the subcommittee requested (pdf) that Pence and task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx turn them over late last month.
In a report (pdf) dated July 19—the same day Trump confidently predicted that the coronavirus is "going to disappear" even as cases surged across the country—the White House task force estimated that 20 states were in the "red zone," meaning more than 10% of new Covid-19 tests were positive. On June 29, just days after Pence declared that "all 50 states are opening up safely and responsibly," the task force issued a private assessement (pdf) warning that "Mississippi reported an 117% increase in new cases in the week ending June 26, resulting from increased community transmission in multiple counties attributed to reduced social distancing." Chuck Idelson, communications senior strategist for National Nurses United, tweeted that the newly released task force reports are evidence of a "White House cover-up" and yet "another indication of how Donald Trump could care less how many people die due to his malfeasance on protecting lives from the Covid-19 pandemic." In a press release, the House coronavirus subcommittee listed several other examples of the internal reports contradicting Trump's public pronouncements on the Covid-19 pandemic, which has infected more than six million people in the U.S. and killed at least 183,000:
🐘 June 23 Report. On June 16, Vice President Pence claimed in an op-ed that "panic" over a resurgence of coronavirus infections was "overblown." But on June 23, the White House task force concluded that seven states were in the "red zone," indicating the highest risk of coronavirus spread. The task force found new cases were up 70 percent in Arizona, 72 percent in Texas, 87 percent in Florida, 93 percent in Oklahoma, and 134 percent in Idaho.
🐘 July 14 Report. On July 14, President Trump stated, "No other country tests like us. In fact, I could say it's working too much. It's working too well. We're doing testing and we’re finding thousands and thousands of cases." The same day, the task force concluded 19 states were in the "red zone" and recommended they increase testing. The report noted, “Disease trends are moving in the wrong direction in Georgia with record numbers of new cases occurring in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Testing positivity continues to increase. The number of tests has increased, but more testing is needed."
🐘 July 26 Report. On July 21, President Trump tweeted: "You will never hear this on the Fake News concerning the China Virus, but by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well—and we have done things that few other countries could have done!" On July 26, the task force reported 22 states were in the "red zone," and stated: "Georgia is experiencing widespread community spread without evidence of improvement. Improvement will require much more aggressive mitigation efforts to change the trajectory of the pandemic in Georgia."
🐘 August 2 Report. In a July 28 interview, President Trump stated: "They are dying, that's true. And you have—it is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it." On August 2, the task force concluded 23 states were in the "red zone." The report noted, "Widespread transmission continues to occur from rural to urban areas" in Louisiana; "Aggressive continuation of mitigation efforts will be required" in South Carolina due to "widespread community spread throughout the state in urban, periurban, and rural areas"; and, "The virus is spreading deeper into the rural areas" of Oklahoma.
🐘 August 9 Report. On August 3, President Trump tweeted: "Cases up because of BIG Testing! Much of our Country is doing very well. Open the Schools!" On August 9, the task force reported that 48 states and the District of Columbia were in either red or yellow zones. In Indiana, the Task Force warned: "Cases continue at a high plateau in Indianapolis and mitigation efforts, testing, and contact tracing need to be aggressively implemented. Covid-19 is widespread throughout the state and mitigation efforts should be statewide."
The subcommittee went on to warn that despite the continued spread of Covid-19 around the U.S., the Trump administration has refused to support private task force recommendations aimed at stemming the pandemic.
"The task force reports released today recommend that state and local governments implement heightened public health measures to combat the spread of the virus—including requiring face masks in public, closing bars and gyms, and strictly limiting gatherings on a statewide basis in certain states," the subcommittee said. "Yet the Trump administration has failed to publicly support most of the task force's recommendations. For example, President Trump has refused to call for a nationwide mask mandate."
In a statement, Clyburn said that "as a result of the president's failures, more than 58,000 additional Americans have died since the task force first started issuing private warnings."
"It is long past time that the administration finally implement a national plan to contain this crisis, which is still killing hundreds of Americans each day," Clyburn added.
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#2_September_2020_(Wrecker's_triumph) -- The wrecker's triumph: thugs and right-wing extremist militias are now allied and supported by the right-wing media. Cities whose thug departments are permeated with right-wing extremists may need to abolish those departments and start new ones, so as to have no right-wing extremists among their police. -- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/01/us-mainstream-right-vigilante-terror -- How did the US's mainstream right end up openly supporting vigilante terror? -- Tue 1 Sep 2020 -- The apocalyptic conspiracy theories of rightwing groups afraid of losing their power give evil a name, and offer an answer
Kyle Rittenhouse, a “Blue Lives Matter” fanatic, Donald Trump supporter and militia member, has been charged with murder. It is alleged that having travelled from Illinois to Wisconsin to point his assault rifle at unarmed protesters, he shot two people dead. He was later heard claiming: “I just killed somebody.” While the Trump campaign quietly disavowed this enthusiastic supporter, insisting he had “nothing to do with our campaign” (as though anyone had suggested otherwise), the president himself defended Rittenhouse, saying he appeared to have been acting in self defence. Message boards such as Reddit and 4chan are humming with commentary supporting Rittenhouse. Predictably, every accused lone-wolf murderer generates an online fan club. Likewise, the Christian right has already raised $250,000 for Rittenhouse’s defence. However, the decision of rightwing celebrity journalists to gleefully defend Rittenhouse crosses a new threshold. Ann Coulter, the infantile shock-jock of American reaction, said of Rittenhouse: “I want him as my president.” While Coulter is a media opportunist mining for controversy, Tucker Carlson of Fox News, a more doctrinaire far-rightist, offered an emotional defence. “How shocked are we,” Carlson said, “that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”
This, from a talking head who has spent the Trump years mainstreaming various white nationalists, inciting racism and portraying the apocalyptic meltdown of the US caused by immigrants and liberal elites, betrays a conception of order identical to that of Rittenhouse and other white vigilantes who have pointed their guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, such as the Three Percenters and militiamen who have paraded the streets of Philadelphia, Ohio, Chicago and Albuquerque. For the ideologues, law and order in Kenosha is social obedience on the part of those targeted for police violence, and it would be legitimately upheld by a white paramilitary who guns people down in cold blood for opposing the racist murder of black people. This is an ideology of law and order that could come from the antebellum South, or the frontier west. Just as disturbing, for those likely to be on the receiving end of police violence, has been the convergence of police and paramilitaries. It is not just that militiamen are hardline supporters of the police who see themselves as augmenting state repression. Police themselves have repeatedly condoned and indulged the vigilantes, who have been permitted to roam around with guns out, attacking Black Lives Matter crowds unimpeded by authorities. In Kenosha, police were recorded handing out water to a crowd of white militiamen, telling them: “We appreciate you being here.” The chief of Kenosha police has defended the role of white vigilantes in the protests. Police allegedly declined to arrest Rittenhouse after he’d just shot two people, was pointed out as the shooter by several witnesses, and was walking towards a police vehicle with his hands up.
The brazen overtness of the right’s dalliance with vigilante terror in answer to Black Lives Matter has been some time in the making. Trump has done as much as he can to mainstream the violent far right in the same way that he has normalised conspiracist paranoia with his birtherism, climate denialism and references to the “deep state”. From his declaration that armed Charlottesville protesters were “very fine people” to his defence of armed protesters in Michigan, and his exhortations to rightwing paramilitaries to “LIBERATE MINNESOTA”, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA” from Covid-19 lockdown, Trump lets the purveyors of armed fury know just whose side he’s on.
He has also conspicuously refused to disavow the QAnon conspiracy theory. According to this, he is saving the world from a “deep state” conspiracy of liberal, Satan-worshipping paedophiles, and hastening the “storm” – a day of violent reckoning. Its supporters are deemed a domestic terror threat. The American far right thrives on the prospect of annihilation, and the “end of days” mood licenses its paranoid violence.
There is a broader context for America’s turn toward what writer Huw Lemmey accurately characterises as a sub-Verhoeven dystopia. Rapture-seeking movements such as QAnon, or those prepping for the “boogaloo”, are working the margins of a culturally mainstream phenomenon. Although the US has always been immersed in the fantasy of “regeneration through violence”, rarely has so much of the country been so thoroughly in the grip of adrenaline-pumping, apocalyptic excitement and conspiracist paranoia.
In both conspiracy theories and apocalyptic fantasies, life is reduced to a cosmic showdown between good and evil. The traumas and disappointments of life are folded into a millenarian revenge fantasy-cum-death wish, as in the enormously popular series of Left Behind novels about rapture and the struggle with the papal antichrist. Such apocalyptic thinking reverberates through a network of institutions, including white evangelical churches, Fox News and the Republican party itself.
Trump’s rhetoric has always invoked gruesome apocalyptic scenarios if his opponents win. This year’s Republican convention is fully channelling this mania, with speakers shouting about liberals who want to “enslave” Americans, steal their freedom and turn the US “into a socialist utopia”, or comparing the Democrats to “communist China”. Notably, the convention paraded a white couple arrested and charged for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, who claimed that the Democrats would abolish the suburbs and let the criminals move in next door. Truly, the end times.
The specific American form of apocalyptic thinking is not just Christian but, historically, anti-communist. In an era of anti-communism without communism, Trump charges that Black Lives Matter protests are led by Marxists, “leftwing extremists” and others out to destroy “the United States system of government”. Thus, the crises that afflict the US are figured as a diabolical plot, much as past generations of anti-communist blamed worker strikes and civil rights struggles on what John Rankin of the House un-American activities committee called “this great octopus, communism, which is out to destroy everything”.
Today’s conspiracist bricolage thrives on the collapse of consensus reality, and on the disintegrating authority of older gatekeepers of truth. More importantly, it milks a fascination with the destruction of one’s enemies and, tacitly, oneself. In the past, apocalyptic fantasy has been seen as a paranoid reaction to economic deprivation and political persecution. That was true of peasant movements such as the Lazzarettists, who launched a violent revolt against the government and the ruling class in 19th-century Italy, but it hardly explains the disproportionately affluent Trump base, and it doesn’t explain rich Washington journalists such as Tucker Carlson rationalising murder in cold blood.
Apocalyptic conspiracy thinking is, above all, a theodicy: it explains evil, and says what will be done about evil. The end times thinking that is sweeping the US, and justifying every new outrage, is the theodicy of groups frightened of losing their power and arming themselves to defend it.
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#6_September_2020_(Republican_congresscritter_who_fanatically_defends_the_right_to_carry_guns) -- A Republican congresscritter who fanatically defends the right to carry guns says he would shoot any blacks that carry guns at a protest. Does this mean he advocates the right to carry guns only for whites? Does he now believe that guns should be prohibited at demonstrations? I'm in favor of that, as long as it applies to everyone. -- https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/03/id-drop-any-10-you-gop-rep-clay-higgins-threatens-shoot-armed-black-protesters -- 'I'd Drop Any 10 of You': GOP Rep. Clay Higgins Threatens to Shoot Armed Black Protesters -- Thursday, September 03, 2020 -- The Louisiana lawmaker is a staunch gun rights advocate in an open carry state.
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins came under fire Wednesday after threatening to shoot armed Black protesters in a now-deleted Facebook post. "Fair warning," the Louisiana Republican, a former police captain, wrote in a Tuesday post that included a photo of armed Black men at a Black Lives Matter rally in Louisville, Kentucky. "I wouldn't even spill my beer. I'd drop any 10 of you where you stand." "Nothing personal," Higgins continued. "We just eliminate the threat. We don't care what color you are. We don't care if you're left or right. If you show up like this... you won't walk away. That's not a challenge, fellas, it's a promise. We don't want to see your worthless ass and we don't want to make your mothers cry." Facebook told the Acadian Advocate that it removed Higgins' post for violating its policies against promoting or inciting violence. "I did not remove my post," Higgins wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. "America is being manipulated into a new era of government control. Your liberty is threatened from within... I'll advise when it's time, gear up, mount up, and roll out."
Higgins' comments drew a stinging rebuke from one of his congressional colleagues, as Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said Wednesday that the Republican's "dumb and reckless Facebook post requires serious condemnation." Richmond accused Higgins of staging a "clear adolescent ploy designed to stoke fear, incite violence, garner social media clicks, and raise money for his campaign." "He should be calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into the shooting of his constituent Taylor Pellerin," said Richmond, referring to the 31-year-old Black man fatally shot by Lafayette police on August 21. "But considering his own record of police misconduct... I won't hold my breath." "[Higgins'] comments were disappointing but not surprising," Richmond continued. "My colleague still has not learned that words have consequences, especially when they come from supposed leaders." "This is the same man who criticized the use of protective face coverings, yet coronavirus infections continue to spread throughout his congressional district," added Richmond.
Shreveport, Lousiana Mayor Adrian Perkins (D) slammed Higgin's comments as "racist, violent, and divisive." Higgins, whose nickname is "Wild," has been a vocal supporter of the Second Amendment and of expanding gun rights throughout his career. Explaining his co-sponsorship of a 2017 bill legalizing the interstate concealed carry of handguns, he wrote that "every American that (sic) can legally possess and own a weapon, and carry in whatever manner, should have that protection in every state across the nation." "I will always vote to defend and uphold Second Amendment rights for all Americans," Higgins vowed. Louisiana is an open-carry state. Higgins is regularly seen wearing a handgun. Critics accused Higgins of hypocrisy for loudly defending gun rights for "all Americans" while threatening to kill armed Black men exercising their constitutional rights. "Our conclusion can only be that what's good for white people is not good for Black people in Higgins' Ramboworld fantasies," wrote the editors of the Acadian Advocate. Higgins' threat came ahead of a Tuesday evening Black Lives Matter demonstration in Lafayette to protest the Pellerin shooting.
The Acadian Advocate reported that the event was peaceful, with 40-50 armed members of the Louisiana Cajun Militia present. One of the group's leaders, Michael McComas, said he wanted to protect protesters from white supremacist militants who were rumored to be traveling to Lafayette to disrupt the demonstration. While armed Black people are a rare sight at protests, white militias and vigilantes have shown up at Black Lives Matter demonstrations over 500 times this year, according to Alexander Reid Ross of the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. Police have often embraced their presence, including when officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin praised armed vigilantes and threw a bottle of water to Kyle Rittenhouse, who would shortly after allegedly kill two protesters and injure a third with an assault rifle he illegally transported across state lines.
This isn't Higgins' first incendiary statement. In 2017 the Christian fundamentalist posted a video on YouTube from the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to promote an "invincible" U.S. military, and he has also compared women who choose to abort pregnancies to the genocidal extermination of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. It's also not the first time Higgins has threatened to shoot someone. According to court records, he allegedly made such a threat against his ex-wife Eloisa Rovati Higgins. "He put a gun to my head before, during, an argument," she claimed in 1991. "He threatened that if I ever came near the house he would shoot me."