CaliforniaPeggy
CaliforniaPeggy's JournalHeather Cox Richardson has written a warning for us about TFG in a second term:
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He plans to use the military to round up, put in camps, and deport more than 11 million people. He is willing to permit Republican-dominated states to monitor pregnancies and prosecute people who violate abortion bans. He will shape the laws by refusing to release funds appropriated by Congress (as he did in 2019 to try to get Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to smear Hunter Biden). He would like to bring the Department of Justice under his own control, pardoning those convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and ending the U.S. system of an independent judiciary. In a second Trump presidency, the U.S. might not come to the aid of a European or Asian ally that Trump thinks isnt paying enough for its own defense. Trump would, Cortelessa wrote, gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.
To that list, former political director of the AFL-CIO Michael Podhorzer added on social media that if Trump wins, he could replace [Supreme Court justices Clarence] Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and 40+ federal judges over 75 with young zealots.
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Time included the full transcripts and a piece fact-checking Trumps assertions. The transcripts reflect the former presidents scattershot language that makes little logical sense but conveys impressions by repeating key phrases and advancing a narrative of grievance. The fact-checking reveals that narrative is based largely on fantasy.
Trumps own words prove the truth of what careful observers have been saying about his plans based on their examination of MAGA Republicans speeches, interviews, Project 2025, and so on, often to find themselves accused of a liberal bias that makes them exaggerate the dangers of a second Trump presidency.
More at the link: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-30-2024?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=20533&post_id=144192608&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=lxca0&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
She goes on to write about the history of these plans. It's solid, good writing and well worth time spent reading it. I hope you will.
This is quite a long article, but I hope you all will read it.
Robert Kagan writes eloquently and accurately about the historical roots that we face in this year's election. The link will give you the whole article as a gift. There is no paywall. I'm including a couple of paragraphs to show what he's talking about.
https://wapo.st/3QonhLY
For some time, it was possible to believe that many voters could not see the threat Donald Trump poses to Americas liberal democracy, and many still profess not to see it. But now, a little more than six months from Election Day, its hard to believe they dont. The warning signs are clear enough. Trump himself offers a new reason for concern almost every day. People may choose to ignore the warnings or persuade themselves not to worry, but they can see what we all see, and that should be enough.
How to explain their willingness to support Trump despite the risk he poses to our system of government? The answer is not rapidly changing technology, widening inequality, unsuccessful foreign policies or unrest on university campuses but something much deeper and more fundamental. It is what the Founders worried about and Abraham Lincoln warned about: a decline in what they called public virtue. They feared it would be hard to sustain popular support for the revolutionary liberal principles of the Declaration of Independence, and they worried that the virtuous love of liberty and equality would in time give way to narrow, selfish interest. Although James Madison and his colleagues hoped to establish a government on the solid foundation of self-interest, even Madison acknowledged that no government by the people could be sustained if the people themselves did not have sufficient dedication to the liberal ideals of the Declaration. The people had to love liberty, not just for themselves but as an abstract ideal for all humans.
Much more at link.
Where's the Announcement of the Winners of the April Photo Contest?
The poll expired hours ago.
Trump is a master of corruption--in today's LA Times, by Francis Wilkinson.
https://www.aol.com/news/opinion-supreme-court-just-showed-184314409.htmlI have badly underestimated Donald Trump. Thursday was the day that his justices it turns out that they are indeed his justices on the Supreme Court, just as he claimed got it through my thick head: Trump is not just competent but masterful. He is not just capable, he is supreme.
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Crime is a largely private endeavor. Corruption is public. It seeps into the muscle and sinew of democratic society and institutions; it devours from within. The Supreme Court, drunk on arrogated power, cut loose from rudimentary ethics, has been eaten alive by it. But the court is just one plot of a vast terrain that Trump has conquered not with crime, but corruption.
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Trump has already succeeded at corrupting much of whats corruptible. Government. Elections. Foreign policy. Democracy. Religion. Above all, people, and mostly men. Truckloads, boatloads, tiki-torch-parade-loads, courtloads of weak men all standing in the shadow that Trump casts.
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But it was the Republican Supreme Court mostly men again that put the shiv a little deeper in democracys back this week. Originalists or textualists, all sounded more or less Trumpist as they seriously entertained Trumps argument that his assaults on the constitutional order are protected by the Constitution itself. There is no way to make honest sense of such a liars mash. But Larry, Moe and Curly arent just chairing committees in Congress. They wear robes and furrowed brows now, too. And they seem eager to pretend that crimes are just constitutional exercises of power, and that one ex-president is a king.
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Name: PeggyGender: Female
Hometown: Manhattan Beach, CA
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Member since: Thu Feb 3, 2005, 02:41 PM
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