Author: clearandpresentdanger

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) on Tuesday turned the tables on Republicans during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee.

In particular, Porter zeroed in on fentanyl seizures at the United States-Mexico border and pointed to a large jump in seizures that she said occurred around June of 2020.

She then asked Chief Border Patrol Agent John Modlin if he could identify the cause of the surge in fentanyl seizures, to which he replied that he had no idea.

Porter then pointed out that it should be seen as a success that the federal government has succeeded in seizing more fentanyl to keep it out of American communities.

“For me, as a mom, that is a sign of success,” she said. “I don’t want that fentanyl in this country. It is dangerous and kills people and makes our community dangerous. And to me, this is a sign that our Border Patrol and our agents… are doing their jobs. What I find interesting is, despite success here, what we are seeing is an effort to characterize seizures as failures.”

Republicans have for the last several months used high fentanyl seizures to attack the Biden administration for lax border enforcement, even though such seizures mean that fentanyl will not be making its way into American communities.

. . . I mean, it’s not like any of the book banners can read anything more complicated than a first grade reader.

Professor, historian and author Kathleen Belew, one of the United States’ top experts on white supremacist and white nationalist terrorism, has often stressed that violent, racially motivated attacks shouldn’t be viewed as isolated incidents, but as part of a broader movement. And when Belew made a Monday night, February 6 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” she explained how a Maryland woman’s role in a plot to attack five energy substations in the Baltimore area fits into the overall “white power” game plan.  (Go to this link for details on the arrest of a Nazi and his girl friend who were planning to destroy electric substations that supplied Baltimore.)

Earlier in the day, law enforcement officials had announced the arrest of Maryland resident Sarah Beth Clendaniel, who, they allege, conspired with fellow white supremacist Brandon Russell in that plot. Clendaniel and Russell, according to officials, hoped to completely disable energy infrastructure in Baltimore and deprive the city of electricity for an extended period of time.

During her conversation with Maddow, Belew emphasized that this was not an isolated incident. White supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis, according to the professor, are targeting energy infrastructure in general — not just in Baltimore, Maryland.

Belew, author of the 2019 book, “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” told Maddow, “The electrical part may be new, but infrastructure attacks by this movement are not new. This is a strategy that was pioneered by a group called The Order in 1983…. Infrastructure attacks are one kind of violence among several others that are all laid out in a strategy in common in order to bring about what the movement seeks, which is the overthrow of the United States and the creation of a white ethno-state — mass violence against communities of color and even genocide against non-white peoples.”

According to Belew — who teaches at Northwestern University in the Chicago suburbs — attacks on energy infrastructure and the January 6, 2021 insurrection are both part of the “white power” game plan.

Belew told Maddow, “Infrastructure attacks sit next to a show of forced violence like the January 6 attack on the Capitol and mass casualty violence like the Oklahoma City bombing. All of these exist together within one broad ideology in the white power movement.”

READ MORE: Why the power grid is an ‘attractive target’ for domestic terrorists and white supremacists: report

Florida is officially a laboratory for fascism in the U.S.
There is a very specific reason why Gov. Ron DeSantis targeted African-American history for erasure

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 7, 2023 5:34AM (EST)

Ron DeSantis is not a “mini-Trump” or some other diminutive. He is much more dangerous. Donald Trump has no “ideology” beyond megalomania and a deep desire to be an American god king. By comparison, DeSantis is far more intelligent and devious; he is an ideological fascist and racial authoritarian.

In a recent essay at Raw Story, Thom Hartmann summarized the danger to American democracy and society embodied by DeSantis:

Historians and political observers have been predicting that America would get our very own Mussolini ever since the days of Barry Goldwater. And there’s been no shortage of candidates: bribe-taking Nixon; Central American fascist-loving Reagan; Gitmo torturing and war-lying Bush; and, of course, Trump.

But with Ron DeSantis, we may finally be facing an all-American politician who has Mussolini’s guile, ruthlessness, and willingness to see people die to advance his political career, all while being smart and educated enough to avoid the easily satirized buffoonishness of Trump.

DeSantis and other Republican fascists have proclaimed Florida to be a bastion of “freedom” and “liberty.” In reality, Florida is now a laboratory for fascism. As part of his authoritarian project, DeSantis is enforcing thought crime laws that forbid the teaching of AP African-American studies in high school and other courses and programs across Florida’s school system (including at the college and university level) that examine questions of power, race and systemic inequality. DeSantis and his agents recently declared that the AP African-American studies course was inappropriate and will not be taught in Florida’s schools because it has “no educational value” and is “indoctrinating” (white) young people. DeSantis and his regime’s thought crime attacks on African-American studies are Orwell’s “1984” meets “Birth of a Nation.”

The purpose of DeSantis’ thought crime laws is to intimidate and terrorize all teachers, educators, librarians, and others who are committed to education, critical thinking, and the truth in Florida (and beyond). In DeSantis’ Florida — and soon to be across “red state” America if he and the other fascist Republicans get their way — there will be censors who review books and other material for thought crimes and other “dangerous” ideas that are contrary to the interests of conservatives. These censors and party officials and their designated agents will also rewrite history – and reality itself – to fit the demands of the regime. The public will no longer be able to discern truth from lies and fantasies from facts and fiction. The subversion and destruction of reality, facts, and the truth are a precondition for, and one of the primary ways that fascist and other authoritarian regimes obtain and keep power.

DeSantis’ goal is to make America into a new Jim Crow Christofascist plutocracy. Donald Trump and Trumpism were just intermediate stops on that evil journey. ………..

(more)    https://www.salon.com/2023/02/07/florida-is-officially-a-laboratory-for-fascism-in-the-us/

COMMENT

It now appears the Jan 6 conspiracy was a plot involving some in the most senior levels of the Trump administration to end American representative democracy and replace it with a strongman oligarchy along the lines of Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary.

This would be followed, after the January 20th swearing-in of Trump for a second term, by a complete realignment of US foreign policy away from NATO and the EU and toward oligarchic, autocratic nations like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary.

As the possibility of this traitorous plan becomes increasingly visible, the GOP, after a frantic two weeks of not knowing what to say or do, has finally settled on a response to Trump’s theft of classified information: “Hillary did the same thing, and she didn’t go to jail!” I heard the comparison made at least a half-dozen times this weekend on various political shows.

To read the full article, follow this link.

Speaking to a church audience, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told the crowd to pray for Joe Biden: “May his days be few and another take his office.”

It isn’t the first time she’s made such a “prayer.” She’s been using the line “may his days be few” since 2022, when she spoke to the Charis Christian Center Family Camp Meeting in Colorado.

It once again caused an uproar among those on social media who saw the video.

“THIS is the self-proclaimed party of Jesus Christ,” tweeted political commentator Lindy Li. “This is the self-appointed party of Christianity SHAME ON YOU! This is why church pews are emptying at a ferocious rate. Why increasing numbers of Americans now say they are religiously unaffiliated. Christianity in America has devolved into a rabid tribe of Talibangelicals and gun-totin Y’all Qaeda fanatics.”

Others noted that her so-called “sermon” included her promoting her legislation to impeach the president and argued that bringing politics into church pews is yet another reason that churches should lose their tax-exempt status.

Another called it a federal crime to threaten the president, which Boebert has gotten away with in the past because she’s not asking activists to actively kill, but rather praying for death.

Or, for that matter, the 109 Democrats who were suckered into joining every single Republican in the House of Representatives to vote for a resolution saying that:

“Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.”

The resolution leads up to that conclusion by quoting President Thomas Jefferson wildly out of context. Here’s what the resolution says:

“Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, ‘To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’”

The Republican authors of the resolution, however, neglected to include the context or the next sentence from Jefferson’s May 18, 1816 letter to Joseph Milligan about their combined efforts to translate A Treatise on Political Economy by French economist Destutt de Tracy.

Milligan and Jefferson were discussing Tracy’s call for a national sales tax (like what the GOP proposed last week), which both men opposed. Which is why the next sentence got right to the heart of the matter:

“If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra [sales] taxation violates it.”

Jefferson, in other words, was calling for an inheritance tax — rather than a sales tax — to fix “overgrown wealth” that was “dangerous to the state,” something the Republicans who drafted this resolution would certainly call socialism.

This entire bit of legislative theater, in fact, is preparation for the 2024 election and the GOP’s new plan to end “socialism” in America.

By socialism, of course, they don’t mean subsidies to the fossil fuel industry that made their billionaire donors rich.

They don’t mean the hundreds of billions we shovel at defense contractors every year for unnecessary boondoggles.

Nor do they mean farm supports dear to their rural voters.

They mean Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Mike Pence drew the battle lines last week around the same time House Republicans were forcing the vote on their anti-socialism screed:

“There are modest reforms in entitlements that can be done without disadvantaging anybody at the point of the need. I think the day could come when we could replace the New Deal with a Better Deal. Literally give younger Americans the ability to take a portion of their Social Security withholdings and put that into a private savings account.”

Republicans have been calling Social Security “socialism” ever since it was put into law on August 14, 1935. In part, this is because arguably it is: it’s a form of social insurance.

But the larger reason is that the GOP has been funded by morbidly rich banksters ever since the early 1920s, and those banksters would give nearly anything to have Social Security’s trillions in their banks instead of invested in treasuries.

Social Security isn’t a savings account: it’s insurance against poverty in old age.

And like all insurance policies, some people make out better than others. People who live a long life may take more out of it than they put in; people who die young leave behind much of their working life’s contributions.

That’s how insurance is supposed to work. It’s how your life and health insurance policies work.

But the GOP wants Americans to think of Social Security as a simple savings account, so they can move Social Security’s trillions from government control into the hands of Wall Street.

And that’s just the beginning. Republicans in Congress are still 100% down with the platform on which David Koch ran for vice president back in 1980:

— “We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
— “We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
— “We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
— “We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
— “We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
— “We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service.”
— “We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
— “We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
— “As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
— “We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
— “We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
— “We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
— “We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
— “We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
— “We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
— “We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
— “We demand the return of America’s railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
— “We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called “self-protection” equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
— “We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
— “We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
— “We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
— “We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
— “We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
— “We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
— “We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
— “We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

The real target Republicans are gunning for, in other words, is — as Mike Pence admitted — the New Deal itself.

When FDR came into office in 1933, he began a fundamental transformation of the American government from one rooted in Laissez-faire to one rooted in democratic socialism.

It was so successful that Roosevelt was elected President of the United States four times in a row, serving from 1933 to his death in office in 1945.

While the American people loved Roosevelt’s New Deal democratic socialism — and still do — the morbidly rich have always opposed any programs that lift up average working people.

— They don’t want workers empowered to challenge their bosses through unions.

— They don’t want their tax dollars to go to help “moochers” and “takers” who weren’t born wealthy.

— They don’t want wealth broadly distributed across America because it might mean they can’t hoard as much as they want.

Almost as fascinating as Pence and the GOP’s efforts to privatize Social Security and “end socialism” are the media’s response to them.

Two weeks ago the GOP put forward a 30 percent national sales tax (ironically, just like Tracy was proposing in 1816). Last week the former Vice President and unannounced candidate for the White House, Mike Pence, openly called for privatizing Social Security.

But there was no mention of either on any of the Sunday “politics” shows that I saw. Instead, the day was filled with Republicans bashing President Biden for his great economy and failing to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon over populated areas.

Will Republican extremism and hate for the New Deal — programs that have become absolutely essential to our even having a robust middle class — ever become grist for the media mill? Will they actually expose to the American people and discuss these GOP plans?

I’m not holding my breath.

. . . they all are brown.