Biden – Page 2 – THE ENGLISH CODE

The Real Reason the GOP Wants to Ban Abortion

In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe vs Wade that a person had the right to choose an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Viability was defined as the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception.

85 percent of American voters, men and women counted, think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. It would be even higher for women alone.

So why do far-right Republicans want to ban something that most of their own voters want to have access to? The answer lies in the GOP’s ultimate goal and an old meme called the slippery slope.

The GOP is a party that has sold out to certain big businesses. One can figure that out because they continually support the NRA, block gun control measures, and are okay with automatic weapons in the hands on eighteen-year olds even after all the mass shootings we have witnessed. It’s clear that money in their pockets is favored by GOP over American lives. They saw the kids mowed down by automatic weapons in their classrooms. This abortion ban effort is not about saving precious children’s heartbeats.

The GOP also supports Trump’s tax breaks for billionaires, increasing the tax burden on average Americans, reducing Social Security and Medicare and countless other measures that favor those with big money over working class Americans. GOP national policies are very unpopular in America on both sides.

The GOP’s media ally, Fox News continually creates and broadcasts social issue memes like “Stop Woke” and “White Replacement Theory” which keeps a portion of voting Americans voting for them. But the GOP voting raw numbers are dropping every year. So, in their calculations over time, they know they can’t win fair presidential and Senate elections. They favor less voters not more.

The GOP still can win State and local elections but have now real difficulty winning presidential elections. That is because even GOP voters don’t trust GOP politicans for the big issues, but are okay with them having control of local issues.

Abortion rights have been a unique right since 1973 because it is a medical procedure that can only be done on 50% of Americans. But there is more math to consider here. A women’s birth window lasts for about one-third of her life. And even though most women continue to have an interest in the rights of other women after they reach menopause, it’s harder for them to feel the urgency of the matter once they pass the time when they can become pregnant.

The same cannot be said about tax laws but it does apply to Social Security and Mediare, which applies to both sexes but for a shorter window of life. These three issues can be advanced without strong resistance from all voting Americans. I know its strange that young people don’t realize they wil be old one day. But it an economy where young people have more diffulty acheiveing the American dream they can be influences to come to view money given to older people as money taken from them. Frankly, these efforts are outgrowths of the act of bullying the weak. You see it also with anti LGTP legislature and the voting laws in many GOP states that disproportionately affect racial minorities.

The goal of the GOP is to chip away at people’s rights starting with the smaller sections until they are generally completely down-trodden and don’t have the time or energy to fight the GOP at the voting booths. Ultimately the voting booth won’t count at all once enough power is in GOP hands.

The current GOP needs to get to a fascist state to survive long run. That way, they can stay in power, regardless of the will of the people, just as we all saw Donald J Trump try to do in 2021, on January 6th.

So banning abortion, is a test case for the GOP. If they can do it with help from their Trump appointed judges, they have proven to themselves they subjugate a segment of Americans by removing one long-held right. Then they can procede banning the next sets of rights on their list – rights Americans pay into and look forward to collecting on in their senior years, Medicare and Social Security.

This is why all Americans, women and men of all ages, must unite and vociferouly reject the the banning of the abortion pill. It is safe and effective and farnkly it is not the state’s business unless that state is indeed a fasicst state.

Post Script.

It’s been this author’s postion since 2016, that Trump did not think up these efforts to subjugate the public by himself. We saw Russian nationals at the GOP Convention in 2016. That meant Putin sent them there. Putin does run a real fascist autocracy. Russia had been a democracy under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.

Putin used methods similar to what we see now with the GOP, including aligning with the religious right, fixing elections and installing purchased judges to overpower his people. I believe Putin proved to the world that a free people’s spirit in a large country can be subjugated in a post interent world with certain steps. Those steps include segmenting the public into groups based on sex, age, color, religion and bullying the smaller groups to acheive a fascist state.

I still think Putin gave dictator lessons to Trump in Helsinki and that’s why Trump famously ripped up the notes. It would have been just like Trump to marvel at Putin for his absolute power – for his ability to “do anything because I am the president”. And he would have asked Vlad, in a personal way – so how did you do all this?

Enforcing the 14th Amendment could prevent all of this. I get that it would be nice if the voting public voted out the GOP at every level. But its a heck of a bad gamble. There’s so much more to lose than win.

Merrick Garland’s Refusal to Enforce the 14th is Endangering Our Country

Joe Biden Can Declare War On Any Who Would Attack Our Democracy

War is Not Defined in the Constitution

In 1971, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. It was a racist-oriented policy decision, but indeed he enrolled the FBI, DOJ and police departments to act on his declaration of war. Reagan declared a war on drugs again in 1982. Presidents have the power to declare war on something other than another country.

It is a well-known fact that war is not defined in the US Constitution. This makes some sense because what constitues war changes over time as technology evolve. So President Biden, using his war powers as Commander-in-Chief can declare was on “attacks to our democracy”, just as Reagan and Nixon declared on “drugs”. He can also enroll the FBI DOJ and police departments to seek out those who would undo our democracy by force or any other means.

Democracy is America’s Founding Principle

What would America be without democracy? Can you even imagine a formally fascist or oligarchal United States? The 911 attacks took the World Trade Towers and 3000 lives, but democracy was very strong that year. The danger Isis posed seemed dangerous back then, but that danger pales in comparison to the dangers we face today with the attacks on democracy that are being attempted here by sitting members of Congress.

The Effort to End Democracy Is Not Confined to the USA

Most of the people on the planet live under the thumb of autocrats. Autocracy goes back to the city-states of Babylon 8000 years ago. Democracy in 250 years old. I have colored countries whose democracies are under attack orange, which is half yellow and half red. Hungary, Ukraine, Brazil and sadly the United States are experiencing serious attacks to their democracies right now.

Now look at the red countries to think on who might want these attacks on democracies to succeed. There are two very large autocracies. China and Russia. But China has experienced tremendous growth over the last 50 years by making products the sell in the well-to-do democratic countries and especially the USA. That leaves Russia and Putin as the person with the largest stake and motive to end democracy on the planet.

Evidence of Partnership Between Putin and the Republican Party

Putin cheered the night Trump won the election in 2016. He aided Trump tremendously by using a new type of warfare – cyber war. Instead of bombs, or airplanes flown into buildings, he used Facebook, Twitter, Trump and the GOP to get a partner into our White House. This was the single most successful attack on the USA in its history. Those who cared about democracy could feel that on Nov 9th 2016, but too many were afraid to say it – including our then president Barack Obama, who permitted a man who invited Russia to leak information on his opponent in the election to continue on as a candidate. Yes, “everyone” thought Trump would lose, but that was not a proper consideration. Principles matter and we paid the highest price ever for that cowardice or smugness. We still are paying and wil continue to pay until we out the offenders from our government.

We must also not forget that Putin was present at the GOP Convention in 2016. He sent his men there and indeed Trump directed a change to the GOP party platform on Ukraine support. There was and still is an unwritten partnership between the Republican Party, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. I call it the Russo-Republican Agreement. This is how the Russian mob always operated even back in the 80s. Now they’ve graduated to using cyber technology and have infiltrated our Congress. There is no other thing more dangerous to our survival as country than allowing partners of Vladimir Putin to have power in our Congress.

There are Two Tools to Undo the Malice in Our Congress

The 14th Amendment which says no one who took part in an insurrection, or aided or comforted those that did, can have any office in the USA. Why Biden has not used this tool yet is beyond me, but I can only think he is afraid of something. To that, I quote FDR. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. True then, True now. The circumstances are amazingly similar. New enemies. New weapons. But the desire of our enemies is the same: ending democracy.

Why is China okay with our democracy, but not Putin? It can only be that Vladimir is just a crook at heart. Stealing is what he knows best and it has worked for him. His country sells very little to the rest of the world and he’s not trying to change that. It’s all about him. Sound familiar? It should. Trump once said on the campaign trail in Iowa in 2016 “Of course they love me, they love money”. Putin and Trump share an inferiority complex that makes them seek money so furiously that nothing else matters to them.

The other tool is actually our presidnet declaring war on those who would end democracy in the United States. That effort would involve asking members of Congress if they believe the 2020 was stolen and publicly declare that they do not ( or present evidence for their beliefs to the contrary in real time. ) Anyone who won’t make that declaration is fostering anti-democractic sentiments in their constituency, and hence are on our enemies’ side in this war. Do we really want Congressmen who state our president stole the election – hence demoting his power in the eyes of many Americans to serve? The effect of that aired sentiment, and the cries that can be heard on Fox News is that sixty percent of Repubican voters still think Trump won the 2020 election. Fox can be asked to stop spreading election lies as part of this war to preserve democracy. This proposed war to preserve dmeocracy effort can be tied to the 14th Amendment as well because the rallying cry of the insurrection was “stop the steal”. Congressmen who say the election was stolen are comforting insurrectionists.

By using the 14th and declaring that we at war to defend democracy in the USA we can clean house of the insurrectionists in our midst. They intend to do us no good. And they are still getting help and support from the man who started this war on democracy, Donald Trump’s mentor, Vladimir Putin.

I will leave you to ponder ask your representative to use the 14th to unseat the insurrectionist supporters in Congress and with this image. Fill in the thoughts that are in their heads at this precise moment.

We have been attacked, with far more consequences than 911.

Trump cowers as Putin gloats – Helsinki 2018

Prior post:

Merrick Garland vs Donald Trump – Malice vs Cowardice

Merrick Garland’s Refusal to Enforce the 14th is Endangering Our Country

The GOP in the House have begun holding the USA hostage. It is part of their agenda, which includes ending Social Security and Medicare. They will use the House power of the purse to threaten the functionality of the US Government.

However, most of the GOP in Congress comforted insurrectionists and supported the chief insurrectionist, Donald J Trump. The DOJ can enforce the 14th and unseat them tomorrow using evidence from video tapes. No trial need happen. Just new special elections. Then dems have the majority at least until the special elections, and hello Jeffries. Solves all.

Time to be creative. Time to be serious. Some say the 14th has no teeth. But it’s there for exactly this situation – and it can grow teeth! It must before 2024. We are one more Gerrymandered election away from losing what our forefathers fought and died to protect. And all of this is stemming from what I call The Russo-Republican Alliance of 2016. Never forget Putin had Russians present at the 2016 GOP Convention. Obama’s DOJ should have dissolved the GOP over that. We are not seriously addressing the new way of warring – cyber war – and democracy’s enemies know it.

Remember: House Speaker is Third in Line for POTUS

Take note that Speaker McCarthy is 3rd in line for POTUS and he too should be removed via the 14th. Biden is eighty and Kamala is an easy target for MAGA nutballs and potential lone wolves who would gladly do something to be remembered like Lee Harvey Oswald. I believe this is why the GOP “Freedom Caucus” did not want McCarthy. I also think Trump secretly wanted someone who was not McCarthy, in spite of his words. Ask Michael Cohen if I don’t have the cred.

If the Biden’s DOJ and Dems won’t use the 14th and unseat insurrection comforters – which solves much, the right thing to do is to declare war vs election deniers and ask all in Congress to openly say Biden is their duly elected commander -in-chief. Anyone in Congress who won’t say this and who was also involved in planning or supporting the Jan 6th affair or offered words of comfort to those who did, can be removed from office by the US military as part of this war effort. Can you be an autocrat for democracy? I think so. FDR was sort of like that.

Dems consistently show they are not willing to bend rules in a war that threatens our democracy. The generation that goes through active shooter drills in K-12 will end both parties when they come to power. They will dis the GOP for thier malice, and the Dems for their cowardice. And they will be right.

Domestic terror has risen dramatically since 2016 in the USA. Victims of all incidents in recent years represent a broad cross-section of American society, including blacks, Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, Asians and other people of color who have been attacked by right-wing extremists wielding vehicles, guns, knives, hateful words and fists. I doubt Trump will ever be president of the United States again, but simply allowing him to run for the presidency poses a severe danger not only to the democracy but to the citizens of the United States as well. It says its okay to be a traitor and be in government. And that let’s the GOP traitors to democracy in Congress off the hook.

Allowing Trump to run implies this violence has all been okay with the DOJ. The Jan 6th insurrectionists said, “we were summoned by our president to stop the steal“. The “steal” and the Big Lie were the rallying cries of the Jan 6th insurrection. Allowing Trump to run negates the very basis of prosecuting him for just causes. On one hand the DOJ is saying Trump deserves to be jailed and on the other it is saying it’s okay for Trump to be commander-in-chief. It is a mockery of justice we all understand in our bones.

Trump is not in office now; his Congressional allies in the insurrection are. They now pose a larger danger to our democracy than Trump precisely because they now have the power of a majority in the House – something that can and should have be undone by Biden and Garland before January 3rd – but they refused to do so. History will judge the GOP as a party bent on malice, but it will judge the Democratic party as one stymied by a cowardice that permitted a corrupt party to seize power after a majority of its members were either involved in, or were okay with an attempted coup.

Recently Trump said he wanted to suspend the Constitution. Merrick Garland is already suspending the Constitution by refusing to enforce one of its most important amendments, the 14th Amendment. They say “there is no enforcement mechanism”. I say “Who cares? Invent one!”. This was and still is an attack on our democracy – and that is an act of war. War is not defined in the Constutution, but war is always an attempt to take something away from a sovereign country. The players in this war – this cyber war which uses words not bombs – are being rewarded with immense government power.

Ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly disqualifies any person from public office who, having previously taken an oath as a federal or state office holder, engaged in insurrection or rebellion or gave aid or comfort to insurrectionists. Donald Trump has done both things that disqualifies anyone for holding office – any office state or federal. But the aid and comfort part applies to all the GOP expect those like Cheney, Kinzinger and Romney.

We have rewarded insurectionists in Congress by allowing them to hold the majority in the House even though a substantial percentage of those House candidates “comforted” insurrectionists. We have video tape documenting such comforting. It’s up to the DOJ Biden and our DOD to stop Trump and the complicit GOP in Congress who are aligned with the Jan 6 movement. Our DOD is sworn to protect us. Where are they? We are being attacked. The GOP’s divisive hate speech blasted daily on Fox News and right wing media, filibustering, obstruction of government processes, phony investigations that waste our tax dollars, and the classroom shootings, will not stop by itself.

We are witnessing a war vs the USA – an attack on our most sacred institution – voting – carried out by members of Congress. This coup was and is more of an attack on the USA than the Isis attack on 911, which had no chance of long term success. All this GOP have to do is win one trifecta election, House ( which they just did via Gerrymandering ) Senate and President – and we will have lost the democracy that we fought to preserve for 250 years. There will never be another fair election to undo this – not without massive blood being spilt.

Imagine if on 911 we caught Osama Bin Laden but then allowed the Isis party to organize and take the House. Imagine if after World War II we allowed the US Nazi parti to take the House. After all, they were not the same people as in the German Nazi party. This is what we did on January 3rd. We allowed known allies of the man who organized an insurrection vs the institutions of free and fair elections and peaceful transfer of power to take power. We are not even demanding they publicly rejecting the Big Lie. This is pure stupidity.

Read what Hitler’s communications general, Joseph Goebbels, said of a democracy that allows its enemies to take power: “‘This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy—that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed.’” – We are doing this right now. Now read the US Constitution’s clause to protect us from attacks from within.

Merrick Garland knows all this. But still his DOJ is letting Trump run for office, and he is allowing at least some insurrectionists ( Josh Hawley was there but, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). were involved in the planning. ( link to article ,if you doubt that). And 90% of the rest of the GOP offered comforting words to those involved.

Contrary to the oaths sworn to uphold the Constitution and defend its principles, Merrick Garland, Joe Biden and our Department of Defense are not using the one constitutional tool we have to protect our democracy from internal rot. They allowed criminals, traitors and the enemies of democracy to ascend to power. If they only blocked those who were there and those who were involved in its planning, from holding office – the GOP would not have even the majority of the House. But – for poltical reasons – the Dems seem to want to not have that majority right now. We can only guess why. Perhaps the GOP has dirt on them as well.

With the GOP in control of the House, Dems feel they will share some of the public ire that will continue in 2023. What a sad state of affairs. It’s basically the same reason they let Trump run in 2016. They thought he would lose. What they are underestimaing is the damage the GOP House can do to America and Americans in two years. Dems too are therefore just strategizing for power like the GOP – not thinking of what is best for us all.

Understand that Donald Trump had, probably still has, and likely has already shared top secret documents with Vladimir Putin. There is a war in Ukraine and the GOP in power might be able to stop the USA from offering aid to Ukraine. Putin does not like Biden. He did not like HRC. He had opearatives at the GOP Convention in 2016. Connect the dots. This is how Putin operates. Foul play is being invited. The 14th is the only way to stop this.

Trump was the leader of an insurrection or coup attempt. Kind or supportive words about Trump after the Jan 6th event – perhaps without a large public apology – is all it takes to be disqualified to hold any government office.

We have a covenant with our government. It goes something like this. We agree to pay taxes to our government and they agree to use their offices and our tax dollars protect us and try to make out lives better. Without that payback, what are we paying taxes for? MAGA people have long had this gripe. They think the US Government “abandoned them”. I can only speak for myself. But right now, I feel just as abandoned as the MAGA people say they feel.

If Merrick Garland will not stop Donald Trump from running for office, he is shirking his duty and oath to uphold the Constitution. He has allowed a party that is infested with insurrectionists a majority in the House. And if this ends badly, which it ceratinly can, I will blame Garland and Biden for their cowardice and lack of historical perpective in their refusal to indict Trump and bar those who sided with the Big Lie – which was and still is the rallying cry of the insurrection.

I am not asking Garland to suspend the Constitution; I am asking him to enforce the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Stop Trump from running for office now.
Insist the GOP who were part of the insurrection or its planning be stripped of their seats and new special elections be held – just as if they had died.
Insist that all Congresspeople who have offered words of comfort to insurrectionists publicly rescind their words on national TV or surrender their seats. All in Congress, must also state publicly and loudly that Joe Biden is their duly elected commander-in-chief in this cyber war.

These two images explain the Worldwide Cyber War of 2016-2022.

The SCOTUS is aligned with the GOP which is aligned with Putin. Hence SCOTUS is aligned with Putin. Putin schooled Trump in Helsinki. We saw that when Trump walked out on stagewith a seeming sub-serviance hait to the dictator in chief. A subserviance to anyone or anything is something we never saw in Trump, going back to the 70s. Connect the dots.

How To Save American Democracy

The violent attack on the Pelosi’s has made a declaration from our president an immediate necessity. Joe Biden must make a speech about the attack on Paul Pelosi and segway towards the voices that are instigating these attacks on politcians. He should make sure that Fox carries this “important speech” and hide his true intent ahead of the speech.

Biden can use his presidential war powers to declare war on hateful rhetoric and say these memes are radicalizing and harming Americans. Joe Biden is not only authorized to defend our democracy, he has a duty to do so. The legal precedent goes back to 1863, during the during the Civil War. https://www.fcnl.org/warpowers

The Supreme Court confirmed this executive war power in the Prize Cases of 1863. The Court held that President Lincoln’s establishment of a blockade following the attack on Fort Sumter, without prior congressional authorization, was a lawful exercise of his Commander in Chief power.

According to Justice Grier, speaking for the majority: “If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative (Congressional ) authority. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war ….”

We are seeing our states organized in a rebellion every day now through the words and actions of the Republican representatives in Congress, the former president and his allies. They’ve even called for fake electors and it was quite an organized effort. A war on our elections must be declared as tantamount to a war on our founding institutions and those involved must have their words and actions arrested.

If those that spread these messages in government or media will not immediately cease using hate of Democrats as a meme, and also publicly reverse their statements as an attempt to undo the damage they have already done, then their bodies must be arrested as well. I believe house arrest and the monitoring of communciations is warranted at a time of war. We are in a war – a cyber war – and have been since 2016. Putin was the leader of this war vs democracy in 2016. He still is the man with the most power in the autocracy game, and that is the logical reason Trump never said a bad word about him.

Ads, posts, and words spoken must stop charaterizing people in government service as political enemies worthy of being attacked or as enemies of Americans. If politicians continue to incite such hate, they must be deemed as attempting to radicalize Americans. Such memes have consistently shown they result in people acting out violently.

Hateful and/or violent ads (like the above), posts or words spoken by elected official must result in the instant loss of their seats. If they continue after they are out of office, it must result in jailing or house arrest with communications monitored. It is the communications of these traitors to democracy that are most dangerous. If Tucker Carlson continues he too must be arrested.

People have freedom of speech, but during a war, those siding with enemy forces that want to end democracy can be silenced via statutes that say you cannot yell fire in a theater. The danger to the public overrules freedom of speech and the largeness of the microphone weighs in on the danger level of words and images. We are all in that theater now through our social media. So yes, media must be constrained so that hateful violent memes are considered terrorist propaganda. The violence will trend worse unless and until the voices and images that spark such violence are silenced.

How to Save American Democracy

If we do want to reach the undecided, there is one last easy way. It works for people who don’t read and even those who might not like the sound of your voice. We must learn to use fear to motivate Fox’s viewers and respect that Fox uses fear because they know 100% how it works on their listeners.

The only way to stop the hate speaking versus public servants – which includes poll workers – is for our president to loudly declare: that such hateful words, images and posts are hateful propaganda that have been shown time and time again to be harmful to the good people of these United States.

STEP 1. Joe Biden needs to declare war on anyone in government or media that posts threats to members of Congress, their staff and family members. The attack on the Pelosi’s makes this an immediate necessity.

We all know about freedom of speech, but we can’t allow people to yell fire in a theater knowing it is not true because of the danger it poses to people. The entire idea of government is to protect people from danger and make life better for them. Right now, the we are not doing neither of those two things very well.

The airwaves and internet highway belong to the commonwealth of the United States. They are leased to corporations but they cannot use their structures to harm the citizens of the United States. We should not tolerate one more threat to congressmembers, judges, poll workers, government executives and their staff and family members. A hot line for such threats needs to be announced stat and all media instructed to post said hot line or lose their licenses to broadcast.

We would do this if it were Bin Laden. When the words of hate come from the GOP it is much worse because 70 million people are listening. And like a cancer, it won’t stop by itself, even if Dems win both houses, which is a long shot. It must be forcibly stopped. Such memes must be defined as a crime versus the common good with fast penalties enforced as if at war. That is why Biden needs to declare war on this sort of thing right away.

This will not work if Biden is scared and waits until after midterms. It will look too obvious and weak. It needs to be said loudly and right away or people will think it is still okay.

The New York Times , Chicago Tribune, LA Times , all major stations need to show this map, or one like it, for the next few days and up until election day.

Do you remember the first time you saw a RISK board? You got the idea of a global struggle without reading about history. You just got it. We need people who can’t or don’t read to get this right now. Fear of our true enemies, those that have a stake in ending democracy, is the motivator that will work best in these last days to reach undecided voters.

No one here wants what is coming. GOP voters don’t want it either, but I’ve heard the joke many MAGA people think autocracy means cars rule. They will get the above image which can be made into an interactive map like Steve Kornacki does. Truth is, if we lose democracy here, democracy is done for the planet. That is easy to conclude by obserbing this map. One does not need words to get it. And if that happens, climate change will take care of humanity soon enough. The earth has patience.

In a world with social media, dictators and democracies are like cats and dogs. Because dictators can no longer hide all the truth from their citizens with social media so readilt available, dictators cannot just coexist with free states so easily any more. This war was destined just as it was eighty years ago. But the autocrats know it is their destiny and are being pro-active. Democracies must be pro-active too or we are doomed to be reactive. It’s that simple.

And never forget, above and beyond all else, Putin and Trump are simply financial criminals – gangsters that have ascended to the top of the chain in their governments. And they can’t get caught because of their past crimes. So they cannot quit and must be forcibly stopped.

They must be stopped, which is what arrested means. The 14^th amendment allows us to deny to seat insurrection supporters to any government post. Use it or lose it. Joe Biden – arrest Trump please. Think of arrest in its classical meaning: to stop the progress of something. You know. Like ” The doctor arrested the metastasis by using chemotherapy. “

Thank you for doing something today, before it is too late.

The US Democracy Must Prevail at Midterms

How to Save Democracy in 8 days.
Post the attack on Paul #Pelosi the violence will get worse … unless .
STEP 1.
Joe #Biden needs to declare war on anyone in government or media that posts threats to members of #Congress. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN MONDAY. Delay is normalization. pic.twitter.com/bu6cR5CgGt
— joseph aronesty (@EnglishCodeWord) October 30, 2022

The US Democracy Must Prevail at Midterms

What We Can Do in the Closing Days Before Midterms to Save Democracy

Every 80 years since 1776, the United States has experienced a severe crisis. We are in such a crisis now. Midterm voting has begun. Our votes and the words we speak now will decide our country’s fate.

The GOP have already said if they regain power, they intend to end Social Security, make abortion nationally illegal and use the House’s power of the purse to roll back public perks like lower drug prices. They are trying to harm the middle class because fascist rule cannot survive with a strong middle class. Why do you think so many Russian businessmen mysteriously jumped out of windows this year? They stood up to Putin vs his war on Ukraine. No Americans want to get to that point. But we are dangerously close now.

Democracy Must Prevail

The entire concept of this party or that party winning and losing is not appropriate for the 2022 midterms. If pushed to amplify a victorious meme, “Democracy must prevail” is the proper meme, not “party D or R must win”. It’s not about the parties winning. It’s about something we have shared in common since 1776 – democracy. My father fought in WW2 to defend democracy. It would be the supreme tragedy to turn our democracy over to the same spirits that started WW2 at the ballot box.

Democracy must prevail implies that democracy is under attack without saying it. It’s also the lesson of the Star-Spangled Banner: our flag was still there. America prevailed.

A sense of American community pride must be restored, subliminally. Don’t get involved in the “we win, you lose” meme. That’s for sports, not politics. Let the election deniers own that antagonistic meme. People know it’s wrong to be divided within a country, and that it’s hurting us all Americans on many levels.

Speak to Centrist Voters Last Two Weeks

There is still a large group of undecided voters, and they will decide if democracy prevails. This group includes people who may not vote during the midterms. Reach out to people in your circle of friends and family who are not politically motivated to vote in midterm elections. This is up to each and every one of us—not only the candidates. Tell them how important it is to you that democracy prevails. There’s not much sense preaching to the choir. If you have political differences, teell them they can be ironed out over time, but once autocracy sets in, there is no path back to democracy.

Nearly All Americans Have Relatives that Fought in WW II

My father was a PFC in World War II. My sister voted for Trump, probably owing to peer pressure in her social circle. After this article is published, I will call her and talk about what our father fought for. I’ll make a point to say, “What a shame it would be to give away what many fought and died for in WW2 at the ballot box.

Try and convince a few voters you know to vote for democracy to prevail, especially in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan – though they are all very important states this time.

Women and Young Voters Will Decide the Fate of Democracy

If you’ve got voting-age kids, make sure they are motivated to vote. Most young voters know that the world is stacked against them these days. But sadly, too many believe there is nothing they can do about it. When you convince a young voter to register his vote for democracy to prevail, they may also get some of their friends to join in that effort. They are natural-born experts in social media. Remind them to use social media to spread the meme “Democracy Must Prevail” for us to have a chance at the classic American Dream that their parents got as a birthright and their grandfathers fought and died for in WW2.

American women have no good reason for voting for GOP candidates. With Roe overturned, the GOP is running its own version of Muslim Sharia law here in the USA. Republican states have removed the freedom to plan a family as American women and men have seen fit since the 1970s. Sharia law is used to restrict women’s freedom in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is shameful to resort to such tactics here in the USA. Government does not belong in our bedrooms. Health issues are personal and should only be between a woman and their doctors. There is nothing in Christ’s teachings that refers to abortion.

Many are convinced that life comes down to gas prices and the cost of food. Fascists like their subjects living week to week so they have no time to focus on what’s really going on in their government. Google the cost of gas in Europe before you talk with the people you want to convince to get in this fight. Rising gas prices and supply chain issues are global issues and direct consequences of the pandemic and Putin’s war. It’s not Biden’s fault, nor was it Trump’s. Inflation in Europe is 25% higher than in the USA. In Argentina, the inflation rate is not 8%, it’s 80%. We can get through this together, not divided.

What Joe Biden and Democrats in Office Can Do

The messages outlined above will also be effective for congressional Democrats and our president to use during these last two weeks. I have asked myself why Joe Biden does not open up a channel or email address just for GOP and centrist voters and ask them what they want from their government and what they think it can do better. Amplify the best questions in posts and in media and remind them that these things can all be achieved but only in a democracy, never in an autocracy. Remind voters the refusal to accept the results of a proper election is what autocracies do-and ask how’s that working out for the people in Russia?

Thanks in advance to all US citizens for their service when they vote for democracy to prevail over autocracy in November, and for using their influence to remind those they know who have not quite made up their minds of the importance of this particular midterm election.

Go Ahead. Trust Your Gut, Merrick

I pray AG Garland is intentionally not spoiling summer for everyone, and he’s just waiting for the first Tuesday after Labor Day to indict Trump.

Ornstein once wrote to me that “we’re afraid to act”. Well, this war is on anyway! We’re shawshanked*. GOP in Congress are demonizing Democrat politicians and now IRS agents.

The ball is on our hands now. That advantage is not going to last much longer unless we arrest their plans. We have more power than we will after midterms – unless we hold the House. And right now, the 528 blog says the Dems have a 25% chance of that.

We must indict the big rat now, before midterms.

Trump is just a spoiled frat boy coward. If cornered, he will rat on the rest of the GOP sycophants that played ball with him to save his hide. Trump has no track record of staying loyal to others. There’s an action movie running in his sick mind and he is the archvillian. If that seems a stretch, ask Michael Cohen.

If given the power, we all know the GOP will seek revenge against us who see Trump for who he is, and on the very next day after they get that power.

Cyber war is a war of words. And words are the building blocks of laws. That’s how fascists take a government – with words not bombs. Orban style. They create laws making it illegal to do things they don’t like. First they dabble in little things to test their powers. Like don’t say gay in Florida or the revocation of a woman’s right to choose ( which is no little thing ).

We have the football in our hands now. It’s not going to get better if we lose the House. It will just get worse for Democrats and democracy and everyone really.

Arresting the Plans of Would-be Fascists

The word arrest classically means to “stop the motion of something”. There are plans in motion now, being discussed in private rooms and channels. Those plans must be arrested. And they are attached to human bodies.

It’s not just Trump we are fighting. He’s a student of criminals but not of history or government. He’d need to be told where the real battle lines and risks are. There are masterminds behind this coup attempt and they have a political party in their pockets. Industry Titans and even DOD may be involved.

Putin is certainly back-channeling some of these strategies. He had his team attend the GOP convention in 2016. An unwritten alliance was formed. To me, that seemed like grounds for banning the GOP party the way the Germans banned the Nazi party in 1945. Putin may already have top secret classified documents for payment for helping Trump get elected. That’s how these gangster-politicians roll.

We’ve got to arrest the plans of the enemies of democracy – before midterms. I hope Garland feels that, even if he does not know for certain what the outcome of arresting Trump will be. It’s time to trust our collective guts and strike!

The war is coming anyway. It’s a war of words. and words are the building blocks of laws. This is how they are doing it – right in front of our eyes. The Green Bay Sweep.

It’s happening in plain view because we are … what? We are afraid to act? Afraid their Supreme Court will rule against us? Maybe so. But so what? WIll it get better if we don’t arrest Trump and his allies in Congress? And PS, we can disqualify Clarence Thomas for comforting an insurrectionist too.

This coup attempt by the GOP is athreat to our way of life and is just as dangerous as the threat we faced during WW2. Every 80 years here in the USA we must defend our way of life. Once per liftetime on average. Count. 1776 – 1860 – 1940 – 2020. This civil war is coming anyway. We’re shawshanked. We might as well do what we can while we have ball control. Before midterms.

Trust your gut Merritt Garland.

The good people in this country have your back.

I’ll tweet this tonight. I hope it’s helpful. I’m one who is not comfortable looking the other way. I’ll tweet my image and some supportive words, in case Garland needs some encouragement. In case he’s afraid to make the first punch … oh wait. The GOP already did that Jan6th.

*shawshanked: Being put into a position that you can’t get out of – where every choice seems doomed. My wife shawshanked me into doing yardwork.

Can We See Biden and Xi vs. Putin? Please and Soon.

Joe Biden took over a real mess in our State Department. Donald Trump only wanted loyalists to hold offices in his administration. Experience, knowledge and skills were not valued by forty-five, unless those attributes were accompanied with heavy doses of loyalty to whatever Trump wanted for whatever reasons.

In one year, Joe Biden has got our State Department functioning back close to the way it used to be – and just in time for the biggest challenge the world has seen since WW2. We have another madman in charge of a large war machine and he’s attacking a sovereign democracy and threatening nukes. Not one person on earth in their right mind likes being this situation. And yet it persists.

Biden quickly put heavy financial sanctions on Russia and their top oligarchs, including Putin. He also got NATO countries to join him in these sanctions. So far, Putin is not blinking.

Biden spoke with Xi of China this week, and Chi does not seem to want to help Russia, but so far, he is still buying Russian oil and is not sanctioning Putin. ‘Assertions that China knew about, acquiesced to, or tacitly supported this war are pure disinformation,’ wrote Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the United States in the Washington Post. ‘Had China known about the imminent crisis, we would have tried our best to prevent it.’

If Joe Biden could convince Xi to take a hard stance vs Putin, my sense is that would quickly be too much for Putin to survive. But I do think Xi has good reasons to take a hard stance vs Putin. Let me unwind this a bit.

There are only really two superpowers on planet Earth today – the USA and China. While the U.S. ranks as the world’s largest economy with a GDP of $23 trillion, Russia’s GDP comes in at $1.48 trillion. Russia takes up the most space, but its entire economy is about the same size as Texas’s. And there are logical reasons for that clear underperformance. Russia has become an incompetent uncaring oligarchy over the last 20 years of Vladimir Putin’s reign. Just imagine what would have happened to America had Trump stayed on as president for twenty years. Installing loyal cronies while ousting objective educated experts would take a heavy toll on any administration.

Now let’s analyze the performance of Xi of China. The Chinese presidency is officially regarded as an institution of the state rather than an administrative post; Under the Chinese constitution, the president serves at the pleasure of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the highest organ of state power and the legislature, and is not legally vested to take executive action on his own prerogative. But Xi Jinping has been the president of the only party in China with any real power for about 10 years now. In that position, whatever Xi says goes, if he really wants it that way.

But China has done a remarkable job with its economy under Xi Jinping – especially when compared with Russia. China’s economy totaled about $18 trillion in 2021 on export manufacturing growth and capital for new projects. China is the world’s 2nd largest economy now – and its basically a one-party capitalistic communist government.

USA and CHINA GDPs trending UP , while RUSSIAN GDP trends DOWN

Can Joe Biden ask Xi Jinping to not only castigate Putin with words from his Ambassador, but also get China to sanction Russia? I think so. The first argument I would use ( privately) is Vladimir Putin gives autocracy a bad name. After all, Xi Jinping is the top dog in the supreme powerful National People’s Congress of China. What he says goes. And yet, Xi’s governance has done so well over the last 10 years it’s hard to fault the Chinese for their system of governing over one billion people. Xi Jinping wants the world to know that one party rule can work out if the people at the top have the best interest of the country at heart. (It’s always all about the hearts of our “rulers”. )

The second argument to end Putin’s Folly is for the safety of all the people on the world. A wounded maniac with nukes can ruin Xi’s plans for the economic growth of China too. It’s not that far of a stretch to imagine human civilization being destroyed in a few days of nuclear exchanges. Some scholars think there is a 10% chance of a hot nuclear war this year.

Putin Has Created a Teaching Moment We Should Not Ignore

And that brings me to another reason to forge an alliance with Xi Jinping and China. Suppose we try pull a magic rabbit out of the hat this madman in Russia has us staring at? Ideally, it should. I think Putin’s Folly has created a global teaching moment large enough for a smart US president to request an alliance with Xi Jinping not only to sanction Russia, but to begin to disarm ourselves of all nuclear and biological weapons.

I am not going to pretend to know exactly how many nukes every nuclear country has and how to arrange and schedule their terminations and verify all are in compliance with this theoretical disarmament proposal . But a quick Google search shows about 1550 nukes for the USA, 1650 for Russia, 350 for China, 300 for France and 250 for the UK. I’d like to see those weapons dismantled at a rate of about 10% per year.

That gets the world to a survivable space in eight to ten years in the event of even an accidental nuclear war. If Joe Biden can forge an alliance with China using Putin’s irrational Ukrainian war of choice as the initiative, his madmen with a nuke status as the pressing need, Xi’s personal goals for Chinese GDP growth as the sugar – I think he’d soon be regarded as the greatest presidential diplomat of all time.

And it seems to be in Joe Biden to be that international diplomat. He’s done so well the European NATO country leaders. If he can do that with China, it will mark the end of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. This is the win win the entire world really needs right now. We need to get past this moment, then work ensure that there are not more moments like this in the near future and then use these new alliances to address the real problems on earth for its 7 billion people: climate change and the degradations in the standards of living for the majority of people everywhere.

Amplifying Biden’s Speech on Autocracy vs Democracy

(4 min ) If there was anything missing from Biden’s fiery Labor Day speech in was this visual. If our president is finally trying to reach people lost in right-wing information silos, kudos. But he needs to use techniques perfected by ad agencies: images, branding and repitition – to be most effective.

Look at the map. Red is autocracy; yellow is democracy; orange is democracy under attack. There are more people ruled by autocrats than governed by democracies. There is more land held by autocrats as well. And let’s face it, autocratic rule has been the norm on planet earth since the city-states of Babylon – 8000 years and going. Democracy is the newcomer in this struggle. If it were not for the USA’s nuclear arsenal and military superiority, I dare say the autocrats would have taken the entire planet by now. That is the autocrats’ goal, more so now than ever before. (The internet has something to do with that.)

The map was more yellow (democratic government) only five years ago. Brazil, Turkey, and Hungary have effectively flipped without shots being fired. Their governments went from democratic to oligarchal autocracy via their own people unwittingly voting in the oligarchs, much like we did here in the USA with Trump. And though Trump is on the ropes, American democracy’s functionality is still under attack by most GOP Congressmen. This phenomenon is global. Social media companies and soldout corporate media are fueling this fire … for profit.

Putin’s military aggression towards Ukraine is part of a grand plan. Putin knew he could not beat the USA with bombs. So he employed thousands of Russians to infiltrate our social media in 2016. There were Russian nationals present at the 2016 GOP Convention. And now, as we approach midterms, that alliance of the GOP and autocracies have midterm candidates who have openly said they will overturn democracy – the will of the people – if they don’t win.

The 14th Amendment Section 3 clearly says no one who was in an insurrection – or even comforts an insurrection can be in government, state, federal or judicial. The issue with the amendment seems to be that the last sentence says they can be removed by a 2/3 vote in Congress. But they did not anticipate that 50% of Congress would some day be insurrection supporters. I’ve long said a those who will not openly disavow the Big Lie and speak openly against the insurectionists do not deserve a vote in their own trial by 2/3 Congress. Where in law do we allow accused crminals to sit on their own juries?

The current United States administration, along with NATO countries, Australia and the other few remaining democratic countries rightly figure Putin’s grand plan is to help take the entire planet for the autocrats. That is the only way dictators can survive long term.

And make no mistake about who is the alpha-male in this brotherhood of dictators. That station is always taken by the most powerful in the group, just as it is with wolves. And though Russia is not a large force financially, Putin himself is worth hundreds of billions by virtue of him seizing the largest businesses in Russia. Putin’s vast wealth was one of the prime reasons candidate Trump never said one bad word about him.

And of course, after Trump won the 2016 election with much help from his Russian ally, Putin made it clear there was a debt due him. That’s how financial criminals operate. Financial criminals know they can totally escape prosecution by seizing their government. Payback due Putin, and possibly others, is the most logical reason Trump took top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago. I hope the DOJ knows that. Trump knew the risks. He knows what happened to the Rosenbergs. He does not need money so badly to risk his life or freedom. It figures he iisin a pinch, the way Manafort was when he did his crimes. it figures that Donald Trump was compromised and had classified documents. Trumpism is a national security issue now. It always was. The Biden administration knows it now. Good. Much better late than never.

The Russian Mob from the 80’s

I had business in Atlantic City New Jersey in the 80’s and became aware of an association of people known as The Russian Mob. Trump had many associates with Russian accents introduced to him by his first wife, Ivana. Some of them became my clients. Melania Knoss (Trump ) eventually became a client too.

The Russian mob had their fingers into basic crimes like store robberies, truck heists and, in time, they moved up the ladder into real estate fraud. Russian mob profits and booty were mostly taken back to the countries they came from. The Russian mob players were here in the USA to pillage, much like the Vikings did a thousand years ago. Most people don’t know that the first Russian king was a Swedish Viking named Rurik. (862 AD) . The lineage of the kings and queens of England also began with Vikings. William the Conqueror was from Normandy, France, but his grandfather was a Viking who was given Normnady by French aristocrats so he would not seige Paris. Vikings were rightfully feared. When they toolk a country, the killed the ruling men and forceably took their wives and children.

Autocrats are money launderers in their own ways. They need cooperation from foreign governments to provide safe harbor for their stolen booty because the people being robbed are citizens of their own country. That’s why Russian oligarchs own real estate in New York. They are keeping those assets safe, just in case the people ever regain power in mother Russia. And vice-versa. That’s also why Trump owns hotels in Turkey, and why his banks are rarely American. It’s why we use financial sanctions of autocratic rulers when they get out of hand. There is an informal association of autocrats based on their common goals. I call it “Dictators United”.

The Internet Changed Everything for Autocrats

In 1996, the internet began connecting the world at a blinding speed. I’m old enough to remember something called “The Iron Curtain”. This was a physical and communicative wall placed between the USSR and the NATO counties of Europe. The Berlin wall was part of that Iron Curtain.

Autocrats prefer their people be kept blind to the status of citizens in countries that offer a better standard of living for their citizens. People cannot seek better, if they don’t know better exists elsewhere. The internet has made keeping people blind to the status us other countries nearly impossible – though Russia, China and North Korea still do quite well at it.

Joe Biden’s speech on September 1 2022, finally made it clear that he knows what’s at stake. It’s six years late, but there is still time to save our democracy. ( I had wished Obama had made this speech at “Russia, if you’re listening”. )

But words alone are not remembered easily. That’s why advertisers use images and jingles to keep their products easily recallable. It’s the coordination of two senses that forges a pathway for better memory. Lyrics without a tune don’t stick in the brain. And words without an image are easily forgotten.

So if there’s one thing I want the Biden administration to do with all the blogs I have written over the last six years, it’s SHOW THE MAP. Fear is a great motivator. We need to feel afraid – as we did in WW2. US voters will know what’s at stake – at last – once they see that map over and over again. And yes, this will stick with MAGA voters that have not got totally lost in the rabbit hole of misinformation. Recreate the map if need be. Many don’t know what autocracy means – but everyone can identify with a Risk board.

Autocrats want America to go fascist more than any other country. Look at the map again. If the USA flips, they will roll over the rest of the world quickly and easily. Putin is trying to show the other dictators this strategy right now in Ukraine. He must be stopped. Trump must be stopped. None of this will change until they these two men are stopped.

That’s all I wanted to say today. SCOTUS Justice wife, Ginny Thomas, recently said “there are no rules in war”. We must recognize we are at war. The enemies of democracy are playing for keeps, as if this was a war. If we fail to do the same, I cannot yet imagine how the USA will still be a functional democracy after 2024. Time is not on our side. Midterms must be about democracy first.

Joseph Aronesty

How Biden Can Get Americans What They Want- without Congress

Urgent Advice for Joe Biden from His Largely Ignored Democratic Base

“Cyber” is the New Way to War and Putin is Cyber Warfare’s First Master

How Biden Can Get Americans What They Want- without Congress

Two days after the 2020 election, Donald Trump fired Mark Esper. That told me Trump was not quitting his effort to become POTUS for life. Normally, when a candidate loses, they stop doing new appointees and go into transfer of power mode. But Trump knew the full extent of his crimes vs democracy and was rightly afraid that once out of power he could be found guilty for treason.

So Trump’s 2022-2024 political rallies are back on. He needs to make sure his base still has his back, because he knows that relationship is the sole source of political power as a private citizen.

Joe Biden should be doing the same thing right now. As a seated POTUS he has huge advantages over Trump in this strategy, but he must recognize the opportunity and not be a “low energy” campaigner. Look at this diagram:

It’s clear Congress is broken by design. They don’t even vote for what their constituents want because their constituents can’t pay them as well as the big donors and corporations. That is corruption, but it’s been going on a long time.

The 6:3 Supreme Court is broken as well. Further, the public does not connect to the Supreme Court. The SCOTUS is an isolated chamber by design.

However, the voting public is aware who is the president and they are generally aware that the US Constitution outlines and protects their rights. That is why you will hear the GOP base cite the first and second amendments to protect their freedom of speech and their right to bear arms. The relationship between the public, the constitution, and the president is tweakable.

FDR had to deal with a divided public in the WW2 era. In 1933, he began to campaign to Americans in what was known as “fireside chats”. Radio was the media employed. It was a hugely effective tool . The fireside chats were a series of evening radio addresses given by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, between 1933 and 1944. … On radio, he was able to quell rumors, counter conservative-dominated newspapers and explain his policies directly to the American people.

Trump is banned from Twitter and Facebook. Biden is not. Biden has the internet, social media, TV, radio, and the bully pulpit as tools to begin a new series of public awareness campaigns. This stacks up as a huge advantage for Biden but only if he uses these tools with great energy.

His current 33% polls disclose he is not garnering confidence from the public. He needs to fix this just the way FDR did, but with today’s technology. He can do better than FDR if he just sees the opportunity. Trump clearly sees the importance of campaigning to his base. Biden must do the same, better, and to all Americans with special attention given to Trump voters.

Biden can open a two-way channel between the voting public and his office. A simple email form can be created asking the public how they want their government to address the top ten issues* of our times. (*List is my own.)

Voting Rights -Who should vote? How do we count votes to makes sure they are accurate? Should Gerrymandering be a thing? etc.
Healthcare – How do we want to treat pre-existing conditions? Do we want Medicare for all or a combination of two systems? How do we rein in prescription drug prices? What do we do when people don’t want healthcare?
Taxation and Income Inequality – Income inequality is a world-wide issue. Should there be a cap on what SEO’s can make? Should the tax breaks given to big corps by the Trump administration continue, expand or be scaled back? Do we need a more progressive tax system the way it was in the 1950’s? etc.
Gun Laws – Do the majority of Americans want background checks? Checks on automatic weapons? Better protection in schools? etc.
Border Security – What do the majority of Americans really want here?
Infrastructure – American infrastructure is falling behind the pace set in modern countries like Japan. Where and when do we start catching up?
Money In Politics – Do the majority of Americans like Citizens United and lobbying? Should government reps not be able to serve unless they show their taxes? Should dark money be legal in the USA? Should Congressmen be above legal reproach?
Internet and Social Media Regulations – What does the majority want?
Climate Science, Environment Protection and R & D – The planet’s #1 issues need to be addressed by our collective and focused energies.
Education – We are falling behind in all age levels when it comes to education. How do we turn this around? What are the public’s ideas. Do they support free college for anyone? etc.

Joe Biden can create a form and ask the voting public to weigh in on these top ten issues. He should start campaigning more heavily in Trump country. A simple email address can be advertised. whatdoyouwant@potus.gov Ask people to weigh in with their solutions and ideas on these top ten issues. And yes, ask them what party they identify with. Multiple choice. Democratic. Republican. Other. None. Not eligible to vote. Knowledge is power.

On the first Tuesday ( create good civics habits ) of every month Biden can update the results of the survey. He should make a special point of highlighting what GOP voters really want. This is crucial because this writer is pretty sure both sides pretty much want the same things on all of these issues. He can also make sure the voters in WV and AZ get special attention.

This is how he heals the divide – and fast. This is what FDR did in the 30s with his fireside chats. FDR unified the country over the things we all wanted.

Biden should immediately start quoting the 14th Amendment, section 3, to the voting public. The 14th sec 3 states people who took part in insurrection, or even “comforted” those who did – cannot be in our government. Joe! People on both sides respect the Constitution. You know that. But the only amendments most people know on both sodes are the first, second and the fifth. LOL.

The 14th Amendment, sec 3, – verbatim:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. …………….

Please note: Congress cannot vote to “remove such disabilities” if they are not already seated in Congress. Though this add-on sentence at the end of the 14th sec 3 seems to run counter to the spirit of the amendment, it does not apply at all to Trump, who is not in Congress.

The 14th says the many Secretary of State candidates the GOP are supporting because they back the Big Lie, which is part and parcel of the Jan 6 insurrection, cannot be in office. Hence they cannot even run and neither can Trump. But no one says this. Even if this amendment lacks teeth (as heard from lawyers ) , if the public gets behind the 14th, it can grow teeth. Biden needs to learn the power of active populism and fast.

Unifying the public over what they really want from their government will expose Trump’s and the GOP’s election lies for what they really are: an attempt to keep the US citizenry divided so that none of what Americans really want and need to succeed in the 21st century will come to pass.

Prior Post: Urgent Advice for Joe Biden from His Largely Ignored Democratic Base

Urgent Advice for Joe Biden from His Largely Ignored Democratic Base

Delay Is Not a Friend in the Cyber War Being Waged Against Democracy

Time is not a friend when fighting metastatic enemies.

Strategies to Defeat Trumpism Before Midterm Campaigns Take Root

Midterm campaigning will begin early in 2022. If Trump is not been indicted by by mid-July, he will remain the assumed leader of the GOP. Trump will then set the norms and talking points for GOP midterm candidates and the Big Lie and slow-moving coup attempts will continue through the midterms.

Why Timing Trump’s Indictment Matters

If Trump is indicted before July, it is possible that DeSantis will jockey himself to the front of the GOP power struggle. The timely indictment of Donald Trump will function like a grenade tossed into the GOP foxhole. A surprise early indictment will force the GOP to at least examine the idea of choosing other leaders to head the party during midterms. That then offers the real potential to end Trumpism before midterms. Indicting Trump no later than July is the easiest way to end Trumpism without an election or new laws. An un-indicted Trump will serve to further normalize Trumpism and distrust of the election results of the 2022 midterms, and chaos will be free to reign in 2022.

An un-indicted Trump will also serve to divide the Democrat Party during the midterms. We’ve just about had it. It’s getting to the point that many dems think Biden and his DOJ are either not up to the task or in on the status quo. The real reason Joe Biden’s polls are down is that after one full year there are no substantial indictments in the globally televised coup vs. the US democracy.

We must hold Biden responsible for the actions or inactions of his AG. By not indicting Trump by February, Biden will be strategically complicit in dividing the pro-democracy party and unifying the pro-fascist party. How is that supposed to work out for we the people?

Recognize Your Enemies and Defend Accordingly

About six years ago, candidate Donald Trump asked openly asked Putin to help get him elected. “Russia, if you’re listening” was a tell. Trump had to know Putin was listening to say that. There would have been no reason to even bring up Russia unless he was actively signaling an ally. No side of the American electorate likes Russia. Trump had a reason to say those words and only one reason makes sense. I called it an act of treason because inviting a foreign enemy to take part on our elections should have been viewed as an invitation to attack our most sacred institution. That’s treason. Benedict Arnold treason. Allying with our enemies to destroy and institution (fair elections ) is treason. The GOP is the party of treason now.

And there were Russian nationals at the GOP Convention in 2016. That means Putin was effectively there. And that means some sort of alliance was formed with other GOP in Congress. We saw it play out in the 2016 election with Russian disinformation campaigns, a phrase that was basically unknown until 2016.

I posted a democracy vs autocracy map (below) shortly after that statement. Joe Biden finally got around to stating that the world is deciding which form of government will prevail in the 21st century. Biden knows the stakes. But if he does not act as if he is at war, (cyber war is a war of words not bombs) the enemies of democracy will prevail even though their conventional war efforts could never be successful. That is Putin’s genius. I wrote about it here.

I still believe our Department of Defense should defend vs attacks on elections as they take an oath to defend our nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The DOD has an intel department. Why are they not even asked to help on the Jan6 Committee investigation into an attempted coup?

The Jan6 Committee should immediately ask DOD intel to join the effort to get to the full truth on the Jan6 coup attempt. It will inform all Americans – and our own internal enemies of democracy – that we are serious abo0ut defending free and fair elections in the United States. If DOD intel coud help with Jan6, even on the perimeters, it sends the message to the Big Lie supporters in Congress that attempting another coup is not such a good idea.

Why am I the only one showing this map? Pictures speak louder than words, especially these days. People may not know what *autocracy* means. But we all know what a RISK board looks like. I am asking Biden, Pelosi and democracy friendly media to amplify a version of this map ASAP.

Bust the Filibuster

Harry Reid first invoked the nuclear option November 2013, when the Democratic Senate Democratic used the procedure to eliminate the 60-vote rule for presidential nominations, other than nominations to the Supreme Court. In his honor, Democrats should unify to bust the Filibuster so that progress can be made for the American in our intentionally dysfunctional Congress.

Democrats should also know this. The right-wing base unified behind Trump because they felt ignored by both sides of Congress for years. Fly-over country was indeed ignored by Congress which has been functionally sold out to corporations since Reaganomics. Ask yourself this simple question. How is it that the billionaires and corporations who made most of the financial gains during the pandemic – while the working class struggled – still pay the least percentage of taxes to our government? This is evidence of corruption at work – and the citizens on both sides know it.

If Coingress (misspelled intentionally ) remains stalemated and dysfunctional in early 2022, it will create room for a new party to emerge. Vegas now says there is a 7% chance a third party could win the 2024 election. You can bet real money on it. Perhaps a new US labor party could be restarted here in the USA.

Busting the Filibuster is not new. Democrats did it first. Democrats should know if the GOP regains power they will bust the Filibuster to bust our democracy. How ridiculous that will be. Democrats would have created the tool and then allowed the enemies of democracy use said the tool they created to destroy the United States as we know it.

Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or Use the 14th Amendment

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is designed to set standards for fair elections that states cannot ignore national contests. We clearly need some form of regulation to ensure the midterms and the 2024 elections are fair and the results accepted by the American people at large. I hope they pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but it’s going to require a united Democrat party and that is not how things are due to Manchin and Sinema.

The 14th Amendment was created after the Civil War exactly for times like these. I’m tired of hearing lawyers tell me “it has no enforcing mechanism built into it and so has no teeth”. Can I remind such wusses that the 2nd Amendment clearly states gun ownership is a right “in order to maintain a well-functioning militia”. The GOP does did let a few words stand in their way. They’ve essentially let teenagers carry AK-15’s and fire them into crowds. They sell that amendment to the hilt and ignore its enabling clause. And once they had their base behind the idea of gun rights as constitutional right, it became a reason to vote GOP. We can create memes that get citizens to vote too.

This is the 14th Amendment, verbatim:

But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. …………….

But Donald Trump is not currently in Congress. He does not have to be voted out. And those secretary of state candidates who are Big Lie supporters and insurrection comforters are also disqualified by this constitutional amendment. Why on earth am I – a citizen with no real connection to government – the only one who sees the 14th Amendment for how it reads? Why does not out AG declare that those who support the Big Lie cannot run for office? Take that to the Supreme Court if need be. Because if it is okay to do that, then this place we call a democracy is doomed to fail. If we cannot pass new laws, we can use the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution to defend our elections.

And you know who respects the constitution the most? Trump’s base! So frankly, I think it’s better than the John Lewis Voting Rights Act ( John Lewis is not a hero to racists ) to defend democracy. Section 1 of the 14th states: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Does someone want to tell me how making voting harder for select groups is not abridging a privilege of citizenship?

We will soon know if Congress, Joe Biden, Merritt Garland and our DOD are up to the task of defending democracy. If I see neither Donald Trump indicted nor voting rights protected by new laws or the 14th Amendment by Feb 15th , I will conclude the democrats are okay with the status quo. This citizen, who voted for Biden in 2020, will then be looking for new people to support in the midterms and beyond.

Odds We Lose The Democracy in 2024 are Posted in Vegas – sort of.

There is a 42% chance we lose the democracy in 2024 according to Vegas pollsters. Let that sink in. And since Vegas takes money on bets, they have this number more correctly than most politicians. That’s 3 out of 7. It’s like a we are in the World Series down to our last game and winner takes all. Of course, all Vegas is saying is the GOP has a 42% chance of winning the POTUS election in 2024. But come on. With this GOP – that would mean democracy has died here. And Trump is the favorite to be the 2024 candidate, still. A 42% chance of having Donald Trump be president again is what Garland is riskingby not being pro-active. That’s a gamble no American shoul dbe willing to take.

All That Changes If We Indict Trump Before Campaign Season

We need a war room. Our enemies have war rooms. They know they are fighting WW3 with cyber weapons – words and laws. Biden’s AG must indict Trump soon. Summer will be way too late. We have the power to stop this now, but that power will wane dramatically if we lose seats in the midterms. And the GOP are willing to cheat to win because the guy who is in charge of the GOP spent a liftetime cheating to win. He gets off on cheating to win. Trump would rather win by cheating than win fair and square. Fair and square seems dumb to Donny.

Let me end this rant with a link to an article I found yesterday online. Germany already learned their lesson about allowing hate speech. I fear we will have to lose all to learn that lesson – and then it will be too late. 42% is not good enough for me.

Joseph Aronesty – New Year’s Eve 2021

Why You See Swastikas in America but Not Germany

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/16/16152088/nazi-swastikas-germany-charlottesville