Is "decency" now on the ballot?

 Colin Jost, headline SNL comedian at the White House Correspondence Dinner on April 27, put his finger on a significant word: " decency. It is why we are here tonight." He explained why his firefighter grandfather from Staten Island, Trump land, voted for Biden: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/27/politics/video/colin-jost-grandfather-story-biden-vote-digvid      He may have put "decency" on the ballot in November. Perhaps "decency" touches a nerve more deeply than "democracy is on the ballot".

From my blog: "The rise of Donald Trump has given partisans an excuse and a green light to behave indecently and disgustingly. We need a "coalition of the decent" of leaders and citizens who rise above economic and political self-interest, or as a country, we will continue to sink into the Trump moral mudmire by excusing and accepting his indecency."  https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/04/trumps-greatest-contribution-to.html

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Messing Around Political Name Calling: notes to myself

Do not be so sure the election will be decided on the issue of Democrcy v Autocracy

Do not be so sure if the election will be decided on the issue of democracy v autocracy or democracy vs. dictatorship. Yes, democracy will be on the ballot in November, but it is not a given. It will succeed as the determining issue in November.  Using the term "autocracy" only describes degrees, a range of rules by a person instead of the rule of law. It is a weak term that needs to be replaced by what Trump has already publicly promised if he is elected in November: a "dictatorship."  Even then, Trump has made the term "dictatorship" into a positive for his followers' benefit, not one to be afraid of, because it will "get their stuff done."His lulling words it is only "dictatorship for a day." Only fools believe that. That is all he needs to get the ball rolling for becoming a dictator quickly and, in the transition, throw this country into destabilizing chaos and uncertainty until he consolidates the power in lusts in his own hands. The April 27 white house correspondents' dinner dramatized the importance of the freedom of the press. (more below).

 What is not clear is whether American voters understand there is a link between "blanket immunity" and the continuation of democracy, the issue before the Trump-dominated Supreme Court.  Trump wants the power not only to get himself out of the January 6 criminal case filed by DOJ special counsel Jack Smith but to give him the power to become a dictator, a get-out-of-jail card, able to ignore any threat of criminal prosecution for breaking laws, as he assembles dictatorial powers for himself.  If he can even get the Court to decide he can break laws if it is in his "official duties" capacity, as Trump's loyalists on the Supreme Court are arguing, he is well on his way to claiming any action he performs is official and throwing the US into chaos as this claim is challenged in federal courts and make its way through the judicial appeal system to his Trmmp Supreme Court.  How do we know that will happen? It is happening now, and Trump is not even back in the Oval Office. 

 In December, a YouGov poll revealed that when asked if they supported a dictatorship over democracy, the result was that only a small percentage agreed with having a dictatorship. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/48238-most-americans-support-democracy-and-oppose-dictatorship However,  by February, Trump embraced the concept of being a dictator and his loyalists fell in line. Trump's own promise he "would be a dictatorship for a day" was ok for 3/4 of those who identified themselves as Republicans.   https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4453457-74-percent-of-republicans-say-its-fine-for-trump-to-be-dictator-for-a-day/ 

What a bunch of fools If Trump had immunity from committing crimes,  he could run rampant over existing laws that restrict presidential power, from bribery to assassination of rivals to oppressing press freedom to putting down any peaceful protests and gatherings.  In one day, he could sign the documents already prepared by the Heritage Foundation to allow him to fire thousands of federal employees and replace them with his loyalists, as well as replace those heading regulatory agencies with his sycophants such as licensing media outlets and protect consumers from environmental catastrophes, dangerous products, unfair business practices, and loan sharks. withdraw the US from NATO and throw the economy into a tailspin by sabotaging the only institution that could control inflation, the Federal Reserve. He has already promised to do all of this. and the Heritage Foundation, with millions in the bank, is already at work lining up those replacement loyalists to Trump. The lists will be ready to go on day one.   With a Trump Supreme Court, forget the guardrails of the justice system, and with such power of appointments, a jubilant business community and any GOP opposition to Trump will be hailing "the boss" if they want to have any political power.  The raised clenched fist palms forward will be the 2025 version of the old nazi salute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gestures#:~:text=Clenched%20fist%20is%20used%20as,%2C%20%22a%20thumping%22).

The April 27 white house correspondents' dinner dramatized the importance of the freedom of the press. In Trump's dictatorship, it is already stated by him as a promise to eliminate opposition press as treasonists.. In a post on his Truth Social platform in September, Trump repeated both phrases and vowed to investigate NBC News and MSNBC for “Country Threatening Treason” and try to curb their access to the airwaves.“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Trump said in the post. “Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/25/trump-nbc-msnbc-comcast-country-threatening-treason  He could do this by controlling the Department of Justice to selectively prosecute opposition press and delicensing opposition media,, and using his flunkies running the Federal Communications Commission.  Trump may be a proven liar, but he has always been upfront about what he promises he will do, can effectively keep his promises,  even without blanket immunity for breaking criminal laws, and if elected again, he has the power to get it done.   If he controls the Supreme Court, as he already seems to do, legal action to protect First Amendment rights would have a rough go. His MAGA supporters would love to muzzle opposition.  So what about the rest of us who do not rely on FOX News?

Will the Supreme Court in the future be called the Roberts Court or the Trump Court?

 Will the Supreme Court try to slow-walk democracy to death? Will history call the Supreme Court not the Roberts Court but instead the Trump Court? Will the Supreme Court be just another legislative body like the current House's majority under the fearful spell and control of  Donald Trump? Will it ever be viewed again as a respected final word by learned justices determining compliance with the intent, lower court rulings, or interpretation of the Constitution?  That is the danger the current Supreme Court faces: total loss of credibility and respect as an independent arbiter, the last word in critical decisions about governing. 

Trump's argument that he could not be an effective president without it is absurd. We have had 44 presidents before him who functioned without blanket immunity. Now, when we got 45, and the aftermath was indictments for numerous crimes, he said he needed immunity. Why? To avoid the indictments from going to court and trial? To give him the power he needs to break laws to become a dictator if he is elected in November? Note: He is the only president to be indicted for crimes and the only president impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors.

My take on the April 25 Supreme Court hearings on Trump's demand for blanket immunity is that he will not get blanket immunity, but there will be attempted a kind of carveout engineered by the Trump justices for "official duties." They are inventing this concept since the Constitution has no provisions for such actions. The Constituion does require the chief executive to faithfully execute the laws. Committing a crime to execute the laws, to violate the laws, could not fit the definition of "faithfully" in this layperson's understanding of those terms.

 The purpose of such a maneuver is to give an excuse to send it back to the appeals court to define what is and what is not official duties and private acts so that he can get immunity for official duties that may or may not be carried out by crimes. This was revealed in questioning that even Trump's attorney admitted most of the January 6 indictment concerned private acts. It is no more than a BS stall tactic by the Trump loyal justices to put the January 6 trial on ice until after the November elections. The trial time clock is running out soon, and the Supreme Court has already added months by scheduling, delaying the hearing of the issue for months.  If Roberts agrees to this tactic and/or the Trump justices hold firm, the Supreme Court will deserve the title of the Trump Court and not the Roberts Court.

More follows:

What is at stake in the presidential immunity case is whether this country will continue as a democracy or not.  Trump himself is not only trying to divert attention from the relevant case that could likely judge him a criminal and with evidence exposed to the public in the middle of the campaign but also to give Trump himself an admitted wannabe dictator, cover for committing crimes if he ever gets into the White House again. He could ignore any laws that would block his ambitions to seize power and/or to personally benefit him.  That is the travesty against democracy now being committed by some justices on Trump's behalf, which is happening before our eyes. 

I explain below why I think democracy is at stake and that some justices were using the hearing as a tactic to protect Trump.

An excellent non-partisan summary of the April 25 hearing on the immunity issue. https://www.yahoo.com/news/key-takeaways-from-supreme-court-hearing-on-whether-trump-has-presidential-immunity-that-shields-him-from-criminal-trials-212849131.html  

tt appears to other observers and me, that the Trump Court majority is attempting to bury the coup case and keep it from the eyes of the public, who need the information to make a rational decision. It is a political tactic by political actors in the guise of justice.  It appears to me that the Trump Court majority is attempting to bury the coup case and keep it from the eyes of the public,  some still who need the information to make a rational decision. They might be enough to swing the vote to Biden by either those baililng on Trump voting for Biden or sitting on their hands. (Recent CNN  SSRS  poll: 3/4 of those Trump supporters say they will support Trump even if he is found guilty of a crime, and the other 1/4 would consider not supporting him. 12% of total voters would not support Trump if he is found guilty of a crime). No wonder Trump's legal team strategy is to engineer delay all trials until after the November election, where either Trump wins and deep-sixes any of the federal cases (state cases would continue) or the federal cases would continue. It is clear, at least, that even the Supreme Court justices would not give him the blanket immunity from criminal prosecution Trump seeks, so the Trump-friendly justices now seek to tie up the process in knots by ping pong in the decisions between lower courts,  engineering the sought after delay.  https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/25/politics/cnn-poll-trump-trial/index.html

What is not clear is whether American voters understand there is a link between "blanket immunity" and the continuation of democracy.  In December, a YouGov poll revealed that when asked if they supported a dictatorship over democracy, the result was that only a small percentage agreed with having a dictatorship. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/48238-most-americans-support-democracy-and-oppose-dictatorship However,  by February, Trump embraced the concept of being a dictator and his loyalists fell in line. Trump's own promise he "would be a dictatorship for a day" was ok for 3/4 of those who identified themselves as Republicans.   https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4453457-74-percent-of-republicans-say-its-fine-for-trump-to-be-dictator-for-a-day/ What a bunch of fools If Trump had immunity from committing crimes,  he could run rampant over existing laws that restrict presidential power, from bribery to assassination of rivals to oppressing press freedom to putting down any peaceful protests and gatherings.  In one day, he could sign the documents already prepared by the Heritage Foundation to allow him to fire thousands of federal employees and replace them with his loyalists, as well as replace those heading regulatory agencies with his sycophants such as licensing media outlets and protect consumers from environmental catastrophes, dangerous products, unfair business practices, and loan sharks. withdraw the US from NATO and throw the economy into a tailspin by sabotaging the only institution that could control inflation, the Federal Reserve. He has already promised to do all of this. and the Heritage Foundation, with millions in the bank, is already at work lining up those replacement loyalists to Trump. The lists will be ready to go on day one.   With a Trump Supreme Court, forget the guardrails of the justice system, and with such power of appointments, a jubilant business community and any GOP opposition to Trump will be hailing "the boss" if they want to have any political power.  The raised clenched fist palms forward will be the 2025 version of the old nazi salute. 

Listening to the hearings and the loaded question the Court's majority ordered the two parties address in advance of the Trump/January 6/immunity hearings, it was already clear a pro-Trump "conservative" block of justices was trying to ship the question down to the purgatory of the lower court to delay any decision until after the November election. The hearings revealed the suspicions that the hearing was about a political tactic as the Trump justices tried to construct an argument on an issue that was originally supposed to answer the question of whether Trump was totally immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed while he was in office. Instead, the Trump justices twisted the question to become if he could be immune in special instances and what were they? Let's focus on that issue, whether or not it was related to the case they were hearing, they urged, as if they wanted to create a new law to review.  If successful, the Trump majority would deprive Americans of the critical information needed to make a rational judgment of the guilt of Donald Trump in the attempted January 6 coup and the fake elector's scheme that led to that fateful day. The indictment papers of the Department of Justice special prosecutor are not enough to convince fence-sitters when they have to cast a ballot. The final word should be from the jury of Trump's peers and whether voters will ever have a chance to hear both sides of the issue aired in the trials of the century or not before they mark their ballots.

 What was asked of the Court by Jack Smith was a simple question: Does Donald Trump have absolute immunity as Trump had claimed in his defense or not as his defense in this particular case. We saw three Trump loyal justices quibbling over hypothetical theories that any president in the future would have immunity while doing "official acts."  They rudely cut short any attempt by non-Trump justices to apply their decision to the case at hand.  It was a Trump-supporting campaign tactic, not a Court considering the Constitutional relevance or application.  

What happened in the Justice's question period is that one of their own conservative justices, a Trump appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barette, brought the hearing down to the earth to consider the actual case before them. She read off some key charges in Smith's case, including whether Trump's alleged participation in the fake elector scheme and asked whether these were public or private acts..What Trump's attorneys had to admit was they were private acts. If that's the case,  why quibble over the public vs private debate when it is virtually irrelevant to this particular case? The obvious answer is that referring the case back to the appeals court to make that judgment call, will likely delay the chance the public will ever get a jury verdict or hear the elements before the November election. The possibility is that Smith could drop the other  "official acts" accusations or split the case into two and just go forward with those elements Trump's lawyers admitted were private...or the appeals court judge could quickly hold a simple process and quickly rule.  (Opinion of some attorneys on media opined a full-blown hearing before the appeals judges to define any difference in terms to carve out exemptions and define official acts was not needed. It could shortcut their  review process.) /www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-trump-immunity-04-25-24/h_74e0277f76c2d77793d748c5b87f60c5

 Criminal acts can be committed while doing both public acts  (as some of the justices noted) and private ones, and the president does not have immunity in either case. In fact, what separates whether any act is a crime depends on the prosecutor proving the defendant's intent to break the law, not whether it is done in an official capacity or a private one. In short, while committing an official act, a crime can also be committed. There is or should be no cover to commit a crime by calling it an "official act".  That conclusion seemed logical. While I am not a lawyer, just a layperson,  I sensed that there is a partisan tactic to muddy the waters and delay, delay any jury hearing the case and deciding guilt or innocence. What is forgotten in the quibbling is that for a defendant to be found guilty of crimes must of a crime, the test is not whether it was a public or private act, but a jury needs to find proof beyond a reasonable doubt that there was proof of intent to break the law,  whether or not it was committed while doing an official act or a private one.  

This April hearing about a specific, historic case over presidential immunity, it is not the only example of how a Supreme Court could contribute to democracy's demise., slow-walking it to death and tying it in knots on side arguments, but there are examples of how the justices, now swinging the lopsided balance to the conservative side, has already done so.. Below, excerpts from some of my other blog postings March 13 on the subject folded into this new updated post..

 How the Supreme Court has unintentionally contributed to a feared democracy's demise is disturbing for those of us who love our country both when we win politically and when we lose. The three most US Supreme Court acts or inactions in my mind are the Citizens United ruling that permitted dark and secret campaign contributions, the ruling overturning the recent Colorado ballot case that inadvertently gave a permission slip for any failed insurrectionist or civil war participant to run for federal office, plus the Court greenlighting political gerrymandering by declining to restrict it, making legislative compromises nearly impossible and empowering extremists. 

 The recent Colorado ballot decision gave the green light for any candidate who loses a civil war or an insurrection to come back as an elected office and abuse, and sabotage institutions that stood in the wannabe tyrant's way. The  US Supreme Court claimed political gerrymandering was not in their ability to rule, unlike race-based gerrymandering which they could.  In so doing, the Supreme Court permitted the pernicious practice of drawing legislative and congressional district lines to give one or the other political party to carve out safe districts stacked for their party. This, in turn, ensures only the most hardliners and party loyalists get to go to a general election and to avoid being "primaried", the threat most elected officials fear the most.  It is party discipline gone berserk and it ensures compromises are never reached, giving voters in a general election a choice between usually two extreme candidates.

 When in conversations with my European friends and relatives they mention how corrupt our elections system is because of the money pouring into it, making elected officials appear to be for sale to the highest bidder. Once upon a time, I had an answer. Yes, thanks to our election laws, who contributes is public information so it becomes another element contributing to making decisions for whom we vote. That is no longer true. The Citizens United decision changed that by permitting corporations to contribute and to do it in the disguise of supporting some fine-sounding single-cause political action committee. That is the "dark money" reference we hear about.  We no longer have a way to know which piper is playing whose tune.

The recent Supreme Court decision was another serious blow to democracy in the Colorado ballot case. Claiming it was a federal matter, as the court did, was not the problem. What the Court did was to tell Congress they would have to pass laws to enforce the clause. of the 14th Amendment that kept insurrections from running for public office.  Hell will probably freeze over before that happens since Trump would benefit as would any similar power-hungry revolutionist from the left.   Colorado's decision to define Trump as an insurrectionist upheld by the State of Colorado's supreme court decision was left untouched by the US Supreme Court. The original court case was decided with due process to make the case, fairly., that Trump was an insurrectionist in trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost.  In short, the US Supreme Court tossed the ball into a trash can of political self-serving dealing.  It paved the way for anyone (including Trump) to lead a civil war or a more or less obvious insurrection to run for federal office, to be elected to office, and to continue his insurrection by other means, including undermining the institutions that get in his way by only appointing loyalists to him instead of to the rule of law.

The next dastardly anti-democracy, anti-voter rights step by the US Supreme Court would be to uphold in full and in part to agree that all presidents would have immunity from being prosecuted for crimes they commit while in office.  That would clearly be a license to kill opponents and to cheat and steal taxpayer money to feather their own nests of power and wealth.   Be aware of what you wish because what is good for the goose will be for the gander.  If democracy survives a second term of Trump. and wins immunity from being charged with crimes after his term for breaking the law while in office, any other future president from the left or the right will also have that immunity claim and protection.

In the meantime, anyone who tags Trump as an insurrectionist can now point to one court of law that defined him as one after a civil due process trial and appeals: the Colorado Supreme Court. Colorado could not enforce the federal constitutional 14th Amendment, per the US Supreme Court, but anyone who calls Trump an insurrectionist now has a basis in law to attack him with that designation.

The remedies are now left to Congress, to require political districts to be drawn by independent commissions in each state, to reverse those contribution provisions in Citizens United by requiring all political PACs to disclose their contributors and to define who, what, and how the 14th amendment clause concerning insurrectionists are to be enforced. Do not hold your breath. 

Colorado, an epicenter of the conflict between election deniers and established voting systems.

 Colorado has become the epicenter of the conflict between election deniers and the established election voting system.  The issue is coming to a head with the RNC's announcement of plans to make GOP poll watchers ballot handlers.  Since Colorado has become a reliable blue state in federal elections, the impact will probably not affect the federal November 2024 presidential results, in Colorado but it has become a testing ground for the GOP attempt to dirty the waters and undermine voter trust in advance of the election in both Colorado and elsewhere.  Some recent actions have put Colorado on the map nationally in the US Supreme Court and in a high-profile defamation Dominium suit against FOX. Jena Griswold, Colorado Secretary of State, also has been a frequent media spokesperson for the association of other state Democrat Secretaries of State. 

-This RNC "handling" plan, whatever that entails, could violate rules and laws, and as happened in Colorado, it has become a federal court case. Tina Peter's trial has been rescheduled for summer.

-Election deniers have taken over the GOP in Colorado, including state chair Dave Williams.. They are pressuring county clerks, nearly all Republicans, to be partisan in their administration, resulting in a revolt of most of the clerks.  

-The state GOP has also attempted to "impeach" the Colorado Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, for being partisan solely because she was the vocal plaintiff in the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to remove Trump from the Colorado primary ballot. Trump's name was never removed from the ballot throughout the process, and the Supreme Court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court, though the original suit was brought by anti-Trumper Republicans and independents, not by Democrat Griswold, Secretary of State. The proof or evidence of her administration of the state voting laws (written by her GOP predecessor) was not at issue.  Griswold abided by the US Supreme Court decision as she had pledged to do from the beginning.  The impeachment attempt was deep-sixed in a partisan vote in a legislative committee. -

 -The attempt to claim Dominium Voting Systems, a Colorado corporation, swung the 2020 election to Biden went to court in a defamation court case that resulted in a hefty $787 million settlement against FOX News, the media that promoted the false claims of fraud. It was the largest defamation suit settlement in US history. 

-The Colorado county clerk, Tina Peters, who gave the codes to the tabulating machines to a nonstaff party flunky, will face a federal trial this summer.    

Some of the accusations made by election deniers in other states have involved mail-in voting.  This is actually the case for the Colorado system of mail-in ballots. While Colorado has both polling places and mail-in-drop box and beau coup safeguards to prevent fraud, over 93% of ballots cast in 2020 and 2022 were by mail and not at a polling place.  So few vote at the polls on election day, even if illegal ballot handling or bullying happens, the chance such underhanded techniques would have less effect on the results. All ballots cast in Colorado in person or by mail/drop box are paper ballots making any recounts easy, quick, and accurate. 

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/colorado-county-clerks-revolt-against.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKYlDX5BH2w   Griswold responds to Supreme Court ruling on Trump ballot issue

https://www.newsweek.com/lara-trump-wants-republican-national-committee-handle-ballots-2024-election-1893517#:~:text=During%20an%20interview%20with%20Newsmax,%22physically%20handle%20the%20ballots.%22 

https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/09/republican-attempt-to-impeach-colorados-secretary-of-state-fails-in-state-house/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems_v._Fox_News_Network#:~:text=Fox%20News%20agreed%20to%20pay,for%20defamation%20in%20U.S.%20history.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/election-deniers-turn-their-focus-to-state-gop-posts-after-failing-at-polls

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/11/dave-williams-colorado-gop-chair-election-denier

 This is an excerpt in italics from my prior blog postings with additional commentary and updated status of Tina Peter's federal trial scheduled for February 2024

In Colorado, on December 8, 2023, there was an explosive report by Kyle Clark, KUSA,  a local station,  about threats and politics of election denialists that shows how   MAGA lies are used to seize control of the election processes on a local government level.  . Next Conversation: Head of Colorado's County Clerks Association talks election rigging lies - YouTube  

 This is a prelude to Trump's attempt at the Big Lie again to stay in power if he ever gets elected again. It is his pretext for Trump loyalists to control the entire election process from registration to voter access, to vote casting, to tabulation, and to reporting at the exclusion of any opponents in the process.  It is the end of free and fair elections if he succeeds is doing this throughout the country, and the attempt is already underway, as this Colorado GOP attempt illustrates.  The message: elections are already corrupt (the Big Lie), not free or fair, so why not put your MAGA buddy in charge. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: An election denier will now be the Colorado state GOP chair Update 3 12 2023         Note: a critic of the Big Lie, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), was a casualty himself. He will not run for re-election in a ruby-red district.

The following comments are my additional ones to the December 9 posting.  Note in  Kyle Clark's interview of the executive director of the County Clerk's Association he and nearly all of the Colorado county clerks are Republicans.  As a former county clerk (Denver)  years ago, that was also the case. (I was usually the lone Democrat).  Party ideology then was simple: do the best job to ensure the voting process goes smoothly and accurately and follow the rules.  Those were low-technology processes back then, and voting machines were the lever type backed up by paper ballots.  In every layer of the process in Denver, representatives of both political parties looked over each other's shoulders to ensure that the rules were followed and the process was honest.(*no longer required, though)  In the time of high tech, in Colorado, those paper ballots are still available for any audits if questions are asked, and recounts that are triggered by a percentage in close races, and still are.  Clerks were proud, and most still are  (with several exceptions in 2020) of being accurate and rule-abiding. To have a state party GOP chair threatening to primary any GOP clerk who is not loyal to MAGA and claim the process for which they were proud and took responsibility is outrageous and insulting, but also a threat to clerk's positions to which they were elected after surviving their primaries ..   As individuals, thanks to the threats of their own party chairs, they could not speak out individually, but their association did. on Clark's broadcast on NBC's Denver affiliate, 9 News..

In my own county, election denialism nearly caused the GOP candidate for the county clerk to lose her election in 2022.. It was a squeaker in a red county blushing a bit purple. She was running to fill the vacancy left by the previous Republican county clerk, respected by both parties who chose not to run again for the office. The candidate refused to say the 2020 election was not fraudulent, but when pressed, she admitted her Republican predecessor had run a clean election. It just was that every other county, by implication, was corrupt because she was MAGA..  In the meantime, seizing national attention was a GOP country clerk, Tina Peters, in Mesa County who had fallen for the national party election denialism, broke the rules, and gave the codes to a Trumpster nonstaff member to seize the county machinery and jeopardize the security and integrity of the vote count, ... 

More on the Tina Peters case: Federal trial schedules in February 2024

Update: 12/10/2023  Tina Peters files federal lawsuit to halt investigations, prosecutions (coloradosun.com)  Peters is facing trial early in 2024 after federal indictments for her actions in 2022.

Update: 2/11/23  New information from the FBI delays the Tina Peters election tampering trial. Interestingly, FBI evidence claims that the "update of computer systems "was not performed by an employee of the clerk's office" as Peter's claimed but by someone else using a copy of an employee's access key.ttps://www.cpr.org/2023/02/09/tina-peters-trial-delayed/

Tina Peters arraigned on 10 felony, misdemeanor charges in case alleging election equipment breach | Courts | coloradopolitics.com

Tina Peters arraigned on 10 felony, misdemeanor charges in case alleging election equipment breach | Courts | coloradopolitics.com

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/11/rnc-election-integrity-2024-election-trump

Lara Trump's anti voter integrity proposal is an outrage

The last thing we should want is a partisan "poll watcher" illegally "handling 'ballots. My immediate reaction was: "Keep your Trumpist paws off my ballot." It appears to Lara Trump, RNC chair, that the only definition of integrity is a system handled by MAGA loyalists. Poll watchers are strictly watchers, not handlers, for a good reason. The key is who supervises the count and how well they abide by rules limiting ballot handling. According to most state rules, the process and count should be limited to employees and poll workers sworn to a neutral process regardless of their partisan beliefs. That is how accountability and trust in the outcome are maintained. This training poll watchers to handle ballots is why election officials need to be elected for their integrity ..to not turn over the process to one political party as Lara Trump, RNC, just promoted.  As a former election official myself, I am particularly outraged by the RNC's attempt to train poll watchers to be ballot handlers.   

The RNC is not interested in election integrity. They are interested in the RNC's control of voters and election outcomes. Not only is such action as Trump proposes the opposite of voter integrity, but what the RNC is proposing gives partisans power beyond watching before, during, and after election day. In charge of RNC "election integrity" is Christina Bobb, just indicted in Arizona for her role in the fake elector scheme.  The RNC has been engaged in training "poll watchers" in anticipation that their lie about widespread fraud in 2020 was a reality, never proved in four years, that borders on or encourages illegal election interference at the polls charged with actually "handling ballots", intimidating voters before and after the process. Before is voter suppression. During voting is illegal interference. After the polls are closed whether a partisan non-staffer is given access to the counting process is such a violation of integrity it has landed a Colorado clerk in federal court it is so illegal. 

Colorado has been the epicenter of the conflict between election deniers and the established election voting system.  The issue is coming to a head with the RNC's announcement of plans to make GOP poll watchers ballot handlers. 

-This"handling" plan, whatever that entails, could violate rules and laws, and as happened in Colorado, it has become a federal court case. Tina Peter's trial has been rescheduled for summer.

-Election deniers have taken over the GOP in Colorado. They are pressuring county clerks, nearly all Republicans, to be partisan in their administration, resulting in a revolt of most of the clerks.  

-The MAGA GOP has also attempted to "impeach" the Colorado Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, for also being partisan because she was the vocal plaintiff in the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to remove Trump from the Colorado primary ballot. Trump's name was never removed from the ballot throughout the process, and the Supreme Court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court, though the original suit was brought by anti-Trumper Republicans and independents, not by Democrat Griswold, Secretary of State. The proof or evidence of her administration of the state voting laws (written by her GOP predecessor) was not at issue.  Griswold abided by the US Supreme Court decision as she had pledged to do.  The attempt was deep-sixed in a partisan vote in a legislative committee. -

 -The attempt to claim Dominium Voting Systems, a Colorado corporation, swung the 2020 election to Biden went to court in a defamation court case that resulted in a hefty $787 million settlement against FOX News, the media that promoted the false claims of fraud. It was the largest defamation suit settlement in US history. 

-The Colorado county clerk who gave the codes to the tabulating machines to a nonstaff party flunky will face a federal trial this summer.    

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/colorado-county-clerks-revolt-against.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKYlDX5BH2w   Griswold responds to Supreme Court ruling on Trump ballot issue

https://www.newsweek.com/lara-trump-wants-republican-national-committee-handle-ballots-2024-election-1893517#:~:text=During%20an%20interview%20with%20Newsmax,%22physically%20handle%20the%20ballots.%22 

https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/09/republican-attempt-to-impeach-colorados-secretary-of-state-fails-in-state-house/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems_v._Fox_News_Network#:~:text=Fox%20News%20agreed%20to%20pay,for%20defamation%20in%20U.S.%20history.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/election-deniers-turn-their-focus-to-state-gop-posts-after-failing-at-polls

The RNC is not interested in election integrity. They are interested in the RNC's control of voters and election outcomes. Not only is such action as Trump proposes the opposite of voter integrity, but what the RNC is proposing gives partisans power beyond watching before, during, and after election day. In charge of RNC "election integrity" is Christina Bobb, just indicted in Arizona for her role in the fake elector scheme.  The RNC has been engaged in training "poll watchers" in anticipation that their lie about widespread fraud in 2020 was a reality, never proved in four years, that borders on or encourages illegal election interference at the polls charged with actually "handling ballots", intimidating voters before and after the process. Before is voter suppression. During voting is illegal interference. After the polls are closed whether a partisan non-staffer is given access to the counting process is such a violation of integrity it has landed a Colorado clerk in federal court it is so illegal. 

Trump's outrage is the best case for the Colorado system of mail-in ballots. While Colorado has both polling places and mail-in-drop box and beau coup safeguards to prevent fraud, over 93% of ballots cast in 2020 and 2022 were by mail and not at a polling place.  So few vote at the polls on election day, even if illegal ballot handling or bullying happens, the chance such underhanded techniques would have less effect on the results.

The real danger is also: who is in charge of your voting system at the county level? That is why poll watchers are still needed, but poll handlers need to be staffed, sworn to abide by integrity rules, and supervised by county clerks likewise sworn to uphold laws that Lara Trump and the RNC want to violate.   

 This is an excerpt in italics from  a December 9 posting with additional commentary and updated status of the Tina Peter's federal trial scheduled for Febrary 2024

In Colorado, on December 8, 2023, there was an explosive report by Kyle Clark, KUSA,  a local station,  about threats and politics of election denialists that shows how   MAGA lies are used to seize control of the election processes on a local government level.  . Next Conversation: Head of Colorado's County Clerks Association talks election rigging lies - YouTube  

 This is a prelude to Trump's attempt at the Big Lie again to stay in power if he ever gets elected again, and it is his pretext for Trump loyalists to control the entire election process from registration to voter access, to vote casting, to tabulation, and to reporting at the exclusion of any opponents in the process.  It is the end of free and fair elections if he succeeds is doing this throughout the country, and the attempt is already underway, as this Colorado GOP attempt illustrates.  The message: elections are already corrupt (the Big Lie), not free or fair, so why not put your MAGA buddy in charge. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: An election denier will now be the Colorado state GOP chair Update 3 12 2023         Note: a critic of the Big Lie, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), was a casualty himself. He will not run for re-election in a ruby-red district.

The following comments are my additional ones to the December 9 posting.  Note in  Kyle Clark's interview of the executive director of the County Clerk's Association he and nearly all of the Colorado county clerks are Republicans.  As a former county clerk (Denver)  years ago, that was also the case. (I was usually the lone Democrat).  Party ideology then was simple: do the best job to ensure the voting process goes smoothly and accurately and follow the rules.  Those were low-technology processes back then, and voting machines were the lever type backed up by paper ballots.  In every layer of the process in Denver, representatives of both political parties looked over each other's shoulders to ensure that the rules were followed and the process was honest.(*no longer required, though)  In the time of high tech, in Colorado, those paper ballots are still available for any audits if questions are asked, and recounts that are triggered by a percentage in close races, and still are.  Clerks were proud, and most still are  (with several exceptions in 2020) of being accurate and rule-abiding. To have a state party GOP chair threatening to primary any GOP clerk who is not loyal to MAGA and claim the process for which they were proud and took responsibility is outrageous and insulting, but also a threat to clerk's positions to which they were elected after surviving their primaries ..   As individuals, thanks to the threats of their own party chairs, they could not speak out individually, but their association did. on Clark's broadcast on NBC's Denver affiliate, 9 News..

In my own county, election denialism nearly caused the GOP candidate for the county clerk to lose her election in 2022.. It was a squeaker in a red county blushing a bit purple. She was running to fill the vacancy left by the previous Republican county clerk, respected by both parties who chose not to run again for the office. The candidate refused to say the 2020 election was not fraudulent, but when pressed, she admitted her Republican predecessor had run a clean election. It just was that every other county, by implication, was corrupt because she was MAGA..  In the meantime, seizing national attention was a GOP country clerk, Tina Peters, in Mesa County who had fallen for the national party election denialism, broke the rules, and gave the codes to a Trumpster nonstaff member to seize the county machinery and jeopardize the security and integrity of the vote count, ... 

More on the Tina Peters case: Federal trial schedules in February 2024

Update: 12/10/2023  Tina Peters files federal lawsuit to halt investigations, prosecutions (coloradosun.com)  Peters is facing trial early in 2024 after federal indictments for her actions in 2022.

Update: 2/11/23  New information from the FBI delays the Tina Peters election tampering trial. What is interesting is FBI evidence claiming that the "update of computer systems "was not performed by an employee of the clerk's office" as Peter's claimed but by someone else using a copy of an employee's access key.ttps://www.cpr.org/2023/02/09/tina-peters-trial-delayed/

Tina Peters arraigned on 10 felony, misdemeanor charges in case alleging election equipment breach | Courts | coloradopolitics.com

Tina Peters arraigned on 10 felony, misdemeanor charges in case alleging election equipment breach | Courts | coloradopolitics.com

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/11/rnc-election-integrity-2024-election-trump

Trump is unique in many ways

 I hear a lot of whining from the MAGA crowd that Trump is being singled out for all kinds of lawsuits and criminal prosecutions like no other president before him. Unfair? He has brought it on himself.  This is a unique situation in many ways, but primarily, it has to do with the character of Donald Trump that made him the person he is.  His character influenced and enabled his political acts that no one before him successfully attempted. The result: the backlash we are experiencing now is taking place in the courts even more than in the court of public opinion. He has a lifetime of being a scofflaw in the private and personal sectors, and he was never forced to be held responsible outside of losing lawsuits until he entered the public arena.  

He is the only candidate from a major party I recall who has ever planned to violate laws and wants immunity from doing so if he gets elected again.

He was the first to tout the advantages of a dictatorship over democracy, attack the form of government we have had for 250 years, the rule of law, checks, and balances, and try to take away selected civil rights by tearing up and rewriting the Constitution.

He was the first to challenge the results of a presidential election and then try to change the outcome, even after courts ruled against him..  All others before him abided by the results and the process outlined in the Constitution and laws if they had disputes. 

 He was the first to be impeached twice but the first to tolerate, welcome,  or worse, to let a foreign power try to interfere with an election outcome.

He was the first to attempt a political coup, much less a coup with violence. He was the first to be told by those around him that he had lost the 2020 election but to ignore the evidence and lie about the results to try to justify his actions.

He was the first to fully benefit from the culmination of years of nearly total gerrymandering. He controlled the primary process to favor his supporters by making the primary the determining winner in the general election, a loyalist and a supporter. This enabled him to use his favorite tool, threats of fear of loss of power, in a campaign at even a primary level. 

He was the first to endorse the use of violence to oppress opposition to him or to advocate the use of active military instead of the national guard to put down civil unrest. (added later thanks to a reader: since the posse comitatus act of 1878). A fact: Trump refused and delayed even calling in the national guard until the riotous , violent acts on January  6 played out for hours.

How does his character have anything to do with this? 

Aside from even professionals tagging him as a narcissistic sociopath (not the first successful politician to have that profile), he has a unique personality profile of some traits above and beyond that.

He is unique in many ways, but a candidate unfit for a political office as high and as consequential as the presidency in our times has usually been winnowed out after going through any number of candidacies in local, state, or House or Senate. If there is one rule for those in high-profile offices, it is to ensure there are no skeletons in your closet. Instead, he was mostly a TV star based on his business acumen in the private sector. Unlike most others before him who entered the Oval Office, Trump had no political governance of a complex enterprise nor military training afforded to high officers. His management experience was a family business run on the Queens model of a mafia boss. Even those in the New York real estate sector not known for great ethical standards, had a low opinion of him. Apparently, while he had diplomas, he had no education about history or law that "took." Those around him see him as unable to focus for a long time without moving on to another subject or plan or unable to easily comprehend the written word.  Briefings had to be short bullet points, for example. He is a visual and auditory learner.  Learning from the mistakes of historical leaders has no relevance in his mind.  

  With clever use of the legal system, he could skirt and abuse laws or rules that stood in his way his whole life until now.  In his mind, he was never wrong and innocent of any crime. When asked if he ever asked God for forgiveness, he said he had done nothing to apologize for.  At all times, loyalty to him was essential, and criticism of him was always unjustified and unfair. He was always the victim of unfair treatment. Others were always at fault. Fear of his wrath beat down any desire to be disloyal. Only those who tell him how great he is or will carry out his wishes are allowed as staff these days.  I have known people with some of those same characteristics, but he is a complete package and certainly, like none who rose to be President in my long lifetime.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-on-god-i-dont-like-to-have-to-ask-for-forgiveness-2016-1

   

Messing Around Political Name Calling: notes to myself

I am fascinated by the various verbal and media slings and arrows levied at opponents.  They backfire if they are too inflammatory, so some semantic dithering occurs. These are notes to myself to keep in mind as I write opinions that may include criticism of Donald Trump.

 Some verbal combat slogans are justified if, for example, there are actual court findings to back them up. Others are just various degrees of nasty and insulting words hurled at a candidate's personality traits or appearance. Whatever terms are used should be precise and tied to well-known, acknowledged behaviors relevant to governing as a president. 

Others are naive about Trump's behavior and character problems but, while ignoring and/or acknowledging these issues, see it in their business as ideological evangelism or political interests to support him. Character will be on the ballot in 2024 to some extent, as well as other controversial issues and behaviors in contention. Update 4/29/23: Barr, McConnell, and Desantis have announced they will support Trump in spite of all of these issues. These chicken chickens are all going home to roost as they come to the aid of their party.  Barr, when pressed, said all of Biden's issues and progressives were a disaster for the country, and he even said it with a straight face. Clearly, ideology and party loyalty are way above democracy's future or any other consideration. Barr should be pressed to deny any and all of Biden's accomplishments.  Sick. Those business interests still support Trump because they think he will keep their taxes low,  give them a financial advantage, and keep regulatory agencies off their backs. They have traded their business interests for a con man and sleazeball, a demagogue, a thug boss,  an adjudicated liar, fraudster,  and rapist,  and a wannabe self-admitted "dictator on ( or for) day e one."Other names with enough evidence from professional or professorial observers may be justified, but need an explanation and definition.  I will use those sparingly and in context. Some of those are wannabe fascist and narcissistic sociopath. 

To become a dictator requires being the king of chaos in the short term. That is a formula for strife as he uses and abuses his power and tries to violate laws. and deal with legislatures not yet fully in his control to amass big government, federal, and local political power for himself. His ability to abuse the judicial process is on display every day now, and with more appointments to the federal bench and Supreme Court, it will only be worse in a second term. Note updated: while he has been indicted in multiple federal and state criminal cases, he has also been suspected as being a suspected twice unindicted co-conspirator in criminal cases:  the most recent Ariaona state fake elector case, and in the already completed first Stormy Daniels case that landed his fixer , Michael Cohen, in jail.  It is fair to call him a two times unindicted co-conspirator because those  will never go to trial. 

This chaos is not conducive to a good business climate. However, busines see short-term benefits. They are not a naive bunch, but I think since the polls show today that Trump, the supporter of crony capitalism, still has a good chance to win, and they want to count themselves into his crony capitalist club.   

Dictator or autocrat? Trump now owns the word of how he wants to govern: dictator.  He used it himself. Most media prefer to call his plans to take over the executive branch and continue his takeover of the judiciary "autocratic."  It is less inflammatory and implies even one-man rule has its limits, in not totalitarian control over some freedoms once enjoyed,  or is a kind of power grabbing without the ovens of Auschwitz. I prefer " dictator "because that is how Trump sees himself: becoming a strong man above the law like Putin and keeping himself in power by taking control of all the branches of government and the media. He rationalizes why he can get stuff done without significant opposition from either a minority or a majority. That is not a democracy I ever heard of.

 He is no law and order person, promising to use the DOJ for retribution and persecution against his opponents.  He is for law with oder of corruption and bias and not even a pretense of fairness or protection of civil rights. That just stinks. He supports political violence and suppression of protests using active military.  He has used fear and threats of strong-arm tactics to get himself where he is, calling the shots even from exile in Mar-a-Lago. It works. Bully is not a kind term, but fair.  When bullying crosses over to threats of violence, pardoning violent political acts, and encouraging known violent actors to do his dirty work, as on January 6, that is more like the characteristic of a Mafia boss-style thug. That is a formula for being king of chaos and strife as he uses and abuses his power and tries to violate laws. and deal with legislatures not yet fully in his control to amass big government, federal, and local political power for himself. The trial of January 6, now delayed until after the November elections,  will provide more insight into his role in its planning. However, his words, come to DC, it" will be a wild time," and "Go fight like hell, or you won't have a democracy anymore," are hardly coded exhortations to commit violence. That is a formula for being king of chaos and strife as he uses and abuses his power and tries to get others to violate laws on his behalf risking violating their own laws. (Just find more votes for me in Georgia and Zelensky, go find more dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden, and for thuggish militia leaders to fight like hell to stop Pence from certifying the 2020 election).  The violent thugs ended up in jail (convicted of felonies or pleading guilty in courts of law), and Trump plans to pardon them because he considers them "hostages." Zelensky is paying for his failure or refusal to dig up dirt as Trump tells his minions in the House to vote against aid to rescue Ukraine from a Russian takeover. (Fortunately, he failed when the Democrats and rational and national security-minded Republicans joined hands to fund Ukraine on April 20.)

There are some examples of failures and examples of opponent partisans trying to tie Biden into the admitted actions of a son and then calling it the "Biden Crime Family." Saying it often did not make it true. That one fell out of vogue when the GOP House committee lost its witnesses to any gain or conspiracy related to Biden's avarice.  No, Biden is in no way an accused criminal subject to impeachment or prosecution. Still, Donald Trump and his profiteering son-in-law(given cushy funds management of Saudi investment funds even though he never had funds management experience)after leaving the White House are given a pass by Democrats. Funny how that works.  

Is Trump a liar? He is not the first sitting president to tell a lie. It is not simple to just call him a liar. Political lies are protected as free speech. Calling out and proving lies are the duties of political opponents.  Being unethical is not a crime; not every act violates the law. If it causes damage to someone, it may or may not end up in court, but the damaged party has to have proof and attached proof of the damages. Calling a person a liar is free speech, but whether it is relevant to an illegal act is a different issue. In Trump's case, fact-checkers have a field day, but do voters care? Some do: A classic line that will live forever came from the mouth of a prospective juror in the hush money trial: "I wouldn't believe him if his tongue was notarized." The phrase has a history, but it became a legend in the trial when a prospective juror applied it to her opinion of Trump.  

 Sometimes lies have consequences that lead to court suits and legal actions that find proof of intentional lies and have relationships to other related laws, civil and criminal.  Trump can be called a liar because he has lost court cases lately in which it was judged he lied. The findings in the Trump University were that fraud was involved, and restitution was required.  Trump and his company's real estate have been found liable for misrepresenting property values, and the E Jean Carroll trial found Trump lied and Carroll was truthful, given credible evidence. Do these findings and judgments relate to the ability to govern in a democracy?  In the case of Nixon, lies were a part of the Watergate cover-up that led to his resignation under threat of impeachment. That is the significance of the hush money, January 6, Georgia elections, and document cases. Except for the hush money case, these may not be adjudicated until after the November elections. They all relate to the constitutional provisions of the election process.  If there is a criminal law involved, the proof required is beyond a reasonable doubt that the lie was intentional to break the law. The burden is on the prosecutor to prove it. The advantage goes to the defendant, who does not have to prove innocence.

It is fair game for Trump to be called a con man. That was the significance of both his real estate fraud cases and the Trump University case, where he was found liable. He is usually so convincing with his oratory he could sell coals to Newcastle (the one in England or Colorado coal mining country)."Don't believe what you see on Jan.6; they were just innocent, not violent assaults on police," he tells his followers, who then a close their eyes and tell themselves such tall tales no Constitutional process was nearly upended by violence egged on by Trump. I am not sure whether Trump gets away with it because he is so convincing or if those who believe that are fools or are cynically pledging allegiance to "the Boss," but there is truth to the saying attributed to PT Barnum, an epic huckster," a sucker is born every minute. " Juries have found his business enterprises to be frauds in recent high-profile court findings and have levied crushing fines.  All of this is on appeal, but the attacks are still valid if a jury of peers found him liable, or guilty,  for fraud and lies,  and calling Trump a con man or a fraudster is  fair game 

 Trump so far has been able to delay, delay, and delay the Special Council Jack Barr's two federal crime cases concerning records and Jan.6 with appeals and claims Trump is not subject to any law while in office. Some of the delays have been due to finding a sympathetic or inept judge in Florida, and the other is a sympathetic majority of justices in the Supreme Court delaying a trial on Trump's outrageous immunity claim until it is too late to hold the trial before the November election.  The Georgia criminal case against Trump's actions in 2020 has been delayed or damaged due to the misbehavior of the prosecutor's personal life spilling over into the process.  

There have been those. both professionals and lay people who had worked with him, from Conservative attorney George Conway to his niece Mary, who has called Trump narcissistic and a liar and a sociopath, and others have tagged Trump with being a...hole, an idiot, a dope, a moron.   Calling him that alone must be coupled with why he should not be a president again, such as being a demagogue or a dictator ruling like dictators he admires.  

We have had liars and corrupt politicians aspiring to be president or even occupying the Oval Office before. Andrew Jackson was one, and Nixon was not a truth-teller. Jackson was famous for the corrupt system of spoils, so abusive it inspired the creation of the civil service system. Project 2025, the plan funded and already being prepared by the Heritage Foundation to enact day one to turn Trump into a dictator., wants to replace civil service with the corrupt spoils system, firing all who are not loyal to Trump and replacing them with Trump loyalists. The spoils system is an institutionalized opportunity for corruption. Bribery is unnecessary; loyalty to benefit the boss is reason enough to rule one way or another.  Trump tried that same stunt with an executive order when he was president but failed.

 However, the goal to amass power like a dictator using the demagogic oratorical skills of Donald Trump, and civil court cases ruled against him for being a con man and a rapist, puts him in a totally different class of narcissistic sociopath that is relevant to how he intends to govern as President of the United States if he wins in November.  He will use all means to give himself more power and to control the power centers of government to support his power-lusting quest to claim he does not have to abide by any law while president and is immune from prosecution for any crimes he commits. It is" me, me, me, mine," and "only I can fix it."

What about fascism?  Is it fair to call Trump and the GOP fascists?  It is, but so inflammatory in need to define what fascism is at the same time,  it may not be the best strategy.  However, both Trump and the MAGA faction of the GOP walk like a duck and quack like a duck, which is classically fascist.  https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/no-longer-pussyfooting-around-calling.html   No less than the New York Times has made a case for calling Trump a fascist.  He is at least a wannabe fascist, which I think is ok, but I will use that one sparingly. 

My own seat-of-the-pants shorthand definition of fascism is that it is just like the communist dictatorships of the Cold War without the "communism" ideology.  Nationalism becomes the driving ideology, often joined with religion and crony capitalism. Dictators are required to put it into practice. The techniques of governing and control of its citizens are similar to those used by communist dictators, sometimes including violent and military-aggressive actions.. What is different is that racism and mutual coziness to big business or oligarchs also are the drivers of most modern fascist dictators..  They may not include the ovens and genocide or central control of the economy, but to be called a fascist does not need to go that far.  You do not need to be a Hitler to be a fascist. Trump's idol, Vladimir Putin, fits my definition of a fascist dictator.  Edergan of Turkey has elements of fascism, controlling all the power centers of government. The military once was poised and activated if the government got too oppressive, but Erdogan got control of them, too. I am not sure if Erdogan has an ideology above a lust for power and control and a fear of extremists in his own Muslim religion sabotaging and invading hs country.   Orban of Hungary is a "fascist light", using the levers of government to do his work in a country that is already 95% pure ethnicMagyars and  afraid Middle Eastern immigrants would contaminate their blood. Where have I heard that one before? Like all of his related fascists, he controls the media, the message, and the "news", and  as he gathered the reins of power,  his first goal  was to destroy the freedom of the press.This just illustrates the problem: the definition and case/reasons/evidence needs to accompany any designation of Trump and MAGA as fascists and should be made at the same time the tag is applied..  https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2023/08/is-trump-fascist-now-his-followers.html

  https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-and-the-success-of-the-narcissistic-sociopath  

https://www.britannica.com/topic/spoils-system    

  https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-jurors-hush-money-criticism-b4fe05a61ed566a587523d1120b46a76

https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Donald-Aaron-James/dp/0385542038Asshole theory of Trump

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/trumps-insults-idiot-woodward-806455

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plan-gut-civil-service-triggers-pushback-by-unions-democrats-2023-12-

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plan-gut-civil-service-triggers-pushback-by-unions-democrats-2023-12-22/

https://azmirror.com/2024/04/25/who-are-the-five-unindicted-co-conspirators-in-arizonas-fake-elector-criminal-case/

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/08/22/cohen-plea-deal-trump-watergate-prosecutor

A classic line that will live forever came from the mouth of a prospective juror in the hush money trial: "I wouldn't believe him if his tongue was notarized." The phrase has a history, but it became a legend in the trial when a prospective juror applied it to her opinion of Trump.   https://www.google.com/search?q=tongue+notarized+quote&rlz=1CAJFMC_enUS1016US1016&oq=tongue+notarized+quote&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCjIyOTI1ajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1&vhid=6HE2sDKVxk0rGM&vssid=l

US Zombies on Ukraine also awaken

The $61 billion aid package for Ukraine was approved by the House on 4/20/24, and it did contain the authorization to seek Russian funds held in US banks, the "repo" act. The money would have gone to Ukraine's reconstruction, but this vote in the House, certain to be passed in the Senate, enables the reconstruction use as part of the plan. The vote in Congress on the aid was so overwhelming that the message to Putin is: "Do not miscalculate. The  US zombies have awakened. " Now Europe has a chance at stability, and China has been put on notice, too. "Hands off of Taiwan".  

Why did Speaker Mike Jonson reverse his position to alow a vote on Ukraine aid?   Both speculation and his words contain a clue. Johnson is third in line to the presidency and privy to national security briefings. It must have contained some sobering information.  Having a fighting-age son entering the Naval Academy, as Johnson does, is also a sobering thought.  If Russia directly engaged NATO troops, thinking that Western resolve to help Ukraine was so weak, they could also grab the Baltics and or Poland; our sons, daughters, and grandchildren would have their lives on the line.  

The vote was strongly bi-partisan  3 to 1 ratio.https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-vote-foreign-aid-bills-ukraine-israel/story?id=109429499. Bi-partisan is a most unusual occurrence in the House. A coalition of the rational and moderates from both parties came together. The majority of GOP legislators still voted against Ukraine aid.   https://ca.news.yahoo.com/112-house-republicans-voted-against-175745760.html

 Part of the deal, it appears, is that the Democrats would also cross over to keep Johnson as speaker if his right-wing nuts tried to oust him. That is what skilled legislators do, and it helps to have a skilled legislator like Biden in the White House. He knows the art of the legislative deal. It and most of the other elements of the Senate bill also passed. 

Now third in line to the presidency and privy to national security briefings. It must have contained some sobering information.  Having a fighting-age son entering the Naval Academy, as Johnson does, is also a sobering thought.  If Russia directly engaged NATO troops, thinking that Western resolve to help Ukraine was so weak, they could also grab the Baltics and or Poland; our sons, daughters, and grandchildren would have their lives on the line.  

Still, there are those who think isolationism is the way to peace or who just oppose anything Biden is for and Trump is against.  They are fools and tools of those who are our adversaries.  Period.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/house-vote-billions-dollarsrussian-government-money-sitting-us-banks-rcna148671

From an earlier blog post: https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/02/message-to-magas-in-house-you-should.html: Plan B: Should Speaker Johnson beat down a movement to force him to bring Ukraine aid to the floor because he knows he would lose if that fails, there may be a plan B to support Ukraine. While this concept was applied to post-Ukraine, assuming it survives this conflict, I wonder if it could be applied to funding military aid. Use of Russian treasure held in Western banks could be tapped. Post-conflict reconstruction was discussed recently by Fareed Zakaria on CNN. Western Nations holding Russian funds should freeze them and set up a reconstruction fund for Ukraine, not only funding Ukrainians from Russian money but also providing a reconstruction fund kept out of the hands of Russia. I am unsure of the legality of this but after I wrote this, I heard the former ambassador to Russia on MSNBC suggest this. He carries enormous weight. We will know the week of Feb. 25 when the House returns to work. and the discharge petition forces Mike Johnson to bring to a vote. Update Feb 25.: on MSNBC review I heard an interview I missed .. Rep Jim Hines believes that will be the ultimate solution. The only question is whether to take the interest of the 300 billion Western banks have in Russia or the principle. If the bulk of it is in Swiss banks, that will be a difficult job, but for the first time in history, the Swiss have been supporting one of the combatants, Ukraine and NATO, instead of being neutral.

https://www.eda.admin.ch/deza/en/home/countries/ukraine.html#:~:text=Switzerland%20supports%20Ukraine%20on%20its,democracy%20and%20strengthen%20local%20governance.

Trump's greatest contribution to American culture: indecency:

Eddie Glaude, Jr., a Princeton professor and author of the just-released book "We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For", used a phrase that grabbed me deep in my psyche:  a "coalition of the decent'.  While Glaude's book was an exhortation for African Americans to take individual leadership on behalf of civil rights and personal freedoms, his words could be applied to the current political discourse that has bothered me for a long time. I could never put it u it until I heard Glaude use the phrase "coalition of the decent".  The rise of Donald Trump has given partisans an excuse and a green light to behave indecently in expression and act disgustingly. We need a "coalition of the decent"  by leaders and citizens who rise above economic and political self-interest, or as a country we will continue to sink into the Trump moral mudmire by excusing and accepting his indecency.  

Exposure of such shows of indecency by Trump's supporters reached a crescendo recently as former high-profile critics of his unfitness to be president again flip-flopped and pledged allegiance to Trump.   Among them were Chris Sununu, Governor of New Hampshire, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, and Trump's former attorney general, Bill Barr, reaffirming his support of Trump.   Sen Tom Cotton of Arkansas, once a respected, carefully phrased, intelligent conservative, went ballistic and exhorted violent and painful retribution against some pro-Palestinian civil disobedience demonstrators, proposing that vigilante citizens glue the hands of protestors blocking bridge traffic to the rails and not bother to call the police. 

Trump's third middle finger raised at anyone he perceives to be his enemy and/or a threat to his ability to amass power for himself is bad enough of a behavior pattern, but it becomes virulent through the megaphone of his partisan media and his social postings.  It says much about how little his crowd roarers value decency. MAGA sycophants are a reflection of Trump himself, cheering his self-serving disrespect and hatemongering with approval and support of his use of violence. I cannot imagine any of them wanting their own children to grow up to be like Donald Trump.  In fact, my guess is they would not even tolerate that kind of adolescent disrespectful, disruptive tantrums and lies from their own children.

Recently, some businessmen told me they still support Trump. I find this unsettling and an example of how a sense of decency gets lost in short-sighted self-interest.  Some had told me earlier, something similar: "I know Trump is a *** ( flawed, rude personality), but I want his tax and regulatory policies that will help my business."   I think these business people know an a *** when they see one but are still returning to the Trump fold because they think they are trading the "a****" part for the old-style pro-business administration that the GOP provided in the past.  They are fooling themselves.

They are instead flirting with a business mess that a Trump win in the next four years will be consumed with chaos (the nicest words possible) and conflict. If Trump tries to consolidate dictatorial power, fighting off lawsuits in courts, he does not completely control it yet, causing civic undress as he tries to upend civil and voting rights, creating a climate of uncertainty for how this will end. Uncertainty is the greatest enemy of business investment. Moody's already downgraded the US credit rating because of this prospect.  This is likely to result in so much conflict, nothing will get done to enact Trump's agenda, especially if the House goes blue which is widely predicted. 

(ABC George STEPHANOPOULOS in his interview with Chris Sununu:" So just to sum up, you would support him for president even if he is convicted in classified documents. You would support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You would support him for president even though you believe he's lying about the last election. You would support him for president even if he's convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?SUNUNU: Yes, me and 51 percent of America." )

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-4-14-24-white-house-national/story?id=10921537

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-barr-warns-horror-show-131012326.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/17/barr-vocal-trump-critic-says-he-will-support-republican-ticket-november/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/16/tom-cotton-gaza-protesters

https://www.amazon.com/Assholes-Theory-Donald-Aaron-James/dp/0385542038Asshole theory of Trump

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/04/messing-around-political-name-calling.html

What I really think of RFK Jr, updated April 18 2024

Robert F Kennedy, Jr. is more than a political spoiler and a Trump tool. He is nuts.  His family has disowned him and supports Biden. They consider RFK, Jr. dangerous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Px99_fIlAI 

RFK, Jr. has built his following on anti-vaxx.  I try hard as an opinion writer not to use inflammatory language or to disrespect "the other side," but this goes beyond politics. It goes against my grain as a mother and grandmother.  I am so old, I remember what it was like before polio shots, measles shots, and other horrors of childhood experiences. I am so grateful my children and grandchildren escaped these life-threatening childhood traumas. (All are all adults now)  I was about 8 when I had measles, the bad kind, and to this day, I remember how sick I was and how I feared being brain-damaged or deaf if I did not stay in bed, as my mother told me.  I remember elementary and middle school vacations, unable to go to swimming pools, movies, or any gathering places, or even being restricted to my own two blocks of neighbors because of fear of ending up in an iron lung or worse, as some classmates had done, because of polio.  I remember classmates in my eastern Oklahoma school having TB and having to go to the only treatment of that time, a sanitorium.  And now we have anti-vaxxers, who are happy to have their children and grandchildren live like it was 1940-1950's. That is a mental disease that has infected both GOP and Democrats.    Children have no choice. They are at the mercy of their parents and their judgments. In my opinion, parents who refuse to get their children vaccinated are irresponsible.  If you, an adult, make that choice, it is yours, but stay away from me, please, if you have any symptoms.

 Those exempted from my disrespect are those who are known to be allergic to them.  My doctor told me that if the vaccine had egg yolks, the results would have been worse than the flu for me. Strangely, after having the Asian flu in college and being awfully sick, I have never had a bad case of the flu since, even though I never had flu shots. I am lucky. COVID RSV shots did not have an egg base, so no problem.  In short, a physician's advice is still valuable.  Your own or based on social media, not so much.

If you think vaccines cause learning disabilities, take it from the Mayo Clinic. It's your genes. Dyslexia - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic

and no,  COVID RSV shots do not alter your DNA  or cause cancer, per Sloan Kettering.  2023-2024 COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness, Side Effects, Safety, and More | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (mskcc.org)

Measles Complications | CDC

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Democrats are beginning to take RFK JR as a threat, a spoiler

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kennedy-family-members-endorse-biden-rfk-jr-rcna148303

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4245980-kennedy-family-members-call-rfk-jr-s-independent-bid-dangerous-to-our-country/

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/crank-politician-family-rfk-jr-kennedy-gosar

Why the US does not, should not, have a national church

 Here is why the US does not have a national church.   Dictatorships and religion are a toxic mix.

So many wars had been fought over religion in England when our founders were contemplating what kind of a country this new land would be.  Some of our forefathers were protestant, and others were not.  When the country was first settled in the 1600s, it went through periods in some colonies that had established their own state religions.  We know the stories. Perhaps those who claim this was a Christian nation so, therefore, we should have a state religion has to face the fact that what was considered Christian in one colony was not the same church in another, and it is clear from the militancy today exhibited by the newly minted white Christian nationalists there is no room for those who are Christian, but not with the same interpretations of the scriptures or even with the same priories.  I have given this much thought and let me repeat some  excerpts from my prior blog postings.

How freedom of religion came to be in the Bill of Rights was because of the diversity of experiences in the original colonies. The pilgrims famously sought religious freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, but it was freedom for them, not everyone. Some colonies like Massachusetts had established state religions with results we ought to remember, such as  Salem witch hunts, hanging or burning at the stake of heretics,  The Scarlet  Letter,  and Puritan overreach causing breakaway founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams for religious freedom. The success of the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies not having a state-sponsored religion had been triumphant in keeping internal peace. Fresh in the founders' knowledge of English and European recent histories were centuries of war between protestants and Catholics, the root of many conflicts. 

Christian Nationalists are waiting in the wings for the second coming of Trump as they seek to get even more political power to make their theocracy become a reality. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086 They are already in positions of political power and are making plans to implement their movement by using the government to do their converting on their behalf.  They are already planning to ride on the skirts of MAGA into the White House which will give them access to all of the reins of power. Those part of the Christian Nationalist movement like Speaker Mike Johnson, were third in line to the presidency. advocates theology that has something in common with the Taliban of Afghanistan that sets medieval rules and uses government to enforce what they believe is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in all phases of citizens' lives, private or public,   MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The GOP is becoming the American Taliban?

The most recent realization of the Christian Nationalist extremist to use government power to force the vast majority of women to bow down to their ideology is banning in-vitro fertilization. in the meantime, the state gets an F in infant and maternal mortality. https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/reports/alabama/report-card

So far as education is concerned, Alabama ranks near the bottom, number 45, as well, in the rankings of states. https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-educated-states/31075

Alabama also ranks as the 49th lowest state in per capita income.  https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=pcpi1

Alabama ranks in the top ten states depending upon federal funding as part of their state budgets. https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/

 The Alabama ban on invitro fertilization is a backdoor attempt to say life begins with an embryo, not at viability. It lays to groundwork for banning any pills taken early in the abortion process and even to ban contraception. " In all, fewer than 15 percent of fertilized eggs will result in a birth..” per the National Institues of Health. Frozen eggs are potential human beings but rarely become actual ones until it is implanted in a human and develop successfully. Jul 14, 2020 per the National Institute of Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670474/#:~:text  The logic escapes me: ban the potential of birth by those who supposedly treasure life. The assumed  purpose however, is  to get the Trump-dominated Supreme Court to rule their way to pave the way government to control even more of reproduction rights 

From a November 2. 2023 blog posting:    I am grateful I do not live in a theocracy. When we became a nation with the adoption of the Constitution, the separation of church from state was at the top of the list of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the Constitution clearly says the government cannot establish a religion, the foundation statement of the separation of church and state. ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ")  The Christian right has been active in narrowing the interpretation of the First Amendment, and the Christian nationalist movement has made it a goal to eliminate this separation altogether.  Even Jesus referenced separating loyalties from government and God on matters of taxation.: "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21 NASB).