After weeks of digging, House Republicans have unearthed their new Speaker. And, it must be noted that it is not a Speaker meant to insure continuation of The Great American Experiment
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Who is Mike Johnson, the new Republican House speaker?
Louisiana congressman is solid part of party’s right wing and played role assisting Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020 election ~
The rightwing Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson won a floor vote to be speaker of the House on Wednesday, elevating him to a top position in US politics and capping an unlikely and sudden rise to power.
Johnson was elected to Congress in 2016 and has kept a relatively low profile since then, though he is socially conservative and a solid part of the Trumpist right wing of the party.
Johnson served on Donald Trump’s legal defense team during his first impeachment. He currently serves as vice-chair of the Republican conference, a position to which his party colleagues unanimously re-elected him last year, and as a deputy whip.
He played a key role in assisting Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, the New York Times reported last year. When Texas filed a lawsuit at the US supreme court asking the justices to set aside valid electoral votes from Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona, he organized a friend-of-the-court brief in support and got 125 of his House Republican colleagues to sign on.
Read full story at The Guardian
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This, of course, should not come as a surprise to anyone near or over the age of forty, or anyone who has read a book or two on the history of the 20th Century.
~ WBW ~~
Democracy: It’s Complicated and Fragile
Posted here 2021-06-01
It’s Always About Choices
During his Memorial Day 2021 address to the nation President Joe Biden warned that U.S. democracy is in danger of failing: “The mission falls to each of us, each and every day. Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world. What we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen, will determine whether democracy will long endure”.
The President’s warning is spot on. Our democracy is in trouble. Our form of governance is in trouble. Our very basic system of how we elect our government is in trouble. Our present and future is at stake.
But United States democracy has been “in trouble” since it’s beginning. The War of 1812 came close to ensuring it’s demise. Certainly the Civil War 1861/65 came close. The spread of Fascism and Nazi ideology during the 1930’s came close, and its danger continues to this day, as does the dark, oppressive weight of the Soviet Union’s 1922/91 Hammer and Sickle.
For an overview (with aid of historic blueprints in mind) of how current U.S. democracy has marched itself to the edge of the abyss, we just have to look back to a few-months period in the second half of 2018:
Remember When We Thought It Couldn’t Happen Here
Chaos, Crisis and The Collapse of Democracy
Chaos, Crisis and The Collapse of Democracy: Part Deux
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Yes, History Repeats; A Short Reading List
Posted here 2021-12-08
A Little Obsession Is Good Obsession
Received a couple of e-mails recently suggesting I might be obsessed with the idea today’s Republicans are a Nazi-like political party.
Well, I think ‘obsessed’ could be an incorrect criticism. I say, could be… .
What I have attempted over the past three years – over and over and over again – is to remind Americans how much the Republican Party increasingly over the last couple decades unmistakably resembles the Nazis of Germany and Fascists of Italy during the period between the World Wars right through the end of WWII. This ‘resemblance’ has been especially apparent since 2016.
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History Can and Does Repeat Itself – When Allowed
Posted here 2022-08-10
As detailed in an excellent piece at Crooks And Liars, the far-right, fascism-loving MAGA Mob is taking its cue from the former guy (TFG) and going after judges and FBI agents. They, and the politicians and pundits who rely on the ‘Mob’ for money and headlines, are following a playbook that previously worked, which, as sane people on planet Earth know, had catastrophic consequences. Question is, will those who want the American Experiment to continue stand up against these domestic terrorists and traitors who want to take the United States into that playbook?
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They Didn’t Like The Rule of Law or Constitutions, Either. Until, Of Course, It Was Their Rules and Laws
Posted here 2022-09-07
During his recent prime time speech outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 1, President Joe Biden revived his campaign mantra – ‘Battle For The Soul of The Nation’.
But on that warm Thursday evening in Philly, Biden went beyond campaign slogans, quickly getting to the soul of the matter; the most dangerous threat to the United States of America: The rise of fascism within our own borders.
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The Emergence Of The Present
Posted here 2018-11-03
I’m not asking any of you to give any blood, I’m just asking you to go and vote like you never voted before
John Lewis
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