MODERATION

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see mod tag, opposite is un= tag

SEE BUFFER

SEE REGULATION

SEE CRISIS SYSTEMIC FAILS DOOM CASCADE // SYSTEM DEGRADATION

see COURTS DEFAM DISBAR KRAKEN

REDUCTIONISM SCI SUPPRESS EXPERT

SEE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE // PRESS SUPPRESS?

SEE CHECKS $ BALANCE, NORMS ~ TRUMP LAWFARE // FASCISM

CHAOS DISRUPUTER

is trump the triumph over moderation? only twitter? breitbart/ CU?

how does moderation relate to stability? correction/transparency, whistleblowers

why did pollsters and political analysis fail to predict brexit and trump?

5/16 ODDLY this was only a tag before

a race between mod and deathmatch/ endgame

html Eliminating

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AHA DOH MODERATION BUFFER

AN 2 25

According to the Washington Post, as many as 200,000 federal workers may be fired because of efforts by the Trump Administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to greatly downsize the United States' federal government. And the criticism of their efforts is coming not only from Democrats, but also, from voices on the right.

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pennsylvania), during a February 17 appearance on MSNBC, slammed Trump and DOGE for carrying out mass government layoffs in a "haphazard" way. And the next morning, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough (a Never Trump conservative and ex-GOP congressman) argued that while government "waste" needs to be reduced and the U.S. needs to balance its federal budget, the Trump Administration and DOGE are recklessly jeopardizing "food safety" and "air safety."

The Guardian's George Monbiot also fears that Trump's second term could trigger some type of major crisis.

In a February 18 opinion column, Monbiot lays out a variety of frightening scenarios and offers some tips for surviving a worst-case scenario.

"Though we might find it hard to imagine," Monbiot warns, "we cannot now rule it out: the possibility of systemic collapse in the United States. The degradation of federal government by Donald Trump and Elon Musk could trigger a series of converging and compounding crises, leading to social, financial and industrial failure…. A financial crisis in the U.S. would immediately become a global crisis."

Monbiot continues, "But the hazards extend much further. Musk, calling for a 'wholesale removal of regulations,' sends his child soldiers to attack government departments stabilizing the entire U.S. system. Regulations, though endlessly maligned by corporate and oligarchic propaganda, are all that protect us from multiple disasters. In its initial impacts, deregulation is class war, hitting the poorest and the middle classes at the behest of the rich. As the effects proliferate, it becomes an assault on everyone's wellbeing."

The columnist warns that undermining regulatory government agencies could make everything from a pandemic to "future climate disasters" worse.

"As Trump rips down environmental protections and trashes federal responsiveness," Monbiot explains, "the impacts will spiral. They could include non-linear shocks to either the insurance sector or homeowners, escalating into U.S.-wide economic and social crisis. If, or when, another pandemic strikes, which could involve a pathogen more transmissible and even more deadly than COVID-19 — which has so far killed 1.2 million people in the U.S. — it will hit a nation whose defenses have been stood down."

Monbiot urges Americans — as well as residents of the U.K., where The Guardian is published — by doing a lot of networking.

"So, though there is no substitute for effective government, we must seek to create our own backup systems," the Guardian columnist advises. "Start with this principle: don't face your fears alone. Make friends, meet your neighbors, set up support networks, help those who are struggling. Since the dawn of humankind, those with robust social networks have been more resilient than those without. Yes, we also — and urgently — need national and global action, brokered by governments. But it's beginning to look as if no one has our backs. Prepare for the worst."

*George Monbiot's full Guardian column is available at this link.

---

an 6 25

After Donald Trump lost the United States' 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, MAGA attorney and far-right conspiracy theorist John C. Eastman did everything he could to help Trump overturn the election results. Eastman, an aggressive promoter of the Stop the Steal movement, is a close ally of the Claremont Institute — often promoting fringe legal theories that are rejected by traditional conservatives.

Many MAGA Republicans consider Eastman one of the intellectual thinkers of their movement. But he is facing disbarment in California, and according to jurisprudence professor Austin Sarat (who teaches at Amherst College in Massachusetts) and attorney Neil Goteiner, his problems are going from bad to worse.

In an article published by Salon on June 18, Sarat and Goteiner explain, "Friday, June 13, was a truly unlucky day for John Eastman, a key architect of President Trump's plot to disrupt the results of the 2020 presidential election. A California appellate court, charged with reviewing recommendations to discipline lawyers in that state, affirmed the findings of a trial judge and recommended that Eastman 'be disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Eastman's name be stricken from the roll of attorneys.'"

Sarat and Goteiner continue, "The judges found that his work on the 2020 election case was shoddy and deceptive. 'Disbarment,' they said, 'is necessary to protect the public, the courts, and the legal profession.' For any lawyer, this is a professional death sentence. But the court's decision is not only a devastating blow to Eastman, but also, to the Trumpist myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen…. The Eastman case demonstrates again that misinformation and lies collapse in a courtroom where facts and evidence rule "

IFrame Content

In 2025, Eastman, Sarat and Goteiner observe, continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. And his problems, they point out, are bad news not only for Eastman, but also, for the MAGA legal movement in general.

"Eastman will likely appeal to the California Supreme Court and, if he loses there, eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds," Sarat and Goteiner argue. "It is also possible that when the next Supreme Court vacancy occurs, Trump may nominate Eastman. After all, if we can have a convicted felon in the White House, why not a disbarred, but loyal, lawyer on the nation’s highest court?"

The legal experts continue, "Whatever unfolds for Eastman, and despite the profound damage that Trump's election denialism has done to American democracy, the Eastman case compellingly illustrates Alexander Hamilton’s confidence that this nation is well served by an independent judiciary."

*Austin Sarat and attorney Neil Goteiner's full article for Salon is available at this link.

---

see courts 4 defam rudy and jones

Will Neal @ The Daily Beast](https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-says-infowars-might-be-shut-down-unless-good-guys-buy-platform-at-auction/): Alex Jones Says InfoWars May Soon Be Finally Shut Down

A glimmer of good news amid all the doom, Alex Jones’ reign of online terror may soon be over with a court-mandated auction to sell off his assets now fast approaching.

CDV note sys

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/donald-trump-an-american-monster/

quite long]

...But who created this American monster? Donald Trump was not built by a deranged scientist in a secret lab. He is not an orphan, and did not emerge out of nowhere. He was the almost inevitable result of a decades-long assault by the "conservative" movement aimed at ending American democracy (especially multiracial democracy) and replacing it with a pseudo-democratic authoritarian state, perhaps organized under the system political theorist Sheldon Wolin described as "inverted totalitarianism."

As part of that long-term assault, most or all the historic victories of the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the gay rights movement, the labor and environmental movements and other struggles for human dignity and a more just society are being rolled back. If this project succeeds, America's already threadbare social safety net will be virtually eliminated. White Christian fascists and corporate plutocrats will forge a ruling coalition with near-total dominion over American life and society. The separation of church and state, along with the guarantee of free speech and most of the Bill of Rights, will disappear.

There is no longer a "normal" or "traditional" version of the Republican Party for so-called conservatives to return to. Even those conservatives who have disavowed or denounced the Trump movement are implicated in his rise. They are like political Dr. Frankensteins, horrified by what they have created but unable to kill it. Over the course of decades, they painstakingly built the monster and created the blueprint for American fascism.

As Wajahat Ali wrote this week in the Daily Beast, some of Trump's "most prominent enablers" are now trying to distance themselves from the "ongoing, concentrated, right-wing effort to overturn the 2020 election":

Even though most of these ex-Trumpers will fail up in their careers—as is often the case in Washington, D.C. — it's important for the rest of us to recognize them as utterly complicit actors who deserve to wear that MAGA hat on their heads until the end of time….

If you believe that there is a 'team normal' in the modern GOP, then you'll also probably believe that fewer doors and arming teachers will reduce mass gun shootings, banning books will save your child from being transgender, and climate change is a hoax created by China.

Either way, you're not acknowledging that the GOP is now a weaponized cult that no longer produces 'rational' Republicans, but instead caters to the festering, fevered paranoid swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories and white supremacist ideologies. This persistent right-wing disinformation has now radicalized its base, in which many membersbelieve violence is necessary to 'take back' their country. The reality is that Team Normal and Team Crazy both play for the GOP, wear the same uniforms, and, for now, worship the golden calf known as Trump.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is not some type of monstrous Other or outsider. He was not conjured up in some other dimension ruled by Lovecraftian demons, only to descend on America out of the ether to sow destruction, chaos, misery and death.

In reality, Donald Trump — as a man, a symbol and a political leader — and everything he embodies is the product of our society, driven by extreme social inequality, consumerism and greed, unfulfilled dreams, widespread alienation and loneliness, anti-intellectualism, racism and white supremacy, the cult of the spectacle, our fetish for violence and a range of related antisocial and anti-human values and tendencies.

In a recent essay for ScheerPost republished at Salon, Chris Hedges offers a powerful diagnosis of our corrupt and failing American political system, arguing that the House Jan. 6 committee will do nothing to correct it:

The two established wings of the oligarchy, the old Republican Party represented by politicians such as Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee, and the Bush family, are now united with the Democratic Party elite into one ruling political entity. The ruling parties were already in lockstep for decades on the major issues, including: war, trade deals, austerity, the militarization of police, prisons, government surveillance and assaults on civil liberties. They worked in tandem to pervert and destroy democratic institutions on behalf of the rich and corporations. They desperately work together now to stave off the revolt by enraged and betrayed white working men and women who support Donald Trump and the far right.

There are other systemic failures as well. America's mainstream news media, through both habit and laziness, have approached Donald Trump, and American politics more generally, as a running narrative of "great men" (and, more recently, "great women"), singular figures who are the main characters in an unfolding drama largely independent of history, culture or economic reality.

This partly explains the media's obsession with polling and public opinion, the addiction to horserace coverage and the drive to identify "winners" and "losers" on a daily basis. Of course the mainstream media is also driven by profit, and compelled to shape the news so as not to offend advertisers or alienate the political establishment and other social and cultural elites.

Media practitioners are also trained to avoid moral language when describing domestic politics, although they routinely use such language when discussing foreign affairs, and especially Americans' official enemies. The result is that most mainstream American political journalism remains an exercise in stenography and superficial commentary, almost always bending the knee to such totems as "moderation," "normal politics," "fairness" and "balance," concepts that were likely never helpful or transparent and are now totally inadequate to the task of confronting America's democracy crisis.

Many in the media still refuse to see the Trump movement and the modern Republican Party as destructive revolutionary forces, rather than as traditional political movements with an investment in the existing system. At this point, the media's willful or compulsive refusal to comprehend the nature of the threat has become a pathology. Journalists at mainstream outlets would benefit greatly from reading "The Authoritarian Playbook: A Media Guide," a new report from the nonpartisan nonprofit group Protect Democracy. It offers the following advice:

To the extent that the authoritarian playbook has a central theme, it is that democratic erosion is a process of power concentration and consolidation. While all political actors seek to accumulate power, authoritarians, uniquely, seek to entrench that power and protect it from external checks. Experts generally agree that democracies don't tend to die at the hands of individuals alone. Rather, contemporary attacks on democracy only succeed when they are coordinated, systemic, and undertaken by broad parties or movements.

If Donald Trump the American monster is somehow banished from American political life — through criminal prosecution, advancing age or some other force — another such monster will rapidly appear. In fact, Ron DeSantis and other leading Republican-fascists are eagerly waiting for Trump to leave the stage, and could well turn out to be more competent and more effective than him. Trumpism is a hydra-headed movement, no longer dependent on Trump as an individual: Chop off one of its heads and another will grow.The only long-term solution is to drain the swamp that birthed the monster.

6 22

aha one of few remaining accountability functions //mod? jones bankruptcy tossed, defam mixed but mostly good record eg smartmatic?

kraken disbarred? 821

an 6 22

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is facing an ethics charge as a result of a case brought against him by the District of Columbia office that regulates attorneys.

According to Business Insider, the District of Columbia bar is alleges that Giuliani —who was also an ally and personal attorney to former President Donald Trump— "pushed baseless claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election in a Pennsylvania court and accused him of violating two professional conduct rules in the state."

The court documents filed on Friday, June 10, also highlight Giuliani's support of a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania by the Trump campaign seeking to overturn the results of the state's election. The latest debacle with the D.C. bar comes one year after Giuliani's one-year suspension from practicing law in the state of New York. Now, his law career is in jeopardy in the District of Columbia as he may also be forced to refrain from practicing law in that district.

house 1/6 comm //

biden 40 judge 1st yr is record? trump apptees routine rule against rt? late but important corrective/moderation? eg

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/pro-trump-conspiracy-theorists/

tom b raw

according to an analysis by the Washington Post's Aaron Blake, ongoing lawsuits and investigations into members of Donald Trump's inner circle -- as well as conspiracy-mongering conservatives -- are bringing them down to earth as the legal system takes a look at their claims and they lose court case after court case and, in some cases,face financial ruin.

Noting that the Donald Trump years coincided with the rise "... of the kind of extremist purveyors of conspiracy theories who were once given the cold shoulder in polite society," Blake claimed what was once on the fringes is now part of the mainstream where it receives greater scrutiny.

Writing, "Increasingly, though, a bit of a reckoning is taking place. Trump allies spouting wild, baseless theories and otherwise taking our political discourse down misinformation rabbit holes are confronting consequences in court or otherwise facing bona fide legal penalties for their actions," Blake used conservative provocateur Alex Jones as a prime example of a conservative pushing the envelope so far that it ends up in the courts with devastating results.

As the WaPo reported on Friday, " ....a judge ruled Jones was liable for all damages in lawsuits over his claims that the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six others at Sandy Hook Elementary was a 'false flag" and a 'giant hoax.' The conspiracy theory has led to the harassment of the victims' families," adding, "Jones and his Infowars website's parent company were found to have 'intentionally disobeyed' the court by not turning over documents in such lawsuits. The ruling is what's known as a 'death penalty sanction,' which is highly unusual. The penalty is expected to be determined either by a hearing or a jury."

Add to that, is the parade of pro-Trump lawyers who attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election with unfounded claims that it was "stolen."

"Penalties have also increased in recent months for pro-Trump lawyers who launched ill-fated and specious claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Two pro-Trump lawyers in Colorado were ordered to pay the court costs for those they sued, with a judge labeling their case 'the stuff of which violent insurrections are made,'" Blake explained. "Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and other lawyers were also ordered to pay the other side's legal fees by a federal judge in Michigan — the requested amount is $204,000 — and could face other disciplinary measures too. The judge said the lawsuit they brought never bothered with the facts but instead "was about undermining the people's faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.'"

Adding, "Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani had his law license suspended in New York and by the D.C. Court of Appeals for making similar allegations," he suggested, "Giuliani has shown few signs of slowing his roll on voter fraud allegations — despite his personal financial and legal problems. Jones too has continued to flood the Internet with his very distinct brand of entertainment even as the Sandy Hook lawsuits have dragged out over the years."

"The legal fees that the likes of Powell et al have been or will be forced to fork over will probably be relative drops in the bucket for them," he conceded before admitting, "...even as Powell has yet to make good on any of her promises and has effectively admitted in court to being a fabulist, there's still a media ecosystem and a constituency eager to lap up whatever she has to say. You might think at some point it would be sore about being sold a bill of goods; you'd be wrong."

You can read more here.

aha: scotus attack on unions is 2x whammy ~ moderation; he's amplifying polarization, whih will cripple self-correction of sys, increase instability --> crises/sys fail; moderation = DEMOC?!

an 1120

The core of the Republican Party strength is concentrated in the 27 Right to Work states.As discussed in a previous article, Right to Work laws are designed to weaken unions by cutting their revenue and membership. Unions represent just 7.5% of the workforce in right to work states but almost 16% in "fair share" states. The 27 "right to work" states account for 83% of the currently seated Republican Senators and 70% of their Representatives. In 2016, Trump carried 25 of the 27 these states.

JUDICIAL BRANCH – Anti-Union/Pro Business Judges Dominate the Supreme Court and Appellate Courts

The Republican Party has worked for a long time to ensure that the federal court system is dominated by conservative, pro-business/anti-union judges over the long term. Indeed, Republicans basically packed the court system when Senate Majority Leader McConnell refused to allow the Senate to vote on 105 judicial vacancies during the Obama administration which were later filled by Trump appointees.

Supreme Court. The Supreme Court now has 6 Republican appointed justices and 3 Democratic Justices. Each of the three Trump appointees had a proven anti-union/pro-corporate bias before being nominated.

Amy Coney Barrett. During her term on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett ruled in favor of corporate interest more than 75% of the time. She ruled that corporations are entitled to set job requirements that exclude older workers and that they may segregate workers at different locations by race. She has also expressed support for striking the entire Affordable Care Act which would deprive health insurance for 20 million people and end protections for 100 million people with pre-existing conditions.

Neil Gorsuch. During his term on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Gorsuch repeatedly ruled against workers and in favor of corporations. For example, Gorsuch dissented from a majority ruling upholding a National Labor Relations Board decision that an employer must give full back pay to workers it illegally fired for union activity. Gorsuch dissented in cases in which the circuit court majority supported pro-worker NLRB decisions stating that the NLRB exceeded the scope of its authority. However, Gorsuch made no such dissent when the court ruled in favor of NLRB decisions that supported management.

Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh served on the extremely important US District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This court is second only to the Supreme Court in terms of prestige and power because it has jurisdiction over Congress and most federal regulations and agencies. The People for the American Way compiled a list of rulings showing that Kavanaugh consistently ruled against workers and for corporations during his 12½ years on the DC Circuit Court. Examples include Kavanaugh's opinions that would "entirely eviscerate collective bargaining;" his support for corporations seeking criminal citations for lawful union protests; and support for corporations that failed to protect workers health and safety.

Other Federal Courts. In almost 4 years Trump and the Republican Senate have appointed 24% of all active federal judges (194 of 792). There are 35 more nominations currently pending. Trump has appointed 30% of all active federal appeals court judges (54 of 179). This is more than any other president over the last 40 years. Overall, Republican appointees now account for 54% of all federal circuit court judges. The circuit courts are especially powerful because they function as final arbiter for the vast majority of cases since the Supreme Court accepts fewer than 2% of the 7-8,000 cases filed with it annually. These courts ultimately determine what the federal government can and cannot regulate – this is especially important to unions in relation to the right to organize and collectively bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions as well as the relative power of unions and corporations....

trump DHS hiding # on covid KIA and russian meddling

aha: transparency/moderation needed to undermine corruption:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/outrage-after-trump-quietly-fires-state-department-inspector-general-friday-night-slow-moving-coup/

no lnx

outrage after Trump quietly fires State Department inspector general Friday night: ‘Slow moving coup’

Written by Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams May 17, 2020

Democratic lawmakers and progressives erupted with anger after President Donald Trump on Friday night quietly removed the State Department’s Inspector general from his post, the latest example of the White House’s hostility to oversight and investigation.

“What checks and balances do we have left?” wondered journalist Andrew Kimmel. “The slow-moving coup continues to successfully—and quite easily—rid itself of any and all roadblocks.”

Brian Stelter

@brianstelter

If you went to bed early ??????? you missed another dismissal of another independent government watchdog. This time, it's State Department Inspector General Steve Linick...https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/15/politics/state-department-inspector-general-fired/index.html …

State Department inspector general becomes the latest watchdog fired by Trump

President Donald Trump on Friday fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, the latestin a series of dismissals of independent government watchdogs that have come in the wake of the...

cnn.com

2,257

3:16 AM - May 16, 2020

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The president notified Steve Linick he would be removed from his post in 30 days—a timeline required by law to allow Congress time to look into the administration’s justification for the move—and would appoint Vice President Mike Pence ally Stephen Akard to the position.

Linick’s dismissal came shortly after reports surfaced that Linick was looking into possible misuse of political appointees for personal gain by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

As the Guardian reported:

According to a Democratic congressional aide, just before his abrupt dismissal Linick had opened an investigation into allegations that Pompeo had been using a political appointee at the state department to run personal errands for him and his wife, Susan.

House Intelligence Chair Rep. Elliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that the move indicates trump believes he and his administration are “above the law.”

“I have learned that the Office of the Inspector General had opened an investigation into Secretary Pompeo,” said Engel. “Mr. Linick’s firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called for the Senate to investigate the dismissal.

“If Inspector General Linick was fired because he was conducting an investigation of conduct by Secretary Pompeo, the Senate cannot let this stand,” Murphy tweeted. “The Senate Foreign Relations Committee must get to bottom of what happened here.”

The firing marks the third inspector general Trump has removed from office in the past two months.

As Common Dreams reported, the president in April removed Intelligence Community inspector general Michael Atkinson from his post after Atkinson was revealed to have been behind delivering the whistleblower complaint on Ukraine to Congress that led to Trump’s impeachment in December 2019. In May, Trump fired Department of Health and Human Services inspector general Christi Grimm in part for a report on the administration’s lack of preparedness for the coronavirus outbreak.

In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to the firings of Linick and the other inspectors general as “dangerous.”

“The President must cease his pattern of reprisal and retaliation against the public servants who are working to keep Americans safe,” she said, “particularly during this time of global emergency.”

Trump’s flouting of convention and norms, said the New Yorker‘s John Cassidy, is revealing the flaws in the American government’s system of checks and balances.

“What’s the point of an inspector general if the folks being inspected can fire him/her at will?” tweeted Cassidy. “Another weakness in the system that Trump has exploited.”

schiff impeach oversight is MODERATION checks and balance = diversity

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/experts-who-warned-trumpism-could-destroy-us-democracy-in-2018-are-even-more-worried-now-we-werent-alarmist-enough/

alex h

When Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s book, “How Democracies Die,” was released in January 2018, critics of the Harvard University political science professors described them as alarmists. The book had a dire warning: the United States’ liberal democracy was in danger because of Trumpism. But two years later, Levitsky and Ziblatt have not backed down from that message — in fact, they are now saying that they should have been more worried in 2018.

Levitsky told HuffPost, “Joe Scarborough ridiculed it on TV, saying, ‘These guys are alarmists.’ It turns out we weren’t alarmist enough.”

Scarborough, the Never Trump conservative who hosts MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” is no fan of President Donald Trump — who he bashes consistently. But when “How Democracies Die” came out, Scarborough argued that the United States’ democracy was robust enough to withstand Trump’s train wreck of a presidency. Scarborough, in a March 15, 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, argued that American democracy was much stronger than Trump’s chaotic administration.

Journalist Travis Waldron, in HuffPost, notes that Levitsky and Ziblatt aren’t the only “political scholars” or “political leaders” who are “warning that 2020 is a referendum not just on Trump, but on the nation’s democratic experiment as a whole.” But Levitsky fears that too many Americans aren’t as worried as they need to be.

"People are getting killed over politics,” Levitsky told HuffPost. “There’s questions about whether the election will be free. Law enforcement bodies are being manipulated to protect allies of the president and go after rivals of the president. Things are happening on various fronts, and we’re not putting it all together and realizing that our democracy is on the line.”

Liberal democracies don’t necessarily come to power because of an armed coup d’etat or golpe de estado: in some cases, authoritarians are voted into office and gradually undermine a country’s checks and balances. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an obvious example. And Waldron cites Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as an example of a far-right authoritarian who was elected in a liberal democracy, warning that democracy in the U.S. is also in danger.

“Republicans in Congress have done whatever they can to protect Trump,” Waldron explains. “They blocked his removal from office after House Democrats impeached him and have kept administration officials from facing consequences for shirking their oversight duties.Without those checks, Trump has proceeded to do whatever he wants: fire inspectors general, attack the judiciary, violate laws and profit off his own office.”

Levitsky told HuffPost, “U.S. democracy has proven weaker and more vulnerable than I thought.”

Amy Erica Smith, a political science professor at Iowa State University, warns that some countries pretend to be democratic and have elections but are actually authoritarian states — or as she calls them, “hybrid regimes.”

“The number one defining feature of a hybrid regime is that the incumbent is using ― and I’ll say ‘his’ because almost always ‘his’ ― all of the benefits that come from office to get himself reelected in an unfair way,” Smith told HuffPost.

Waldron points to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian President Viktor Orbán as examples of authoritarians who pretend to hold fair elections and argues that Trump is trying to do the same type of thing in the U.S. “through his efforts to undermine the U.S. Postal Service and discredit the election as fraudulent before it even takes place — an admittedly odd tactic for a leader already in power…. Trump’s attacks on democracy are in effect thefinal shattering of the idea of American exceptionalism.”

===

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-climate-crisis-deregulation-2646406077.html

A report scheduled for release later Tuesday by Congress' non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that the Trump administration undervalues the costs of the climate crisis in order to push deregulation and rollbacks of environmental protections, according to The New York Times.

In one example, the administration estimated the cost of global heating for future generations seven times lower than previous federal estimates. By drastically lowering that number, which is known as the "social cost of the carbon," the administration could manipulate its cost-benefit analyses for deregulating carbon emissions, as The New York Times reported.

Every ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere imposes a cost on the economy, since it increases the likelihood from damage to infrastructure from sea level rise, heat waves or storms. Or, it imposes a health care cost as increased pollution harms public health. However, calculating the cost of those effects is both politically contentious and economically challenging, according to The New York Times.

Under estimates from the Obama administration, the social cost of carbon would be approximately $82 per ton of carbon by the year 2050, according to the forthcoming report. The Trump administration, upon entering office in 2017, quickly undid those numbers and changed the math of how the social cost of carbon was calculated. Under their revised system, the damages by 2050 are estimated to cost around $11 per ton of carbon.

One of the ways the math changed was keeping in line with Trump's narrow worldview. The report found that the administration brought the cost of carbon down by only looking at the effects on the U.S. rather than the global cost.

Another way it brought down the cost of carbon was by using something called the discount rate, which, according to The New York Times, assumes society should not pay much now to prevent harm from climate change to future generations.

"As a result, the current federal estimates, based on domestic climate damages, are about seven times lower than the prior federal estimates that were based on global damages," the report found.

The economic costs were supposed to be revised by the National Academy of Sciences, but the White House disbanded the working group and has no intention of restarting them or revising the economic calculation, as The New York Times reported.

That refusal to update their calculations means future incarnations of the federal government "may not be well positioned to ensure agencies' future regulatory analyses are using the best available science," according to the GAO report.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island and one of eight senators who requested the review, said, "Climate change is a massive threat to our economy. That threat will only grow in years to come, even if we take the action necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change," as The New York Times reported.

Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago, said the Trump administration's calculations were not done in good faith.

"It was entirely a political act. I don't think anyone pretended that those moves were justified," he said.

Others see similarities between the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus and its approach to the climate crisis: deny its reality and then leave the country unprepared for its effects.

"This really parallels the mismanagement of coronavirus," said Michael K. Dorsey, a limited partner with IberSun, a renewable energy company, and a climate expert, to The New York Times. "There's this belief that by doing this you will have some effect of helping the fossil fuel industry. The only thing it does, unfortunately, is undermine the ability of the government to make prudent decisions about moving critical resources to communities that are experiencing the unfolding climate crisis."

aha, lessen power of one small aspect of democracy in cap'lism, structural incentive MAX profit [// Worster Dust Bowl maxims, extraction]

1219, CoC lobby

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/reuters-america-update-1-u-s-sec-proposes-rules-that-could-limit-shareholder-voices.html

Nov 5 (Reuters) - Wall Street’s top regulator on Tuesday proposed a pair of long-awaited rules that would set new limits on shareholders ability to call for corporate changes on thorny issues like climate change disclosures and executive compensation In one of the biggest wins for the corporate lobby under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 along partisan lines to raise the re-submission thresholds for motions that shareholders file on company ballots and to put new requirements on firms guiding investors how to vote in corporate elections.

Both shareholder proposals and proxy advisory firms are cornerstones of corporate governance and how investors hold management accountable.

Both changes will be subject to public comment.

Democrats Rob Jackson and Allison Herren Lee voted against the rules, saying they tilted the playing field toward corporate management.

yikes, swing will go hard right always

Justice Anthony Kennedy plans to retire, Reuters reports.

The move gives Donald Trump the opportunity to replace a pivotal vote on the Supreme Court. Kennedy is viewed as a key swing vote and any replacement by the president will likely shift the bench to a more conservative ideology.

In a letter to the president, Kennedy “[expressed] profound gratitude for having had the privilege” of working on the Supreme Court and “defend the Constitution and the laws hat must always conform to its mandates and promises.”...

trump judge picks will degrade courts for decades; decimating civil service/prof'l in agencies:

https://www.alternet.org/dont-claim-trumps-doing-nothing-hes-destroying-federal-government-we-know-it

fail: academic

Ciccariello-Maher

associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University was effectively forced out of his position after describing the Las Vegas massacre as a product of a "white supremacist patriarchy" that must be dismantled. This is actually a fairly standard narrative among progressives in response to mass shootings or political violence. However, George Ciccariello-Maher and his university found themselves facing a particularly harsh campaign of harassment, intimidation and coercion in the wake of these comments, in part because this was not their first run-in with the right-wing media outrage machine.

Although Ciccariello-Maher was intentionally trying to mock and provoke the right, what happened to him could happen to any progressive social researcher today.

Ciccariello-Maher was first thrust into the national spotlight for comments he made on Twitter in December 2016.

In response to a State Farm advertisement featuring an interracial couple, many far-right online personalities took to social media to lament the "white genocide" they believe is being brought about through immigration, interracial unions, multiculturalism and "radical" civil rights activism. In response, Ciccariello-Maher mockingly tweeted to them that all he wanted for Christmas was #WhiteGenocide.

These comments were deliberately taken out of context in right-aligned media, where it was implied that rather than merely trolling the racial anxieties of alt-right sympathizers, Ciccariello-Maher sincerely supported carrying out (violent) genocide against whites,sparking major backlash against himself and the institutions he was affiliated with.

At that time, Drexel University sharply condemned his remarks, but insisted that no action should be taken against Ciccariello-Maher because his comments constituted protected free speech.

Ciccariello-Maher found himself in the crosshairs of the right just a few months later, after declaring on social media that seeing a customer give his first-class seat to a uniformed soldier on a flight made him want to vomit. Right-leaning pundits once again blew up his comments, arguing that Ciccariello-Maher hated America, despised its men in uniform and that the sentiments he expressed were typical of what students were exposed to in the classroom—not just in his courses, but in colleges across the country.

As the threats and complaints once again rolled in, Ciccariello-Maher appeared on Fox News and insisted that this time his comments were not satirical: he was nauseated, he explained, by what he perceived as people “blindly” supporting wars abroad for the sake of supporting the troops, and also by the “smug and self-congratulatory” demeanor of the passenger who offered his seat. He argued that if people really wanted to support the troops they should work on providing better healthcare and services to veterans, and avoiding needless conflict abroad.

Although soldiers also regularly express discomfort with the kinds of symbolic gestures and platitudes Ciccariello-Maher was disparaging, and themselves emphasize that there are more effective ways to support them, this doubling-down by the embattled professor further fueled the public outcry, prompting three Pennsylvania state senators to call for his termination. Drexel University once again distanced itself from his remarks but refrained from punitive action.

However, Drexel provost Brian Blake told Ciccariello-Maher that the outrage over his statements was causing harm to the university, including loss of major donations and students who were choosing to avoid the school on the basis of the scandals. The provost went on to emphasize Drexel’s commitment to academic freedom for its faculty, staff and students, and its position that what members of the university do in their private time, as private citizens, is their own business. However, he argued, professors must also recognize how their affiliation with the university can create profound ramifications for others in the Drexel community. To his mind, this created a special obligation for professors to exercise their rights with a certain degree of thoughtfulness and prudence, especially in the public sphere.

Midway through the fall 2017 semester, Ciccariello-Maher found himself in a maelstrom again, this time over his comments on the Las Vegas massacre. He refused to cede any ground: In an interview on Democracy Now! following the massacre in Sutherland Springs, less than a month after the Las Vegas shooting, Ciccariello-Maher doubled-down on his claim that a sense of frustrated entitlement among white men seems to fuel these kinds of mass attacks.

During the interview, Ciccariello-Maher also confirmed that while he was allowed to finish out his fall 2017 course commitments via online instruction, he was not allowed on the Drexel campus at all for the foreseeable future. Beginning in spring 2018, he was slated for indefinite administrative leave, ostensibly for the sake of his own safety, and the safety of Drexel faculty, staff and students.

Benched from instruction and barred from campus indefinitely—while under surveillance by a right-wing media apparatus that seemed committed to distorting and amplifying potentially anything he said—Ciccariello-Maher came to feel that he had no choice except to resign. He could not continue on as a professor at Drexel, practically speaking, unless he cut out or severely censored his social media, public engagement and activism, at least not without subjecting himself, his loved ones, students and colleagues to unending scrutiny, harassment and intimidation from right-affiliated groups.

Some facets of this case are gray. For instance, there is room for discussion about whether Ciccariello-Maher did all he could have, shy of violating his conscience, to protect his colleagues and students at Drexel from the negative externalities of his engagement. One could question the merits of some of Ciccariello-Maher’s positions and the methods he used to convey them. However, we should all be able to agree that happened to him was wrong. Indeed, even conservatives at the National Review found themselves disturbed by the precedent set here.

(Non) Crime and (Non) Punishment

An angry mob, egged on by political special interest groups, pressured university administrators into removing a tenure-track professor who, by Drexel’s own repeated admissions, had committed no obvious breach of the intellectual and ethical codes governing the institution. There was no due process, just an indefinite expulsion from Drexel’s intellectual community; an action the administration insisted was not a punishment, but allegedly with Ciccariello-Maher’s best interests in mind.

More troubling: the sentiments Ciccariello-Maher expressed disparaging nationalism and Trump, on dismantling systems of oppression including white supremacy and patriarchy, on the relationships between these systems of oppression and political violence, are widely held and commonly expressed among progressive scholars (albeit often couched in more careful language). That is, what happened to George Ciccariello-Maher could happen to anyone who conducts social research, comments on social issues, or aspires to social activism.

A House Divided Against Itself

In a Facebook post following his resignation, Ciccariello-Maher urged professors to rally together defending freedom of expression and freedom of conscience in the academy, especially for those who are not are not protected by tenure. Although Ciccariello-Maher has himself been an unreliable advocate for these causes in the past, he is absolutely right in underscoring their importance.

As JonathanHaidt and I pointed out in a recent Atlantic column, while right-aligned trolls like Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich or Milo Yiannapoulos have tried to co-opt the causes of freedom of conscience and free expression, in reality it is progressives, especially those from disadvantaged, marginalized or otherwise vulnerable groups who suffer the most when these freedoms and protections are undermined on campus.

Many of the institutional policies and norms currently under threat were established in the first place following the McCarthy inquisitions and the civil rights movement, explicitly to protect minorities and those on the left from persecution, to allow them to challenge what they understood to be incorrect or unjust, to empower them to develop new modalities of thought and expression, and to ensure they were supported in these endeavors by their universities. It is of paramount importance that freedom of speech and conscience protections be preserved against the illiberal forces that threaten them today.

Unfortunately, rather than rallying together against the renewed menace from right-aligned media, politicians and special interests and even hate groups on campus, a misguided contingent of the left has increasingly sought to dismantle protections of conscience and expression designed to protect progressives from the right, in the name of vulnerable populations no less.In a pyrrhic bid to cleanse universities of insufficiently progressive thought, they are doing the handiwork of their professed rivals: undermining their own institutions and research, inculcating a culture of fear, conformity and suppression on campus (even targeting fellow progressives), and empowering university administratorsto remove professors without due process in order to placate mobs. In the resultant environment, any social researcher could end up sharing George Ciccariello-Maher’s fate.

Musa al-Gharbi is a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University and a research associate at Heterodox Academy. Visit his websiteto learn more about his research.

1/18

aha doh! i did not see ~ mod of corruption, dark $, offshore banks etc etc

BOOKS:

see vanity

I have overlooked the moderating / gate-keeping of book and magazine publishers; but merger mania led to media consolidation, deadly to journalism, presiably also affect book co which become part of the media conglomerate. Moreover, presumably synergy in that the same content can be put on several platform and different media.

Presumably as solomon does anthology of columns get bundled into a book, and more than a few denial books (often from vanity press) are anthologies (maybe some log-rolling, and each guy uses netowrk to get blurbs?)

But a book still has cachet/cred that almost noting else does? Plus it gets reviwed (this endorsed, but also a summary is posted and reposted, so no one actually has to read the thing; books also give cred for spker bureau (ideally bd of dir gig, tho i have not seen one for co, just bogus NGO).

Amazon rankings five instant automagic and seeming irrefutable statistical evidence (tho ur TP bus tour to train activists to trash Amazon ratings of lefty books;

amazing that Geo Gilder wrote Amazon rev, praised Richard Vigilante co.

A book also validates book tour, interviews on TV and radio shows, presumably desperate for fodder;

plus a book author is better than mere bloviator/pundit?

Conservatve book clubs? virtual?

But now books can be self-published, and kindle/ereader is losing negative rep? Note amazon has button to vote for ereader version. But self-publ means no fact checker. so 180 on moderation

Steyn has a virtual publishing house? // Richard Vigilante under R Littlefield? Big books corps already had in-house imprints as Rush and Beck big sellers (and Al Franken, Moore?]

UPDATE:April 28 — The legislation passed out of the Ways and Means Committee on a party line vote with all Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition. Prior to the vote, committee members were sent another letter in support of the bill. This letter came from Phillip Ellender, president of Koch Public Sector, the official lobbying and PR arm of the Koch brothers.

PREVIOUSLY:

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress are trying to decrease the already scant amount of disclosure for politically-active nonprofits — known as dark money groups. The legislative effort is unsurprisingly supported by the main political arm of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) is expected to introduce a bill in the Ways and Means Committee that would eliminate the requirement for nonprofits to make a non-public disclosure of their donors to the IRS when they file their annual tax forms. The donor disclosures — known as the Schedule B report — are not released to the public, but the list of donation amounts with the donor names redacted are released.

The bill is supported by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the dark money donor hub run by the Koch brothers. The Kochs operate a vast political empire that mostly operates through nonprofit organizations that do not disclose their donations.

“This bill is an important first step toward reaffirming Americans’ right to free speech while protecting them from threats and intimidation because of their personal beliefs,” Mark Holden, Freedom Partners chairman and lead lobbyist for Koch Industries, said in a statement.

Roskam’s legislation comes amid a court case involving the donor list of another Koch brothers outfit, Americans for Prosperity Foundation. California attorney general Kamala Harris had sought the donor list of the organization for non-public review to ensure that it was abiding by California laws. A federal court, however, agreed on April 21 with Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s argument that this was a violation of its First Amendment rights.

Campaign finance reform and transparency proponents issued a letter calling on members of the Ways and Means Committee to oppose Roskam’s bill. Those backing the letter include Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, CREW, Democracy 21, Public Citizen, Sunlight Foundation and Rootstrikers.

“Eliminating the existing requirement for disclosure to the IRS of donations to 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups would open the door wide for secret, unaccountable money from foreign governments, foreign corporations and foreign individuals to be illegally laundered into federal elections through 501(c)(4) groups,” the letter reads.