GOP Project 2025 Takes Money from Hungary's Orban

July 4, 2024, Heather Cox Richardson

Monday, July 1, was a busy day. That morning the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that gives the president absolute immunity for committing crimes while engaging in official acts. On the same day, Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon began a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress at a low-security federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Before he began serving his sentence, he swore he would “be more powerful in prison than I am now.”

 

“On July 2, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, went onto Bannon’s webcast War Room to hearten Bannon’s right-wing followers after Bannon’s incarceration. Former representative Dave Brat (R-VA) was sitting in for Bannon and conducted the interview. 

 

“[W]e are going to win,” Roberts told them. “We're in the process of taking this country back…. We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday. And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail.”

 

“That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and it's vital for a lot of reasons,” Roberts said, adding that the nation needs a strong leader because “the radical left…has taken over our institutions.” “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution,” he said, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

 

Roberts took over the presidency of the Heritage Foundation in 2021, and he shifted it from a conservative think tank to an organization devoted to “institutionalizing Trumpism.” Central to that project for Roberts has been working to bring the policies of Hungary’s president Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, to the United States.

 

In 2023, Roberts brought the Heritage Foundation into a formal partnership with Hungary’s Danube Institute, a think tank overseen by a foundation that is directly funded by the Hungarian government; as journalist Casey Michel reported, it is, “for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.” The Danube Institute has given grants to far-right figures in the U.S., and, Michel noted in March, “we have no idea how much funding may be flowing directly from Orbán’s regime to the Heritage Foundation.” Roberts has called modern Hungary “not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.”

 

Orbán has been open about his determination to overthrow the concept of western democracy and replace it with what he has, on different occasions, called “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy.” He wants to replace the multiculturalism at the heart of democracy with Christian culture, stop the immigration that he believes undermines Hungarian culture, and reject “adaptable family models” in favor of “the Christian family model.” He is moving Hungary away from the stabilizing international systems supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

 

No matter what he calls it, Orbán’s model is not democracy at all. As soon as he retook office in 2010, he began to establish control over the media, cracking down on those critical of his far-right political party, Fidesz, and rewarding those who toed the party line. In 2012 his supporters rewrote the country’s constitution to strengthen his hand, and extreme gerrymandering gave his party more power while changes to election rules benefited his campaigns. Increasingly, he used the power of the state to concentrate wealth among his cronies, and he reworked the country’s judicial system and civil service system to stack it with his loyalists, who attacked immigrants, women, and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. While Hungary still holds elections, state control of the media and the apparatus of voting means that it is impossible for the people of Hungary to remove him from power.

 

Trump supporters have long admired Orbán’s nationalism and centering of Christianity, while the fact that Hungary continues to have elections enables them to pretend that the country remains a democracy.

 

The tight cooperation between Heritage and Orbán illuminates Project 2025, the blueprint for a new kind of government dictated by Trump or a Trump-like figure. In January 2024, Roberts told Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times that Project 2025 was designed to jump-start a right-wing takeover of the government. “[T]he Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start,” Roberts said. “And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”

 

Project 2025 stands on four principles that it says the country must embrace: the U.S. must “[r]estore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children”; “[d]ismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people”; “[d]efend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats”; and “[s]ecure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’”

 

In almost 1,000 pages, the document explains what these policies mean for ordinary Americans. Restoring the family and protecting children means using “government power…to restore the American family.” That, the document says, means eliminating any words associated with sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, abortion, reproductive health, or reproductive rights from any government rule, regulation, or law. Any reference to transgenderism is “pornography” and must be banned.

 

The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the right to abortion must be gratefully celebrated, the document says, but the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision accomplishing that end “is just the beginning.”

 

Dismantling the administrative state starts from the premise that “people are policy.” Frustrated because nonpartisan civil employees thwarted much of Trump’s agenda in his first term, the authors of Project 2025 call for firing much of the current government workforce—about 2 million people work for the U.S. government—and replacing it with loyalists who will carry out a right-wing president’s demands.

 

The plan asserts “the existential need” for an authoritarian leader to dismantle the current government that regulates business, provides a social safety net, and protects civil rights. Instead of the government Americans have built since 1933, the plan says the national government must “decentralize and privatize as much as possible” and leave “the great majority of domestic activities to state, local, and private governance.”

 

It attacks “America’s largest corporations, its public institutions, and its popular culture,” for their embrace of international organizations like the United Nations and the European Union and for their willingness to work with other countries. It calls for abandoning all of those partnerships and alliances.

 

Also on July 1, Orbán took over the rotating presidency of the European Union. He will be operating for six months in that position under a slogan taken from Trump and adapted to Europe: “Make Europe Great Again.” The day before taking that office, Orbán announced that his political party was forming a new alliance with far-right parties in Austria and the Czech Republic in order to launch a “new era of European politics.”

 

Tomorrow, Orbán will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin. On July 2, Orbán met with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, where he urged Zelensky to accept a “ceasefire.” In the U.S., Trump’s team has suggested that, if reelected, Trump will call for an immediate ceasefire and will negotiate with Putin over how much of Ukraine Putin can keep while also rejecting Ukraine for NATO membership and scaling back U.S. commitment to NATO.

 

“I would expect a very quick end to the conflict,” Kevin Roberts said. Putin says he supports Trump’s plan.

 

Roberts’s “second American revolution,” which would destroy American democracy in an echo of a small-time dictator like Orbán and align our country with authoritarian leaders, seems a lot less patriotic than the first American Revolution.

 

For my part, I will stand with the words written 248 years ago today, saying that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

 

—

 

Notes:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/01/politics/steve-bannon-report-to-prison/index.html

 

https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/heritage-foundation-president-celebrates-supreme-court-immunity-decision-we-are

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/179776/heritage-foundation-viktor-orban-trump

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html

 

https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-project-2025-and-why-is-it-alarming/

 

https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/30/make-europe-great-again-hungary-sets-scene-eu-presidency

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-fidesz-form-new-far-right-alliance-austria-czech-republic/

 

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-orban-visit-kyiv-ukraine-peace-putin-zelenskiy/33022024.html

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/europe/viktor-orban-visits-kyiv-intl/index.html

 

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/02/nato-second-trump-term-00164517

Don't Get Your Panties In A Bunch

Holy cow. 

Biden had a bad day. So what?

He's a genius; it helps that he agrees with me!

Look at all the things he has done and is doing on our behalf.

Sometimes we geezers need a break. Don't put us out there unless we are good. 

It ain't rocket science.............

SCOTUS Commits Treason Most Vile

The Supreme Court of the United States has stolen the rule of law from our country by giving the President immunity from criminal prosecution. We can no longer say that 'no man is above the law.'

Now we live in a tyranny. You should be afraid for your liberty, life and property. I am afraid.

Read Justice Soto Mayor's dissent to its grant of immunity to the Office of President: 

Her dissent, lightly edited by msmagazine.com 

   Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.

    Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President … The Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.

    The indictment paints a stark portrait of a President desperate to stay in power. … That is the backdrop against which this case comes to the Court.

    The Court now confronts a question it has never had to answer in the Nation’s history: Whether a former President enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution. The majority thinks he should, and so it invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law. …

    Argument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force. Under scrutiny, its arguments crumble. … No matter how you look at it, the majority’s official-acts immunity is utterly indefensible.

    Historical evidence reinforces that, from the very beginning, the presumption in this Nation has always been that no man is free to flout the criminal law. The majority fails to recognize or grapple with the lack of historical evidence for its new immunity. With nothing on its side of the ledger, the most the majority can do is claim that the historical evidence is a wash.

    The majority today endorses an expansive vision of Presidential immunity that was never recognized by the Founders, any sitting President, the Executive Branch, or even President Trump’s lawyers, until now. Settled understandings of the Constitution are of little use to the majority in this case, and so it ignores them.

    Today’s Court … has replaced a presumption of equality before the law with a presumption that the President is above the law for all of his official acts.

    The majority’s dividing line between “official” and “unofficial” conduct narrows the conduct considered “unofficial” almost to a nullity. … Under that rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune. Under the majority’s test, if it can be called a test, the category of Presidential action that can be deemed “unofficial” is destined to be vanishingly small.

    I am deeply troubled by the idea, inherent in the majority’s opinion, that our Nation loses something valuable when the President is forced to operate within the confines of federal criminal law.

    The public interest in the federal criminal prosecution of a former President alleged to have used the powers of his office to commit crimes may be greater still. “[T]he President … represent[s] all the voters in the Nation,” and his powers are given by the people under our Constitution. …

    When Presidents use the powers of their office for personal gain or as part of a criminal scheme, every person in the country has an interest in that criminal prosecution. The majority overlooks that paramount interest entirely. … Yet the majority believes that a President’s anxiety over prosecution overrides the public’s interest in accountability and negates the interests of the other branches in carrying out their constitutionally assigned functions.

    If the former President cannot be held criminally liable for his official acts, those acts should still be admissible to prove knowledge or intent in criminal prosecutions of unofficial acts. … Imagine a President states in an official speech that he intends to stop a political rival from passing legislation that he opposes, no matter what it takes to do so (official act). He then hires a private hitman to murder that political rival (unofficial act). Under the majority’s rule, the murder indictment could include no allegation of the President’s public admission of premeditated intent to support the mens rea of murder. That is a strange result, to say the least.

    Today’s decision to grant former Presidents immunity for their official acts is

 deeply wrong. … In the hands of the majority, this new official-acts immunity operates as a one-way ratchet.

    The long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding.

    The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.

    Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune.

    Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune.

    Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

    Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

    Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

    Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

https://msmagazine.com/2024/07/01/sonia-sotomayor-dissent-trump-immunity/ 

Debate: Biden Won Decidedly

 

Despite an optics glitch, Biden won decidedly; time will tell if the optics overrules the facts.

Heather Cox Richardson, Jun 28

 

Tonight was the first debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and by far the most striking thing about the debate was the overwhelming focus among pundits immediately afterward about Biden’s appearance and soft, hoarse voice as he rattled off statistics and events. Virtually unmentioned was the fact that Trump lied and rambled incoherently, ignored questions to say whatever he wanted; refused to acknowledge the events of January 6, 2021; and refused to commit to accepting the result of the 2024 presidential election, finally saying he would accept it only if it met his standards for fairness. 

Immediately after the debate, there were calls for Biden to drop out of the race, but aside from the fact that the only time a presidential candidate has ever done that—in 1968—it threw the race into utter confusion and the president’s party lost, Biden needed to demonstrate that his mental capacity is strong in order to push back on the Republicans’ insistence that he is incapable of being president. That, he did, thoroughly. Biden began with a weak start but hit his stride as the evening wore on. Indeed, he covered his bases too thoroughly, listing the many accomplishments of his administration in such a hurry that he was sometimes hard to understand. 

In contrast, Trump came out strong but faded and became less coherent over time. His entire performance was either lies or rambling non-sequiturs. He lied so incessantly throughout the evening that it took CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale almost three minutes, speaking quickly, to get through the list. 

Trump said that some Democratic states allow people to execute babies after they’re born and that every legal scholar wanted Roe v. Wade overturned—both fantastical lies. He said that the deficit is at its highest level ever and that the U.S. trade deficit is at its highest ever: both of those things happened during his administration. He lied that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency; there were many. He said that Biden wants to quadruple people’s taxes—this is “pure fiction,” according to Dale—and lied that his tax cuts paid for themselves; they have, in fact, added trillions of dollars to the national debt. 

Dale went on: Trump lied that the U.S. has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has when it’s the other way around, and he was off by close to $100 billion when he named the amount the U.S. has provided to Ukraine. He was off by millions when he talked about how many migrants have crossed the border under Biden, and falsely claimed that some of Biden’s policies—like funding historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and reducing the price of insulin to $35 a month—were his own accomplishments.

There is no point in going on, because virtually everything he said was a lie. As Jake Lahut of the Daily Beast recorded, he also was all over the map. “On January 6,” Trump said, “we had a great border.” To explain how he would combat opioid addiction, he veered off into talking points about immigration and said his administration “bought the best dog.” He boasted about acing a cognitive test and that he had just recently won two golf club tournaments without mentioning that they were at his own golf courses. “To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way,” he said. “I can do it.” 

As Lahut recorded, Trump said this: “Clean water and air. We had it. We had the H2O best numbers ever, and we were using all forms of energy during my 4 years. Best environmental numbers ever, they gave me the statistic [sic.] before I walked on stage actually.”

Trump also directly accused Biden of his own failings and claimed Biden’s own strengths, saying, for example, that Biden, who has enacted the most sweeping legislation of any president since at least Lyndon Johnson, couldn’t get anything done while he, who accomplished only tax cuts, was more effective. He responded to the calling out of his own criminal convictions by saying that Biden “could be a convicted felon,” and falsely stating: “This man is a criminal.” And, repeatedly, Trump called America a “failing nation” and described it as a hellscape.

It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.

It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It is similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience. Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.

There are ways to combat the Gish gallop—by calling it out for what it is, among other ways—but Biden retreated to trying to give the three pieces of evidence that established his own credentials on the point at hand. His command of those points was notable, but the difference between how he sounded at the debate and how he sounded on stage at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, just an hour afterward suggested that the technique worked on him. 

That’s not ideal, but as Monique Pressley put it, “The proof of Biden’s ability to run the country is the fact that he is running it. Successfully. Not a debate performance against a pathological lying sociopath.” 

A much bigger deal is what it says that the television media and pundits so completely bought into Trump’s performance. They appear to have accepted Trump’s framing of the event—that he is dominant—so fully that the fact Trump unleashed a flood of lies and non-sequiturs simply didn’t register. And, since the format established that the CNN journalists running the debate did not challenge anything either candidate said, and Dale’s fact-checking spot came long after the debate ended, the takeaway of the event was a focus on Biden’s age rather than on Trump’s inability to tell the truth or form a coherent thought. 

At the end of the evening, pundits were calling not for Trump—a man liable for sexual assault and business fraud, convicted of 34 felonies, under three other indictments, who lied pathologically—to step down, but for Biden to step down…because he looked and sounded old. At 81, Biden is indeed old, but that does not distinguish him much from Trump, who is 78 and whose inability to answer a question should raise concerns about his mental acuity. 

About the effect of tonight’s events, former Republican operative Stuart Stevens warned: “Don’t day trade politics. It’s a sucker’s game. A guy from Queens out on bail bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade, said in public he didn’t have sex with a porn star, defended tax cuts for billionaires, defended Jan. 6th. and called America the worst country in the world. That guy isn’t going to win this race.”

Trump will clearly have pleased his base tonight, but Stevens is right to urge people to take a longer view. It’s not clear whether Trump or Biden picked up or lost votes; different polls gave the win to each, and it’s far too early to know how that will shake out over time. 

Of far more lasting importance than this one night is the clear evidence that stage performance has trumped substance in political coverage in our era. Nine years after Trump launched his first campaign, the media continues to let him call the shots. 

—

Notes:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/all-the-crazy-things-trump-said-you-might-have-missed-in-biden-debate

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/trump-biden-presidential-debate-prep-408651

https://archive.is/JNu8D

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/us/politics/trump-revenge-biden-convicted-felon.html

X:

stuartpstevens/status/1806528635391631485

ddale8/status/1806517477163061469

MoniquePressley/status/1806527221881847898

The Russian Conspiracy to Destroy Democracy and Install Thugs in Power

I will try here to present some scenarios of likely conditions in the United States of America after trump becomes President. I model some of these ideas on Russia under Putin; trump has said he admires Putin and even takes some compensation from Russia. IMHO, trump will change the United States to a Putin model.

 

Citizens of EU countries and the United States have difficulty imagining daily life in a tyranny; those citizens see daily examples of their legal and political systems preventing tyrants and other thugs from committing crimes. Putin has systematically stripped away all those constraints in Russia, which might deter him in order to keep control of state assets within his group of friends.

 

If trump installs the Putin model in the United States, we will have absolutely no recourse for crimes or abuse done to us by Government officials or trump affiliated thugs. Project 2025 is already creating a list of federal civil servants to remove from office and replace them with trump thugs. [https://newrepublic.com/post/183015/team-trump-enemies-list-federal-workers-project-sovereignty-2025]

 

Putin's model includes these:

 

Murder of persons who try to stop crimes committed by the ruling thugs.

 

Example - Putin was part of a criminal gang, which controlled the port of St. Petersburg and made a lot of money from shipping. 'Control of the port became so strategic that when, in 1997 the Property Department chief Mikhail Manevich sought to return the voting rights City Hall had lost to its 29 per cent stake during the privatization, he was shot dead by a sniper as he drove to work." [Source PUTIN'S PEOPLE, Catherine Belton, Farrar, Straus and Geroux, 2020, pg 104.]

 

Execution of political adversaries. [Source: The List Is Long: Russians Who Have Died after Running Afoul Of the Kremlin, Radio Free Europe, URL:  [https://www.rferl.org/a/enemies-kremlin-deaths-prigozhin-list/32562583.html]

 

Theft of companies and properties in Russia. [Source: Browder: 'Putin Has Stolen Hundreds of Billions of Russia's Wealth, Moscow Times, Feb. 16, 2015, URL [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2015/02/16/browder-putin-has-stolen-hundreds-of-billions-of-russias-wealth-a43920#google_vignette]

 

The foregoing is the tip of the iceberg. Underneath that, Russia has a shadow Russian group that conducts systematic operations to disrupt life in Western Democracies and sow discord. 'The secret organization created by descendants of the Soviet KGB still continues its activities and poses a serious threat to the national security of the United States. Such information appeared in a recently published investigation of intelligence services.' [Source: Economy and life address by American expert. URL: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122151129350040424&set=a.122095018034040424]

 

This shadow group of Russian citizens which controls Russia and Putin in attacking Democracy, and the United States especially, seems motivated by their greed for more power over more people, without any more noble aim.

 

The group probably dates to the 1918 Communist revolution. That group, whom I will call the Center, directs action by their agents to defeat Democracy and establish control over a national government. The Center has been doing this since 1918 and they are very good at it.

 

Their simple model enables them to control many countries without any military intervention. First, locate a political person willing to accept help from the Center and then assist that person in eliminating rivals and consolidating power in the country. That person becomes an Asset

 

Then the Center provides their Asset with assistance in eliminating opposition within that country. In exchange, the Center demands obedience to their commands, which can include financial opportunities for Russians, and strict adherence to Center directives to help Russia in its territorial expansion.

 

They allow the Asset to use any method he needs to remove an impediment to the Asset's control over the country or control over a moneymaking opportunity. No method is off the table.

 

We, as Americans and citizens of an EU country have difficulty understanding how that works in reality. That is exactly how citizens in tyrannies live every day. Russians, Chinese and North Koreans live under a tyrant.

 

When a tyrant wants some property or person, he takes it by force.

 

As citizens of democracies, we react and say that cannot happen because the police will interfere. Alternatively, we assume the courts will enforce the law and prevent such violent acts.

 

We do not worry about politicians who want to be tyrants because we assume that laws will survive to prevent criminal acts. In fact, that assumption simply paves the way for the tyrant.

 

It is real and it is happening today in most Democracies. 

ACLU: trump on Immigration

 His message is extreme. 

LINK to ACLU Memo here: ACLU on policy proposal

Excerpt: 'American Civil Liberties Union TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION1

'If given a second term, Donald Trump promises

to decimate American communities by targeting

immigrants who are already contributing members

of society and blocking new immigrants from

coming lawfully to the United States. Trump has

made clear that he will double down on what he did

during his presidency — without regard for the law,

decency, or common sense.'

Debate Prep - Asking the Hard Questions

Abortion

Mr. Trump - I am sure you agree that a decision about when or whether to terminate a pregnancy is a very intimate decision. It is a decision that changes a family's future, forever.

I am very humble about that decision even though I am a Catholic and try to obey the laws of our church; even I think it is a decision best left to the pregnant woman and her medical team without my interference.

Yet, I recognize that some well-meaning political leaders consider than abortion is actually an act of murder and not acceptable under any circumstances. You are proud of your support for the Supreme Court in its decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision recently. That decision made it difficult or impossible for many women to abort a fetus. 

I ask you Mr. Trump, what will you do if your daughter or daughter in law has a pregnancy that will take her life unless she undergoes an abortion.

What will you do? Will you seek an illegal but safe procedure to save her life and thereby acknowledge that the law does not apply to you? 

Alternatively, will you obey the law and refuse to help your family member even if she will die?

American women deserve an answer from you. What will you do?

Inflation

Mr. Trump: You have complained about how my Administration has failed to stop inflation from hurting American families. We agree that many families today have a hard time providing necessities for their families. While sometimes I wish I could act more directly, the fact is that no President can change prices in our market economy. We have to act indirectly to make life better for working Americans.

Perhaps you are not aware that the President has no ability to raise or lower prices in our market economy - that is ZERO ability to set prices. Nixon tried changing prices, and it failed miserably [see ' Confessions of a price controller' Book by C. Jackson Grayson, Louis Neeb, 265 pages, January 1, 1974; ISBN     9780870940750 (ISBN10: 0870940759)]

What my administration does is to work diligently to make life easier for working people by raising wages through labor union actions and to reduce the market power of monopolies to set high prices. We support and encourage labor unions in their efforts to raise family incomes for all Americans. And, we put pressure on regulators to prosecute businesses with monopoly power so that competition can enter the markets and force lower prices on all. We hope those efforts will ease the burden on American families.

Mr. Trump you have said that labor unions should be prevented from succeeding in their efforts to raise wages and that businesses should be able to thwart workers' efforts to form unions. Since you take campaign contribution from corporations who want wages to go lower and for their monopoly power to remain even if working families suffer from your actions, what will you do to help the American family? What is your plan to make life easier for us??

So far, Mr. Trump, it seems that you will do your best to make billionaires and CEO's richer and the rest of us poorer. Is that correct ??

Rule of Law

Mr. Trump, you seem acutely aware that our Democratic Republic is a creature of the laws and the systems we rely on to enforce those laws. You have said repeatedly that you will not obey the laws if you do not like them. In addition, you have gathered a collection of felons and foreign agents in your attempts to take power by force. 

I am convinced that you will lose the popular vote for President this year by several million votes. I am also convinced that you will create or incite a violent attack on our institutions the same way you did in 2021 in order to regain power as President through unlawful means. 

We are prepared Mr. Trump so that your actions will fail and perhaps many of your followers will die. There is no amount of force you can command that will achieve your objectives.  

For the love of God, call off your forces and accept the will of the voters. 

Assault Weapons

Mr. Trump, you support the NRA and the companies that make and sell assault weapons. They make lots of money by encouraging unstable people to kill children. All the deaths at school massacres are on you Mr. Trump. 

They are on you.

 

TELLING STORIES WITH NUMBERS

 

Some readers may be curious about the author. Here is a short story about me:

Telling a story with numbers means learning what the numbers say and then summarizing that story using the numbers as examples. Some call that Financial Planning and Analysis [FP&A]. Regardless, I have told stories with numbers in various arenas during my entire professional career. Most good business stories have two basic parts: the Mission of the Enterprise; and, the projected and/or actual financial results.

I read the story of Economics at Whittier College and then in graduate school at LSE  [London School of Economics] in England where I took an M. Sc. [Econ] in 1966. I studied Russia during the Cold War at LSE to understand the challenge presented to Capitalism by the story of Socialism. This blog presenst my observations of the continuing threats to the National Security of the United States posed by Russian tyrannies and our domestic response to those threats.

My first significant job was an F P & A analyst at a publicly traded chemical process manufacturing company in Los Angeles. I wrote the stories of the plans and then analyzed the financial results for hundreds of operating plans. I wrote the plans in longhand with an adding machine and summarized the stories of performance for the Board and Corporate management. Eventually I used a variety of software programs to write the stories of how the results compared to the plans.

From there I wrote my book ‘HOW TO WRITE A BUSINESS PLAN’, which explained financial story telling for entrepreneurs. My book has helped thousands of entrepreneurs for more than 30 years and is now in its 14^th Edition. I also created and managed a Business Plan Mentoring consultancy where I helped several entrepreneurs tell better stories.

As Professor of Economics at City College of San Francisco [CCSF] I taught Economic stories to college students for 23 years until retiring in 2023. I wrote a textbook [MACROECONOMIC ESSENTIALS, 2020] for my students to see the story we discussed in class.

And, I changed the story of Economics to include the impact on real people of economic decisions and published the new story here [www.miepa.net].

My family has some history in Amercia: 400 Years of Stories from My American Family: Includes some historically notable family stories Kindle Edition,

Billionaire Bad Dogs: Turds in the Punchbowl

Training a dog to poop where you want him to poop can be hard. First thing before you try to train him is to get his attention by rubbing his nose in the poop, then you can show him what you want. Billionaires and dogs are similar in that neither one understands fully WHY you want something from them; I consider myself lucky if I can show my dog what I want. And, maybe he'll remember it. 

Many Billionaires want more money as their primary goal. They will support anything they expect to give them more money. Some think a tyranny will do that for them. We should try to train them to POOP properly. 

Maybe we can rub their nose in the POOP so they won’t install a dictator. After all, It's hard to really understand what life is like in a tyranny; especially for those who have not travelled in or read about tyrannies. 

Here’s the POOP  --  rub it on them...

Life under a tyrant can be peaceful when the media are silent about crime. Tyrants will murder or imprison those who insist on reporting crime, especially crimes committed by the tyrant and his cronies. 

An American dictator will target 'bad' reporters first. Say ‘Goodbye’ to Rachel Maddow [MSNBC] and Marc Elias [https://www.elias.law/team/marc-elias].

An American dictator will imprison opposition politicians in remote camps with limited medical care; some may die in camp. Say ‘Goodbye’ to Bernie Sanders [D VT]. 

A tyrant may simply shoot them on the street or murder them in their home. Say  ‘Goodbye’ to Jamie Raskin [https://raskin.house.gov/about]. 

Some of our American Billionaires and Corporations support a tyranny in the 2024 elections. Perhaps they think their wealth will grow with a dictator. 

They are deluded.

Tyrants assume they control all the property in their country. Some Billionaires think their association with him protects them and their property assets. But, when a tyrant wants a property for some purpose, he just takes it. A complex set of laws and chain of title protects property ownership today, but a tyrant can just ignore those laws.

Tyrants may just shoot the objecting person as he drives to the office using a long distance sniper. Say ‘Goodbye’ to Bill Gates.

Or, perhaps you are a compassionate Doctor and refuse to treat patients with medications specified by the State: You may be thrown out of a window in the hospital. Say  ‘Goodbye’ to Dr. Fauci.

How about a woman raped by the tyrant? Say ‘Goodbye’ to Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll.

Can you flee to another country with a stable reputation of protecting its residents? The tryant will find you. You may fall out of a building,

 Or, random criminals may shoot you and your family while you are on a vacation. 

Or, your accountant may be locked inside a damp cellar and beaten daily until he dies.

Or, you may join an old acquaintance for a cup of tea.

Or, someone may poison your house so that your an your adult daughter almost die from touching the door handle.

Or, an assassin my find you in a public park in Paris and chase you down until he shoots you.

Does it ‘stink’ yet?

This and more will happen if we elect a tyrant.

See more here

 

The Law on Rebellion and Insurrection

Basic self preservation grants to countries the right and the duty to prevent or punish inciting or assisting a rebellion that seeks to overthrow the laws of that country.

Felon trump calls for rebellion and insurrection constantly. 

The self preservation of the United States of America requires that he be incarcerated and silenced by stripping him of the ability to make further calls for  a rebellion or insurrection in the Unted States. 

This may occur at his sentencing hearing now scheduled for July 11, 2024.

§2383. Rebellion or insurrection

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808 ; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147 .)

UPDATE - Dasvidaniya Vovchik

Inevitably, 'Vovchik' Putin will die. Worldwide opinion today turns anti-Putin. 

When he dies, the hard line cabal of Russians trying to subvert democracies everyewhere will try to regain control with one of their assets. If they succeed, Russia will be the same. The West must neutralize that group in order to create a truly representative government. See my post 'The Russian Conspiracy to Destroy Democracy and Install Thugs in Power' on June 27, 2024.

When he dies, there may be chaos in Russia. My bet is that he does not have a workable succession plan. Most dictators do not have one.

The West failed to assist Russia's move away from tyranny into a democratic state in the 1990's, after the Wall fell. Criminals amassed ownership of public property and installed a tyranny in Russia under Putin. 

I list below some steps that the West can take to facilitate Russia's transition to a democratically elected government and avoid a tyranny. A new Shadow Duma established with expats can start the process until a newly elected Duma arrives. Russians want to live in a Democracy and do not want a reinstallation of a tyrant successor to Putin. The West should help them do so.

The new government may choose to apply to join the EU as an Official Candidate for membership. However, the EU sets rigid requirements for Candidates who wish to join the EU. Click here for the EU enlargement process. 

Russia will not meet those conditions until Russia has a fully functioning elected government. I discuss here the necessary steps to join the EU eventually.

'In order to apply for EU membership, a country has to be European and respect the EU's democratic values. It also needs stable institutions guaranteeing democracy and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the ability to take on and carry out the obligations of the EU membership.Dec 6, 2023

A country can become an official candidate once it meets basic political, economic and reform criteria. It can then start formal negotiations on 35 chapters covering many different policy areas with the EU.'  Cloick here to see detailed steps

BEFORE THE EU APPLICATION

STEP 1: Establish a shadow Duma before Putin's demise using expat Russians who will meet and work on the EU Candidate process; and, begin writing a new Constitution. USA and EU can help organize and fund this. The shadow Duma can continue after Putin's demise until a newly elected Duma can meet. 

STEP 2: Establish coordination with top military officials to secure their agreement they will accept subordination to civilian authority established pursuant to the new Constitution. Discharge those who refuse.

Step 2.5. Enact martial law to prevent violence, election interference and possible overthrow of new government. 

STEP 3: Conduct elections to the new Duma with international supervision ensuring election integrity.

STEP 4. Nationalize all enterprises above an arbitrary limit such as 1,000 employees. The state will manage the enterprises. Later, the Duma can negotiate proposed acquisitions on a case-by-case basis with the objective of professional sustainable management and financial capacity

STEP 5. New government seeks outside cash assistance to endure that newly nationalized enterprises can meet their payroll until divested.

STEP 6. Appoint judges who support the new government to all judicial posts. Ensure each judicial appointment requires a public impeachment in the Duma to be overturned or compromised.

STEP 7. Establish Civil Service board to establish required credentials for new employees select and install government employees. Ensure that all meetings of the Board will be publicly viewable. 

STEP 8. New Duma will establish areas of interest for business enterprise regulation; then, it will write appropriate regulations.

 

Campaign Debates

 Hey Joe:

Here is an idea about how you can approach the election and the debates.

First off, don't yell at the orange headed person, just ask him a question about what he plans to do. See below for a question. 

I suppose it will be OK to yell if yelling makes your words flow more freely, but it might be better if you speak mildly and slowly since your words carry great weight. You ARE the President, you speak the truth.

I suggest you address the feelings of pressure and despair that many of us feel at the kitchen table to the GOP blocking your effforts to make life easier. To do that, y'all gonna need to preach and teach a bit.

Like this: "I know a lot of you are worried about inflation. But it is a real thing and not just a made up number. When prices go up and your income doesn't, it's really easy to feel like you're failing your family. You work hard and don't spend a lot on frivolous things, but sometimes you have to tell your kids they just have to make do for awhile. It aint right. And, it is NOT your fault. As your President I feel your anxiety and despair and I am working real hard to make your life better. 

You might wonder about this: 'Why can't you just lower prices of stuff we really need?'

Or maybe this: 'Can we just get enough income so we can pay our bills?'

Or this: 'How about food prices? We can use a break here.'

I get where you are now, and I want to make it better for us all. But, the reality is that government can do only so much and has real limits.

Let's start with food prices. Can I as your President just make lower food prices? The answer is 'Maybe I can in the long run, but I cannot change prices directly.' We have a system where businesses set prices they charge using their best guesses. If they charge too much, then folks will go to a cheaper store and pay less.

Then businesses will lose sales and then maybe they will lower prices to meet the competition. Then your family can get more stuff for less money. That's the American economic idea we have; however, things don't work that way every time.

There is no pressure on stores to lower prices if the folks who sell food don't have any competition. So, they don't lower prices and we all suffer. Our job as government to make sure there is enough competition to keep prices fair. I am working very hard to control monopolies by enforcing the laws we have already.

But, big businesses don't like that. They prefer to keep prices high to  make more profits at your expense. So, they get together and stop any government actions to make the fod busiess more competitive. They do that by lobbying Congress to kill laws to encourage competition and discourage enforcement of the laws we already have. 

Yes, that is against the law. BUT, the GOP and billionaires just shrug off the law and regulation and keep prices too high. AND, you can guess what else: trump takes lots of money from those same corporations and billionaires. You can bet your bottom dollar he will NOT act to stop monopolies from raising prices.

So I'm asking Mr. Trump now: Will you commit to enforcing our anti-monopoly laws here tonight if you win the election in November?

I don't think he will agree to do that here tonight; I'd be doubtful even if he said he would do that. 

We have some hope regardless of what he does. Here's the hope: we can vote Democrats into office who agree that prices are too high and then we can enforce the laws as they are written. We all need your help to control monopoly behavior. Here's how: Vote Democrats into office so we can lower prices at the market.

Here's an example: "The FTC found evidence that a US oil exec colluded with OPEC in 2021 and 2022 to cut production and drive up prices. The price-fixing scam is estimated to have cost Americans an extra $2,100 per year. When I say corporate greed is driving inflation, this is what I mean." Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary. 

I'm afraid we see similar tactics and goals when it comes to raising wages with Union pressure. Billionaires just HATE that. They will use everything they can dream up to prevent wages from rising. 

It just makes no sense. They will sell more stuff and make higher profits when workers have higher wages. They're kind of stupid that way.

I'll leave further discussions about labor unions, higher wages and union busting tactics to another day. Billionaires just want more of your money, period

Thank you for your time. 

Donny, Donny, So I hear that you want a billion?

I have an offer for you. Do you want to hear my offer Donny boy? It's for a Billion.

Just to be clear Donny, it is an offer you cannot refuse. When I make the offer Donny, you get the money and then you do what I ask. Be careful what you say Donny. This is real. You  hear the offer then you do what I ask. Period.

So, do you want to hear my offer?

OK, Donny, you want the offer you cannot refuse.

Here is the offer: I give you $ 1.0 billion. 

This is what I ask of you: You resign any office you may have and disappear. You will not be heard from again by anybody. 

You have heard the offer and you will do what I ask or we will do it for you.  

You can sell all your properties and keep the cash plus the $1.0 Billion. 

You will disappear and never be heard from again. 

Are we clear Donny? You disappear by yourself or we will make you disappear. Regardless, you are gone. 

trump's Plan to Install Fascism

April 30, 2024 - Heather Cox Richardson

This morning, Time magazine published a cover story by Eric Cortellessa about what Trump is planning for a second term. Based on two interviews with Trump and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisors, the story lays out Trump’s conviction that he was “too nice” in his first term and that he would not make such a mistake again. 

Cortellessa writes that Trump intends to establish “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.” 

He plans to use the military to round up, put in camps, and deport more than 11 million people. He is willing to permit Republican-dominated states to monitor pregnancies and prosecute people who violate abortion bans. He will shape the laws by refusing to release funds appropriated by Congress (as he did in 2019 to try to get Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to smear Hunter Biden). He would like to bring the Department of Justice under his own control, pardoning those convicted of attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and ending the U.S. system of an independent judiciary. In a second Trump presidency, the U.S. might not come to the aid of a European or Asian ally that Trump thinks isn’t paying enough for its own defense. Trump would, Cortelessa wrote, “gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.”

To that list, former political director of the AFL-CIO Michael Podhorzer added on social media that if Trump wins, “he could replace [Supreme Court justices Clarence] Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and 40+ federal judges over 75 with young zealots.” 

“I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles?” Cortellessa wrote. No, Trump said. “‘I think a lot of people like it.” 

Time included the full transcripts and a piece fact-checking Trump’s assertions. The transcripts reflect the former president’s scattershot language that makes little logical sense but conveys impressions by repeating key phrases and advancing a narrative of grievance. The fact-checking reveals that narrative is based largely on fantasy. 

Trump’s own words prove the truth of what careful observers have been saying about his plans based on their examination of MAGA Republicans’ speeches, interviews, Project 2025, and so on, often to find themselves accused of a liberal bias that makes them exaggerate the dangers of a second Trump presidency. 

The idea that truthful reporting based on verifiable evidence is a plot by “liberal media” to undermine conservative values had its start in 1951, when William F. Buckley Jr., fresh out of Yale, published God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom.” Fervently opposed to the bipartisan liberal consensus that the federal government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, protect civil rights, and promote infrastructure, Buckley was incensed that voters continued to support such a system. He rejected the “superstition” that fact-based public debate would enable people to choose the best option from a wide range of ideas—a tradition based in the Enlightenment—because such debate had encouraged voters to choose the liberal consensus, which he considered socialism. Instead, he called for universities to exclude “bad” ideas like the Keynesian economics on which the liberal consensus was based, and instead promote Christianity and free enterprise.

Buckley soon began to publish his own magazine, the National Review, in which he promised to tell the “violated businessman’s side of the story,” but it was a confidential memorandum written in 1971 by lawyer Lewis M. Powell Jr. for a friend who chaired the education committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that insisted the media had a liberal bias that must be balanced with a business perspective. 

Warning that “the American economic system is under broad attack,” Powell worried not about “the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system.” They were, he wrote, a small minority. What he worried about were those coming from “perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.” 

Businessmen must “confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management,” he wrote, launching a unified effort to defend American enterprise. Among the many plans Powell suggested for defending corporate America was keeping the media “under constant surveillance” to complain about “criticism of the enterprise system” and demand equal time. 

President Richard Nixon appointed Powell to the Supreme Court, and when Nixon was forced to resign for his participation in the scheme to cover up the attempt to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel before the 1972 election, he claimed he had to leave not because he had committed a crime, but because the “liberal” media had made it impossible for him to do his job. Six years later, Ronald Reagan, who was an early supporter of Buckley’s National Review, claimed the “liberal media” was biased against him when reporters accurately called out his exaggerations and misinformation during his 1980 campaign. 

In 1987, Reagan’s appointees to the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine that required media with a public license to present information honestly and fairly. Within a year, talk radio had gone national, with hosts like Rush Limbaugh electrifying listeners with his attacks on “liberals” and his warning that they were forcing “socialism” on the United States. 

By 1996, when Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch started the Fox News Channel (FNC), followers had come to believe that the news that came from a mainstream reporter was likely left-wing propaganda. FNC promised to restore fairness and balance to American political news. At the same time, the complaints of increasingly radicalized Republicans about the “liberal media” pushed mainstream media to wander from fact-based reality to give more and more time to the right-wing narrative. By 2018, “bothsidesing” had entered our vocabulary to mean “the media or public figures giving credence to the other side of a cause, action, or idea to seem fair or only for the sake of argument when the credibility of that side may be unmerited.”

In 2023, FNC had to pay almost $800 million to settle defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems after FNC hosts pushed the lie that Dominion machines had changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and it has since tried to retreat from the more egregious parts of its false narrative. 

News broke yesterday that Hunter Biden’s lawyer had threatened to sue FNC for “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” Today, FNC quietly took down from its streaming service its six-part “mock trial” of Hunter Biden, as well as a video promoting the series. 

Also today, Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s criminal trial for election fraud, found Trump in contempt of court for attacking witnesses and jurors. Merchan also fined Trump $1,000 per offense, required him to take down the nine social media posts at the heart of the decision, and warned him that future violations could bring jail time. This afternoon, Trump’s team deleted the social media posts. 

For the first time in history, a former U.S. president has been found in contempt of court. We know who he is, and today, Trump himself validated the truth of what observers who deal in facts have been saying about what a second Trump term would mean for the United States.

Reacting to the Time magazine piece, James Singer, the spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign, released a statement saying: “Not since the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today—because of Donald Trump. Trump is willing to throw away the very idea of America to put himself in power…. Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to democracy.” 

Tomorrow, May 1, is “Law Day,” established in 1958 by Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower as a national recognition of the importance of the rule of law. In proclaiming the holiday today, Biden said: “America can and should be a Nation that defends democracy, protects our rights and freedoms, and pioneers a future of possibilities for all Americans. History and common sense show us that this can only come to pass in a democracy, and we must be its keepers.” 

— 

Notes:

https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/

https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/just-security-clearinghouse-manhattan-da-trial-motion-for-contempt-order-april-30-2024.pdf

https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-hush-money-trial/trump-removes-all-9-social-posts-cited-by-judge-109798916?id=109760957

https://time.com/6972022/donald-trump-transcript-2024-election/

https://time.com/6972024/donald-trump-fact-check-2024-election-interview/

https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-courts-secrecy-lobbyist/powell-memo.pdf

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bothsidesing-bothsidesism-new-words-were-watching

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-quietly-deletes-hunter-biden-mock-trial-special-following-lawsuit-threat

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/04/30/a-proclamation-on-law-day-u-s-a-2024/

Twitter (X):

Mike_Podhorzer/status/1785348580334501936

rgoodlaw/status/1785312635652591975

Jemsinger/status/1785345553712222272/photo/2

Weaponize the Deep State in 2025

If the United States of America sees another trump victory in 2024 we can assume that he stole the election. He has lost the popular vote count in every election he entered by wide margins. He manipulated the Electoral College to get his 2016 victory while losing the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. 

He has announced his governing plans if he gains the office in 2024. He will make war on the American people to further his personal riches. He will create a private goon squad to carry out murders for his political gain as does his role model Putin in Russia. He will pardon those who are jailed after the 2020 insurrection and he will punish officials who stood in his way during his time in the Office of President. He will not leave the office if he loses the 2028 election. Such refusal will likely create a violent transfer of power to the newly elected POTUS.

Duty to Disobey

The Uniform Code of Military Justice requires military officers to disobey any order they deem violates the Constitution.  In order to prevent the harm trump will try to inflict on the United States from his war on the USA, civil service employees at all levels of government should adopt the 'duty to disobey' toward any order or action that violates the Constitution. Additionally, they should collect evidence of any criminal act and report that criminal act to the Dept of Justice for prosecution.  

'So, can a person in the military simply refuse to follow an order if they don't like it? The answer is yes — if they consider the order itself to be illegal or unconstitutional. It's generally called a "duty to disobey," and is empowered by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Nov 27, 2019' [https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/what-is-a-military-duty-to-disobey/]

He may pressure you to resign. Do not quit, force him to fire you; them sue him for wrongful termination. We assume that most orders from POTUS trump will violate criminal law and/or the Constitution. Civil Servants in the Federal and State governments then shall have the ' duty to disobey ' every order which violates criminal law and/or the Constitution regardless of from where the order originates.

Like it or not, we will be in a war with authoritarian forces in the government during his time in office. Our soldiers in that war are the Civil Servants who prevent immense damage to the United States with their dangerous and brave defense of the Constitution, and the brave law enforcement people who stop any unofficial persons carrying out trump uncostitutional orders. 

Who You Gonna Call ? Joe Biden

Who you gonna call when the bad guys come after you?

You want a grown ass MAN in your corner.

Call Joe Biden - he's a real grown up man. 

Even bad guy Putin is afraid of Joe Biden

You do NOT want to call a manchild crybaby.

[Apologies to Ghostbusters]

 

BRIEF OF RETIRED FOUR-STAR ADMIRALS AND GENERALS

 Here is the document.

BRIEF OF RETIRED FOUR-STAR ADMIRALS AND GENERALS, AND FORMER SECRETARIES OF THE U.S. ARMY, NAVY, AND AIR FORCE AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT

'STATEMENT OF INTEREST

' Amici are retired four-star admirals and generals, and former secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. They served under each President from John F. Kennedy to Donald J. Trump. Amici are deeply interested in this case because presidential immunity from criminal prosecution would threaten the military’s role in American society, our nation’s constitutional order, and our national security. It also would have profoundly negative effects on military service members, who answer to the orders of the President as Commander-in-Chief. This submission is based on amici’s collective experience serving in and leading our military, as well as their collective interest in safeguarding our national security. Amici’s short biographies listed below only begin to describe their distinguished service to our country.'

NAME AND SHAME All Election Threateners

 

Some threats directed at election workers are crimes, but regardless of criminality all threats serve to undermine our Democracy.

The Federal Government worries actively about threats to election officials and workers in all states and in all electons. 

Here are two links to their recommendations

1. Home Page: https://www.eac.gov/election-officials/election-official-security

2. Reporting theats:  

report to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324), prompt 1, then prompt 3, or online at tips.fbi.gov  [https://tips.fbi.gov/home ]  

BUT, I suggest an easier method to reduce the volume of threats I call NAME AND SHAME.

Post in social media or online every threat including any profanity together with person's name, phone number and/or email. When the threats are not made public those who want to threaten workers feel they are safe from any consequences of their threat. 

Your legal department may have some questions about the action; I am aware only of possible liability provided that the information posted is false or untrue. Posting truthful information probably is safe from liability.

N S F W

I am disgusted by Americans who want to hand over our country to chickenshit crybaby trump.

Tyrants are all the same: Putin, crybaby trump, Hitler, Xi Xen Peng. 

Some of my ancestors fought with Washington in 1776 to end King George's tyranny. Some of them died in that War. 

Millions of Americans and people from other countries died to stop Hitler's tyranny in World War II.

I have studied Russia, Putin and Stalin, et.al., since 1960. Today, Putin bankrolls tyrants in many places, including the United States of America.

And yet, home grown domestic terrorists and the GOP want to hand over our country to crybaby trump whom Putin bankrolls. 

If he steals the office, he will send goons for critics.

I am such a critic. 

I will not go with those thugs. 

The Dark

Rubens - Massacre of the Innocents

Human history shows that we are capable of darkness and violence on a massive scale. The United States of America seeks to upend that narrative by allowing the people to choose their leaders. We have succeeded bringing light and hope to all people for more than 250 years.

Today we see forces of darkness trying to end our narrative and bring back darkness and violence to the United States of America.

At this writing trump plans to appoint a convicted felon and notable traitor into his campaign. Paul Manafort is the subject of a massive Congressional investigation into his illegal campaign actions. 

Here is that report: 

Our future is at stake.