A Software Engineer's Thoughts On Elon Musk

I truly believe this is one of the most important things anyone has ever said about Elon Musk. The quote below summarizes perfectly how much his presence in the public sphere wastes everyone’s time and is on many occasions profoundly dangerous as well as premeditatedly dishonest. pic.twitter.com/EGefe1z0Dl

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 18, 2023

Robert Reich's Graph: Income Inequality

I'd like to draw your attention to the point on the graph at 1980 -- the election of Ronald Reagan.

 

Since the pandemic, the top 1%’s share of income is at a record high.

Folks, this is unsustainable for our economy and democracy. pic.twitter.com/7VdXak4r9O

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) June 18, 2023

"No Labels" Is Not An Anodyne Bipartisan Organization; That's a Masquerade

Click here for an article at Raw Story by Thom Hartmann entitled "The 'No Labels' agenda is more disturbing than you know."

Historians and futurists tell us that we are moving into a new era, a Fourth Turning. It certainly feels that way.

But the people who have been in charge the past few decades — particularly Republicans on the Supreme Court, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and the Republican Congresses associated with them — have so rigged the game that it’s going to be a real challenge to dislodge the corrupt systems they’ve put into place.

The article concludes:

Can we overcome the damage the corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have done to our nation with their twin doctrines of corporate personhood and money-as-speech?

It turns out that Supreme Court opinions aren’t carved in stone. Congress can change and regulate the Court (as I detail extensively in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America). It’s a big lift, but Congress can also simply pass laws that, in most cases, can reverse Supreme Court decisions.

It’s thus within the power of Congress — if it can overcome the corruption injected into it by five Republicans on the Court — to undo much of the damage of Citizens United and the Court’s preceding decisions that set the stage for it.

Our best recent shot at doing this was the For The People Act, which would have reversed large parts of the Citizens United decision and publicly funded federal elections. But a handful of billionaires poured their cash into the coffers of Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin — and every single Republican in the Senate — and the legislation, which passed the House, died at the hands of a GOP filibuster in the Senate.

It’s still possible, if Democrats take a large enough majority in state houses this November and at the federal level next year, to pass that legislation or something like it and begin the process of reclaiming our democracy from this corrupt Supreme Court and the billionaires it has handed our country over to.

If we fail, America will almost certainly devolve into a full-blown oligarchy like Trump’s beloved Russia, and our democratic experiment will be suspended for another generation and perhaps irretrievably.

The stakes have never been higher. If ever there was a time to engage in politics, this is it. Spread the word.

 

Charlie Pierce: Be Afraid; Be Very Afraid

 Click here for an article by my favorite columnist, Charlie Pierce, at Esquire, entitled "The Basic Idea of Self-Government Is at Stake," subtitled "The New York Times has produced a truly scarifying piece of reporting that leaves no doubt what's at risk in courtrooms right now."

And yes, Charlie's English is fine; he's referring to a Bart Simpson bit when he uses the word "scarifying." 

His opening paragraph:

Rest assured, there are already plans in place to turn this country into Argentina under Galtieri, if not Chile under Pinochet. The New York Times has produced a truly scarifying piece of reporting that leaves no doubt what's at stake in courtrooms right now, and at the polling stations all over the country in 2024. It is no exaggeration to say that what's on the line is not only the American democratic experiment, but also the basic idea of self-government itself.

He inflicted great harm on the DOJ and the FBI during his disastrous term of office, and he promises to do much worse if reelected: "He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power." He claims that Trump "simply took existing conservative policy prescriptions and applied them crudely and stupidly because he is, well, crude and stupid."

Pierce says: 

The most powerful conservative think tanks are working on plans that would go far beyond “reforming” the F.B.I., even though its Senate-confirmed directors in the modern era have all been Republicans. They want to rip it up and start again.“The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a mainstay of the conservative movement since the Reagan years. He added, “Small-ball reforms that increase accountability within the F.B.I. fail to meet the moment. The F.B.I. must be rebuilt from the ground up — reforming it in its current state is impossible.”

“The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency"? Utter nonsense; in fact, the opposite of the truth. The FBI is (basically) an impartial law-enforcement agency, and Roberts, the Heritage Foundation, and the rest of the Republican cabal are determined to make it into "a political weapon for the ruling elite" -- namely, them.

 

 

Trump's Indictment

It All Began With The Powell Memo ...

The corporate takeover of American politics was rapid and ruthless.

In the 1970s, I watched as thousands of corporate lobbyists descended on Washington. Fast forward to today, and lobbying has become a multi-billion dollar industry.

It all began with the Powell Memo. pic.twitter.com/3tG35qI29h

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) June 1, 2023