Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

ancianita

ancianita's Journal
ancianita's Journal
February 9, 2020

How Russia Flipped An Entire Political Party

1990's money>thug cult>2000's white supremacy cult>2016 Republican governing



The timeline of collusion




The enablers -- I was just following orders



To me these are ad worthy. I'd ask Maher for permission to use segments for the GE.
February 9, 2020

Heads Up To Republican Good Church People: Trump's About To Gut Your Medicare

So much for Jesus' Second Great Commandment.

"President Donald Trump’s wavering stance on whether to protect Medicare and Medicaid ... appears to have reached its inevitable conclusion: He’s hoping to gut them, severely.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the White House is expected to propose a $4.8 trillion budget that aims to slash these popular programs while increasing spending on NASA, defense, and veterans:

The White House proposes to cut spending by $4.4 trillion ... and $70 billion from tightening eligibility access to federal disability benefits.

While this reported budget is sure to fail—Democrats control the House, after all—it’s still striking to witness the vast gulf between Trump’s stated pledges and his actual priorities.

If Trump does unveil his budget tomorrow as expected, it will have been less than a week since his State of the Union address where he vowed to protect Medicare and Social Security...."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/02/trump-medicare-cuts/?fbclid=IwAR22K545_qDmsg2YxEcqrx_5g-32B95Zb9KfKLXQ-sXzw7bIVKI9pMimhXM


February 9, 2020

Watch Your Phone Lines, Democrats, Not Just in NH But Every State Primary

The Republican National Committee (RNC) in recent weeks have reportedly funded thousands of automated phone calls to jam up the offices of dozens of House Democrats amid the fight surrounding the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

The calls were recently discussed at the so-called "Off the Record" dinner ... attended by more than 12 Republican elected politicians, advisers and aides. Two unnamed sources who were briefed about the event told the Times that RNC officials discussed the phone jamming efforts during the dinner, suggested the calls were automated and admitted it was done to tie up the Democrats' phone lines.

RNC officials ... asserted that they used a vendor to survey voters. The voters that opposed Trump's official impeachment inquiry were then automatically offered to be connected to the offices of their congressional representatives, according to the officials.

The calls were not the first time members of the RNC have attempted similar phone-jamming efforts against Democrats. In 2002, the New Hampshire state Republican Party hired a telemarketing business to tie up the Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone line.

https://www.newsweek.com/rnc-funded-roughly-11000-automated-calls-jam-house-democrats-phone-lines-amid-impeachment-1469719?fbclid=IwAR3ODpwiZ53Y3bVovM8XS9ljGpRdGflD4wRf6jz7jzscWv9-2G-lXydh-v4

February 8, 2020

Your hearts are deeply appreciated, dear senders!

DU is a loving place to be, on so many levels.



February 8, 2020

Steve Bannon Runs Maher's Interview -- One Panelist Told Him That One Can Do Nothing But Listen

Maher's bottom line response: "I wish we had someone on our side as evil as you."

February 8, 2020

The Reality of Living In A Regime Is the Question: Now What?

Truth begins as heresy. So it’s been said.

These days “heresy” is used to mean "unthinkable, unspeakable” politics, undeniable ideological insurgencies, undeniable realities. “Woke” is now Facing Reality. We're woke to slow paced rule of law. We like to think we KNOW all that.

Last night I watched Steve Bannon run roughshod over a usually unflappable Bill Maher.

Bannon, back from his escape tour in the EU, popped up to let Maher know that the days of rule of law are over.

Bannon told Maher to relax and accept what's now going to happen. When they were done, I saw Maher reach a next level of “woke," a kind of quiet passivity about new realities he was told that take on the power of Truth.

Bannon said, in effect, that Maher's gang never really saw a new world of global men coming who would tell constitutional rights fighters that, without their ability to enforce ANY law, there is now no rule of law.

Once a therapist helped a much younger me realize that "Understanding is the booby prize.” Which means: Now what.

Bannon told Maher, now that you all understand what has happened, what do you do. Make comedy about it? Chest beat about being in the Right? Campaign? Charge around and rev up crowds? Vote?

We can reject for the next nine months that we are run by a scofflaw regime. Yet that’s all we’ll see in media. Most "news" will drum regime power into our heads, likely getting millions used to it. Now that the Senate trial is over, Americans who are still actually doing something about scofflaws and loyalists will take second billing in media.

Bannon said that, for Maher’s people to now have legitimacy, they should have dragged out the impeachment. I say: Now what.

Those who actually tried for the last three years to enforce law against them have either resigned or pushed out of this scofflaw regime. I ask: Now what.

We could easily sit around and crow that we KNOW who we're up against, or say what we'll do once back in office (and all our candidates have plans for that). But first we have to face and understand an inconvenient truth -- our Constitution has been beaten.

We don't have to accept that. But we have to acknowledge that is where we are.

Where we are is in a corporate regime. Call it dictatorship because we're finally comfortable with that word.

This situation is the result of men who breached the electoral college flaw of the Constitution, then dismantled all other mechanisms in government to enforce that Constitution.

Here we sit. Beside an unenforceable Constitution.

We can say We The People are "down but not out," or that "the pendulum always swings back" but we really don’t know for sure. History shows that just as often as swinging back, the pendulum does not swing back because certain events won't allow any return.

The Reality of Living In A Regime Is the Question: Now What?

Rule of law is now suspended. For nine months, maybe longer, we will see no enforcement of the Constitution. That is a long time without rule of law.

I just wrote this on Adam Schiff's Facebook post, where he calls out, names names, and interprets the latest moves of the Forever Impeached president. I told him that his “understanding what’s happened and happening is the booby prize.”

Bannon told Maher — and indirectly, Mr. Schiff — that even if we opponents think "it's not over-over," the constitutional crisis our House fought for is resolved.

Sure, some of us are woke to the fact that there is no one coming to oust this scofflaw regime until November.
Sure, some of us are woke to the fact that even the military will not step up.
It’s not sure that some of us are woke to the probably that our rule of law vote in November will be enforceable.

Denialism can be just as strong in one party as in another. We say we’ll act. But how will that work if voting doesn’t.
Knowing and passion without action is the death of the soul of the America we once lived in.

These men have now forced any enforcement of the Constitution beyond party politics.

And so they bring a whole new challenge upon We The People Americans.

No matter how you impugn their character, their power is unrestrained. Political party and media words do not change the reality that government is as government does.

Until we find and use a mechanism to enforce Constitutional law before November, there really is none.

Not today, maybe not ever. An unenforced Constitution is no constitution at all.

For all the campaign rallies, media coverage, in the halls of this regime, We The People will be seen for the next nine months as irrelevant to this regime's goals. These men see their domain as run by a global fossil, cyber and finance mafia. Not law. Their enforcement will be a pacification campaign against We The People.

Putin's Eurasian Project is winning. Rule of law is losing.

UNLESS… We The People can enforce justice under this government AFTER November. AFTER NOVEMBER 3, 2020, We The People will be dared by the question: “Now what?”

The heretical question We The People have to ask ourselves: “Will we get used to it?”

The answer will come AFTER November 2020.

February 7, 2020

5G -- It Ain't All That -- 5G Could Actually Make The 'Digital Divide' Worse

FCC boss Ajit Pai has repeatedly proclaimed that one of his top priorities is closing the "digital divide...most of his policies have had the exact opposite effect. From rubber stamping competition-eroding mergers, to eliminating consumer protections governing broadband, the lion's share of Pai's agenda has focused on what telecom giants want...

[TV ads tell us] ... America will soon be awash in a new layer of inexpensive broadband connectivity and innovation.

The problem: 5G isn't magic, and the technology won't fix the rot that plagues the U.S. broadband sector. It won't fix
-- the fact we approve mergers that directly contribute to higher prices and weaker markets. It won't fix
-- the lack of competition in the fiber lines that feed cellular towers, which also contributes to higher rates. It also won't fix
-- the fact that FCC policy and telecom lobby positions are virtually indistinguishable.

...contrary to carrier claims, you're still going to have patchy availability as carriers focus on the most profitable areas, despite countless billions in taxpayer subsidies.

5G's technical accomplishments don't mean all that much if the underlying structure is rotten, and US telecom is, if you haven't spent time on the phone talking to telecom customer service lately, very rotten indeed.

And in some instances, 5G may actually make the digital divide worse. The National Digital Inclusion Alliance, for example, is correct to note that
-- the low-income families we profess to love can't afford new, far more expensive handsets, or the even higher rates companies like Verizon intend to charge users to access these networks.
-- Telecom giants (and the current FCC) do yeoman's work focusing on unhelpful and silly "race" rhetoric, hoping to steer the conversation away from the subject that matters most to low-income families stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide -- price.

you'll notice [Ajit Pai] will go out of his way to avoid acknowledging high US telecom prices ... because that conversation leads to another conversation these folks really don't want to have: the regulatory capture and lack of competition in U.S. broadband that's causing the problem in the first place.


https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200204/07071543850/5g-could-actually-make-digital-divide-worse.shtml?fbclid=IwAR3a-5sakFQ7QVH-40CK5ICvCGlkNcK1KC4oCRrPq5QHxXvo7gq_GWs0Hdc

Pricing. Monopolization. Corporate Socialism. That's 5G's platform.

We subsidize global network dominance. So yeah, let's add another reason for the world to distrust, if not hate, us. Our govt (bad cop) be like "resistance is futile." Tech (good cop) be like "look how much better we make life!"

Both on our dime.

https://i.insider.com/5c87ab3526289853a678306d?width=1100&format=jpeg&auto=webp

February 7, 2020

Timothy Snyder: "We can't say it will sort itself out."




Personalized Dictatorships Are The Most Kleptocratic



History's Tools

&feature=emb_title



February 7, 2020

The Trump reset. Media have no idea. Pelosi does.


&feature=emb_title

Profile Information

Gender: Do not display
Hometown: New England, The South, Midwest
Home country: USA
Current location: Sarasota
Member since: Sat Mar 5, 2011, 12:32 PM
Number of posts: 36,201

About ancianita

Human. Being.
Latest Discussions»ancianita's Journal