Monday, January 4, 2021

Janine Jackson interviewed Public Citizen’s Lisa Gilbert about lame duck Donald Trump for the December 25, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Public Citizen

Janine Jackson: Whatever he or his minions fantasize, Donald Trump will no longer be president on January 20. Whether the Trump administration tested US institutions and aspects of governance or revealed existing weaknesses, it's clear that the tsunami of corruption and callousness has left wreckage.

As eager as we may be now to look ahead, or just away, the truth is Trump as a lame duck continues to wreak important havoc. We talked a couple of weeks ago about the zealous return to federal executions, unheard of for decades, but many other actions are less visible. Public Citizen is keeping their eyes on the administration's last-minute maneuvers; they have a new web tool to track them.

We're joined now by Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen’s executive vice president and also founder of the Not Above the Law coalition. She joins us by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Lisa Gilbert.

Lisa Gilbert: Thanks so much for having me.

JJ: Well, some of it, as I say, we can see. The attempt to hobble the transition, for instance, initially barring staff from having any contact with Biden's incoming team. That's the type of thing that is, yes, graceless and norm-breaking, but also materially harmful. But that's just the tip of the iceberg of what Public Citizen’s new web tool calls “Trump's Lame Duck Tantrum.”

LG: That's right. So we are looking across the board at the ways that we expect Trump to do dirty deals or try to pardon cronies or roll back regulations that are critical to public health and safety in these last critical weeks. We wanted this tool to come into effect at a moment where we think it's critical that we not lose the thread of what Trump is able to do in this moment, and pay deep attention to it, in the hopes that we can either stop what he's doing, or at least alert the Biden administration of these last-minute actions, so they can roll them back in turn.

JJ: Just to take one, that Trump was going to roll back regulations on corporations was clear. I spoke with Amit Narang from Public Citizen early in the administration, when Trump issued that goofy executive order that for any new rule, federal agencies had to repeal two existing rules. You know, it's just the kind of ham-fisted…. I thought Public Citizen maybe even brought a suit around that. But that order fairly represents the corporate capture of the regulatory process under Trump, would you say?

LG: Absolutely. I mean, that order was so inane, the idea that you would promulgate one safety rule and arbitrarily remove two others that are not connected to it in any way, off the books. It just shows such a lack of regard for human life, and for health and safety, and a devotion to the idea that regulations are somehow by their very nature bad, or "red tape" or harmful. And we know that the opposite is true: All they are is the end stage of a law, when we actually get to protect people.

JJ: Right, right. What are some of the regulations in that sphere? What are some of the things that Trump is up to now that you think it's worth keeping an eye on?

LG: Since we are at the end of an administration, we do usually see presidents try to accomplish their goals in a flurry of activity. And since one of Trump’s goals is to roll back health, safety, environmental and financial regulations, we are certainly seeing a flurry of those kinds of last-minute activities. So in our tracker, we take a look at some of the rules that have been rolled back since November 3, since the beginning of the lame duck.

So there are environmental rules, like approving coal ash in the environment; the EPA finalized a rule that outlines a process for approving existing unlined coal ash pits. They've, for example, removed the protected status of the gray wolf. Or allowing air polluters to avoid oversight; the EPA recently changed its interpretation of the Clean Air Act to benefit polluters. It's just all of the same cloth, this idea that we better rush these rules out the door to hurt our environment.

That's not the only area, but just a really tangible one that people clearly understand. Public protections are needed, and the Trump administration is walking us in the wrong direction.

JJ: There's a section in this web tool—it’s a live database; people can add to it—called “Dirty Dealing,” and, you know, we think of favor trading, and it's crummy, but as you're saying on environmental things, it's not just somebody getting richer, it's actual material harm that might not be as easy to undo as we think. So some of the deals that Trump has made have had impacts that are beyond just thinking, “That's not how business should be done.”

Lisa Gilbert: "He’s rushing through controversial hirings, filling commissions, changing the structure of the federal government to make it easier to move political appointees to become long-term career appointees."

LG: That's completely right. We look at a couple of different categories of so-called “dirty dealing.” And, of course, there are many that we could have highlighted, but we looked in part at where his legal defense donations have been going. He's raised hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters for legal defense in his ill-thought quest to overturn the election results, but there's a real question as to where that money is going to go. You know, is it intended to further either Trump or his family or his cronies’ political ambitions? Is it going to cover his campaign debts? We really don't know, and it is very unsavory to see him raising money for something we know is a fool's errand, but then using it for political ambitions. So we highlight that.

We look at how he's thinking about rewarding allies as another sort of dirty deal. We think that it's a little bit scary to think about how people are burrowing into the administration at this moment. He’s rushing through controversial hirings, filling commissions, changing the structure of the federal government to make it easier to move political appointees to become long-term career appointees, all with this idea of undercutting the Biden administration and leaving his loyalists behind him. We talk about punishing enemies, as well, in the dirty dealing space. So I think there are numerous categories—unfortunately, he is the king of dirty deals, but this tracker tries to take a slice of how he's been spending his time on this front during the lame duck.

JJ: If I could just ask you a kind of process question, because I'm from the DC area, and my parents worked for the federal government, and I remember, it’s almost a joke, “The appointees come in…and then they go,” you know, and the career civil servants are like, “Yeah, here we still are, doing the work.” So when you say “burrowing” Trump folks within agencies, can you explain that a little bit, he's actually changing rules to allow folks who are appointees to become career?

LG: Yes. So he passed an executive order, which we are also tracking, his lame duck executive orders, to create a new type of federal employee, a Schedule F federal employee. It has two problems: These federal employees are easier to fire and let go. So if he turns career employees into Schedule Fs, it means that they have less protection, so we're worried about that. But also, there is flexibility to move people in and out, between political and career, within this new Schedule F determination. And so he has begun to do that, moving a set of politicals into these career posts, so that means they will stay. And it is definitely, as you say, unusual; politicals tend to come and go with the new administration.

JJ: Absolutely.

LG: And it's a political direction. And that might not happen as much as it has in other transitions.

JJ: I find that actually deeply concerning—all of this is, certainly, but that's a real structural change that I think, maybe if you're not familiar with the culture, or just the way things work in DC, might not stand out to you, but it certainly is dramatic.

Well, we've mentioned that this is a database, a web tool. I think there's a lot of information that reporters would find useful for starting stories, but also that just the general public might want to keep up on. How are you hoping that this tool will be used?

LG: Both of those ways. So our hope is that in this moment, where some of these actions by President Trump are not being taken notice of by reporters, by the general public, that they will find this tool and use it, and also help us by flagging things they're seeing, so we can add it to the database. It's pretty egregious, the level of activity that the Trump administration is undertaking in this moment, and we don't want to miss anything. So I think the hope is that as Trump does things like move to politicize the civil service, under the noses of all of us, tools like this will help us stay on top of it and push back in the media.

JJ: We've been speaking with Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen. Find their work online at Citizen.org. Lisa Gilbert, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin,

LG: Thank you.

POLITICO NIGHTLY: America’s vaccine split-screen

BY RENUKA RAYASAM

Presented by

With help from Myah Ward

SHOT DOWN — In Florida, people camped out in lawn chairs to wait in line for their first dose of a Covid vaccine. In Ohio, 60 percent of nursing home workers offered the shot refused to take it. That split-screen — the vaccine frenzy that coexists with high vaccine hesitancy — is typical of what’s complicated the country’s vaccine rollout so far.

Simple logistics slowed down the Covid vaccine rollout — and put the pandemic’s end further out of reach. Too few states have figured out how to get vaccine doses into the arms of people who need them and want them the most. The CDC has distributed more than 15 million first doses so far, but only 4.5 million people have received the first half of the two-shot cocktail, according to the agency, far short of President Donald Trump’s goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020. At least 1 million Americans need to be vaccinated every day in order for the pandemic to end by Sept. 1.

Some governors, including Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, say doses are sitting on shelves waiting to be administered. New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said hospitals must use their doses this week or face fines.

“It’s total chaos,” said Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “It’s increasingly looking like we had a plan that was well-suited to vaccinate Singapore.”

In the U.S., the actual task of connecting syringe to skin relies on providers and patients finding a way to meet, rendering the CDC’s tiered system or any other top down plan pretty much pointless. In some cases providers are just offering unused doses to whoever is around so that they don’t get wasted. Even experts who argue for the delayed-second-dose idea say it’s out of sheer desperation: No studies show the safety and efficacy of delaying a second shot, and many people might just forgo it all together.

Many other countries are struggling to vaccinate residents as well. The fractured and overburdened U.S. health care system is particularly ill-suited to execute any sort of mass vaccination plan for adults. Nearly 11 percent of American adults below the age of 65 don’t even have health insurance. Few people outside of hospitals and nursing homes are being actively offered a vaccine and not all of them want to be first in line. States have left it up to vulnerable patients to find a provider and sign up using sometimes questionable methods . Patients might not even know they are eligible.

“People are confused,” said Rupali Limaye, director of behavioral and implementation science at the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University. She said distrust in the coronavirus vaccines has actually grown since the start of the pandemic, especially among Black and Hispanic Americans already deeply skeptical of the country’s health care providers. Some incorrectly worry that the vaccines won’t be effective against the new virus strain, first identified in the U.K.

Limaye said some insurers and doctors are calling or emailing patients to encourage them to sign up for a shot, but for the most part there is no mass federal campaign to reach people who might be eligible for the vaccine and convince them to take it. And if all the people who want a shot get one, reluctance may fade among those who are hesitant, she said.

The nation’s top infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci said the country will soon ramp up to 1 million vaccinations a day. Joe Biden has pledged to deliver 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days in office.

But Hotez believes there is no way to get to those numbers with the current plan. He told me today that the country should just throw out the tiered system rather than forcing drugstore pharmacists to enforce the rules. He said in addition to getting shots into the hands of nursing homes, hospitals and other providers, states should just set up outdoor tents in sports stadiums or other places with lots of parking to vaccinate whoever shows up. This is in the works in some states.

We need to “get the vaccine in people’s arms,” he said. “The only other choice is to continue with 3,000 deaths a day.”

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Happy 2021 to our Nightly readers! We missed you though we enjoyed a little break. My favorite parts of Christmas: my 2-year-old’s excitement over Santa, and the gift of a new coffee grinder already being put to good use with the year’s crazy start. Reach out at rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @renurayasam.

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Brian Pinker, 82, is the first to receive the Oxford University/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from nurse Sam Foster at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, as the U.K. begins its rollout of the newly approved shot. | Getty Images

FIRST IN NIGHTLY

MAKING HER MARK — Betsy DeVos will soon step down from her perch as Education secretary, ending her four-year run as the most polarizing person to have led the department. The Michigan billionaire, education philanthropist and staunch supporter of school choice will be remembered as a Cabinet secretary who successfully delayed and dismantled Obama-era rules at all levels of education, Nicole Gaudiano and Caitlin Emma write.

Her nomination to the Education Department’s top office in 2016 attracted more opposition than almost any other nominee and confrontations with public education advocates persisted throughout her term, especially during the coronavirus crisis, when she aggressively pushed for schools to reopen.

If confirmed, the next Education Secretary will be a departure from DeVos. Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona is a longtime educator who won unions’ support to be the nation’s next top education official, even though they have at times sparred with their state chief.

DeVos has won favor on the right with swipes at teachers unions as anti-student and by speaking out against federal bureaucracy and overreach.

“Be the resistance,” DeVos told her agency’s career staff on how they should approach the incoming Biden administration, urging them to put students first as she said she always has, according to a recording of her remarks obtained by POLITICO. In a letter to Congress today, DeVos noted her time in her post is finite and encouraged lawmakers to reject much of Biden’s education agenda in the coming years.

GET THE BIG PRE-INAUGURATION SCOOPS IN TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: Inauguration Day is quickly approaching. Is the Biden administration ready? Transition Playbook brings you inside the transition and newly forming administration, tracking the latest from Biden world and the transition of power. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter breaks big news and analyzes the appointments, people and emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden administration. Subscribe today.

AROUND THE NATION

THE NEW SWING STATE? The idea that a pair of races in Georgia could decide which party controls the Senate is mind boggling to those of us who grew up in the South, Renu writes. Longer term, Tuesday’s runoffs could determine whether once reliably conservative Georgia can officially be called a swing state. After Slack got back up and running this afternoon, Renu reached out to fellow Southerner Maya King to chat about whether there’s political realignment happening in the state. This conversation has been edited.

How did Georgia go from a red state to a potentially purple one in such a short time?

It seems like a short time because so few people expected Georgia to be anything but an easy win for Trump on election night, but (!) turning it purple (i.e. adding more voters to the Democratic base in the state) was a process about seven years in the making. State organizers and voting rights activists like Stacey Abrams and Latosha Brown knew that Democrats would be able to win more races if they included first-time voters, rural residents and people of color in their outreach efforts.

As a number of experts have told me, “demography is becoming destiny.” Democrats are betting that the groups of people who have settled in Georgia and been energized by the last two elections are likely to stay and continue voting for Democrats. This puts Georgia solidly in “battleground state” status. Think North Carolina, Florida.

How much of the political shift is because of inmigration to the state and how much is organizing long time GA residents?

Both are extremely important. More than a quarter-million people moved to Georgia in 2019 alone according to Census data — yet, at the same time, there are large numbers of longtime Georgia residents that are first-time voters or participate in elections sporadically.

What is happening in those Georgia suburbs? It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that places like Cobb County and Clayton County, where I grew up, swung toward Biden.

Yeah, it’s pretty remarkable! Biden was the first Democrat to win Cobb county since 1992. And as you know, it used to be a GOP stronghold. I think it’s a mix of several factors, all favorable to Democrats: the changing demographics in the Atlanta suburbs, the strong ground game that Democratic groups established across the state and growing distaste for Trump. This made it possible for two suburban demographics in particular — Asian Americans and white women — to put Democrats over the top in November.

Is there a model here for Democrats in other conservative states?

When we think of the South, we often think of old, antiquated people and policies. But that’s not the case anymore. Millions of young people and people of color do live and thrive — and vote! — in Southern states. And more young people are running for office. Jon Ossoff himself is 33, a pretty young age to be heading to the Senate if he does win.

And I think that Southern states can be more competitive for Democrats, but the Georgia model will likely need to be modified and adjusted depending on the state. As you have reported , Mississippi is rich in Black voters with a healthy population of immigrants as well. But it has far fewer young migrants from other states than Georgia and a much smaller organizing community to mobilize voters. So getting to a point where Democrats can be viable there will be a process. Do I believe it’s possible to see sweeping demographic and voting behavior changes take place across the South? Yes. Can it happen within the next four years? Likely no.

If Republicans win tomorrow what does that say about Dems' future chances in GA?

If Republicans take both Senate seats tomorrow, it will be a blow to Democrats in the immediate term. But they still have a model of registering and mobilizing voters that they likely will continue to build upon for future elections. Its next big test will come in 2022, which is likely to be a rematch between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams for the governorship.

HOW THE TOSS-UP HAPPENED — The fate of the Senate — and Biden’s agenda — are in the hands of two Georgia runoff elections. But we have no idea who’s gonna win them. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, campaigns reporter James Arkin explains why the Tuesday contests are toss-ups.

TRANSITION 2020

LAST GASP — Trump and his allies have tried nearly every avenue to change the results of the 2020 election, but Wednesday’s Electoral College vote certification during a joint session of Congress seems to be his last chance. Eugene Daniels takes us through what the events of Wednesday will look like, and how objections could slow down the process.

GUARD SET IN MOTION IN D.C. — The D.C. National Guard has been activated to respond to protests expected this week when Congress certifies that Biden has defeated Trump, city officials said at a news conference today.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested that the city’s National Guard support local police in handling the influx of people expected in D.C. on Tuesday and Wednesday, Jacqueline Feldscher writes. D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee III said the National Guard has committed to helping law enforcement “through the life cycle of this event.”

Bowser said about 100 members are being called up. “We will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city,” Bowser said. (Keep reading for more on the scene in D.C. in Parting Words below.)

BIDENOLOGY

Then-Vice President Joe Biden gives a young boy a stuffed version of his dog, Champ, while visiting a diner in 2014, in Washington. | Getty Images

Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, Nightly’s Myah Ward looks into Biden and his canine companions.

Joe and Jill Biden won’t be the only familiar faces at the White House come Jan. 20. Their German shepherd Champ spent time in Washington when Biden was vice president, and this time he’ll be joined by his 2-year-old brother, a German shepherd and shelter dog named Major.

After four years without a pet in the White House, supporters launched a “Dog Lovers for Joe” movement ahead of the election. The popular WeRateDogs Twitter account posted photos of Biden’s pups in a Nov. 7 tweet: “Both 14/10 would be an honor to pet.”

Biden got Champ from a breeder in Chester County, Pa. in 2008, after he was promised a post-election puppy by Jill, who would tape pictures of dogs on the back of the seat in front of Biden on his campaign plane for inspiration. Biden’s grandchildren gathered around the Christmas tree that December to announce they’d chosen the puppy’s name. For Biden, the name Champ was sentimental: He’d often mention his dad in campaign speeches, recalling his father’s familiar phrase, “Any time you get knocked down, champ — get up!”

Champ lived in the VP residence with the Bidens, and they decided to replace the carpeting with puppy-friendly hardwood floors. Biden, who’s had German shepherds since he was a kid, handed out miniature plush versions of Champ to children he met as VP.

The Biden family grew in 2018 when they adopted Major from the Delaware Humane Association after fostering him for nearly seven months. Biden hasn’t explained how Major got his name, but the president-elect’s late son, Beau, was a major in the Delaware National Guard.

At a 2019 Iowa campaign stop, Biden talked about why they adopted Major. “My vet said ‘Your shepherd’s 12 years old. He’s getting slow. The best thing to keep him going is get another little puppy.” It seems the young dog is keeping Biden active too, maybe a little too active. (The president-elect fractured his foot in late November while playing with Major.)

Cat lovers, never fear: It looks like the Bidens may add a cat to the first family.

A NEW YEAR MEANS A NEW HUDDLE IS HERE: Huddle, our daily congressional must-read, has a new author! Olivia Beavers took the reins this week, and she has the latest news and whispers from the Speakers' Lobby. Don’t miss out, subscribe to our Huddle newsletter, the essential guide to all things Capitol Hill. Subscribe today.

THE GLOBAL FIGHT

INTO THE BREACH — Iran announced today it has resumed enriching uranium at its underground fuel processing site — a breach of the 2015 nuclear agreement that Tehran insisted was justified by the U.S. withdrawal from the accord, but one that is potentially reversible, chief Brussels correspondent David M. Herszenhorn writes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s nuclear program, confirmed that Tehran had resumed enrichment of uranium-235 to 20 percent, a level not seen since 2015, before the conclusion of the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The move will put added pressure on Biden and his incoming administration, which has signaled a desire to resume diplomatic ties with Tehran over its nuclear program and repair damage caused by Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2017.

NIGHTLY NUMBER

14.4 percent

The proportion of Israelis who have received their first Covid-19 vaccination dose. (h/t Global Translations, which celebrates expanding to Monday, Wednesday and Friday editions today.)

PARTING WORDS

DISTRICT HUNKERS DOWN — Since Election Day, Trump’s followers have marched on state capitol buildings and the Supreme Court, protesting the election results. They have demonstrated in front of vote-counting centers, filed lawsuits and floated illogical conspiracy theories. Now, those efforts will come to a head on Wednesday, when the most zealous members of MAGA nation — activists, fans and militia groups — plan to rally one more time in Washington in a dying attempt to keep Trump in the White House, Tina Nguyen writes.

Timed to the day when Congress will formally certify Biden’s win, the MAGA crowd is trying to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and Republican lawmakers to refuse to seat Biden over fabricated voter-fraud claims. It’s a doomed plan, given the makeup of Congress, the absent evidence behind the rigged election allegations and the fact that every important state has already certified Biden’s win. Yet that hasn’t stopped a swell of Trump supporters from making plans — and the president from teasing his own appearance.

According to disinformation and extremist researchers, the Wednesday gathering will look similar to November’s Million MAGA March — a mashup of garden-variety Trump supporters and more extreme members of the far right, with no apparent central organizing apparatus.

There’s one key difference with this march, however. After weeks of failed lawsuits, flailing investigations and Republicans unhitching themselves from Trump’s quest to keep the presidency, the Wednesday rally might be the last one while there’s still a plan — even if it’s an ill-fated one — to subvert the election.

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RSN: Norman Solomon | In 2021, the Best Way to Fight Neofascist Republicans Is to Fight Neoliberal Democrats

04 January 21

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

RSN: Norman Solomon | In 2021, the Best Way to Fight Neofascist Republicans Is to Fight Neoliberal Democrats

Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
Solomon writes: "The threat of fascism will hardly disappear when Donald Trump moves out of the White House in two weeks."

On Capitol Hill, the Republicans who’ve made clear their utter contempt for democracy will retain powerful leverage over the U.S. government. And they’re securely entrenched because Trumpism continues to thrive in much of the country.

Yet, in 2021, progressives should mostly concentrate on challenging the neoliberalism of Democratic Party leaders. Why? Because the neoliberal governing model runs directly counter to the overarching responsibilities of the left — to defeat right-wing forces and to effectively fight for a decent, life-affirming society.

Neoliberalism can be defined as a political approach that “seeks to transfer the control of economic factors from the public sector to the private sector” — and strives to “place limits on government spending, government regulation, and public ownership.” Neoliberalism can be described more candidly as vast, systemic, nonstop plunder.

The plunder is enmeshed in politics. In the real world, economic power is political power. And privatizing political power amounts to undermining democracy.

After four decades of neoliberal momentum, we can see the wreckage all around us: the cumulative effects, destroying uncounted human lives deprived of adequate healthcare, education, housing, economic security, and existence free of predatory monetizing. While Republican politicians usually led the wrecking crews, their Democratic counterparts often served as enablers or initiated their own razing projects.

As its policies gradually degrade the standard of living and quality of life for most people, neoliberalism provides a poisonous fuel for right-wing propaganda and demagoguery. Although corporate media outlets routinely assert that “moderate” Democrats are best positioned to block the right’s advances, the corporate-oriented policies of those Democrats — including trade deals, deregulation and privatization — have aided rather than impeded far-right faux populism.

In the long run, the realities of rampant income inequalities cannot be papered over — and neither can the despair and rage they engender. Phony and unhinged as it is, Trumpist extremism offers such rage a populist avenue, paved with a range of vile bigotries and cruelties. When Democrats fail to offer a competing populist avenue, their party is seen as aligned with the status quo. And in this era, the status quo is a political loser.

A myth of U.S. mainstream politics and corporate media is that the most effective way to counteract the political right is to compromise by ideologically moving rightward. When progressives internalize this myth, they defer to the kind of Democratic Party leadership that frequently ends up assisting instead of undermining the Republican Party.

That’s what happened when, as incoming presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama filled their administrations’ top-tier positions with Wall Street movers and shakers, elite big-business consultants and the like. Those appointments foreshadowed major pro-corporate policies — such as Clinton’s NAFTA trade pact, and Obama’s lavish bailout for huge banks while millions of homeowners saw their houses sink under foreclosure water — policies that were economically unjust. And politically disastrous. Two years after Clinton and Obama entered the White House, Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 and 2010 midterm elections.

Now, there’s scant evidence Joe Biden is looking toward significant structural changes that would disrupt the ongoing trends of soaring wealth for the very few and deepening financial distress or outright desperation for the many. Without massive pressure from progressives, it’s foreseeable that Biden — like Clinton and Obama — will run his presidency as a corporate-friendly enterprise without seriously challenging the extreme disparities of economic injustice.

“The stock market is ending 2020 at record highs, even as the virus surges and millions go hungry,” The Washington Post reported. Wall Street succeeded at “enriching the wealthy … despite a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 340,000 Americans.”

The reporting came from a newspaper owned by the richest person on earth, Jeff Bezos (who currently has an estimated wealth of $190 billion that he can’t take with him). In a world of so much suffering, the accumulation of such wealth is beyond pathology.

What’s imperative for progressives is not to “speak truth to power” but to speak truth about power — and to drastically change an economic system that provides humongous wealth to a very few and worsening misery to the countless many.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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RSN: FOCUS: Worse Than Treason

04 January 21

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FOCUS: Worse Than Treason

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic
Excerpt: "No amount of rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party is advocating for the overthrow of an American election."

e are what we pretend to be,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote in the opening of his 1962 novel, Mother Night, “and so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” Republicans in Congress are pretending to be seditionists—and so they have become, in fact, seditionists.

Forget all the whispered denials and the off-the-record expressions of concern in private; ignore the knowing smirks on camera from GOP officials who are desperately trying to indicate that they’re in on the joke. Brush aside the caviling of the anti-anti-Trump writers who would rather talk about that time in 2017 when some Democrats objected to the Electoral College vote (and were gaveled down by Joe Biden himself).

This is sedition, plain and simple. No amount of playacting and rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party and its apologists are advocating for the overthrow of an American election and the continued rule of a sociopathic autocrat.

This is not some handful of firebrands making a stand for the television cameras. In 2005, one Democrat in the House and one in the Senate filed an objection to counting Ohio’s electoral votes, while insisting that they were not contesting the outcome of the presidential election itself. In 2017, a handful of Democratic members of the House objected to the electoral count. Because they lacked support in the Senate, then–Vice President Biden ruled the representatives out of order and declared, “It is over.” In both cases, the Democratic candidate had already conceded.

Today, the “sedition caucus” includes at least 140 members of the House—that is, some two-thirds of the House GOP membership—and at least 10 members of the Senate. Their challenge comes after weeks of insistence that the 2020 election was rigged, plagued by fraud, and even subverted by foreign powers. The president and his minions have filed, and lost, scores of lawsuits that ranged from minor disputes over process to childlike, error-filled briefs full of bizarre assertions.

Instead of threatening to gavel these objections into irrelevance, as Biden did four years ago, Vice President Mike Pence “welcomes” these challenges. Pence’s career is finished, but he could have stood for the Constitution he claims to love and which he swore to defend. However, cowardice is contagious, and no mask was thick enough to protect Pence from the pathogen of fear.

Perhaps the sedition caucus didn’t mean to go this far. Its members began by arguing that we all just needed to humor President Trump, to give him time to process the loss, and to treat the president of the United States as a toddler who was going home empty-handed. He wouldn’t be a dead-ender, they assured us, because that would be too humiliating. The Republican Party would never immolate itself for a proven loser.

But for Trump, there is no such thing as too much humiliation. The only shame in Trump world lies in admitting defeat. And so Trump doubled down, as anyone who had watched him for more than 10 minutes knew he would. And then he tripled, quadrupled, quintupled down. And just as they have done for the past four years, elected Republicans tried to convince themselves that if they supported this outrage, it would be the last time they would be required to surrender their dignity; that this betrayal of the Constitution would be the last treachery demanded of them. That if they complied one more time, they would be allowed to go back to their privileged lives far from the districts they claim to represent—places few of them really want to live after tasting life in the Emerald City.

It is possible that the sedition caucus knew that all these challenges would fail. It is possible that they know their last insult to American democracy, on Wednesday, will go nowhere, as well. This is irrelevant: Engaging in sedition for insincere reasons does not make it less hideous. Arguing that you betrayed the Constitution only as theater is no defense.

Indeed, shredding the Constitution purely for personal gain is perhaps the worst of the sins of the sedition caucus. It would almost be a relief to know that these Republicans really believe what they’re trying to sell, that they are genuine fanatics and ideologues who have at least paid us the respect of pitting their sincere beliefs against our own.

But we are, in the main, dealing with people who are far worse than true believers. The Republican Party is infested with craven opportunists, the kind of people who will try to tell us later that they were “just asking questions,” that they were “defending the process,” and of course, that they were merely representing “the will of the people.” Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are not idiots. These are men who understand perfectly well what they are doing. Senator Mitt Romney sees it clearly, noting that his GOP colleagues are engaged in “an egregious ploy” to “enhance political ambition.”

People of goodwill across the United States want some sort of road map to oppose this cold-blooded attack on the Constitution, but none exists. As James Madison warned us, without a virtuous people, no system of checks and balances will work. The Republicans have gone from being a party that touted virtue to being the most squalid and grubby expression of institutionalized self-interest in the modern history of the American republic.

The real solution will come after all of these schemes fail. Voters must not take the bait and try to tinker with hasty legal and constitutional fixes. These, too, will fail to contain a party that is determined to destroy legal and moral norms in the pursuit of raw power. The better course is to turn our attention to the business of governing, while vowing to drive every member of the sedition caucus out of our public life, both through the ballot box and by shunning their enablers.

The members of the public and the institutions of American life should shroud these seditionists in silence and opprobrium in perpetuity: no television interviews, no sinecures at universities or think tanks, no rehabilitating book tours, no jokey late-night appearances, no self-serving op-eds.

The sedition caucus is worse than a treasonous conspiracy. At least real traitors believe in something. These people instead believe only in their own fortunes and thus will change flags and loyalties as circumstances require. They will always become what they pretend to be, and so they cannot—and must not—be trusted ever again with political power.

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