Democracy gone Astray: Wednesday, October 04, 2023

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, October 04, 2023

Hacked Documents Reveal Russia’s Contracts for Cuban Mercenaries in Ukraine

Russia is coordinating the recruitment of over a hundred Cuban mercenaries for its war effort in Ukraine, according to hacked documents obtained by The Intercept.

Activist hackers known as the “Cyber Resistance” and allied to the Ukrainian government recently infiltrated the personal email account of a Russian officer in the Western Military District who was involved in the recruitment of Cubans. The stolen data offers rare and previously unseen insight into how Russia operates its pipeline of foreign mercenaries into the Ukraine conflict.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had an awkward moment on MSNBC on Wednesday night when he seemed either unable or unwilling to explain his own past criticism of Donald Trump.

Host Mehdi Hasan asked Ramaswamy about a tweet calling Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, “downright abhorrent” that he wrote one week after the then-president’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block the certification of the electoral vote that made Joe Biden the next president.

President Joe Biden has traveled more frequently than former President Donald Trump this year, even as Republicans regularly imply the 80-year-old incumbent is homebound as they work to capitalize on voter concerns about his age.

Biden made 60 trips between January and September of this year for White House, personal or political business, according to a HuffPost review of his public schedule. Trump has made 44 trips over the same time period.

For comparison’s sake, former President Barack Obama made 61 trips during the equivalent time period in his presidency, from January 2011 to September 2011.

Right-wing commentator Mike Huckabee is coming under heavy criticism after warning of “bullets” in future elections should Donald Trump lose in 2024 due to his mounting legal woes.

Over the weekend, Huckabee accused President Joe Biden of trying to “destroy Trump” via legal actions in the courthouse rather than at the ballot box via an election.

“Here’s the problem: If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” he said during his monologue on his TBN show “Huckabee.”

Running a small business is hard work at the best of times. Throw in a full scale war, including a Russian missile strike that damages your factory, and the job gets even harder.

Fadir Tools, an artisan toolmaker in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, has had a tricky war. When the Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, owner Serhii Ivin, 41, closed the factory, picked up his pump action shotgun and headed for the main administrative building to help defend the city. A couple of nights later a Russian rocket landed just down the hall. He spent the next few weeks holed up in the basement.

The US has announced it is sending depleted uranium anti-tank rounds to Ukraine, following Britain’s lead in sending the controversial munitions to help Kyiv push through Russian lines in its gruelling counteroffensive.

The 120mm rounds will be used to arm the 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks the US plans to deliver to Ukraine in the coming months.

The armour-piercing rounds were developed by the US during the cold war to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks that Ukraine faces in its counteroffensive.

Reports that North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, may visit Russia soon to meet Vladimir Putin – probably to discuss the supply of North Korean weapons for Putin’s war in Ukraine – point to a rather remarkable transformation of Russian-North Korean relations. During the cold war, North Korea was Moscow’s key ally in north-east Asia. But at that time, the North Koreans were, at best, poor supplicants to a mighty superpower. Today, Kim’s hermit kingdom stands tall and proud as Russia’s partner in crime.

China’s workers have long been known for putting in long days at the office, but they now face a new set of responsibilities: studying the writings of President Xi Jinping.

Since Beijing launched a new propaganda drive earlier this year, Xi Jinping Thought is reportedly becoming a common topic of discussion among employees at state-owned companies and private businesses, including foreign firms.

Romania reacted with fury on Wednesday after debris from a Russian drone was found on its territory near the Danube river, following Moscow’s assault on a Ukrainian port.

Russian drone debris landing in Romania would be “a serious violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Romania,” the country’s President Klaus Iohannis said Wednesday.

Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tîlvăr confirmed that pieces of the drone were discovered in the country, which is a member of the NATO military alliance.

The idea of barring former President Donald Trump from seeking the presidency on grounds that it would violate the 14th Amendment may be an increasingly catchy constitutional argument pushed by a segment of legal scholars and activists.

But it turns out election officials have been discussing how to handle it for months.

“We have been thinking about this in my office for quite some time, before the start of the year, assuming that this will play out,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in an interview.

A former head of the Mossad intelligence agency has said Israel is imposing a form of apartheid on the Palestinians, joining a growing number of prominent Israelis to compare the occupation of the West Bank to South Africa’s defunct system of racial oppression.

But Tamir Pardo’s views will have added impact because of the high regard for Mossad in Israel and because they come at a time when far-right members of Israel’s government are moving to kill off any prospect of an independent Palestinian state.

A watchdog group has filed a lawsuit in Colorado arguing that former President Donald Trump should not appear on the state’s ballot because of his 14th Amendment violations.

The group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a state district court on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters who say Trump’s actions after he lost the 2020 presidential election are in clear violation of section three of the amendment, which says a person cannot hold state or federal office if they took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then violated it by inciting insurrection or rebellion.

President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday canceled all remaining Donald Trump-era oil and gas leases in Alaska’s fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and moved to protect an additional 13 million acres in the nearby National Petroleum Reserve from drilling and other development.

This comes as Biden finds himself under mounting pressure to move more aggressively to curb fossil fuel development on federal lands, as planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions help drive increasingly extreme weather disasters around the globe. And it looks to fulfill the president’s campaign promise to “reverse the Trump administration’s assaults on America’s natural treasures, including by reversing Trump’s attacks on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”

Mike Pence on Wednesday implored Republican voters to remember and heed their onetime hero, Ronald Reagan, and said that the party should not be based on the “personal grievances and performative outrage” of and for his former boss, Donald Trump.

“The truth is, the Republican Party did not begin on a golden escalator in 2015,” the former vice president said in a speech at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, which will hold the first-in-the-nation presidential primary in just five months. “We have come to a Republican time for choosing.”

Though five of their leaders have been sentenced to a combined 82 years in prison over their seditious plot to overturn an election, the Proud Boys aren’t going away.

The far-right street gang has certainly undergone changes since hundreds of its members stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: Its national chapter, consisting of leaders from across the country, was purportedly dissolved shortly after the gang was labeled a terrorist organization in two countries. Several local chapters disavowed their chairman, Enrique Tarrio, after news outlets revealed he’d been a federal informant in an unrelated case in 2012. Meanwhile, dozens of rank-and-file Proud Boys have been indicted for their role in the Capitol attack.

WASHINGTON ― Republicans in the U.S. Senate aren’t thrilled about the prospect of the House impeaching President Joe Biden.

“Don’t we have enough on our plate?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said with a trace of annoyance on Wednesday, ticking off a laundry list of legislation the Senate must pass in the coming months.

Other Republican senators suggested their House counterparts just don’t have enough evidence to launch impeachment proceedings, which would be politically risky and could backfire on their party ahead of the 2024 elections.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) had some blunt words for Republicans who are pushing to impeach President Joe Biden: It’ll bite you in next year’s elections.

“Go ahead. Do it, I dare you,” Fetterman said during an interview with a handful of reporters in his Capitol Hill office on Wednesday. “If you can find the votes, go ahead, because you’re going to lose. It’s a loser.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on Wednesday amid a flurry of Russian airstrikes, including one that killed at least 16 civilians.

That airstrike hit a market in Kostyantynivka, an eastern city near the frontlines, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post. Overnight, Moscow fired cruise missiles at Kyiv in the first aerial attack on the capital in almost a week, according to Serhii Popko, head of Kyiv’s regional military administration.

Since 1967, non-Muslims have been allowed to visit Al-Aqsa but not pray at the holy site. Yet that status quo is rapidly eroding in recent years as Israeli Jewish settler groups work alongside the government to take control of the compound.

Under Jewish law, the ashes of a red heifer (young female cow) must be scattered across Haram al-Sharif before Jews can ascend it and rebuild the Third Temple. While the hunt for a red heifer has long been considered a fringe initiative touted by Temple Mount activists, new research reveals the Israeli government is now involved in this endeavor.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said polls of the Republican presidential race don’t tell the full story of what could happen to Donald Trump once primary voters actually start casting ballots next year.

“A lot of people will say they’re for Trump now because he’s winning,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “The minute someone else is feasible, is plausible ― and by winning either the caucuses in Iowa or the primary in New Hampshire, you’re more than feasible or plausible. You’re now someone who has defeated Donald Trump. That becomes a whole different story.”

Astounding comments Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) made in April disputing the cause of climate change went viral again on Tuesday.

“People are not affecting climate change,” Greene says in a video shared Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter) that has been viewed over 5.3 million times. “You’re going to tell me that back in the ice age, how much taxes did people pay, and how many changes did governments make to melt the ice? The climate is going to continue to change.”

Like everyone else on the internet, I found myself staring unpleasantly into the angry eyes of Donald J. Trump. I wasn’t happy about it — but not for the reasons you might think.

A mug shot, by its very nature, is a tool used to oppress. Mug shots — or booking photos — are an identifying image taken by law enforcement after a person has been arrested. One hundred percent of the people photographed are legally innocent in a nation that proclaims all accused people remain innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The head of the Anti-Defamation League said the spread of antisemitism and hate on X, formerly known as Twitter, was “deeply troubling,” amid owner Elon Musk’s threat to sue the group over such claims this week.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the ADL, spoke about Musk’s warning on Tuesday, saying he wouldn’t comment on “frivolous” lawsuits but that there was an unequivocal surge in hate on social media. The group said in May that X’s decision to reinstate previously banned accounts had helped foster “social spaces where Twitter users connected through shared antisemitism and other hate.”

Republican strategist Alice Stewart on Tuesday pulled no punches when describing the ruthless political ambitions of Donald Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case.

But Stewart told CNN’s Jake Tapper that those indicted alongside the former president — including former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani — are just as likely to flip on Trump, given they could now face serious prison time if they are found guilty and are convicted.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit that is his first for a year to the Ukrainian capital.

He is expected to announce a new package of US assistance of $175m-$200m during the two-day visit, AP reported, with a larger package worth more than $1bn expected later this week, according to a senior state department official.

Blinken will meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, and the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

New Delhi, India – As some of the most powerful heads of government descend on the Indian capital later this week to attend the summit of a deeply divided Group of 20, one question hovers over New Delhi’s hazy air: Does this annual meeting still serve any purpose?

There is no easy answer, according to experts.

The G20 started in 1999 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis as a forum for finance ministers and central bank governors to discuss global financial and economic issues.

After the global financial crisis that started in 2007, it was upgraded to the level of heads of state and in 2009 it was designated the “premier forum for international economic cooperation”. At the time, the G20 nations agreed to spend $4 trillion to revive their economies and that of the world, cut back trade barriers and carry out reforms of their financial systems.

Mitch McConnell is moving as fast as he can to get beyond questions about whether his health will hurt his ability to lead Senate Republicans.

Within hours of the Senate’s return Tuesday, the GOP leader’s office released a letter from the Capitol physician with more details clearing him for work after last week’s on-camera freeze, his second this summer. McConnell then delivered a floor speech mostly focused on the Senate’s task ahead in funding the government, and after huddled with his leadership team for a meeting on the fall agenda.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for what he said was putting “politics ahead of his job,” after DeSantis snubbed President Joe Biden over the weekend during his visit to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia.

“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, is to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Christie said during an interview on Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show.” “You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job. That was his choice.”

Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks against prosecutors and judges threatened to influence potential jurors in his 2020 election interference case.

Smith’s team filed documents in court saying Trump has made “daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool,” referencing the former president’s repeated statements on social media. Trump, who was indicted by a federal grand jury over his attempted coup to remain in office, has repeatedly called Smith “deranged” and attacked the judge assigned to the case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, as “highly partisan” and “unfair.”

The US warned Kim Jong-un that North Korea would “pay a price” for supplying Russia with weapons to use in Ukraine, saying that arms negotiations between the two states were actively advancing.

Providing weapons to Russia “is not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House.

The Kremlin said earlier on Tuesday it had “nothing to say” about statements by US officials that Kim planned to travel to Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin and discuss weapons supplies to Moscow.

NEW YORK — New York Attorney General Tish James asked a judge on Tuesday to impose $20,000 in sanctions on Donald Trump, his two adult sons, their lawyers and other co-defendants for their actions in a civil fraud lawsuit scheduled to go to trial next month.

Trump and his lawyers have engaged in “frivolous conduct” by repeatedly making legal arguments that courts have already rejected, the attorney general’s office wrote.

The Cuban government has exposed a Russian trafficking operation used to lure Cubans into the war against Ukraine, Cuban authorities announced Monday.

“The Ministry of the Interior has detected and is working to neutralize and dismantle a human trafficking network operating from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday.

Investors on Tuesday granted a last-minute lifeline to the company looking to take former President Donald Trump’s social media venture public, handing executives another year to finish the transaction ahead of a do-or-die deadline this week.

More than 65 percent of shareholders in Digital World Acquisition Corp. — a so-called special purpose acquisition company — signed off on giving it until next September to complete its beleaguered merger with Trump Media & Technology Group and list the combined firm on Nasdaq.

The leaders of three branches of the U.S. military slammed Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) over his monthslong blockade of senior military promotions Tuesday, with one accusing the Republican senator of “aiding and abetting communists.”

“For someone who was born in a communist country, I would have never imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communists and other autocratic regimes around the world,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro — a Cuban-born Navy veteran — said Tuesday during an interview on CNN alongside Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

The Wagner mercenary group will be declared a terrorist organisation, the Home Office has announced.

A draft order will be laid in parliament on Wednesday, which will make it illegal to be a member of or support the Russian group in the UK. The group has played a prominent role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine since it began in February 2022.

It has also been active in conflicts in Syria, Central African Republic, Sudan and Libya.

The finger-pointing among Donald Trump’s inner circle has begun.

And as his four criminal cases march toward trials, some of his aides, allies and co-defendants are pointing at the former president.

In court documents and hearings, lawyers for people in Trump’s orbit — both high-level advisers and lesser known associates — are starting to reveal glimmers of a tried-and-true strategy in cases with many defendants: Portray yourself as a hapless pawn while piling blame on the apparent kingpin.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the former chairman of the violent neo-fascist gang the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly handed down the sentence in a District of Columbia courtroom Tuesday, the longest sentence yet for a Capitol attacker. His sentence also included 36 months of supervised release. The Justice Department had sought 33 years for 39-year-old Tarrio for the pivotal role he played in orchestrating the violence on Jan. 6 that left more than 100 police officers injured.

Given the opportunity to speak before his sentencing, Tarrio’s voice cracked and he wiped away tears as he told the court he had “failed” his family, according to reporters in the courtroom.

WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said the House of Representatives may open an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. But he may lack the votes to make it happen.

While far-right lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have demanded impeachment, a number of more moderate Republicans sound skeptical. McCarthy can lose only four votes from his own party and still push a resolution through the House without Democratic support.

Taipei, Taiwan – GoFundMe froze a fundraising campaign for the far-left news outlet The Grayzone due to “external concerns”, in the latest case to highlight the contentious role of tech companies in regulating controversial speech.

The Grayzone says it was unable to access more than $90,000 that about 1,100 contributors donated to support the work of three reporters.

Max Blumenthal, the founder and editor of The Grayzone, said the California-based crowdfunding company informed him in mid-August that he would not be allowed to transfer the donations pending a review of the fundraiser related to unspecified “external concerns”.

Aides to President Joe Biden had braced for the Republican candidates to pile on the Hunter Biden attacks during the first primary debate. His campaign even drafted a rapid response press release on the issue.

They never had to send it out.

For months, “Where’s Hunter?” and “Biden Crime Family” has become a rallying cry of the right. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is signaling he may move forward with an impeachment inquiry against the president this year over alleged corruption related to Hunter Biden’s activities.

At this point in the 2024 race, it looks like President Joe Biden is set for a rematch with his predecessor Donald Trump. It’s a matchup that nobody wants to see, at least according to the polls and the pundits.

About 70% of the public says they don’t want either Biden or Trump to run for president, according to one August poll. That is consistent with multiple surveys taken throughout 2023. National and local newspaper columnists, meanwhile, bemoan another “awful” matchup and the sense of “impending doom” that is sending voters “through the famous five stages of grief.”

X owner Elon Musk’s threat to sue the Anti-Defamation League isn’t going over well on his own platform.

Users of the website, known as Twitter when he purchased it last year for $44 billion, are calling him out for hypocrisy for claiming he’s a “free-speech absolutist” while also saying he has “no choice” but to sue the organization.

The ADL has criticized Musk for restoring accounts that had been previously banned for hate speech, a spike in antisemitism on the site after his takeover and for weak moderation policies.

After years of backing UN sanctions targeting North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, Russia is now reaching out to its neighbour for help. The war in Ukraine has forced the Kremlin to reassess its relationship with Pyongyang as it seeks to secure weapons to replace its own depleted stocks.

A possible meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un later this month in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok would add geopolitical substance to the symbolic meeting of minds that has unfolded between the leaders of the pariah states over 18 months of fighting in Ukraine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's reported plans to visit Russia this month have caused concern among the US and its allies.

He and President Vladimir Putin intend to discuss the possibility of North Korea providing Moscow with weapons to support its war in Ukraine, US officials say.

On the surface, an arms deal between North Korea and Russia makes perfect transactional sense.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un plans to travel to Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin, a US official has told the BBC's US partner CBS.

The two leaders will discuss the possibility of North Korea providing Moscow with weapons to support its war in Ukraine, the official said.

Where talks would be held is not clear.

The Kremlin spokesman had "nothing to say" on the reports, which were also carried by other US media. There was no immediate comment from North Korea.

Cuba has uncovered a human trafficking ring that has coerced Cuban citizens to fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine, its foreign ministry said, adding that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.

The ministry’s statement on Monday gave few details but noted the trafficking ring was operating both in the Caribbean island nation and within Russia.

“The Ministry of the Interior detected and is working on the neutralization and dismantling of a human trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the statement said.

Elon Musk said Monday that X, formerly known as Twitter, has “no choice” but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League amid an ongoing slump in advertising revenue.

Musk said the tech giant’s advertising revenue was down 60% in the U.S. following his acquisition of the company last year for $44 billion. His tenure has been rocky, to say the least: X has laid off thousands of staffers and Musk has enacted dramatic changes to limit features, paywall others and promote the site as a new bastion for free speech. That included an amnesty program for suspended accounts that prompted groups — including the ADL — to warn the changes would lead to an increase in harassment and hate speech.

But Musk said he blamed the fall in ad dollars on the ADL ― which works to combat hate against Jewish people ― saying the group had falsely accused X and Musk of being antisemitic.

DETROIT (AP) — A 46% pay raise. A 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay. A restoration of traditional pensions.

The demands that a more combative United Auto Workers union has pressed on General Motors, Stellantis and Ford — demands that even the UAW’s own president calls “audacious” — are edging it closer to a strike when its contract ends Sept. 14.

Kim Jong-un will reportedly travel to Russia this month to meet Vladimir Putin and discuss the possibility of supplying weapons to the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said details of the expected meeting were still unclear, but added that it was likely to take place in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, given its proximity to North Korea.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that supplying weapons to Russia “is not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community”.

President Joe Biden slammed former President Donald Trump for not building “a damn thing” during his presidency.

Biden’s handling of the economy is one concern many voters have as they consider whom to pick on the ballot next year. In a Labor Day speech on Monday to Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 19 in his native state of Pennsylvania, Biden sought to address that concern as he compared his presidency to Trump’s, referring to him multiple times as the “last guy.”