Democracy gone Astray: Sunday, October 08, 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.]

Sunday, October 08, 2023

The Responses To Marjorie Taylor Greene’s New Memoir Are Exactly What You’d Think

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced her upcoming memoir on Tuesday, prompting immediate backlash and mockery from critics on social media.

“MTG” will tell Greene’s “side of the story,” the firebrand Republican told the conservative Washington Examiner in promoting the book, which has a Nov. 21 publication date.

“I’m always controversial, but I think this book might be a little controversial with some of the stories,” said Greene, who has denied climate change and promoted conspiracy theories during her time in Congress.

Andrew Kirtzman, the author of two books on former Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, on Tuesday broke down the “extraordinary story” that has left the former New York City mayor “penniless” and “facing prison.”

Giuliani’s “catastrophic fall” is “just one of the great, kind of, rise and falls of our generation,” Kirtzman told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in a video shared online by Mediaite.

“I mean, Giuliani was once worth $100 million. His Giuliani Partners was founded right after 9/11 to capitalize on his 9/11 fame. The place made $100 million over five years,” Kirtzman noted.

Bjørn Gulden, chief executive of Adidas, has lamented the end of the company’s lucrative partnership with Kanye West, saying, “I don’t think he meant what he said,” regarding the rapper’s antisemitic comments in October 2022.

West, who has changed his name to Ye, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he was “going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE … You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda”. On Instagram, he posted a screenshot of a conversation with Diddy, where he wrote: “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.” Ye had caused further anger earlier that month by including T-shirts with the slogan White Lives Matter in a Yeezy fashion show in Paris.

Russia has “deliberately and repeatedly” targeted medical facilities in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, causing damage to children’s hospitals, maternity wards and a regional clinic, according to a new study.

Russian troops swept into Kherson last year in the early days of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. In November, Ukraine’s armed forces evicted them from the southern city as part of a sweeping counteroffensive.

Israeli forces have killed at least five Palestinians during two raids in the occupied West Bank, and another Palestinian in a separate incident in the blockaded Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours in the latest spike of violence on the occupied territories.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, and killed four Palestinians. Some 30 others were also wounded, according to Palestinian health officials.

The four killed were identified as Mahmoud Saadi, 23; Mahmoud Ararawi, 24; Raafat Khamayseh, 22; and Atta Mousa, 29.

A small group of rebellious House Republicans sank the annual funding bill for the Pentagon in the House Tuesday, underlining how difficult it will be to keep the entire government open and the lights on after Sept. 30.

The defense bill is usually the easiest for Republicans to vote in favor of, as it funds their top priority: national defense. But this year, it has become entangled in a wider, increasingly bitter intra-party fight in the House GOP overspending.

Justin Trudeau has said his government is looking at “credible allegations potentially linking” India to the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Canadian Sikh leader, a claim Delhi dismissed as “absurd”.

The Canadian prime minister told the House of Commons of Canada on Monday that, in recent weeks, national security authorities had been probing allegations that New Delhi was behind a state-sponsored assassination.

Former Twitter executive Yoel Roth warned of the dangers of an unmoderated internet while talking about the extended harassment he’s faced in an essay for The New York Times published on Monday.

Roth, the former head of Twitter’s trust and safety division, wrote about living in fear after being targeted by former President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for his work moderating content on the site, now owned by Musk and rebranded as X.

Former President Donald Trump revived one of his most egregious lies about abortion during an interview televised Sunday, repeatedly making the easily debunked claim that multiple states allow physicians to “kill the baby after birth.”

The former president and 2024 Republican front-runner made the claims during a pretaped sit-down interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Trump insisted on this being true eight times throughout the interview, despite moderator Kristen Welker’s repeated corrections.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India expelled one of Canada’s top diplomats Tuesday, ramping up a confrontation between the two countries over Canadian accusations that India may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in suburban Vancouver.

India, which has dismissed the accusations as absurd, said the expulsion came amid “growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities,” according to a statement from its Ministry of External Affairs.

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday once again repeated his request to have the judge presiding over his federal election interference case removed, citing what he said were “disqualifying statements.”

In a new 11-page court filing, Trump argued that prior comments made by Judge Tanya Chutkan in two other Jan. 6 defendants’ cases she presided over “point to the unmistakable conclusion that the appearance of prejudgment will infect every aspect of this case and cause the public to rightly question the very legitimacy of these historic proceedings.”

Donald Trump doomed one of his legal defenses during his interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that aired on Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press,” legal experts said.

Trump told Welker it was his decision — and not that of his lawyers — to challenge the 2020 election result.

“Were you calling the shots, though, Mr. President, ultimately?” Welker asked Trump. The ex-president replied: “As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure … it was my decision. But I listened to some people. Some people said that.”

Former President Donald Trump marked the start of the Jewish High Holy Days with a fiery missive on Sunday reminding his followers that “liberal Jews” voted to “destroy America & Israel” through their support of Joe Biden.

Trump took to his Truth Social platform to wish Jewish Americans a happy new year on Rosh Hashanah.

Six of the seven Ukrainian deputy defense ministers were fired this morning. Earlier this month, when President Zelenskyy of Ukraine sacked his defense minister, news reports cited the ministry’s allegations of mishandling military contracting and corruption. This sort of corruption prompted President Biden to state last month that Ukraine was not ready for NATO membership.

But just a couple days later, at a NATO summit in Vilnius, member countries insisted it was only a matter of time before Ukraine would join the alliance. They even dropped the requirement for Ukraine to abide by a Membership Action Plan — NATO’s rigorous program which ensures aspiring countries meet the alliance’s military, economic and democratic standards. Zelenskyy visits the U.N. General Assembly and White House this week, bringing Ukraine’s NATO aspirations back into the news.

House Republicans leading the investigations into President Joe Biden and his son will subpoena Biden’s son, Hunter, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday. But when that will happen is still up in the air.

“Hunter Biden will get subpoenaed, but when is the appropriate time? Do you do it because television wants it?” McCarthy said during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy cautioned members of his caucus against failing to coalesce behind a government spending bill on Sunday, warning about the impact a government shutdown could have for the party.

“I’ve been through shutdowns, and I’ve never seen somebody win a shutdown. Because when you shut down, you give all your power to the administration,” McCarthy said Sunday during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo.

AUSTIN, Texas — Newly acquitted of impeachment charges, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is back on the job and getting back to the usual.

Promises to keep dragging the Biden administration into court. Support from former President Donald Trump. And coming soon, a sit-down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

As Paxton on Sunday begins his first full day back in office after winning acquittal in the Texas Senate over accusations of corruption and bribery, the Republican is quickly resuming what has long helped make him one of the most resilient political figures in the U.S. despite years of criminal charges and alleged scandal.

VIENNA — No one does victimhood quite like Austria.

Over the past century, the Central European country has presented itself to the outside world as an innocent bystander on an island of gemütlichkeit, doing what it can to get by in a treacherous global environment.

“Austria was always apolitical,” insists Herr Karl, the archetypal Austrian opportunist, brought to life in 1961 by Helmut Qualtinger, the country’s greatest satirist. “We were never political people.”

Republican comments about impeachment are coming back to haunt them.

A new supercut video from MSNBC shows that top GOP lawmakers ― including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) ― had some very different feelings about the process not too long ago when Donald Trump was the subject.

Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) drew criticism on Sunday with her pearl-clutching response to a report that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had changed the chamber’s informal dress code.

The move would allow Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) to wear his casual-style clothes on the Senate floor.

Donald Trump is intent on leaning into his criminal cases to boost his 2024 campaign through the election next year, according to multiple people close to the former president, after he tested that strategy through multiple indictments and decided it gave him major political advantages.

The summer was devastating for Trump from a legal perspective, after he was charged with retaining national security documents in Florida as well as with seeking to overturn the 2020 election in Washington and in Georgia, the trials for which will occur before the election.

Taiwan’s defence ministry has urged China to stop “destructive, unilateral action” after reporting a sharp rise in Chinese military activities near the island, warning such behaviour could lead to an increase in tensions.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has in recent years regularly carried out military drills around the island as it seeks to assert its sovereignty claims and pressure Taipei.

Donald Trump offered up a strange scapegoat for the Jan. 6 insurrection in a new interview.

The former president accused former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of allowing mobs of violent Trump supporters to overtake the U.S. Capitol by allegedly turning down his offer to activate the National Guard.

Thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill to try and stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021, following Trump’s repeated lies about a stolen election.

Russell Brand has spent the past decade telling the world not to trust the mainstream media industry. Now the comedian will find out whether the wider public has bought into this scorched-earth narrative – or if they believe the claims of rape and sexual assault reported in the Sunday Times and on Channel 4 over the weekend.

The allegations against Brand – which he denies – once again leave the British media industry reeling from claims that a prominent man was able to misuse his position for sexual pleasure.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday slammed a report from the European Parliament on the country’s EU accession talks and threatened to “part ways” from the bloc.

Questioned by journalists about the report, Erdoğan said that “the EU is trying to break away from Turkey,” according to Turkish state media Anadolu Agency.

At the Brics summit in South Africa in August, Xi Jinping made headlines when he failed to appear at a leaders’ meeting to deliver a scheduled speech.

Another scene also did the rounds: a Chinese aide hurrying to catch up with Xi, only to be body slammed by security guards and held back, flailing, as the president cruised on through the closing doors, not bothered by the chaos behind him.

The first incident prompted rampant speculation about Xi’s health, a political crisis or conspiracy. The second, mostly memes. But it perhaps served as a metaphor.

US oil and gas multinationals are facing fresh questions over their trade with Russia after customs records revealed that more than $7.1m (£5.7m) worth of equipment manufactured by Halliburton has been imported into the country since it announced the end of its Russian operations.

Last September Halliburton, one of the world’s largest providers of products and services for oil and gas exploration, sold its Russian office to local management amid pressure on all US companies to cease their trade after the invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, two months after a state judge declared a 19th century anti-abortion law too ambiguous to enforce, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) announced that it would resume abortion services in the state.

PPWI halted abortion services in June 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections that were recognized in Roe v. Wade. PPWI had cut off such services because it was uncertain whether a state law from 1849, which is still on the books in Wisconsin but had been blocked by Roe when it was decided in 1973, forbade the organization from continuing to provide the procedure.

For months now, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) has been denouncing what she sees as the weaponization of the Department of Justice because of its prosecutions of leaders of the January 6 insurrection and the multiple indictments of Donald Trump. She has labeled Special Counsel Jack Smith’s letter to Trump “absolute bullshit,” and described Smith as a “weak little bitch for the Democrats” — a crude insult similar to that which she recently hurled at her fellow far right provocateur, Lauren Boebert, whom Greene labeled a “nasty little bitch.”

The government is barreling toward a shutdown. House Republicans threaten to impeach the president — though some of them don’t see the evidence. A Republican senator has a one-man blockade on military promotions with no end in sight.

The Capitol is in crisis. And though Democrats control much of the government, Republican divisions are driving the chaos.

Each of the Hill’s messes will reach a peak this fall, starting with a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. Each on its own is a headache; the collection of problems lawmakers have to juggle at once is almost unthinkable.

Avik Roy, a longtime fixture in Republican policy-wonk circles, made a splash this summer when he organized a manifesto pushing back on the nationalist, market-skeptical tendencies on the new, Trump-era right. The document, signed by Jeb Bush, Grover Norquist, George Will, and a couple hundred other conservative worthies, generated a decent amount of inside-the-Beltway buzz when it launched in July.

It wasn’t just that Freedom Conservatism: A Statement of Principles highlighted a family feud within the movement. It was the very fact that its pieties about the majesty of capitalism were even controversial — an indication of just how far conservative economic theology had drifted.

Former President Donald Trump responded furiously to the special counsel’s request for a gag order prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, witnesses and the judge in his federal indictment over attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

“I’m campaigning for President against an incompetent person who has WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent, & I am not allowed to COMMENT?” Trump wrote on Truth Social soon after the news of the request broke Friday. “How else would I explain that Jack Smith is DERANGED, or Crooked Joe is INCOMPETENT?”

They’re more conservative than other Republicans. More likely to be men. Less likely to have graduated from college.

And they’re way more confident they’ve made up their minds, even though the first primary or caucus is still four months away.

That’s the coalition former President Donald Trump has assembled in asserting his dominance over the Republican presidential primary.

GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to “gut” the system for H-1B temporary worker visas if he wins the White House.

It’s the very system he’s used in the past to hire high-skilled foreign workers for the pharma company that built much of his wealth.

From 2018 through 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs.

Two cargo ships have arrived at a Ukrainian port after travelling through the Black Sea using a new route, Ukrainian port authorities said.

They reached Chornomorsk on Saturday, and were due to load 20,000 tonnes of wheat bound for world markets.

Officials said it was the first time civilian ships had reached a Ukrainian port since the collapse of a deal with Russia ensuring the safety of vessels.

‘A small fish in a sea of sharks’: The isle caught between China and Taiwan

Kinmen Islands, Taiwan – On a warm, still evening in early June, Jason Lu parks his electric scooter near a beach on the small Taiwanese island of Kinmen. Lu, who wears a black T-shirt and glasses, pulls a bag out from under his scooter seat then heads down to the beach.

“Oh!” exclaims the 43-year-old once making it down to the shore.

Lu bends down to pick up a worn plastic bottle that has washed up beside his foot and puts it in his bag. “Wet Chinese plastic,” he says flatly. He points to the simplified Chinese characters on the packaging indicating the bottle’s origin – mainland China. Taiwan and Hong Kong use traditional Chinese characters.

Three years ago, the United States mediated an agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Israel, promising to normalise ties between these Arab Gulf states and Israel.

Since formalising the Abraham Accords in September 2020, the UAE and Israel have deepened their relations across a number of economic domains, as well as defence. Months after the two Arab nations signed on, two more joined the accords, Morocco and Sudan, and it seemed like the US was possibly on track to sign up even more Arab countries.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has received five explosive drones, a reconnaissance drone and a bulletproof vest as gifts from a regional governor on his visit to Russia.

On Saturday he met the Russian defence minister in Vladivostok, where he inspected state-of-the-art weapons, including a hypersonic missile system.

TASS said the “leader of the DPRK received five kamikaze drones and a ‘Geran-25’ reconnaissance drone with vertical takeoff”, using the official name of North Korea.

Lauren Boebert, the US congresswoman, has issued an apology after being kicked out of a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver for inappropriate behavior, an experience she has called “difficult and humbling”.

Boebert, a Republican representative for Colorado, and a male guest accompanying her were ejected from the musical on 10 September for vaping, recording video and disturbing other patrons during the Sunday performance. Video also showed them eagerly groping each other while in their seats.

Come Oct. 23, Shelley Bailey and her husband have nowhere to live.

In July, after nine years renting at Varsity Estates Village, a townhouse complex in Calgary’s northwest, the elderly couple received a notice ending their month-to-month tenancy. And as rental rates skyrocket, the urgency of finding a place to live while on a fixed income is taking a heavy toll on the Baileys.

Shelley Bailey wants to stay in her community. “I can walk to my doctor’s, and go to infusions for my Crohn’s,” she says, pausing before breaking into tears. “This is just killing me. I don’t sleep. I’ve lost 15 pounds.”

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville has blocked hundreds of military promotions over a single policy that allows troops access to abortions, creating turmoil within the Pentagon and even his own party.

But few actually use the program.

Only a small number of service members have taken advantage of the year-old rule that offers paid leave and travel reimbursement to troops seeking abortions and other reproductive care, according to the Pentagon.

DENVER (AP) — Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert apologized Friday after getting kicked out of a musical play in Colorado last weekend for disruptive behavior and then falsely denying she had been vaping.

The apology came a day after surveillance video emerged that showed Boebert vaping at her seat in a Denver theater. Her campaign earlier denied the theater’s contention that she had been vaping.

Alexander Lukashenko has expressed interest in creating a trilateral partnership with Russia and North Korea amid rumours that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un were negotiating an arms deal to sustain Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Belarusian leader made the remarks during a summit with Putin in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where the two held their seventh face-to-face meeting this year.

US President Joe Biden has sided with workers who have gone on strike in a pay dispute with three of America's biggest car-makers.

Nearly 13,000 staff walked off the job on Friday at three plants owned by General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

The firms and the United Auto Workers union (UAW) are fighting over terms of new labour agreements.

Federal prosecutors secretly argued in April that if Donald Trump learned of their efforts to access his Twitter account, his public disclosure of the development could “precipitate violence.”

Newly unsealed court filings show that attorneys working for special counsel Jack Smith worried that Trump would publicly announce the search warrant of his Twitter feed just like he announced on Truth Social when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by the FBI last year. That announcement was followed by a surge in threats against federal law enforcement, culminating in the fatal shooting of a man who had attempted to breach an FBI building in Cincinnati.

Canada has announced it would postpone an October trade mission to India, in the midst of strained relations between the two countries.

A spokesperson for Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng confirmed the change on Friday, though no reason was offered for the delay.

“At this time, we are postponing the upcoming trade mission to India,” the spokesperson, Shanti Cosentino, said.

Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Kim Jong-un has been dismissed by the US as an act of desperation by the Russian leader. Although few details have emerged about the leaders’ discussions, the summit in the Russian Far East could preface new and worrying developments in the war in Ukraine and for Kim’s military ambitions. As the North Korean leader continues his tour of military facilities in Russia, here are five takeaways from the summit.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) has signed a bill that bans state and local governments from mandating COVID-19 vaccines for workers after a similar ban expired last month.

The legislation signed Thursday is aimed at defending citizens’ “individual liberty,” Sanders said at a press conference prior to its signing.

The legislation also prohibits COVID-19 vaccinations from being required as a condition of education, or for obtaining a service or licensure, permit or certificate of some kind. Any potential risks and harms associated with the shots must also be recorded and published by the state.

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 case to stop the former president from making inflammatory statements that he said are endangering witnesses and will make finding a fair jury difficult.

“The defendant has repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements attacking the citizens of the District of Columbia, the court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” Smith wrote in a Friday filing to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. “The defendant knows that when he publicly attacks individuals and institutions, he inspires others to perpetrate threats and harassment against his targets.”

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan on Thursday broke down the potential disqualification of Donald Trump from the presidency via the 14th Amendment.

Trump posted a Truth Social tirade about the push to determine his eligibility earlier this month, calling it “election interference” by “radical left communists” trying to steal an election.

“For once, it’s not just the ramblings of a perpetually paranoid malcontent. There really is an effort underway to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot,” Hasan told viewers.