Fight Like Our Democracy Depends on It
The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction. Mr. Trump is attempting to create a presidency unconstrained by Congress or the courts, in which he and his appointees can override written law when they want to. It is precisely the autocratic approach that this nation’s founders sought to prevent when writing the Constitution.
The attack on democracy you probably missed
Welcome to the Logoff. Today I’m covering another purge at the Justice Department, where Donald Trump’s administration is taking revenge against high-ranking career prosecutors who prosecuted Trump allies over January 6 and in other criminal cases.
What’s the latest? The head of the Washington, DC, US attorney’s office demoted seven high-ranking prosecutors on Friday, Reuters reports, moving them to entry-level positions in a bid to force them to quit. Those demoted include:
The leader of the “Capitol siege prosecution unit”
Trump hasn’t created a ‘constitutional crisis’ — he’s teaching Dems a lesson
Not a sentence said by a Democrat these days doesn’t have a subject, a verb and “constitutional crisis.”
President Trump wanting to halt spending while he reviews a government in massive debt is an “assault on Democracy,” a “circumvention of Congress” and, in typical understatement, an “executive coup.”
Balderdash.
Trump Dares the Courts to Stop Him
The U.S. Constitution established three branches of government, designed to balance power — and serve as checks on one another. That constitutional order suddenly appears more vulnerable than it has in generations. President Trump is trying to expand his authority beyond the bounds of the law while reducing the ability of the other branches to check his excesses. It’s worth remembering why undoing this system of governance would be so dangerous to American democracy and why it’s vital that Congress, the courts and the public resist such an outcome.
Syria rebel leader says new elections could take up to 4 years
Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of the new governing authority in Syria, said in a Sunday interview that it could take up to four years to hold elections in the country.
In an interview with Saudi television network Al-Arabiyya, al-Sharaa said the different political factions will need to rewrite the country’s constitution and the country’s infrastructure will need to be reconstructed.
“The chance we have today doesn’t come every five or 10 years,” al-Sharaa said in the interview. “We want the constitution to last for the longest time possible.”
The End of a Scam
Biden was never a wonderful guy, and definitely not the savior of democracy, no matter what his media supporters said.
How appropriate that the Biden presidency is ending with an act of self-dealing that he and his allies insisted, with great righteousness, would never happen.
Joe Biden was always a scam, and his pardon of his son Hunter Biden is just the latest evidence.
No one should have believed Biden’s flagrant lie that he wouldn’t pardon Hunter for his tax and gun crimes and other potential wrongdoing.
Brazil Bans Free Speech In The Name Of Democracy. Are We Next?
One of the main lines of attack against Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president of Brazil until 2022, was one that we’re all very familiar with at this point. Liberals claimed that Bolsonaro was an “enemy of democracy.” Media outlets — both in the United States and Brazil — claimed that Bolsonaro was an autocrat who wanted to suspend the rule of law and use the force of government to punish his political enemies. This message resonated with Brazilians because some very prominent figures promoted it — including a former prosecutor-turned Supreme Court judge named Alexandre de Moraes.
Maduro’s opponent in recent Venezuela presidential election forced to flee the country
Edmundo Gonzalez, the candidate for the opposition party in Venezuela’s presidential election in July and Nicolas Maduro’s political opponent, was forced to flee Venezuela. Gonzalez arrived with his wife in Spain on Sunday, officially exiled from the country. His departure from Venezuela was part of an arrangement with Maduro’s government after an arrest warrant was issued for Gonzalez last week. The diplomat and recent presidential candidate was charged with multiple crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying documents, among other charges, according to the Associated Press.
A Democracy With Everything but a Choice
This November, voters in rural Perry County, Mo., will face a ballot with candidates for a bevy of local offices: state senator, state representative and circuit judge; two county commissioners, sheriff and many more.
What they won’t face is a choice.
Each of the 17 down-ballot races in Perry County has only one candidate. Just south, Cape Girardeau County fares only slightly better: Three of 12 races have two candidates.