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I mean, you know, on the one hand, stuff that a lot of people have been saying about Trump, some of which I've been saying about Trump for some time. But from his former secretary defense, the adult in the room, Mad Dog Mattis, four-star general respected by everyone, lends a veneer, a sheen of both credibility and respectability to the Trump cabinet in the early years. Of course, then he leaves, but does not say anything negative about the president and refuses to go on the media tour that so many other former cabinet officials have done and was under massive pressure for doing so. So many people calling on him, "why are you not making any statements?" Now, of course, the GOP not making any statements either, but still, Mattis is someone who was seen to be above the fray and particularly well respected in the middle of a national security crisis with so many protesters on the streets, a fair amount of violence, the police brutality and the country so incredibly divided.

The timing, I think, especially after President Bush made his statement, something that President Bush really did not want to do and I thought, a very effective statement, a very unifying statement. I think the amount of personal pressure that Mattis would have been under in the last 24-48 hours would have been extraordinary and so he decided finally he needed to say something. I will tell you, I personally don't think this is going to have much of an effect on Trump's reelection possibilities. I don't see Mattis as someone who is going to become a leading voice on CNN or MSNBC. I think it will make news over the course of this weekend and by next week it'll be gone. But I do think it's important for people to understand that the national security complex in the United States, including those people that report to the commander-in-chief, are not automatons and they will not simply do his bidding.

And I think that perhaps the more important piece of news in the last 24 hours was not the Mattis letter, but was actually the letter from the chief, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, who was seen in, you know, fatigues and camos out on Lafayette Square and walking around the White House, quite unusual, but then sent a memo to all of his direct reports saying that their duty is to uphold the Constitution, making it very clear where their loyalties are. And, of course, highly unusual. Why would you need to send out a letter that is, on the one hand, so obvious? What's the reason for it? What's the timing? Well, precisely because there is this open question of the constitutionality of dispersing a peaceful protest on public land with no advance notification. And the head of the Joint Chiefs making very clear that they do not serve the president, they serve the Constitution. That's where their loyalty is. Now, he didn't mention President Trump in that memo, but the point was very clear, which is that the United States is not an authoritarian country, is not in danger of becoming an authoritarian country. And that as divided as the country is and as unequal and unrepresentative as America's institutions are, it is not a dictatorship.

And I think the consistent thing that we can say about Trump's lead not only is, you know, his level of incompetence or his unfitness to rule, but also how constrained he continues to be. This is not about Trump able to wield power no matter what. It's actually Trump continually needing to bolster himself up precisely because he's constrained. He has to go to the bunker. Why does he go to the bunker? Because there's a national security threat against him. He didn't want to go to the bunker. He had to go to bunker. It gets reported. It gets out. So, then he has to say, "oh, I was inspecting the bunker. I didn't need, it wasn't because I was scared." No. Any president of the United States, no matter how brave you were, is going to be in the bunker at that point. That's it. That's the way it works. That's what happens when you are the president of a democracy with rule of law. But Trump can handle it. So, he makes it seem like he's stronger than he actually is.

And I think it's important for those that dislike him to understand that we're not on the path to dictatorship. We're not on the path of implosion. We are an incredibly divisive and increasingly dysfunctional country that doesn't know exactly what we stand for and therefore has a hard time leading internationally as well. Both capability and desire.

I will say that a bigger part of the problem is what I saw from Senator Republican Senator Murkowski, who came out just in the last few hours and said, "I completely support everything Mattis just said. It was overdue and it was true. It was correct." In other words, yes, the president is unfit. Yes, unconstitutional. Yes, he shouldn't serve. And she also said, "and therefore, I am struggling mightily with the question of whether or not to support him in November." Now, I mean, you can imagine that's big news, right? A Republican senator saying, "I'm struggling with whether or not to support Trump," but that's actually not the news. Actually, the news is that with the exception of Mitt Romney, who usually votes with Trump, but voted against him in the impeachment, the sole Republican vote, and who is personally very wealthy, very secure and has a lot of personal history and enmity towards President Trump. Aside from him, there has been no one on the Republican side that has gone out and said, "Trump, that's it, I'm breaking from you." And the reason for that is because they are focused on their jobs and the GOP above everything else.

And by the way, the Democrats do this, too. It's just the Democrats don't happen to have a president who is massively unfit. If they did, I suspect they would behave the same way. But they don't. The Republicans do. And that is a serious problem because it means that despite all the unfitness, President Trump could still win. He still has 42 percent approval ratings right now, which is where he was when the unemployment rate was at record lows, and when the economy was doing really well. And now we've got pandemic and 105,000 to 110,000 Americans dead, and continuing to grow. We've got 25% unemployment. And just today, another couple, well over a million new unemployment receipts, higher than the markets expected persisting. Six to eight percent contraction of the U.S. economy this year. And yet Trump is still at 42%. And among Republicans, he's done exceptionally well. He's easily polling consistently high 80s, low 90s with Republican voters in the United States. And that is what drives Senator Murkowski and many others to say, "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but..." And the but is the driver of action. Important to recognize that. Some insight into just how divided America presently is.

I hope everyone's doing well. Please avoid people. If you can't avoid people, socially distance, wear your masks. My goodness, I completely understand. I'm deeply sympathetic and supportive of all of the protesters that have been out there over the last few days. But please, please, please, not mass gatherings where you can't socially distance. You're putting yourself in danger. And I worry about that. I really hope we don't have a secondary outbreak that leads us to have to shut things down again. So many more people will suffer as a consequence of that. And we know who's going to suffer the worst, it will be the people that can least afford it, including a lot of the people out there that are protesting. So, that's a little bit of inequality and injustice in the world order as we see it right now.

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Dennis Kwok on the end of democracy in Hong Kong - GZERO Media

Time and again we have mentioned in our articles that COVID-19 is being used as an excuse to commit other crimes. From police brutality in India to ill-treatment of the poor to even passing away the laws, it is all happening right now. When the whole country is in shock and people cannot digest the fact that something like this is happening, various leaders all across the world are taking full advantage of the situation and creating the most disastrous future for the people.

Earlier we talked about ignoring other diseases because of COVID-19. Researchers have pointed out that tuberculosis and polio may return to India because the children are not given vaccinations for that. The entire world is focusing on one infection and is not looking at the additions that are coming with it. Let us look at the political aspect that is being ignored in full force.

It is essential to know that the biggest crimes happen when people are not even expecting them to come. Let us look at a few facts that will blow your mind and make you introspect about what is happening in the world.

In Hungary, the government announced to revoke the rule by decree, and the state of emergency law was declared. This looks like a positive step but one should also think beyond a certain limit. The new rule allows the government to rule by decree for an undefined period of time. This gives the government the power to order any and all measures it feels unnecessary without any approval from the Parliament. The government has kind of become autonomous and is the king of the state. The European lawmakers and rights groups have criticized the government a lot that they are ruling by decree during the state of an emergency. The government of hungry also has extensive powers over the media. The government has asked American news outlets to apologize for baseless critical coverage of their country. This is a case of abuse of power and people are not even knowing about what is happening. Democracy is dead!

Similarly, in Hong Kong, a similar nightmare is looming over everyones head. It was a British colony for more than 150 years. China leased to the rest of Hong Kong to the British for 99 years. Hongkong became a very busy trading great and it became a manufacturing hub. Now the Chinese government wanted it back after the lease. Various activists have accused China of meddling in Hong Kongs law with regards to legal rulings. People have also said that academic freedom, press freedom has been deteriorating in Hong Kong because of the Chinese. China has effectively expelled various journalists from the United States of America and has prohibited them from working in Hong Kong. In 2014, the Chinese government said that they would allow voters to choose their leaders from a list approved by a Beijing committee. The people in the country have started calling democracy a joke and it is essential to know that they dont see themselves as Chinese. Young people are less likely to be called Chinese. People are protesting for a very long time to end this supremacy. Now the protest between the people and the police took an ugly turn and the bill was halted and later withdrawn. Under the wake of the pandemic, in April the Hong Kong police arrested 15 of the citys most popular activities. Now China is proposing to introduce a new law in Hong Kong which could be similar to abolish and of democracy to safeguard national security in Hong Kong. This will indirectly allow Beijing to create laws for Hong Kong. We want to say that all this is happening when the world is worrying about the virus and dying because of it. This incident shows us that power-hungry people will never stop will take advantage of this situation.

Let us talk about a more horrific example where are the countries have banned newspapers so that people do not get the information about what is happening in the outer world. Jordan, Oman, Morocco, Yemen, and more than 50 other places have banned and suspended the newspaper printing and distribution because of the pandemic. They have suspended both independent and state-owned media outlets. There has been no conclusive evidence about paper transmitting the virus. The government is just trying to make the people less aware of what is happening all over the world and their own shortfalls.

Emergency laws have been passed in more than 84 nations where the head of the country gets the power to make decisions and decide the future of the country. This astonishing part is that most of these countries were not affected by the virus at a very high level when these laws were implemented. This is downright misuse of power and authority for a future where the people of the country will be treated as slaves and not thought processing people.

If all these countries can implement emergency powers during the time when COVID-19 was not at full speed of moving ahead the situation in India is much worse with the cases rising every day and India is not just dealing with the virus, it is dealing with much more than that. Cyclones, earthquakes, storms, dying people are all an example of what India is dealing with right now.

When we all are scooped up in our houses, people are being jailed who were earlier protesting about the citizenship act. Just like the Chinese government arrested the opposition party people in Hong Kong, the Indian government is arresting all the student activists that were against the laws of the government. We can clearly see a series of mishaps that are happening in our country. Police brutality is at an all-time high but no one is talking about it.

Just like George Floyd, another case popped up in Gujarat where are the police were killing the people and abusing their power. This incident did not gather much attention because all we are focusing on right now is the pandemic. The Police said that the constables reacted back when they were attacked by the man.

Every action has a reaction they say. But what about the things that are happening and the people are not questioning anyone.

Business and human rights resource center has said that it has been observed that with other emergencies, some governments have used the crisis to curtail civic freedoms and maintain restrictions. These states are harassing the activists for sharing information on the virus. Repressive laws have been deployed to arrest those spreading untruths about the virus. It is essential to know that the people are not fools and they are educated enough to know what is going right and what is going wrong.

If the countries of the European Union can implement emergency laws it is very important for us to rationalize this thought process and understand that this can happen in our country too. But during that time we must come together and question the government. At the moment, various people are put behind the bars and a lot of communal violence is taking place. Just because people cannot go out on the streets and protest like before, the government is taking full advantage of the situation and is doing what it is best at.

In India, rule by decree is the route taken. On the 24th of March, the central government invoked the national disaster management act. This was enacted in the wake of a natural disaster. This act if the central government powers to centralize the sphere of operations. This law also allows the state governments to pass any laws that they might feel are necessary. This also allows the senior police officers to pass orders for the people. This is the major reason why police brutality is at an all-time high right now.

The operation of the courts has not formally been suspended but they are operating at a very reduced capacity so in case someone is facing issues, they cannot even go to the court. The number of petitions that have been filed in the Supreme Court with respect to a violation of rights of the people during the nationwide lockdown has gone considerably up. Safoora Zargar for example is behind the bars for the second time even when she was granted bail. People are arrested, the court grants them bail but they are arrested again because silencing the people during the times of a pandemic is easier than saying them protest when the pandemic is not in action.

The state of the rule in India and all over the globe is chaos and if 84 countries can declare an emergency and turn dictators, so can India if the situation is worse than what it is right now. That will be the worst day for our country because what we are witnessing right now is a nightmare and if an excessive authority is given to the government, it will lead to doomsday.

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Is Democracy Dying During The Darkness Of The Virus? Dictatorship Is Coming Forward! - Inventiva

From: Alexandra Bixler

Columbus

Nearly every candidate that runs for office in the United States places healthcare as one of their top campaign priorities. They promise to make healthcare more affordable for you and your family. Nonetheless, problems in our healthcare system persist, and the status quo remains unchanged. The U.S. healthcare system is broken, and is currently being put to the test in the wake of COVID as Americans lose their jobs and insurance.

The United States has one of the lowest affordability rates in the industrial world, despite spending the most on healthcare per capita at a total of $2.6 trillion a year. Additionally, as of 2019, 13% of American adults said they lost at least one friend or family member in the last five years because they could not afford medical treatment. This is partially attributed to unaffordable drug prices. Thirty percent of Americans from ages 50-64 experience difficulty affording their prescription drugs. This is a result of the abuse of patents. Drug manufacturers use their patent to create a monopoly on production, artificially increase costs, and engage in evergreening to extend patents even if the drugs functional purposes remain unchanged.

These flaws in the healthcare system are attributed to the health industrys purposeful infiltration of Congress. Pharmaceutical manufacturers and health products spent almost $300 million in 2019 alone to lobby Congress and ensure the status quo of our healthcare system does not change, while posting record profits for their shareholders. These contributions are not simply donations: theyre investments. Healthcare players expect a return on their investment in the form of higher profit margins, tax cuts, subsidies, politicians opposing any public option, and strengthening the very patent laws that make drug prices so unaffordable. The breakup of recipients from health products and big pharma is split by party nearly 50-50. Democrats and Republicans are guilty of putting the interests of big donors before your health.

While it is clear something needs to change, the candidate who raises the most money in an election wins 91% of the time. The bulk of this funding often comes from out-of-state Super PACs or big donors, not the constituents that are supposed to be represented by their legislator. To see the change in our healthcare industry, Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that created Super PACs, which allows unlimited dark money to infiltrate our elections, needs to be overturned.

One group actively working towards this goal is American Promise, a bipartisan organization solely focused on the passage of a 28th amendment that would ensure fair elections, and enact meaningful campaign finance reform. While COVID-19 has impacted us all, it has certainly been exacerbated by our healthcare system, which has been long broken from big pharma and the healthcare industry.

Read more here:
Letter: The health industry has a grip on our democracy - The Republic

Our nation is hurting in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd, an African American man who died after a Minneapolis police officer restrained him by placing his knee on the back of his neck; three other police officers were involved.

Its not surprising that protests quickly emerged, not only in the Twin Cities but in cities large and small from coast to coast, including South Dakota. Stories and images of these protests have emerged. They include the rioting, looting and violence as extremists hijacked the peaceful protests causing major disruption, violence and horrific damage to property.

We know this because journalists have been telling this unfolding story as residents in scores of communities continue to react to Floyds death.

Sadly, some journalists themselves have become victims of violence and unjustified police harassment and detention.

A CNN crew was arrested in the Twin Cities while giving a live television report the morning of May 29.

In Louisville, Ky., a crowd swarmed a television photographer and knocked him to the ground, laughing and taking pictures of him.

In that same city, a police officer fired more than a half-dozen non-lethal PepperBall rounds that hit a TV reporter and photojournalist.

A television photographer in Minneapolis was taken into custody by the Minnesota State Patrol last weekend.

On Sunday, police arrested a Des Moines Register (Iowa) reporter while she was covering a demonstration that turned violent.

Time and again, journalists identified themselves to law enforcement as press and flashed their news media credential badges, but to no avail.

Last weekend, Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, made the following statement:

The numerous, targeted attacks that journalists reporting on protests across the country have faced from law enforcement over the last two nights are both reprehensible and clear violations of the First Amendment. These attacks not only endanger our free press, but also threaten our democracy and the essential role that journalists play in safeguarding constitutional rights.

Many of these attacks were captured on live broadcasts. The video evidence showing journalists under police assault simply for doing their jobs is harrowing. We strongly condemn these actions and will be contacting law enforcement in each jurisdiction to demand a full explanation and accountability for officers who knowingly targeted journalists.

We also condemn all attacks on reporters by protesters. Media coverage of the demonstrations is indispensable to helping our nation bear witness. Assaults on journalists from protesters are unlawful and make it harder for reporters to keep the country informed during this period of civil unrest.

Its a shame we need a statement like this.

Sadly, this does not come as a surprise.

President Donald Trump has used Twitter to seed mistrust of journalists. Not only has he called legitimate, credible news organizations fake news and the lamestream media, he also personally insults and demeans reporters to their faces. Attacking the press has become a key element in his political playbook.

You cant directly link the presidents verbal attacks on the press with the physical attacks weve seen in recent days; he did not tell people to do that.

But the words President Trump uses and the attitude he promotes have impact. Those sentiments and the constant barrage of those verbal attacks encourage, empower and enable the mistrust of journalists.

Journalists have thick skin and will continue to do their jobs.

But I fear for our culture, our social fabric and our democracy.

At its essence the work of journalism is to gather information and inform the public. That means sharing objective, truthful facts and information; not spin, not political rhetoric, not prepackaged sound-bites; the truth.

Thats why Americas founders enshrined a free press in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights. It is the essential difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

Journalism is not perfect. Journalists are not perfect.

But the ideals we promote truth and accountability are essential.

Journalism has never been more important than at this moment. We need to protect it from those who, by word and deed, seek to diminish or destroy it.

So where do we go from here? Dialogue earnest conversation among journalists, elected and law enforcement officials is a logical first step. We need conversation and training at every level local, state and national. Its important that government and law enforcement officials better understand the roles and responsibilities of journalists under the First Amendment. Its also important that journalists better understand the work and responsibilities of elected and law enforcement officials.

We all need to understand whats at stake and why a fair, free press doing its job unfettered is so important today in America.

Retired Freeman Courier publisher and editor Timothy L. Waltner is chairman of the South Dakota Newspaper Association First Amendment Committee. The committee and newspaper association advocate for free speech and a free press.

Read more from the original source:
Waltner: Democracy demands journalists be allowed to do their job - AberdeenNews.com

By Rachel Adriaans and Danielle Wicklander

As governments around the globe enter into their respective election seasons, a frightening question must be asked regarding how our elections will proceed here in Canada.

We all know that our federal, provincial and municipal governments have traditionally offered in-person voting locations for voters to cast their paper ballot. However, if these elections arise mid-pandemic, will voters have to choose between their health and their democratic right to vote?

The obvious answer is that they should not be placed in a position where they are forced to make this choice and that our governments should be finding ways to protect both the health of our voters and their right to cast their ballot.

Remarkably, there are those out there who would disagree with this approach, which is precisely what we saw in the Wisconsin primary election this past April. Even though several states chose to delay their primaries or opt for a mail-in-ballot-only option, the Wisconsin courts upheld the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislatures challenge to Governor Tony Evers executive order for an all mail-in ballot election, and dismissed his subsequent attempts to postpone in-person voting.

Essentially, this decision flew in the face of that same governments stay-at-home orders and resulted in hour-long line-ups of voters attempting to social distance.

In our opinion, the governor rightly made a number of attempts to postpone or change the method of vote, which were thwarted at every turn by his Republican opponents. Despite the Trumpian talking points to the contrary, the reality is that the governor was not trying to cancel or make any significant changes to the election that would skew the outcome. He was simply trying to protect the health and safety of his voters.

Had the primary been about the voters themselves and not about party politics (if you do not believe us, take look at the current state of California), these elections could have and likely would have been conducted differently as there are a number of alternative voting methods that could have been used, such as online voting or mail-in paper ballots.

In this scenario, your resident election geeks would have recommended the latter.

Of course, it is not easy to persuade American voters to embrace the mail-in paper ballot voting method when their president is decrying the method and continually making false claims that mail-in ballot voting is too highly susceptible to election fraud. Sigh. We have also heard this argument before in our own election experiences and we will continue to counter-argue that voter fraud is a severe election offence, one that is not taken lightly.

Additionally, when we take a moment to analyze the voter fraud issue from voters perspectives, we realize we continually tell voters they need to place faith in their elected politicians and democratic processes. In light of this, should we not be placing that same amount of faith in the voters themselves?

The ironic aspect about the argument that Trump is making about the correlation between election/voter fraud and mail-in-ballots is that he did not think twice about casting his own mail-in ballot for himself while he was spouting his falsehoods.

This brings to light another key political issue. As elections approach, will politicians put their own partisan interests first, advocating for a voting method that will benefit their campaigns and voter bases, or will they choose methods that place their voters health and voting rights at the forefront?

One can only hope that our Canadian politicians will ignore the poor examples being set in the United States and make the right decisions.

That being said, are our own municipal, federal and provincial governments here in Canada and the independent agencies that work for them even currently equipped to make the best decisions in the interests of Canadian voters? We think not.

Let us evaluate the ability of Elections Canada. The Canada Elections Act, 2000 allows Elections Canada to make certain decisions about how the federal election will be administered. For example, they could currently decide to host training sessions for election officials online as opposed to in-person, which would benefit Canadians amidst a pandemic.

However, Elections Canada does not have unlimited discretion or powers that rise above the limitations prescribed in the Canada Elections Act. They cannot proceed with certain mundane changes such as eliminating the use of pencils used for marking paper ballots or the assignment of voters to a specific voting location (any of you who have voted and stood in a federal election line-up will understand this frustration).

To make matters worse, this legislation does not allow Elections Canada to offer mail-in paper ballots as a sole voting method or make any other changes to the method of vote. This leaves the power in the hands of partisan governments to decide, how, when and where voters will cast their ballots for them. Are we the only ones who think this sounds like a bit of a conflict of interest? Yikes!

So what can Canadian governments do? They can be proactive. Our federal, provincial and municipal governments are long overdue to modernize the legislation surrounding our democratic processes, especially election legislation. As election organizers, we saw how aspects of the legislation known as the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 impacted our ability to organize the City of Greater Sudbury 2018 municipal and school board election in an even more modern way.

In sum, we desperately want to see Canadian elections that reflect the modernity of todays democratic society (and we are sure you do, too). We kindly ask our governments to amend these archaic pieces of legislation so that we can run elections that best suit the world we live in and in a manner that is free from political interference. Those in power need to be enabled to make the best election decisions for the health and safety of all Canadians, while protecting their right to vote. Today, we believe that decision is mail-in paper ballots or another distance voting method such as online voting.

Its time to be blunt and to take action.

Our democracy does not need to go on the defensive.

Rachel Adriaans and Danielle Wicklander are the female contingent of theteam that produces the Sudbury Politics -- The Show podcast.

A rotating stable of community members share their thoughts on anything and everything, the only criteria being that it be thought-provoking.

See original here:
#TheSoapbox: Is democracy on the defensive? - Sudbury.com