Donald Trump's Attacks On Our Democracy: Pt. 4--Donald Trump Is A Stochiastic Terrorist

Submitted by Robin Messing on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 2:11pm

 

Dictionary.com provides an unusually detailed definition and description of "stochiastic terrorism." Here is part of their article on the subject.

Stochastic terrorism is “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”

The word stochastic, in everyday language, means “random.” Terrorism, here, refers to “violence motivated by ideology.”

Here’s the idea behind stochastic terrorism:

  1. A leader or organization uses rhetoric in the mass media against a group of people.
  2. This rhetoric, while hostile or hateful, doesn’t explicitly tell someone to carry out an act of violence against that group, but a person, feeling threatened, is motivated to do so as a result.
  3. That individual act of political violence can’t be predicted as such, but that violence will happen is much more probable thanks to the rhetoric.
  4. This rhetoric is thus called stochastic terrorism because of the way it incites random violence.

Donald Trump's Attacks On Our Democracy: Pt. 1--Trump And Bill Barr's Department of Injustice

Submitted by Robin Messing on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 2:06pm

I wrote a column two weeks before the 2016 electon entitled "Donald Trump Is An Existential Threat To American Democracy."  I not only stand by that claim; I will double down on it. We are well on our way towards autocracy. Donald Trump has launched an unrelenting assault on the institutions that support our democracy, and his fellow Republicans are either looking the other way or they are rooting for democracy's demise. Mike Lee, a Republican Senator from Utah, let the cat out of the bag. He, at least, would not mind seeing our democracy die.

 

 

The Justice Department is part of the Executive Branch of government and is under the control of the President--to an extent. The President can set broad policy for the Department and can pick, with the consent of Congress, the person he wants to lead the Department. But it was never intended for him to be able to use the Justice Department as tool to help his political allies escape punishment for their crimes or as a hammer to wield against his political adversaries. President Trump tried to use his influence via the Justice Department to try to reduce the sentencing guidelines for Roger Stone after Stone was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering. This set off alarm bells, prompting Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, to write:

 

Among the Founding Fathers’ chief goals was to do away with a government where the king was above the law and had absolute power over the lives of his subjects. In our system, the President, like every other citizen, is meant to be subject to the law. The Founding Fathers were explicit about that intention when they debated the shape the new government they were creating would take. And that quintessentially American view that no man is above the law has been the case up until the presidency of Donald Trump.

This Election, Our Democracy Is On The Line

Submitted by Robin Messing on Wed, 10/21/2020 - 2:00pm

I wrote a column two weeks before the 2016 electon entitled "Donald Trump Is An Existential Threat To American Democracy."  I not only stand by that claim; I will double down on it. We are well on our way towards autocracy. Donald Trump has launched an unrelenting assault on the institutions that support our democracy, and his fellow Republicans are either looking the other way or they are rooting for democracy's demise. Mike Lee, a Republican Senator from Utah, let the cat out of the bag. He, at least, would not mind seeing our democracy die.

 

 

 

Donald Trump has launched an assault on our democracy on multiple fronts.

  1. He has politicized the Justice Department to help his friends and attack his enemies.
  2. He has attacked our courts and judicial system.
  3. He has attacked the free press and made it more dangerous for reporters to cover him.
  4. He is a stochiastic terrorist who has endangered the life of Michigan's Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and others
  5. He has refused to commit himself to the peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election

 

 

Donald Trump's Attacks On Our Democracy: Pt. 3-- Trump's Attacks On The Free Press

Submitted by Robin Messing on Wed, 10/14/2020 - 5:31pm

 

 

The Importance of a Free Press

 

A free and vigorous press is essential to good government and the functioning of our democracy. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."  George Mason wrote in Virginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights that, “the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments." And in an April 1961 speech John F. Kennedy said

 

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive. . . .  that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution . . .to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”

Supreme Court Packing--Or Let's Make A Deal

Submitted by Robin Messing on Sun, 10/11/2020 - 4:59pm

The Republicans are hammering Joe Biden hard on his refusal to state whether he will increase the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. The Constitution says nothing about how many Justices should be on the Court, and the number has been as few as 6 and as many as 10 in the past. However, the number of Justices has stood at 9 since 1869. Democrats have threatened to increase that number should Biden become President and they take the Senate in order to compensate for the GOP's bad faith refusal to even give Merrick Garland a hearing when Obama nominated him more than 8 months before the 2016 election while rushing to confirm Amy Coney Barrett's nomination even though it was made less than 2 months before the current election. Biden's refusal to say whether he will, in the GOP's phrasing, "pack the court", is likely to cost him a fair number of votes. At least, that's what the Republicans are counting on.

 

 

Reframing The Debate

 

I suggest we reframe the debate and make an offer that will force the Republicans to play defense on this issue.  First, let's remind the Republicans that they ruthlessly blocked over a hundred judicial nominations during the last TWO YEARS of the Obama Administration, leaving the seats open to be filled by a future Republican President. Watch Mitch McConnell laugh at how he threw a monkey wrench into the judicial nomination process. It is a laugh worthy of a James Bond villain.

Conservatives Endorsing Joe Biden

Submitted by Robin Messing on Mon, 10/05/2020 - 5:37am

Donald Trump's Presidency has been so disastrous that the unthinkable has happened. Many Republicans and former Republicans are speaking out against Trump and endorsing Joe Biden. A few of these Republicans were even former officials in the Trump Administration. Here is a listing of some of them along with quotes and videos explaining why they are so determined to prevent Trump from gaining a second term.

So Trump Pays Almost No Taxes Because He's Got a Great Accountant. What's the Big Deal?

Submitted by Robin Messing on Wed, 09/30/2020 - 4:44pm

The New York Times broke a HUGE story on Trump’s taxes a few days ago. In 2016 and 2017 Trump only paid $750 in taxes and he paid $0 in taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years. I’ve seen more than a few commentators say, “So he’s got a great accountant. If he is smart enough to get his tax bill down that low, good for him.” Here is my response based on the following two stories.

An Open Letter to Congressman Reed: Demand Trump's Resignation

Submitted by Robin Messing on Tue, 06/16/2020 - 12:05pm

Dear Congressman Reed:

I call on you to ask Donald Trump to resign from the Presidency in order to save our democracy. Please let me explain.

 

Your Pre-2016 Election Support For Donald Trump: Get Tough On Russia!

 

Donald Trump was riling up the crowd at a rally in August 2016 over the possibility that Hillary Clinton would appoint Supreme Court Justices who would take away their Second Amendment rights. He stepped over the line when he made a statement that some may interpret as a call for assassinating Clinton or the Supreme Court Justices. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know." Even if you argue that no sane person would interpret this as a call for assassination, not all of Trump's many millions of followers are sane.

During the second Presidential debate on October 9, 2016, Trump told Hillary Clinton that he was going to have his attorney general appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s emails and throw her in jail. For a President to announce he was going to have his political opponent investigated and thrown in jail is unprecedented. It is the stuff of banana republics.

These statements prompted me to write a column for my blog about two weeks before the 2016 election entitled "Donald Trump Is An Existential Threat To American Democracy." None of Trump’s pre-election statements seemed to alarm you too much, Congressman Reed. You just smiled to yourself and said, “Donald Trump—he’s my kind of guy.” You had endorsed Donald Trump well before he made these statements, but even after he made them you worked so hard to get him elected that he appointed you to be a vice-chair of his transition team

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