#Right Wing Coup Attempt

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A reflection on last week.  :::  April 10, 2023

Robert B. Hubbell

             Tonight, I offer a reflection on last week—and a suggestion about how we must respond. We went into last week expecting the news to be dominated by Trump's arraignment. It was—until the GOP-controlled legislature in Tennessee expelled two young Black Representatives for protesting briefly in the well of the assembly. We then received the report of Pro Publica outlining the manifest corruption of Justice Thomas by Texas millionaire and Hitler memorabilia collector Harlan Crow. And then Judge Kacsmaryk issued a thinly disguised religious fiat banning mifepristone for women across America.

         Each of the above events demonstrates the GOP’s efforts to achieve its goals by breaking the democracy that guarantees their liberties in the first instance. But we must now add to the sad litany a new item—Governor Greg Abbott’s pre-emptive announcement that he will pardon a Texas man convicted of murder after a jury trial. At trial, the defendant was able to present his argument that he acted in self-defense. The jury rejected that claim and voted unanimously to convict him of murder.

         Why does Abbott believe that he is justified in pardoning the murderer even before appeals have been heard? Abbott is, after all, substituting his judgment for that of the jurors who heard the evidence first-hand. Abbot believes the defendant is innocent of murder because he killed a “BLM” protester.

That’s right: Governor Abbott has established a new rule that laws do not apply equally to people protesting police killings and right-wing extremists who are upset by the protests. In a single act, Abbott has altered the law in Texas, demoted protestors demanding justice to second-class status, and told Texas jurors that their voices do not matter when MAGA extremists are on trial. In short, “self-defense” is a MAGA “get out of jail free” card under Greg Abbott’s reign in Texas.

         Together, these four instances illustrate a strategy the GOP learned from Trump: If the democratic system does not produce the result you want, then break democracy to obtain a different result. That is what the Tennessee legislators did to Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, that is what religious zealots did to all Americans, that is what monied interests did in bending the Supreme Court to do the bidding of the privileged and elite, and that is what Greg Abbott has done in summarily overturning a jury verdict that flies in the face of the facts.

         We have been confronting this asymmetry from the very moment Trump announced his bid in 2016, and it has worsened over time. As Democrats toil within the system to forge compromises over competing policies, Republicans break the system to get their way. They simply ignore it (McConnell on Merrick Garland’s nomination), they deny it (outcomes of elections), they falsify it (fake electors), they rig the judicial system to guarantee assignment of cases to a sympathetic federal judge (Kacsmaryk), and they attempt to stop its operation through violence (J6).

         There have been scattered calls for Democrats to employ similar tactics. Indeed, some are calling for the federal government to ignore Judge Kacsmaryk’s order if it is not stayed by the 5th Circuit or the Supreme Court. To state the obvious, to do so would amount to “breaking democracy” simply because we don’t like the result. We must not give in to the temptation to adopt the GOP’s anti-democratic tactics. We must fight our battle of resistance from within the walls and ramparts of democracy if we have any hope of saving it.

         The truth is that the rule of law continues to exist in America today because one of America’s major political parties remains committed to upholding that rule—despite the efforts of the other party to destroy it. If both parties feel emboldened to ignore the rule of law, our democracy will be gone. All that will be left is a contest of brute force in which dark money will substitute for violence.

         I do not believe we will reach that point. I have faith that Democrats will do the right thing despite legitimate feelings of anger, hurt, and despair. In each of the four situations described above, there is a democratic path forward to correct the result. It will not be easy, and we may not succeed entirely. But so long as we have a path forward, we should not set aside our great charter and the laws that give it life. It has endured for more than two centuries during equally trying times; we can make it through the present challenges, as well.

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[from comments]

Overall, MAGA Republicans are revealing who and what they are. During the mid-terms, Democrats pushed back against an anticipated red tsunami and vastly outperformed expectations. Perhaps the ongoing MAGA performances will convince even more voters to shut them down.

Jessica Craven's latest post in "Chop Wood, Carry Water," celebrates many recent victories. She also writes that the two Tennessee lawmakers who were expelled can run in the special elections for their seats, and if they win, they cannot be expelled again. As for the other ugly instances cited here, I can sympathize with the anguished plea, "what does it take?" that most of us uttered during the long years of the Trump regime. Read Jessica Craven's post from today to understand that there are reasons for optimism.

https://open.substack.com/pub/chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions/p/extra-extra-april-9th

We are being forged by fire to get as tough as our opponents and as clever. We already outnumber them. We are inspired by the courage of Ukrainians in their fight for their democracy and their lives. We are inspired by the heroes of our own Civil Rights movement that is ongoing. We are inspired by the turnout of the Israeli populace and even its military members that caused the Netanyahu regime to blink. We are being called upon to dig deep, stay tough and committed and resist even though we are tired.

Tomorrow is another day. Let's get on with the work.

[Gary S.]

[reasonsforhope]

Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday for leading a far-reaching plot to keep then-President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

A second Oath Keepers member, Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Florida contingent of the group, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The sentences are the first handed down in over a decade for seditious conspiracy.

“What we absolutely cannot have is a group of citizens who – because they did not like the outcome of an election, who did not believe the law was followed as it should be – foment revolution,” District Judge Amit Mehta said before handing down the sentence. “That is what you did.” ...

Mehta said Rhodes, 58, has expressed no remorse and continues to be a threat...

Earlier on Thursday, Mehta ruled that Rhodes’ actions amounted to domestic terrorism.

“He was the one giving the orders,” Mehta said. “He was the one organizing the teams that day. He was the reason they were in fact in Washington DC. Oath Keepers wouldn’t have been there but for Stewart Rhodes, I don’t think anyone contends otherwise. He was the one who gave the order to go, and they went.”

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy by a Washington, DC, jury in November in a historic criminal trial that was a test of the Justice Department’s ability to hold January 6 rioters accountable and validated prosecutors’ arguments that the breach of the Capitol was a grave threat to American democracy.

The seditious conspiracy charge has rarely been brought in the century and a half that the statute and its forerunners have been on the books...

US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who testified earlier this week about his experience on January 6, told CNN that Donald Trump should be “next.”

“It is a step towards full accountability,” Dunn said. “[Stewart Rhodes's] lawyers argued that Donald Trump is the root of the problem, and I totally agree. Let’s get him next.” ...

CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem said the sentencing should have a “chilling effect on these groups,” especially as the presidential election season begins.

“This tough sentence is going to make the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, all these organizations, it’s going to make them more difficult for them to recruit and, as important, for them to raise money,” Kayyem said...

Rhodes, who was accused of leading dozens other individuals in a coordinated plot that culminated in the January 6 siege, was also found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding and tampering with documents.

Of those that Rhodes led, 22 have already been convicted of various federal crimes by a jury or guilty plea. Eight, including Rhodes’ codefendant Meggs, were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

-via CNN, 5/25/23

[all-socialism-is-democratic]

"How seriously should we take “Project 2025”? Isn’t this all just the abstract raging of feverish minds? Just empty threats far removed from any chance of implementation? Mostly just a messaging effort intended to placate and mobilize a frenzied base? If only.

'Project 2025' is evidence that the American Right has concrete plans and a detailed strategy of how to take over and transform American government into a machine that serves only two purposes: Autocratic revenge against the “woke” enemy – and the imposition of a reactionary vision for society against the will of the majority."

[queerism1969]

[disk-and-horse]

Hate to be a doomer on main but i think trump surviving an assassination attempt is just about the worst thing for the left politically. an assassination attempt in general is going to cause brain-dead liberals to sympathize with him and his fascist followers to go nuts but at least if he was dead he'd be...well, dead. and therefore politically non-viable.

i think rn we have to hope for an infection or something. or that his followers get whipped up into a brownshirt frenzy and try to do a bunch of hate crimes and/or a coup. which, like, would be bad for all the obvious reasons but might cause enough bad press to snap some centrists out of their wiemar-ass idiocy. and i don't think his supporters are competent enough to either do a large-scale decentralized genocide or coup the government.

and obviously things are not going well when you're hoping for political violence from your enemies! so. things are not looking great

[heart2heartroses2u]

This is where America 🇺🇸 is heading if Trump is to win the 2024 election. The signs are all there. Don’t be blind and dismiss it. Once your democracy is lost, it will be hard to get it back. #vote-blue, to preserve our democracy and rights

[wilwheaton]

s far as we can tell right now, the man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump was a registered Republican gun enthusiast. As more details emerge, the image will clarify. Assassins are individuals, and their motivations can sometimes be surprising or turn out to be obscure and debatable. At this point, it is just worth noting that it would not be surprising if the man who tried to assassinate Trump was, like Trump, a right-wing radical. That would be typical of the United States, where most terrorist acts come from the far right. It would also be historically normal. Trump, like extreme-right-wing politicians in the past, has legitimated violence. Nothing in recent American political life resembles Trump’s call for “Second-Amendment people” to kill Hillary Clinton, his mockery of Paul Pelosi after an attempted murder, his belittling of Gretchen Whitmer after a kidnapping attempt, the stochastic violence he directs against critics to intimidate them and against his fellow Republicans to keep them in line, the brutal language of his rallies since 2016, his vocal admiration for leaders known to be mass killers, and his violent attempt to overthrow constitutional rule in January 2021. What matters more than the action, though, is the reaction. We should all condemn political violence. We should all proclaim that this next election will be settled by the number of votes, rather than by threats, coups, beatings, or murders. The media should not spread messages of hatred and baseless conspiratorial thinking.

Political Violence - by Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is a globally respected expert on Fascism and authoritarian movements. He’s very much worth listening to, always.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

The Bolivian masses flooded the streets of La Paz and sent the military packing, crushing an attempted right-wing coup.

It CAN be done. We CAN win.

[mesetacadre]

88 years ago today 4 fascist generals attempted a coup d'etat on the Second Spanish Republic. The right wing had lost the February elections to the United Front, made up of almost all of the left parties in the republic. This failed coup d'etat turned into the Spanish Civil War, during which the western democracies abandoned the republic in tacit approval of the reactionaries, and after which the 40 year long fascist dictatorship was protected by the US and NATO for the sake of anti-communist repression.

Fascists do not care about election results, bourgeois legality is only useful to them for as long as they can exploit it. Liberal democracies and popular fronts are not inherently anti-fascist either, they have consistently shown a preference for fascists and other reactionaries. The only viable opposition to fascism has always been the revolutionary organization of the proletariat with the communist party, advocating for anything less is naive at best and active collaborationism at worst.

[qqueenofhades]

I understand how important it is to be able to criticize the President, and am not at all of the belief he should be beyond critique, but the critiquing of Biden makes me so nervous. (That's not to say I agree with every decision he's made - I absolutely do not). But I feel like people see things he's done wrong and decide they won't vote for him because of it. I'm not sure if enough people have the ability to see that he's done things wrong but also is our only hope of staving off literal fascism.

So many people talk about how sick they are of it constantly being a lesser of two evils situation, constantly having to vote for a candidate they hate because the other side is worse (I heard it in 2020, 2022, etc), and I guess I just- I don't really get it? We're here because they didn't do that in 2016. All of this could've been avoided had the result been different then. I just feel like people don't comprehend how different of a place we'd be in if Hillary won and engage in all this cognitive dissonance to make themselves feel better about being part of the reason she didn't.

Like.... this has been a long-running topic of discussion on my blog, not least because it is so inexplicable and maddening. It also shows how terribly shallow most people's understanding of the American political process is, and how toxic the "I can only vote for a candidate if every single personal belief/position of theirs matches mine" belief is, as well as how much damage it has done to American democracy even (and indeed, especially) by people who technically don't identify as right-wing. Yell at Republicans all you like (God knows I do, because they're the worst people on earth) but they vote. Every time. Every election. Every candidate. Whereas the Democratic electorate still holds out for Mister Perfect, and it very definitely is Mister Perfect. The amount of "evil HRC!!!" Republican-poisoned Kool-Aid that so-called progressives drank in 2016, and then afterward when they insisted they could have voted for someone like Elizabeth Warren and then didn't do that in 2020, is... baffing.

Frankly, I don't care if Hillary Clinton's personal positions on XYZ issue were the most Neoliberal Corporate Centrist Shill to Ever Shill (and Online Leftists' intellectual skills being what they are, I seriously doubt that they were using any of those words correctly and/or accurately). American policy is not made by "personal dictate of the ruler," or at least it shouldn't be, because we are not an absolute monarchy. We rely on the operation of a system with input from many people. As such, if Hillary had been elected, we would have 2-3 new liberal justices on SCOTUS and have secured civil and environmental rights for the next generation. Roe would be intact, and all the other terrible rulings that SCOTUS has recently handed down wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't have had January 6th, the attempt to stage a coup, all the tawdry scandals, our national security being at risk because of Trump stealing classified documents and probably selling them to Russia and/or Saudi Arabia, etc etc. If you think that's in any way an equivalent amount of evil to what would have happened if Hillary was elected, or if she was "still evil!!!," then I honestly don't know what to tell you. She could fucking murder puppies in her spare time if she had preserved SCOTUS for us, WHICH SHE WOULD HAVE, BECAUSE SHE WARNED US EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

(Hoo. Sorry. Still steamed. 2016 war flashbacks, again.)

In short, Hillary would have been a solid continuity Democrat and she would have signed whatever legislation a Democratic House and Senate passed, not to mention been hugely inspiring as the first female president. But because it's so important to the Online Leftists' moral sense of themselves that BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, they can't possibly acknowledge that ever being a factor, and/or admit that they have any culpability in not voting for her in 2016. It's like when you read the British press about any of the UK's equally numerous problems, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to avoid mentioning that Brexit might be a factor. They just can't mention it, because then that means they might have made the wrong choice in pulling for it as hard as they did, and blah blah Sovereignty.

Basically, if HRC had been elected president, everything would be so much less terrible and terrifying all the time, we would be talking about her successor in 2024 as someone else who could be the "first," we could explore handing the reins over to Kamala as a Black/Asian woman, we could promote Buttigieg as the first gay president, etc etc. But because 2016 was so catastrophically fucked up, we are in damage control mode for the immediate future and every election is just as pivotal. And yet, because people think that the only thing that matters is a presidential candidate's personal views, we're stuck having the same old arguments and desperately begging people over and over to please vote against fascism, since that somehow isn't self-evident enough on its own. Yikes on Bikes.

[pgummie]

Btw I feel like I probably don't have to say this but DO NOT BELIEVE ANY OF THE SHIT MUSK SPEWS ABT THE BRAZILIAN TWITTER BAN.

We do not live in a dictatorship, and justice Alexandre de Moraes was not trying to censor anyone. This whole thing started because the Brazilian court ordered twitter to take down accounts that were spreading political misinformation during the elections, hate speech, and were also responsible for stoking the fires that lead to the attempted coup in September.

These were not just right winged accounts exercising their right to free speech, they were CRIMINAL accounts. Musk not only refused to delete these accounts, acusing Alexandre de Moraes of trying to "censor" them, he also refused to pay the fines that he received for refusing to comply with Brazilian law. To avoid these fines, he fired every single employee from the Brazilian branch of twitter and closed it down. No international company is allowed to operate in Brazilian soil without a legal representative here that can answer for the company, this is what lead to the twitter shut down in Brazil, judge Alexandre de Moraes gave Musk an ultimatum and once again he did not comply, thus twitter is now illegal in Brazil.

Another thing that this whole situation brought to light is that Starlink, a company owned by Elon Musk, is essential to the Brazilian military for a number of things, all of wich are extremely worrisome given that this is a private company owned by an american who has been aiding a foreign military without public knowledge for years now. And of course, this partnership started during Bolsonaro's presidency (far right fascist responsible for thousands of deaths during covid). Starlink is also behind a number of other horrible things, including aiding in the genocide of Brazilian indigenous people, so needles to say their involvement with our military is extremely worrying, especially considering the fact that this whole situation with twitter has also been labeled as a clear attempt by Musk to undermine and destabilize Brazil's democracy.

TLDR: do not trust anything this monster has to say, and to any American possibly reading this, please vote consciously in the coming election. Sadly, the results of the election in America also majorly impact the lives of people around the world, and Brazil has been in a fragile state ever since Bolsonaro lost the last election. Your vote does make an impact, do not let it go to waste.

[moltengoldveins]

so we can all agree that the newest 2WEI song (take the crown) is the trailer song for an Antarctic Empires Emerald Duo pg14 movie where Techno is a gladiator who earned his freedom and has vowed to destroy the government that enslaved him and Philza is an old demigod banished to a solitary plane of existence for five decades after attempting to run a coup against the ruling class.

They meet on a battlefield, Techno having joined up as brute muscle and Phil having used some minor illusions to pass as a quirky avian and join the bombardment team. Combining some similar plot beats as Oceans 11 and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, they gather a specialized team of insurrectionists, anarchists, battle mages, and warriors to take down the imperium from the inside, eventually planning on restoring the nation to the democracy it was in Phil’s earliest memories. But will they manage it, or will their bloody pasts and violent present seat Technoblade on the throne as the Antarctic Emperor, with Philza as his right hand, the Angel of Death? (Spoiler, the second option. It’s the most controversial film finale decision of the decade.)

The movie is filmed in a style somewhere between Dune 1, the Prince of Egypt, and Topgun. (denis villeneuve is too busy and too expensive, but it’s clear they’re taking inspiration. Bold colors and lighting and a lot of shots of the sky, wildlife, architecture, or of characters’ hands.) It’s scored by an up and coming indie musician, working under the consultation of Ludwig Gorannson in his spare time as a pet project, though his association with the film doesn’t really come out until it Smashes the expected theatre income in the first two days of release and critics start Raving about it. Techno’s actor is nominated for an Oscar for one of the most compelling intricate portrayals of ptsd and platonic devotion in modern cinema, but doesn’t actually get the Oscar.

Tumblr is flooded with gif sets of Techno in the Obligatory No Armor After Gladiator Fight Scene and the Late Night Vibing With Phil In A Loose Poet Shirt scene (firelit, lots of closeups of his eyes, the film is obviously attempting to express his complex emotional state and his deep relationship with Phil, and is failing miserably at doing Anything but making him hot. The internet is ✨gay✨ about it, because when is the internet not?) Also most of the simps are calling Phil a dilf.

Fit MC is the fan-favorite side character, his four scenes and nine lines of dialogue are clipped and edited and giffed and memed into the dirt. (His armor and prosthetic, the makeup and costuming department say, were the hardest thing to do in the entire film, which is why he isn’t in too many shots.) Though, a close second is Niki, who is played by a woman built like a brick house who doesn’t wear sleeves, so…. Yeah. We all know what the response is there. The effects, including Phil’s wings, are almost entirely practical and the only real places it gets iffy is Steve, the giant war polar bear that’s pretty clearly clipping through a few snowbanks here and there. Nobody can agree on which characters are morally reprehensible.

Within a few years, very few people outside a dedicated fan base have seen it and a few assume it’s made up like Goncharov. It’s also, for some ungodly reason, been labeled a Christmas film. (most of the plot happens in the ice and snow, hence ‘Antarctic Empire.’) I guess nothing says ‘Christmas spirit’ quite like ‘unmitigated violence, platonic yearning, and overthrowing oppressors.’

[mariacallous]

Until she fled Bangladesh on Monday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina governed as if she still had full legitimacy, even as students and protesters had been on the streets for days asking her to resign. The trigger for the demonstrations—civil service job quotas for Bangladeshi freedom fighters and their families—had become a distant memory. Collective anger about years of human rights abuses, corruption, and rigged elections had coalesced into an uprising.

In a conversation over the weekend, Zonayed Saki, the left-leaning leader of the Ganosamhati Andolan party—himself a student activist against military rule in the 1990s—said, “The people’s sentiment is that she has to go first. The government had lost moral and political legitimacy.”

Hasina believed that she was elected democratically. She won an unprecedented fourth term in a flawed vote in January, which most of the major opposition parties had boycotted and the United States, the United Kingdom, and human rights groups criticized for not being free or fair. Still, other major governments congratulated Hasina on the victory. The bureaucracy, the media, the police, and the army were on her side. What could go wrong?

Over the weekend, Hasina declared a curfew again, cut off the internet, and encouraged the youth wing of the ruling Awami League party to take to the streets. Trigger-happy security forces, who were blamed for the deaths of more than 200 people as the protests turned violent in mid-July, were out in full force. Nearly 100 more people died over the weekend, including 14 police officers; video emerged showing security forces shooting point-blank at nonviolent protesters.

Hasina spoke darkly of Islamists spreading terrorism by co-opting the protests, but the students remained undeterred. A long march was announced for Aug. 5 to demand her resignation. Hasina declared a three-day public holiday in response. But by midday Monday, she had resigned, fleeing the country in a helicopter. The first stop would be India and after that an unknown destination.

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground has turned volatile amid the power vacuum. Thousands of demonstrators rushed to the Ganabhaban, the prime minister’s official residence in Dhaka, looting souvenirs and frolicking on the premises. People have also reportedly attacked the home of Bangladesh’s chief justice. There are also reports of the toppling of a statue of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s independence movement and then ruled the country until he was assassinated in 1975. Mujib’s family home, now a museum, went up in flames in an act of grotesque retribution. These incidents stand in contrast to the disciplined and peaceful demonstrations led by students, who have urged for calm and were seen appealing to the looters to return stolen property.

Bangladesh’s army has called for calm, but it has not yet intervened. The country’s armed forces overthrew elected governments in the 1970s and 1980s and attempted coups in later years. But now, the generals would naturally want to play it safe: They cannot afford to lose the confidence of Bangladeshis and are aware of the deep distrust that Bangladeshis have developed for the armed forces because their political interventions have weakened the country’s democracy.

There is another calculation at play, too: Bangladesh is among the largest suppliers of soldiers to the United Nations peacekeeping forces, and it won’t antagonize the international community by letting its soldiers act at will. (Those peacekeeping arrangements mean the armed forces are less reliant on Bangladesh’s state budget.) In mid-July, when military vehicles with U.N. insignia were deployed on Dhaka’s streets, foreign diplomats rightly complained; Bangladeshi officials gave weak excuses and promised not to use U.N. equipment to settle domestic unrest.

Hasina seemed to have two options: to seek a graceful exit or to dig her heels in and let the troops take all necessary means to protect her regime. In the end, she fled. Where she will settle is unclear. India would pose problems for Prime Minister Narendra Modi; ruling party politicians have routinely criticized undocumented Bangladeshis in India, even creating legislation to identify and possibly deport them. The United Kingdom may be risky for Hasina because while it hosts many Bangladeshi immigrants, they include dissidents forced into exile during her 15-year rule as well as supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Had Hasina dug in, there would have been bloody consequences. Even if the army had shown restraint toward the protesters, there is no telling if Bangladesh’s notorious border guards or the Rapid Action Battalion—which has faced criticism from human rights groups—would have acted responsibly. There has been violence on both sides, but it has come primarily from the Bangladeshi state. As of Monday, as many as 32 children had died, according to UNICEF.

By stepping aside disgracefully, Hasina leaves chaos in her wake. It is crucial that any interim administration restore order quickly, but it can only do so if it has the backing of the army. A list of bureaucrats, civil society veterans, and others who might form the nucleus of such a government has been released, but the situation is too fluid to consider such lists final. In the early 2000s, Bangladesh had an unelected but legitimate caretaker government to help assist its transition to democracy after a military intervention—which it did, paving the way for Hasina’s election in December 2008.

Hasina has long demonized Bangladesh’s Islamist political forces. But Islamic fundamentalist parties have secured more than 10 percent of the vote only once, in 1991; in all subsequent elections, their vote share has been closer to 5 to 6 percent. Most Bangladeshis are Muslims, but they aren’t extremists; in Bangladeshi American poet Tarfia Faizullah’s famous words, when a Pakistani soldier assaulted a Bengali woman in 1971 and asked her if she was Muslim or Bengali, she defiantly said, “Both.”

The song accompanying many videos of the protests last week was from the pre-Partition poet Dwijendralal Ray, a Hindu, celebrating the golden land of Bengal. To see Bangladesh in binary terms—of Muslim or not Muslim—shows a profound misreading of a complex society. It reveals the myopia of external observers, notably analysts close to the current Indian government, who had invested hugely in Hasina and irrationally fear that an Islamic republic is the only alternative to her rule. In so doing, they frittered away some of the goodwill that India had earned in Bangladesh over the years, particularly for its support during the liberation war.

As a result, the current situation in Bangladesh will complicate things for Modi, Hasina’s close friend. His government had invested hugely in their relationship, aiming to build a trade corridor across Bangladesh and seeking Bangladeshi support to curb separatism in northeastern India. This alienated India from Bangladeshis, who expected New Delhi to defend democratic forces in Dhaka. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, whom Hasina condemned and called a “bloodsucker of the poor,” chided India for not doing enough: South Asia is a family, he said in a recent interview, and when a house is burning, brothers should come and help.

With Hasina fleeing, India has lost an ally it thought it could rely on. The road ahead for Bangladesh will be difficult. Expectations will be high, and the people will want early elections. If those are free and fair, a different Bangladesh can emerge. Whether it will be consistent with the liberal, secular, democratic ethos that Bangladesh’s founders fought for remains to be seen.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

BREAKING: Brazilian police indict former President Bolsonaro and aides in alleged 2022 coup attempt

Brazil’s federal police said Thursday they indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 other people on charges of attempting a coup to keep him in office after his electoral defeat in the 2022 elections.

The findings were to be delivered Thursday to Brazil’s Supreme Court to be referred to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who will either agree with the charges and put the former president on trial or toss the investigation.

The former right-wing leader has denied all claims he tried to stay in office after his electoral defeat in 2022 to his rival, leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro has faced a series of legal threats since then.

Continue reading.

[contemplatingoutlander]

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" --Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Network (1976)

The above quote from Network sums up what I'm feeling right now. With their decision on presidential immunity, the far-right SC justices shredded the Constitution, and paved the way for Trump to become a dictator if he is put back in office. The above article goes into detail about the liberal justices' dissent. This is a gift🎁link if you want to read the full article. Below are some excerpts:

The Supreme Court’s three Democratic appointees railed in dissent against the conservative majority’s ruling that former President Donald J. Trump has some immunity for his official actions, declaring that their colleagues had made the president into “a king above the law.” Writing that the majority was “deeply wrong,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor added that beyond its consequences for the bid to prosecute Mr. Trump for his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, it would have “stark” long-term consequences for the future of American democracy. “The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote, in an opinion joined by the other two Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Insulating the president of the United States — the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world, she noted — from criminal prosecution when he uses his official powers will allow him to freely use his official power to violate the law, exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, or other “evil ends.” “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.” [...] Sometimes justices conclude their dissents with a softening and polite qualifier, writing “Respectfully, I dissent.” Justice Sotomayor instead concluded this one harshly: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” [color emphasis added]

________________ Video source for gif