#especially in countries with constitutional courts

[tanadrin]

Minor point of contention: The German presidency is mostly irrelevant. There's a few scenarios, most of which afaik never happened, in which the president can make actually important decisions. One of them being that in 2017 he decided not to dissolve parliament when coalition negotiations failed and instead convinced the SPD to join the governing coalition again (not the world, but certainly not nothing) and, if there's a law the government considers to be really urgent but can't get a majority for, the president can decide whether to implement a 6-month period in which laws do not need to be ratified by parliament as long as they get the support of the unelected Bundesrat (can only happen during that one 6 month period per administration, and hasn't ever happened, but it's not like it isn't a question to consider when deciding on the next president).

I love it when people habituated to parliamentary systems are like, "no, no, our head of state is not a figurehead! They have the very important job of [technical matter that has only come up once in the last thirty years]." It's a charming bit of ceremony, but when you compare it to, like, the pre-war German presidency and its expansive capacity to fuck shit up, you could easily be forgiven for not remembering who the guy is, or even that he exists at all.

(But I admit, still not quite as bad as the British king, who by convention exercises no power, and if he tried to change that, Parliament would immediately strip him of the remaining powers he does theoretically have!)

[theamazingannie]

Really frustrating spending my last semester of college studying constitutional law and the varying tests used to establish the constitutionality of a subject only to spend the entire next year after that watching the current Supreme Court tear every single one of those tests apart

[waytootiredstudent]

Okay alright sorry for all the sudden German politics influx but lemme explain what happened so far and why Germans are losing it a bit:

The tldr? Our government is getting a divorce and it's turning messy with elections being called early and now being called even earlier.

The longer version?

Okay so, groundwork first:

in Germany there is a coalition currently in power called the Ampel(traffic lights) bc the colours of the party are red, yellow and green (or not anymore or for much longer??). They're centrist slightly more left leaning than right leaning. (You could argue about that I am aware). There has been infighting for as long as this coalition has been going on. It is also the first three party coalition since y know, the Last Time.

So. Enough groundwork. The yellow party (FDP) has a finance minister (Christiane Lindner) it's this guy

You will see him in memes I am sure. We don't like him. He's an asshole and has blocked every meaningful change that the coalition had been trying to accomplish. He also got his finance plan blocked by our highest court because parts were against our Constitution.

(.... I am oversimplifying hard here it's actually more complicated than that and not fully his fault, but it's also not the focus)

What WAS the fault though of him and the FDP was that they had a strong position of "saving money at all costs" which made bigger and bigger rifts with the two other coalition partners who were more leaftleaning. The war in Ukraine, Infrastructure, climate change - there were many places that needed more money and Lidner was like naaahhhhh for no fucking reason other than "oh we need to save money!!"

Long story short there have been arguing all the fucking time and therefore have started to lose approval. Drastically lose approval. As on for the first time since the Last Time there is a far right party in charge for part of the country that is also being investigated for being Nazis. (Oversimplifying again).

Which is. Worrying. You know. Especially with Trump now being elected. It has us all a little skittish.

The finance minister has also now been fired.

You see. We were all still trying to stomach Trump winning the US election, when Scholz, in the same fucking evening, fired Lindner.

And not in a polite way. Nah. Olaf fucking Scholz our Chancellor, notorious for saying literally nothing, and with a running joke that he regularly stops existing bc that man Does Not Take Stances, a spine of wet cardboard, delivered this yesterday evening:

(English subtitles by me you already got this far watch it I spent too much time on this lol)

And it is insane alright. For his standards and German politic standards thats the equivalent of calling Lindner a egomaniacal bitch that has only his self interest at heart and can not be trusted.

Lindner and his party have been pulverised in all recent elections. Which means that after he was fired, the FDP completely withdrew from the coalition and all minister from the FDP resigned.

....well all but one who apparently stayed in his positions because he's leaving the FDP over this. What sort of shitty backstabbing kindergarten fight is this. (Jokes aside hes the minister of transportation and says he needs to stay in office in important projects. Which. True. Having minister resigning en mass is not good)

Alright cool cool cool cool. Current situation yesterday is the following:

So. Trump is president. Fuck.

Lindner got fired! Yaaay!

Wait my goverment is now also falling apart! Fuck.

Which all lead to new elections being called in Germany.

Mind you, that's not usual ok. I know other countries have systems where they can call an election whenever but that is not a thing that normally happens here. We have a schedule alright. (Insert obligatory "Germans and their plans and structure" joke)

So new elections are called for spring, nearly a year early. Cool cool cool. With a right wing rising in Germany and deeply unpopular current leadership. On the eve of motherfucking trump getting elected.

Habeck, leader of the green party and one of the few policians in germany I think is vaguely liked by ppl (the general attitude in German politics is less "I like this guy" and more "you are the least shitty choice I guess") has appearently also nearly started crying after the news broke. So. Yeah.

Now. Let's make this shitshow complete,alright?

There is this party. CDU. They had been in charge for a very long time in Germany. Centrist, right leaning, with the afd on the rising even more right leaning than before. Their current leader is Friedrich Merz, as unpleasant as human beings can go.

He has now called for the new election to be not in a few months but like. To be called next week.

In the current climate.

So yeah. if you're German mutuals and friends are currently going through their own stages of grief - this is why.

[omgthatdress]

Robe à la Polonaise

1780s

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

"The element of eighteenth-century fashion that we think of first is probably the court style. This linen dress of great beauty, and also of simplicity, provincialism, and even a degree of vulgarity compared to court dress, is most instructive. The bodice and skirt sewn together constitute a robe; a matching petticoat is worn underneath. Heavy linen, almost of a diaper weight and of great tactility, will always feel luxurious, but it also bears a common touch. Likewise, the floral appliqué is clumsy and garish, rather oversized for the dress, especially when compared with such refined examples as the embroidered cottons of the 1780s and 1790s of court style. But this country cousin possesses her own charm, and the dressmaking is sure. If a few roses loom too large and the reinforcement with metal sequins strikes one as grossly vernacular, one must remember that even high style in the emerging age of fashion plates and periodicals is not uniform and does not always conform to our ideal of good taste."

[beardedmrbean]

In a classic example of better late than never, a Federal Court in Canada ruled on Tuesday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's invocation of The Emergencies Act in 2022, used to crush the largest and most peaceful protest in Canadian history, was "unreasonable," "unjustified," and "violated the fundamental freedoms" set out in Canada's constitution.

The case was brought to the court by a number of individual applicants as well as several Canadian civiil liberties groups, including the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. And in the decision, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley expressed what every trucker and other participant in the trucker's Freedom Convoy knew to be true: There was no justification for granting the government powers that amounted to near Marshall Law over a protest that was 100 percent peaceful, with no violence or property damage committed—that is, until the Emergencies Act was passed, and the police trampled grandmothers under horses, fired tear gas canisters at journalists within point blank range, beat protesters down and smashed the windows of the truckers rigs, and generally deployed the type of violence that the government had knowingly falsely accused the truckers of engaging in.

The government also froze the bank accounts of truckers, seized donated funds, and shut down of the economic lives of hundreds of Canadian citizens, a draconian measure which shocked the world.

Every protester and trucker who took part in the Convoy knew that the government and it's bought and paid for media were lying to the public about the Freedom Convoy, and though it feels good to once again be proven correct, that doesn't change what happened. It also doesn't change the division in Canadian society which took place under COVID, and it remains to be seen if this ruling will put an end to the ongoing punishments of various Freedom Convoy protesters which continue to this day.

For example, the trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who emerged as public faces and leaders of the Ottawa portion of the Freedom Convoy, has now become the longest mischief trial in Canadian history. Finally getting underway in September of last year, the trial proceeded in fits and starts into December, and is set to resume in February.

Or take Guy Meisner, a trucker from Nova Scotia, was one of the first to be arrested and charged when the crackdown began after the Emergencies Act was invoked. He will be back in Ottawa near the end of February for the ninth time to face his "mischief" charges.

Then there is the case of Christine Decaire, a woman who protested in Ottawa and was charged by the police, who was acquitted last year; much like this ruling today, however, The Crown has decided to appeal her acquittal. To drag an innocent person back to court is the kind of grossly vindictive behavior on the part of the Trudeau Government that they have become well known for.

There are dozens of cases like this working their way through the system.

And then we have The Coutts Four, a group of men who were arrested in Alberta right before the Emergencies Act was invoked and have been kept in custody without bail nor trial ever since. Hopes are high that this ruling may help change their circumstances, but it has now been two years since they have seen their families, which is a grossly offensive situation, especially in a country where nearly everyone gets bail.

All of these cases point to a level of vindictive cruelty on the part of this government as constituted under Trudeau, who was only too happy to champion the fair treatment of someone who fought on the side of The Taliban in Afghanistan and was later apprehended by American forces. Champion the rights of his own peaceful citizens to a fair trial? Apparently that is beneath the Prime Minister.

Trudeau's deputy, Chrystia Freeland was behind the bank account freezing acting as Finance Minister, and she appeared almost immediately after the ruling to announce that her government would be appealing, claiming to "remind Canadians how serious the situation was." This though all the evidence and testimony presented in 2022 at the official inquest into the invocation of the Emergencies Act found that no threats existed, and everything the media said about the truckers was a fabrication.

Justin Trudeau has remarked in the past that Canada is a "post-national" state that has "no core identity," yet when that identity asserted itself to say enough is enough to the strictures of his punishing COVID Regime, he was only too happy to unleash the full power of his "post-national" state to attack these citizens whom he holds in utter contempt.

It appears that there is no ruling Trudeau will not appeal or lawfare he will not pursue to ensure punishment of the enemies of his party.

Justin Trudeau is not a leader, but merely a narcissistic tyrant. This week was only the latest evidence.

Gord Magill is a trucker, writer, and commentator, and can be found at www.autonomoustruckers.substack.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

"Which is an uncomfortable notion because we’re used to a royalty that “has to be seen to be believed.”"

This is not an uncomfortable notion. It's been tested over centuries.

Every royal since the notion began has done the 'has to be seen to be believed' parades, and stats always come back that support is higher after the Monarch has made themselves visible especially to the ordinary public, but it works both ways because public investment gives the monarchy power against the establishment. 

I could give you over 50 examples where the Monarch's visibility increased allegiance to the Crown, but we'd be here all day, so i'll narrow it down to just 3 examples in 3 reigns. 

When Queen victoria was merely princess Alexandrine, heir to the throne, her mother ensured that the public would support her by taking her on tours of the country. This gave both her mother and the princess power at court and ensured a smooth transition to Queen when the time came. 

However, after Albert died and Victoria refused to be seen in public for 40yrs, the monarch suffered to the point of constitutional crisis and is the highest point of republican movement where the public called for the end of it as they didn't see why they should support an invisible institution. 

The funny thing is that Victoria was using the social media of her day - frequently releasing portraits and photos of her and her family, encouraging the govt to create endless monuments and dedications to her beloved Albert, and the govt encouraged industrialised to use the image of the Queen to advertise their goods throughout the Empire, but it didn't work to stem the tide of republicanism especially in an era that had so many social problems.

That's not to say that she wasn't working behind the scenes - she was, but her invisibility was a huge problem that nearly ended the monarchy.

Her son, as scandalous as he was, mingled with the public at large and when he became King, he reinstated the visibility to great success. Most, if not all, the public ceremonies that the royals do now are down to him. Everything from Trooping the colour to State opening of Parliament. Those ceremonies had been taking place in private already, but he added the royal family to them, and turned them into a public spectacle showcasing the monarchy. And he taught his children well on that point.

George 5 especially understood that lesson because he used it to cement public investment in the monarchy and that way fortify it against being toppled by the establishment or republicans. He did it by building on the public ceremonies of his father by making charity/ meet and greets with the public a feature of royal life. He also created the system of awarding ordinary citizens honours and making sure there is a public investiture which is still beloved to this day. 

George 6 and The Queen added their own versions of meet and greets eg The Queen added the walkabout which proved extremely popular. 

The issue for William more than KC3 might be of personality as William seems shy just like Kate which is why they are not entirely comfortable with the public showing of themselves, so they need to figure out a way to do it that allows them to maintain public investment in the royals. 

They might want to scale back or figure out different ways of being visible, but remote media doesn't work, and it would be foolish to throw away a method tested and proven over 1000yrs. 

Anecdotally, they might dislike local bread-and-butter, meet-and-great the public engagements because they don't understand the power of them, but let me tell you about The Queen visiting my village in 2012 as the first stop on her Jubilee tour on the country - we've grown little, but in reality, still a village. 

She didn't do much. She met some school children and many villagers, looked at some assembled stalls in the village square, patted afew dogs,  looked over our tiny Abbey and left. Entire thing probably lasted 2hrs or less. 

She never returned, but you'll be hard pressed to find a republican in the village following that visit. Growing up there, I would never have thought people enjoyed the royals except for Charles - our village is in the Duchy of Cornwall so we have more contact with Charles and everyone has opinions about him - good and bad, but The Queen's visit was a shot in the arm that people still talk about today. 

*****

Anon, you really missed the point I was making. You missed it so badly that you made it for me.

I didn’t say “royalty has to be seen to be believed” was uncomfortable. I said the idea of modern, scaled-back monarchy favoring quality over quantity where the royals may not be as often seen was uncomfortable.

Yes, physical access and “being seen” is a powerful tool in the monarchy but it’s no longer the *only* tool they have. What’s different about today than Queen Victoria’s time is the 24/7 news cycle, social media, the capability to do in-real-time virtual events, the ability to record both video and audio, television, internet, and phones. Today’s society is more connected than the Victorians may have ever thought possible. Royalty does not need to only be physically present to make an impact any more and that makes people uncomfortable because — as you proved — it upturns 120+ years of tradition. It’s a huge change, a paradigm shift.

Now, should royalty still be physically present and seen? Yes. How are William and Kate going to do that? No idea, but it’s probably going to be different than what everyone’s used to and there’s already grumbling about it because it’s a change from what they’re used to.

[qqueenofhades]

I'm not clear as to whether or not the 14th Amendment barring an insurrectionist from holding certain powerful offices needs that individual to first to be proven guilty of being an insurrectionist in court. We all know Trump is absolutely an insurrectionist, but do we technically need that guilty verdict first?

I mean, I'm not a constitutional lawyer so I can't give you a 100% for sure answer, but I think the problem here isn't nuances of law or interpretation so much as basic courage: are courts or judges actually going to come to literally the only conclusion that can factually and legally be drawn (that the evil orange is a fucking traitor who should rot in prison for the rest of his life and never be allowed near public office again) or are they going to chicken out of it by admitting that he's an insurrectionist but something something the statute doesn't apply to him?

That's why the CO Supreme Court ruling (and as a native Coloradoan, HELL YEAH GUYS HELL YEAH!) is so important. Yes, I'm sure SCOTUS will do their worst to it, though the COSCOTUS judges craftily tailored their ruling to a states' rights opinion written by Gorsuch, who will now have to go diametrically against his own previous jurisprudence to find in Trump's favor. Yes, Republicans only like states' rights when the states are doing what they want, and the rest of the time it has to be stamped out, but even though Trump has been formally indicted for insurrection in regard to January 6, this is the first time that a court has conclusively found that as a result, it would be illegal for him to appear on the ballot due to the 14th Amendment. Which. Yeah. It is incredibly fucking obvious that this is the case. As I said, the issue isn't whether the statute applies, as it clearly does, but if the legal system is going to actually do the right thing and correctly apply it to Trump. While he wasn't going to win CO in 2024 anyway, what I really hope is that states like Pennsylvania or Michigan, where it would be HUGE to boot him off the ballot, follow suit. Ideally with a slightly different model of legal theory, so it can't be invalidated by whatever nonsense SCOTUS comes up with in regard to the Colorado ruling, but yeah.

The original judge's ruling in the case was a mess because they were clearly trying to have it both ways and avoid taking a stand: yes, Trump is clearly a traitor, but they didn't want to be the one that said he couldn't appear on the ballot as a result. But now that COSCOTUS has found that a) Trump engaged in legally defined insurrection and b) that therefore disqualifies him from standing for elected office as a matter of straightforward application of the 14th Amendment, let's hope that gives other judges in these suits across the country nerve to follow suit. Because this is not a candy-ass or trivial statement:

That's as about as strongly worded a statement as you can get in a case like this, and it's been made by a state-level supreme court. It likely will not survive SCOTUS, but they might also try to find a way to split the difference (especially as Jack Smith has asked them for an expedited ruling on the absolute immunity question and they might have to pick one or the other in terms of helping Trump out) and come up with some vague weasel word opinion. So. We'll see. The issue is not that it applies to Trump, but that he's heretofore been handled with kid gloves and gotten the benefit of the doubt and preferential treatment at every turn. This is not that, and God, do we ever need more of it.

[wardevilwins]

Why is it the War Devil?

Obviously, I am fascinated by the concept of the War Devil. There is a way in which her presence in the story is uniquely Japanese. Since WWII, the question of how to process the Empire’s defeat has hung over Japanese society. On the conservative side, there is a long project to minimize the realities of the War, especially atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army. Alongside this, there is the concerted effort within the legislature to repeal Article 9 of the constitution, the article which forbids the Japanese government from raising an army. On the left, there is a desire for genuine reconciliation and strong support for article 9. However, the effort has not gained much of a foothold. Japan is, much like the United States, a strongly conservative country.

For example, when the historian Ienaga Saburo wrote his textbook “New Japanese History” for public schools in 1953, the government initially approved his manuscript, but when he resubmitted a revised version two years later, they demanded that 216 revisions be made. Revisions included minimizing the Rape of Nanking, adding a mention of public support for the Russo-Japanese war, etc. Straightforward government censorship of established historical fact.

Ienaga sued the government for damages arguing that he was protected by Article 21, the right to free speech. Note: his book was not a state standard. It was simply one of many textbooks available for use by schools. A district court ruled that the government’s demands didn’t constitute censorship, but did constitute an abuse of authority and granted monetary settlement. An appeal to the High court rejected the monetary settlement, and the Supreme Court upheld the appeal.

In other words, the Japanese Government was granted the right to dictate the facts of history “for the public good” in the words of the rulings. Realities of war were erased from the public consciousness with the intent to control the narrative around the Fallen Empire. And the state reasoning was a paternalistic appeal to the greater good of humanity. If this reminds you of Makima’s plan in part one, I am sure that is not a coincidence.

This is a metaphor that I think was broadly missed by the international audience. The idea that War should be forgotten for the sake of humanity, this is the ideology behind historical revisionism. Fujimoto is looking directly at the way that political power in Japan is used to manipulate public understanding of history. Pieces of the past are erased, eaten, and forgotten.

This is why I don’t lend much credence to the idea that Chainsaw Man actually modifies the fabric of the universe somehow when he eats a devil. It is not that the world changes, it is that people forget about it. It’s not that our forgotten sixth sense was deleted. We just forgot it used to exist. It disappeared, perhaps as a part of Chainsaw Man’s attack. And then we forgot.

The main reason I think of it this way is because of the parallel with historical revisionism. Right now in Florida the state government is attempting to erase the suffering of African slaves brought to America from the school curriculum. If they maintain this for three generations, no one in the state of Florida will know of this true part of history. It will be forgotten. Humanity in Florida will have forgotten a part of slavery. We don’t need supernatural mechanics to explain historical ignorance. This happens all the time.

Yoru describes this phenomenon in more detail: “War became a thing of books and movies.” Yoru became weakened as humanity became less afraid of war. Parts of the war that really happened are not gone, but have been consigned to unreality. They exist only at a distance. It is only one step further along this axis until they are completely forgotten, until they aren’t thought about at all.

This idea of forgetting War is directly relevant to the political conflicts around Article 9. This conflict is split as I mentioned, but the reality of the situation is more complex. During the occupation, the US Government directed the drafting of the new Japanese constitution. In a real sense, Japan was literally Americanized. The text of Article 9 reads:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

This is part of Chapter 2 in the Articles of the Japanese Constitution. Other chapters contain multiple articles. This is the only article in chapter 2 which is titled “Renunciation of War.” To date, Japan is the only country in the world to include a renunciation of war in its constitution.

Of course, Article 9 doesn’t exist out of the kindness of the Japanese people’s peace loving hearts. It exists because the US military thought that the Japanese people were so intrinsically bloodthirsty, that if they didn’t dismantle the empire and remove their ability to raise an army, there could never be peace.

That said, Japanese politicians were involved in the drafting of the constitution as well. Since the war began in China in 1928, a significant faction even among the hawkish types were exasperated with the boneheaded aggression. But the fascists had control of the Emperor, the key figurehead. Once that was lost, cooler heads who were open to the idea of a peaceful Japan stepped in.

So Article 9 starts with this complex identity. On the one hand, it is an imposition by the occupying force, on the other hand, it is a reconciliation within Japan around mistakes the nation made. This remains the case going forward. Because soon after the occupation ends, the Korean War begins.

America, having secured a foothold in the region, realizes that militarily neutering their nearest ally may have been a tactical mistake. But they also still don’t really trust the Japanese government. So they make a move. The US signs a controversial security-treaty with Japan that creates the “National Security Force” to act as a military police. Japanese conservatives then use this precedent to begin building a military under the premise of it being for “self defense.” Thus the JSDF, Japanese Self Defense Force, is born. This was all done with explicit American support.

The American’s didn’t want to team up with the JSDF per se. They wanted Japan to manufacture weapons to create a short supply line towards the Korean front. The creation of the JSDF gives the Japanese government permission to permit manufacturing of military machinery, which was originally taken to be forbidden by Article 9.

Since it’s founding, the JSDF has gradually crept further and further towards active military activity. The final line was crossed in the Iraq war. At the behest of George W. Bush, Prime Minister Koizumi approved a battalion of Japanese soldiers to act in conjunction with the US military for the invasion of Iraq.

This occurs in 2004, in the wake of the 90s. Japan re-enters war in a real way. At this point, article 9 is essentially window dressing on a country which has what amounts to a fully functional military force. But, the existence of article 9 creates a public perception of Japan as being removed from war, even as it actively participates.

You can see now why when Yoru appeared in chapter 98 I was immediately excited. The idea of the War Devil coming back is a stab at the powers that be trying to paper over their militaristic intentions with political rhetoric. Conservatives are currently moving to repeal article 9. This was one of Shinzo Abe’s major objectives. But he failed to achieve it.

So the struggle continues under the current leadership. And in that context, Fujimoto is placing War front and center. War that has been forgotten but will come back. War that, should she return to full power, will turn legions of young men into weapons.

It’s a subtle but also daring message. The debate plays out in politics but is notably absent from public discourse. Japan is different from American in that political conflict doesn’t dominate its media landscape. Generally speaking, the media is running cover for the government.

So to see someone go after this idea of forgotten war, of war coming back from a weakened state, and to highlight the latent threat it poses, is quite refreshing. Once again, Fujimoto manages to subtly weave a cogent political message into the threads of his story, not necessarily by trying to push a particular narrative, but simply by reflecting in his work the political realities he sees in his society.

[haggishlyhagging]

Here's the reality of it, and I beg you to think about this when you hear all the shit that you hear about the First Amendment. I beg you to think about this Constitution that was crafted to protect the institution of slavery; crafted not to interfere with it, with the buying and selling of human beings. It is not a surprise that this state, regulated by this Constitution, is deeply insensitive to crimes against people that involve buying and selling them.

And I will remind you that the Founding Fathers were—many of them—slave owners. But especially—especially—that James Madison, who crafted the First Amendment, not only owned slaves but bragged that he could spend $12 or $13 a year on their upkeep and make from each slave $257 a year.

The First Amendment doesn't have anything to do with protecting the rights of the people who historically have been chattel in this country. And it is not a surprise that right now the First Amendment is protecting people who buy and sell people: the First Amendment is protecting pornographers. And we're told that their rights of speech make our rights of speech stronger. You see, they take one of us, or ten of us, or thirty of us, put gags in our mouths, hang us from something, and our speech rights are stronger. It defies comprehension but they keep saying it's true. I keep saying it's not true.

Please understand that we now live in a country where the courts are actively protecting pornography and the pornography business. When the civil-rights ordinance was passed in Indianapolis, the city was sued an hour after the ordinance was passed for passing it. For passing it. It was never even used. For passing it.

The first judge, in federal district court, was a Reagan-appointed judge, a woman, a right-wing woman. She said in her decision that sex discrimination never outweighs First Amendment rights in importance. That's the right-wing position. The First Amendment is more important than any harm that's being done to women. This First-Amendment-first decision was then appealed. Another Reagan-appointed judge, Frank Easterbrook, wrote the appeals court decision striking down the ordinance. He said that pornography did everything that we said it did. He said it promoted rape and injury. He said it led to lower pay for women, to affronts to women, to insult, to injury. And then he said that that proved its power as speech. Its ability to hurt women proved its power as speech and was the reason it had to be protected. A right-wing, Reagan-appointed libertarian.

So if your theory says that the right is against pornography and will use any means in its hands to stop pornography from existing, it seems to me that reality forces you to change your theory because your theory is wrong. Both the right and the left agree that a woman being hung from something is somebody's speech. Somebody's speech. And this means there is a new legal way in which women are legally chattel. Do you understand that once we're made into speech, we are owned as speech by men in the age of technology? Once we're technologized, once the abuse of us is technologized, we are legally their chattel.

-Andrea Dworkin, “Woman-Hating Right and Left” in The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Badash at NCRM:

In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines the right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court once again targeted the landmark 2015 Obergefell same-sex marriage decision, leading liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to sound “alarm bells” on marriage equality in her dissent a legal expert says, warning that they may try to “roll it back.”

The case involves Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen who argued that the federal government’s denial of a visa for her husband, who lives in El Salvador, deprives her of her constitutionally protected right to liberty. The right-wing majority in a decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett ruled: “A citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.” Friday’s ruling “undermines same-sex marriage,” Bloomberg Law reports Justice Sotomayor’s dissent warns. Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern has covered the courts since 2013, and is the author of a 2019 book on the Roberts Supreme Court. “Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, accuses the conservative supermajority of cutting back the rights guaranteed in Obergefell—the same-sex marriage decision—and of repeating ‘the same fatal error’ it made in Dobbs,” Stern writes. “A very ominous opinion.”

[...] “A traveler to the United States two centuries ago reported that ‘‘[t]here is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America.’ ‘ ” “Today,” Sotomayor continued, “the majority fails to live up to that centuries-old promise. Muñoz may be able to live with her husband in El Salvador, but it will mean raising her U. S.-citizen child outside the United States. Others will be less fortunate. The burden will fall most heavily on same-sex couples and others who lack the ability, for legal or financial reasons, to make a home in the noncitizen spouse’s country of origin.” Again quoting Obergefell, she adds, “For those couples, this Court’s vision of marriage as the ‘assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other’ rings hollow.” Stern warns: “I think Justice Sotomayor is clearly correct that the Supreme Court’s gratuitous attack on the constitutional rights of married couples in Muñoz—especially same-sex couples—suggests that the conservative justices hate Obergefell and may roll it back.” Sotomayor began her dissent also with a quote from Obergefell: “The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition.”

SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in the Department of State v. Muñoz case gave an alarming warning that the 6-3 radical right-wing majority's decision in Muñoz could imperil Obergefell v. Hodges and marriage equality.

See Also:

The Advocate: Justice Sotomayor: Supreme Court ruling in immigration case threatens marriage equality

[beautiful-basque-country]

Drugs as part of Spain's dirty war against Euskadi

In 1982, the proliferation of syringes on the streets, young people wandering around with withdrawal symptoms, and small-scale robberies in stores or homes were evidencing a problem that would leave a trail of deaths in that decade that was impossible to calculate anymore. Heroin was going to mark an entire generation at a very politically turbulent time.

Citizens' perception of the impending catastrophe would become official in some way with the Basque Government's Plan against Drug Dependence was introduced on February 9, 1982. It included some figures for the first time: there were already between 6,000 and 10,000 heroin addicts aged 14-25 in Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. Something else was pointed out: "Police action in this matter has been weak" and "public authorities have neglected it." The plan warned especially about Gipuzkoa, where drugs flowed with absolute freedom, to the point of being the place in the Spanish State where the most heroin was consumed after Barcelona.

Man doing heroine on the street in Bizkaia.

Why Gipuzkoa? To the purely geographical elements (possibility of entering by sea, proximity of the border to another state) were obviously added the political ones: it was the region in which there was the most political agitation - which the youth was most involved in - and in which ETA had the most strength. It was also the epicenter of police action against the insurgents, with the Intxaurrondo Guardia Civil barracks as the main reference.

Heroin coincidentally punished the areas very close to Intxaurrondo: the neighborhoods of Altza and Herrera, Pasaia, Errenteria, Hernani… But also Arrasate, Elgoibar, Bermeo or the capitals: Iruñea, Gasteiz, and Bilbo (some estimates put the death toll at 400 in Otxarkoaga [a neighborhood of Bilbo] alone).

People protesting before the Intxaurrondo barracks.

The widespread conviction that it was actually the police using drugs to politically demobilize Basque youth increased with two relevant press reports: after the seizure of large consignments of cocaine in Irun and hashish in Hondarribia, it turned out that a large part of the shipments had "disappeared" and/or returned to the market. The second one, the publishing of a report where the chief prosecutor of the Court of Gipuzkoa pointed to connections between the Spanish Security Forces and the spread of heroin in the Basque Country.

Report that was never seen again after being transferred to Madrid.

The issue today still constitutes a file to be opened. It has not been possible to put the exact dimension of the human drama that entailed and we have no actual number of deaths. The effects were not just deaths and illnesses, in a Russian roulette game that would worsen with the almost parallel emergence of AIDS. They also caused an economic drain on many families. The situation also left its mark on the artistic world in many of the songs of the so-called Basque Radical Rock, also shaken by the scourge.

Drug addiction was also associated to the increase in unemployment among youth, completing a picture of punishment and an eventual -and much wanted - political demobilization.

[x]

[mariacallous]

In Germany, it is in hushed, angst-infused tones that observers now utter the words “Weimarer Verhältnisse,” or Weimar conditions. This refers to the chaos and violence that political extremists sowed during Germany’s 1918 to 1933 Weimar Republic, an experiment in democracy that ended with the Nazis grabbing power. Postwar Germany has gone to extreme lengths—in every field of its culture, economy, and society—to proscribe any return of the precarious conditions that witnessed fierce street battles between the communist left and Nazi right and enabled Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party to capture so much of the German vote that it could come to power in 1933—and from there shut down the democratic state and impose a fascist dictatorship.

This is why Germans today are so deeply distressed about the shocking spate of violence against candidates and campaign volunteers involved in the run-up to the EU-wide European Parliament elections on June 6 to 9. And there is some evidence that the phenomenon, while most intense and sustained in Germany, is not confined to the Federal Republic. In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico was the victim of an assassination attempt on May 15. France, Poland, the Netherlands, and other countries have also seen violence against politicos surge—although its perpetrators are not generally as closely associated with the extreme-right scene as in Germany.

The Dutch political historian Ido de Haan underscores that the far right’s ascendance across Europe is at the root of the problem: “The larger context for this violence is mostly the hard right’s ascendance across Europe,” he told Foreign Policy. He pointed out that the far right leads or participates in governments in Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, and most recently the Netherlands, too. The far-right parties, including in Germany, are expected to score particularly well in the EU vote, and headline-grabbing attacks could play into their court, he said.

Indeed, Germany appears to be the epicenter of the phenomenon—and female personnel are particularly vulnerable. On May 4, a prominent Social Democrat, Matthias Ecke, was hanging posters in Dresden when attacked by four teenagers, at least one a known right-wing radical, and badly beaten, landing him in the hospital with broken bones. That week, a female Green party campaign worker in the same city was assaulted. In Berlin on May 7, a former mayor, Social Democrat Franziska Giffey, was assailed and hurt. In 2023, aggressive behavior toward political figures and officials in Germany surged: 3,691 incidents, 80 of them involving physical violence. The numbers show that the lion’s share of perpetrators are extreme rightists. The party bearing the overwhelming brunt of abuse: the Greens.

The hard right has long seen leftists as its primary political enemy, but several years running now it is the Greens party—with its high-profile climate policies and progressive identity politics—that presents an oversized target. The far right brands the environmentalists as elitist, cosmopolitan, and more concerned about the natural world than the human beings living in it. They are pigeonholed as the party that wants to ban and outlaw things like combustion-engine automobiles, domestic flights, and new oil and gas heating systems. But all of the democratic parties are objects of hate for the hard right, and they are singled out as such with purpose and strategic calculation.

“In Germany,” de Haan said, “these cases and others constitute interference in the electoral processes,” which he argued is, for the moment at least, unique in Europe. The Greens and other leftist parties are targeted in an indirectly organized, tactical effort to obstruct their campaigns and undermine democracy, he said. “The extreme right’s aim is to deny the legitimacy of democratic processes. It wants to assert itself as the most visible and consequential political force prepared to stand up and do something dramatic about the system’s perceived failings.”

“These attacks are aimed at destroying the very basis of democracy,” agreed the left-liberal daily Tageszeitung, “at the political commitment of people in their city and community. If everyone is too afraid to run for office, the perpetrators will have won.”

In contrast, the Fico assassination attempt in Slovakia appears to be more similar to past political violence in Slovakia carried out by underworld protagonists or political enemies. The assailant was a lone perpetrator, frustrated with government policies and thus appears “closely related to the specific conditions in Slovakia,” explained Ulf Brunnbauer, a historian at the University of Regensburg. Therre is a “supercharged polarization, a public debate full of hate speech, ubiquitous accusations of corruption and illegitimacy against political opponents, and the big conflict over Slovakia’s geopolitical position: West or East,” Brunnbauer told Foreign Policy.

Experts in Germany say the prominence and expansion of political violence has everything to do with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) itself, an extremist party with convictions that often dovetail with those of full-fledged neo-Nazis, the likes of whom are at home within its ranks. “The AfD is a party with violence in its DNA,” said Heike Kleffner, an author of several books on the German right and head of a counseling center for victims of right-wing violence. “Its language, proclamations, and accusations condone and even call for violence against its political foes,” she said.

So incendiary is the party that several AfD branches in eastern Germany and the national AfD youth section are the subject of German intelligence service observation. The AfD’s politics are so much more radical than those of its far-right peers in the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy group, an alliance of populist right-wing parties that includes Marine Le Pen’s French National Rally, that the alliance expelled the AfD from its ranks on May 21. A new German study found that 28 AfD members serving in German legislatures had been convicted of violence-related crimes, including verbal violence and incitement to hatred.

Kleffner pointed out that right-wing attacks against democratic officials are not new, although their scope has expanded. In 2019, Walter Lübcke, a Christian Democrat politician in Hesse, was gunned down by a neo-Nazi after expressing sympathy with refugees. In 2015, the liberal-minded then-candidate for mayor of Cologne was stabbed in the throat while campaigning.

In response, the AfD denies that it has anything to do with street violence. And it points out that it is also the victim of political violence. On May 22, an AfD politico, Mario Kumpf, was punched in the face at a supermarket in Saxony. Most recently, on June 5, another local AfD official was attacked with a knife in Mannheim, a city in western Germany. But neither the AfD’s number of victims nor the severity of their injuries is on par with those of the democratic parties—and the attacks are not part of a larger political strategy.

The threat of injury has already impacted Germany’s political culture. Candidates and campaigners travel in groups. Party insiders say that they are finding it harder to get new people to run for office.

“No one can say what the threshold is at which democracy tips over,” Holger Münch, head of Germany’s federal investigative police agency, told the German media. “But when 10 percent of office and mandate holders say they are considering quitting because of the hostility and another almost 10 percent say they no longer want to run for office again because of the hostility, this is clearly too high.”

The spike in violence and the dramatic headlines have renewed calls for police departments to do more, and even for the state to ban the AfD. The German government passed a Democracy Promotion Act that would finance initiatives that promote “diversity, tolerance, and democracy” with around 200 million euros a year.

Historians such as Brunnbauer say that the violence on the German political scene is nothing like the pandemonium that raged in Weimar Germany. But others point out that then, as now, the hard right utilized violence to achieve political goals. The hate speech, injunctions to take action, and demonization of political opponents jacks up the animosity that like-minded toughs dole out in fists and clubbings on the street.

“The consensus that existed in the old Federal Republic that [political violence] is unacceptable under penalty of political ostracism has been shattered,” opined the Tageszeitung. More violence could shatter the new normal, delivering democracy in Germany a blow that may not equate with the conditions of Weimar Germany but which looks enough like them to set off alarm bells.

[klett161]

So I think many people are not aware about the current state of Julien Assange, the founder of Wikileaks since he‘s not getting a lot of media attention any more and the news cycle has long moved on.

Around 2 years ago the British courts already ruled that hell be extradited into the Usa where he will spend the rest of his life in jail under according to amnesty International: „a real risk of serious human rights violations including possible detention conditions that would amount to torture and other ill-treatment“. In the Usa he will face charges for his Journalistic practices such as leaking footage of Us soldiers committing war crimes.

Right now he‘s being held in Belmarsh high security prison in the east of London, England. He has been there since two years ago and is currently being held in solitary confinement. While the courts in the Uk already ruled about his extardidment to the Usa two years ago he is right at the moment in the process of making his last appeal. if it fails which it mostly likely will his last chance would be an appeal to the Un human rights comitee. The last appeal in front of the court in the Uk will be held on the 16th and 17th of February.

He is being charged for „being a risk to the national security of the United States of America“ under the 1917 Espionage act which was put in place during the Usa‘s Involvement in the first world war to fight german spy’s in Us Institutions and should have been abolished after the end of it. Instead it stayed in place up until today conveniently giving the Us-Government a reason to jail some of their stongest critics.

You just have to really think about the Implications that this whole case carries with it, if the Us Government can classify every document they don‘t want the public to know about because it would Inform them about their atrocities and crooked doings and everyone leaking them can get charged how can you still talk about a functioning Democracy? Not that I think that any representative democracy especially not the one in the Usa represents the true will of the people. But even taken this aside the rational of a democracy must be that information is somewhat available for voters to base their decision on. The thing is the Us-Government knows and this includes both parties that all of their little war adventures in the middle east and the all civilian casualties, displaced people and other atrocities commited would,even under the most ignorant Americans, raise some eyebrows. THEY FEAR THE TRUTH

And I think all of this is not only typical for the Us but for basically every liberal democracy. Nominally there is a right to free speech for everyone up until the point that you pose a real thread to the Government. And no, the constitution will not defend you because guess what even if there are no convenient laws like the Us espionage act that help to prosecute you, there are all sorts of secret services that don’t give a fuck about the constitution and their only purpose is to do what ever is best for the nation-state they are serving weather that is overthrowing government’s, bribing a court or assasinations doesn’t matter. And if the Usa can keep on silencing its sharpest critics without international condemnation or condemnation by their citizens, other western countries will follow this example and be more confident to prosecute their own critics openly, I do believe this is somewhat of a slippery slope.

There will be some last big demonstrations on the 20th and 21st of February outside of the royal court where the hearings will take place. Demonstrations starting as early as 8:30(GMT) so if you live in the area consider going. And even if you don’t live near london you can still get active, share Information, talk to friends and family, make solidarity graffitis, write an article for a local newspaper or zine, attend solidarity demonstrations or if there are none in your area organize one yourself. Anything really just don‘t look away

Please Reblog and share not only this post but all posts aiming to raise awareness about this topic.

This struggle is not merely about Julien Assange it‘s about press freedom as a whole. And not just in the Us but everywhere, so go and fight for free speech while you still can

Source:

amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/julian-assange-usa-justice/

[contemplatingoutlander]

Jamelle Bouie does a good job of underscoring just how fed up Justice Elena Kagan is with the decisions coming from the right-wing justices on the court, and why she questions the constitutionality of Roberts' majority opinion in Biden v. Nebraska (the student loan forgiveness case). Here are some excerpts from Bouie's NY Times newsletter:

But I don’t want to discuss Roberts’s majority opinion [in Biden v. Nebraska] as much as I do Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent. Kagan wrote something unusual. She didn’t just challenge the chief justice’s reasoning, she questioned whether the court’s decision was even constitutional. “From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint,” Kagan wrote. “At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.” She continued: “That is a major problem not just for governance, but for democracy too. Congress is of course a democratic institution; it responds, even if imperfectly, to the preferences of American voters. And agency officials, though not themselves elected, serve a President with the broadest of all political constituencies. But this Court? It is, by design, as detached as possible from the body politic. That is why the Court is supposed to stick to its business — to decide only cases and controversies, and to stay away from making this Nation’s policy about subjects like student-loan relief.” The court, Kagan concluded, “exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.” [...] Kagan’s dissent, in other words, is a call for accountability. For Congress, especially, to exercise its authority to discipline the court when it oversteps its bounds. Democrats may or may not get this particular message. But John Roberts heard it loud and clear. “It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,” he wrote in his opinion. “It is important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.” For Roberts, the problem isn’t that the Supreme Court is overstepping its bounds, it’s that one of its justices has decided that she’s had enough. [emphasis added]

[tomorrowusa]

Never mind the 22nd amendment. Some Trumpsters are already talking about a THIRD Trump term.

The American Conservative magazine published an article last week in which the author, Peter Tonguette, argued that Trump should be able to run for a third term in office in 2028. This drew some attention in non-Trump circles as a potential trial balloon by Project 2025, the authoritarian policy agenda that is guiding Trumpworld right now. Tonguette argued that Trump’s victory in the GOP primary contest this year shows that voters still support him—and that they should be allowed to do so indefinitely. “As the primary season has shown us, the Republicans have not moved on from Trump—yet the Twenty-second Amendment works to constrain their enthusiasm by prohibiting them from rewarding Trump with re-election four years from now,” he wrote, perhaps getting ahead of himself a bit. I do not doubt that Trump would run for a third term if he could. He has addressed the possibility before, suggesting in 2020 that he should get to run for one “because they spied on my campaign,” referring to his political opponents. And at a closed-door fundraiser in 2018, Trump also favorably referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping for eliminating the two-term limit in that country. “He’s now president for life, president for life, and he’s great,” he reportedly told his supporters. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”

Maybe Trump's campaign slogan for 2028 should be: Make America Belarus. The dictator of Belarus, a Putin satellite, has been using rigged elections to remain in power since 1994.

Never mind the US Constitution. Trump's trained seals on the US Supreme Court will gladly find some loophole allowing him to be president in perpetuity.

If somebody says he wants to be a dictator, believe him – especially if he's already a big fanboy of despots like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Xi Jinping.

It's almost always easier to prevent a dictator from taking power than it is to get rid of one who is already in power.

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

NYTimes, The Editorial Board: 9/30/2024

The Only Patriotic Choice for President

"It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.

Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.

This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.

Most presidential elections are, at their core, about two different visions of America that emerge from competing policies and principles. This one is about something more foundational. It is about whether we invite into the highest office in the land a man who has revealed, unmistakably, that he will degrade the values, defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.

As a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.

Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator and a state attorney general.

Over the past 10 weeks, Ms. Harris has offered a shared future for all citizens, beyond hate and division. She has begun to describe a set of thoughtful plans to help American families.

While character is enormously important — in this election, pre-eminently so — policies matter. Many Americans remain deeply concerned about their prospects and their children’s in an unstable and unforgiving world. For them, Ms. Harris is clearly the better choice. She has committed to using the power of her office to help Americans better afford the things they need, to make it easier to own a home, to support small businesses and to help workers. Mr. Trump’s economic priorities are more tax cuts, which would benefit mostly the wealthy, and more tariffs, which will make prices even more unmanageable for the poor and middle class.

Beyond the economy, Ms. Harris promises to continue working to expand access to health care and reduce its cost. She has a long record of fighting to protect women’s health and reproductive freedom. Mr. Trump spent years trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and boasts of picking the Supreme Court justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

Globally, Ms. Harris would work to maintain and strengthen the alliances with like-minded nations that have long advanced American interests abroad and maintained the nation’s security. Mr. Trump — who has long praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong-un — has threatened to blow those democratic alliances apart. Ms. Harris recognizes the need for global solutions to the global problem of climate change and would continue President Biden’s major investments in the industries and technologies necessary to achieve that goal. Mr. Trump rejects the accepted science, and his contempt for low-carbon energy solutions is matched only by his trollish fealty to fossil fuels.

As for immigration, a huge and largely unsolved issue, the former president continues to demonize and dehumanize immigrants, while Ms. Harris at least offers hope for a compromise, long denied by Congress, to secure the borders and return the nation to a sane immigration system.

Many voters have said they want more details about the vice president’s plans, as well as more unscripted encounters in which she explains her vision and policies. They are right to ask. Given the stakes of this election, Ms. Harris may think that she is running a campaign designed to minimize the risks of an unforced error — answering journalists’ questions and offering greater policy detail could court controversy, after all — under the belief that being the only viable alternative to Mr. Trump may be enough to bring her to victory. That strategy may ultimately prove winning, but it’s a disservice to the American people and to her own record. And leaving the public with a sense that she is being shielded from tough questions, as Mr. Biden has been, could backfire by undermining her core argument that a capable new generation stands ready to take the reins of power.

Ms. Harris is not wrong, however, on the clear dangers of returning Mr. Trump to office. He has promised to be a different kind of president this time, one who is unrestrained by checks on power built into the American political system. His pledge to be “a dictator” on “Day 1” might have indeed been a joke — but his undisguised fondness for dictatorships and the strongmen who run them is anything but.

Most notably, he systematically undermined public confidence in the result of the 2020 election and then attempted to overturn it — an effort that culminated in an insurrection at the Capitol to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power and resulted in him and some of his most prominent supporters being charged with crimes. He has not committed to honoring the result of this election and continues to insist, as he did at the debate with Ms. Harris on Sept. 10, that he won in 2020. He has apparently made a willingness to support his lies a litmus test for those in his orbit, starting with JD Vance, who would be his vice president.

His disdain for the rule of law goes beyond his efforts to obtain power; it is also central to how he plans to use it. Mr. Trump and his supporters have described a 2025 agenda that would give him the power to carry out the most extreme of his promises and threats. He vows, for instance, to turn the federal bureaucracy and even the Justice Department into weapons of his will to hurt his political enemies. In at least 10 instances during his presidency, he did exactly that, pressuring federal agencies and prosecutors to punish people he felt had wronged him, with little or no legal basis for prosecution.

Some of the people Mr. Trump appointed in his last term saved America from his most dangerous impulses. They refused to break laws on his behalf and spoke up when he put his own interests above his country’s. As a result, the former president intends, if re-elected, to surround himself with people who are unwilling to defy his demands. Today’s version of Mr. Trump — the twice-impeached version that faces a barrage of criminal charges — may prove to be the restrained version.

Unless American voters stand up to him, Mr. Trump will have the power to do profound and lasting harm to our democracy.

That is not simply an opinion of Mr. Trump’s character by his critics; it is a judgment of his presidency from those who know it best — the very people he appointed to serve in the most important positions of his White House. It is telling that among those who fear a second Trump presidency are people who worked for him and saw him at close range.

Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice president, has repudiated him. No other vice president in modern history has done this. “I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Mr. Pence has said. “And anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”

Mr. Trump’s attorney general has raised similar concerns about his fundamental unfitness. And his chief of staff. And his defense secretary. And his national security advisers. And his education secretary. And on and on — a record of denunciation without precedent in the nation’s long history.

That’s not to say Mr. Trump did not add to the public conversation. In particular, he broke decades of Washington consensus and led both parties to wrestle with the downsides of globalization, unrestrained trade and China’s rise. His criminal-justice reform efforts were well placed, his focus on Covid vaccine development paid off, and his decision to use an emergency public health measure to turn away migrants at the border was the right call at the start of the pandemic. Yet even when the former president’s overall aim may have had merit, his operational incompetence, his mercurial temperament and his outright recklessness often led to bad outcomes. Mr. Trump’s tariffs cost Americans billions of dollars. His attacks on China have ratcheted up military tensions with America’s strongest rival and a nuclear superpower. His handling of the Covid crisis contributed to historic declines in confidence in public health, and to the loss of many lives. His overreach on immigration policies, such as his executive order on family separation, was widely denounced as inhumane and often ineffective.

And those were his wins. His tax plan added $2 trillion to the national debt; his promised extension of them would add $5.8 trillion over the next decade. His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal destabilized the Middle East. His support for antidemocratic strongmen like Mr. Putin emboldened human rights abusers all over the world. He instigated the longest government shutdown ever. His sympathetic comments toward the Proud Boys expanded the influence of domestic right-wing extremist groups.

In the years since he left office, Mr. Trump was convicted on felony charges of falsifying business records, was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and faces two, possibly three, other criminal cases. He has continued to stoke chaos and encourage violence and lawlessness whenever it suits his political aims, most recently promoting vicious lies against Haitian immigrants. He recognizes that ordinary people — voters, jurors, journalists, election officials, law enforcement officers and many others who are willing to do their duty as citizens and public servants — have the power to hold him to account, so he has spent the past three and a half years trying to undermine them and sow distrust in anyone or any institution that might stand in his way.

Most dangerous for American democracy, Mr. Trump has transformed the Republican Party — an institution that once prided itself on principle and honored its obligations to the law and the Constitution — into little more than an instrument of his quest to regain power. The Republicans who support Ms. Harris recognize that this election is about something more fundamental than narrow partisan interest. It is about principles that go beyond party.

In 2020 this board made the strongest case it could against the re-election of Mr. Trump. Four years later, many Americans have put his excesses out of their minds. We urge them and those who may look back at that period with nostalgia or feel that their lives are not much better now than they were three years ago to recognize that his first term was a warning and that a second Trump term would be much more damaging and divisive than the first.

Kamala Harris is the only choice."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/opinion/editorials/kamala-harris-2024.html