Power Grab

Keeping Cautious Watch

Politico reports that big money Democrat donors have stopped pouring money into Florida, and this indicates in their opinion, that Florida is no longer seen as a potential win for Democrat candidates. They go on to claim that this is a potential disaster in the making for Democrat hopes in 2024. There is another possibility that I think is being overlooked:

What if the billionaires have stopped donating money because they know that the key to winning elections is no longer to be found in throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into advertising only to still see a possibility of losing? What if ten million could be spent hacking election systems and machines to guarantee a win instead? Wouldn’t that be more cost effective?

If there is anything that we learned from the 2020 election, it was to prove that elections could be rigged. After all, they did it in the open, bragged about it, then Time Magazine even did an article admitting to their part in it. We know that they will do it again. We know that there has been shenanigans in elections for decades. The only question remains: Can and will they do it again?

The election next month will be the test. We are less than a week and a half from finding out if we still live in a Republic where the democratic process chooses our representatives, or if we are living in a country ruled by oligarch fascisti. All of the polls, all of the data, and even history are pointing to a major landslide to the right in this election.

History usually marks a loss for the sitting president‘s party.

The only presidents to preside over negative income growth by the midterms — Eisenhower in 1954 and 1958, and Nixon in 1974 — did quite poorly. Even Obama in 2010 and Clinton in 1994, with their historic midterm losses, saw some income growth, though it was notably weak.

Five38 is projecting an 81 percent chance that the Republicans will win the house, with a 52 percent chance of the Democrats claiming the Senate. For governors: In the southeast, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Arkansas are all electing governors, and in every one of those states there is a greater than 90 percent chance that the Republican will win.

The economy is in a shambles. The President is extremely unpopular with a 53 percent disapproval rating.

Watch each of those races closely. If a pile of them go the other way, start looking for fuckery. Even if the Republicans DO win, don’t expect much to change. One thing that the Republicans have proven time and again is that, once they get in power, they never know what to do with it, and wind up wasting capital on useless gestures that accomplish nothing.

By Divemedic, ago

Correction

I want to make a correction to my earlier post about the Rubio staffer who was attacked. It turns out that the attacker was Christopher Monzon. The man who attacked him was Javier Jesus Lopez. I got the names reversed in my original post.

I also want to add that the press, especially the openly communist press in Miami, is running with the “white supremacist” claims. The press is now reporting that Monzon was at the Charlottesville protest. I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Let’s say that every claim is true- he WAS at the Charlottesville protest. How would his attacker have known that? Even if Monzon was there, and even if his attacker knew that, does that mean his attacker gets a free pass?

This is dangerous territory. A continuation of Antifa’s “punch a Nazi” campaign, it’s a call to political violence. They forget that this can work both ways. Did a person say something mean about you? Beat them within an inch of their lives…” I seem to recall a certain asshole calling me deplorable.

By Divemedic, ago

Targeting

Communists are still committing violence against the right. A staffer for Marco Rubio suffered serious injuries late Sunday night while knocking on doors as a campaign worker.

“Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a DeSantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in Hialeah, Florida”

By Divemedic, ago

First Amendment

If the government pays a burglar to break into your house to see what you have, then the police use that evidence to arrest you, they have just violated your right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

If the government pays a private contractor to burn down your church, or throw you in prison, or even prevent you from publishing books, your rights have been violated. It doesn’t matter if a business did it, especially if they did it at the behest of the government. If the government and businesses work together to deprive their citizens of rights, that is fascism. In fact, that is EXACTLY what Mussolini did.

With all that being said, the Biden administration has passed a regulation that bans the sale or distribution of books written by certain people, and they are getting the world’s largest book seller to enforce it.

This is a clear violation of the First Amendment, and was even used as an example during oral arguments in the Heller case. It was Chief Justice Roberts who asked “Would it be constitutionally acceptable for a municipality to ban books as long as newspapers—a viable substitute source of expression—were still legal?” The answer is no, of course.

How far we have come since then.

By Divemedic, ago

Real Goal of the Alex Jones Judgement

Alex Jones has to pay $1 billion. He says he will fight, delay, and appeal for years. In any case, he is likely done. Still, the reason for what was done to him is apparent to anyone paying attention. Just look at this article from the Guardian: Only proper online regulation can stop poisonous conspiracists like Alex Jones and by Alex Jones, they mean anyone on the right, including and especially Donald Trump. I quote:

Jones, like QAnon, Donald Trump and others, can navigate fake news sites and social media to reach millions…No one seriously believes free speech is an absolute right. The British government is now making desperate attempts to define such concepts as “causing offence” and “legal but harmful”. More ruthless efforts at control are emerging from authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The EU, too, is pondering regulation. But this realm of government is patently in its infancy.

The freedom of speech which to John Milton was “above all liberties” is not that simple today.

You get that? They consider censorship like Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the EU, and the UK are preferable to the freedom to say what you think. That is the lesson of Alex Jones: shut up, peasant. Silencing the opposition, it’s what every communist revolution needs to do.

By Divemedic, ago

Just Following the President’s Orders

You won’t see this getting much coverage in the MSM, but in North Dakota, a 42 year old Democrat murdered an 18 year old man. What makes this noteworthy is that the murderer says he killed the victim because the victim was “part of a Republican extremist group.”

Listen to what they are telling you. Never forget what the President said:

The MAGA agenda represents an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.

It doesn’t respect our Constitution.
It doesn’t believe in the rule of law.
And it doesn’t recognize the will of the people.

Open warfare edges closer. Those on the right are being attacked and killed. The right is not yet responding.

By Divemedic, ago

Military and Civilians

So many on the right keep claiming that the military would never fire on American citizens if they were ordered to do so. WRSA comes up with a few examples of the military firing on American citizens. They left out an important one.

The Bonus Army.

Congress had long paid a bonus to troops who fought in times of war, to make up the difference between a soldier’s full time civilian job and his soldier’s pay. Coolidge tried to veto the bonus for the troops of World War 1, but his veto was overridden.

Under the law that was passed,  each veteran was to receive a dollar for each day of domestic service, up to a maximum of $500 (equivalent to $7,900 in 2021), and $1.25 for each day of overseas service, up to a maximum of $625 (equivalent to $9,900 in 2021). Deducted from this was $60, for the $60 they received upon discharge. Amounts of $50 or less were immediately paid. All other amounts were issued as Certificates of Service maturing in 20 years’ time, or 1945.

By 1932, many veterans had been out of work because of the depression, so about 17,000 of them camped out in two Hoovervilles that were located in Washington, DC. They went there with their families, hoping to be paid the bonus that they were owed in 1932 instead of 1945. The two groups numbered as many as 50,000 men, women, and children.

 The camps were tightly controlled and well cared for by the veterans, who laid out streets, built sanitation facilities, set up an internal police force and held daily parades. A vibrant community arose, including churches in tents, kitchens, a library, and even their own post office.

They were told that the only way that they would be paid what they were already owed was to accept work in the Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Hunt, Virginia.

Some accepted that and went to work, others did not. The veterans thought that by sitting there and refusing to leave, the government would eventually have to relent and pay them what they were owed. Instead, they were given an ultimatum: leave by May 22, or else.

Hoover ordered police to go in and clear them out on July 28, 1932. When some of the veterans refused to leave, one policeman drew his service revolver and shot two of them, both of whom were killed. General Douglas MacArthur then rolled in that afternoon with 1,000 armed troops of the 12th Infantry and 3rd Cavalry regiments, 800 policemen, and six tanks, all supported by machine guns.

Patton, who was in charge of the 3rd Cavalry, had this to say:

“If you must fire do a good job — a few casualties become martyrs, a large number an object lesson. . . . When a mob starts to move keep it on the run. . . . Use a bayonet to encourage its retreat. If they are running, a few good wounds in the buttocks will encourage them. If they resist, they must be killed.”

The infantry charge was made with fixed bayonets and suppported by the use of Adamsite (an arsenic based vomiting agent). Hoover ordered the assault stopped once the veterans had retreated across the river, but MacArthur chose to ignore the president and ordered a new attack, claiming that the Bonus March was an attempt to overthrow the US government. A veteran’s wife miscarried. When one 12-week-old infant died of respiratory complications caused by the chemical warfare attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis. In the end, a total of three civilians were killed, more than 1,000 were injured (some by gas, including an 8 year old boy left blind for life) and 2 police officers received injuries.

The negative publicity of the attack on its own veterans was believed to be one of the major factors in Hoover losing the 1932 election to FDR.

Not only were MacArthur and his troops willing to fire on and use chemical warfare agents against veterans and their families, in many cases the veterans who were being fired upon had served in the same units as the soldiers who were attacking them with bayonets. In the end, none of the veterans received a single cent of what they were owed, not in 1932, not in 1945, not ever.

Don’t make the mistake of believing for one single second that the military today would hesitate to kill you, if so ordered.

By Divemedic, ago

Absent

US soldiers are being told to apply for food stamps so they can feed their families by the administration that won’t stop blathering on about how companies won’t pay a “living wage.”

Visa, MasterCard, and Amex are flagging purchases from gun stores

Were is the Republican party on any of this? Why aren’t they speaking out?

I have said it before “just because the Democrats are your enemy doesn’t make the Republicans your ally.”

By Divemedic, ago