Ralph Nader's Blog, page 31

Can Justice Finally Overtake Trump, Its Most Defiant Fugitive?

By Ralph Nader

January 8, 2021

Despite the many crimes Donald Trump regularly committed over four years, it took his blatant incitement of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to put him on the road to prison. (See: Letter to vice President Mike Pence Re: Invocation of Amendment 25). What transpired on Wednesday in the shadows of the Washington Monument was a pure violent street crime that resulted in five fatalities, property smashed and damaged, and many assaults by hundreds of rioters who broke into or were allowed into the Capitol.

The current prosecutor is Acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael R. Sherwin. USA TODAY reported that Mr. Sherwin said: “‘We’re looking at all actors here and anyone that had a role and, if the evidence fits the elements of the crime, they’re going to be charged,’ Sherwin said these words after he was asked by a reporter if investigators are looking at the role the president played.”

From Day One in 2017, several people foresaw the signs of an emerging sociopath, using violent rhetoric to encourage illegal behavior. It wasn’t only professional psychologists who declared Trump to be severely unstable. Each day he created and disseminated dangerous fantasies. This egomaniacal wannabee monarch could not stop lying in a dangerous manner, making false accusations or delusionally bragging.

Reporters, commentators, litigants, and elected representatives who were documenting Trump’s trail of political and public insanity were overwhelmed by his doubling down on his flailing and wrongdoing in plain sight. But they mostly declined to draw the enforcement conclusions arising from their convictions, further enabling Trump’s use of the power of the bully pulpit to intimidate or threaten his critics.

Remember, Trump, said, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” He recklessly kept doing just that. The Republicans supported him and covered for him, while the Democrats huffed and puffed in place. The Democrats refused to file eleven well-documented articles of impeachment and instead only went with the Ukraine matter. (See: December 18, 2019, Congressional Record, H-12197)

Meanwhile, in dozens of ways, Trump emboldened the most extreme of his supporters. Recall his outcry “liberate Wisconsin.” Trump’s support for the armed invasion of the Michigan state capitol with impunity, and his many signals, and inactions showed the white supremacists in the streets that the President and William Barr’s Justice Department would overlook hateful racist mischief and mayhem. He even encouraged one of these groups by repeating their militant mantra verbatim.

Published warnings about Trump’s interest in insurrection were largely unheeded by the mass media and even by the independent progressive media. They were too satisfied with reporting on his outrageous behavior and tweets, and too pleased with how easy a subject Trump was for derision. We and others would invoke specific criminal statutes he violated frequently, such as the Hatch Act (using federal property and personnel for political campaign objectives) or the Anti-Deficiency Acts (spending much money strictly not appropriated by Congress) and other grave flouting of statutory and regulatory, mandates, scores of congressional subpoenas and major constitutional provisions. The news media did not regard Trump’s deep lawlessness as worthy of much reporting or editorializing. The excuse was “Trump is just being Trump.” Both the media and members of Congress, without paying attention to legal penalties, allowed Trump to keep pushing the envelope on lawbreaking until his invasion of the very Congress that let him get away with so much. It took lawmakers scrambling for their lives through Congressional tunnels to wake them up beyond their rhetoric or perfidy. There are severe consequences for ignoring the law’s non-enforcement and when the media and elected officials become too jaded to challenge a president who doesn’t respect the rule of law or constitutional restraints.

This assault may not be Trump’s last act before January 20th. For sure he will increase the presidential pardons for his friends, family, and quite possibly the rioters and himself. Nobody knows what this “Mad Dog” Trump will try to do on his way out. However, it is reassuring that neither the courts nor the military have met his expectations of supporting and shielding him from his adversaries. These two institutions affirmatively refused to sanction dictatorial rule.

The mounting calls for Trump’s resignation, or prosecution, or removal by impeachment conviction or the exercise of the 25th Amendment are coming from all sides – Democrats, Republicans, bi-partisan declarations of retired military and civilian officials from past Administrations, and even business groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers. Their immediate urging would be to stop further mayhem and upheavals by a cornered, rampaging commander-in-chief who knows that, in one of his favorite phrases, “this is our last chance.”

Maybe merely advancing these acts of enforcement and evictions, rooted in our constitution and law, will be a deterrence and persuade Trump to quietly go right away to Mar-a-Largo, as suggested today on NPR by Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security.

That kind of finale has not been his MO, whether as a failed gambling czar, choosing corporate bankruptcy as an exit strategy, or as a president who doesn’t show remorse, admit mistakes, or that he ever “did anything wrong.”

If there is anything Trump dislikes more than being a loser (the election), it is being a two-time loser. Perhaps he will back down, play the victim again, and with the help of a stable of defense attorneys, hope that he can wear a pin-striped suit instead of an orange jumpsuit while wistfully watching Fox News behind bars.

(See our new book, Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All)

The post Can Justice Finally Overtake Trump, Its Most Defiant Fugitive? first appeared on Ralph Nader.

Letter to Vice President Mike Pence Re: Invocation of Amendment 25

January 7, 2021

Honorable Mike Pence

Vice President of the United States

The White House

Office of the Vice President

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. Vice President:

We strongly urge you and your Cabinet colleagues to invoke paragraph 3 of Amendment 25 to have you immediately assume the powers and duties of President Donald Trump because of the latter’s mental or psychological inability to discharge the powers and duties of his office: namely, his inability to take care that the laws be faithfully executed under Article II, section 3, and his inability to honor his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States under Article II, section 1.

Among other transgressions, on January 6, 2021, Mr. Trump committed the crimes of seditious conspiracy and incitement to commit seditious conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. 2384, and incitement to assault government officials and destroy government property, 18 U.S.C. 111, 1361, by employing incendiary lies, subversions of the 2020 presidential election, and provoking, inciting, and emboldening a fevered mob to storm the Capitol to prevent the proper and lawful counting of presidential electoral votes certified by the various States and the District of Columbia. In so doing, President Trump took a wrecking ball to the Constitution and the rule of law, and the legitimacy of the government itself, the nation’s crown jewels.

Time is of the essence. Every 24 hours Mr. Trump remains in office is a roll of the dice with the Constitution and the American people, for example, military attacks against Iran, China, or Venezuela; anticipatory pardons for his latest mob, business cronies, his family, and himself; the imposition of martial law; brandishing the Insurrection Act; or renewed incitements against the Georgia Governor and Secretary of State or new incitements against Members of the House or Senate who voted to count the certified electoral votes of the 50 States and the District of Columbia or the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Vice President, history has summoned you to courage and constitutional integrity. We urge you not to neglect the call to patriotic duty.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Lou Fisher

Bruce Fein

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Georgians – Go Vote for a Long Overdue Raise!

By Ralph Nader

December 31, 2020

Lots of people have Georgia and its crucial two Senate runoff elections next Tuesday on their minds.

Some people are pouring money into what will easily be the most expensive Senate races in history. Between the Democrats and Republicans, about half a billion dollars will enrich TV stations and their monetized media consultants, who take 15% of the ad budget. Others are working on getting out the vote.

The stakes are high due to who will ultimately control the U.S. Senate – either evil Mitch McConnell, who calls himself the “Grim Reaper” or Chuck Schumer with two new Georgia Senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

Some observers are trying to convince the Georgia Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and Senator Schumer not to repeat the mistakes of the general election. Too much money is spent on too few issues, repeated ad infinitum on unimaginative TV ads and social media. The repetition and volume of ads are irritating viewers. Unfortunately, the political operatives are clueless about how to talk about the pain of white, blue-collar workers to go along with their identity politics.

There are campaigners in Georgia urging workers “to go vote for a raise.” The House of Representatives led by the Democrats even passed a bill to raise the frozen federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to $15 per hour (in stages).

Corporate tool McConnell is bragging about blocking this bill (and 400 others) passed by the House. His hapless Kentucky voters sent the anti-labor Senate leader back for another term of big business service. He calls himself “the Guardian of Gridlock,” except, that is when it comes to giving goodies and more power to Wall Street and corporate supremacists.

The Democratic Party is focusing its attention on Atlanta and its suburbs, but there are a great number of Georgians outside that region. The voters in other parts of the state are not being given the attention needed, says Emory University Professor Drew Westen, an expert on Southern politics and why the Democrats keep losing there.

Tellingly Donald Trump, when he visited Georgia this month, went to Valdosta and Rome, while Joe Biden chose only to visit Atlanta. A highly regarded psychologist and author, Westen believes that the appeal of “go vote for a raise” – “you’ve earned this long-overdue adjusted minimum wage,” is a deep imprint issue that will reach people where they live, work, and raise their families.

Maybe it’s because the campaign coffers, so overflowing for the Georgia Democratic Party and groups led by Stacey Abrams, that Westen’s message skills are not being tapped. Many others, with ideas for reaching the decisive white, blue-collar voters, are also outside the golden cocoon that makes politicians so smug.

Greatly outspending the GOP, the Democratic Party barely elected Joe Biden. A switch of under 100,000 votes in 4 swing states (Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin) would have given corrupt, unstable, ego-obsessed Donald another four years. The Democratic Party did not win the Senate, squeaked through the House, losing seats, and did not reclaim one state legislature. Imagine all that money chasing the closed-minded Democrats and their so-called political strategists.

Just to test Westen and other’s complaints, I called more than once the offices of Stacey Abrams, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Senate candidates Raphael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff. I couldn’t get past the robotic voice-mail recordings.

It should be easy to defeat the two pathetic, super-rich, stock market-crazed incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. All they do is ditto the GOP’s attacks against “socialism” and calls to “defund the police” – neither of which reflect the positions of their cautious challengers. Once again, however, the Democrats failed to colloquially blow those accusations away and, in return, failed to charge Loeffler and Perdue with supporting gigantic “corporate welfare socialism” and Trump defunding the federal police fighting corporate crime and violence.

Sure, the Democrats are talking about health care, but not single-payer, and some general economic issues. To win, however, they need to cut into the GOP betrayed voters.

The GOP controlled state government has closed voting locations and is up to its usual chicanery and voter suppression. That means the Democrats have to win by more votes for a margin of safety. Against delusionary Donald – busy trying to steal the national election and the fevered, cold-blooded corporatist McConnell – this should be a piece of cake with obvious compelling messaging.

The problem is that Democratic messaging is the “same old, same old.” Tired themes that almost lost the Presidential election on November 3rd to the worst, most corrupt, anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment GOP in the Party’s corporate indentured history. Such limited pledges will not motivate new votes for Democrats in Georgia on January 5, 2021.

The post Georgians – Go Vote for a Long Overdue Raise! first appeared on Ralph Nader.

Immediate Impeachment and Removal of President Donald Trump

December 27, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

H-232 The Capitol

Washington, D.C. 20515

Mitch McConnell

Majority Leader

United States Senate

317 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

RE: Immediate Impeachment and Removal of President Donald Trump

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell:

As we warned last year, the narrow and anemic impeachment articles filed against President Donald Trump and his rapid acquittals have emboldened him to more appalling continuing lawbreaking and worsening violations of the public trust, both impeachable offenses according to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 65.

As during the Watergate crisis, the Constitution summons both Republicans and Democrats to transcend partisanship to defend our constitutional Republic from Mr. Trump’s escalating aggressions. In this landmark instance, the nation is deeply indebted to Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, and House Minority Leader John Rhodes for speaking unvarnished truths about impeachment to President Richard Nixon in the White House. Resignation soon followed.

President Trump has issued scores of pardons for corrupt motives: to reward die-hard political supporters or colleagues who refrained from incriminating him or his 2016 presidential campaign with Special Counsel Mueller; and, to retaliate against the military and its discipline for insufficient obsequiousness to his person. Mr. Trump’s pardons have sent a signal that persons who commit crimes to shield him from the law or to assist his endeavors will be protected against criminal punishment, a promise morally indistinguishable from bribery and witness tampering.

With the fury of King Lear on the heath, President Trump is breaking all the china in the Oval Office as he exits the White House. After engaging in unprecedented voter suppression and inciting violence among his supporters, he entertained martial law, seizure of voting machines, and contemplated new balloting in battleground states to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Mr. Trump is escalating military tensions with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea and Iran. In the remaining weeks of his administration, Mr. Trump seems eager to issue blanket pardons to himself, his family, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and cronies or future business partners, casting further disrepute on the rule of law and evenhanded justice.

It is difficult to conceive of more flagrant self-serving presidential violations of the public trust in plain view during an interregnum. The Constitution’s framers envisioned impeachment as prophylactic, i.e., removing a president from office who has demonstrated by words and deeds a clear and present danger to our liberties and the rule of law. Each additional day President Trump remains in office is a roll of the dice with the nation’s immediate present and future. The alarming, unchecked powers of the White House that have spiked in past decades are a constant temptation to the mentally unstable and volatile President to manufacture any number of crises to shred our constitutional order and to devastate the general welfare.

This emergency makes time of the essence. Notwithstanding uniform rejection of electoral fraud allegations by scores of courts, Mr. Trump refuses to concede defeat or acknowledge his constitutional obligation to depart office on January 20, 2021. Facts and corrupt presidential motives are not in dispute. The House should quickly vote to impeach President Trump and the Senate to convict him of the “high crimes and misdemeanors,” of serial lawbreaking, and of grave violations of the public trust. Otherwise, Mr. Trump’s irreparable vandalizing of the Republic’s constitutional edifice and subjecting the American people to avoidable cruel privations will continue.

Sincerely,

Bruce Fein, Esq.

Ralph Nader, Esq.

Lou Fisher

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Statement by Ralph Nader on the 50th Anniversary of OSHA

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). President Richard Nixon signed the bill into law at a White House ceremony on December 29, 1970. Our citizen advocacies were central to its passage over the opposition of the business lobbies, but were not invited to the White House signing. We worked on this legislation meticulously, obtained media coverage and labor support during its difficult path through the Senate and the House. Unsung heroes were Tony Mazzocchi, Secretary-Treasurer of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), and our lawyer Gary Sellers, who worked closely with the great Congressional champion for OSHA, Rep. Philip Burton (Dem. California).

OSHA, whose mission is the saving of workers’ lives and protecting their health and safety, has come under fierce and unjust attack by industries with unsafe workplaces such as coal mines, chemical plants, agribusiness and the construction industry. OSHA’s funding has been tiny, its inspectors small in number and its authority undermined by corporate-indentured members of Congress and White House pressures.

Given the terrible hazards that millions of frontline workers are experiencing during the Covid-19 pandemic, the mission of OSHA has never been more important and timely. Yet, Donald Trump and his Trumpsters have refused to issue mandatory safety standards and protection for these workers and have virtually shut down OSHA’s overall enforcement duties.

President-elect Joe Biden must revive OSHA’s life-saving mission with a strong nominee to head this agency and assure it is adequately funded. Presently its annual budget of about $500 million a year is what the Department of Defense spends each year on military bands. Almost 60,000 workers lose their lives from workplace diseases and traumas every year.

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Recommended Civic Groups for Year End Charitable Giving

For those of you who make last minute charitable contributions to “good works,” here is my recommended list of really stalwart, result-oriented, no-nonsense civic advocacy groups.

You can find out yourself all they are doing with modest budgets by going to their websites. They are the lighthouses of a democratic society.

Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest: appalachia-spi.org
Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest: aclpi.org
Beyond Nuclear: beyondnuclear.org
Beyond Pesticides: beyondpesticides.org
Center for Health, Environment & Justice: chej.org
Center for Race, Poverty, and the Environment: crpe-ej.org
Children’s Advocacy Institute: sandiego.edu/cai
Doctors Without Borders USA: doctorswithoutborders.org
Earth Island Institute: earthisland.org
Flyers Rights: flyersrights.org
Honor the Earth: honorearth.org
Indian Law Resource Center: indianlaw.org
Solitary Watch: solitarywatch.org
Nuclear Information and Resources Service: nirs.org
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: peer.org
Western Organization of Resource Councils Education Project: worc.org/ep
Whirlwind Wheelchair: whirlwindwheelchair.org
Veterans For Peace: veteransforpeace.org
The post Recommended Civic Groups for Year End Charitable Giving first appeared on Ralph Nader.

Recidivist Criminal and Constitutional Outlaw Trump Rushes to Pardon Criminal Lawbreakers

By Ralph Nader

December 24, 2020

Serial lawbreaker Donald J. Trump is embarking on the most sordid presidential pardon spree in American history. He has already pardoned convicted crooks, thieves, and violent outlaws. Trump’s pardon lawyers are frantically assembling more MAGA besotted individuals and groups to be pardoned wholesale. The number may climb into the hundreds. The queue is long. Trump corruptly doles out pardons to spite his list of archenemies and to reward his sycophants as many people are pleading with Trump for pardons. (For a partial list of Trump pardons see: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-donald-trump)

Trump thrills at what he considers his absolute power to pardon, including family members and himself. He is wrong. No constitutional right or power is pursued at all costs. All have limits. The power to pardon is limited at least by prohibitions on bribery, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and the 400-year honored maxim that “no man can be a judge in his own case.” Further, the Constitution’s framers specifically described corruptly motivated pardons as impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors and specifically authorized criminal prosecution of the President after impeachment and removal from office. The latter would become an overthrow of lawful orders with presidential self-pardons.

No president has displayed the audacity or depravity to self-pardon. In 1974, the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department concluded that the president cannot self-pardon.

Legal scholars differ on whether pardons must specifically describe the crimes and persons to be pardoned and whether the beneficiary must confess guilt. Trump’s cynical pardons could provoke Congress and the courts to set procedural and substantive limits.

President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon in the aftermath of his resignation to avoid impeachment and conviction for defying a congressional subpoena, obstruction of justice, and misuse of government agencies. On September 8, 1974, in broad and sweeping language, Ford declared that pursuant to Article II Section 2 of the Constitution “I … do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.” Nixon’s pardon was never challenged for non-specific descriptions of the pardoned offenses.

President Jimmy Carter, on January 21, 1977, pardoned violators of the draft laws, known as draft resisters, many of whom fled to Canada. He granted “a full, complete and unconditional pardon” to “all persons who may have committed any offense between August 4, 1964, and March 28, 1973, in violation of the Military Selective Service Act or any rule or regulation promulgated thereunder.” He included in this pardon “all persons heretofore convicted,” of any such offense, “restoring to them full political, civil and other rights.” Excluded, however, were all persons “convicted of or who may have committed any offense involving force or violence.”

President Carter specified the offense but did not name the thousands of Americans pardoned. He simply established a Justice Department procedure for the beneficiaries to obtain a certificate of pardon.

With four weeks of Trump’s tenure remaining, rumors of what he could or should do are multiplying. Will he pardon all inmates in federal prisons convicted of nonviolent marijuana or other drug offenses? Will he pardon a wide network of people who could otherwise be compelled to testify against him? Will he pardon former business associates or future business partners of all federal offenses? (He cannot pardon for state offenses.)

Trump can issue anticipatory pardons before an individual is formally charged with a crime.

Thus far, of the over 60 pardons or commutations issued by Trump, the vast majority of recipients have featured a personal connection or political affinity. Speculation has centered on pardons for Edward Snowden or Julian Assange to leaven Trump’s overt favoritism.

Trump’s corruptly motivated pardons will continue until President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. He will probably refrain from resigning in favor of Vice President Pence in exchange for a pardon for himself and family members. The stench of bribery would be too great.

In the final days of his four-year chronicle of statutory criminal and constitutional violations (See: December 18, 2019, Congressional Record, H-12197 and many past articles by writers on Trump’s lawbreaking), Trump will give both the Congress and the courts great incentive to set specific limits on the pardon power.

Trump and future presidents cannot be allowed to brazenly dishonor justice and undermine the rule of law.

Congressional abdication and public indifference will pave the way for the kind of monarchical power so resolutely dreaded by our Constitution’s framers who fought to defeat King George III and repudiate tyranny. Unless resisted by a resolute, aroused citizenry.

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Comparing Republican with Democratic Party Energy Levels: No Contest

By Ralph Nader

December 18, 2020

The Republican and Democratic Parties have been evaluated in many ways but not often by the standard of sheer energy levels. Compare the ferocious drive by Trump, Republican Senators and Representatives, Attorneys General, and Governors in promoting, with baseless allegations and buckets of lies, overturning the presidential election. Of the more than 50 election lawsuits filed by Trump’s Republican allies, almost all of them have been promptly thrown out of court.

The wildly frivolous efforts by Trump and his cronies have provoked a rare public letter, signed by over 1,500 lawyers, including past presidents of bar associations, urging disciplinary proceedings against the lawyers representing craven Republican operatives in their attempted electoral coup. (See: lawyersdefendingdemocracy.org)

Even after the Electoral College voted on December 14, 2020, to declare Joe Biden the winner, the Trumpsters are continuing their reckless fanaticism. Extreme Trumpster Congressman Mo Brooks (D-AL) plans to lead a move on January 6, 2020, to demand that the House and the Senate refuse to certify the Electoral College decision.

Now let’s go back to the George Bush/Al Gore presidential election in 2000, where there were real shenanigans. It all came down to Florida’s electoral votes, notwithstanding Al Gore winning the national popular vote by about 500,000. Thousands of people were prevented from voting because they had names similar to the names of ex-felons who were purged from the voting rolls. Ari Berman’s Nation magazine article, “How the 2000 Election in Florida Led to a New Wave of Voter Disenfranchisement” reports: “If 12,000 voters were wrongly purged from the rolls, and 44 percent of them were African-American, and 90 percent of African-Americans voted for Gore, that meant 4,752 black Gore voters—almost nine times Bush’s margin of victory—could have been prevented from voting.” According to Florida’s Sun-Sentinel newspaper, “The felon lists were compiled by Database Technologies Inc., now part of ChoicePoint Inc., an Atlanta-based company. In 1998, DBT won a $4 million contract from the Florida secretary of state’s office to cross-check the 8.6 million names registered to vote in the state with law enforcement and other records.” Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush’s brother Jeb Bush was Florida’s governor during this horrendous disenfranchisement.

There were also deceptively confusing ballot designs in three Florida counties that tricked voters into voting for the wrong candidates.

And there was the judicial coup d’état stay by the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Republican Justice Antonin Scalia that blocked the ongoing statewide recount ordered by Supreme Court of Florida which would have awarded the state and the election to Al Gore.

Democrats meekly accepted this whole sordid episode, apart from their lawsuit. Vice-president Al Gore, presiding over the U.S. Senate rejected pleas from House Democrats to challenge the Electoral College certification. Al Gore had already accepted arguably the most blatantly, politically partisan Supreme Court decision “selecting” George W. Bush on December 12, 2000.

The 2004 presidential contest, between George Bush and John Kerry, came down to the swing state of Ohio. By 118,601 thousand votes, the Republican Secretary of State awarded the state to Bush/Cheney. There were, in the days before the election, claims of Republican skullduggery, including voting place irregularities, obstructions of voters, and flaws in proprietary software used in the vote-counting process. Kerry’s vice-presidential running mate, Senator John Edwards begged Kerry not to immediately concede and to wait for more revelations. But Kerry threw in the towel the day after the election.

Civic leaders in Ohio took their concerns about electoral wrongdoings to the veteran lawmaker, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who held public, unofficial House hearings on the subject. It was too late to change anything, but the hearings did cast a shadow over the GOP which the establishment Democrats quickly forgot about.

In 2009, the Fox Television-driven launch of the Tea Party movement, having more than 350,000 engaged volunteers, roiled the back-home town meetings of Republican members of Congress and secured a clenched-teeth grip on the House of Representatives with some three dozen true believers. This small cohort, self-named the Freedom Caucus, had an outsized veto over Rep. Speaker John Boehner and eventually drove him to resign.

The seventy or eighty Progressive Caucus members in the House have scarcely generated a ripple with their demands on the House Democratic Leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Energetic, demanding Democratic resisters in the House hardly exist, whether on overdue anti-corporate crime legislation, labor law reform to remove barriers to organizing trade unions, fundamental corporate tax reform, corporate-managed “free trade,” or runaway militarism.

The Progressive Caucus could not even broaden the Impeachment proceedings last November/December to include the well-documented daily violations of the Constitution by Trump (See: December 18, 2019, Congressional Record, H-12197). There was little significant energy in the Democratic ranks when Obama won the White House and the large congressional majorities in the House and Senate in 2009-2010. The weak Democrats didn’t rollback many Bush actions and continued Bush’s foreign and military policies.

What accounts for the difference between the two parties? Well, the Republicans are really into their trilogy – get more tax cuts and subsidies, get even less regulatory law enforcement and keep the war machine humming. The rank-and-file Republicans also slam the Democrats on abortion, judicial nominations, immigration, and being soft on crime.

The Democrats have to themselves the bread-and-butter family economic issues, worker and environmental injustices, and addressing the meager public services, and our crumbling infrastructure. These issues should really fire up the Democrat Party base. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is controlled by smug, entrenched people living in the exclusive top one percent. Why should they exert themselves? Especially since lassitude invites more campaign money than ever before.

The national civic groups have many progressive agendas but can’t find congressional sponsors that make up a determined force on Capitol Hill. When they can find somebody like Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) to introduce a bill, it is largely ignored and becomes a one-day news story release.

A junior Representative from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, through sheer willpower built a powerful political base. He toppled two Democratic House Speakers Jim Wright and Tom Foley, took over the House of Representatives in 1994, and became the House Speaker in 1995.

Senate tyrant Mitch McConnell defies red and blue state governors, mayors, federal and state lawmakers, social service groups, and overwhelming public opinion by blocking the stimulus-relief legislation for months.

What Democratic Senators or Representatives have this energy level?

It was Kevin Phillips, the big business-aware, Republican strategist and writer who years ago provided the apt metaphor: “Republicans go for the jugular, and the Democrats go for the capillaries.” It is beyond troubling that the Democrats haven’t increased their level of energy to confront the worst, cruelest, most corrupt, GOP in history. The delusional Trumpist Party didn’t lose control of any state legislatures, held the Senate, nearly retook the House, and didn’t lose one House Republican incumbent.

Just under 400,000 votes, in the six battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, gave Biden his Electoral College victory! Democrats wake up!

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Go Vote Yourself a Raise, Georgia – You’ve Long Earned It

By Ralph Nader

December 11, 2020

All political eyes are on Georgia’s runoff election on January 5th, 2021. Two Senate seats are up for grabs and will decide whether the evil Trumpster and corporatist Senator Mitch McConnell stays in total control of the U.S. Senate or not.

If the Democrats win both seats, the Senate would be split, 50-50. Vice President Kamala Harris would serve as President of the Senate, and in the case of tied votes have the deciding vote. The Democrats could also take control of the Senate, choose the Committee Chairs, and set the rules for moving legislation to the floor.

Georgia is normally a Republican state. But on November 3rd, the state chose Joe Biden over Donald Trump by about 12,670 votes. The two incumbent Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler failed to win a majority of the votes. This triggered a runoff against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Money is pouring into all candidates’ coffers. The runoff may see spending reach $400 million. Much of this money will be misspent on high-priced TV and social media ads with little content and mind-numbing repetition. Voters get irritated by such jackhammer “messaging.”

There are over six million registered voters in Georgia. Nearly two-thirds are white and one-third are black Americans. The politicians and their rich media consultants think they know how to “process” these voters. They believe people first vote for the Party, reflecting the hereditary way their grandparents and parents voted. Second, they believe people vote based on their feelings toward the candidates. Third, if the voter is still undecided, politicians believe people will vote based on candidates’ policy positions.

In his groundbreaking book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (2008), Emory University Psychology professor Drew Westen, argues that when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. But emotion can include a strong desire for a good life and a decent livelihood with good-paying, safe jobs. Emotion can also demand justice, peace, and respect for Mother Earth, nurturing children, and giving voice to the people between elections.

Emotion can also mean that voters, who do not do their homework, allow themselves to be manipulated. Politicians are very good at the three “F’s” – flattering, fooling, and flummoxing uninformed and unprepared voters. For example, if voters are single-issue-minded – say on the matter of abortion or tax cuts – they won’t care about any of the other positions of the candidate who agrees with them on their one and only big “yes-no” issue. The more policies that voters demand candidates address, the less vulnerable voters are to the three “F’s.”

Now, in Georgia, the Democrats are stressing health care (but not full Medicare-for-All) and Trump’s disastrous approaches to the surging Covid-19 pandemic. They are also going after the conflict-of-interest stock trading of the two wealthy Republican Senators. And, of course, the Democratic candidates are presenting themselves as better candidates.

Although grassroots groups such as FairVote and Black Voters Matter are registering and getting out significant numbers of voters, the Georgia Democratic Party, with its overflowing campaign funds, is largely using the extremely narrow national Democratic Party messaging playbook. This is a big mistake.

The Democrats must instead appeal to the white, blue-collar voters, whom for years, the Party has left behind for Republican Party deceivers to win over.

One of the most compelling needs for these voters is higher wages. The message should be “Go Vote Yourself a Raise” with the explanation that the U.S. House Democrats have already passed a $15 an hour bill to replace, in stages, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which was frozen by the Senate Republicans including Senators Perdue and Loeffler.

Over 30 million workers in the U.S. earn less than $15 per hour. That means lots of Georgia’s low-income workers are making less per hour, adjusted for inflation, than workers made in 1968! They’ve been cheated for a long time. (In the U.S., returns to labor have been falling behind the larger returns to capital).

A multi-media focus on “Go Vote Yourself a Raise” will produce a deep-imprint message. It requires no fancy explanation as would a complex insurance proposal. It relates to voters where they live, work, and raise their children and therefore appeals to all affected voters regardless of political labels such as “conservative” or “liberal.”

It is also a good way to start judging politicians with specifics about the question: “Whose side are you on?” Candidates should be pushed to say if they stand with the super-rich profiteering, callous Big Business tycoons or with the people who work for pitiful wages, on the rugged frontlines, and keep our society running day in and day out.

Political Parties and their Campaign Committee operatives are not open to receiving good ideas. They think if they’ve got the money, they’ve got what’s needed. The weak performance of the cash-loaded Democratic Party in the November election belied such confidence. Apart from Biden’s victory, the Democratic Party lost the Senate, barely kept the House, and did not flip one state legislature against the worst, most cruel, and corrupt GOP in the Republican Party’s history.

There is still time to campaign in a way that will reach the working people of Georgia. Contact Professor Drew Westen at info@westenstrategies.com who is brimming with ideas on what can be done to increase voter turnout. People nationwide have an immediate stake in Georgia’s run-off election. Motivating result-oriented voters is the key to defeating the Republicans and deposing Mitch McConnell.

The post Go Vote Yourself a Raise, Georgia – You’ve Long Earned It first appeared on Ralph Nader.

Americans: For Most Roads Ahead, It’s All about the Congress!

By Ralph Nader

December 4, 2020

We know their names! We’ve given immense power to Five Hundred and Thirty-Five People to do good or bad. One Hundred Senators and Four Hundred and Thirty-Five Representatives. Unfortunately, some 1500 corporations control most Members of Congress. Think about all the dreams for a better world that could come to be realized if our elected officials worked for the big majority of Americans instead of Big Business interests.

Let’s go through a short list of Big Deals:

Do you want a living wage for all Americans? The super-highway is through Congress.
Do you want a universal, more efficient, free choice health care with an emphasis on prevention of disease and injury? The super-highway goes through Congress
Do you want a fair tax system that makes the big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share for a change? Take it through Congress.
Do you want to stop your tax dollars from being spent on corporate welfare, corporate-powered wasteful budgets in Washington? Congress can do that.
Do you want to eliminate corporate defrauding of government programs like Medicare and Medicaid? Take it to Capitol Hill.
Do you want your tax dollars to be used to create good-paying non-exportable jobs, workers to repair and upgrade the public facilities or infrastructure, in every one of your communities?
Do you want to cut the presently unaudited bloated military budget, stop the boomeranging Empire overseas, and redirect your tax dollars back home to pay for the necessities of life? That means getting through Congress.
Do you want to end all the financial rip-offs such as overcharges and penalties, sky-high credit cards, and payday loan interest rates?
Do you want to end the near-zero interest rates on your savings, where you are lucky to get ¼ of one percent interest, while the government charges many times that for student loans?
Do you want to protect your families and your children’s children from climate catastrophes – worsening by the year?
Do you want to quickly move away from fossil fuels and to self-reliant, local, cleaner, renewable solar and wind energy, plus huge energy conservation?
Do you want to stop big companies from directly exploiting and tempting your children with junk food and sugary junk drinks that lead to spiraling obesity and related diseases?
Do you want Congress to stop the digital age child molesters that undermine parental authority and promote violent and addictive entertainment programs?
Do you want Members of Congress to give you what they have given themselves in the way of retirement security that is part of worker’s compensation?
Do you want a pathway to universal basic income long backed by leading conservative and liberal economists?
Do you want a modern convenient mass transit system (that will diminish traffic congestion) like what Japan and western Europe have had for years?
Do you want across the board paid vacations, paid family sick leave, daycare, free or low-cost college tuition? (Many years ago, people like you got these social services through their Parliaments).
Do you want to take back your control from corporations of what you already own – the public lands, public airwaves, massive public research, and development? (Remember you already own these great public assets, pay for them in direct and indirect ways).
Do you want clean and fair elections and electoral districts, that stop the buying and renting of politicians? (This is the first step in breaking the Big Money chains on Congress by the corporations).

There are so many more congressional actions that could brighten the horizon. Congress could lead the way on affordable, available housing, repealing anti-union laws, push the White House to wage peace (diplomacy) rather than repeatedly threaten or use military force, ratify arms control, advance consumer, labor, and environmental protection treaties, push the Executive Branch to enforce the civil rights laws and to develop stronger corporate crime laws. The list of what should be done is long and overdue.

The road to a more just society runs through Congress with the Members of Congress working for you, the people.

You may say, what about obstructions of Congress by the Executive Branch and the Judiciary? Congress controls the purse, confirms the judges, has the tax-paying and the war-making authorities – as designed by our founding fathers, who never envisioned Congress abdicating those powers.

In my little paperback book, Breaking Through Power: Its Easier Than We Think, I wrote about the past battles for justice writ large that have been waged in Congress. None of these efforts took more than one percent of the people, actively engaged, connected, and knowledgeable, reflecting majority opinion. How did they win? They had a laser-focus on Congress and state legislatures – lawmaker by lawmaker.

Why don’t tens of millions of Americans, who are hurting, deprived, under-insured, underpaid, disrespected, stressed out and obstructed from a better life, form Congress Watchdog Lobbies?  Imagine summoning your Senators and Representatives to your organized town-meetings to receive your majority-supported instructions on how to use the power you’ve given them.

Americans care for 70 million pet dogs every day. Spend a fraction of that time taking care of your two Senators and Representatives. Maybe they can start using their cell phones to call Members of Congress while safely walking their dogs. For ideas on how to form your own congressional watchdog group see: Become a Congressional Ratwatcher.

The post Americans: For Most Roads Ahead, It’s All about the Congress! first appeared on Ralph Nader.