Saturday Report 1/25/25 - GOP introduces an Amendment allowing Trump to run for third term — but not Obama… Say What?!

The Best of the Rest of the News…

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

— TRUMP LOST. Vote Suppression Won. Former BBC, Guardian, etc., investigative reporter published here on Hartmann Report his comprehensive analysis of how Republicans essentially rigged the 2024 election by selectively and methodically, over a period of decades — but particularly during the years since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Civil Rights Act — purging people from voting lists, refusing to count their mail-in ballots, and giving people in Blue areas “placebo” provisional ballots that never get counted. He opens the article with:

Trump lost. That is, if all legal voters were allowed to vote, if all legal ballots were counted, Trump would have lost the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Vice-President Kamala Harris would have won the Presidency with 286 electoral votes.

And, if not for the mass purge of voters of color, if not for the mass disqualification of provisional and mail-in ballots, if not for the new mass “vigilante” challenges in swing states, Harris would have gained at least another 3,565,000 votes, topping Trump’s official popular vote tally by 1.2 million.

Even though the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 explicitly states that all American citizens have a right to vote, Republicans on the Supreme Court have both ignored and blocked that assertion by Congress to claim, instead, that voting in America is a mere privilege that can be given or taken on a whim.

If a state wants to take away your gun — which 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court say you have a right to own — they’d have to go to court and get a court order or warrant. But if they want to take away your vote, they don’t even need to tell you.

America is the only developed country in the world where either of these two insanities are law, and it’s 100% because Republicans love guns (and gun manufacturers’ money) and hate the vote when its exercised by people likely to be Democrats (college students, racial and religious minorities, urban dwellers, and Social Security age people).

Democrats tried to fix this by establishing an absolute right to vote with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in 2022, but Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin stabbed them (and the country) in the back by refusing to break a Republican filibuster, even though it had 51 votes in the Senate. The next time Democrats have power, this must be job one!

— GOP introduces an Amendment allowing Trump to run for a third term — but not Obama. Say What?! Tennessee Republican Congressman Andy Ogles has introduced legislation into the House to amend the Constitution to allow Trump to run for a third term, but not Obama. His proposed amendment raises the number of terms that can be served from 2 to 3, but only if the first two terms were not served consecutively. Just by coincidence, the only living past president that would apply to is Trump. This has no chance of passing, but it at least tells us how deeply Ogles and his colleagues are buried within the Trump cult. This is not a good sign for a Republican return to sanity in our republic…

— Trump threatens to “get rid” of emergency agency FEMA and tells states to “take care” of disasters themselves. Ignoring the fact that FEMA already reimburses states for the cost of disaster assistance and recovery, Trump suggested yesterday while visiting Hurricane Helene damage in North Carolina that states should pick up their own recovery costs and “then be reimbursed by the federal government,” but not by FEMA. The kicker here is that when FEMA distributes disaster aid it’s obligated to, within the limits of disaster declarations, treat all states the same. On the other hand, if Trump only wanted to provide aid to Red states and let Blue states drown in crisis and debt, all he has to do is shift disaster aid to the military, and then pick and choose which states he’ll provide military aid to. Is that what’s behind his comments, or is he just misinformed? I’d never bet against Trump’s ability to be petty, vindictive, and to want to punish states that didn’t vote for him.

— “Shove it”: Canadians revolt after Trump says they'd have better health care as 51st state. Trump’s been trolling Canada for a few months now, suggesting they should become our 51st state by way of ratifying Putin’s and Xi’s view against the rigidity and international acknowledgement of national borders. Canadians, however, don’t find it at all funny. And when Trump said this week that, as the 51st state they’d have “better healthcare,” he really stepped in it. As Brad Reed noted at Raw Story, Canadians reacted quickly on social media: “I quite like my universal healthcare,” wrote retired nurse and Toronto resident Pamela Meyer. “No thanks. As a Canadian... LMAO,” wrote YouTube influencer David Doel. “Shove it up your a--,” wrote one self-professed fan of the Edmonton Oilers. “We don’t want to be you. Not a chance in hell would Canadians be better off with this ‘deal,’” wrote Natalie Dionne on BlueSky: “Eff off eh.” Ah, those ever-polite Canadians! :)

— How the 2 percent of bitcoin owners who own 90% of all bitcoin in circulation are planning to use Trump to make a killing. A small handful of people own about 90% of all bitcoin in circulation, according to Lever News, and they threw hundreds of millions into electing Trump. Now the career criminal — who just released a meme coin and whose sons are entering the crypto business — is apparently pushing to use our tax dollars to fund a “crypto strategic reserve.” Doing that could easily increase the price of a single bitcoin from the current ~$100K to over a million dollars each, giving this group a massive, multi-billion-dollar windfall. And, if he does it the way it looks like he’s planning, Trump and his kids could make billions off the deal. America is on the verge of becoming the single most corrupt developed nation in the world, which is not a distinction we should be proud of or even tolerate.

— Hakeem Jefferies says Democrats won't help Republicans raise the debt ceiling or cut taxes even more on billionaires. Will they hold the line? For Trump and his Republicans in Congress to again cut taxes on billionaires and put it on our kids’ credit card (the US Treasury), they’ll first have to get enough votes to get a debt ceiling suspension or increase passed. The problem for them — unless Trump is stronger than most believe — is that there’s a large handful of “deficit hawks” in the GOP in both the House and Senate who may well oppose another Two Santas’ round. Which would mean that Mike Johnson and perhaps John Thune will need Democratic votes to make these things happen. House minority leader Hakeem Jefferies just put the kibosh on that, saying: “What we are not willing to do is to enable extreme MAGA Republicans to have a blank check so they can enact massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations and make working-class Americans pay for it through cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Benefits, or Nutritional. The ball is in the Republicans’ court right now.” Will Democrats hold a hard line, or will a few break and help out the GOP? Without them, will Republicans inflict a government shutdown on themselves? Will John Fetterman turn into the next Joe Manchin? Stay tuned…

— A Black kid — a school shooter this week — decided to kill a classmate (and wound another) and then himself after watching Candice Owens’ online rightwing propaganda convincing him that he’s no good cause he’s Black. This is the kind of damage racist white supremacist propaganda — even when promoted by befuddled Black people — destroys young Black people, particularly young Black men. Before his murder/suicide, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson allegedly wrote, “Candace Owens has influenced me above all; each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over the Jewish question. … I was so miserable. I wanted to kill myself. I just couldn’t take anymore. I am a worthless subhuman, a living, breathing disgrace.” Racism and antisemitism are psychological, emotional, and political poison. While we can regulate them in newspapers and on TV/radio, Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 relieves social media billionaires of any liability whatsoever for the contents posted on their platforms. That has to change.

— A Mississippi legislator just introduced legislation outlawing male masturbation unless it is done specifically for the purpose of producing a baby (like for artificial insemination). “All across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation,” State Representative Bradford Blackmon wrote, adding, “This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation.” It’s about time somebody pointed out the hypocrisy of the GOP…

— Hunter in a Farmer’s World:

Living Outside the Box: ADHD, Identity, and Resilience

— Wisdom School:

Telepathy: Coincidence or Consciousness?