Saturday Report - Why Is the Mainstream Media Ignoring the GOP Plan to Blow Up the Global Economy and Destroy Social Security?

The Best of the Rest of the News

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

— Whoa...Was Trump selling America’s secrets on Iran & China? Or was he just leaving them around where the known Russian and Chinese spies — two attractive women who were golfing with Trump at Mar-a-Lardo and sleeping over there with him — could easily lay their hands on them, copy them, and hand them over to Putin and Xi? Apparently somebody in the FBI or the Justice Department has reached a breaking point, given what an international crisis such a scenario could provoke. Remember this 2019 story from the Associated Press?

“A Chinese woman recently arrested at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club lied repeatedly to Secret Service agents while carrying computer malware unlike anything a government analyst had ever seen and had more than $8,000 in cash at her hotel room, along with an electronic device that detects hidden cameras, federal authorities told a judge Monday.”

Or this story just months ago from Forbes?

“The FBI has launched an investigation into a Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant named Inna Yashchyshyn, who allegedly posed as a member of the Rothschild banking family to gain access to former President Donald Trump's inner circle at Mar-a-Lago, according to reporting from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.”

If these documents are already in Putin’s hands, that may account for how the Russian dictator has been so successful convincing Iran to hand him the Kamikaze Drones (and Iran’s most elite soldiers to operate them) that he’s now using to destroy the Ukrainian power grid. And if Xi now knows what we know about his military and nuclear capabilities, or what we think we know, or who the spies in China are who provided us with the information (who are almost certainly dead or being tortured as you read these words), that may account for Xi’s newly belligerent tone with regard to Taiwan. Both of these dictators, sworn enemies of democracy anywhere in the world, may well each now have a huge leg up on America because of this naked treason by our former president: Trump has gone way past anything Benedict Arnold could have even imagined. This is the worst espionage scandal in the history of America, making the Rosenbergs look like naive amateurs.

— On top of being a traitor, Trump is also a criminal, although this most recently identified crime was also in furtherance of his attempts to destroy democracy in the United States of America. Federal District Judge David Carter just ruled that there is clear evidence that Donald Trump entered into a criminal conspiracy with John Eastman to lie to a federal court to cover up their attempts to end American democracy. When Judge Carter reviewed a huge tranche of Eastman’s emails, he discovered that the statements Trump and Eastman were making to the press, to the public, in rallies and when whipping up the mob on January 6th, and in papers submitted under oath to federal courts and authorities were naked lies. “The emails show,” Judge Carter wrote, “that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud [that he was reciting in public and to this court] were wrong but [he] continued to tout those numbers. Both in court and to the public. The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.” Sadly, America has a two-tiered justice system where rich white men rarely face serious consequences for their crimes, even major crimes like sedition and treason. As inequality has grown since the Reagan Revolution, the immunity of very wealthy white men has, if anything, also grown. Trump is now credibly accused of rape, assault, bank fraud, election fraud, tax fraud, espionage, and the unnecessary deaths of 200,000 Americans for political gain. Will he ever see the inside of a jail cell? This is the largest treason-related challenge our nation has faced since the end of the Civil War.

— While Ukrainians are fighting for their lives, Republicans are openly bragging that they intend to stab our allies in the back. At first it was just the “fringe” Republicans like Ron Johnson and the group of six Republican Senators (and one House member) who spent the 4th of July with Putin in Moscow, or Rand Paul who made a solitary long trip from DC to Moscow to personally hand-deliver to Putin’s intelligence officers a package of documents given him by Trump. Fully 57 Republicans proudly voted against aid to Ukraine five months ago, but, again, most in the group were part of the grandstanding Trump-humpers few people take seriously (Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, Andrew Clyde, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Jody Hice, Ronny Jackson, Gym Jordan, etc.). Now Kevin McCarthy, the leader of all the Republicans in the House, is openly proclaiming that if the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives or the Senate they will end or radically cut back US aid and hand Ukraine’s people over to the tender mercies of the Russian soldiers who showed up carrying Viagra to rape the women they haven’t yet killed. We really shouldn’t be surprised: not only is Russia one of Trump’s main patrons, but in the lead-up to World War II Republicans led the campaign to prevent America from saving Europe from Hitler’s killers. They’ve been fans of Putin-style strongman fascism for over 80 years.

— Meanwhile, it appears that Putin is upping his genocide threat against Ukraine, while his own military may be sabotaging his desire to use tactical nuclear weapons against that country. Russian soldiers hold a major dam that, if they blow it up, could immediately drown hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and destroy as many as 80 downstream cities and towns. There’s also reporting that Putin has ordered his military to both test nuclear weapons (one under the Barents sea, and the other underground in Russia’s remote Arkhangelsk region) and to deploy nukes to Ukraine and — in both cases — his orders were not carried out. There’s debate among intelligence officials about whether Putin’s nuclear failures are caused by a rebellion in his ranks or simply that his weapons are so old and/or poorly manufactured and maintained that they’re not safe to move or won’t detonate.

— The predictable consequence of too many guns. America has 120 guns for every 100 Americans. Yemen has 50 for every 100 Yemenis, the number two gun-infested nation in the world, while most of Europe has around 10-20 guns per 100 people. The result is that guns are now the leading cause of death among American children, parents have to ask their kids’ friends if there are guns in their houses before they go to play, and gun crimes are exploding across the nation. As well as an entire sub-genre of gun crimes being referred to as “Stupid Gun Owner Tricks.” The most recent “trick” happened in Florida when a pharmacy delivery person dropped off a prescription at the wrong house and the person receiving it drove a few blocks away to give it to its rightful owner. The “rightful owners,” Rocky and Gino Colonacosta, saw the person bringing the prescription to their home on their Ring doorbell and, assuming it was someone coming to do them harm, stepped outside with guns drawn. The good Samaritan freaked out, putting her car into reverse and banging into a car then driving away in a screech of rubber — as Rocky and Gino put seven bullets into the fleeing vehicle. Nobody was hit but one bullet went straight through a child safety seat and would have killed their son if he’d been in the car. Florida not only has lax gun safety laws but is also a state that’s adopted the ALEC “stand your ground” laws, which, in nearly every state where they’ve been put into law, have led to increased gun murders.

— If you want to destroy a democracy, the first step is to convince its citizens that they can’t trust their own election systems. After all, the main characteristic of a democracy is that people choose their leaders and representatives through elections. Donald Trump and his America-distrusting Republican followers have spent almost two years trashing our elections and now it looks like they’ve upped the ante. In Georgia this week a very well-made counterfeit ballot was found in a drop-box. Nobody knows who put it in, but the intent was clear: increase distrust of democracy’s necessary tool for choosing leadership.

— What’s up with the polls? Anybody who’s ever watched TV knows that a few million dollars spent on advertising can move an obscure product straight into bestseller status. All it takes is a well-crafted message and enough money to ensure constant repetition to convince people of just about anything. Advertising actually works: that’s why there’s so much of it. Now that the Supreme Court has turned America’s elections over to giant corporations and the morbidly rich through their corrupt Citizens’ United decision, rightwing billionaires are pouring cash into election advertising in quantities never before seen in any nation on Earth. And it’s showing in the polls, as Republicans are catching up with and, in some cases, surpassing their Democratic opponents. There’s only one reason this election is as tight as it is: the Supreme Court’s opening the door to corruption of our election system by America’s billionaires and largest corporations. And until that door is closed, don’t expect much to get done that doesn’t simply and purely benefit the interests of corporations and the morbidly rich.

— Why is the mainstream media ignoring the GOP plan to blow up the global economy and destroy Social Security? It really should be the biggest news in America right now: Republican leadership has publicly laid out a plan to bring the American economy to its knees, provoking a worldwide economic crisis. And, when they’re done with that, they say they intend to end Social Security. It’s not a secret: Senator Rick Scott, who’s in charge of getting Republican senators reelected, and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have both proudly proclaimed their plans to end Social Security in 5 years (Scott) or next year (Johnson). And Kevin McCarthy and others in the House Republican leadership are openly bragging that if they retake the House this fall they’ll bring the US economy to its knees rather than raise the debt ceiling next year. Republicans keep telling us exactly what they intend to do and, for some inexplicable reason, America’s corporate media has their fingers in their ears.

— Good News: Record numbers