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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Authoritarianism Will Be on the Ballot’: Experts Sound Alarm Over NYT Bombshell Detailing Trump’s Plans if He Wins in 2024

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Political and legal experts are sounding the alarm after a New York Times deep dive details how Donald Trump and his top allies are planning to massively reorganize the entire executive branch to hand him unprecedented power and decimate the constitutional basis of checks and balances should he win re-election next year.

“Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands,” The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman report.

With the assistance of entities like the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that was transformed during the Trump years, The Times reports several of Trump’s well-known associates have been working on plans for his second term.

Among them, John McEntee. Swan last year at Axios described McEntee a “young take-no-prisoners loyalist with chutzpah” who Trump had enlisted after his first impeachment acquittal in early 2020 to “activate the plan for revenge.”

READ MORE: ‘Chilling’: Former Prosecutor Stunned Over J6 Defendant Who Allegedly Got Obama’s Address From Trump Social Media Post

“Baby-faced assassin,” is how The Guardian in February of 2020 described McEntee, “the 29-year old at the heart of Trump’s ‘deep state’ purge.”

McEntee rose through the ranks of the Trump White House, starting as the president’s body man and personal aide. He was terminated after failing to pass a security clearance background check and was “under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for serious financial crimes,” CNN reported in 2018. Despite his past, Trump later rehired him as his Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, where he initiated loyalty test interviews in the hope of ensuring executive branch employees across all agencies were entirely loyal to Trump.

“What part of candidate Trump’s campaign message most appealed to you and why?” was one question potential political appointees were reportedly asked under McEntee’s leadership, CBS News had reported in 2020.

In November of 2021, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl penned a piece for The Atlantic calling McEntee, “The Man Who Made January 6 Possible.”

“McEntee and his enforcers made the disastrous last weeks of the Trump presidency possible,” Karl wrote. “They backed the president’s manic drive to overturn the election, and helped set the stage for the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Thanks to them, in the end, the elusive “adults in the room”—those who might have been willing to confront the president or try to control his most destructive tendencies—were silenced or gone. But McEntee was there—bossing around Cabinet secretaries, decapitating the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, and forcing officials high and low to state their allegiance to Trump.”

The New York Times’ report on Monday reveals Trump and his allies’ “plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.”

READ MORE: GOP Senators and Right-Wingers Freak Out Over Biden Ordering 3000 Reservists to Ready for Possible Deployment to Europe

Trump, for example, would bring what Congress created to be independent agencies, like the “Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.”

He would “impound” taxpayer funds Congress appropriated and refuse to spend them, a practice outlawed under disgraced President Richard Nixon.

As he wanted to do before the end of his first term, Trump would eliminate civil service protections from “tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as ‘the sick political class that hates our country.'”

And who would Trump enlist into this fascistic effort?

“The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal,” said McEntee, “who is now involved in mapping out the new approach,” The Times reports.

“Our current executive branch,” McEntee added, “was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”

Russell T. Vought, who lead Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, told The Times: “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.”

Others The Times mentions are “two of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Vincent Haley and Ross Worthington.”

And Stephen Miller, a white nationalist who The Times notes was “the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration agenda.” That agenda included the intentional separation of children from their parents, and some siblings from each other – to send a message to other families not to travel to the U.S. southern border in hopes of applying for asylum or entering and staying unlawfully. Miller’s efforts separated approximately 3000 children from their parents, but he had a plan, never implemented, NBC News reported, to separate an additional 25,000 more.

Experts across the spectrum are responding to The Times’ report with grave concern.

“In 2024, authoritarianism—unchecked, unembarrassed and undisguised—will be on the ballot,” wrote Bill Kristol, the longtime neoconservative commentator.

“Anyone who opposes a Presidential autocracy in America should read this closely,” urged NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss.

READ MORE: A Texas Judge Is Trying to Use the SCOTUS Anti-LGBTQ Ruling to Refuse to Marry Same-Sex Couples

“Read this piece,” also urged MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. “Be afraid. This is on the verge of happening 18 months from now.”

“Now ask yourself this question,” he continued, “are cautious, in-denial, business-as-usual establishment Dems equipped, or even willing, to address this anti-democratic, autocratic threat?”

Award-winning retired White House correspondent Peter Maer tweeted, “ELECTIONS MATTER. If #Trump wins the #Republican nomination, autocracy will be on the ballot.”

Attorney Charles Kuck, an immigration law expert and adjunct professor of law warned, “Trump and his minions want America to be a dictatorship. Be aware.”

Former Republican and former Tea Party U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh noted, “Deciding how to vote in the 2024 election will be super easy & super straightforward: If you want a dictator in the White House, vote for Trump. If you don’t, vote for Biden.”

Veteran journalist Brian Kareem wrote: “Read. This is the elimination of democracy and the plans of a despotic regime.”

International relations professor and senior editor of Arc Digital, Nicholas Grossman writes: “If Trump conspiring [to] stay in power after losing reelection didn’t convince you. And his team’s plan to purge the civil service of non-loyalists didn’t. Nor did his call to terminate the Constitution. Here’s more evidence of explicitly anti-democracy intent.”

“Democracy can die by suicide, and re-electing Donald Trump would be precisely that,” observed Larry Sabato, professor, and founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Retired U.S. Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, the expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security who is now at The Atlantic, balked at The Times title: “Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Nichols wrote. “Another would be ‘to establish an autocracy.'”

 

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News

Arizona State Senator Proposes Health Study Looking Into ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’

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President Donald Trump and his allies have long accused critics of suffering from the imaginary ailment Trump Derangement Syndrome. Now, an Arizona state senator wants the local health department to conduct a study on the made-up disease.

State Sen. Janae Shamp introduced Senate Bill 1070 on Monday, asking Arizona’s Department of Health Services to “conduct or support research” on TDS, “including its origins, manifestations and long-term effects on individuals, communities and public discourse.” If the bill were passed into law, the department would have a year to submit a report on its findings.

READ MORE: ‘Monstrous’: Trump Blasted for Blaming Rob Reiner’s Death on ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’

Shamp’s bill defines Trump Derangement Syndrome as “a behavioral or psychological phenomenon that is characterized by intense emotional or psychological reactions to Donald J. Trump, his actions or his public presence as observed in individuals or groups.” From there, the bill lays out its reasoning—mainly a laundry list of Trump’s accomplishments, including reducing the corporate tax rate by 14%, eliminating “22 regulations for every new one in 2017”, and “affirming biological truth in federal policy to protect family values.”

“Despite these contributions to America’s prosperity, security 26 and values, ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ (TDS) has emerged since his 2016 campaign,” Shamp wrote.

“TDS has led to significant social harm, with Americans who 33 support President Trump or his policies reporting discrimination, 34 intimidation or ostracism in professional, academic and social settings, 35 further eroding community cohesion,” she added.

The bill borrows heavily from a House bill proposed by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), according to Tucson.com. It is unknown what chances Shamp’s bill has of passing the Arizona Senate; Davidson’s bill died in committee. But even should it pass, it is unlikely to be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

When asked if Hobbs would sign the bill, her spokesperson laughed and told a KTVK-TV reporter “You can quote me on that.”

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CORRUPTION

Sotomayor Slams SCOTUS Over Ruling ‘Declaring All Latinos Fair Game to Be Seized’ by ICE

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor had harsh words for the Supreme Court in her dissent in a ruling allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to continue to arrest people based on profiling Latinos working low-wage jobs.

Monday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an emergency decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo. The case concerns “Operation At Large,” which deployed ICE agents in the Los Angeles area to car washes, bus stops, farms and other locations believed to be frequented by Latino people who may or may not be undocumented immigrants. On July 11, the Central District Court of California ruled that ICE had to stop Operation At Large until appeals in the case could be heard.

The Court’s ruling contained no official explanation for the ruling, however Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence. In his concurrence, Kavanaugh said the law allowed ICE to “‘briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’” if they have “a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned . . . is an alien illegally in the United States.”

READ MORE: Loyalty Litmus Test? Trump Allies Quietly Prep SCOTUS Short List

Operation At Large, he said, represented “reasonable suspicion” to detain someone on the following factors: “(i) presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, agricultural sites, and the like; (ii) the type of work one does; (iii) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; and (iv) apparent race or ethnicity.”

He added that “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion” but could be a “‘relevant factor,” and that if someone detained by ICE turned out to be a citizen, they would be “free to go after the brief encounter.”

Sotomayor disagreed that this is what was happening, citing what had happened to other citizens. Jason Gavidia worked at a Los Angeles tow yard that ICE stopped at. Agents repeatedly asked if he was a citizen. They then took his phone, pushed him against a metal fence, twisted his arm, and took away his identification, according to Sotomayor’s dissent.

“Other Operation At Large encounters have included even more force and even fewer questions. For example, agents pulled up in four unmarked cars to a bus stop in Pasadena; ‘the doors opened and men in masks with guns started running at’ three Latino men who were having their morning coffee, waiting to be picked up for work,” she wrote.

“In Glendale, nearly a dozen masked agents with guns ‘jumped out of . . . cars’ at a Home Depot, and began ‘chasing’ and ‘tackl[ing]’ Latino day laborers without ‘identify[ing] themselves as ICE or police, ask[ing] questions, or say[ing] anything else.’ In downtown Los Angeles, agents ‘jumped out of a van, rushed up to [a tamale vendor], surrounded him, and handled him violently,’ all ‘[w]ithout asking . . . any questions.'”

Sotomayor concluded that Operation At Large and the Court’s decision “all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.”

She also condemned the court for not issuing an explanation beyond the concurrence. She alleged that the Court had been eager to “circumvent the ordinary appellate process” when it comes to President Donald Trump and his administration.

“Some situations simply cry out for an explanation, such as when the Government’s conduct flagrantly violates the law,” Sotomayor wrote, adding that Operation At Large and the Court’s ruling clearly violates the Bill of Rights.

“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be ‘free from arbitrary interference by law officers.’ After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little. Because this is unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees, I dissent,” she wrote.

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law

Arkansas Senator Files Bill to Abolish State Library, Give Education Department Control

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The right-wing war on knowledge continues as an Arkansas state senator filed a bill Thursday to abolish the State Library as well as the library board.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), along with State Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford), filed Senate Bill 536 on Thursday. The bill would not just remove all references to the State Library from existing laws, but also put the state’s other libraries under the control of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A previous version of the bill, SB184, would have also shuttered the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees the state’s PBS stations, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

READ MORE: Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association

The Arkansas State Library is not just a regular library. In addition to providing information to state agencies and lawmakers, it also distributes funding to the other libraries around the state. Under SB536, the Department of Education would take on all its responsibilities. The State Library is officially a part of the Department of Education already, but it operates as an independent organization.

While the proposal may sound like a shuffling-around of duties, the main thrust of the bill is to allow more direct control over the Arkansas library system by controlling the purse strings. The bill would keep libraries from distributing “age-inappropriate materials” to those under 17 years old and sex education materials from those under 12. Libraries would also have to set up a system where those in the community could request that certain items be banned for minors, according to KARK-TV. Those that don’t meet these restrictions will have state funding pulled.

Earlier legislation filed by Sullivan and passed into law includes Act 242, which ended the requirement for library directors to have a master’s degree in library science, the Advocate reported.  Sullivan, however, was unsuccessful with a proposed amendment to another bill that would strip funding from libraries affiliated with the American Library Association—meaning most, if not all of them. That amendment was rejected this week over concerns the language in it was too broad, according to the Advocate.

The ALA has been a target of right-wing politicians and activists upset with its free speech stance and fights against censorship. Sullivan in particular has objected to a provision in the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights protecting library access for all ages, the Advocate reported. He also called for the state’s chapter of the ALA to be defunded—despite the fact that it receives no state funding.

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