Saving democracy - why the Democrats are failing

First, some support for my proposal to remove at least one motive from mass shooters.

The “Erastratos Effect” – which I’ve described after most mass shootings and most recently here -- is where villains - often heinous criminal-creeps - are often motivated by a desperate need for infamy, seeking immortality through destruction. I’ve elsewhere described how the ancients dealt with this driver of heinous crimes.

Now parents of one of the Aurora victims are pushing this concept. Through No Notoriety, they advocate for members of the media to only use the killer’s name once; don’t publish aggrandizing photos of the shooter. The FBI, in 2014, launched a tentative Don’t Name Them campaign.

== Calling the colonels? Why I am finally in despair ==

I've been shouting for years that both moderate conservatives and pragmatic Democrats should be seeking out military retirees. I've seen rock-ribbed NRA types - who have never listened to a Democrat in their lives - stop and hear-out a retired colonel who appeals to them to heed actual facts. Anyway, defending all those seats will bankrupt the Kochs and Murdoch and the Mercers. (See details here: A Time for Colonels.)

And hence… I am devastated. According to this article, Democrats have recruited 20 retired military officers to run for office, as if that's a lot. It should be 2000! Enough to contest every "red-safe" state assembly district, even in deep-red Alabama. If this is all there is, then we are royally screwed. The confederates may survive and kill America.

Praying that article mis-stated the number by an order of magnitude, shall I see the following as sign for hope? Is there an insidious political side to this sudden recall to active duty of thousands of retired military officers? I have no clear facts. Hence we must take the services at their word, that they're doing this because of urgent staffing shortages. Still, look carefully, folks out there! Might the call-ups lean hard on retired officers who were thinking about running for office? Perhaps as Republicans in primaries? Or as Democrats, challenging confederates in "safe" GOP districts?

And hence I have to ask: has anyone else connected these two dots? If the call-ups have any bias to them, that political-cheating "straw" could break this camel's back.

A scary alternative hypothesis, that I deem plausible, alas. These officers are being called up in preparation for war.

== Attacking (and saving) democracy at its roots ==

Reacting in large part to Russian efforts to hack the presidential election last year, a growing number of states are upgrading electoral databases and voting machines. The plans — from both Democrats and Republicans — amount to the largest overhaul of the nation’s voting infrastructure since 2000. Example: Delaware is moving its voter-registration list off the state’s aging mainframe computer and preparing to replace a 21-year-old electronic voting system that does not leave a paper record of votes to be audited. Federal intelligence and security officials were so shaken by Russian attempts to compromise the vote that the Department of Homeland Security designated election systems a critical national infrastructure, like banking and the electrical grid, that merit special protection.

“The scope of the threat was underscored on Tuesday when a new report concluded not only that widely used voting systems can be breached by hackers — sometimes with almost trivial ease — but that they contain components manufactured in nations like China with a clear interest in undermining American democracy.”

“The new guidelines for manufacturers of voting equipment — reduced to five pages from more than 200 — include for the first time principles as basic as a requirement that voting devices produce written records that can be verified, and that software or hardware errors cannot lead to undetectable changes in tallies.” Virginia scrapped thousands of paperless voting machines in 2015 after discovering that even an amateur hacker could easily and secretly change vote tallies.

Oh but we know they are cheaters. They cannot win except by cheats that range from treasonous-foul gerrymandering to "losing thousands of voter registrations always a week or two before an election, to rigged voting machines, to voter suppression... and now this: "A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed, The Associated Press has learned. The server’s data was destroyed July 7 by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, which runs the state’s election system."

Hey cheaters, be proud... but where do you think this will all lead, when we finally get fed up?

But read about the one political office that is most filled with outright traitors, in the U.S. In most states, the Secretary of State is responsible for managing elections and voter rolls. One of our political parties has given top priority to filling this one office with skilled and relentless cheaters.

And I reiterate... this solution to gerrymandering avoids all the excuses offered by Anthony Kennedy, last time that he wriggled out of helping to end gerrymandering. It preserves state and legislature sovereignty. It is clear, enforceable, palliative and not at all onerous. And I promise you'll have seen it nowhere else!

== Stop yammering “impeachment” impatient fools ==

In a previous blog, I dissected why dealing with a president and VP who are both mad, in different ways, will require finesse. Finesse that I see nowhere among Democrats, liberals and so on.

For example, what stunning foolishness, mistaking the symptom for the disease, Larry Flynt offers $10 million for whomever can provide dirt sufficient to impeach Donald Trump. Argh. Alas, this would just replace an emasculated buffoon, whose every action is transparent and whose administration leaks like a sieve, with a Pence White House that will be filled with fervent apocalypse-seekers and iron discipline.

Seriously, study Mike Pence. I earlier called him Trump’s impeachment insurance for a reason.

Look, I am in favor of accumulating evidence to discredit the madness, but focus on the Murdoch-Mercer-Breitbart-Fox- disease! Not the gyrating but self-limiting Trump symptom! See where I eviscerate the "impeach" idiocy.

Mind you, Mr. Flynt, I am in favor of rich folks offering whistle-blower rewards! See The Transparent Society where I touted this 20 years ago and yearly, since. But try having the patience of a homo sapiens, instead of an angry tree shrew.

== Criminal betrayal of market enterprise… even capitalism… by its supposed defenders ==

I have very mixed feelings about Ralph Nader, who bears partial responsibility for the catastrophes that have wrecked American politics since the 2000 election. But he is also a very sharp critic. And he is right to focus (at the Evonomics site) on the biggest monster of economic waste, far exceeding all the inefficiencies of government — over $7 trillion of dictated stock buybacks since 2003 by the self-enriching CEOs of large corporations.

A crime and cheat as blatant as gerrymandering, stock buybacks let CEOs trivially meet the milestones for their stock price based vampire compensation packages given them by other CEO golf buddies, who they select for their own company’s board. This incestuously self-serving cartel “picks winners and losers” far more secretively and corruptly than any of the civil servants who are maligned by right wing propaganda.

As Nader puts it, “due to the malicious, toady SEC “business judgment” rule, CEOs can take trillions of dollars away from productive pursuits without even having to ask the companies’ owners—the shareholders—for approval.” And note that it is one more example where the “supply side” caste has proved that they have zero interest in investing in productive capacity, R&D, new products or any other aspect of “supply.”

“Companies with excessive stock buybacks experience a declining market value. IBM, since 2005 has spent $125 billion on buybacks while laying off large numbers of workers and investing only $69.9 billion in R&D. IBM is widely viewed as a declining company…. General Electric, in the same period spent $114.6 billion on its own stock only to see its stock price steadily decline in a bull market. JC Penny and Macy’s spent more in stock buybacks than their businesses are currently worth in market value.”

Those who bucked this trend have done far better. Interestingly, the listed corporations are known for tech innovation. And most of their CEOs are known to be either libertarians or democrats. Almost no republicans among them. Nader adds: “The corporate giants are also demanding that Congress allow the repatriation of about $2.5 trillion stashed abroad without paying more than 5% tax. They say the money would be used to grow the economy and create jobs. Last time CEOs promised this result in 2004, Congress approved, and then was double-crossed. The companies spent the bulk on stock buybacks, their own pay raises and some dividend increases.”

Mind you, were the GOP to insist that all repatriated funds be spent directly on R&D or jobs, the resulting boom could save the Republican Party from what’s coming, otherwise. It won’t happen. Because the vampire urge is far stronger than long term self-interest.

Read this. Only then remember. Nader’s often right… and has proved himself not to always be our friend.

For someone more consistently on target, see billionaire Nick Hanauer eviscerate the CEO caste for using the stock buy-back cheat to wreck our future and line their own pockets.

Also:

Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has been hammering on a devastating critique of the role that lack of enforcement of anti-monopoly laws have had on the poor performance of the American economy and the declining share of income to labor that is also a critical piece of how the neo-feudalists are seeking to entrench their power over our society while sapping innovation and vitality out of our economy.