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Saturday 27th of July 2024

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Criminal justice Queens man indicted _______________ A Queens man was indicted Thursday for allegedly making hush money payments to a porn star shortly before he was elected president of the United States in 2015. headline and lead, Queens Daily Eagle, March 30, 2023  [Trump was born in Jamaica Hospital and grew up in Jamaica Estates, a neighborhood in Queens, a borough in New York City] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Defederalization [A]n effective Republican supermajority in Congress reinforced by an antidemocratic president, a federal governmet consisting entirely of personnel selected for their kindred views and loyalty, and the current far-right Supreme Court would displace the normal democratic politics of median results with something more sinister and coercive: populist authoritarianism. This we stress, is a plausible forecast, not an outright prediction. But the stakes and  probabilities are so high that it is only prudent to consider formalizing a defederalization arrangement to prevent that grim prospect. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Defederalization Defederalization might begin with the devolution of federal authority over many areas to states. This is already happening with respect to gun-carry laws, abortion access, and federal funding for religous schools, and Supreme court decisions make it possible. An improvised system, however, would leave many Americans unprotected and perpeptuate potentiaally violent diputes. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Defederalization In a more deliberate, orderly process [of defederalization], there are two broad structural possibilities. One would be partial defederalization, in which a national legislature would pass laws relating to the funding of the armed forces and other national assets, mainly infrastructure, and otherwise leave the states to govern themelves. The other would entail complete separation into two successor states, each of which would federate internally to the degree necessary. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy According to V-Dem, a Swedish research institute, almost three quarters of the world's population now live in autocracies against less than half a decade ago. That vertiginous shift justifies the term “democratic recession”. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 29, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fascism At the core of fascism is loyalty to the tribe, ethnic identiy, religion, tradition, or in a word, nation. But in stark contrast to a version of nationalism with equality as its goal, fascist nationalism is a repudiation of the liberal democratic ideal; it is nationalism in the service of domination, with the goal of preserving, maintaining or gaining a position of at the top of a hierarchy of power and status. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fascism I have chosen the label “fascism” for ultranationalism of some variety (ethnic, religious, cultural), with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fascists say Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda. Ron DeSantis, 6:55 PM – Mar 30, 2023, pimping for Trump's base in a performative burst of inequality-before-the-law, anti-Semitic  [note the coded “Soros-backed”] Fascist rhetoric made particulalrly execrable by the fact that Trump himself announced he would travel from Florida to New York to be arrested and arraigned on criminal charges related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels prior to the 2015 presidential election  © 2023 Kwiple.com
History Only a person who knows the past has a future. Wilhelm von Humboldt © 2023 Kwiple.com
Justice Justice is never in a hurry. Politics usually is. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 30, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Money in politics I don’t waste my time on stories that involve money and politics because what I care about is ideas. Leonard Leo, recipient of a $1.6 billion donation from Chicago billionaire Barre Seid to spend on getting conservatives who are committed to returning America to the eighteenth century (when things were as they should be) appointments as judges at all levels of the judiciary — federal, state, and local © 2023 Kwiple.com
Myths in poltics The function of the mythic past, in fascist politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology — authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works © 2023 Kwiple.com
Post-2022 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,737,128 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,357,904 people — 1 state (California) 2022 population: 39,995,077 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,997,539 people 19,997,539 / 1,357,904 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2022 population = 579,495, therefore: 1 Senator per 289,748 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Selfie I am not fit for this office and should never have been here. Warren G. Harding on the presidency © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say I’ve yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry. Yet today, I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don't have access to enough food to eat. Now. I should say that “hunger” is a relative term. I had a cereal bar for breakfast. I guess I'm hungry now. Republcan state Sentor Steve Drazkowski, explaining why he voted against providing free school meals in Minnesota, where an estimated one in six children face food insecurity and where there are at least a dozen food pantries in the district he represents © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He is the Houdini of bankruptcy court. Donald Trump portrayed by Edward Luce Financial Times, March 30, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot The first guy ever to pay a porn star to shut her mouth. Donald Trump portrayed by Bill Maher Real Time with Bill Maher, March 24, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union America is already virtually a binational state,, with  two sharply opposed national communities comparable in size and political strength  that effectively operate as confederations. The Republican Party is mostly white and marginally increasing its Latino membership, the Democratic Party an ethnic and racial mix. Although Democrats occasionally reveal impulses toward reconciliation, Republicans largely do not. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union At the core of the US binational character is a deep and durable tension between a Christian white-supremacist ideology that evolved to justify slavery and a broad-based multiethnic resistance to it. Reinforcing this tension are cultural divisions between the rural and urban populations, including divergent values on education and immigration. The split between the two halves of the nation — red and blue, right and left — increasingly appear irreconciliable. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union When the federal system works democratically, it delivers median results. There are winners and losers, but the broad middle is satisfied.  Under such federalism, if Congress were to take up abortion rights, for example, some states would want to ban the procedure entirely and others to allow it far into the term of pregnancy. A bill that ultimately reaches the president's desk for signature might ban it after twelve weeks or twenty-four. In the current political environment, such a broad national acceptance of compromise is improbable. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The rule of law appears to be suspended  tonight — not just for Trump, but for anyone who would consider voting for him. This is what it seems to be. It is a political purge. … [It's] probably not the best time to give up your AR-15. Tucker Carlson, March 30, 2023, on a Manhattan grand jury's indictment of Trump for crimes related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say [W]e demand, we absolutely demand that the criminals, the criminals in this country, if you want them held accountable, the criminals are Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Susan Rice, this entire criminal cabal that came about as a result of the murder of  John F. Kennedy, the people that perpetrated  the murder of John F. Kennedy, rise up to that. Military, join us and put all of them up against a concrete wall, just like [Romanian dictator Nicolae] Ceaușescu, and do what we must do to save not just our country, the entire world. Pete Santilli, on what to do if Trump is arrested or indicted by New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who, like Obama, Holder, and Rice, is black © 2023 Kwiple.com
War An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Winston Churchill © 2023 Kwiple.com
War Money is the artery of war. Peter the Great © 2023 Kwiple.com
War Profits and death grow marginal: Only the mourning and the mourned recall The wars we lose, the wars we win; And the world is — what it has been. Randall Jarrell, "The Range in the Desert" © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
War Such is the redeeming feature of war; it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social organizations that have outlived their vitality. Karl Marx, “Another British Revelation” © 2023 Kwiple.com