The "Free fall" of the Rule of Law: The American Declension to Fascism

 

The late literary critic Harold Bloom in an interview said that US Democracy was dying and that the US was falling to being ruled by Plutocrats [big tech and big corporations]; Oligarchs and Theocrats. As friends of democracy and liberty, these three are not. The present election t sees all three at play. MSM in the USA seems to think it is an activist part of the state's functioning apparatus.

The corruption of the election- and to aver such in Michigan according to its Attorney General is a crime- and MSM carries a substantial responsible through its censorship and its willful blindness not to cover stories (the Hunter Biden laptop) and its perpetration of misinformation. CNN at lunchtime yesterday had a side banner of covid cases and covid deaths. Never does it show the actual death rate which is around 6% nor does it commend the Trump administration for its efforts to have not 1 but 3 vaccines available for use, logistics implemented and ready to go, in mid-December. This is a lying by deliberate omission. This is more than a "liar liar pants on fire " Lies have a destructive force on society as Solzhenitsyn demonstrably shows in his Gulag Archipelago. But I guess the priests and priestesses of MSM do not read.

CNN's Jake Tapper shamelessly retailed a further scurrilous lie that of Government Service Agency's head Emily Murphy by not directing the Transition to move forward would be costing lives. As if to say the Trump administration had done nothing and was deliberately setting out to kill people. This is risible on the facts. But, of course, media talking heads are a one-way traffic street there is no real-time interaction to say 'No you got thas wrong.' The misinformation is allowed to 'lie' where it falls. Our media tends to cut and past such pieces and they are never assessed or corrected. More troubling, if not unethical, in this example is the form of blackmail by insinuating moral turpitude.

Mrs Murphy is a public official and her role is governed by law and process. MSM have no regard to process and law and are wholly ignorant of Max Weber's analysis of bureaucracy, public administration and how it works. The fact that she and her agency are governed by law and doing her job accordingly did not stop, or even give pause to reflect on her position, as she came under abusive calls and threats:

“To be clear, I did not receive any direction to delay my determination,” Murphy said amid the torrent of criticism that has been lobbed at her from the Left. “I did, however, receive threats online, by phone, and by mail directed at my safety, my family, my staff, and even my pets in an effort to coerce me into making this determination prematurely."

“Even in the face of thousands of threats, I always remained committed to upholding the law,” she added.

See: https://www.washingtonexaminer...

The threats- intimidation- constitute extra process to extrajudicial means and sidelining the rule of law. Those who abused and threatened were, in the fascist methodology, they will say "being "pragmatic."

There is another twist to this form of coercion and that has been made by Law Professor Jonathan Turley.

First, yesterday he noted that a Democrat member of the House of Representatives has laid 20 lawyer complaints with bar Associations in New York directed at the lawyers involved in Trump's legal cases. Bar complaints re serious matters fro lawyers, they are time-consuming and cause issues with reputations. Two points flow. First, acting for a party is a public duty and all citizens have the right of access to the Courts. How this is lawyer misconduct is far fetched but secondly, it is an attempt at coercion- an attempt to overbear the lawyers will, AKA blackmail- by a political and elected partisan house member. Courts are where disputes are resolved- it is their constitutional role in a civil society- not by the social media mob or political hacks.https://jonathanturley.org/2020/11/23/democratic-member-files-bar-actions-against-two-dozen-lawyers-challenging-election-results/.

Secondly, the weaponising of law and the denial of free speech. The raising of an allegation of fraud publically in Michigan could lead to prosecution. The message seems clear, the Party is to to be contradicted:

We have been discussing the use of the criminal code by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) to threaten people who post videos on alleged voter fraud or legislators who raise such objections in the state. These threats are coercive and abusive, particularly when targeting opponents of your party who are challenging the victory of your candidate for president. Yet, as shown by a congressman seeking to disbar dozens of Trump lawyers, such threats are popular in today’s rage-filled politics. So, Nessel continued her threats of prosecution on Monday in warning that a former state senator could be prosecuted for alleging possible voter fraud at a meeting of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers.https://jonathanturley.org/2020/11/24/nessel-resumes-threats-of-criminal-prosecution-against-those-alleging-voter-fraud/

So, raising voting fraud at the board overseeing voting is now a possible basis for prosecution in Michigan.

All three examples are alarming incidences of throwing the rule of law in the garbage. As Jean Piaget stated in his book on games, no one likes a cheat and without rules, there is no game. As Mark Levin has commented in his recent podcast on District Court Judge Bann's Federal Court decision on voter fraud in Pennsylvania. The judge accepted the affidavit evidence of fraud but got lost in the remedy over disallowing votes. Levin said he needed to simply follow the rules set out in the constitution. The abdication of applying the constitution's higher law marks a serious declension of law in the US polity. The loss of this 'idea" of the rule of law will have serious downstream consequences for the US state and its citizens with the erosion of rights- as we see with the Alinsky tactics- and the rise of a fascist totalitarian state and its "panopticon."

The distraction has been MSM's over-focus on the centre and not the penumbra of events with the inability, through ignorance and inexperience (youth) of MSM media folk to properly analyse, comprehend the significance of events and to exist in an ever-present now.

The 71% non reconcilaition: Michigan Wayne County Part 3

 

In a post the other day I added a comment and have updated it twice, as the Republican members of the vote canvassing body, first refused to certify, then certified after duress was placed on them have now gone back to their original position.

Today's update:

2nd UPDATE 6:51 Am 20 November 2020 On Fox Lou Dobbs (the clip is available on Parler: https://parler.com/post/23d86f...) interviewed a former Michigan Senator, Patrick Colbeck who attend the canvassers meeting. 71% of precincts in Wayne County do not reconcile. That means that more "people voted" who were not registered to vote.

Now the 2 Republican Commissioners now wish to resile from the certification.

Colbeck talks of serious intimidation, threats to life and jobs. There was a storm on social media of threats and abuse and labelling of racism. It would seem, according to Dan Bongino, that actual black and Hispanic voters had their votes watered down. I don't see how standing up for those voters, for vote integrity, can be styled racist. The slur is mob rule tactics.

Colbeck, a Republican, speaks of grassroots support and support from Sanders' Bernie Bros. As Colbeck points out they know what it is to lose votes.

It would seem that the threats to life, employment are ones likely to be ones of undue influence which overwhelmed the free will of the canvassers.

A 28 to 29% inflated vote above the numbers who are on the roll is a serious matter.

Added to which the Commissioner of the Federal Electoral Commission has considered the vote to be illegitimate.

Now things have moved on: affidavits have been sworn, which depose to threats and the certification is rescinded. In the current mob rule of 'cancel culture', this takes extreme courage. They carry the mantle for many as against the establishment elite few. The "iron triangle" of the Democrat Party, Big Tech/Corporations and MSM. The organisation of Fortune 500 Companies has threatened to intervene if Biden is not made President.

Even the CCP's Global Times (https://www.globaltimes.cn/con...) has pointed out the disconnect between the people and the establishment elite in a well-reasoned article which echoes work by Fred Siegel and Joel Kotkin, along with Federalist Paper # 10 of 1788 by James Madison.

Read: Wayne County Reps Rescind Election Certification Votes Citing Bullying Threats https://thenationalpulse.com/b... and here https://justthenews.com/politi...

Are the Judges going to show some spine? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has shown itself to be prone to word mummery and "grimgribber"-legal fantasy-and disingenuous reasoning, which is the distinguishing mark of the carpetbag low efficacy 'High Street' provincial lawyer.

"Get rid of the lawyers. No lawyers, no cases, no Trump."

 

Over the weekend:

1. Biden supporters attacked and harassed Trump supporters in Washington DC;

2. Obama, as reported on Breitbart, announced that Trump was like a Dictator- which is rich coming from a man who weaponised departments of state for political reasons; whose excessive use Executives Orders- the famous "I have a pen and phone" is well-known and whose second term denigrated Americans who did not think like him and brought into play divisive identity politics.

What type of regime denigrates political and legal due process; does not like dissent from its totalitarian opinion and uses the mob- and violent thugs- in an extrajudicial fashion, and cuts off legal representation? Typically an authoritarian one. Some may call it a fascist regime.

Professor Turley of the Law Faculty of George Washington University writes about the harassment of the law firms that Mr Trump has engaged for his quest against voter fraud and the issues surrounding Dominion vote machines and the software.

What is astonishing is the fat that lawyers are leading he harassment. Jonathan Turley says "I have never seen such a campaign led by lawyers against lawyers." Lest we forget the officer class of the Nazi SS had a great number of lawyers.

Less than a week after the election being called for President-elect [sic] Biden, supporters are turning to Shakespeare’s “Henry VI” for their first priority: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

The rule of law and a basic tenant of a civil society is the right of access to justice- questionable in some Courts in the USA as Lt Gen Flynn has found out- and the right to Justice has its "must have" the right to Legal Counsel.

I urge you to please do read Professor Turley's article and lament the crumbling of the American  Republic: https://jonathanturley.org/202...

The Road to Dogma: The Loss of Liberty by Rule of the Expert.

 

 

US Supreme Court  Justice Alito in  an extra judicial address to the Federalist Society has made the below comments which I take from the Breitbart article:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/13/alito-covid-has-highlighted-disturbing-trend-of-rule-by-experts/

The  learned Judge said.

"... “One of these is the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat, rather than legislation. The vision of early-20th century progressives and the New Dealers of the 1930s was that policymaking would shift from narrowminded elected legislators to an elite group of appointed experts.   In a word, that policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent. Every year, administrative agencies, acting under broad delegations of authority, churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarf the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic? Sweeping restrictions imposed, for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion.” (emphasis added)

In concluding he says  that coronavirus restrictions have “highlighted the movement toward rule by experts.”

 The passage cited ...to an elite group of appointed experts…bears reflection.   The elite group can carry the meaning of an oligarchy, a politburo, a central  committee, also known as the fount of all truth from which there is no disagreement, no appeal and is fixed by the political placement of the expert.   

Expert opinion that cannot or will not be challenged and modified becomes dogma and new evidence new opinions become heresy. Recall how Galileo was tried for heresy. G K Chesterton opined in the 1920's that the present age will not be one of Liberty but Dogma. How prescient for our present age. One can see this evolving with a Biden administration.

Knowledge ceases to advance,  to be contestable and exist in a state of free interplay.  An idea advanced by John Milton in The Areopagitica.   A 'hand brake' on the exchange of ideas in the public square already exists from "dominant" public opinion which John Stuart Mill noted in On Liberty.   We are seeing with big tech and big tech the move from dominant to a "totality" of one opinion.

In addition, because whatever the expert says is Righteous Truth. It has a one party - or one government- proclivity. The Davos set for example. It confirms the argument I have been making from Aristotle, in other articles, concerning the tussle of the 'few v the many.'

In a panel of experts, in  which an expert and his or her discipline is on top  and dominant will have a direct affect on policy. You see this with Covid. The epidemiologists and virologists if on top 'pip' the oncologists, the economists and the psychiatrists and so on.   A monocular view point will appertain.   Added to which, the expert is not accountable for error, poor judgment and the ensuing loss and harm.

It is an abdication of decision making- adjudication by the legislature- and policy weighing by politicians of competing interests, ideas and knowledge.

Further , excessive discretion leads to arbitrary decision making by bureaucrats and risks abuse of power and thus capricious then ultimately tyrannical rule.

Update 15/11/2020: City Journal on Elite Opinion:https://www.city-journal.org/elite-opinion-never-wrong?utm_source=City+Journal+Update&utm_campaign=d9721b5d01-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_11_10_07_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6c08930f2b-d9721b5d01-109748273

"Skull and Crossbones" Civility noted by Jonathan Turley

 

The Lincoln Project is an anti Trumper organisation and is targetting Trump's lawyers. Many are acting pro bono to assist in putting the evidence together.

The Lincoln Project called on its almost 3 million followers to hound and harass attorneys Carolyn McGee and Ronald Hicks for assisting the Trump team in its legal battle over mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. The Lincoln Project tweeted, “Make them famous,” to its 2.7 million followers along with an emoji depicting a skull-and-crossbones. This is the targeting of lawyers who are doing their professional jobs in representing a client and raising allegations of voter irregularities. The Lincoln Project is clearly trying to unleash a campaign of harassment to deter them or other lawyers from taking such cases. Rather than allow the courts to simply rule on such legal challenges, the Lincoln Project is trying to scare off the lawyers.

The Republican and anti Trumper- Lincoln Project- are now ending up on AOC and Obama's black list.

In the meantime, the members of Lincoln Project are being moved from the resistance to the reactionary category in the aftermath of the election. When asked about AOC’s call for a black list, Sanders surrogate Nomiki Konst helpfully noted that the first on the list would be people like the former Republicans in the Lincoln Project. She said that those people like George Conway are the “perfect examples” of people to be cancelled despite their work against Trump. That did not take long. After spending millions in support of Biden, Knost and AOC are calling for all such figures to be listed and held “accountable.”

The attempt to knobble lawyers is a very troubling aspect in a free and democratic society. The right to counsel, need I say, is fundamental. Due process enables testing of evidence. Dogmatic Age determination of guilt based on feeling and ideological belief puts the 'cart before the horse'.

It is a troubling aspect of how the left thinks and assesses, determines, facts and reality. Starting with the judgment is wrong.

https://jonathanturley.org/202...

CNN Tapper calls for Black listing- a precurosr to Confino and worse...

I submitted this today, Armistice Day, 11 November 2020 first on Solo Passion.

A call for healing and unity by Biden (in a moment of  “Toobinisming” vacuous spin) has sprayed cant political therapeutic phrases and words which are ones of semantic over load: meanwhile Democrats, AOC MSM  and its operatives call for black lists, purges  ending careers, ostracism, exclusion and proscription of those who hold a different political  positions and work in federal government.

Unity it seems  means compliance with critical theory, more and more identity politics, BLM, Socialism, impoverishing the working class and middle classes by reversing the tax cuts; eviscerating the US Constitution and a foreseeable one party state, on the  California model,  where the party controls all wings of government and not the 'We the People".

Nolte on Breitbart tells us about  CNN's Jake Tapper’s call for  blacklisting those who support and work in  the Trump administration.  Tapper   a former White House PR man for Democrats: https://www.breitbart.com/the-...   The black listing is an intimating stand over tactic.   The call by Tapper is chilling because the line between social proscription and economic terrorism of individuals and their families to incarceration, confino, exile or ultimately execution .

Then there is a move to curtail free speech from Biden “aides’ as Professor Turley on his blog discusses:  https://jonathanturley.org/2020/11/10/shredding-the-fabric-of-our-democracy-biden-aide-signals-push-for-greater-censorship-on-the-internet/.

The  heading 'Shredding our Democracy" indicates the new flavour.  Turley is a liberal and Democrat but even he is dismayed by what is happening and supports the President's quest for democratic due process in the election process.   Free speech is not needed when  Party’s  Beijing Big Guy  knows everything and Woke orthodoxy is TRUTH.  Odd where all the multiplicity of meanings and the many many neo Marxist and Foucault  critical theory  narratives went.

One NZ Blog site writer was yesterday  happy to have Trump consigned to the "dustbin of history" without thought to the consequences, which we are now starting to see.

Big tech has moved against The President, Dan Bongino, Mark Levin, Bannon, National Pulse for reporting on voter fraud.  All conservative voices which may not be  to your liking but  voices  which are becoming heterodox and outlawed by woke dogma .

Both these pieces point to a bleak future.   Sky News Australia is cover the news well. Stuff, in its typical slavish cut and paste mind set, over the weekend merely swallowed the far left and woke AP's "4th Estate's Vanilla coup piece. AP's style book has writers spelling black with a capital B and white with a lower case w.   So we have a very credible- NOT- news source.

Fred Siegels, Revolt Against the Masses is being played out in part. The silk stocking establishment political elite is in pay back mode.  That establishment also includes the Alphabet intelligence community too. Chuck-We are going to remake America- Schumer hard warned Trump about it in 2017. We know that, as John Brennan is back in the fray too, while Chief Justice John  Roberts, in Mark  Levin’s words, has “gone full Georgetown.”

Graham Hill.  Armistice Day, 11 November 2020