Todd Stein

Member of Congress, committee staff, comms

so do I!

Civil Society Institutions Under Authoritarian Encroachment A broad range of views on democracy to help break the stalemate caused by partisan conflict.

“Authoritarianism succeeds by making dissent costly. When the authoritarian gale sends citizens running for cover, civil society organizations must anchor democratic principles.”

A must-read from my colleague and amazing writer Turkuler Isiksel.

democracyproject.org/posts/civil-...

wow

The sweep of American history in four overlapping lifetimes:

John Adams 1735-1826
Harriet Tubman 1822-1913
Ronald Reagan 1911-2004
Thomas Fugate 2003->

A reporter should ask China Hawk Republicans about the fact that the Tiananmen Square protesters opposed the deployment of military forces from other provinces, and ask whether Americans resisting out-of-state NG troops in their cities should take inspiration from those brave Chinese students.

China watcher/scholar sees the parallel:

rEpuBlIcAnS sUPPoRT sTAteS riGhTs!

A government that extrajudicially kills foreigners abroad will also (try to) extrajudicially kill its own citizens at home.

“The second Trump administration has discarded this consensus and embraced an illiberal set of policies and has hewed toward a transactional, spheres-of-interest approach abroad. This is sure to have a host of indirect and direct effects that will affect transnational repression…”

“The United States' global war on terror, launched in the wake of 9/11, provided a repertoire of tactics and a visual vocabulary that have become standard in transnational-repression operations.”

“This turn away from commitments to liberal democracy and international human rights—together with the open use by the US and Israel of extraterritorial tactics such as assassinations or kidnappings—has undermined norms against such actions and made it harder to hold states accountable for them.”

Party Leader invites military to help eliminate main opposition party.

Like so much else, this is what it looks like.

Think of all the Republican legislators in DC and the states pushing bills to prevent “CCP” people from buying land in the U.S. it’s just repeating an ugly, bigoted history.

This is basically the Stephen Miller program.

Isleton has a little heritage park explaining the history and the context. Sadly, sooooooo relevant to today.

Please learn our history, folks.

Today I visited the Sacramento River delta towns of Walnut Creek and Isleton, which had Chinese and Japanese immigrant communities in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. And suffered the attendant discriminations, but left a cultural imprint.

Stephen Miller uses the same words ("legitimate state power") to justify a crack-down on political opponents as the Chinese foreign minister used to justify its repression of Uyghurs.

Miller’s attempt to deem The Left terrorism was obviously where this was going and why, in addition to it being intellectually and morally correct, it was important to resist efforts to classify pro-Palestinian groups as such. You reject the politicization of “terrorism” or you accept it for all.

“Legitimate state power” — yet another indication of the death of small-government conservatism.

If I were an Israeli citizen, I would be horrified by the reputation that these thugs* are inflicting on my country.

* “these people” include Netanyahu

As a conservative, I’ve always advocated for a government small enough that it could militarily occupy several American cities at the same time, against the stated wishes of local elected officials. It should also be small and nimble enough so that it can zip tie children together at 1AM.

Gee, it's not like there isn't very good example from the 20C of a right-wing government with a Leader personality cult co-opting a major sporting event for ideological ends to show us what fascism in action looks like.

YouTube video by The Beatles - Topic If I Needed Someone (Remastered 2009)

Similarly

Add ADL to the large and growing list of groups that tried to ally with (suck up to) the White Nationalist movement in the hopes they would either profit from it or not be targeted. But unilateral concessions do not escape the inevitability of being targeted.

The lapse in appropriations (government shutdown) isn't preventing the President from using non-available funds to commit extrajudicial killings.

Governing is choosing. So interesting what people in power choose.

This is the reverse of a Republican Member of Congress complaining about enforced disappearances in China while being a member of Trump's Party in good standing,

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Chinese investors purchased direct stakes in SpaceX In newly unsealed testimony, a SpaceX insider said that Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company has taken direct investment from Chinese investors, ProPublica reports.

Are the China hawks gonna start screaming about this like they used to, or are they going to continue to stay stay silent in continued obeisance to the Party Leader?