Since Criminals can Run our Government, We must now create New Laws to Protect our Democracy
Two impeachments that failed to expel criminal Trump from office.
The January 6th Insurrection was planned and led by a sitting President.
Stolen top secret docs — Trump stored at his unsecured beach club in FL.
A political party still defends this disgraced president’s criminal behavior.
The USA is moving towards fascism.
Authoritarianism is coming unless we change our laws and how our government works.
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American life was different seventy years ago.
In the 1950’s Americans felt optimistic that government employees were capable of doing their jobs and following the rules. Sure, there might be some inefficiencies, some corruption, and a few bad apples, but generally the government served us pretty well.
Unbelievably, the Republican Party’s platform in 1956 mentions expanding Social Security, better health care, and fighting discrimination. When Dwight D. Eisenhower left office in 1961, peace and optimism flourished. People felt satisfied with their government.
However, our politics were about to change radically, now began the fifty-year slide into political chaos and rule by the ultra-wealthy.
In 1971 President Nixon nominated Lewis F. Powell, Jr. to the Supreme Court.
On the good side, conservative Powell supported affirmative action, legalized abortion, integration, and the separation of church and state.
On the bad side, dangerous seeds were planted by Powell, which grew into a proliferation of economics devoid of empathy.
Here’s how it began.
Lewis Powell initialized the modern GOP conservative movement with his 1971 memorandum that was vehemently against the social safety net of the New Deal. It laid the groundwork for all future Political Action Committees and the eventual death of Citizens United — the absence of which allowed the rich to flood dark money into pro-business Republican purses.
His memorandum advocated for reducing the size and scope of the federal government. The rich didn’t need government services, they could afford to buy whatever they wanted. They certainly didn’t want to pay for services for the other 95% of America. His memorandum which advocated for abolishing affirmative action led to the formation of the highly conservative Heritage Foundation. To this day it promotes extreme pro-business policies, rejection of climate change science, false claims of voter fraud, and past support for the illegal Iraq War.
Over the next fifty years, GOP conservatism flipped from gentle Eisenhower policies to the economics of extreme capitalism.
Economically, the Republican Party would no longer represent 95% of American citizens. They would only support big business and the ultra-wealthy. How would the GOP trick the lower classes into believing they represented every American?
In the 1960’s President Nixon saw that the middle and lower classes did not care for his strong pro-business, pro-upper-class agenda, so he developed a famous distraction — the Southern Strategy. Enter intolerance and grievance politics. The GOP’s dominant talking points would pander to white prejudices and socially conservative values. It worked. Most conservative voters making under $70k never noticed how the GOP was busy rigging the government to favor businesses and the wealthy.
With Watergate, Nixon showed his criminal side and rather than forcing Nixon to suffer consequences, President Ford pardoned this political criminal. This irresponsible action gave future political offenders permission to dream even bigger.
Years later, the GOP’s sword became even sharper. In 1981 with Ronald Reagan’s promotion of trickle-down economics and “government is the problem,” later reinforced by Newt Gingrich’s overt partisan antagonism and his desire to win at all costs, the Republican Party embraced government shutdowns, polarization, and gridlock.
Instead of leading everyone in America to enjoy general prosperity over the last 41 years, the GOP has tried to tear down social safety nets needed by the middle class and the poor, and freely give trillions of dollars and vast power to the elite. Average wages have remained stagnant over the last 50 years while worker productivity has doubled. This anti-democratic behavior has created harsh inequalities in America. The Republican politicians gamed the political/legislative system, helping the privileged to become dramatically wealthier at the expense of the rest of our nation.
Republican politicians who once stood for expanding Social Security, better health care for all, and fighting discrimination, are now anti-union, anti-equal rights, anti-progressive taxation. In 1986 they extolled the freedom of “trickle down economics” and Social Darwinism. The poor and disadvantaged were abandoned. Millionaires and billionaires established the rules. Their greed drove our politics and social values.
At the turn of the millennium, after decades of dog whistles, the Moral Majority, and structural racism, the next generation of politicians and their corrupt donors arrived on the political stage ready to take the sexism, racism, and Christian intolerance to the next level.
The Tea Party gave way to the extremist MAGA movement.
In 2015 Donald Trump burst on the scene. And four years later… after his crimes, lies, and his anti-democratic activities, the disgraced former president has shown us the logical outcome of the Republican Party. Over the last few years America has experienced widespread voter suppression, the Big Lie about the 2020 election, and calls to de-fund the FBI to continue protecting criminal Trump. Most Republican politicians support fascism: Christian Nationalism, gutting the social safety net, allowing the super-rich who run large corporations to control the federal government via campaign contributions, and supporting a strong-man leader rather than diverse political consensus.
Our local, state, and federal governments were easily contaminated with immoral people, criminals, and many political opportunists willing to degrade our democracy for money and power. Today, the MAGA movement has been a disaster to American democracy.
Why?
Is the Republican party full of evil people intent on degrading the United States of America?
In the last few years the Democratic party was legislating for the Right to Contraception, Respect for Marriage Act, Domestic Terrorism, Big Oil’s price gouging, Investigating Neo-Nazis in the Military, and a $35 cap on insulin for all Americans, every Republican member of Congress voted against these protections.
What is driving the GOP politicians to vote against Americans?
While there are some evil people in government, most GOP politicians are driven by their unnatural love of money and power. Ultra conservative millionaires and billionaires take advantage of this GOP character flaw and donate massive sums to their political campaigns. The ultra-conservative wealthy purchased the blind loyalty of these GOP politicians, who in turn, write laws and distribute intolerant ideas. The corrupt billionaires and the greedy GOP rigged the system to take money and benefits from the middle and lower classes and give it to the rich. Yes, if you make less than $200k a year, the system is rigged against you.
In 1776 our founding fathers believed mentally stable people would be elected. They would serve the office and have the best interests of our nation in mind. Those who were ill-intentioned would be quickly called out by the majority in the government. Today, this belief appears highly naïve.
Between 1969–1974, President Nixon held office. He and his VP committed crimes, but they were not punished for their felonies.
President Reagan held office from 1981 to 1989. He began the anti-government movement and was not corrected or rebuffed by our system.
From 2017 to 2021 President Trump was in office and committed many felonies and uttered tens of thousands of lies. As a highly destructive, narcissistic sociopath he held the most powerful office in the world, replete with nuclear weapons, and as many anti-democratic billionaires as needed to corrupt our entire system of government.
Now it’s 2022 and the United States of America is reeling from decades of political abuse. High concentrations of power and wealth have become extremely destructive to our country.
Some government employees in our local school boards, our states’ governors, our Congress, our Supreme Court, and the White House do not have honorable intentions. The Office of the President, the US Congress, and even the Supreme Court are now places where criminals can, and do, operate.
Let’s re-imagine our government to adjust to our rapidly changing era.
Not only are criminals alive and well at every level of our government, but they use their official positions to hide from the law. They hack away at the foundations of our democracy and expect our democracy to protect them from the political crimes they just committed.
It’s time to change our mindset.
We must now institute new laws at the local, state, and federal levels to recognize and convict them of their crimes and to never allow their government positions to give them shelter from their political felonies. No government employee should be able to claim: “They cannot subpoena or charge me or convict me, I’m a member of Congress / President / Justice.”
We all understand that none of them are beyond reproach. The political criminals must be quickly charged, tried, and if guilty imprisoned before they damage our country even more.
Here are a few restrictions we should place on our government officials, including the President:
1) Money in politics — Money corrupts
Citizens or non-citizens, rich or poor, no one will be allowed to give money to politicians. Government employees should not accept anything of value. The time period covers one year before assuming office, during office, and five years after holding office. The scope includes the political/governmental individual and their immediate family. Things of value include money, services, travel, stock, etc. Context includes items given for free, or for reduced value. So, an individual could work 40 hours a week and earn a salary based on what others in that profession receive. However, the individual could not receive money for attending a seminar or buying a home for a significantly reduced valuation.
Contributions to anyone’s political campaign or services from a PAC or Super-PAC fall under the category of things of value. Politicians running for office will only use US Government monetary reimbursement. They cannot use their personal funds for campaigning. All items such as stock and bonds must be placed in a blind trust before assuming office.
Any individual applying for government employment or for running for office must make their financial situation, both assets and liabilities, as well as 15 years of income tax records available for review before they run for the office. This includes: the Office of the President, members of Congress, and members of the Supreme Court. Dramatic increases or decreases in wealth with be tracked over the stated time period and must be accounted for.
2) Abolishing Political Control of the DoJ, law enforcement, and security agencies
Politicians will not be in direct control of any law enforcement, security, or military agencies. All local, state, and federal agencies for law enforcement, security, or the military will be controlled by leaders who are not elected to office. They are required to exhibit no political or religious bias. They will be nominated by an internal merit system based on their leadership for that area of expertise, skills, knowledge, and judgment. Political appointees will be abandoned.
These agencies will be arranged under each specific leader, be it local, state, or federal. They will take commands from the government heads such as mayors, governors, and the president. However, they will have no familial, monetary, or direct political ties to these leaders. They will operate under the leaders but will have the prime duty to serve the USA and its constitution, not the specific leader or personality giving them directions. As a result, these merit-based leaders of Justice, law enforcement, security, and the military have the duty to assess the orders they are given and to discuss or ignore said orders if they conflict with their obligations to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Our government must avoid situations such as when President Trump changed leaders at the Pentagon to control their response during the January 6th Insurrection. All government agencies must be structured to avoid any corruption of office as shown by Bill Barr as the DoJ Attorney General under President Trump.
These agencies include, but are not limited to: DoJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, NDI, Joint Chiefs, USA Army, USA Navy, USA Air Force, USA Marines, US Secret Service, National Guard, local police, etc.
3) Working against the government of the USA
When any government official including members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch are discovered to be suspected of insurrection, treason, betraying national secrets, or in any way giving aid to the enemies of the USA, the discovering official or agency (including the DoJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, or any of the other 17 security agencies) has a duty to report this suspected activity to the five judge panel for recommendations. If the suspicion is founded, then a five-judge panel must take immediate action ordering the DoJ to pursue a secret full investigation and if warranted, issue an indictment disclosing the activities to the public. The security agencies of the government are responsible for disclosure to the panel of any suspected illegal activities within the government. I believe one or more of the USA’s security agencies discovered Trump was cooperating with the government of Russia, but they failed to report their information due to their charter. This rule would require disclosure of significant domestic anti-government behavior to the five-judge panel.
4) Attack another country without legitimate reasons
No president will be allowed to attack another country without confirmed supporting evidence. The five-judge panel must review and approve the evidence before the president can attack another nation. However, if there is a suspected imminent attack (based on concrete evidence), or an on-going current attack on the USA, the president is allowed to perform immediate counter strikes and defensive actions. Further action must be approved by the five-judge panel. George W. Bush should have faced a trial for attacking Iraq based on erroneous “yellow cake” uranium evidence.
5) Abolish the presidential pardon
The pardon has become a tool for criminal politicians to protect their accomplices. Presidents can dangle pardons in front of the people who are doing their dirty work so they will not testify against the president, and if convicted, the president can set them free. This condition is unacceptable.
If we need a pardon system, that process can be run by a non-elected, five-judge panel who can review the evidence and decide upon pardons if the new information warrants it. Presidents can submit pardon requests to the panel.
If Trump is convicted, the next GOP president should not be able to pardon him. If Trump becomes president after Biden, he should not be allowed to pardon those convicted of any crimes during the January 6th insurrection.
Part of the reason the GOP has been trying to deconstruct our government is that President Richard Nixon was pardoned by President Gerald Ford and this lack of accountability gave future political criminals a pathway to subvert the rule of law.
6) Rules to Handle Confidential Information
Any government official must be authorized to receive confidential information before they run for office. This includes the leaders in the Executive Branch, Congress, and the Supreme Court. For example, a potential president must pass a background check before running for office. They must be read in to receiving classified documents when they assume their office and they must be read out of that privilege when leaving. The same is true of everyone else who comes in contact with classified material.
Presidents can request declassification of confidential material but are not allowed to unilaterally declassify any information on their own. Declassification is conducted by the originating office. In cases where national security might be compromised, the presidential declassification request may be denied.
Confidential information includes, but is not limited to Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, TS-SCI, SAP, NOFORN, etc.
7) Distributing knowingly false information and Felons running for Office
Above, we concluded that parts of our government have been infiltrated by bad actors, some of whom are intent on damaging our democracy. Falsehoods originating from government officials obscure the truth, invite mistrust, and endanger the rule of law.
No one working for local, state or federal government is allowed to speak, write, or disseminate information that is known to be false. Political falsehoods have become so influential with social media, and so widespread, the “Speech or Debate Clause” giving politicians free reign to say almost anything must be amended. This clause is part of the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 6, Clause 1).
We can no longer allow government employees to abuse free speech. They are representatives of the people and as such, cannot be allowed to propagate lies. For example, the idea that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is false. No government employee or anyone seeking office, should be allowed to propose that Trump won the 2020 election. No one who collects a salary from local, state, or federal governments should be allowed to disseminate this type of lie.
Five-judge panels at each level of government will rule on statements made by those mentioned above. Upon the first significant lie, the individual must make a public statement renouncing the lie. Upon a second substantive offense, or failure to renounce the lie, the individual will be either barred from running or if holding office will be removed from office.
Only in the case of national security can officials misrepresent the truth. Those statements must be approved by the appropriate five-judge panel and held in secret.
No felon shall be allowed to run for public office. No one convicted of insurrection or other items covered in the 14th Amendment shall be allowed to run for public office or hold any position in the government.
8) Showing favor or bias against Individuals or Groups
No government official can show favor or bias against groups of people: no sexism, no racism, no political favors, or punishments. Wide swaths of people cannot be held to a different standard than others. For example, immigrants cannot be accused of being criminals, or rapists, or undesirables. Naturally, individuals who have committed crimes can be called out, but only on a specific basis. Unwarranted negative inferences of large groups of individuals cannot be drawn by government employees.
Summary
If many of the above ideas feel uncomfortable, they should. For centuries the American people have had an optimistic picture of our country. We would like to think that politicians have a deep concern for our welfare as well as the success of our system of government. The last fifty-years culminating with the Trump administration has proven that to be naïve.
We must accept that our body politic is very ill and in danger of collapse. I am suggesting we move some of the power of the president to a group of non-political judges. The book “The Imperial Presidency” showed in 1973 how our chief executive had been given too much power. It has only become worse with even more centralization of power and influence fifty years later.
A compelling solution is to reduce the president’s power as well as their ability to corrupt our government. The same is true of individuals serving in our Congress and Supreme Court.
Our government used to rely upon ethics, guard rails, and protocols to keep the system running. With our political history from Newt Gingrich up to Donald Trump, clearly guard rails are grossly inadequate. We must convert ethics and protocols into laws with real-world penalties including timely removal from office and prison sentences.
If we do not take control of our government and forcefully delineate penalties for the gray areas, we will lose our democracy to the fascists who are already smashing down the gate.
We would still elect politicians, but they cannot accept anything of value. They still establish policy and leadership, but their orders go through a filter of unelected judges who only accept their orders if they are constitutional and of benefit to America. These judges cannot issue orders, only approve or reject commands from the politicians. Never again should we have a president changing top leaders at the FBI or the Department of Defense in order to carry out corrupt acts.
The Supreme Court will become completely anti-political. They will be elected from within the new judiciary based on merit and ability to support the constitution. Never again should we have jurists who vote consistently for big business or the specific values of any one religion. They, like the elected politicians, will support all of the people, not any special interests.
Tell your Democratic politicians how important it is to write new laws for our current MAGA situation. Vote blue up and down the ticket. Even school boards are breeding grounds for fascists who desire to force our children’s books and education into their hateful curriculum.
End.
