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There will have to be a huge awakening and a renewed sense of urgency by the Democratic voters in the United States before the November elections or we may wake up in January 2023 and find out our government has been taken over by a neo-fascist party we can’t get rid of. The cure; vote!

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Finally, finally, someone has connected the dots from one fascist, Putin, to others, Trump and the Republicans. Thank you, Robert! In the VoteForward.org midterm letter writing campaign to Democrats, they rejected a draft letter because the word 'autocracy' was used at the end, i.e., "vote for our cherished Democracy and not autocracy." They didn't like the word "autocracy," saying it was incendiary and NOT bi-partisan. What? This is exactly what's wrong with the Democrats' messaging! Pablum is being served rather than truth to power. This essay should be a call to action for all activists. Robert provides the context, words, and hard truth. Let us go forward and stop the soft, gentile mutterings to inspire people to vote. Let us speak these truths rather than being so bi-partisan that it weakens our messaging at a time when, sadly, the very meaning of bi-partisanship is devalued. It exists no longer...for now. VOTE!

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Even if Putin conquers Ukraine, he has lost much more than he gained. NATO is being reinvigorated, the world seems united against him, and he appears to be losing support with the Russian people. Everyone now sees Putin for who he really is, not the image he has cultivated. If only the same thing would happen to Donald Trump!

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Robert, you are accurate at every word. Wake up America! Do not by any circumstance support fascism.

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I think one consequence of Putin's recent actions in Ukraine is that the GOP's Trumpist/anarchist faction is losing its influence and becoming less relevant. The "Putin is a genius" meme probably doesn't resonate well with Trump's base, let alone the GOP political establishment.

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I do not understand what the American people are thinking, the choice we are about to make is between democracy or communism, it’s that simple. Don’t we study the world more closely then to realize the vast difference between the two? How would you like your children to grow up in a country with no rights, no religion, little choices, what you can read, and what you can say, if you rebel you are put in jail. How can this even be a choice? America is envied by many nations for its openness and freedom, why do we want to change it? Vote to save what we know is the best in the world, your children deserve it

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Some republicans are starting to backpedal re their earlier comments supporting Putin.

Mitt Romney has finally criticized Trump and republicans, saying they are borderline treasonous. Western European countries are coming together in many ways to denounce Putin’s aggression. I see what I hope is the beginning of the end of America’s flirtation with fascism.

Thousands of Russians are being arrested for demonstrating against Putin’s aggression and I even saw a video excerpt in which one of Putin’s govt. officials told Putin point blank, to his face, that he is against the aggression in Ukraine, and there are other signs as well that Putin is losing power.

As concerned as I am about all of that, there’s something that concerns me even more. Does anyone have any idea why Trump hasn’t been arrested and indicted for multiple criminal acts? Does anyone know why AG Garland hasn’t moved against state laws allowing state government officials to subvert the Constitution by throwing votes out if they don’t like them and otherwise suppress votes and voting in violation of the Constitution? Does anyone have any idea why Foxnews is permitted to spew obvious sedition, undermining our government and the rule of law, day after day, after day,etc.?

I’m absolutely serious. There may be good reasons why the DOJ appears to be doing almost nothing to get our country back on track, but I can’t figure out what they are, and for the record, I’m an attorney.

According to the 14th amendment, Sec.3,

neither Trump or any other elected officials, (meaning senators and representatives) who incited and/or participated in the 1/6 insurrection can ever hold a government office again. Why haven’t we heard about plans to proceed based on that? What can possibly be gained by allowing continued subversion of the rule of law and the Constitution?

I may be wrong or uninformed, but I’ve never heard of a country that didn’t immediately arrest people responsible for an attempted government overthrow, especially a govt. overthrow that directly caused the deaths of those trying to defend the govt. Yes, I’ve heard AG Garland explain his plans to build a case against the people responsible by arresting & interrogating the “foot soldiers” first, using them to build his case. But how long does it take to do that? Can we get even a hint?

To be clear, while the DOJ takes its time, the insurrectionists continue to spread disinformation, continue grooming us as a population to accept more and more government control over our lives, continue to be disruptive & divisive (book bans, Critical Race theory nonsense, screaming matches at school board meetings, etc.) and continue to undermine the President’s authority.

I’m guessing the majority of republicans in Congress have accepted large sums of money from Russia. Why is that being allowed to continue, especially now that Russia has aggressively invaded another country. Republicans in Congress have a big, fat conflict of interest now if there’s a vote on whether & how sanctions should be levied against Russia by the U.S. Which side will they support? Will they vote “no” on sanctioning Russia because they don’t want to stop Russian money flowing into their bank accounts? The fec should have been researching which senators and reps have received Russian money, but I have a feeling that hasn’t happened.

I’ve heard quite a few people say it took something like two years for Congress to gather evidence re Watergate, as if that’s a legitimate excuse. But it isn’t a legitimate excuse because the facts of what happened then and what’s happening now are quite different. Watergate wasn’t a full-blown insurrection. It was a criminal act that lead to more criminal acts. It wasn’t a wholesale attempt to subvert the government, the Constitution and destroy the rule of law. Fascists weren’t deliberately disrupting the peace and pitting Americans against each other in the early 1970s. So using Watergate as an excuse simply doesn’t work.

My observation is that the longer this drags out, the less likely we are to have a satisfactory reckoning. Donald Trump wasn’t legally elected in 2016. The fbi said that without Putin’s help Trump wouldn’t have been elected. But nobody acted on that info…at least, that I’m aware of. It was buried.

Think about what we WOULDN’T have had to go through if govt. officials had taken responsibility for corroborating that. I understand it’s possible that no one could have made that case, possibly because rogue fbi agents wouldn’t have cooperated,

but my point is that by allowing Trump’s fake presidency to continue it created an enormous amount of chaos & disruption that continues to this day. We now have a full blown pre-civil war lurking around every metaphorical corner. I’m not even going to speculate about how it may have affected the pandemic if Trump had faced consequences for fraudulently assuming the presidency in 2016-17.

I hope when all is said and done we as Americans will be able to recover and actually strengthen our resolve to continue our democracy and find out everything that went wrong so we can fix it so it can never happen again.

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What can we do? Educate our kids on timely issues, issues that matter. They want substance, to understand real matters of import. We need to get Orwell back into the curricula of our public schools. Writers like yourself, David Frum ("How to Build an Autocracy"), and Anne Applebaum (Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism) need to be household names.

We need to train and encourage teachers to foster open discussion of national and world events.

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Feb 28, 2022·edited Feb 28, 2022

Plato, in the Republic, believed that the seeds of tyranny are planted in democracy, and that the longer a democracy thrived, the more democratic it became. Today, democracy’s pursuit of freedom and equality has resulted in “mutually uncomprehending” views and values among our populace. Rights trump responsibility; and the media only exacerbates this condition. I believe we are witnessing demagoguery and tyranny in America and on the world stage; appealing to what our Founding Fathers feared: the mob’s taste for “feeling, emotion, and narcissism” over “ reason, empiricism and public- spiritedness.”

What to do? Yogi Berra once quipped that predictions about the future are the most difficult. I know that we can’t go back home, but I do have faith in humankind’s compassion and I have faith in a better tomorrow. We must all engage in the good fight.

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Putin and the long table: In the first years of the post Soviet Union Russia, a few city level politicians emerged who seemed like they might take the liberal Western path to power. One of them, a very prominent city level politician was murdered on a bridge near the Kremlin. No one thinks it was a random event.

That long table with Macron at a distance from Putin tells you something about Putin. He feels personally threatened. When he feels personally threatened he makes dangerous decisions for peace. NATO is one of those threats. He sees American nuclear missiles ten minutes from the Kremlin. Putin knows NATO cannot protect the Ukraine. He is using up political capital within the power centers in Russia that count, particularly the military that must have been assuring him that it could make short work of Ukraine. And if the military cannot come through there may be a power struggle.

In these circumstances liberals here is the US like some of those that think being anti-Putin is being anti-Trump and can be used to win support amongst voters this Fall and turn them against Trump are making the classic vote for Iraq intervention mistake. There is no future for liberals in a war making environment. There may be a future for Cheney but liberals will be pushed aside by the neocons. And they will be challenged to go farther and farther in support of war making. Drafting young Americans to fight in foreign wars! To defend freedom and democracy? Wars that end up like Afghanistan and Iraq?

Remember this about NATO. It has no troops, no supply chains, no infrastructure to take on a conventional army in Europe. And where would that conventional army come from? It has nuclear weapons. If Russia were to invade Latvia what would NATO respond with? Nuclear weapons?

So the only position for liberals to take here is a ceasefire in the Ukraine, a demand that Russia recognize Ukraine's independence, a commitment by Russia to withdraw, a commitment by all parties to negotiate borders, and a commitment by the US not to extend NATO to the Ukraine.

NATO is a paper tiger with nuclear teeth. It has no place in Europe. It must be replaced by a non-military entity.

Khrushchev was removed from power after the Cuban adventure. Putin is clearly stressing the Russian system. He hasn't been able to paint Russia into the corner with the Russian people that he has painted himself into.

It would be extremely shortsighted for liberals to join the warmongers and not advocate de-escalation and the path toward peace. Anyone who thinks they can equate Trump and Putin for short term partisan political gain is making a major long term mistake with the security of the US.

The better position for liberals to take is to be in favor of peace.

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There are many replies to my first post (above) this morning. Thank you. Perhaps we should try to avoid cynicism, nor think "wishful thinking" is only a dream. Dream's can make change happen.

It's hard for many of us who do remember how we fought for freedom, justice, civil liberties. Most Americans under the age of 60, maybe 50, may not realize how we and our allies will be affected by the war in the Ukraine, this atrocity, this OTHER BIG LIE, nor how dangerous it is worldwide because of Russia's affiliation with China. Some have no grasp of the nefarious nuances and underpinnings of this invasion into a sovereign nation and its fallout for years to come. For those who have no experience of war, this is a new dynamic, fighting for your country's freedom. As Robert Reich said in "Eight Sobering Realities About Putin's Invasion," Afghanistan and Iraq were abstractions for many people, and the memories and horrors of Vietnam are barely a memory. We've weathered a pandemic I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. Now WORLD peace is possibly threatened. We need to inform those that follow us about our 20th Century history and why they need to vote in these midterms and every time a call to vote arises.

Those of us in our sixth, seventh, possibly eighth decade were the peace activists and fighters for equality and Civil Liberties. We marched across the bridge with John Lewis, traveled to Washington, D.C. to hear King's "I Have a Dream speech," and we witnessed firsthand the assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. We were the ones who marched against the Vietnam War and were clubbed by police while we sat in peaceful protests at the infamous Democratic Chicago Convention.

Our generation stood up, was counted, and heard. We Americans, like the Ukranians,must stand up again and pass on the best we have to offer to the next generations so they can live in a free democracy and peaceful world. We are the wisdom keepers and benefit from our history and direct experiences. Start wherever you are with a positive action that informs, teaches, and inspires those who follow us. Write letters. And, VOTE!

We can, and must, do this.

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Putin funds the only bank that lends money to Trump.

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Feb 28, 2022·edited Feb 28, 2022

Professor, You write, “Putin’s Neo-fascism has rooted itself in America. What can we do”? Though I might be speaking solely for myself, as eager as I am to tackle the monumental issues you raise in today’s newsletter, I couldn’t be more certain that my comment would be far more worthy of this community’s attention, let alone more realistic, were it drafted following the President’s State of the Union. Hence, presuming Wednesday’s Office Hours will focus on the President’s address, I will look forward to developing a thought piece centered largely around the fateful matters enumerated in today’s missive.

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JAB says we need a “huge awakening “. I spent years in the Democratic Party trenches, working for electeds, then as an elected. The only way to get an “awakening” is to shake the fruit from strategic trees by strategic education and mobilization. And that takes money from private donors. As my folks in Ohio say, we are in “ a pickle”. We need to get the jobs done from BPIA, and educate people (elites and wealthy need reminded and prodded) how a free market requires free people and a free democracy, and, yes, more dad blame COMMON GOOD…paying a fair share for your taxes. Of course, we need to defeat Putin, right now, lest there not be a world worth living in. ✊Stand With 🇺🇦🇺🇸

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I think the awakening is going on now- the Christian Right, which is behind all of this fervor to support Trump and company is unlikely to fall in behind an openly pro-Putin United States. Cruelty, racism, bigotry, all ok with them, but actively supporting a Russian dictator? We will see.

It's helpful to remember that Trump's team of convicted criminals (now pardoned), in particular Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, were hired by Putin and company to sabotage the new Ukranian

government after 1991, and that Stone was the principal organizer of the 2000 Florida recount fraud that put George W. Bush in office. That has been the model for Trump in his attempt to steal the 2020 election- I believe he actually thought he could simply use that template to throw the election to the supreme court, which he erroneously thought he had bought for himself.

Nice bunch of folks, and now actively fawning over Putin again.

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Feb 28, 2022·edited Feb 28, 2022

Wow!! What a stretch of facts, non facts and logical non sequiturs.

If all you have just written was true, shouldn't this invasion have occurred during the Trump Presidency?

The Geo-Political map is shifting. We have always been a "friend" of Russia until the Soviets came around. They're gone now. China is now our greatest and there can be no doubt that they are the greatest threat to Western Civilization (as I see it).

Let's not get too distracted with angst about the Party and the coming elections. What would work best is artful and sagacious closure of this crisis without expansion of the aggression. Proof that American hegemony can be a good thing. That's what will get the vote.

I really wish you would give us your read and insider info on the economics of our country and how the American people can regain the fruits of our labor.

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