IL 25% DEGLI AMERICANI PRONTO A PRENDERE LE ARMI CONTRO IL GOVERNO

A quarter of Americans open to taking up arms against government, poll says

Survey of 1,000 registered US voters also reveals that most Americans agree government is ‘corrupt and rigged’

The US Capitol building, scene of a deadly attack by a pro-Trump mob on 6 January 2022. Photograph: Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images


Victoria Bekiempis
More than one quarter of US residents feel so estranged from their government that they feel it might “soon be necessary to take up arms” against it, a poll released on Thursday claimed.

This survey of 1,000 registered US voters, published by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP), also revealed that most Americans agree the government is “corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me”.

The data suggests that extreme polarization in US politics – and its impact on Americans’ relationships with each other – remain strong. These statistics come as a congressional committee is holding public hearings on the January 6 insurrection.

This deadly attack on the US Capitol stemmed from the false, partisan, pro-Donald Trump belief that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. Rioters attempted to thwart certification of the election, in an effort to keep Trump in office.

Although the violent insurrectionists targeted Republicans and Democrats alike, GOP Trump loyalists have insisted that the committee is illegitimate. These attacks on the committee intensified after Trump staffers themselves – including former attorney general Bill Barr – publicly described his efforts to push “the big lie” that the presidential election was stolen.

The survey indicates that distrust in government varies among party lines. While 56% of participants said they “generally trust elections to be conducted fairly and counted accurately”, Republicans, Democrats and independents were dramatically split on this point. Nearly 80% of Democrats voiced overall trust in elections, but that number dipped to 51% among independents and a mere 33% of Republicans.

Per the poll, 49% of Americans concurred that they “more and more feel like a stranger in my own country”. Again, this number reflected sharp political divisions: the sentiment was held by 69% of self-described “strong Republicans”, 65% of self-described “very conservative” persons, and 38% of “strong Democrats”.

Of the 28% of voters who felt it might soon be necessary “to take up arms against the government”, 37% had guns in their homes, according to the data.

One-third of Republicans – including 45% of “strong Republicans – hold this belief about taking up arms. 35% of independent voters, and 20% of Democrats, also agreed, the poll said.

Meanwhile, those polled voiced negative sentiments about persons from opposing political parties. Seventy-three per cent of self-described Republican voters agreed that “Democrats are generally bullies who want to impose their political beliefs on those who disagree,” and “an almost identical percentage of Democrats (74%) express that view of Republicans”.

“While we’ve documented for years the partisan polarization in the country, these poll results are perhaps the starkest evidence of the deep divisions in partisan attitudes rippling through the country,” said the Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the survey in May with and Democratic pollster Joel Benenson.

The survey also stated that almost half of respondents expressed averting political talk with other people “because I don’t know where they stand”. One-quarter described losing friends, and a similar proportion claimed to have avoided relatives and friends, due to politics, per the survey.

Jan. 6 hearing with testimony from ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinso...

Il ruolo della Francia​ nella nuova politica UE

Oltre il conflitto – La politica della Ue e il ruolo della Francia​

Articolo di Romano Prodi su Il Messaggero del 26 giugno 2022

La guerra di Ucraina continua con le sue crudeltà e le sue sofferenze. Da qualche settimana sembra entrare in una fase di stallo, quasi una guerra di trincea in cui gli eserciti si fronteggiano con estrema durezza, ma con scarsi movimenti sul territorio. Nello stesso tempo i richiami alla pace o alla tregua sono sempre più flebili e i risultati degli appelli e delle missioni politiche sempre meno efficaci.

Tutto questo sta diffondendo il messaggio, reso esplicito dalle dichiarazioni dello stesso segretario generale della Nato, che la guerra durerà a lungo.

Sulla durata della guerra non mi sento di fare previsioni: troppe le variabili che abbiamo di fronte. Tuttavia, già da ora, il conflitto d’Ucraina sta cambiando il mondo e, con intensità particolare, ha già cambiato l’Europa non solo sotto l’aspetto economico, ma anche e soprattutto in campo politico. Cerchiamo di vedere come.

Prima di tutto l’invasione russa ha prodotto, anche sotto la spinta dell’iniziativa americana, una reazione europea del tutto nuova per ampiezza, sia sotto l’aspetto militare che della solidarietà nell’accoglienza dei profughi.

A queste operazioni si è poi accompagnata un’intensa campagna diplomatica per cercare di inserire i paesi europei nei pur fragili tentativi di mediazione volti a favorire il processo di pace, la prospettiva di tregua, i corridoi umanitari o, almeno, il trasporto di cereali verso i paesi più in difficoltà.

Di questi tentativi è stato protagonista più volte Macron come presidente di turno dell’Unione e, successivamente, vi hanno provato, con azione comune, i leader dei tre maggiori paesi europei.

Fino ad oggi dobbiamo concludere che, avendo la guerra di Ucraina assunto un rilievo mondiale, l’azione di un’Europa ancora in via di costruzione non poteva e non può raggiungere la forza e l’autorevolezza per porre fine al conflitto, che pure si materializza così vicino a noi.

Ancora più complesso si è dimostrato il capitolo delle sanzioni. Vi è stato un sostanziale seppur faticoso accordo iniziale quando si è parlato di sanzioni di carattere finanziario e commerciale, riguardo alle quali gli interessi dei paesi europei sono diversi fra di loro (e a loro volta, molto diversi da quelli americani), ma tuttavia in qualche modo componibili di fronte alla drammaticità della situazione.

Impossibili sono state invece fino ad ora le decisioni in campo energetico dove le posizioni di partenza e gli interessi fra i paesi europei e fra le due sponde dell’Atlantico si sono dimostrati fra di loro incompatibili, come si è visto nei giorni scorsi a Bruxelles, dove il capitolo dell’energia è stato ancora una volta rinviato.

Lo stesso Consiglio Europeo ha però deciso, con voto unanime, di aprire le porte dell’Unione all’Ucraina e alla Moldavia. Una decisione importante ma che, tenendo conto delle condizioni esistenti per l’entrata di nuovi membri nell’Unione, richiederà moltissimi anni per essere messa in atto.

Il processo di ingresso è infatti sottoposto a molte condizioni che riguardano la coerenza con le regole dell’Unione e non può nemmeno iniziare se non sono garantite pace e sicurezza all’interno della nazione che chiede di entrare.

Inoltre si è già sentita la voce di alcuni membri perché vengano rispettati gli impegni assunti nei confronti dei paesi dell’ex Jugoslavia e dell’Albania, che da molti anni attendono che Bruxelles proceda a completare il processo di adesione, senza tenere conto del veto di singoli paesi.

Se la guerra di Ucraina ha in pochi mesi così inciso sul presente della politica europea, la rivoluzione che essa ha in pochi giorni prodotto nella politica tedesca è destinata a cambiare radicalmente il futuro dell’Europa.

Parlo del riarmo tedesco. Una decisione improvvisa, avvenuta dopo pochi giorni dall’inizio del conflitto e poche settimane dopo che il Cancelliere tedesco era stato protagonista di solenni dichiarazioni in senso opposto.

Una decisione resa necessaria dai drammatici cambiamenti della storia e che non presenta alcun elemento di preoccupazione sugli equilibri democratici europei, ma che sorprende per la sua dimensione.

Non solo viene confermato l’obiettivo di portare il bilancio della difesa tedesca ad almeno il 2% del PIL, ma vengono messi sul tavolo 100 miliardi di Euro per una progressiva riorganizzazione dell’esercito.

Tutto questo, ponendo il bilancio della difesa tedesco incomparabilmente al di sopra di quello della Francia, non può non incidere sui tempi e sui modi di realizzazione di una possibile politica estera e di difesa europea.

Dopo la Brexit è infatti la Francia il principale punto di riferimento in questo campo. Essa infatti accompagna il suo diritto di veto nel Consiglio di Sicurezza dell’ONU e la sua prerogativa di possesso dell’arma nucleare con un’influente capacità di leadership della sua industria nazionale nel campo della difesa.

Questo ruolo francese è destinato ad affievolirsi con la progressiva concretizzazione della nuova politica tedesca, mettendo oggettivamente in crisi l’equilibrio franco-tedesco, necessario punto di riferimento di tutta la politica europea.

La guerra di Ucraina ha quindi non solo prodotto in pochi mesi cambiamenti inattesi, ma ha reso non più rinviabile la costruzione di una vera politica comune. E’ utile ripetere ancora una volta che questa decisione può partire solo su iniziativa della Francia, ma è ancora più utile sottolineare che, da oggi, tale iniziativa non è per la Francia una scelta, ma una necessità.

Anche se non è scontato che la Francia, nella complicata situazione politica in cui si è venuta a trovare dopo le recenti elezioni, possa o voglia adempiere al compito storico a cui è chiamata dagli eventi.

La Russia sta finendo le munizioni e gli uomini…

Russia will soon exhaust its combat capabilities, Western assessments predict
Small shifts in territorial control matter less than the overall balance of forces, which analysts say could shift back in favor of Ukraine in the coming months

By Liz Sly  (TWP)

The Russian military will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and be forced to bring its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to a grinding halt, according to Western intelligence predictions and military experts.

“There will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs and they will need a significant pause to regenerate capability,” said a senior Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

The assessments come despite continued Russian advances against outgunned Ukrainian forces, including the capture on Friday of the town of Severodonetsk, the biggest urban center taken by Russia in the east since launching the latest Donbas offensive nearly three months ago.

The Russians are now closing in on the adjacent city of Lysychansk, on the opposite bank of the Donetsk river. The town’s capture would give Russia almost complete control of the Luhansk oblast, one of two oblasts, or provinces, comprising the Donbas region. Control of Donbas is the publicly declared goal of Russia’s “special military operation,” although the multi-front invasion launched in February made it clear that Moscow’s original ambitions were far broader.

Capturing Lysychansk presents a challenge because it stands on higher ground and the Donetsk river impedes Russian advances from the east. So instead, Russian troops appear intent on encircling the city from the west, pressing southeast from Izyum and northeast from Popasna on the western bank of the river.


According to chatter on Russian Telegram channels and Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Anna Malyar, the Russian military is under pressure to bring all of Luhansk under Russian control by Sunday, perhaps explaining the heightened momentum of the past week.

But the “creeping” advances are dependent almost entirely on the expenditure of vast quantities of ammunition, notably artillery shells, which are being fired at a rate almost no military in the world would be able to sustain for long, said the senior Western official.

Russia, meanwhile, is continuing to suffer heavy losses of equipment and men, calling into question how much longer it can remain on the attack, the official said.

Officials refuse to offer a time frame, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, citing intelligence assessments, indicated this week that Russia would be able to continue to fight on only for the “next few months.” After that, “Russia could come to a point when there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources,” he told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in an interview.

Russian commentators are also noting the challenges, emphasizing a chronic shortage of manpower. “Russia does not have enough physical strength in the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine … taking into account the almost one thousand kilometer (or more) line of confrontation,” wrote Russian military blogger Yuri Kotyenok on his Telegram account. He estimated that Russia would need 500,000 troops to attain its goals, which would only be possible with a large-scale mobilization, a potentially risky and unpopular move that President Vladimir Putin has so far refrained from undertaking.

The Russian onslaught has already outlasted forecasts that Russia’s offensive capabilities would peak by the summer. Aggressive recruitment of contract soldiers and reservists has helped generate as many as 40,000 to 50,000 troops to replenish those lost or incapacitated in the first weeks of the fighting, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia has been hauling ancient tanks out of storage and away from bases across the vast country to throw onto the front lines in Ukraine.

The Russians still have the advantage over Ukrainian forces, who are suffering, too. Ukrainian officials put the number of their soldiers killed in action at as many as 200 a day. The Ukrainians have also almost entirely run out of the Soviet-era ammunition on which their own weapons systems rely, and they are still in the process of transitioning to Western systems.

But conditions for Ukrainian troops are only likely to improve as more sophisticated Western weapons arrive, while those of Russian forces can be expected to deteriorate as they dig deeper into their stocks of old, outdated equipment, said retired Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. forces in Europe who is now with the Center for European Policy Analysis. At some point in the coming months, the Ukrainians will have received enough Western weaponry that it is likely they will be able to go on the counteroffensive and reverse the tide of the war, he said.

“I remain very optimistic that Ukraine is going to win, and that by the end of this year Russia will be driven back to the Feb. 24 line,” he said, referring to the boundaries of Russian-occupied areas in Crimea and Donbas captured during fighting in 2014 and 2015. “Right now it sucks to be on the receiving end of all this Russian artillery. But my assessment is that things are going to be trending in favor of the Ukrainians in the next few weeks.”

Already there are indications that the supply of Western weapons is gathering pace. Newly arrived French Caesar howitzers were videoed in action on the battlefield last week, followed this week by German Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers, the first of the heavy weapons promised by Germany to be delivered.

A Ukrainian soldier fires toward Russian positions with a Caesar howitzer in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, June 8, 2022. (Reuters)

The first of the much anticipated U.S. HIMARS systems, which will give the Ukrainians the ability to strike up to 50 miles behind Russian lines, have also been delivered to Ukraine in recent days, according to U.S. officials, though these weapons have not yet been reported in use on the front lines.

It is difficult to predict the future because so much isn’t known about the conditions and strength of Ukrainian forces, said Mattia Nelles, a German political analyst who studies Ukraine. The Ukrainians have maintained a high level of operational secrecy, making it hard to know, for example, how many troops they still have in the Lysychansk area or the true rate of casualties, he said.

Another unknown is the extent of Russian artillery stocks, which Western intelligence agencies had initially underestimated, the Western official said. Expecting a short war in which Ukrainian forces quickly folded, the Russians made no effort to ramp up production before the invasion, and although they have presumably now done so, their defense industrial complex does not have the capacity to keep up with the “enormous” rate at which Russia is expending artillery shells, the Western official said. “Their supply is not infinite,” he said.

And although Ukrainian forces are having a tough time right now, they do not appear in danger of collapse, said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), speaking to the Silverado Policy Accelerator podcast, Geopolitics Decanted.

The Ukrainians are continuing to harass Russian forces north of the city of Kharkiv and have made limited gains in a small offensive outside the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, helping divert Russian resources away from the Donbas front.

Members of a team that defuses explosives, bombs and mines remove a defused bomb in Kharkiv.

The minor territorial gains currently being notched by Russia are less significant than the overall balance of power on the battlefield, Kofman said.

“The most significant part of the war isn’t these geographic points, because now it’s a contest of will but also a material contest, of who is going to run out of equipment and ammunition and their best units first,” he said. “Both of these forces are likely to get exhausted over the summer, and then there will be an operational pause.”

At that point, assuming sufficient quantities of weaponry and ammunition have arrived, the hope is that Ukraine will be able to go on the counteroffensive and start rolling Russian troops back, Ukrainian officials have said.

If not, both sides will dig in to defend their positions, and a stalemate will ensue, barring the unlikely prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough, the Western official said.

“You’ll have two sides not seeking territorial advantage but on operational pause, focused on resupplying and relieving the front line, at which point you are into a protracted conflict,” he said.

Borgo Pinti a... Washington DC

The malaise of Joe Biden e la caduta in bicicletta

 

Nota di Oscar Bartoli:

È concepibile che l'uomo più potente del mondo, a 79 anni, si metta in testa di fare lo sportivo andando in giro con la scorta in bicicletta e cadendo malamente?

Il tutto per dimostrare che Joe Biden è fisicamente in grado di ricandidarsi alla presidenza nel 2024.

Questa caduta pesa in maniera incredibile sull'immagine del presidente,  ammesso che la gita in bicicletta l'abbia voluta lui.

Nel caso in cui invece-come è probabile-sia stata una brillante idea scaturita dalla corte dei suoi esperti in comunicazione il calcio in culo dovrebbe essere obbligatorio.

___________________________________________________

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
CNN —

Here’s President Joe Biden on Americans, from an interview Thursday with The Associated Press:

“They’re really down. The need for mental health in America, it has skyrocketed, because people have seen everything upset. Everything they’ve counted on upset. But most of it’s the consequence of what’s happened, what happened as a consequence of the Covid crisis.”

Which is, well, sort of rough?

It’s the latest in a series of comments from Biden in which he acknowledges that people are struggling – and saying he is limited in what he can do about it.

Earlier this week, Biden admitted that inflation was “sapping the strength of a lot of families.”

And earlier this month, he said this: “There’s a lot going on right now, but the idea we’re going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, is not likely in the near term. Nor is it with regard to food.”

Biden also conceded that he did not immediately anticipate the scope of the baby formula shortage. And his members of his administration, most notably Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have admitted that they did not expect the spike in inflation to last this long or cut this deep.

The message is simple: Things are really rough right now and there’s not much I (or anyone) can do about it.

Which is not a great message for a president or a party – especially less than five months out from the midterm elections.

Biden’s position is, of course, not an easy one. While unemployment is low and there are other strong economic indicators, the increased cost of basic goods like food and gas makes it hard to convince people that things are going well.

Shortages of baby formula – and, more recently, tampons – add to the sense that America is struggling.
Enter your email to subscribe to the CNN Newsletter The Point with Chris Cillizza.
close dialog

And the public quite clearly feels that way. In a Gallup survey released last month, only 16% of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the country, while 83% said they were dissatisfied. That marks the lowest point in Gallup’s polling since the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Given that general sense of pessimism, it would be akin to political catastrophe for Biden to act as though everything was hunky dory in the country. He would look deeply out of touch and detached – two traits voters really don’t like in their politicians.

At the same time, Biden must be careful not to lean too hard into the malaise argument. Americans also expect their politicians to be optimistic about the country’s future, a sort of cheerleader-in-chief.

We’ve seen the political peril of being perceived as too downcast about America’s direction.

Amid an energy crisis – sound familiar? – then-President Jimmy Carter delivered a nationally televised address in July 1979 which came to be known as the “malaise” speech. (That’s ironic since Carter never used the word “malaise” in the speech.)

Here are the most famous/infamous lines from that address:

“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways.

“It is a crisis of confidence.

“It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

“The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

Carter’s goal was simple: To make sure the American public knew that he understood that things weren’t going great in the US and to rally them behind a shared sense of purpose.

The speech backfired in the long term. Carter was successfully cast by Ronald Reagan as a dour pessimist who believed that America’s best times were behind it. Reagan, by contrast, cast himself as a sunny optimist.

Sixteen months after Carter delivered the malaise speech, he was easily defeated by Reagan in the 1980 presidential election – garnering just 49 electoral votes.

Biden, obviously, wants to avoid that fate – if he runs again in 2024. But at the moment, the messaging coming from Biden and his White House is decidedly downcast. And if it continues, that could compound Democrats’ already dire political prospects in advance of the 2022 midterms.

Amid Jan. 6 Revelations, Election Lies Still Dominate the G.O.P.

The hearings have demolished the myth of a stolen presidential election, but with the 2022 primary season in full tilt, the revelations have not loosened the grip of the lie on Republicans.

Three hearings from the House committee investigating Jan. 6 have undercut former President Donald J. Trump’s claims of a stolen election.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times


By Jonathan Weisman

WASHINGTON — It was all a lie, the tales of stuffed ballot drop boxes, rigged voting machines, and constitutional “flexibility” that would have allowed Vice President Mike Pence to nullify the 2020 election results and send them back to Republican state legislatures.

The first three hearings of the House Jan. 6 committee have deeply undercut, if not demolished, the postelection myths repeated incessantly by former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters and embraced and amplified by Republicans in Congress.

A parade of Republican witnesses — his attorney general, William P. Barr, his daughter Ivanka Trump, and his own campaign lawyers — knew he had lost the election and told him so. Mr. Trump was informed that the demands he was making of Mr. Pence to block his defeat unilaterally were illegal. Even the most active coup plotter, the conservative lawyer John C. Eastman, conceded before Jan. 6 that his scheme was illegal and unconstitutional, then sought a presidential pardon after it led to mob violence.

Yet the most striking revelation so far may be how deeply Mr. Trump’s disregard for the truth and the rule of law have penetrated into the Republican Party, taking root in the fertile soil of a right-wing electorate stewing in conspiracy theories and well tended by their media of choice. The Republican response to the hearings — a combination of indifference, diversion and doubling down — reflects how central the lie of a stolen election has become to the party’s identity.

In Washington, Republicans in Congress have neither broken with Mr. Trump nor expended much energy trying to rebut the investigation’s findings. And from Nevada’s secretary of state race to Michigan’s contest for governor, Republican candidates have embraced the fictional conspiracy in their 2022 campaigns.

“I have been fighting for safe, honest and transparent elections since before Jan. 6, and that fight continues,” said Michigan State Representative Steve Carra, whose re-election run has been blessed by Mr. Trump and who said Friday he has watched some but not much of the hearings. “Absentee ballots sent out unsolicited, signature verification relaxed, drop boxes all over the place, especially in Democratic area — it all deserves further scrutiny.”

Like mint in the garden, the seeds that the Trump team planted between Election Day 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, are now growing out of control, aided by the former president’s allies.

Jarome Bell, a leading candidate to challenge Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia, has been traveling her Republican-leaning district showing voters a film by the right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza that pushes the bogus fraud claims. The hearings, he said on Friday, have had “no impact on me. ‘2000 Mules’ has a bigger impact on what truly happened.” He added, “the 1/6 commission is the cover-up.”

Despite coverage of the hearings, at least one lawmaker lamented that his constituents were not paying much attention.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Jon Rocha, a candidate for state representative in Michigan who has Mr. Trump’s backing, also cited the film and bragged that he had watched none of the hearings, “not even a 30-second clip.”

One reason the falsehoods have flourished is the failure of Republicans who do not believe them to push back. Before the Jan. 6 hearings began, Republican leaders promised a robust “rapid response” effort to counter the narratives that would emerge.

But there has been no such pushback from the Republican National Committee or any other organization to revelations that Mr. Trump continued to pressure Mr. Pence to overturn the election results, even after having been told doing so was illegal.

No Republican leader offered a response to the testimony of retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a revered conservative, who said on Thursday that Mr. Trump gave Mr. Pence an order whose execution would have prompted “the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the Republic.”

None bothered to counter the panel’s finding, revealed on Monday, that Mr. Trump and his campaign raised hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters based on the false pretense of massive election fraud, using money collected for an election defense fund that did not exist.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, has chosen not to engage on the issue at all. And to the extent that they are trying to counterprogram the hearings, House Republicans have been prodding voters to look elsewhere — to rising gas prices, inflation and migrants at the southern border.

Only Mr. Trump seems particularly irritated by the exercise, appalled by the testimony of his daughter, who shared details of his abusive phone call with Mr. Pence on the morning of Jan. 6 and said she trusted Mr. Barr’s judgment when he said that the 2020 election was not stolen.

“It’s a one-way street, it’s a rigged deal, it’s a disgrace,” a thoroughly unrepentant Mr. Trump said on Friday at a speech in Nashville in which he called Jan. 6 “a simple protest that got out of hand” as he continued spinning out false claims and grand conspiracy theories of election fraud.

But if his allies in Republican leadership are not countering the message that the attack was fueled by lies, neither are they acknowledging that the election was not stolen.

And 50 years to the day after henchmen of Richard M. Nixon broke into Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, the hearings sparked by the two scandals are highlighting just how dramatically the Republican Party has changed. Then, key Republican leaders reacted to increasingly damning revelations about their president by siding with the Democrats and forcing Mr. Nixon from power. Today, Republican leaders are either silent or contemptuous of the committee uncovering a steady stream of misdeeds by Mr. Trump.

Representatives Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney, and Adam B. Schiff “will not stop lying about their political opponents,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, wrote on Twitter, referring to the Democratic chairman from Mississippi, Republican vice chairwoman from Wyoming and Democratic member from California.

Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting Jan. 6, said the hearings have so far been “a reminder of how deeply divided, even from an information consumption standpoint, we are.”

Many of his constituents have not even seen the videotaped testimony laying out the case against Mr. Trump — only footage of police removing barricades to let rioters into the Capitol on Jan 6. Some blame nonexistent F.B.I. provocateurs for the violence, in line with a debunked conspiracy theory embraced by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and others on the right.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California and other Republican leaders held a news conference in the Capitol on Thursday to attack the committee’s work.Credit...Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times



Mr. Meijer said he has heard far more from constituents on the right lamenting the “Jan. 6 political prisoners” than those in the center demanding accountability for the attack.

Most voters, though, are not paying attention, said Representative David Valadao of California, another Republican to vote for impeachment.

“Talking to voters at home right now — I mean, the fuel prices, food prices, baby formula, you name it,” Mr. Valadao said. “There’s just so many things that people are focused on right now that they’re just not paying attention to the Jan. 6 stuff as much as I know a lot of folks would want them to.”

Asked if the hearings might do Republicans a favor by making it easier to find an alternative presidential nominee in 2024 than Mr. Trump, he responded: “I don’t know if enough people are paying attention where it’ll have that big of an impact.”

But in a Republican primary season fueled by pro-Trump fervor, many candidates have emerged as their party’s nominees for top offices in large part because they campaigned on the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen by President Biden.

The Republican nominees for governor in Pennsylvania, secretary of state in Nevada, Senate in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, and attorney general in Texas all tried to overturn the 2020 election or embraced false claims of voter fraud.

Mayra Flores, a Texas Republican who won a House seat in a special election on Tuesday, has declined to say whether Mr. Biden won in 2020, telling The San Antonio Express-News: “I’m speaking just in general. There is voter fraud.”

And there is more to come. State Representative Ron Hanks, vying to challenge Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat, in Colorado’s Republican primary June 28, marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and launched his campaign with an ad showing him shooting a fake Dominion voting machine, a device central to a sprawling conspiracy theory about votes purportedly stolen by foreign powers from Mr. Trump.

On Monday, the committee showed a videotaped deposition in which Mr. Barr at one point could barely suppress his laughter at the absurdity of such stories and testified that Mr. Trump would have had to be “detached from reality” if he believed them.

In Michigan, a wild contest to choose the Republican to challenge Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is narrowly led by Ryan Kelley, a real estate broker who was arrested this month and charged with participating in the Jan. 6 riot. Mr. Rocha, the state house candidate in Western Michigan, said voters were far more concerned about gas prices and empty store shelves than the Jan. 6 hearings, then offered that voters in fact are still very angry about “election integrity.”

“They did it in 2020. Now they’re finding new avenues to remove Republicans from the ballot this year,” he said.

In Arizona, the leading Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, has made her “stolen election” claims central to her campaign. Mark Finchem, a candidate for secretary of state, was at the front steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6. And Blake Masters, who hopes to challenge Senator Mark Kelly, the incumbent Democrat, suggested baselessly that “one-third of the people outside of the Capitol complex on Jan. 6 were actual F.B.I. agents.”

Annie Karni contributed reporting.

Jan. 6 witnesses push Trump stalwarts back to rabbit hole

By DAVID KLEPPER (AP)


1 of 3
In this image from video released by the House Select Committee, an exhibit shows Ivanka Trump, former White House senior adviser, during a video interview with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol at the hearing Thursday, June 16, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Instead of convincing Donald Trump's most loyal supporters of his misdeeds, the revelations from the hearings into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are prompting many of them to reinforce their views that he was correct in falsely asserting a claim to victory. (House Select Committee via AP)

One by one, several of Donald Trump’s former top advisers have told a special House committee investigating his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that they didn’t believe his lies about the 2020 election, and that the former president knew he lost to Joe Biden.

But instead of convincing Trump’s most stalwart supporters, testimony from former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s daughter Ivanka about the election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol is prompting many of them to simply reassert their views that the former president was correct in his false claim of victory.

Barr’s testimony that Trump was repeatedly told there was no election fraud? He was paid off by a voting machine company, according to one false claim that went viral this week. Ivanka Trump saying she didn’t believe Trump either? It’s all part of Trump’s grand plan to confuse his enemies and save America.

The claims again demonstrate how deeply rooted Trump’s false narrative about the election has become.

“It’s cognitive dissonance,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a Syracuse University professor who has studied how Trump used social media and advertising to mobilize his base. “If you believe what Trump says, and now Bill Barr and Trump’s own daughter are saying these other things, it creates a crack, and people have to fill it.”

The lawmakers leading the hearings into the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol said one of their goals is to show how Trump repeatedly lied to his supporters in an effort to hold onto power and subvert American democracy.

“President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information, running ads he knew were false, and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and he was the true president,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s vice chair. “As you will see, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th.”

For those who accept Trump’s baseless claims, Barr’s testimony was especially jarring. In his interview with investigators, he detailed Trump’s many absurd allegations about the election 2020, calling them “bogus” and “idiotic.”

Barr told the committee when he talked with Trump, “there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”

“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” Barr said.

Following his testimony, many Trump supporters using sites like Reddit, GETTR and Telegram blasted Barr as a turncoat and noted that he’s disputed Trump’s election claims before.

But many others began grasping for alternative explanations for this testimony.

“I’m still hoping Barr is playing a role,” one poster said on a Telegram channel popular with Trump supporters.

One post that spread widely this week suggested Barr was paid by Dominion Voting Systems, a company targeted by Trump and his supporters with baseless claims of vote rigging. “From 2009 to 2018, DOMINION PAID BARR $1.2 million in cash and granted him another $1.1 million in stock awards, according to SEC filings. (No wonder Barr can’t find any voter fraud!),” the post read

Wrong Dominion. Barr was paid by Dominion Energy, a publicly traded company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, that provides power and heat to customers in several mid-Atlantic states.

Unlike Barr, Ivanka Trump has remained intensely popular with many Trump supporters and is seen by many as her father’s potential successor. That may be why so many had to find an an alternative explanation for why she told Congress she didn’t accept her father’s claims.

Jordan Sather, a leading proponent of the QAnon theory, claims both Barr and Ivanka Trump lied during their testimony on Trump’s orders, part of an elaborate scheme to defeat Trump’s enemies by confusing Congress and the American public.

“I can just imagine Donald Trump telling Ivanka: ’Hey, go to this hearing, say these things. Screw with their heads,’” Sather said last week on his online show.

Some Trump supporters dismissed Ivanka Trump’s testimony entirely by questioning whether any of it was real. That’s another common refrain seen on far-right message boards. Many posters say they don’t even believe the hearings are happening, but are a Hollywood production starring stand-ins for the former president’s daughter and others.

“She looks different in a big way,” one poster asked on Telegram. “CGI?”

The troubled paradox of U.S. democracy

 By Ishaan Tharoor
with Sammy Westfall (TWP)

The troubled paradox of U.S. democracy


People gather in a park outside the U.S. Capitol to watch the Jan. 6 House committee hearing in Washington on June 9. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

On one hand, American democracy seems in an undeniably rough state. Polarization has intensified. Misinformation and mistrust are rife. The divided public response to the evidence and testimony emerging from Jan. 6 committee hearings in Congress shows a lack of national consensus over a fundamental element of democratic life: the ability to conduct a peaceful transfer of power from one elected government to the next.

Analysts warn that the United States’ aging electoral systems have — through gerrymandering and other anti-democratic practices — increasingly started to yield outcomes that foster further tribalism, deepening the sense of zero-sum, winner-takes-all antagonism that runs through the body politic.

Where there is bipartisan unity, it’s in the mounting despair and pessimism felt by most Americans about their political status quo. A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that majorities of both Democrats and Republicans believe it’s “likely” that the United States will “cease to be a democracy in the future.” Two in 5 Americans, according to another study, would now support a military coup if they believed the circumstances justified such an intervention.

And yet the United States under President Biden can still appear to those elsewhere in the world as a bulwark of liberal democratic values. Many European officials have hailed the United States’ unique role in galvanizing Western governments to confront the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, by extension, defending the international order. Far beyond weapons transfers, the Biden administration sees its efforts as part of a broader struggle for liberalism and democracy around the world.

“America and all who share our values … must build on the unity that we have demonstrated in Ukraine to try to extend a broader revolution of dignity to people seeking to be free,” declared U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power in a speech last week.


That may even be a tall order at home, where all the talk is about democratic backsliding. No matter the outrage and inquiries that followed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the Republican Party as a whole appears to be doubling down on former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. It’s pouring millions into new efforts in various states to recruit poll workers and watchers to spot irregularities and potentially challenge ballots and the legitimacy of certain votes.


As my colleagues reported, more than 100 GOP officials and politicians who won recent primaries appear to endorse Trump’s false fraud claims. “Many will hold positions with the power to interfere in the outcomes of future contests — to block the certification of election results, to change the rules around the awarding of their states’ electoral votes or to acquiesce to litigation attempting to set aside the popular vote,” they wrote.

Americans are raised on a belief that their nation’s constitutional checks and balances safeguard their democracy. But experts point to the underlying norms that help guarantee those safeguards. At a time of bitter polarization, those norms are eroding, with dire consequences.

“When those soft norms deteriorate; in other words, one party says, ‘We can’t win by these rules,’ and they start to act as a minority which seeks majoritarian power, that’s when you get the real risks to democracy in America,” said Harvard political scientist Pippa Norris in a talk hosted by Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank, earlier this year.

Norris was pointing to the visible “structural” flaws in the country’s politics that enable the Republicans to secure outsize power for their vote share, including the composition of the Senate, which skews disproportionately to rural America. At a time when the party’s base appears to be drifting toward what some scholars of comparative politics have dubbed a form of “authoritarian far-right” politics, it’s especially concerning.

This trend has been measured in various ways by political scientists. The latest offering came this month from Berggruen Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank, which published along with researchers from UCLA this month a “governance index” that tracked quality of life, governance and democracy in 134 countries over the past 20 years.


Though its overall score per the index remains quite high, the United States’ assessed decline over the past two decades was one of the largest, on par with countries like Haiti and Hungary in that period of time. The think tank measured significant drops in U.S. “state capacity” and “democratic accountability” — the first measure could be defined roughly as the country’s ability to implement collective reforms and the latter a measure of the health of checks and balances, from electoral integrity to the efficacy of civil society and the media.

“The U.S. drop in state capacity and democratic accountability is not unique, but it is rare among advanced economies,” researchers Markus Lang and Edward Knudsen wrote me in an email.

“In democratic accountability, there has been some stagnation among developed countries,” they added. “Still, the steepness of the U.S.’s drop is unusual: its path parallels Brazil, Hungary, and Poland much more closely than that of Western Europe or the other wealthy Anglophone countries.”

Another study published this week tells a rather different story. A Eurasia Group Foundation survey of 5,000 respondents in nine major countries around the world — including Brazil, Nigeria, Germany and India — found optimistic views of U.S. democracy under the Biden administration. More than half of the respondents believed their country’s political systems should be more like the United States; 60 percent believed American democracy set a positive example for the world; and close to three-quarters of those surveyed said they would prefer the United States to remain the world’s leading power compared with China.

Some of these results can be chalked to the greater global popularity of Biden and earlier Democrats over-hard line figures like Trump. Those views could easily change in the wake of two upcoming election cycles where Republicans look to be building momentum.

“Everyone is grappling with the question,” Alexander Stubb, former prime minister of Finland, said to me last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Who is the footnote in history? Biden or Trump?”

 

January 6

 

The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection used Thursday's hearing to detail how former President Donald Trump tried to pressure his vice president to join in his scheme to overturn the presidential election -- and how Mike Pence's refusal put his life at risk as rioters called for his hanging on January 6, 2021. The committee underscored that Pence was in real danger on January 6, and the panel made the case that Trump was to blame. The mob got about 40 feet from Pence, threatened him by name, and were enraged that he didn't overturn the election because they believed Trump's lie that Pence could overturn Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral College. One person noticeably absent on Thursday was the focus of the hearing himself: the former vice president. CNN

Il sorriso inaspettato Foto selezionate di Dario Zucchi

Guidare a trecento all'ora con la schiena a pezzi… Finalmente la FIA si è svegliata

FIA taking steps to reduce heavy bouncing effect on F1 cars
JEROME PUGMIRE -

Formula One's governing body is taking steps to reduce the bouncing effect that cars have struggled with this season after several drivers complained about the aerodynamic issue that causes their vehicles to hop on the track.


© (Sergei Grits / Associated Press)Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain steers his car during the Azerbaijan Formula One Grand Prix at the Baku circuit, in Baku, Azerbaijan, Sunday, June 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) (Sergei Grits / Associated Press)

The FIA said in a statement Thursday that it has decided to “intervene following consultation with its doctors in the interests of safety of the drivers” after the problem persisted eight races into the season.

“In a sport where the competitors are routinely driving at speeds in excess of 300 kilometers per hour (186 mph), it is considered that all of a driver’s concentration needs to be focused on that task," the FIA said. "Excessive fatigue or pain experienced by a driver could have significant consequences should it result in a loss of concentration."

Moving to “ground effect” — where the floor generates aerodynamic grip — for this season was meant to tighten the competition between the teams. However, several teams and especially Mercedes have struggled with cars that bounce up and down at high speed — known in F1 as “porpoising” — or bottom out and bang against the track surface.

Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton had severe back pains during last weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix and climbed slowly out of his car after Sunday's race. He was even doubtful he would recover in time for this weekend’s Canadian GP, before saying on Monday he will race.

“The FIA has concerns in relation to the immediate physical impact on the health of the drivers, a number of whom have reported back pain following recent events,” the FIA said.

The FIA has given the 10 teams a technical directive on how it intends to take to tackle the problem. These include closer scrutiny of the car's planks and skids, both in terms of their design and the observed wear.

“The FIA will convene a technical meeting with the teams in order to define measures that will reduce the propensity of cars to exhibit such phenomena in the medium term,” the statement said.

More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

"Il Nuovo Ordine Mondiale"

Francesco Guerrera per “la Repubblica”

Una crisi finanziaria e geopolitica che porta ad enormi tensioni sociali all'interno delle grandi democrazie Occidentali e sfocia in un conflitto planetario tra Usa e Cina in cui la potenza asiatica mette fine all'"Impero Americano". È uno scenario apocalittico, dipinto non da anonimi anarchici sull'internet o da uno sceneggiatore di Netflix, ma da Ray Dalio, uno dei più grandi investitori di sempre. Nel suo libro "Il Nuovo Ordine Mondiale", in uscita in Italia, il fondatore di Bridgewater, il più ricco hedge fund del mondo, analizza la storia per capire come sorgono e come cadono gli imperi. La sua conclusione è da far paura: siamo alla fine dell'egemonia americana.

Perché dice che siamo alla fine dell'Impero Americano?

«Ci sono tre grandi forze che esistono ora che non sono state presenti nelle nostre vite, ma sono esistite molte volte in passato: l'enorme produzione di debito, la stampa di denaro per monetizzare quel debito, e i conflitti interni del populismo di sinistra e di destra causati dagli ampi divari di ricchezza e di valori.

Queste forze stanno portando verso una guerra civile e un grande conflitto di potere tra gli Stati Uniti e i loro alleati e la Cina e i suoi alleati. Queste tre cose stanno accadendo simultaneamente. L'ultima volta che è successo è stato tra il 1930 e il 1945. Se guarda le notizie che arrivano mese dopo mese vedrà un movimento verso la combinazione di una crisi finanziaria con un grande conflitto interno e con un grande conflitto esterno».

Quanto tempo ci vorrà per arrivare alla conflagrazione?

«La stiamo già vedendo in questo momento, ma penso che probabilmente sarà molto peggiore nel 2024 o nel 2025, dopo le prossime elezioni negli Stati Uniti. C'è stata molta creazione di debito e denaro che ha prodotto molta inflazione. Il risultato è che le Banche centrali cercano di calmare l'inflazione sottraendo denaro e credito alle persone in modo che il loro potere d'acquisto sia inferiore, e questo, a sua volta, indebolisce l'economia».

Quindi una grave crisi è inevitabile?

«No. La destinazione finale può certamente essere cambiata, anche se è improbabile. Tutto dipende da come noi tutti vogliamo stare insieme. C'è molta ricchezza e gli standard di vita, in media, sono più elevati che nel passato. La capacità dell'uomo di inventare strumenti che migliorano la nostra vita non è mai stata così grande. Dobbiamo solo aumentare le dimensioni della torta e dividerla in maniera intelligente. Ma la storia suggerisce che non è probabile».

Ma nel libro lei spiega anche che questo è un processo ciclico. Quindi è possibile che stiamo semplicemente vivendo un periodo di transizione.

«È vero, ma questi periodi di transizione, che in genere durano circa dieci anni, includono depressioni e guerre».

Torniamo alla situazione finanziaria. Il debito da lei citato è il risultato diretto di uno stimolo creato per aiutare l'economia mondiale. Avrebbe fatto qualcosa di diverso?

«Quando i governi e le Banche centrali aumentano il potere d'acquisto della gente creando molto debito e denaro, ciò non aumenta la produttività e crea obblighi finanziari per il futuro che o portano alla recessione o all'inflazione».

Non è vero che le persone che ne hanno beneficiato sono state quelle che possedevano attività finanziarie e ora che le persone che soffrono di più sono quelle senza risorse finanziarie?

«Sì. È un fatto sfortunato che chi ha meno ricchezza soffra sempre di più nei momenti difficili».

Come possiamo rimediare?

«Se vuoi che i tuoi figli abbiano una vita finanziariamente stabile, devi dare loro una buona educazione, civiltà e una buona etica del lavoro».

Come ha cambiato le sue strategie d'investimento, alla luce di ciò che ha imparato?

«Non sto investendo in attività di debito e ho comprato beni che forniscono protezione dall'inflazione. Sto investendo in Paesi che sono in buona salute economica e non corrono il rischio di entrare in una guerra politica interna o in una guerra internazionale. Di conseguenza, mentre il mercato azionario e i mercati obbligazionari sono in forte calo quest' anno, noi siamo in forte aumento».

RAY DALIO

Perché la gente dovrebbe ascoltare i consigli di un miliardario?

«Nessuno ha bisogno di farlo. Quello che fanno dipende da loro. Io pubblico questa roba, poi sta alla gente decidere se crederci o meno. Tuttavia, se fossi nei loro panni, probabilmente penserei che, se questo signore è diventato miliardario scommettendo su queste cose, forse ha un buon track record e vale la pena ascoltare il suo ragionamento.

Inoltre, se le persone pensano che, visto che sono un miliardario, ho perso il contatto con la realtà o ho una prospettiva distorta, dovrebbero sapere che ho iniziato con niente, e non molti anni fa. Nel 1982 non avevo soldi. Avevo così poco che ho dovuto prendere in prestito 4.000 dollari da mio padre per pagare le bollette».

Nel libro è chiaro che lei pensa che il prossimo impero alla fine della transizione sarà quello della Cina. Ha cambiato idea alla luce della guerra in Ucraina?

«No. Il movimento verso un conflitto internazionale sta avanzando ancora più velocemente di quanto mi aspettassi, di circa un paio d'anni. Cina e Russia sono quasi alleate e la potenza maggiore è la Cina. La Russia non ha il potere di competere economicamente. Per questo motivo mi aspetto che presto il conflitto includa la Cina».


Non ha paura di farsi dei nemici potenti con questo libro?

«È vero che parlare in modo schietto e controverso è sempre più pericoloso oggigiorno. Tuttavia, ho 72 anni e credo che in questa fase della mia vita devo fare la cosa giusta. Non mi sentirei bene con me stesso se non parlassi onestamente di ciò che penso perché ho paura di ciò che gli altri potrebbero farmi».

Guidare in America e in Italia

Uno pensa: salgo sulla macchina e vado.

Ma non è così semplice. 

In Italia grazie alla grande diffusione di telecamere i bollori dei guidatori sembra si siano lievemente attenuati. 

Il cambio automatico e' praticamente sconosciuto perché ogni italiano deve smanettare sentendosi indiscutibilmente alla pari di Leclerc.

Siccome ti puoi aspettare da un momento all'altro che qualcuno ti tagli la strada all'improvviso, non rispetti il codice stradale, se ne infischi dei limiti di velocità (a meno che non ci siano i radar appostati che ti inviano multe salate) la concentrazione alla guida nelle strade e autostrade della penisola è sempre piuttosto alta.

In America la gente sta al volante con la stessa attenzione con cui apre la porta del frigorifero.

Si dirà che gran parte dei 43.000 morti per incidenti stradali nel 2021 è imputabile alle lunghe, infinite percorrenze autostradali, all'uso di alcolici, droghe, antidepressivi.

Chi scrive possiede una Corolla della Toyota, la quarta che acquisto in un arco di circa 10 anni e che merita pienamente di essere la più venduta auto a livello planetario nella sua categoria, grazie alle sue dimensioni, alla ridotta manutenzione, e-per quanto riguarda le ultime generazioni-grazie anche ai sistemi di assistenza alla guida.

Pur essendo un'auto compatta, considerata economica, la Corolla permette di frenare automaticamente in relazione alla macchina che ti precede, ti avverte quando per stanchezza o sbadataggine si tende ad uscire dalla propria lane, la mitica corsia che è il punto basico dell'insegnamento delle scuole guida.

Si aggiungano i fari abbaglianti automatici che si abbassano quando l'auto incrocia altre luci.

Ma questi sussidi devono essere inseriti nella consapevolezza che tutto deve essere gestito da chi guida senza affidarsi completamente ai meccanismi automatici che talvolta-come nel caso della frenata automatica-possono non funzionare dato che, tanto per fare un esempio, la camera del radar dell'auto è sporca e quindi non legge bene il perimetro ambientale in cui deve operare.

Ed eccoci al dunque: le gazzette che non si sa per quale ragione continuano a sparare a palle incatenate sulla Tesla nonostante il successo planetario di questa azienda del genio Elon Musk, hanno messo in evidenza che tra le migliaia di morti che hanno insanguinato le strade americane l'anno scorso, 273 sono dovuti al mancato o non corretto funzionamento dei meccanismi di assistenza alla guida delle macchine Tesla.

Diverse volte si è appreso che chi era alla guida di una di queste vetture ha avuto un incidente mentre viaggiava in automatismo totale e magari stava leggendo un libro, confidando completamente nel talento vero o presunto della sua macchina.

Viviamo in un mondo in cui gli automatismi digitali stanno dilagando, compresa l'intelligenza artificiale che sembra essere ormai in grado di dialogare sensitivamente con l'operatore umano.

Ma è proprio la capacità di stare all'erta che sta diminuendo tra chi e' al volante di un mezzo automatizzato.

Quando attraversiamo l'Atlantico su un aereo, sonnecchiando oppure seguendo un film sul visore di fronte a noi, non ci rendiamo conto che il nostro aereo sta volando in automatismo completo sotto la sorveglianza del pilota di turno mentre l'altro sta schiacciando un pisolino come da regolamento.

È successo però ad un aereo della ITA, l'aereolinea nata dalle ceneri dell'Alitalia, che un volo partito da New York e diretto a Roma fosse ammutolito sorvolando la regione francese e facendo scattare gli inevitabili procedimenti di emergenza totale.

All'arrivo si è venuti a sapere che il comandante, che avrebbe dovuto essere in quanto tale ai comandi dell'aereo, stava invece dormendo alla grande senza controllare il volo e senza mantenere gli obbligatori contatti con le stazioni di terra.

Il pilota in questione e' stato licenziato, fatto questo estremamente singolare se si pensa al sindacalismo esasperato che per decenni ha caratterizzato il non funzionamento dell'Alitalia.

Oscar

Salvini: il viaggio prepagato a Mosca e l'Italia di Draghi da abbattere

Francesco Grignetti per “La Stampa”

Nel preciso momento in cui l'ambasciata russa ha emesso la sua nota ufficiale, e sostanzialmente ha messo il cappello sulla missione di Salvini, ecco, dentro la maggioranza è scattata un dubbio che è quasi una certezza: il viaggio del Matteo leghista era il tentativo di dare una spallata al governo Draghi, inteso come anello debole della compagine occidentale.

Ragionano ad alta voce, e all'unisono, diversi membri del Copasir: che la nostra opinione pubblica stia vistosamente ondeggiando, lo hanno capito anche all'ambasciata di Villa Abamalek; che ci sia una batteria di media più che bendisposti alle ragioni russe, è altrettanto evidente; e infine ci sono Lega e M5S che scalpitano. Sono dati oggettivi. «Ora - dice uno - pensiamo a che cosa sarebbe accaduto se Salvini avesse incontrato Lavrov a Mosca, o perfino Putin. E che al termine, Lavrov gli avesse graziosamente concesso gli ostaggi inglesi o gli avesse fatto un qualche altro "regalo". Chissà: qualche nave piena di grano. Salvini avrebbe potuto gridare al successo del "suo dialogo" al posto delle armi. Ai russi non sarebbe costato nulla.

Da noi, invece, Draghi sarebbe stato clamorosamente sconfessato. Ne sarebbe disceso un maremoto emotivo. La maggioranza non avrebbe retto». Dice un altro: «Il Pd con la sua posizione ferma a sostegno della resistenza ucraina sta già pagando un prezzo altissimo nei confronti dell'anima pacifista...». Sottinteso: se il 29 maggio Salvini avesse avuto un pur minimo successo, ora il governo Draghi non ci sarebbe più. E aggiungono: se cade l'Italia, cade tutta la linea; guardate le ambiguità della Germania e pure quelle della Francia.

A giudizio delle teste più attente della maggioranza, insomma, era una operazione più che sapiente, quella che l'ambasciatore Razov stava portando a segno. Grazie allo sconosciuto Antonio Capuano, aveva stretto un rapporto pressoché segreto con Salvini all'insaputa del suo stesso partito.

Nelle cene gli aveva fatto balenare la possibilità di un successo planetario, che neanche Erdogan o Macron avevano ottenuto. E Salvini, che è un giocatore d'azzardo, si era buttato, non dicendo nulla al premier, non calcolando che avrebbe travolto l'esecutivo o forse sì.

L'operazione stava per scattare. Il guaio di Salvini è che si è fidato di un intermediario che forse ha voluto strafare: Capuano infatti gli ha organizzato anche un incontro di altissimo livello in Vaticano, con il cardinale Parolin, il segretario di Stato. Per arrivarci, Capuano si era affidato a sua volta a una intermediaria non ortodossa, la famosa Cecilia Marogna, la dama dei fondi neri, sotto processo in Vaticano assieme a monsignor Becciu.

Marogna vanta contatti con il mondo dell'intelligence, non solo italiana, e non s' è mai capito se siano millanterie o no. Fatto sta che è la nemica giurata di un'altra dama di quegli ambienti, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, protagonista dello scandalo Vatileaks 2. Quel che una fa, l'altra provvede a disfare. Tra loro è una guerra senza quartiere. Nulla di più facile che i segreti di Salvini e dell'ambasciatore Razov siano usciti da questa disfida.

Ora i nemici di Salvini approfitteranno della sua débâcle. «L'Ambasciata russa - scrive il parlamentare di Forza Italia Elio Vito, membro anche lui del Copasir - conferma di avere pagato i biglietti aerei per il viaggio di Salvini a Mosca. Si tratta di un fatto gravissimo. Salvini dovrebbe dimettersi, è sempre più fonte di imbarazzo e preoccupazione per il suo partito, per gli alleati, per il centrodestra, per l'Italia». «Il capo della Lega chiarisca come mai un leader della maggioranza che ha votato le sanzioni alla Russia si fa organizzare e finanziare la trasferta proprio da quel governo. Basta ambiguità», dice anche Debora Serracchiani, capogruppo Pd alla Camera.

6 Gennaio 2021, la conferma che Trump non voleva lasciare la Presidenza e ha benedetto l'assalto al Campidoglio

La Commissione d'inchiesta del 6 gennaio voluta dalla speaker Nancy Pelosi ha lavorato per sei mesi intervistando centinaia di protagonisti della tragica giornata che ha visto l'assalto a Capitol Hill di migliaia di esagitati.

_______________________________________________

Se fossi un repubblicano, al termine delle quasi due ore di collegamento, direi che a seconda della dosaggio del mio destrismo:

si tratta di una sporca propaganda televisiva dei democratici afflitti da crescente paranoia perché sanno bene che nelle prossime elezioni di mezzo termine del novembre 2022 prenderanno un sonoro calcio nel culo;

quelle migliaia di goliardi che protestavano talvolta in maniera forse eccessiva spaccando vetri introducendosi all'interno del Campidoglio, cercando il vicepresidente Mike Pence che volevano impiccare (compresa forca con tanto di cappio per farsi capire bene) erano eccitati perché felici di fare una scampagnata nella capitale federale che gli era stata pagata da qualcuno;

E poi, se Donald Trump udendo le migliaia di suoi fan che imploravano l'impiccagione del vicepresidente Mike Pence, ha detto testualmente: "se lo merita…!" il mitico ex presidente non sbaglia mai.

il fatto che di quelle migliaia di fervidi patrioti oltre 800 siamo stati mandati nelle carceri ed ancora non siano stati liberati è un vero attentato alla democrazia che al primo emendamento della costituzione garantisce la libera espressione del proprio pensiero (sì, va bene, forse era un modo un po' eccessivo di esprimere il proprio pensiero ma sono giovani…);

la recita della scontata litania di accuse fasulle nei confronti del mitico ex presidente Donald Trump non fa altro che rinfocolare la convinzione di decine di milioni di americani che si tratta dell'uomo giusto da essere rimesso al posto giusto.

_______________________________________________________

Se fossi un democratico sarei molto soddisfatto dopo aver assistito alla prima delle sei puntate 'live' di questa tanto discussa Commissione d'inchiesta che tribunale non è perché ogni decisione di carattere giudiziario dovrà essere presa necessariamente dal ministro di Grazia e Giustizia.

Lo show, chiamiamolo così senza offesa, è stato organizzato perfettamente da chi si intende di televisione e non ha mancato di tenere inchiodati davanti al televisore decine di milioni di persone anche se al momento non è ancora chiaro di quale consistenza sia stata la audience di questo importante spettacolo che ha visto come attori principali il presidente Thompson e l'onorevole Cheney repubblicana considerata il peggio della fogna per avere aderito e lavorato con grande impegno in questo consesso accusatorio nei confronti del suo partito di appartenenza e dell'autocrate sconfitto alle elezioni del 2020.

_________________________________________________________

Ma sono soltanto un osservatore, non posso dire imparziale perché questa qualità è un mito del giornalismo e della comunicazione, troppo spesso dimenticando che chi riferisce una storia lo fa attraverso il filtro della propria sensibilità e base culturale.

Devo dire comunque che lo spettacolo offerto dai membri del comitato del 6 gennaio è stato di estremo interesse, soprattutto perché sono state inserite e rese pubbliche delle video clip che hanno messo in evidenza il livello di violenza organizzata che ha caratterizzato l'azione delle migliaia di seguaci del presidente Trump. Ma anche le evidenti e confermate responsabilità di questo personaggio che non solo ha dato il suo appoggio alla violenza ma ne aveva garantito in precedenza l'organizzazione nei dettagli.

Tra le varie testimonianze ricordo al lettore quella dell'ex ministro della giustizia Barr che ha definito il progetto di sommossa popolare sostenuto da Donald Trump una "stronzata", definizione questa che e' stata condivisa nella dichiarazione fatta al comitato dalla figlia Ivanka.

Mi chiedo quanto l'avere portato alla ribalta la responsabilità di Donald Trump sostenuta da inequivocabili fatti e testimonianze, possa comunque intaccare in qualche modo la fede mitica di decine di milioni di americani che della democrazia non sanno cosa farsene.

Soprattutto considerando il fatto che il prezzo della benzina è arrivato a superare i cinque dollari al gallone e in qualche stato raggiungendo addirittura i sette-nove dollari.

Sì perché, è bene tenerlo in considerazione, la gente vota pensando al proprio portafoglio e non al fatto che l'esperimento della democrazia americana stia rivelando tutta la sua fragilità, a causa dei lasciti della Guerra Civile mai conclusa effettivamente nel 1865.

E gli affanni della nazione americana riguardano anche noi per il principio dei vasi comunicanti.

Oscar

Gli studenti del Master Micri a Washington