American Politics

[EihTooms]

Man, you remind me of the guys seeing hookers in the USA swearing they are law abiding citizens.

Tooms, what are the names of the staffers? Did they make statements under oath? When were the documents moved? Who told someone in authority that Biden had classified documents in his garage? Has Biden gone under oath and swore he did not know?

You don't know any of that. You just are swallowing up all the bullshit excuses MSNBC and the NYT is feeding you.

What you cannot get through your pea sized brain is not the law but the intent of the law. We learned from Snowden and those who he leaked to that so much of this classified information should not be but that 90% of the good stuff is classified for government security versus national security. The issue with us is if Trump did anything to put the country at risk.

To those of us with common sense, if you are going to take the unprecedented step of prosecuting your political opponent, you better be squeaky clean and Biden was dirty as hell.

So those of who know about election hating Democratic douches could predict what would happen next. Biden would not be charged and Trump would, and the Biden DOJ would do all it could to prosecute Trump before the election and that is what happened exactly. So we concluded that this was not about national security and all about the 2024 election, and the polls show that belief.

Because you are a Democratic douche, you do not get the tactic that worked in 2016 is not going to work today. That is what happens after you pull the Ukrainegate, Russiagate, and 1-6 stunts.

You probably do not even get the irony of screaming about the law on a hooker board.

Read the full Trump indictment on mishandling of classified documents

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...fied-documents

The Department of Justice released on Friday an unsealed federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.
...
Federal prosecutors also accused the former president of defying requests from the Justice Department to hand over classified documents, making false statements to the FBI and tapping his aides to help hide boxes of records.

Trump did that.

Biden did not.

BTW, when you stop screaming about a non existant crime committed by Biden while Trump blatantly and proudly broke the law, check out the fact that there is no crime committed between an adult hooker and a customer in Thailand according to the Thai Criminal Code.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"Hardly. I still pay USA Federal Taxes, it still matters to me how the USA economy goes because I want my rental property tenants to have good jobs with good incomes, I still have investments in USA equities and, most important of all, I vote in every USA election for which I am legally registered.

Consequently, ALL of those factors require my full attention and engagement if I intend to vote FOR hisorically positive Dem results and, therefore, AGAINST the next Great Repub Depression, Great Repub Recession, Great Repub Bear Market Crash and Repub Pandemic.

It is far from mere fun and games for me.

BTW, Trump is no political "mutant". He is the logical and easily predictable (by me, at least) culmination of everything every Repub since at least Nixon has wanted to be and hoped to inflict on America. And the one after him will be even worse for America. ".

[Elvis 2008]

See the highlighted part above? Trump committed a crime in that regard and Biden did not.

Man, you remind me of the guys seeing hookers in the USA swearing they are law abiding citizens.

And neither did Obama, Clinton or anyone else who left the Executive Branch with dozens of boxes full of thousands of documents packed by staffers, a tiny portion of which might have turned out to have still been classified. For them, no crime. For Trump, crime.

Tooms, what are the names of the staffers? Did they make statements under oath? When were the documents moved? Who told someone in authority that Biden had classified documents in his garage? Has Biden gone under oath and swore he did not know?

You don't know any of that. You just are swallowing up all the bullshit excuses MSNBC and the NYT is feeding you.

What you cannot get through your pea sized brain is not the law but the intent of the law. We learned from Snowden and those who he leaked to that so much of this classified information should not be but that 90% of the good stuff is classified for government security versus national security. The issue with us is if Trump did anything to put the country at risk.

To those of us with common sense, if you are going to take the unprecedented step of prosecuting your political opponent, you better be squeaky clean and Biden was dirty as hell.

So those of who know about election hating Democratic douches could predict what would happen next. Biden would not be charged and Trump would, and the Biden DOJ would do all it could to prosecute Trump before the election and that is what happened exactly. So we concluded that this was not about national security and all about the 2024 election, and the polls show that belief.

Because you are a Democratic douche, you do not get the tactic that worked in 2016 is not going to work today. That is what happens after you pull the Ukrainegate, Russiagate, and 1-6 stunts.

You probably do not even get the irony of screaming about the law on a hooker board.

[EihTooms]

Wow, you mean half the American people are going to take up arms after a handful of unelected narcissistic bureaucrats try to strike down the most popular candidate for president? You think? The Democratic douches who cried wolf on January 6 would be praying for a repeat of that if the decisions of these bureaucrats is allowed. There would not be some unarmed dustup but a full on armed rebellion.

The Supreme Court is going to strike down this lunacy after holding a hearing and I wish it would be unanimous, but it won't be. They will say that no, you cannot call someone you do not like a criminal and disqualify him from office. Tooms will be swearing up and down that is legal just like it is legal to keep top secret documents in your garage. Anything is legal if you are a Democrat.

What gets me about this is the fucking hand ringing. This whole diatribe about being against Trump. Is that necessary? Why do you have to play that way? It just shows you people do not get why they voted for him to begin with. In 2008, we were coming off the Great Recession and a whole lot of bankers did some horrible things. I was thinking the way Obama was talking and the people on his economic team were really going to do give us reforms that reigned in the bankers and helped the people. As soon as he got in office, Obama put a bunch off Wall Street hacks in his cabinet and was the best friend the banksters ever had. None of the banksters sniffed jail.

See the highlighted part above? Trump committed a crime in that regard and Biden did not.

We all know you're lying because even you can't be so stupid that you don't know the blatantly obvious difference between the way Trump dealt with that issue and the way Biden did and, therefore, why Trump broke the law and Biden did not.

[EihTooms]

After all, that "inject bleach" thing was long before he finally got indicted for his crimes.

Now you know why Trump has refused to show up for a debate. LOL. It isn't because he is so far ahead of the Repub competition and he doesn't need to show up. Since when has Trump missed an opportunity to blab and blather on regarding any topic when free television coverage, publicity and more dumb Repub hillbilly donations are in the offing?

Hell, he doesn't even need to show up for those trial hearings but he does so anyway in order to avoid debates and to instead make another pitch for those dumb Repub hillbilly donations.

Well, he did chicken out from debating Joe Biden last time. And he probably will again next time. But it won't be because he is too well informed, too prepared, too lucid, too cognitively competent and too important to respond to genuine moderator questions. LOL.

Nope.

Here's why his handlers probably throw themselves in front of him to prevent him from attending a debate or unbiased interview and schedule other activities to keep him occupied instead:

'Dementia': Trump's Brain Was Broken At Iowa Rally, And People Noticed.
He was worse than usual.

https://crooksandliars.com/2024/01/d...as-broken-iowa

OMG. Watch the various videos or read the transcripts. Trump has totally lost it. No wonder people who have to get near him are reporting noticing his serious hygiene and body odor problems. Keeping up with daily washing, toilet, grooming and hygiene habits is often one of the first things to go among the demented and mentally ill.

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://themessenger.com/politics/tr...god-made-trump

[Elvis 2008]

So as much as I find the legal case for the 14th Amendment disqualification entirely unpersuasive, I can almost make myself see the return-to-normalcy future that some of its advocates seem to be imagining.

Start with a 7-to-2 decision, maybe written by Brett Kavanaugh, disqualifying Trump. Then comes a lot of ranting and rage that mostly works itself out online. Then a sense of relief among Republican officeholders who move on to a Nikki Haley vs. Ron DeSantis primary. Then various Trump-backed spoiler-ish and third-party options emerge but fizzle out. Then, quite possibly, you have a DeSantis or Haley presidency in which partisan loyalty binds Republicans to their new leader, and an aging Trump eventually fades away.

I will concede to partisans of disqualification that such a scenario is theoretically possible. I certainly would find some versions of it eminently desirable. (My fears about a Haley presidency I will save for a future column.)..

Wow, you mean half the American people are going to take up arms after a handful of unelected narcissistic bureaucrats try to strike down the most popular candidate for president? You think? The Democratic douches who cried wolf on January 6 would be praying for a repeat of that if the decisions of these bureaucrats is allowed. There would not be some unarmed dustup but a full on armed rebellion.

The Supreme Court is going to strike down this lunacy after holding a hearing and I wish it would be unanimous, but it won't be. They will say that no, you cannot call someone you do not like a criminal and disqualify him from office. Tooms will be swearing up and down that is legal just like it is legal to keep top secret documents in your garage. Anything is legal if you are a Democrat.

What gets me about this is the fucking hand ringing. This whole diatribe about being against Trump. Is that necessary? Why do you have to play that way? It just shows you people do not get why they voted for him to begin with. In 2008, we were coming off the Great Recession and a whole lot of bankers did some horrible things. I was thinking the way Obama was talking and the people on his economic team were really going to do give us reforms that reigned in the bankers and helped the people. As soon as he got in office, Obama put a bunch off Wall Street hacks in his cabinet and was the best friend the banksters ever had. None of the banksters sniffed jail.

In Michigan, all the pols lined up to kiss the CEO of GM's ass. Trump was like why are you dummies sending all these jobs overseas? When asked if the system was rigged, Hilary Clinton said it was not rigged, and Trump said it was and he made money off the rigged system. Okay, Trump is full of himself, and he makes decisions that make him popular, but not for one second did I ever feel Trump was making a decision because he owed a favor to some billionaire. With Biden, I wonder if he is making any decisions on his own.

And now I am not even voting for Trump any more. I am voting against censorship, against unelected bureaucrats who decide who can be on a ballot, against the deep state, and against a corrupt judiciary by voting for Trump.

MDS, I appreciate the link. I am just sick of people having to apologize for being pro-Trump like this guy.

[EihTooms]

I would warn ET to be careful what you wish for, but you haven't stpped a single toe in the USA in over a dozen plus years and never plan on doing so again.

So its all fun and games to you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/o...tion-2024.html

Ross Douthat.

By Ross Douthat.

Opinion Columnist.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, a "psychohistorian" in a far-flung galactic empire figures out a way to predict the future so exactly that he can anticipate both the empire's fall and the way that civilization can be painstakingly rebuilt. This enables him to plan a project the "foundation" of the title that will long outlast his death, complete with periodic messages to his heirs that always show foreknowledge of their challenges and crises..

Hardly. I still pay USA Federal Taxes, it still matters to me how the USA economy goes because I want my rental property tenants to have good jobs with good incomes, I still have investments in USA equities and, most important of all, I vote in every USA election for which I am legally registered.

Consequently, ALL of those factors require my full attention and engagement if I intend to vote FOR hisorically positive Dem results and, therefore, AGAINST the next Great Repub Depression, Great Repub Recession, Great Repub Bear Market Crash and Repub Pandemic.

It is far from mere fun and games for me.

BTW, Trump is no political "mutant". He is the logical and easily predictable (by me, at least) culmination of everything every Repub since at least Nixon has wanted to be and hoped to inflict on America. And the one after him will be even worse for America.

[MarquisdeSade1]

I would warn ET to be careful what you wish for, but you haven't stpped a single toe in the USA in over a dozen plus years and never plan on doing so again.

So its all fun and games to you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/o...tion-2024.html

Ross Douthat.

By Ross Douthat.

Opinion Columnist.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, a "psychohistorian" in a far-flung galactic empire figures out a way to predict the future so exactly that he can anticipate both the empire's fall and the way that civilization can be painstakingly rebuilt. This enables him to plan a project — the "foundation" of the title — that will long outlast his death, complete with periodic messages to his heirs that always show foreknowledge of their challenges and crises.

Until one day the foreknowledge fails, because an inherently unpredictable figure has come upon the scene — the Mule, a Napoleon of galactic politics, whose advent was hard for even a psychohistorian to see coming because he's literally a mutant, graced by some genetic twist with the power of telepathy.

Donald Trump is not a mutant telepath. (Or so I assume — fact checkers are still at work.) But the debates about how to deal with his challenge to the American political system turn, in part, on how much you think that he resembles Asimov's Mule.

Was there a more normal, conventional, stable-seeming timeline for 21st century American politics that Trump, with his unique blend of tabloid celebrity, reality-TV charisma, personal shamelessness and demagogic intuition, somehow wrenched us off?

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Or is Trump just an American expression of the trends that have revived nationalism all over the world, precisely the sort of figure a "psychohistory" of our era would have anticipated? In which case, are attempts to find some elite removal mechanism likely to just heighten the contradictions that yielded Trumpism in the first place, widening the gyre and bringing the rough beast slouching in much faster?

I have basically changed sides in this debate. Into the early part of Trump's presidency I was an apologist for elite machinations: I wanted party unity against his primary candidacy, a convention rebellion against his nomination, even a 25th Amendment option when he appeared initially overmastered by the office of the presidency.

Past a certain point, though, I became convinced that these efforts were not only vain but counterproductive. In part, this reflected strategic considerations: The plausible moment for unified intraparty resistance had passed, and the united front of elite institutions had failed spectacularly to prevent Trump from capturing the White House. In part it reflected my sense that "Resistance" politics were driving liberal institutions deep into their own kind of paranoia and conspiracism.

But above all my shift reflected a reading of our times as increasingly and ineradicably populist, permanently Trumpy in some sense, with inescapable conflicts between insider and outsider factions, institutionalists and rebels — conflicts that seemed likely to worsen the more that insider power plays cement the populist belief that the outsiders would never be allowed to truly govern.

This shift doesn't mean, however, that I am immune to the arguments that still treat Trump as unique, even Mule-ish, with a capacity for chaos unequaled by any other populist. You can see this distinctiveness in the failures of various Republican candidates who have tried to ape his style. And you can reasonably doubt that a different populist would have gone all the way to the disgrace of Jan. 6 — or inspired as many followers.

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So as much as I find the legal case for the 14th Amendment disqualification entirely unpersuasive, I can almost make myself see the return-to-normalcy future that some of its advocates seem to be imagining.

Start with a 7-to-2 decision, maybe written by Brett Kavanaugh, disqualifying Trump. Then comes a lot of ranting and rage that mostly works itself out online. Then a sense of relief among Republican officeholders who move on to a Nikki Haley vs. Ron DeSantis primary. Then various Trump-backed spoiler-ish and third-party options emerge but fizzle out. Then, quite possibly, you have a DeSantis or Haley presidency — in which partisan loyalty binds Republicans to their new leader, and an aging Trump eventually fades away.

I will concede to partisans of disqualification that such a scenario is theoretically possible. I certainly would find some versions of it eminently desirable. (My fears about a Haley presidency I will save for a future column.).

But what I would ask them in turn is whether, having lived through the last eight years of not just American but global politics, they actually find it likely that normalcy will be restored through this kind of expedient — a judicial fiat that millions of Americans will immediately regard as the most illegitimate governmental action of their lifetimes?

What odds would they give that future historians, reflecting on our republic's storms the way we now reflect on ancient Rome, will memorialize such an action as the moment when the seas began to calm?

As opposed to what seems so much more likely — that it would eventually produce some further populist escalation, every-deepening division, not peace but the sword.

[EihTooms]

You want me to provide you a link that keeping top secret documents in your garage is legal? Maybe this is a rhetorical question, but are you out of your friggin' mind?

Ah, NOW you're inching your way up to it.

KEEPING top secret documents in your garage, bathroom, broom closet, etc despite a National Archives request to return them to their rightful owners, otherwise known as RETAINING them, is illegal. No need to provide a link for that. We all know that already. Well, the rest of us do, I mean.

That is what Trump did.

That is not what Joe Biden did.

Merely being discovered "having" them in such a location because, UNKNOWINGLY to you, some of them were mixed in with fully and officially declassified documents and packed in boxes by staffers, is not illegal.

There is no way to prove that happened with either Trump or Biden. State of mind at the time of them being packed in boxes, that is.

However, Trump exhibited behavior strongly suggesting a consciousness of guilt by his instructions to move them from location to location and hide them, presumably without going through them to confirm whether they were top secret or not. You know, as though he already knew they were top secret when his staff packed them. Otherwise known as KNOWINGLY taking top secret documents to an unsafe place.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"And this from Mr. Rule of Law guy. Trump and Biden broke the same law, and you are in no position of knowing who is telling the truth about what happened or which one is lying. What is fact is that they both broke the same law and Trump's documents were taken by machine gun and Biden's were not.

And you are such a narcissist you think it could not happen to you. Yes, Mr. Rule of Law, Trump can offer up a subpoena for millions of documents, some of which you do not have, and when you do not produce them, order a SWAT team in to go raid your residence. You opened up that Pandora's box. No federal judge is going to protect you after this fiasco.

I could not be more happy to be more wrong, Spidy. Now that you douches are saying it is legal to kick people out of office for just the appearance of being in an insurrection, we can kick out of office anyone associated with the 2020 steal, the future 2024 steal, and anyone involved in the BLM riots or with BLM period. We do not need a trial. We just need the videotape and we can start ignoring the will of the people and election results too.

Thing that gets me is the Democrats pull their douche shit first, and Republicans hit back 10 X harder. What gets me with you and Tooms Spidy is you are literally cheering on disregarding the vote / will of the people and literally cheering on the weaponization of the legal system. You are cheering on verdicts without trials, criminal prosecutions for political purposes, and votes not counting. You are literally tearing up Democracy because you want one party rule. There is no arguing with you two. There is just defeating you.

Now that we know beyond a doubt that is what you Dems really want, one party rule by any means possible, we are going to do all we can to make sure the one party in power is ours.

I keep waiting for one of you to say, "Hey, this is too much", but now I see there is nothing you would not do to win. ".

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/...ovid-policies/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/...tm_term=second

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/...utm_term=first

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/...tm_term=second".

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/w...-election.html

A One-Sided Affair as Bangladesh's Ailing Democracy Goes to the Polls.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to roll to a fourth consecutive term as the gutted opposition boycotts what it calls an unfair election.

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A dusty city street has reams of political posters suspended along wires in the air.

Election campaign posters hanging over a street, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Thursday. Credit. Adnan Abidi / Reuters.

By Mujib Mashal and Saif Hasnat.

Reporting from New Delhi and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Published Jan. 5, 2024.

Updated Jan. 6, 2024,12:38 am ET.

Want the latest stories related to Bangladesh? Sign up for the newsletter Your Places: Global Update, and we'll send them to your inbox.

There is little doubt that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will seize a fourth consecutive term when Bangladesh goes to the polls on Sunday. The bigger question is what will remain of the country's democracy.

The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, has been crushed and left with little mobilizing capacity. Its leaders who are not already in jail are bogged down with endless court appointments or are in hiding with the police on their tail. Ms. Hasina's Awami League, in power since 2009, has cleared the way for a race so one-sided that the party urged its own contestants to prop up dummy candidates so it does not look as if they won unchallenged.

The be. And. P. Has boycotted the vote, after Ms. Hasina rejected its demand that she step aside during the campaign period so the election could be held under a neutral administration. Even as Bangladesh has appeared to be finding a path to prosperity and shedding a legacy of coups and assassinations, the uncontested election shows how politics in this country of 170 million remains hostage to decades of bad blood between the two major parties.

The possibility of violence hangs in the air. The opposition's effort to protest the vote, with repeated calls for nationwide strikes and civil disobedience, has been met with an intensified crackdown. More than 20,000 be. And. P. Members and leaders have been arrested since the party's last major rally, in October, according to party leaders and lawyers.

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Diplomats in Dhaka said they had received reports of appalling conditions inside overcrowded prisons. At least nine opposition leaders and members have died in jail since the Oct. 28 crackdown, according to human rights organizations and reports in local news media.

As the be. And. P. Has issued another call for a national strike, this one on the eve of the election, security has been increased, with the army deployed in the capital, Dhaka, and other regions.

Late Friday on a train in Dhaka, a fire suspected to be arson killed at least four people, security officials said. Tensions seemed only to escalate as security officials, indirectly, and ruling party members, very directly, blamed the be. And. P. For the blaze that left at least four train cars burned and took an hour to extinguish.

Image.

A soldier in uniform runs out of a bus, gun at his side, and into the street, as another soldier stands beside the bus.

Bangladeshi soldiers were deployed on streets as part of enhanced security measures ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections. Credit. Mahmud Hossain Opu / Associated Press.

"There is a risk of increased violence after the polls, from both sides," said Pierre Prakash, the Asia director for the International Crisis Group. "If the be. And. P. Feels the largely nonviolent strategy it deployed in the run-up to the 2024 election has failed, leaders could come under pressure to revert to the more overt violence of the past. ".

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And if the be. And. P. Does resort to widespread violence, Mr. Prakash said, it will be walking right into a trap. Ms. Hasina's party has been laying the groundwork for an even wider crackdown as it pushes a narrative that the opposition is filled with "terrorists" and "killers. ".

During Ms. Hasina's 15-year rule, her second stint in power, the country has been a paradox of sorts.

As investments in the garment export industry began paying off, the economy experienced such impressive growth that average income levels at one point surpassed India's. Bangladesh has also shown major strides in other development areas, from education and health to female participation in the labor force and preparedness against climate disasters.

But all along, critics say, Ms. Hasina, 76, has tried to turn the country into a one-party state. From the security agencies to the courts, she has captured government institutions and unleashed them onto anyone who does not fall in line.

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CRUSHING A DEMOCRACYUsing the courts to paralyze Bangladesh's opposition.

In the latest example, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus was given a six-month jail sentence in what he has described as a political vendetta. Mr. Yunus is out on bail and appealing the verdict in a case that government officials say is not political and involves violations of labor laws.

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Ms. Hasina's drive to dismantle the be. And. P. Often appears to be a personal campaign of vengeance.

Image.

A woman holds out her hands while addressing a room from behind a lectern.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressing a campaign rally in December. Credit. -/ Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.

For most of the time since Bangladesh's creation in 1971 — when it separated from Pakistan after a bloody campaign of cultural oppression against Bengalis — the country has been ruled by the two parties.

The Awami League was the party of Ms. Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's independence leader and founding president. After he set out on a campaign to centralize power, he was killed in a military coup that also left much of his young family dead.

The be. And. P. Was formed by Gen. Ziaur Rahman, the army chief who rose to power after a bloody phase of coups and counter-coups in the wake of Sheikh Mujib's assassination. Mr. Zia, as he was known, was also later killed in a military coup.

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While Ms. Hasina sees the be. And. P. As the creation of the same military cadre that protected her father's killers, her drive to destroy the party is even more personal, her aides say. When the be. And. P. , led by Mr. Zia's widow, Khaleda Zia, was in power in the early 2000's, one of Ms. Hasina's rallies as an opposition leader was attacked by dozens of grenades. She survived a close call, but more than 20 of her party's leaders and supporters were killed.

Over the past couple of years, Ms. Hasina's crackdown has become particularly severe as the sheen from the story of economic progress has worn off.

The successive blows of the pandemic and the Ukraine war, which pushed up fuel and food prices, have shrunk Bangladesh's foreign reserves to dangerous lows. The crisis has exposed not only Bangladesh's overreliance on the garment industry, but also what Western diplomats in Dhaka say are kleptocratic practices hidden beneath the country's economic growth.

The ruling elite, diplomats say, tap into banks and the nation's riches with little accountability. With about 60 percent of Parliament made up of businesspeople, economic interests and political power have become deeply intertwined, impeding economic reform, analysts say.

The opposition tried to capitalize on public anger over rising prices, holding its first large rallies in years. But its momentum was short-lived, as the government's crackdown deepened.

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Image.

A wide city street is clogged with people demonstrating.

Supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party in Dhaka in July. Credit. Atul Loke for The New York Times.

The be. And. P. Says its demand for an election under a neutral caretaker was nothing new — Ms. Hasina called for the same when she was in the opposition, and she came to power in an election administered by a caretaker government. Bangladesh's institutions are so vulnerable to abuse by the ruling party that no opposition has won election when the vote was not held under a caretaker.

But Ms. Hasina considers the be. And. P. 's demand to be a violation of the constitution — because, after she came to power, she amended the charter to declare the practice illegal and a disruption to the democratic cycle.

Seeking to avoid a repeat of the 2014 vote, in which Ms. Hasina's party won more than half of the seats uncontested, the Awami League has been pointing to the smaller parties that are still contesting this year's election. But analysts say the party has engineered a new token opposition. Some of these candidates made clear on campaign posters where they stood: "Supported by the Awami League. ".

The be. And. P. 's leader, Ms. Zia, a former prime minister, remains under house arrest. Her son, the party's acting chairman, is in exile in London. Much of the party's leadership is in jail.

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In the weeks leading up to Sunday's vote, the party's visibility was largely reduced to virtual news conferences by Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, one of the few senior be. And. P. Leaders not in jail.

Image.

A man sits at the edge of a twin-size bed situated next to a desk stacked with books. A window with curtains drawn is behind him.

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, the senior joint secretary general of the be. And. P. , in his party office in June. Credit. Atul Loke for The New York Times.

Mr. Rizvi himself faces 180 court cases, and for months at a time he remained locked up in his office, sleeping in a small corner bed, as he risked arrest if he ventured out. He walks with a cane because of a bullet wound he received while protesting a military dictator in the late 1980's.

"We and other like-minded parties have boycotted this election," Mr. Rizvi said in a virtual news conference on Thursday, announcing a new strike to begin on Saturday. "The political parties and the people of the country have already understood that this election is going to be a rehearsal of the anarchy of Awami League. It's going to be a one-sided election. ".

Obaidul Quader, general secretary of the Awami League, said it regretted the main opposition's absence.

"Had be. And. P. Been there," he added, "the election would have been more competitive. ".

Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal.

[Spidy]

And unfortunately another part of his legacy will be that we will never see an uncontested election again. Every other defeated president left the office with grace and dignity. Donald is still acting like the narcissistic sociopath he is. He really has made it all about him and not about the country.

You are absolutely right and you give an excellent synopsis of the failed administration of the 45th!

Yes, it was a TOXIC administration and his TOXIC LEGACY, leaves behind a tribalistic, distrustful, and oftentimes very delusional right-wing Republican political culture, that worships at the altar of the "big-lie". And as you've aptly stated "we will never see an uncontested election again".

The TOXIC "big-lie", found its way around the world and all the way to Brazil, with the Trumpster wanna be and copycat, Jair Bolsonaro, or as the Brazilian people fondly called him, Pres. Bozo ("the clown"). I bring this up to say, the Brazilians, swiftly dealt with their insurrectionist president, within six (6) months, by barring Pres. Bozo, from office for 10 years, under their constitutional laws.

It is very clear (IMHO), under Section #3 of the 14th Amendment, the 45th is disqualified. So just like Brazil we need to bring the hammer down on our insurrectionists and follow suit...SWIFTLY!

For me his TOXIC legacy, is really quite simple. It is having been the worst American President...EVER, in US history! BAR NONE! How's that for legacy?

[Elvis 2008]

Ah, again what a luxury it must be for Winger Repubs who pull stuff out of their butts, proudly display it for the world to see and then think they proved their point.

Please provide a link to the text of the law on classified documents showing that merely "having" them in a storage box is a crime, totally absent from an unprovable state of mind by the owner of those

You want me to provide you a link that keeping top secret documents in your garage is legal? Maybe this is a rhetorical question, but are you out of your friggin' mind?

[EihTooms]

This is so typical of Repubs. They don't know how to govern. They don't want to learn how to govern. They don't want to govern. But they constantly whine and whine and whine that the Dems are not taking care of every colossal disaster they (the Repubs) create. Consequently, their only solution for keeping a pretty sweet job with fantastic benefits is to lie, cheat, steal and con the American electorate into voting against their and the country's best interests over and over again.

That is what they do. That is ALL they do.

It has been a total mystery why anyone has ever voted for so much as one of these Repub numbskull deadbeats since at least the middle of Reagan's first disastrous term as so-called potus.

House Republican Admits He Wont Back Border Bill Because It Could Help Biden.
Secure the border! (they scream and whine), unless it helps Bidens poll numbers.
Jan. 5, 2024

https://newrepublic.com/post/177876/...ill-help-biden

[MarquisdeSade1]

"And this from Mr. Rule of Law guy. Trump and Biden broke the same law, and you are in no position of knowing who is telling the truth about what happened or which one is lying. What is fact is that they both broke the same law and Trump's documents were taken by machine gun and Biden's were not.

And you are such a narcissist you think it could not happen to you. Yes, Mr. Rule of Law, Trump can offer up a subpoena for millions of documents, some of which you do not have, and when you do not produce them, order a SWAT team in to go raid your residence. You opened up that Pandora's box. No federal judge is going to protect you after this fiasco.

I could not be more happy to be more wrong, Spidy. Now that you douches are saying it is legal to kick people out of office for just the appearance of being in an insurrection, we can kick out of office anyone associated with the 2020 steal, the future 2024 steal, and anyone involved in the BLM riots or with BLM period. We do not need a trial. We just need the videotape and we can start ignoring the will of the people and election results too.

Thing that gets me is the Democrats pull their douche shit first, and Republicans hit back 10 X harder. What gets me with you and Tooms Spidy is you are literally cheering on disregarding the vote / will of the people and literally cheering on the weaponization of the legal system. You are cheering on verdicts without trials, criminal prosecutions for political purposes, and votes not counting. You are literally tearing up Democracy because you want one party rule. There is no arguing with you two. There is just defeating you.

Now that we know beyond a doubt that is what you Dems really want, one party rule by any means possible, we are going to do all we can to make sure the one party in power is ours.

I keep waiting for one of you to say, "Hey, this is too much", but now I see there is nothing you would not do to win. ".

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/...ovid-policies/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/...tm_term=second

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/...utm_term=first

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/...tm_term=second