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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2017 at 12:39 am
“What did the President know and when did he know it?”
It was the famous question asked by Tennessee U.S. Senator Howard Baker during the 1973 Watergate hearings.
Howard Baker
The question cut to the core of President Richard Nixon’s litany of crimes. And the fact that it was posed by a Republican gave it added power.
More than a year later, Americans learned its answers:
- Nixon had learned that his own White House “Plumbers” had carried out a burglary of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel; and
- Only days afterward, he ordered a cover-up.
With those revelations, his Presidency was finished.
America has endured four months of the Donald J. Trump Presidency. And his poll ratings have steadily fallen since he took office. As of May 22-28, it stands at 41%.
And, once again, Howard Baker’s slightly altered question resonates with force: “What did the American people know, and when did they know it?”
And the subject of that question is not Richard Nixon but Donald Trump.
Since taking office, Trump has been besieged by reports that members of his 2016 campaign staff collaborated with Russian Intelligence agents to secure his election.
One of these was retired general Mike Flynn–Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser. He was forced to resign after only 23 days in office when news broke of his collusion.
And numerous members of his Cabinet–such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and even Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner–have close ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin or those who act in his name.
Trump has attacked these charges as “fake news”–while supplying no evidence to refute them.
But long before the election, Americans had more than enough knowledge about Trump to judge him unfit for the Oval Office.
- He unknowingly admitted to being a sexual predator of women: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful–I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Donald Trump
- He refused to release his tax returns–unlike every other Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
- He said he was prepared to withdraw from NATO, the American-European alliance that held the Soviet Union at bay for a half-century.
- He often and publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, the absolute dictator of a foreign power hostile to the United States.
- He publicly invited “Russia”–i.e., Putin–to interfere directly in an American Presidential election: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Vladimir Putin
- He surrounded himself with men who have close ties to Putin. One of these was Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager. His longstanding ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine lead directly to Putin.
- Another was Roger Stone, self-confessed political dirty trickster and former business partner of Paul Manafort. Stone had extensive contacts with hacker Guccifer 2.0, whom the CIA, NSA and FBI believe was actually a front for GRU, Russian military intelligence.
- Yet another Trump advisor, Roger Ailes, was a known sexual predator. Hired to prepare Trump for the fall debates with Clinton, he was fired in July as CEO of Fox News on multiple charges of sexual harassment.
- During the 2016 campaign, Trump received the enthusiastic support of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
Ku Klux Klan emblem
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- On November 18, Trump–rather than face trial–settled the case out of court for $25 million. “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.
- Throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly used threats of violence to intimidate his Republican and Democratic opponents.
- On March 16, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.
- On August 9, Trump issued a veiled solicitation for the assassination of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- After slandering President Barack Obama for five years as “the President from Kenya,” he blatantly lied: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2017 at 1:05 am
All security systems–including those considered the best–are manned by humans. And humans are and will always be imperfect creatures.
So there will inevitably be times when security agents miss the assassin or terrorist intent on mayhem. For example:
- In September, 1975, two women–Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore–tried to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford on two separate occasions.
- Fromme was tackled by a Secret Service agent. Moore’s aim was deflected by Oliver Sipple, a Marine and Vietnam veteran, thus saving Ford’s life.
Gerald Ford being hustled from danger by Secret Service agents
Until these incidents, the Secret Service profile of a potential assassin didn’t include a woman.
- On March 30, 1981, John W. Hinckley, a psychotic obsessed with actress Jodie Foster, gained access to a line of reporters waiting to throw questions at President Ronald Reagan.
- As Reagan got into his bulletproof Presidential limousine, Hinckley drew a pistol and opened fire. Wounded, Reagan escaped death by inches.
The Reagan Assassination attempt
The Secret Service Service had failed to prevent the attack because no one–until that moment–had attacked a President from the section reserved for reporters.
- On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists armed with boxcutters highjacked four American jetliners and turned them into fuel-bombs.
- Two of the airliners struck the North and South towers of the World Trade Center, destroying both structures.
- A third hit the Pentagon.
- The fourth–United Airlines Flight 93–crashed when it was diverted from its intended target (the White House or Congress) by passengers who resolved to fight back.
- Three thousand Americans died that day–in New York City, Washington, D., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Until this day of catastrophe, no highjacker had turned a jumbo-jet into a fuel-bomb. Passengers had been advised to cooperate with highjackers, not resist them.
So how will the next 9/11 happen? In all likelihood, like this:
- A terrorist–or, more likely, several terrorists–will sign up for one or more airline “VIP screening” programs.
- They will be completely clean–no arrests, no convictions.
- They may well be respectable citizens in their communities.
- They will probably have amassed enough “frequent flier miles” to ingratiate themselves with the airlines and convince the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) of their integrity.
- Then, one day, they will breeze through their selected airports–
- Without removing their belts and shoes;
- Without undergoing pat-down searches;
- Without being required to remove laptops and other electronic devices from their carry-ons;
- Without exposing their electronic devices to X-ray technology.
- Then they will board planes–either as part of an individual terrorist effort or a coordinated one, a la 9/11.
And then it will be too late.
Memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93
The TSA/airlines’ VIP programs are based on the assumption that someone who has completed a security check in the past need not be re-checked in the future.
This assumption has proven false for American Intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA.
- FBI agent Robert Hanssen spied for Soviet and Russian Intelligence services for 22 years (1979-2001). He’s now serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado.
- CIA agent Aldrich Ames betrayed American secrets–including those Russians who had shared them–to Soviet and Russian espionage agencies from 1985 to 1994. He is likewise serving a life sentence.
Even requiring an agent to undergo repeated security checks is no guarantee of trustworthiness.
When asked about how he repeatedly passed CIA polygraph tests, Ames said: “There’s no special magic. Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner. Rapport, where you smile and make him think that you like him.”
Thus, as William Shakespeare warned in Hamlet, “one may smile and smile and be a villain”–or a highjacker.
The TSA introduced its Pre-Check program during the fall of 2011. By May, 2017, more than four million travelers had been found worthy of “expedited” status.
In early September, 2013, TSA announced that it would more than double its “expedited screening” program, Pre-Check, from 40 to 100 airports by the end of the year.
Nor is TSA the only organization giving big-spending fliers special treatment at potential risk to their country. For example:
Delta Air Lines offers Sky Priority, described as providing “privileged access through security checkpoints” at select airports.
Another private security program, Clear, collects several pieces of biometric data on well-heeled passengers. Once verified by a kiosk local to the security checkpoint, the passengers are allowed to skirt the security barriers that poor and middle-class folks must pass through.
Priority Access, set up by TSA and the airlines, provides “expedited service” to first-class and business passengers. To qualify, you need only possess certain credit cards–such as the United Mileage Plus Club Card.
Some critics blast this two-tier passenger check-in system as an affront to democratic principles.
“It’s stratifying consumers by class and wealth, because the people who travel a lot usually have higher incomes,” said Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and frequent business traveler.
But there is an even more important reason to immediately disband these programs and require everyone–rich and middle-class alike–to undergo the same level of security screening:
The 3,000 men and women who died horrifically on September 11, 2001, at the hands of airline passengers whom authorities thought could be trusted to board a plane.
Tribute to the vanished World Trade Center
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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WHAT AMERICA KNEW ABOUT TRUMP–BEFORE ELECTING HIM: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2017 at 12:39 am“What did the President know and when did he know it?”
It was the famous question asked by Tennessee U.S. Senator Howard Baker during the 1973 Watergate hearings.
Howard Baker
The question cut to the core of President Richard Nixon’s litany of crimes. And the fact that it was posed by a Republican gave it added power.
More than a year later, Americans learned its answers:
With those revelations, his Presidency was finished.
America has endured four months of the Donald J. Trump Presidency. And his poll ratings have steadily fallen since he took office. As of May 22-28, it stands at 41%.
And, once again, Howard Baker’s slightly altered question resonates with force: “What did the American people know, and when did they know it?”
And the subject of that question is not Richard Nixon but Donald Trump.
Since taking office, Trump has been besieged by reports that members of his 2016 campaign staff collaborated with Russian Intelligence agents to secure his election.
One of these was retired general Mike Flynn–Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser. He was forced to resign after only 23 days in office when news broke of his collusion.
And numerous members of his Cabinet–such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and even Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner–have close ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin or those who act in his name.
Trump has attacked these charges as “fake news”–while supplying no evidence to refute them.
But long before the election, Americans had more than enough knowledge about Trump to judge him unfit for the Oval Office.
Donald Trump
Vladimir Putin
Ku Klux Klan emblem
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