Archive for July, 2021|Monthly archive page
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BERLIN, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL, CNN, COMMISSARS, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRIEDRICH VON PAULUS, GERMAN-SOVIET NON-AGGRESSION PACT, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JOHN BOLTON, JOSEPH STALIN, MALARIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MICK MULVANEY, MOSCOW, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STALINGRAD, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WHITE HOUSE PANDEMIC OFFICE, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TOM BOSSERT, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, WEHRMACHT, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 16, 2021 at 12:39 am
Two dictators. Two crises.
Next up: Donald Trump.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin received multiple warnings that his supposed ally, Nazi Germany, would soon invade Russia. He ignored all of them. And when the invasion came—on June 22, 1941—the result was the loss of 26 million men, women and children and four years of devastation.
President Donald Trump similarly received warnings that Coronavirus was a major world threat—and would likely hit the United States. Like Stalin, he ignored those warnings—with similarly disastrous consequences.
The virus first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. Its first reported victim became ill on December 1.
By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
Coronavirus
According to the March 21, 2020 edition of Rolling Stone magazine: “The United States intelligence community has been warning the president since January and February about the dire consequences that would occur when coronavirus reached America, but the president seemed determined to play down the threat, leaving the country largely unaware and unprepared.”
An anonymous Intelligence official cited by the Washington Post said: “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were—they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it. The system was blinking red.”
Trump first learned of the virus on January 3, 2020. This did not prevent him from playing golf on January 4, 5, 18 and 19.
On January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On January 27, then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get the President to act. But, according to officials who spoke with the Post, Trump was “dismissive” of early briefings “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.”
Trump fired Mulvaney one month later.
Then, for Trump, it was back to the golf course—on February 1, 2, 15.
Refusing to take action against the emerging Coronavirus threat, Trump repeatedly made statements that minimized it.
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
January 30: “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment–five—and those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for us .…that I can assure you.”
February 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do—you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases—11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”
February 28: “[Democrats] tried the impeachment hoax…They lost…. And this is their new hoax.”
A major reason for the spectacular early victories of the German army in Russia was that, from 1936 to 1938, Stalin had gutted his own military by a series of systematic purges. Thus, there were few experienced, competent officers—from army corps commanders to four-star generals—to mount a strategic defense.
Similarly, upon taking office, Trump had gutted the permanent epidemic monitoring and command groups set up inside the White House: The National Security Council (NSC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Pathologically jealous of Barack Obama, Trump tried to destroy every vestige of Obama’s legacy as the first black President of the United States. And these disease-monitoring groups were set up by Obama following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014.
In the spring of 2018, Trump pushed Congress to cut $15 billion from national health spending—and cutting the global disease-fighting budgets of the Centers for Disease Control, National Security Council, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In April, 2018, then-National Security Adviser John Bolton forced Tom Bossert, director of the infectious disease unit at DHS, to resign—along with his entire team.
On February 29, the first American died of Coronavirus.
Trump continued to be unconcerned about the growing threat.
On March 7, reporters asked him if he was concerned that Coronavirus had arrived in Washington, D.C. He replied: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”
And in a March 9 tweet, Trump wrote: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Perhaps most dangerously of all, Trump from the outset blatantly contradicted health officials—even when standing next to them at press conferences.
On March 21, Trump insisted he had a “very good” feeling about using a malaria drug to combat the virus. It fell to Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to set the record straight: “No.”
By January 20, 2021—the end of Trump’s term—the United States had more than 24.2 million confirmed Coronavirus cases—and more than 400,000 deaths.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BERLIN, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL, CNN, COMMISSARS, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRIEDRICH VON PAULUS, GERMAN-SOVIET NON-AGGRESSION PACT, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JOHN BOLTON, JOSEPH STALIN, MALARIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MICK MULVANEY, MOSCOW, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS OF WAR, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STALINGRAD, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WHITE HOUSE PANDEMIC OFFICE, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TOM BOSSERT, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, WEHRMACHT, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 15, 2021 at 12:25 am
Two dictators. Two crises.
First up: Joseph Stalin.
“I know what Hitler’s up to. He thinks he’s outsmarted me. But in actuality, it is I who have outsmarted him.”
So spoke Joseph Stalin, absolute dictator of the Soviet Union, to his future successor, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1939.
Less than two years later, on June 22, 1941, three million German soldiers poured across the western border of the Soviet Union.
On August 23, 1939, Stalin had signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. The reason: Each dictator got what he wanted—for the moment. Hitler was planning to invade Poland in a matter of days—and he wanted to avoid a war with the Soviet Union. And Stalin got what he wanted: The eastern half of Poland.
Joseph Stalin
The agreement stunned the world. Since 1919, Nazis and Communists had fought bitter battles against each other in the streets of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
When this was replaced in 1933 by the Third Reich, German Communists were rounded up and imprisoned, if not murdered, by Hitler’s ruthless secret police, the Schutzstaffel (“Protective Squads”).
For the moment, however, all of that was conveniently forgotten.
But Hitler hadn’t forgotten his life’s ambition to conquer the Soviet Union and utterly destroy “the scourge of Jewish-Marxism.”
Stalin received numerous warnings from the United States and Great Britain about the coming invasion. But he dismissed them as efforts by the West to trick him into violating the pact and turning Nazi Germany into his mortal enemy.
When informed of the attack, Stalin at first believed it was being made by rogue German forces. He refused to order an immediate counterattack. Upon being convinced that the Wehrmacht intended to wage all-out war, he went into a funk in his dacha and shut himself off from everyone. To his closest associates he wailed: “Lenin left us a great inheritance and we, his heirs, have fucked it all up!”
Meanwhile, the Red Air Force was destroyed on the ground by the awesome Luftwaffe. And the Wehrmacht was advancing at a rate of 25 miles a day.
German soldiers marching through Russia
On July 3, after 10 days of brooding (and probably drinking heavily) in his dacha, Stalin finally took to the airways. He didn’t speak live; Radio Moscow played a recording of his voice across the Soviet Union.
Never a spellbinding orator, Stalin spoke in slow and faltering tones. Nevertheless, his opening words were startling: “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Men of our army and navy! I am addressing you, my friends!”
Stalin had never addressed an audience this way, and he never would again. Born Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili, he had given himself the name of “Stalin”—“Man of Steel.” And he had lived up to it, sending tens of thousands to the Soviet penal system known as the Gulag while ordering the executions of tens of thousands of others.
He said the “peace loving” Soviet Union had been attacked by “fiends and cannibals.” He claimed the non-aggression pact with Germany had given the army much-needed time to rearm and reorganize its forces. He claimed the Germans wanted to restore the rule of the landlords and re-establish Tsarism.
He repeatedly spoke of the treachery of the enemy—and of the need for constant vigilance against traitors: “We must wage a ruthless fight against all disorganizers of the rear, deserters, panic-mongers and rumor-mongers.”
This was accompanied by orders unprecedented in any other army: Those taken prisoner by the Germans were to be considered traitors—and shot or imprisoned. Those suspected of wounding themselves to avoid combat were also subject to summary execution. So were soldiers who had been legitimately wounded in battle but were suspected of inflicting those injuries.
The first two years of the war—1941 to 1943—proved disastrous for the Soviet Union.
During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them. An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war (POWs) fell into German hands. Of these, at least 3.5 million died in custody.
But then the infamous Russian cold and snows of winter halted the Wehrmacht before Moscow. In the summer of 1942 German forces once again mounted a ferocious offensive, driving all the way to the Volga—and Stalingrad.
But they became bogged down in bitter house-to-house fighting. With the arrival of winter, Soviet forces surrounded the Wehrmacht’s powerful Sixth Army. The besiegers became the besieged. On February 2, 1943, Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrendered what remained of his army. The battle cost Germany 500,000 men, including 91,000 taken prisoner.
As the Red Army finally began to go over on the offensive, Stalin relaxed the iron controls that had long stifled creativity on the part of his commandeers.
The infamous political commissars were removed from control over Russian generals. Gold braid and fancy uniforms were manufactured and rushed to the front as morale boosters.
At last, Stalin realized there was no way to win a life-and-death struggle than to give his soldiers the flexibility they needed.
The war would last another two years—costing the Soviet Union at least 26 million citizens—before it ended with the Red flag flying over Berlin.
60 MINUTES, 9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BASHAR AL-ASSAD, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, CARLOS THE JACKAL, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HAITI, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPERIAL HUBRIS, IRAN, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND THE LEVANT, ISRAEL, JOSEPH BIDEN, MARCHING TOWARD HELL, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL SCHEUER, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER KING, PETER KINIG, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SHAH OF IRAN, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 14, 2021 at 12:11 am
For America to avoid permanent military entanglements in the Middle East, it must learn to mind its own business.
Perhaps the most important reason for doing so: America’s past efforts in that region have usually gone horribly awry.
Two examples should suffice:
Iran: Mohammad Mosaddegh was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953. His decision to nationalize the Iranian oil industry led to his overthrow in a CIA coup.
He was replaced by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled until 1979 when a national upheaval forced him to flee. Iranians have never forgiven the United States for subjecting them to the 25-year reign of a brutal despot.
Shah of Iran
Afghanistan: In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. America began supplying shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan Mujahideen fighters. These shifted the balance of the war to the Afghans, who brought down countless Soviet airplanes and helicopters.
Deprived of air supremacy, the Soviet Army lost 14,453 killed and 53,753 wounded, and withdrew by 1989.
Americans congratulated themselves on their Realpolitic. But many of the Stingers remained in the hands of jihadists—who decided that America was now “The Great Satan.”
One of those jihadists: Osama bin Laden.
According to Michael Scheuer, a primary step for disengaging from the Middle East is for America to its role as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran—as well as an author, historian, foreign policy critic and political analyst.
Michael Scheuer
For decades, the United States has pursued two policies in the Middle East—one based on relations with the Arab world and the other based on relations with Israel.
Policy 1: Maintaining access to vast amounts of Arab oil at low prices.
Policy 2: Maintaining the security of Israel.
Since the Arabs and Israelis hate each other, each side constantly tries to sway American support in its direction.
Every step the United States takes to defend Israel—diplomatically or militarily—ignites hatred of Americans among Islamics.
And every step—diplomatically or militarily—the United States takes to improve its relations with Islamic countries convinces Israelis that they’re being “sold out.”
In short: The United States is like a giant with one foot stuck in Israel and the other stuck in the Islamic world—leaving his private parts fully exposed to both.
This is not to deny that Israel has a right to exist. Every nation—including Israel—has the absolute right to defend itself from aggression.
But no nation—including Israel—has the right to expect another nation to act as its permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. America, however, was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
Another reason many Americans feel committed to Israel: Many fundamentalist Christians believe that, for Jesus Christ to awaken from his 2,000-year slumber, Israel must first re-conquer every inch of territory it supposedly held during the reign of Kings David and Solomon.
Right-wing Christian fantasy: Dead man hovering
After Christ returns, they believe, the Jews will face a choice: Become Christians or go to hell. For evangelical Christians, Jews remain the eternal “Christ killers.”
And if Jews must assume temporary control of the Middle East to bring about the return of a man who died 2,000 years ago, so be it.
This is also the view of many Right-wing members of the House of Representatives and Senate.
Unfortunately, such unbalanced views are shared by millions of equally irrational evangelical Christians.
During his October 9, 2013 appearance before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael Scheuer absolutely rejected the conservatives’ assertion that jihadists wage war on America because they “hate us for our freedoms.”
SCHEUER: These people are fighting for something substantive, for something religious….They are not going to fight us because we have women in the workplace.
That is an insanity. What they are fighting us about is what we do.…Invariably, they attribute their motivation to U.S. and Western military intervention and support for Israel and Muslim tyrannies.
Scheuer’s take on Israel brought him into direct conflict with Rep. Peter T. King (R-New York).
Congressman Peter T. King
KING: I would just say we would have more dead Americans if we didn’t stand by our allies in the Middle East. We would just encourage al-Qaeda to take advantage of us.
SCHEUER: You know, you are presiding over a bankruptcy. What can be worse? What has been the goal of al-Qaeda since it was formed? To bankrupt the United States. Who is winning today, sir? We are done like dinner.
KING: We are winning and we will continue to win unless we take the advice of people like you.
SCHEUER: Sir, you are exactly wrong. We are losing. Two U.S. field armies were defeated by men in the field with weapons from the Korean War.
KING: The fact is we have not been successfully attacked since September 11.
SCHEUER: The fact is, sir, we have had two military defeats overseas, which is far more important.
And, warns Scheuer, more defeats—domestic and international—lie ahead unless the United States radically changes its policies toward the Middle East.
60 MINUTES, 9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BASHAR AL-ASSAD, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, CARLOS THE JACKAL, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HAITI, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPERIAL HUBRIS, IRAN, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND THE LEVANT, ISRAEL, JOSEPH BIDEN, MARCHING TOWARD HELL, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL SCHEUER, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER KING, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SHAH OF IRAN, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 13, 2021 at 12:10 am
According to Michael Scheuer, the United States faces a danger that threatens “the core of our social and civil institutions.”
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran who, from 1996 to 1999, headed Alec Station, the CIA’s unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center.
He’s also the author of two seminal works on America’s fight against terrorism: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (2003) and Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (2008).
And in Marching Toward Hell he bluntly indicts the “profound and willful ignorance” of America’s “bipartisan governing elite.”
Scheuer defines this elite as “the inbred set of individuals who have influenced…drafted and conducted U.S. foreign policy” since 1973.Within that group are:
- Politicians
- Journalists
- Academics
- Preachers
- Civil servants
- Military officers
- Philanthropists.
“Some are Republicans, others Democrats; some are evangelicals, others atheists; some are militarists, others pacifists; some are purveyors of Western civilization, others are multiculturalists,” writes Scheuer.
But for all their political and/or philosophical differences, the members of this governing elite share one belief in common: “An unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
And he warns that this “bipartisan governing elite” must radically change its policies–such as unconditional support for Israel and corrupt, tyrannical Muslim governments.
Otherwise, Americans will be locked in an endless “hot war” with the Islamic world.
On September 28, 2014, President Barack Obama provided an example of this “unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
In an appearance on 60 Minutes, Obama spoke about his recent decision to commit American troops to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Steve Kroft: I think everybody applauds the efforts that you’ve made and the size of the coalition that has been assembled.
But most of them are contributing money or training or policing the borders, not getting particularly close to the contact. It looks like once again we are leading the operation. We are carrying…
President Obama: Steve, that’s always the case. That’s always the case. America leads. We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world.
And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing. They don’t call Moscow. They call us. That’s the deal.
President Barack Obama
Kroft: I mean, it looks like we are doing 90%.
Obama: Steve…when there’s an earthquake in Haiti, take a look at who’s leading the charge making sure Haiti can rebuild. That’s how we roll. And that’s what makes this America.
Scheuer believed that America shouldn’t be the world’s 9-1-1 number. And that the place to start was by not deploying troops to Syria.
By the time Obama gave his 60 Minutes interview, more than 470,000 people had been killed in Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war. The conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
And cheering on America’s intervention was the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—which was safely based in Great Britain.
According to its website:
“The silence of the International community for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria encourages the criminals to kill more and more Syrian people because they have not found anyone that deter them from continuing their crimes that cause to wound more than 1,500,000 people; some of them with permanent disabilities, make hundreds of thousands children without parents, displace more than half of Syrian people and destroy infrastructure, private and public properties.”
In short: It’s the duty of non-Muslims to bring civilized behavior to Islamics.
In fact, there were powerful reasons why the United States should steer clear of that conflict.
First, since 1979, the U.S. State Department had listed Syria as a sponsor of terrorism.
Among the terrorist groups it supports: Hizbollah and Hamas. For years, Syria provided a safehouse in Damascus to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–-the notorious terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal.
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–“Carlos the Jackal”
Second, there were no “good Syrians” for the United States to support––only murderers who had long served a tyrant and other murderers who wished to become the next tyrant.
Third, the United States didn’t know what it wanted to do in Syria, except “send a message.”
Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist, wrote: “War is the continuation of state policy by other means.” But President Barack Obama didn’t state his “state policy” toward Syria—or what he intended to gain by attacking it.
Obama had said he wasn’t “after regime-change.” That would leave Assad in power–-and free to go on killing those who resist his rule.
For America to avoid permanent military entanglements in the Middle East, it must learn to mind its own business.
Among Michael Scheuer’s warnings: The United States cannot defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) through air power alone.
President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against ISIL in September, 2014. Since then, the United States Air Force has dropped thousands of bombs on ISIL convoys.
60 MINUTES, 9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BASHAR AL-ASSAD, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, CARLOS THE JACKAL, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HAITI, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPERIAL HUBRIS, IRAN, ISLAM, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND THE LEVANT, ISRAEL, JOSEPH BIDEN, MARCHING TOWARD HELL, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL SCHEUER, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER KING, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SHAH OF IRAN, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 12, 2021 at 12:05 am
On July 9, Conservative New York Times Columnist David Brooks offered the case for why the United States should retain its military forces in Afghanistan.
He did so in response to President Joseph Biden’s July 8 announcement that the withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan would conclude by August 31:
“We did not go to Afghanistan to nation build. It’s the right and the responsibility of Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
America had attacked Afghanistan in October, 2001, in response to the September 11 attacks orchestrated by Al Quaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was then a “guest” of the country’s ruling Taliban, which refused to turn him over.
Osama bin Laden
The initial goal of American military forces had been simple and direct: Find Bin Laden—and kill him.
But by December, 2001, Bin Laden was no longer in Afghanistan. He was thought to be living somewhere in the “no-man’s-land” between that country and Pakistan.
At that point, American forces could—and should—have been withdrawn.
But they weren’t.
Instead, the mission became a “civilize-the-barbarians” one. That is: Make Afghanistan a democracy where everyone—especially women—could be safe from hardline Islamic fundamentalists intent on creating a theocratic dictatorship.
In previous years, Brooks’ argument for retaining American troops in Afghanistan would have been made by liberals—and furiously assailed by conservatives.
On the July 9 edition of The PBS Newshour, Brooks said: “I think [Biden]’s making a mistake [in withdrawing troops from Afghanistan].
“And it’s become obvious in record time that it’s a mistake. When he announced the policy initially, he said he had faith in the Afghan government to hold Afghanistan together from the Taliban. That has fallen apart.
“…Eighty-five percent of the territory has already fallen to the Taliban. The Taliban seems completely confident they will take over.
“I think it was 2014 or so, when this Pakistani young lady, Malala, won the Nobel Prize, and who was shot in the head by the Taliban for going to school. There are a lot of Afghan Malalas out there. And we were all moved by her.
“And we all sympathized and thought that was a very important cause that young women in this part of the world should be able to get an education. And we’re walking away from that. We’re walking away from the idea that Afghanistan will stay one country.
“…So, to me, what we were doing over the last year, which was like 2,500 troops, relatively low casualties, was a price worth paying for humanitarian and strategic reasons.”
And when the United States isn’t voluntarily placing its soldiers in harm’s way, world leaders are calling for them to be placed there.
On July 7, Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, plunging an always chaotic “nation” into even greater chaos. On July 10, Haiti’s interim government asked the United States to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure as it tries to stabilize the country.
Anticipating such a request, Brooks said on the July 9 edition of The PBS Newshour:
“Even the story earlier in the program on Haiti, if Haiti is asking us to come in to stabilize Haiti, is that our role anymore? It used to be you had some sense of where America’s posture was. I don’t think I have a sense of where American’s posture is right now.”
Which brings us to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer.
According to Scheuer, for all their ideological differences, Republicans and Democrats share one belief in common: An unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran—as well as an author, historian, foreign policy critic and political analyst.
Michael Scheuer
From 1996 to 1999 he headed Alec Station, the CIA’s unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center.
He has served as a news analyst for CBS News and adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies.
And he’s convinced that if America wants peace, it must learn to mind its own business.
He’s also the author of two seminal works on America’s fight against terrorism: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (2003) and Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq (2008).
Scheuer argues that Islamics don’t hate Americans because of “our way of life”—with its freedoms of speech and worship and its highly secular, commercialized culture. Instead, Islamic hatred toward the United States stems from America’s six longstanding policies in the Middle East:
- U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments;
- U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula;
- U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis’ thrall;
- U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low;
- U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; and
- U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants.
Scheuer contends that no amount of American propaganda will win “the hearts and minds” of Islamics who can “see, hear, experience, and hate” these policies firsthand.
But there is another danger facing America, says Scheuer, one that threatens “the core of our social and civil institutions.”
ABC NEWS, ALCOHOLISM, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BERNADINE DOHRN, BILL AYERS, BUMS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHESA BOUDIN, CNN, CRIME, CROOKS AND LIARS, CVS, CVS PHARMACY, DAILY KOZ, DRUG ADDICTION, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEAPTITUS C, HEPATITIS B, HILLARY RONEN, HIV, HOMELESSNESS, HUMAN FECES, INFECTIOUS DISEASES, LONDON BREED, MEDIA MATTERS, MENTAL ILLNESS, MOHAMMED NURU, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAVIGATION CENTERS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ORACLE, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PUBLIC HEALTH, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO, SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, SAN FRANCISCO TRAVEL ASSOCIATION, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOURISM, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WALGREENS, WALGREENS DRUG STORES, WEATHER UNDERGROUND, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2021 at 12:13 am
Current estimates peg the “homeless” population of San Francisco at about 8,000.
In 2019, a survey found that an estimated 2,831 members of this population were sheltered. Another 5,180 were unsheltered. This made for a total of 8,011.
The vast majority of them fall into four groups:
- Druggies
- Drunks
- Mentally ill
- Bums.
Or, to put it more discretely: DDMBs.
Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums.
But another reason why many of these shelters go unused is: They don’t allow their guests to drink up or drug up.
Huge areas of the city are covered in feces, urine, trash and used hypodermic needles. Hospitals overflow with patients that have fallen ill due to the contamination.
The city will spend about $852 million in 2020-21 on DDMBs. Dividing that amount by about 8,000 DDMBs provides the figure of $106,500 per DDMB per year.
In February, 2018, NBC News surveyed 153 blocks of the city—an area more than 20 miles. That area includes popular tourist spots like Union Square and the cable car turnaround. It’s bordered by Van Ness Avenue, Market Street, Post Street and Grant Avenue. And it’s also home to City Hall, schools, playgrounds and a police station.
Most of the trash found consisted of heaps of garbage, food, and discarded junk—including 100 drug needles and more than 300 piles of feces throughout downtown. And once fecal matter dries, it can become airborne and release deadly viruses, such as the rotavirus.
Another danger posed by DDMBs: Their rampant shoplifting has led to the closing of many Walgreens drug stores in San Francisco.
The Walgreens at 30th Street and Mission Street reported 16 shoplifting incidents between November 2020 and February 2021. Just six blocks away, Walgreens’ products were being sold at an outdoor market.
And there’s no point in expecting help from the police or district attorney’s office.
The website Only in Your State cites “the eight most dangerous places in San Francisco” as:
- The Tenderloin
- Hunter’s Point
- Bayview
- Mission District
- Outer Mission
- Western Addition
- South of Market and
- Golden Gate Park.
Those areas encompass the major parts of the city—which is only 46 square miles. That alone tells you how ineffective the SFPD is at preventing crime.
Then there’s District Attorney Chesa Boudin—the son of Weather Underground parents convicted of murdering two police officers and a Brink’s security guard in 1981. Boudin was raised by two more Weather members—Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Boudin blames “society” for the crimes committed by hardened criminals—and the victims they leave in their wake.
Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk.
Walgreens is not the only pharmacy to be victimized by DDMBs. A CVS location a few blocks away, at 995 Market Street, also closed due to shoplifting.
Target stores in the city are now closing at 6 p.m. because of rampant shoplifting.
The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen” campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.
But housing is in short supply in San Francisco, and there is no telling how long many of these drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally disabled and bums will stay in them. Or what harm they will wreak on the neighborhoods warehousing them.
Hundreds—if not thousands—of them are heroin addicts. Such people will commit virtually any crime to support their habit. And their crimes of choice are burglary and robbery.
Thus, pouring large numbers of them into San Francisco neighborhoods via “Navigation Centers” guarantees that countless decent citizens will become targets for desperate criminals.
Navigation Centers boast that they ban drug-abuse or drug-dealing on their own premises. But they allow DDMBs to come and go at will. Which means they are free to engage in drug-abuse and/or drug-dealing in the neighborhoods where these centers exist.
Most politicians set their priorities on how popular their programs will be among voters. But San Francisco’s politicians reject practicality for allegiance to Uber liberal ideology.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and those who refuse to work are not reliable voters. Those who are productive, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens do vote.
And many of these people have voted—to not visit San Francisco again.
Hosting conventions is a lucrative business for San Francisco, bringing in about $2 billion each year. But in 2018, a Chicago-based medical association boasting roughly 15,000 conference attendees canceled its planned visit.
And in 2019, Oracle’s OpenWorld voted to cancel its planned convention in San Francisco and be centered from 2020 to 2022 at Caesar’s Forum in Las Vegas. The San Francisco Travel Association estimates that the move will cost the city $64 million in lost revenue.
The reason for both cancellations: San Francisco’s fervent embrace of DDMBs-–and the refusal of attendees to wade through piles of trash, used hypodermic needles, beer bottles, human feces and huge tents on sidewalks.
San Francisco’s embrace of DDMBs threatens not only its residents but the tourism industry on which it depends for its economic survival.
ABC NEWS, ALCOHOLISM, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BERNADINE DOHRN, BILL AYERS, BUMS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHESA BOUDIN, CNN, CRIME, CROOKS AND LIARS, CVS, CVS PHARMACY, DAILY KOZ, DRUG ADDICTION, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEAPTITUS C, HEPATITIS B, HILLARY RONEN, HIV, HOMELESSNESS, HUMAN FECES, INFECTIOUS DISEASES, LONDON BREED, MEDIA MATTERS, MENTAL ILLNESS, MOHAMMED NURU, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAVIGATION CENTERS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ORACLE, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PUBLIC HEALTH, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO, SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, SAN FRANCISCO TRAVEL ASSOCIATION, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOURISM, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WALGREENS, WALGREENS DRUG STORES, WEATHER UNDERGROUND, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 8, 2021 at 12:23 am
Why are Walgreen stores disappearing from San Francisco?
The answer can be summed up in four letters: DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
These are the untouchables of San Francisco. If you doubt it, consider the following:
If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.
According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,879.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 739 square feet.”
So unless you’re a hugely successful IT professional—or narcotics dealer—your chances of being able to afford a San Francisco apartment are lower than Donald Trump’s of winning a “Mr. Congeniality” contest.
But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum.
Why?
Because the Mayor of San Francisco—currently London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.
Run by the city’s Department of Public Health (DPH) it’s called the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program. And it works in two stages:
Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.
Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes.
According to a May 11, 2020 story in City Journal.org:
“The program’s primary purpose is to keep homeless people, the majority of whom are addicts, out of harm’s way during the pandemic. By getting their substance of choice delivered, the thinking goes, the guests may be more apt to remain in their government-funded rooms.
“Another purpose of the program is to protect the public against the spread of coronavirus. The city doesn’t want homeless people who should be staying in their rooms roaming the neighborhood in search of the substances, potentially infecting others.”
After news about these deliveries leaked on social media, DPH claimed that “rumors that guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”
Except that the reports weren’t false.
The program is funded by private philanthropists Nevertheless:
- DPH administers and oversees the program.
- It’s staffed by city workers, including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, and security personnel.
- The department manages, stores, and distributes the substances.
- Employee time is involved.
Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers, even if an outside group provides some of the funding.
“Managed alcohol and tobacco use makes it possible to increase the number of guests who stay in isolation and quarantine and, notably, protects the health of people who might otherwise need hospital care for life-threatening alcohol withdrawal,” says DPH spokeswoman Jenna Lane.
“Many isolation and quarantine guests tell us they use these substances daily,” says Lane, “and this period in our care has allowed some people to connect for the first time with addiction treatment and harm reduction therapy.”
Notice the word “guests.” As if San Francisco—or any city—should welcome hordes of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums as assets to its community.
“Harm reduction” therapy, according to the Harm Reduction Coalition, is “a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use.”
DPH said in a statement that these “guests” are screened for substance addictions and asked if they’d like to stop or have support to reduce their use.
If they say they want to remain alcoholics and/or drug addicts, they’re provided with their substance of choice.
The department also provides methadone for “guests” who are addicted to opioids.
DPH staffers have helped people buy “medical marijuana,” the agency told local affiliate ABC7.
But the agency doesn’t “facilitate purchases of recreational cannabis,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.
Nor does the agency require that its addict “guests” remain quarantined. It merely asks that they do so.
When they’re not injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “guests” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.
Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs.
As a result, Walgreens has closed 17 stores in San Francisco.
“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”
“Why are the shelves empty?” a customer asked a clerk at a Walgreens store.
“Go ask the people in the alleys, they have it all,” replied the clerk.
One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft.
CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.
Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.
Under California law, theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor, but many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.
The maximum sentence they could get: Six months.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 7, 2021 at 12:15 am
In January, 2018, the White House of President Donald Trump banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believed that leaks wouldn’t end unless Trump started firing staffers. But that risked firing the wrong people. To protect themselves, those who leaked might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
Among the methods used to keep conversations secret:
- Turning on the TV or radio to full volume.
- Turning on a water faucet at full blast.
- Turning the dial of a rotary phone to the end—and sticking a pencil in one of the small holes for numbers.
- Standing six to nine feet away from the hung-up receiver.
- Going for “a walk in the woods.”
- Saying nothing sensitive on the phone.
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels.
He’s never been able to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does.
At Christmastime, 2018, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.”
In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”
By saying that “SNL’s” right to parody him “should be tested in courts, can’t be legal?” Trump chose to ignore the role of the First Amendment in American history.
Cartoonists portrayed President Andrew Jackson (1829 -1837) wearing a king’s robes and crown, and holding a scepter. This thoroughly enraged Jackson—who had repulsed a British invasion in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans. To call a man a monarchist in 1800s America was the same as calling him a Communist in the 1950s.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was lampooned as an ape and a blood-stained tyrant. And Theodore Roosevelt proved a cartoonist’s delight, with attention given to his bushy mustache and thick-lensed glasses.
Thus, the odds are slight that an American court would even hear a case brought by Trump against “SNL.”
Such a case made its way through the courts in the late 1980s when the Reverend Jerry Falwell sued pornographer Larry Flyint over a satirical interview in Hustler magazine. In this, “Falwell” admitted that his first sexual encounter had been with his own mother.
In 1988, the United States Supreme Court, voting 8-0, ruled in Flynt’s favor, saying that the media had a First Amendment right to parody a celebrity.
“Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist—an appointee of President Richard Nixon—wrote in his majority decision in the case.
Moreover, Trump would have bene forced to take the stand in such a case. The attorneys for NBC and “SNL” would have insisted on it.
The results would have been:
- Unprecedented legal exposure for Trump—who would have been forced to answer virtually any questions asked or drop his lawsuit; and
- Unprecedented humiliation for a man who lives as much for his ego as his pocketbook. Tabloids and late-night comedians would have had a field-day with such a lawsuit.
And while Trump loves to sue those he hates, he does not relish taking the stand himself.
On October 12, 2016, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
He accused the Times of inventing accusations to hurt his Presidential candidacy. And he threatened to sue for libel if the Times reported the women’s stories. He also said he would sue the women making the accusations.
He never sued the Times, The Post, People—or the women.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 6, 2021 at 12:42 am
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
McCain, a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967, and captured. He spent five and a half years as a POW in North Vietnam—and was often brutally tortured. He wasn’t released until March 14, 1973.
Recently, he had opposed the nomination of Gina Haspel as director of the CIA.
The reason: In 2002, Haspel had operated a “black” CIA site in Thailand where Islamic terrorists were often waterboarded to make them talk.
For John McCain, waterboarding was torture, even if it didn’t leave its victims permanently scarred and disabled.
Aware that the 81-year-old McCain was dying of brain cancer, Sadler joked to intimates about the Senator’s opposition to Haspel: “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying anyway.”
John McCain
Leaked to CNN by an anonymous White House official, Sadler’s remark sparked fierce criticism—and demands for her firing.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain, said: “Ms. Sadler, may I remind you that John McCain has a lot of friends in the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle. Nobody is laughing in the Senate.”
“People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday,” said then-former Vice President Joe Biden.
“John McCain makes America great. Father, grandfather, Navy pilot, POW hero bound by honor, an incomparable and irrepressible statesman. Those who mock such greatness only humiliate themselves and their silent accomplices,” tweeted former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Officially, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to confirm or deny Sadler’s joke: “I’m not going to get into a back and forth because people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings.”
Unofficially, Sanders was furious—not at the joke about a dying man, but that someone had leaked it. After assailing the White House communications team, she pouted: “I am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. And that’s just disgusting.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
No apology was offered by any official at the White House—including President Donald Trump.
In fact, Senior White House communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp reportedly expressed her support for Sadler: “I stand with Kelly Sadler.”
On May 11—the day after Sadler’s comment was reported—reporters asked Sanders if the tone set by Trump had caused Sadler to feel comfortable in telling such a joke.
“Certainly not!” predictably replied Sanders, adding: “We have a respect for all Americans, and that is what we try to put forward in everything we do, but in word and in action, focusing on doing things that help every American in this country every single day.”
On May 14, 2018, Trump revealed his “respect” for “all Americans”—especially those working in the White House.
“The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible,” Trump tweeted.
“With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!”
This from the man who, during the 2016 Presidential campaign, shouted: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks!”
Of course, that was when Russian Intelligence agents were exposing the secrets of Hillary Clinton, his Presidential opponent.
And, in a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump ordered an all-out investigation to find the person who leaked Sadler’s “joke.”
In January, 2018, the White House had banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
Officials now had two choices:
- Leave their cell phones in their cars, or,
- When they arrive for work, deposit them in lockers installed at West Wing entrances. They can reclaim their phones when they leave.
Several staffers huddled around the lockers throughout the day, checking messages they had missed. The lockers buzzed and chirped constantly from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
More ominously, well-suited men roamed the halls of the West Wing, carrying devices that pick up signals from phones that aren’t government-issued. “Did someone forget to put their phone away?” one of the men would ask if such a device was detected.
If no one said they have a phone, the detection team started searching the room.
Phone detector
The devices can tell which type of phone is in the room.
This is the sort of behavior Americans have traditionally—and correctly—associated with dictatorships
In his memo outlining the policy, former Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that anyone who violated the phone ban could be punished, including “being indefinitely prohibited from entering the White House complex.”
Yet even these draconian methods did not end White House leaks.
White House officials still spoke with reporters throughout the day and often aired their grievances, whether about annoying colleagues or competing policy priorities.
Aides with private offices sometimes called reporters on their desk phones. Others used their cell phones to call or text reporters during lunch breaks.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2021 at 12:15 am
“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake news NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!”
So tweeted President Donald J. Trump on February 17, 2019.
Less than nine hours earlier, “SNL” had once again opened with actor Alec Baldwin mocking the 45th President. In this skit, Baldwin/Trump gave a rambling press conference declaring: “We need wall. We have a tremendous amount of drugs flowing into this country from the southern border—or The Brown Line, as many people have asked me not to call it.”
Right-wingers denounce their critics as “snowflakes”—that is, emotional, easily offended and unable to tolerate opposing views.
Yet here was Donald Trump, who prides himself on his toughness, whining like a child bully who has just been told that other people have rights, too.
The answer is simple: Trump is a tyrant—and a longtime admirer of tyrants.
Donald Trump
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Asked by a Fox News reporter why he praised murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, he replied: “He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
In short: Kim must be doing something right because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Actually, for all their differences in appearance and nationality, Trump shares at least two similarities with Kim.
Kim Jong-Un
Blue House (Republic of Korea) [KOGL (http://www.kogl.or.kr/open/info/license_info/by.do)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
First, both of them got a big boost into wealth and power from their fathers.
- Trump’s father, Fred Trump, a real estate mogul, reportedly gave Donald $200 million to enter the real estate business. It was this sum that formed the basis for Trump’s eventual rise to wealth and fame—and the Presidency.
- Kim’s father was Kim Jong-Il, who ruled North Korea as dictator from 1994 to 2011. When his father died in 2011, Kim Jong-Un immediately succeeded him, having been groomed for years to do so.
Second, both Trump and Kim have brutally tried to stamp out any voices that contradict their own.
- Trump has constantly attacked freedom of the press, even labeling it “the enemy of the American people.” He has also slandered his critics on Twitter—which refused to enforce its “Terms of Service” and revoke his account until he incited the January 6 attack on Congress.
- Kim has attacked his critics with firing squads and prison camps. Amnesty International estimates that more than 200,000 North Koreans are now suffering in labor camps throughout the country.
Thus, Trump—-elected to lead the “free world”—believes, like all dictators:
- People are evil everywhere—so who am I to judge who’s better or worse? All that counts is gaining and holding onto power.
- And if you can do that, it doesn’t matter how you do so.
Actually, it’s not uncommon for dictators to admire one another—as the case of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler nicely illustrates.
Joseph Stalin
After Hitler launched a blood-purge of his own private Stormtroopers army on June 30, 1934, Stalin exclaimed: “Hitler, what a great man! That is the way to deal with your political opponents!”
And Hitler was equally admiring of Stalin’s notorious ruthlessness: “After the victory over Russia,” he told his intimates, “it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country, with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
One characteristic shared by all dictators is intolerance toward those whose opinions differ with their own. Especially those who dare to actually criticize or make fun of them.
All Presidents have thin skins. John F. Kennedy often phoned reporters and called them “sonofbitches” when he didn’t like stories they had written on him.
Richard Nixon went further, waging all-out war against the Washington Post for its stories about his criminality.
But Donald Trump took his hatred of dissidents to an entirely new—and dangerous—level.
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
Trump was outraged—not that one of his aides had joked about a man stricken with brain cancer, but that someone in the White House had leaked it.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BERLIN, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL, CNN, COMMISSARS, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRIEDRICH VON PAULUS, GERMAN-SOVIET NON-AGGRESSION PACT, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JOHN BOLTON, JOSEPH STALIN, MALARIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MICK MULVANEY, MOSCOW, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STALINGRAD, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WHITE HOUSE PANDEMIC OFFICE, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TOM BOSSERT, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, WEHRMACHT, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WONKETTE
DICTATORS IN CRISIS: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 16, 2021 at 12:39 amTwo dictators. Two crises.
Next up: Donald Trump.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin received multiple warnings that his supposed ally, Nazi Germany, would soon invade Russia. He ignored all of them. And when the invasion came—on June 22, 1941—the result was the loss of 26 million men, women and children and four years of devastation.
President Donald Trump similarly received warnings that Coronavirus was a major world threat—and would likely hit the United States. Like Stalin, he ignored those warnings—with similarly disastrous consequences.
The virus first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. Its first reported victim became ill on December 1.
By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
Coronavirus
According to the March 21, 2020 edition of Rolling Stone magazine: “The United States intelligence community has been warning the president since January and February about the dire consequences that would occur when coronavirus reached America, but the president seemed determined to play down the threat, leaving the country largely unaware and unprepared.”
An anonymous Intelligence official cited by the Washington Post said: “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were—they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it. The system was blinking red.”
Trump first learned of the virus on January 3, 2020. This did not prevent him from playing golf on January 4, 5, 18 and 19.
On January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On January 27, then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get the President to act. But, according to officials who spoke with the Post, Trump was “dismissive” of early briefings “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.”
Trump fired Mulvaney one month later.
Then, for Trump, it was back to the golf course—on February 1, 2, 15.
Refusing to take action against the emerging Coronavirus threat, Trump repeatedly made statements that minimized it.
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
January 30: “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment–five—and those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for us .…that I can assure you.”
February 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do—you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases—11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”
February 28: “[Democrats] tried the impeachment hoax…They lost…. And this is their new hoax.”
A major reason for the spectacular early victories of the German army in Russia was that, from 1936 to 1938, Stalin had gutted his own military by a series of systematic purges. Thus, there were few experienced, competent officers—from army corps commanders to four-star generals—to mount a strategic defense.
Similarly, upon taking office, Trump had gutted the permanent epidemic monitoring and command groups set up inside the White House: The National Security Council (NSC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Pathologically jealous of Barack Obama, Trump tried to destroy every vestige of Obama’s legacy as the first black President of the United States. And these disease-monitoring groups were set up by Obama following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014.
In the spring of 2018, Trump pushed Congress to cut $15 billion from national health spending—and cutting the global disease-fighting budgets of the Centers for Disease Control, National Security Council, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In April, 2018, then-National Security Adviser John Bolton forced Tom Bossert, director of the infectious disease unit at DHS, to resign—along with his entire team.
On February 29, the first American died of Coronavirus.
Trump continued to be unconcerned about the growing threat.
On March 7, reporters asked him if he was concerned that Coronavirus had arrived in Washington, D.C. He replied: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”
And in a March 9 tweet, Trump wrote: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Perhaps most dangerously of all, Trump from the outset blatantly contradicted health officials—even when standing next to them at press conferences.
On March 21, Trump insisted he had a “very good” feeling about using a malaria drug to combat the virus. It fell to Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to set the record straight: “No.”
By January 20, 2021—the end of Trump’s term—the United States had more than 24.2 million confirmed Coronavirus cases—and more than 400,000 deaths.
Share this: