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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 13, 2020 at 12:37 am
On August 11, former Vice President Joe Biden—now the Democratic nominee for President—chose California United States Senator Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential running mate.
Harris had served as District Attorney of San Francisco (2004 – 2011) and as California Attorney General (2011 – 2017). Then, in 2016, she won election to the United States Senate.
In 2019, she ran for the Presidency of the United States. But after 11 months of failing to win major support among voters, she withdrew from the race on December 3.
To tout her candidacy, she had published her memoirs: The Truths We Hold. In these, she described herself as a “progressive prosecutor.”
But among the truths she holds secret: When she served as District Attorney for San Francisco, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal alien felons out of prison—and in the United States.
Today, with millions of illegal aliens from Central and Latin America flooding into the United States, the spotlight has shifted from the incarceration of blacks to that of Hispanics.
Illegal immigration—and what to do about it—is now the hottest political issue in the country.
For liberals of the Democratic party, “open borders” appears to be the solution to illegal immigration. Yet the vast majority of Americans support legal immigration—while rejecting illegal immigration.
And Kamala Harris’ record as San Francisco District Attorney is hardly reassuring on this issue.
Secretly, she created a program, called Back on Track, to train convicted illegal aliens for jobs they could not legally hold. This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris
Completion led to the expunging of a felony conviction, making it highly popular among convicted criminals.
One such alumnus was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal alien who had been arrested twice within eight months—for purse-snatching and selling cocaine.
In July, 2008, four months after pleading guilty to selling cocaine, Izaguirre assaulted Amanda Kiefer, a legal San Francisco resident.
Snatching her purse, he jumped into an SUV, then tried to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and a driver laughing.
The driver slammed on the brakes, sending Kiefer flying onto the pavement and fracturing her skull.
D.A.’s office let illegal immigrants go https://tinyurl.com/yyhp3hb6
Back on Track became a centerpiece of Harris’ campaign for state Attorney General.
Until the the Los Angeles Times questioned her about the Izaguirre case, Harris had never publicly admitted that the program included illegal aliens.
Harris claimed she first learned that illegal aliens were training for jobs only after Izaguirre was arrested for the Kiefer assault.
Harris said it was a “flaw in the design” of the program to let illegal aliens into the program. “I believe we fixed it,” she told the Times.
Harris never released statistics on how many illegal aliens were included since the program started in 2005.
She said that after Izaguirre’s arrest she never asked—or learned—how many illegal aliens were in Back on Track. A strange lapse in curiosity for a prosecutor charged with enforcing the law.
When Harris learned that illegal aliens were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records expunged.
It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
So much for her oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of California “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
From 2005 to 2009, 113 admitted drug dealers graduated from Back on Track. Another 99 were kicked off the program for failing to meet the requirements. They were sentenced under their guilty plea, the D.A.’s office claimed.
Harris told the Times that graduates of Back on Track were less likely than other offenders to commit crimes again. But her spokeswoman refused to offer detailed statistics to back this up.
When Harris became San Francisco District Attorney, she vowed she would “never charge the death penalty.”
Amanda Kiefer left California. Interviewed by the Times, she said she could not understand why San Francisco police and prosecutors would allow convicted illegal aliens back onto the streets.
“If they’re committing crimes,” she said, “I think there’s something wrong that they’re not being deported.”
At the outset of his Presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to choose a woman for his Vice Presidential running mate. Among those he could have chosen:
- Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who stood up to Trump-inspired anti-mask protesters threatening violence; and
- Illinois United States Senator Tammy Duckworth, who, as an Army officer, lost both legs in Iraq in 2004 after her helicopter was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Either would have lent significant gravitas to Biden’s candidacy. But Whitmer and Duckworth suffered the misfortune of being white—at a time when Uber liberals were demanding that Biden pick a “woman of color.”
By which they meant: Any color other than white.
Illegal immigration is President Donald Trump’s signature issue. And he has already tried to portray Biden as soft on crime and harsh on police.
Harris, with her record of protecting criminal illegal aliens at the expense of law-abiding American citizens, will easily fit both of these descriptions.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 12, 2020 at 1:26 am
On March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, speaking at the University of Kansas, called on his fellow citizens to show compassion for those less fortunate and in need of relief through the Federal Government.
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
Finally, Kennedy did something almost no other politician—in his time or since—has ever done: He dared to attack that holy-of-holies, the Gross Domestic Product (then called the Gross National Product).
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product….counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
“It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.
“It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans….
Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
“George Bernard Shaw once wrote, ‘Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?’
“So I come here to Kansas to ask for your help. In the difficult five months ahead, before the convention in Chicago. I ask for your help and for your assistance.
“If you believe that the United States can do better. If you believe that we should change our course of action. If you believe that the United States stands for something here internally as well as elsewhere around the globe, I ask for your help and your assistance and your hand over the period of the next five months.
“And when we win in November….and we begin a new period of time for the United States of America, I want the next generation of Americans to look back upon this period and say as they said of Plato: ‘Joy was in those days, but to live.’ Thank you very much.”
At the end of Kennedy’s wildly popular speech at Kansas State University, photographer Stanley Tretick, of Look magazine, shouted, “This is Kansas, fucking Kansas! He’s going all the fucking way!”
But he didn’t go all the way. On June 5, 1968—82 days after announcing his Presidential candidacy—an assassin’s bullet suddenly halted his short-lived campaign—and his life.
Robert Kennedy’s funeral train
Historian William L. O’Neil delivered a poignant summary of Robert Kennedy’s legacy in his 1971 book, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and through error and tragic accident, failed at…..He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That, too, must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death, something precious vanished from public life.”
As United States Attorney General (1961-1964) Robert F. Kennedy had the courage to wage all-out war on the Mafia. As a United States Senator (1964-1968) he had the compassion to champion aid to impoverished Americans.
Even in his own era—a half-century ago—Robert Kennedy stood out as the only major Presidential candidate who could legitimately make both claims.
Today, most Democrats—battered by decades of Republican charges that they’re “big spenders”—fear supporting big-ticket items to help the poor.
And the Black Lives Matter movement has made any connection to law enforcement a disqualification for higher office—as former California Attorney General Kamala Harris found out as a 2020 Presidential candidate.
America may never again see a Presidential candidate who can combine a strong stand against crime with an equally strong commitment to helping the poor and disadvantaged.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 11, 2020 at 12:07 am
On March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy did what few politicians have ever done: He accepted public responsibility for a war that had since become a national disaster—the Vietnam war.
Addressing a packed audience of students and faculty at Kansas State University, he said:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported—governments, one after another, riddled with corruption, inefficiency, and greed; governments which did not and could not successfully capture and energize the national feeling of their people.
“If that is the case, as it well may be, then I am willing to bear my share of the responsibility, before history and before my fellow citizens. But past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
“Now as ever, we do ourselves best justice when we measure ourselves against ancient tests, as in the Antigone of Sophocles: ‘All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride.’
Sophocles
And he dared to attack the war as more than a military and political disaster: He saw it as a stain on America’s moral fiber:
“Can we ordain to ourselves the awful majesty of God—to decide what cities and villages are to be destroyed, who will live and who will die, and who will join the refugees wandering in a desert of our own creation?
“If it is true that we have a commitment to the South Vietnamese people, we must ask, are they being consulted—in Hue, or Ben Tre, or in the villages from which the three million refugees have fled?
“If they believe all the death and destruction are a lesser evil than the Wet Cong, why did they not warn us when the Viet Cong came into Hue, and the dozens of other cities, before the Tet Offensive? Why did they not join the fight?
“Will it be said of us, as Tacitus said of Rome: ‘They made a desert and called it peace?'”
Robert F. Kennedy
The students gave him an ovation worthy of a rock star.
Time correspondent Hays Gorey said the electricity between Kennedy and the K.S.U. students was “real and rare.” “A good part of it is John F. Kennedy’s, of course, but John Kennedy …himself couldn’t be so passionate, and couldn’t set off such sparks.”
Jim Slattery, who would later be elected to Congress from Kansas, reread the K.S.U. speech during the second Iraq war and decided it was so powerful “because Kennedy was talking about what was right!”
As Kennedy started to leave, students rushed the platform where he stood, knocking over chairs and grabbing at him. They stroked his hair and ripped his shirtsleeves.
Later that day, Kennedy addressed another wildly enthusiastic audience—at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas.
Then he addressed the glaring disparities between rich and poor Americans—a topic now generally ignored by Democrats and turned into an attack line by Republicans:
“All around us, all around us….men have lost confidence in themselves, in each other. It is confidence which has sustained us so much in the past. Rather than answer the cries of deprivation and despair….hundreds of communities and millions of citizens are looking for their answers, to force and repression and private gun stocks— so that we confront our fellow citizen across impossible barriers of hostility and mistrust.
Robert F. Kennedy talking with black children
“And again, I don’t believe that we have to accept that. I don’t believe that it’s necessary in the United States of America. I think that we can work together. I don’t think that we have to shoot at each other, to beat each other, to curse each other and criticize each other, I think that we can do better in this country. And that is why I run for President of the United States….
“I have seen children in Mississippi starving, their bodies so crippled from hunger and their minds have been so destroyed for their whole life that they will have no future. I have seen children in Mississippi—here in the United States—with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars.
“I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation, and we haven’t developed a policy so we can get enough food so that they can live, so that their children, so that their lives are not destroyed, I don’t think that’s acceptable in the United States of America and I think we need a change.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 10, 2020 at 1:37 am
He remains forever frozen in time—young, vigorous, with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice calling on Americans to do better for those less fortunate.
It’s been 52 years since his life was brutally cut short—yet he remains forever the age at which he died: 42. Born in 1925, he would turn 95 on November 20 if he were alive today.
And he exuded an idealism which seems totally out of place with today’s “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” politics.
On March 16, 1968, from the Caucus Room of the Old Senate Office building, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for President of the United States.
Eight years earlier, on January 2, 1960, his brother, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy had announced his own candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination from the same place.
Ten months later, on November 8, that campaign had ended in victory with his election. And that victory, in turn, ended in bitter sorrow with his assassination two years, 10 months and two days later on November 22, 1963.
Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign would not last as long as his late brother’s. Nor would it end in the victory he and his supporters yearned for.
Robert F. Kennedy
Eighty-two days later, he was dead—shot in the back of the head by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab furious at Kennedy’s avowed support for Israel.
For Kennedy, making up his mind to run for the Presidency was no easy task.
Since the assassination of his brother, millions of Americans had assumed—as his admirers or detractors—that he would one day become President.
For his admirers, there was an element of “the once and future king” about this young, intense man with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice.He—they believed—was the man who would somehow avenge his martyred brother by restoring “Camelot” and returning youth, energy and idealism to the White House.
A playwright—Barbara Garson—had even written a 1967 satire depicting then-President Lyndon B. Johnson as the MacBeth-like murderer of John Ken O-Dunc. In the end, he was confronted and killed by Robert Ken O’Dunc.
His detractors saw him as a ruthless upstart who wanted to foist too-liberal policies on the United States. They distrusted his sympathy for the downtrodden—especially blacks and Hispanics. Worse, they saw the Kennedy family as trying to found a dynasty of Presidents that could last until the mid-1980s.
But the real Robert Kennedy was long torn between running against Johnson—whom he had long personally loathed—and letting someone else do so.
Kennedy’s hatred of Johnson—and his irrational belief that LBJ was somehow responsible for his brother’s death—was well-known. And Kennedy feared that if he ran against Johnson, his many enemies would charge he was doing so out of personal animosity.
And there was another reason: Johnson, who had won the Presidency in a landslide in 1964, was certain to seek re-election in 1968. If Kennedy challenged him for the nomination, it might well split the party and result in the election of a Republican that November. And he—Kennedy—would be blamed for it.
Throughout 1966-7, Kennedy was urged to run against Johnson. Still, he dithered.
Then, on March 12, Minnesota United States Senator Eugene McCarthy entered the New Hampshire Democratic primary against Johnson—and won a surprising 42.2% of the vote to Johnson’s 49.4%. Four days later, Robert Kennedy announced his own candidacy.
McCarthy’s supporters were outraged: Their candidate had dared to do what Kennedy had not—directly take on Johnson. And now that he had shown it could be done, the opportunistic Kennedy had jumped in.
On March 18—two days after announcing his candidacy—Kennedy gave his first campaign speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. This was the heart of conservative country, and Kennedy didn’t know how his audience would accept many of his decidedly liberal proposals.
“Do you think they’ll boo him?” his wife, Ethel, asked a friend before the speech. “Will they hate him?”
Arriving at the university, Kennedy ate breakfast at the student union—and told a group of university officials and student leaders: “Some of you may not like what you’re going to hear in a few minutes, but it’s what I believe; and if I’m elected President, it’s what I’m going to do.”
Kansas State University
As events unfolded, he—and Ethel—had no reason to worry.
Kennedy had served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. Yet he had not limited himself to simply fighting organized crime and enforcing civil rights. He had aggressively urged his brother, the President, to take a hard line on fighting the Communist forces in Vietnam.
But now he did something almost no other politician had—or has—ever done: He publicly accepted responsibly for the disaster the war had become since 1965:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 7, 2020 at 12:10 am
More than 500 years ago, the Florentine statesman, Niccolo Machiavelli, warned: A prince…must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to avoid traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those who wish to be only lions do not realize this.
And never is the need greater to imitate the fox than when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Several years ago, a private investigative agency found itself in serious trouble with that agency.
One of its employees had suddenly quit the company—leaving behind a major financial disaster.
That employee—whom I’ll call Pete—had been tasked with sending payroll tax records to the IRS. The company’s owner, Bill, assumed he had carried out his assignment.
Until he learned from the IRS that they had never received the records.
Consider the potential consequences:
- Failing to timely and properly pay federal payroll taxes results in an automatic penalty of 2% to 10%.
- Similar state and local penalties apply.
- Failing to properly file monthly or quarterly returns may result in additional penalties.
- Failing to file W-2 Forms results in an automatic penalty of up to $50 per form not timely filed.
- A particularly severe penalty applies where federal income tax withholding and Social Security taxes are not paid to the IRS.
- The penalty of up to 100% of the amount not paid can be assessed against the employer entity as well as any person (such as a corporate officer) having control or custody of the funds from which payment should have been made.
About 70% of the annual revenue collected by the IRS comes from payroll taxes. Under-reported and unpaid employment taxes account for about $72 billion of the United States tax gap. So the IRS makes the collection of payroll taxes a high priority.
No doubt about it—Bill was facing serious trouble.
What to do?
Fortunately, Steve, one of Bill’s employees, had a B.A. in Communications and had worked as a newspaper reporter.
When Bill told him of the calamity he was facing, Steve offered his best advice: Immediately contest the charge that he had been delinquent in providing the records. And explain to the IRS—in writing—what had happened.
Bill agreed.
First, Steve interviewed him at length to make certain he fully understood the circumstances leading up to his present crisis.
Then Steve sat down and typed up a letter—on office letterhead stationery—-to the IRS. Letterhead would give it an official appearance—and Steve wanted every advantage he could get.
Steve offered a straightforward presentation of what had happened: Pete, the number-two man in the company, had been entrusted with submitting payroll tax records to the IRS. But, nursing a grudge against his employer, he had dumped the records in a box and stashed this in a locked filing cabinet.
Then he had given notice and left the company. Later, an investigation of the office turned up the records—as well as the revelation that Pete had often used his office computer to access pornography.
In his letter, Steve emphasized that Bill’s company had previously had an unblemished record for meeting its payroll tax obligations on time. And he stated that the newly-found records had been sent to the IRS by registered mail.
Finally, Steve wrote that Bill was prepared to fully meet his financial obligations to the IRS. But he asked that Bill not be penalized for the irresponsible actions of a single, disgruntled employee.
The result?
Bill ended up paying only those monies that he legally owed. He was not forced to pay a penalty.
So what are the lessons to be learned from this episode?
- In dealing with an agency as powerful as the IRS, don’t ignore its letters.
- You have nothing to gain by pretending it will go away. It won’t.
- If you owe money, don’t deny it.
- Remain calm, even if you feel angry or afraid.
- Don’t use profanity or insults.
- Don’t try to play tough-guy with the IRS. Even the Mafia fears this agency.
- And with good reason: Al Capone didn’t go to prison for murder or bootlegging. He went away for income tax evasion.
- If you have a legitimate reason for having missed a payment, say so.
- Remember that everything you say to the IRS—verbally or in writing—is considered evidence given under oath.
- If you lie and get caught, you can face perjury charges as well as those for failing to comply with tax laws.
- Offer to fully pay any monies that you legally owe.
- If these amount to more than you can meet in a single payment, say so. Ask the agency to set up a plan by which you can pay it off in installments.
- If the agency balks at cooperating with you, contact a veteran tax accountant or attorney.
- The best accountants or attorneys for dealing with the IRS are former agents now working in private practice. They not only know the tax laws; they know the best ways to short-circuit an IRS audit and/or penalties.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2020 at 12:39 am
In the 1993 movie, Stalingrad, a platoon of young German Army soldiers leaves behind the beaches and beauties of Italy and find themselves fighting desperately to stay alive in Russia.
Early in the film, there is an exchange that has its real-life counterpart almost 75 years later.
A young, idealistic German lieutenant, newly transferred to the Russian front, is horrified when he sees a fellow soldier from another unit sadistically beat a Russian prisoner to death.
He seeks out the man’s superior, a captain, and says: “Captain, I must protest about the behavior of your men.”
“You want to protest?” asks the captain, grinning sardonically. “Tell the Fuhrer.”
Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:
- Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
- Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and
- Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.
“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”
Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.
Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.
Donald Trump
According to Homeland Security officials:
- 109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access;
- 173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America;
- 81 who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.
Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.
Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:
“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”
Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.
Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.
The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.
The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.
Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”
“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.
He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”
The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.
Judge Ann M. Donnelly, of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.
But she didn’t force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who had not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.
* * * * *
On November 8, 2016, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.
Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love….
“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”
There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:
- His threats of violence and/or imprisonment against his political opponents;
- His rampant egomania;
- His attacks on everyone who dared to disagree with him;
- His refusal to release his tax returns;
- His history of bankruptcies and lawsuits filed against him;
- His bragging about sexually abusing women (“Grab them by the pussy”).
Those who voted against Trump are now learning the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 4, 2020 at 12:10 am
In September, 1938, as Adolf Hitler threatened to go to war against France and England over Czechoslovakia, most Germans feared he would. They knew that Germany was not ready for war, despite all of their Fuhrer’s boasts about how invincible the Third Reich was.
A group of high-ranking German army officers was prepared to overthrow Hitler—provided that England and France held firm and handed him a major diplomatic reverse.
But then England and France—though more powerful than Germany—surrendered to Hitler’s demands for the “Sudetenland”—the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.
Hitler’s popularity among Germans soared.
The plotters in the German high command, realizing that public opinion stood overwhelmingly against them, abandoned their plans for a coup. They decided to wait for a more favorable time.
It never came.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Less than one year after the infamous “Munich conference,” World War II erupted.
Most Germans blindly followed their Fuhrer right to the end—believing his lies (or at least wanting to believe them), serving in his legions, defending his rampant criminality.
Germans paid the price for their loyalty to a murderous dictator—not just on the battlefield, but through countless rapes, murders and the wholesale destruction of their cities. And from 1945 to 1989, Germans living in the eastern part of their country paid the price as slaves to the Soviet Union.
Americans have learned nothing from this warning from history about subservience to a madman.
In 2016, almost 63 million Americans elected Donald Trump—a racist, serial adulterer and longtime fraudster—as President.
Upon taking office in January, 2017, Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another. Among his outrages:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacked the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Publicly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, National Security Agency) which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election,
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Allowed predatory corporations to subvert Federal regulatory protections for consumers and the environment.
- Shut down the Federal Government for more than a month on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- Threatened members of Congress with treason charges for daring to challenge him.
- Since being acquitted of impeachable offenses by the Senate, fired the Inspectors General (IG) of five cabinet departments in six weeks.
Donald Trump
Through all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.
Democrats seemed unable to cope with Trump’s legislative agenda and his personal attacks on Twitter and in press conferences.
Even when the press unearthed his latest corruptions, the public didn’t care.
And now, with the 2020 Presidential election fast approaching, Trump has unleashed his latest outrage—while Americans who could stand against it do nothing: Trump now is laying the groundwork to discredit the outcome if he loses.
And it’s increasingly looking as if he will.
His tactics: Make it difficult to vote, guarantee voting is slow and complicated and raise questions about the outcome.
He wants to claim that if former Vice President Joe Biden wins, he was elected through a fraudulent mail-in vote.
Republicans have not protested any of this. Nor would they likely protest if Trump illegally occupied the White House in the face of massive vote fraud—on his part.
(His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote in 2016—but lost in the Electoral College. But that didn’t prevent Trump from claiming that he would have won the popular vote except for massive fraud—which never happened.)
Whatever happens, Trump will claim he won.
In 2012, after President Barack Obama defeated his endorsed candidate, Mitt Romney, Trump tweeted:
- Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice!
- The world is laughing at us. We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty.
- Our nation is totally divided!
- The loser one! [Trump’s spelling]
- He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
And even if he’s forced to leave office, he will undercut the ability of his successor to govern.
During World War II, scores of high-ranking German army officers risked their lives to plot the overthrow—and even assassination—of Adolf Hitler. Their efforts culminated in the ill-fated July 20, 1944 bomb plot that left Hitler badly injured but still in total command of Germany.
It would take only Vice President Mike Pence and eight Cabinet officers to courageously invoke the 25th Amendment and find Donald Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,”
Yet even that small a number of honorable men cannot be found within the Trump administration.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 31, 2020 at 12:06 am
And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.
—Plutarch, “Life of Alexander”
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, President Donald Trump proved the accuracy of Plutarch’s observation.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
And, in making that unguarded statement, Trump revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
Donald Trump
Since then, Trump has continued to “joke” about serving more than the legal limit of eight years.
In April, 2019, at a White House event, he said he might remain in the Oval Office “at least for 10 or 14 years.”
In May, 2019, Trump retweeted Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s suggestion that he’s owed “2 yrs added to his 1st term” due to distractions caused by the Robert Mueller investigation.
Anyone who thought he was simply joking got a rude awakening on July 30, 2020, when Trump tweeted: “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
Leaders of both Republican and Democratic parties quickly attacked Trump for suggesting that the election might be delayed.
With COVID-19 ravaging the nation and many economists predicting a coming Depression, Trump is desperate to reverse his falling poll numbers. But the election is now less than 100 days away and, short of a miracle—or indefinitely postponing the vote—he looks increasingly like a one-term President.
Coronavirus
Since taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump has attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American Intelligence: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and NSA that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
- And when FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked—and later fired—his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- He repeatedly attacked the integrity of Deputy FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe until the latter resigned.
- He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- Seven days later, appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
- The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle U.S/ District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first travel ban.
- At Trump’s bidding, White House aide Stephen Miller attacked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government.”
- President Barack Obama: For five years, Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that Barack Obama was born in Kenya—and was therefore not an American citizen.
- Even after Obama released the long-form version of his birth certificate—on April 27, 2011—Trump tweeted, on August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
Barack Obama
- On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, Trump accused Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
Trump was later forced to admit he had no evidence to back up his slanderous claims.
* * * * *
Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows what he’s doing—and why.
He has tried to strip every potential challenger to his authority–and version of reality—of legitimacy. He intends there will be:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2020.
In short: No one—ever—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 29, 2020 at 1:19 pm
Almost 40 years later, “Prince of the City” remains that rarity—a movie about big-city police that:
- Tells a dramatic (and true) story; and
- Offers serious truths about how police and prosecutors really operate.
Released in 1981, it’s based on the real-life case of NYPD Detective Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in the film).
Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in “Prince of the City”)
A member of the elite Special Investigating Unit (SIU) targeting high-level narcotics dealers, Ciello (played by Treat Williams) volunteers to work undercover against rampant corruption among narcotics agents, attorneys and bail bondsmen.
His motive appears simple: To redeem himself and the NYPD from the corruption he sees everywhere: “These people we take from own us.”
His only condition: “I will never betray cops who’ve been my partners.”
And Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Cappalino assures Ciello: “We’ll never make you do something you can’t live with.”
As the almost three-hour movie unfolds, Ciello finds—to his growing dismay—that there are a great many things he will have to learn to live with.
Treat Williams as “Danny Ciello”
Although he doesn’t have a hand in it, he’s appalled to learn that Gino Moscone, a former buddy, is going to be arrested for taking bribes from drug dealers.
Confronted by a high-ranking agent for the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, Moscone refuses to “rat out” his buddies. Instead, he puts his service revolver to his head and blows out his brains.
Ciello is devastated, but the investigation—and film—must go on.
Along the way, he’s suspected by a corrupt cop and bail bondsman of being a “rat” and threatened with death.
He’s about to be wasted in a back alley when his cousin—a Mafia member—suddenly intervenes. The Mafioso tells Ciello’s would-be killers: “You’d better be sure he’s a rat, because people like him.”
At which point, the grotesquely fat bail bondsman—who has been demanding Ciello’s execution—pats Danny on the arm and says, “No hard feelings.”
It is director Sidney Lumet’s way of graphically saying: “Sometimes the bad guys can be good guys—and the good guys can be bad guys.”
Lumet makes it clear that police don’t always operate with the Godlike efficiency of cops in TV and films. It’s precisely because his Federal backup agents lost him that Ciello almost became a casualty.
In the end, Ciello becomes a victim of the prosecutorial forces he has unleashed. Although he’s vowed to never testify against his former partners, Ciello finds this is a promise he can’t keep.
Too many of the cops he’s responsible for indicting have implicated him of similar—if not worse—behavior. He’s even suspected of being involved in the theft of 450 pounds of heroin (“the French Connection”) from the police property room.
A sympathetic prosecutor—Mario Vincente in the movie, Rudolph Giuliani in real-life—convinces Ciello that he must finally reveal everything he’s done.
Ciello had originally claimed to have done “three things” as a corrupt narcotics agent. By the time his true confessions are over, he’s admitted to scores of felonies.
Ciello then tries to convince his longtime SIU partners to do the same. One of them commits suicide. Another tells Ciello to screw himself: “I’m not going to shoot myself and I’m not going to rat out my friends.”
To his surprise, Ciello finds himself admiring his corrupt former partner for being willing to stand up to the Federal case-agents and prosecutors demanding his head.
The movie ends with a double dose of irony.
First: Armed with Ciello’s confessions, an attorney whom Ciello had successfully testified against appeals his conviction. But the judge rules Ciello’s admitted misdeeds to be “collateral”—apart from the main evidence in the case—and affirms the conviction.
Second: Ciello is himself placed on trial—-of a sort. A large group of assistant U.S. attorneys gathers to debate whether their prize “canary” should be indicted. If he is, his confessions will ensure his conviction.
Some prosecutors argue forcefully that Ciello is a corrupt law enforcement officer who has admitted to more than 40 cases of perjury—among other crimes. How can the government use him to convict others and not address the criminality in his own past?
Other prosecutors argue that Ciello voluntarily risked his life—physically and professionally—to expose rampant police corruption. He deserves a better deal than to be cast aside by those who have made so many cases through his testimony.
Eventually, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York makes his decision: “The government declines to prosecute Detective Daniel Ciello.”
It is Lumet’s way of showing that the decision to prosecute is not always an easy or objective one.
The movie ends with Ciello now teaching surveillance classes at the NYPD Academy.
A student asks: “Are you the Detective Ciello?”
“I’m Detective Ciello.”
“I don’t think I have anything to learn from you.” And he walks out.
Is Danny Ciello a hero, a villain, or some combination of the two? It’s with this ambiguity that the film ends—an ambiguity that infuses America’s clearly hopeless “war on drugs.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 28, 2020 at 12:34 am
In Serpico (1973) audiences were led to cheer on the lonely and dangerous efforts of incorruptible Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) to combat widespread payoffs within the NYPD.
And even though a wounded Serpico is forced to resign from the NYPD, he leaves behind the Knapp Commission to investigate widespread police corruption.
The audience was not led to root for the men who dedicated their lives to deceit and corruption.
But for Right-wingers, the opposite is the case. Supporting those who peddle lies for profit is considered a patriotic duty. And so is attacking those who dare to stand up against lies and corruption.
Case #1:
On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, a mentally unstable, 20-year-old gunman, slaughtered 20 school children aged six and seven and six adult staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut.
Enter Right-wing broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas.
On his program in January, 2015, he said: “Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors.”
On August 1, 2018, families of four students and two educators who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones.
Alex Jones
Michael Zimmermann [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D
According to the complaint:
“The Jones defendants concoct elaborate and false paranoia-tinged conspiracy theories because it moves product and they make money. Not because they truly believe what they are saying, but rather because it increases profits.”
Typically, Jones responded to the lawsuit with more lies:
“This is all out of context….And it’s not even what I said or my intent. I’m not going to get into the real defects of this, I’m going to wait until it’s thrown out with prejudice.”
Case #2:
On September 23, 2019, 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg indicted world leaders at the United Nations for failing to act on climate change:
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
Greta Thunberg
“She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” President Donald Trump tweeted sarcastically above a link to Thunberg’s speech.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza immediately recognized the sarcasm: “Unfortunately, it’s not at all surprising that Trump saw fit to make fun of Thunberg’s passion and emotion. This is who he is — a schoolyard bully who doesn’t differentiate between a 16-year-old girl and Joe Biden. Or a Gold Star family. Or a prisoner of war. Or white nationalists and those protesting their ideology of hate.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham juxtaposed Thunberg’s speech with a clip from the 1984 horror film Children of the Corn, joking, “I can’t wait for Stephen King’s sequel, Children of the Climate.”
Ingraham’s brother, Curtis, wrote: “I can no longer apologize for a sibling who I no longer recognize.”
Many American commentators attacking Thunberg are tied to the Heartland Institute, funded by Big Oil, and which promotes climate science denial.
Other critics of Greta owe their allegiance to the Koch family, owners of the U.S.’s largest private energy company.
Case #3:
Dr. Anthony Fauci has served under six Republican and Democratic Presidents as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.
Since COVID-19 struck the United States in January, he has dared to speak the hard truth about the pandemic—and the Federal Government’s failure to combat it.
Anthony Fauci
in doing so, he has occasionally contradicted President Trump’s statements filled with ignorance or outright lies. For example: Trump has been loudly touting hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for COVID-19.
Yet Fauci has pointed out there have been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal.
Trump resents that his own popularity is steadily falling as COVID cases and deaths rise—and he offers only rosy predictions that “one day it will be gone.”
Trump’s supporters are equally furious.
On July 21, Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) the House Republican Conference Chair—and the only female member of the House GOP leadership—was attacked by members of her own party.
Her “crime”? Supporting Fauci.
Representative Chip Roy (Texas) complained that Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has retweeted some of Cheney’s tweets supporting Fauci.
Like Holocaust deniers, Right-wing shills like Alex Jones, Laura Ingraham and Chip Roy can’t afford to admit the corruption of the causes they support.
By demanding “Prove it!” and then attacking all evidence put forward, Rightists hope to keep their critics on the defensive.
Thus, the best course to take when a Right-winger makes a claim: Assume it’s a lie—because it is.
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A VICE PRESIDENT FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 13, 2020 at 12:37 amOn August 11, former Vice President Joe Biden—now the Democratic nominee for President—chose California United States Senator Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential running mate.
Harris had served as District Attorney of San Francisco (2004 – 2011) and as California Attorney General (2011 – 2017). Then, in 2016, she won election to the United States Senate.
In 2019, she ran for the Presidency of the United States. But after 11 months of failing to win major support among voters, she withdrew from the race on December 3.
To tout her candidacy, she had published her memoirs: The Truths We Hold. In these, she described herself as a “progressive prosecutor.”
But among the truths she holds secret: When she served as District Attorney for San Francisco, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal alien felons out of prison—and in the United States.
Today, with millions of illegal aliens from Central and Latin America flooding into the United States, the spotlight has shifted from the incarceration of blacks to that of Hispanics.
Illegal immigration—and what to do about it—is now the hottest political issue in the country.
For liberals of the Democratic party, “open borders” appears to be the solution to illegal immigration. Yet the vast majority of Americans support legal immigration—while rejecting illegal immigration.
And Kamala Harris’ record as San Francisco District Attorney is hardly reassuring on this issue.
Secretly, she created a program, called Back on Track, to train convicted illegal aliens for jobs they could not legally hold. This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris
Completion led to the expunging of a felony conviction, making it highly popular among convicted criminals.
One such alumnus was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal alien who had been arrested twice within eight months—for purse-snatching and selling cocaine.
In July, 2008, four months after pleading guilty to selling cocaine, Izaguirre assaulted Amanda Kiefer, a legal San Francisco resident.
Snatching her purse, he jumped into an SUV, then tried to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and a driver laughing.
The driver slammed on the brakes, sending Kiefer flying onto the pavement and fracturing her skull.
D.A.’s office let illegal immigrants go https://tinyurl.com/yyhp3hb6
Back on Track became a centerpiece of Harris’ campaign for state Attorney General.
Until the the Los Angeles Times questioned her about the Izaguirre case, Harris had never publicly admitted that the program included illegal aliens.
Harris claimed she first learned that illegal aliens were training for jobs only after Izaguirre was arrested for the Kiefer assault.
Harris said it was a “flaw in the design” of the program to let illegal aliens into the program. “I believe we fixed it,” she told the Times.
Harris never released statistics on how many illegal aliens were included since the program started in 2005.
She said that after Izaguirre’s arrest she never asked—or learned—how many illegal aliens were in Back on Track. A strange lapse in curiosity for a prosecutor charged with enforcing the law.
When Harris learned that illegal aliens were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records expunged.
It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
So much for her oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of California “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
From 2005 to 2009, 113 admitted drug dealers graduated from Back on Track. Another 99 were kicked off the program for failing to meet the requirements. They were sentenced under their guilty plea, the D.A.’s office claimed.
Harris told the Times that graduates of Back on Track were less likely than other offenders to commit crimes again. But her spokeswoman refused to offer detailed statistics to back this up.
When Harris became San Francisco District Attorney, she vowed she would “never charge the death penalty.”
Amanda Kiefer left California. Interviewed by the Times, she said she could not understand why San Francisco police and prosecutors would allow convicted illegal aliens back onto the streets.
“If they’re committing crimes,” she said, “I think there’s something wrong that they’re not being deported.”
At the outset of his Presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to choose a woman for his Vice Presidential running mate. Among those he could have chosen:
Either would have lent significant gravitas to Biden’s candidacy. But Whitmer and Duckworth suffered the misfortune of being white—at a time when Uber liberals were demanding that Biden pick a “woman of color.”
By which they meant: Any color other than white.
Illegal immigration is President Donald Trump’s signature issue. And he has already tried to portray Biden as soft on crime and harsh on police.
Harris, with her record of protecting criminal illegal aliens at the expense of law-abiding American citizens, will easily fit both of these descriptions.
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