Archive for the ‘Medical’ Category
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 23, 2024 at 12:11 am
In San Francisco, if your house is infested with bedbugs, don’t get rid of the bedbugs—close down the house.
Proof of this came on June 18, when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved legislation to place a curfew on food markets and tobacco businesses in the city’s latest attempt at preventing drug abuse in the crime-ridden Tenderloin district.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin district is about 50 square blocks in size, with a population of around 35,000 people. It’s bordered on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue.
The Tenderloin
The new curfew rules will prevent businesses in the Tenderloin selling “prepackaged food or tobacco products from operating” between midnight and 5 a.m.
“The drug markets happening at night in this neighborhood are unacceptable and must be met with increased law enforcement and new strategies, but this must be done in partnership with community, which we are doing,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
The legislation is designed as a two-year pilot program, according to the press release, and will be enforced by fines from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and investigation from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
The legislation does not apply to restaurants, bars, or non-retail businesses, such as event halls. Fines can be levied for up to $1,000 for each hour a store operates in violation of the ordinance.
The curfew program targets these businesses that, “in effect, facilitate the late night-time drug market by providing a lighted gathering point,” according to the legislation.
Some local businesses are saying if they take a loss in revenue or jobs, they want the city to offer financial mitigation, such as a reduction in fees.
Residents appear divided about the effectiveness of the legislation.
“That’s backwards,” said Abdul Malik Muhammad, about allowing liquor stores to remain open past midnight. “Those are the stores that should be shut down, I believe.”
Wallie, one of the owners of Plaza Snacks and Delli at 7th and McAllister street, said: “That’s not gonna make any difference, I guarantee you. I’ve been here for 20 years. They just move them from one block to the next.”
“Some of the stores are like magnets, and they attract problems,” said Muhammad. He accused some store owners of price-gouging their low-income customers.
Many residents feel imprisoned in their own homes “when the sun goes down,” several business organizations wrote the city. They speak of drug sales in the open, rapes, murders and shootings with human waste left in the wake.
Yet much of this can be traced directly to the city’s open door welcome to those euphemistically termed as “the homeless.” The vast majority of these fall into four major groups: Drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and those who refuse to work.
In short: DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
Another casualty of booze or drugs
“Our challenges still occur at night,” said Assistant Chief David Lazar. “Crowds of people that are there selling stolen property, selling narcotics. We have drug users all over. And the problem is that when you have businesses that are open, like liquor stores and smoke shops, it just attracts more people.”
A study by WalletHub, a personal finance company, recently found that San Francisco was the “worst run” city in the United States. The study measured the “effectiveness of local leadership” by comparing the quality of city services matched against the city’s total budget to determine its operating efficiency.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Breed’s office defended the mayor’s policy actions to reduce drug use in San Francisco:
“Mayor Breed has taken aggressive steps to shut down open-air drug markets and that is why she established the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) in May 2023, activating resources across the City to dismantle the illegal drug markets in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.
“Since May 28, 2023, SFPD has seized over 225 kilos of narcotics and made more than 3,400 arrests related to drug activity in these neighborhoods, including more than 1,400 drug dealers and over 1,500 drug users arrested. For fentanyl seizures, over 77 million lethal doses have been seized since the start of DMACC.”
And while city officials laud their efforts to “crack down” on drug use, the city operates a second program to provide vodka or beer to “homeless” people struggling with severe alcohol addiction.
The city set up its Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) in 2020 as part of its COVID-19 response, to keep “homeless” people out of jails and emergency rooms.
Adam Nathan, chair of the Salvation Army’s advisory board in San Francisco, posted on X that he recently “stumbled across” the former hotel from which the program operates:
“It’s set up so people in the program just walk in and grab a beer, and then another one. All day. The whole thing is very odd to me and just doesn’t feel right. Providing free drugs to drug addicts doesn’t solve their problems. It just stretches them out. Where’s the recovery in all of this?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 19, 2024 at 12:05 am
To understand Republicans’ behavior, you need to understand the word “projection.”
As defined by psychologists, “projection” means unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don’t like about yourself and attributing them to someone else.
Except that, with Republicans, there is nothing unconscious about attributing their own evil intentions and/or actions to those they hate.
To cite a current example: “Weaponizing” is a word now in vogue among Republicans. As in: “By appointing a Special Counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) proves that Democrats have weaponized Federal law enforcement.”
Republicans conveniently refuse to say why the Justice Department appointed former DOJ official Jack Smith to that position: Because, before leaving the White House, Trump shipped more than 300 highly classified documents in 15 boxes to his estate in Mar-a-Lago.
Jack Smith
As an ex-President, he had no right to possess any of these documents.
Moreover, he not only illegally took these documents, he lied to government investigators that he had not done so. It took an August 8, 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve them.
Then there’s the matter of the January 6, 2021 defendants.
They are so named because, on that date, Trump incited his followers to violently attack the United States Capitol Building. Their goal: To prevent Republicans and Democrats from counting the Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump fully understood that an accurate count of those votes would reveal his loss to former Vice President Joe Biden: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
- Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted.
- A gallows was erected in front of the Capitol.
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
- Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
- A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
- Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
- Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
- Blue-and-white TRUMP flags floated above the crowd.
- Shouts of “Hang [Vice President] Mike Pence!” often rang out.
- Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building
More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
By December, 2023, 728 participants in the coup attempt had pleaded guilty. Another 166 defendants had been convicted at trial; a total of 749 defendants have been sentenced; 467 have been sentenced to prison.
Yet Republicans—most notably Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—have depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.
On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held.
“Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), another member of the tour, exchanged hugs with with Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt had been shot by police as she forced her way into the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.
Republicans‘ fixation on “weaponization” centers on Trump’s facing 91 criminal offenses in four criminal cases.
These relate to Trump’s
- Attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election;
- Election interference in Georgia;
- Falsifying business records in New York; and
- Mishandling classified records after leaving the presidency.
Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to be criminally indicted.
For Republicans, prosecutors’ daring to hold Trump accountable for his litany of crimes amounts to “election interference.” As if winning office through the efforts of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has conferred “untouchable” status upon him.
As a result, Republicans have made unprecedented efforts to undermine these prosecutions.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, introduced two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump’s prosecutors—Special Counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is also trying to cut off funding for Smith’s office.
Republicans have in the past championed “states’ rights” against “federal overreach.” But now that their former President finds himself facing the consequences of his own criminality, they are eager to abort state-level prosecutions.
At the same time, they slander President Joseph Biden as “weaponizing” the Justice Department against his political rival.
In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the dictatorship ruling Oceania offers the following slogan for its citizens:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Republicans would have Americans believe
- The attempted overturning of a legitimate Presidential election was an act of patriotism;
- An ex-President taking classified materials to which he had no right was entirely justified; and
- Donald Trump has an absolute right to commit any crime he desires.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 2, 2024 at 12:10 am
Why aren’t Republicans—allegedly the party of “family values”—morally outraged at Donald Trump for his adulterous tryst with a porn “star” and his hush money payment to conceal it during the 2016 Presidential campaign?
Why are they instead outraged at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself?
Republican party logo
Simple: They see Trump as their best chance to not only reclaim the White House but establish a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
Under this, the Republican party will become—in fact, if not officially—the only recognized political party in the nation.
Democratic candidates—for the House, Senate and Presidency—will be prevented from taking office by gerrymandering or false claims that they committed election fraud.
These—and other goals—have been enshrined in Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- The Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House. The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- Funding for the Department of Justice would be slashed.
- The FBI would be dismantled.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
* * * * *
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….
“[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”
On November 8, 2016, 62,984,828 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man, charged conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
And on November 3, 2020, 74,223,975 of those same Americans again voted for him. This despite Trump’s legacy of:
- Brutally attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Lying about the dangers of the deadly COVID-19 virus, thus allowing it to ravage the country and kill 400,000 Americans.
- Refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election in 2020 and falsely claiming himself the victim of massive voter fraud.
- Inciting thousands of his followers to storm the United States Capitol Building to prevent the winner, Joe Biden, from being declared President-elect.
So why have millions of Americans stood by Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?
Their #1 reason: Hatred—of most of their fellow Americans.
Fortunately, 80 million Americans braved the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts by Republicans to overturn their voting rights—and elected Joseph Biden President of the United States.
Only time will tell if the country proves so lucky in 2024.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 1, 2024 at 12:10 am
The May 31, 2024 episode of Washington Week With the Atlantic raised the question: Why were Republicans so obsessed with Bill Clinton’s adulterous affair with Monica Lewinsky but are furiously supporting Donald Trump’s tryst with Stormy Daniels?
Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg opened with: “Donald Trump isn’t a convicted felon yet. Sorry to be pedantic here, but he technically acquires that status only at sentencing come July 11th.
“But a New York jury has spoken, finding him guilty of engaging in a financial scheme to keep the porn star, Stormy Daniels, quiet about their sexual encounter, one that occurred shortly after Trump’s wife gave birth to their son.
“Trump, in addition to this guilty verdict, was recently found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. In total, more than 25 women have accused him of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
“The reaction of the Republican Party leaders to the verdict was to rally around Trump. Evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, also doubled down on their support. Graham, writing on X, said, ‘What we saw today has never happened before, and I think for the majority of Americans, it raises questions about whether our legal system can be trusted….’
“[In] the 1990s…. when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans were outraged and many other people were legitimately outraged that the president of the United States was having sexual relations with a White House intern. Explain to us, if you can, the different dynamics here, the party of family values.”
McKay Coppins, staff writer at the Atlantic: “Well, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the way the Republican party, the conservative movement, think about morality and public leadership.
“Something that I always think about when issues like this come up is that before Donald Trump came on the scene, I can’t remember, it was 2013, 2014, if you surveyed Republican voters and asked them how important is public — it is personal morality in an elected leader to you.
“Something like two-thirds of them would say it’s very important, that I would rather have somebody of high moral character than somebody with policies I agree with.
“A couple years into the Trump presidency, that had flipped and it was only a third of voters said that that was the case, if you were a Republican.
McKay Coppins
“And it just shows kind of the sea change in evangelical ethics and social conservative ethics. I think a lot of conservatives now, because of negative partisanship and polarization….they want to, you know, line up with their team right?
“They want to be with their guy, and then they kind of create a moral architecture around being able to do that.
“But, you know, [he] cheated on his wife with a porn star, and then….is now been convicted of committing fraud to cover it up.
“[It’s] almost a cliché to say if a Democrat had done that, we know what we would be hearing from social conservatives and evangelicals, but they want Donald Trump to be elected.
“And so they are pivoting away from the specifics of the case and the underlying facts of the case to [say] this is a rigged system, this is a legal persecution, Donald Trump is a victim, and we need to back him because they’re going to come after us next.”
There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in the foregoing. But there is also a great deal of truth in a statement that was not made:
Republicans’ professed outrage at Bill Clinton’s infidelities and their furious defense of those by Donald Trump actually share a common link.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, once the poster boy for Republican values, best described the current mindset of the Republican party. Ironically enough, at the time, he was assailing the leaders of the Soviet Union:
“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
Ronald Reagan
In January, 1998, when the public learned of President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Republicans gushed moral outrage.
They portrayed Lewinsky—who had had a seven-year extramarital affair with her former high school drama instructor and flashed her thong at Clinton, signaling her readiness for an affair—as a Vestal Virgin, and Clinton as Grigori Rasputin incarnate.
By 1992, Republicans had come to regard the White House as theirs by Divine Right. Anyone who ran against them automatically became—for them—a traitor. And anyone who won against them became—for them—an usurper.
Thus, Clinton’s true “crime” had been defeating, first, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992, and then Kansas Senator Bob Dole, in 1996.
Fast-forward to the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a sexual tryst with porn “star” Stormy Daniels.
Suddenly, Republicans aim their cries of moral outrage not at Trump but at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself.
The reason: They see Trump as their best chance for not simply reclaiming the White House but for establishing a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
" WIKIPEDIA, ABC NEWS, ADAM KINZINGER, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTI-SEMITISM, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTPEDIA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DICK CHENEY, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE ACTION, HUFFINGTON POST, JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, KEVIN MCCARTHY, LIZ CHENEY, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PAUL GOSAR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, QANON, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, Ronald Reagan, RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SPANISH INQUISITION, 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 INTERCEPT, 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, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 28, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is a secular, political organization that leads the Republican party of the United States.
But on February 4, 2022, it acted as the reincarnation of the Spanish Inquisition—a judicial institution which attacked heresy in Spain from 1478 to 1834.
Under its reign of terror, countless “heretical” men and women found themselves sentenced by kangaroo courts to hideous torture and death.
Seal of the Spanish Inquisition
User:Di (they-them), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On February 4, 2022, the RNC’s chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, “cast out” two fellow Republicans: Representtives Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Ronna Romney McDaniel
Part One of this series analyzed the first major paragraph of this censure. Part Two will analyze the remaining six.
“WHEREAS, Winning back the majority in Congress, including the United States House of Representatives, in 2022 must be the primary goal of the House Republican Conference (“Conference”) and requires all Republicans working together to accomplish the same….”
- Here, at least, the RNC and its chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, offered the truth: Gaining absolute power over the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government is this party’s “primary goal.”
- Punishing those who engage in treasonous attacks on Constitutional government is not a priority—so long as the perpetrators are Fascistic Right-wingers.
“WHEREAS, The Conference must not be sabotaged by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who have demonstrated, with actions and words, that they support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022….
DESTROYING PRESIDENT TRUMP:
- It was Trump who tried to destroy Constitutional government by stripping every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. Had he succeeded, there would have been:
- 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 candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for remaining in office in 2020—and thereafter—as “President-for-Life.”
WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger have engaged in actions in their positions as members of the January 6th Select Committee not befitting Republican of Congress, which include the Committee’s disregard for minority rights, traditional checks and balances, due process, and adherence to other precedent and rules of the U.S. House and which seem intent on advancing a political agenda to buoy the Democrat bleak prospects in the upcoming midterm elections….”
WINNING BACK A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN 2022:
- This, for the RNC, takes precedence over investigating a treasonous plot to overthrow democratic government and establish a one-party (Republican) state, presided over by a lifetime criminal and proven traitor.
Liz Cheney
Adam Kinzinger
“WHEREAS, Congressional Republicans bear ultimate responsibility for their own success or failure and the RNC supports their efforts by denouncing those who deliberately jeopardize victory in November on which the future of our constitutional republic depends at this critical moment in history….”
DELIBERATELY JEOPARDIZING VICTORY:
- Once again, the RNC admits that gaining absolute power for itself takes precedence over investigating and punishing those who sought to overthrow American democracy.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger purport to be members of the Republican Party….”
“PURPORT” TO BE REPUBLICANS:
- Liz Cheney had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Wyoming since 2017. She voted in line with Trump’s policies 93% of the time, according to the data journalism site Five Thirty-Eight.
- Heritage Action, a Right-wing policy advocacy organization, gave her a “lifetime score” of 80%.
- Adam Kinzinger had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois since 2011.
- According to Five Thirty-Eight, he voted in support of Trump’s agenda 90% of the time,
- Thus, the “crime” committed by Cheney and Kinzinger was to investigate the treasonous attempted coup by a lifelong criminal and would-be tyrant.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it
“RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee hereby formally censures Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.”
* * * * * * * * *
The RNC’s action was one worthy of the Spanish Inquisition.
And it serves as a warning to democracy-loving Americans of the fate awaiting them if Republicans’ revenge fantasies become reality.
" WIKIPEDIA, ABC NEWS, ADAM KINZINGER, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTI-SEMITISM, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BALLOTPEDIA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DICK CHENEY, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE ACTION, HUFFINGTON POST, JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, KEVIN MCCARTHY, LIZ CHENEY, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PAUL GOSAR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, QANON, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, Ronald Reagan, RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SPANISH INQUISITION, 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 INTERCEPT, 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, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 27, 2024 at 12:10 am
On February 4, 2022, the Republican National Committee (RNC) officially endorsed the use of violence on behalf of the party.
It described the January 6, 2021 attack on the nation’s Capitol—a violent and treasonous attempt to prevent the orderly and legal transition of power from one President to another—as “legitimate political discourse.”
This is no private opinion of a single Republican—or even a fringe group of Republicans.
The RNC is described on Wikipedia as:
“A U.S. political committee that leads the Republican party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising, election strategy, and a ‘party brand.’ It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Convention.”
The endorsement came during an official censure of two of the Committee’s fellow Republicans—Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Predictably, the statement opened with a series of grotesque lies:
“WHEREAS, The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism; eliminate border security in favor of lawless, open borders; create record inflation designed to steal the American dream from our children and grandchildren; neuter our national defense and a peace through strength foreign policy; replace President ‘Operation Warp Speed’ with incompetence and illegal mandates; and destroy America’s economy with the Green New Deal….”
To address these lies:
REPLACING LIBERTY WITH SOCIALISM:
- It was Donald Trump—not Joseph Biden—who said that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”
- It was Trump—not Biden—who attacked American Intelligence agencies for their unanimous conclusion that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 Presidential election.
- It was Trump—not Biden—who never once attacked nor even criticized Putin, although he has viciously attacked literally hundreds of others, verbally and on Twitter.
Donald Trump
ELIMINATING BORDER SECURITY:
- Attacking Hispanics—both those who are United States citizens and those who wish to become citizens—is a potent weapon for Republicans. It’s the single most galvanizing issue for their base, and the one guaranteed to win and retain Right-wing votes.
- The Biden administration—like every previous administration—is trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens on the southern border. But it’s a never-ending struggle marked by legal and logistical complications.
CREATE RECORD INFLATION:
- Biden—like every other President—has few weapons to use in controlling inflation. Much of this has been caused by COVID-19 and the resulting slowdowns and/or shutdowns in employment it has produced.
- As a capitalist nation, the United States does not often intervene in what is euphemistically called “the free enterprise system”—even though much of that is dominated by predatory corporations.
- Biden could propose legislation making price-gouging a Federal crime, punishable by a lengthy prison term. But this—modeled on the anti-extortion provisions in the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—would never gain Republican Congressional support.
NEUTER OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE:
- It was Trump—not Biden—who tried to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
- Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the Congressionally authorized $400 million in military aid.
- It was Trump who repeatedly defended Vladimir Putin while attacking America’s longstanding allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
REPLACE “OPERATION WARP SPEED” WITH INCOMPETENCE, ILLEGAL MANDATES:
- Trump learned how deadly the virus was in January, 2020. But he publicly denied this and attacked mask-wearing and social distancing.
- He attacked governors who issued stay-at-home orders to contain the virus—and incited his followers to defy those orders.
- He secretly got vaccinated before leaving office and only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of vaccinations.
- His legacy of defying science continues to live on in his millions of Stormtrumper followers—who refuse to mask up, social distance and, most importantly, get vaccinated. The vast majority of those now flooding hospital ER and ICU rooms—and graveyards—are unvaccinated.
- Biden instead launched a nationwide campaign to persuade Americans to wear masks, socially distance and, above all, get vaccinated.
DESTROY AMERICA’S ECONOMY WITH A GREEN NEW DEAL:
- Despite Right-wing lies to the contrary, global warming is an established fact.
- If there is to be any chance of halting—let alone reversing—the planet-threatening dangers this brings, it must come through the elimination of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
- But corporate CEOs—such as West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin—have a vested financial interest in continuing the sale of fossil fuels.
- And they have the backing of corrupt Right-wing politicians and millions of their voters who refuse to accept science.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AL CAPONE, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FIFTH AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, LETITIA JAMES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, 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 INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE SS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP FOUNDATION, TRUMP TOWER MEETING, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 21, 2024 at 12:05 am
On October 3, 2022, former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN for defamation.
Seeking $475 million in punitive damages, he charged the network with conducting a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Trump claimed that CNN had used its influence to defeat him politically.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the lawsuit claimed.
The lawsuit focused largely on CNN’s use of the term, “The Big Lie,” to describe Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 Presidential election.
The phrase dates from Adolf Hitler’s use of it in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: People “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Trump’s lawsuit claimed “The Big Lie” had been used in referring to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January, 2021.
In addition, the lawsuit cited instances where CNN compared Trump to Hitler. In a January, 2022 report, Fareed Zakaria provided footage of Germany’s dictator.
On July 28, 2023, a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, threw out Trump’s defamation lawsuit.
U.S. Judge Raag Singhal, who was nominated by Trump in 2019, said CNN’s words were opinion, not fact, and therefore could not be the subject of a defamation claim.
“CNN’s statements while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory,” wrote Singhal. “Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim.”
Trump, in fact, had zero chance of winning his lawsuit.
First: Donald Trump is a public figure—arguably the most public figure in the world. Plaintiffs who are public figures or government officials must prove themselves victims of actual malice to collect damages.
In the landmark case, New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) the Supreme Court declared that actual malice occurs when a statement is made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
This is a more stringent standard than private citizens have to meet, which is negligence.
Donald Trump
Second: Truth is an absolute defense against libel (unless the plaintiff is suing for invasion of privacy). And Trump’s history as a liar, criminal and traitor has been thoroughly established.
Liar:
- He created the lie that Barack Obama—whose birth certificate states unequivocally that he was born in Hawaii—was not an American citizen. The reason: To de-legitimize Obama as a Presidential candidate and President.
- Throughout 2020, he repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID-19—attacking medical experts who urged citizens to mask up and social distance. As a result, by the time he left office, 400,000 Americans had died of COVID.
Criminal:
- He has been forced to shut down his Trump Foundation and forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.
- He was also forced to close his unaccredited Trump University for scamming its students. He had promised to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with many of those students.
Traitor:
- On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The reason: To obtain “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
- On July 27, 2016, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
These incidents were nothing less than treason—inviting a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
Third—and perhaps the most important of all: In a libel suit, the plaintiff must answer—under oath—all questions put to him by the defendant’s attorneys.
Trump, better than anyone, knows the depths of his own criminality. Just as Al Capone knew his notoriety for evil would make it impossible for him to win a libel suit, so does Trump.
On August 10, 2022, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination nearly 450 times during a deposition at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, in its probe into the Trump Organization’s business practices.
And during April-May, 2024 trial for paying hush-money to porn “star” Stormy Daniels, he refused to take the witness stand.
If he refused to testify as a litigant in a libel suit, the suit would be dismissed by the judge.
So why did he file a defamation suit against CNN?
Money—not by winning an impossible lawsuit, but by raising it from his gullible and Fascistic followers.
He could claim “The court system is rigged against me.” And know that his Stormtrumper army would gladly empty their pockets—to pay his ever-mounting legal expenses.
1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, AILEEN CANNON, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARI FLEISCHER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ECONOMY, FBI, FEAR, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, GREED, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HATRED, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMAN NATURE, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JACK SIMITH, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOHN GOTTI, JONATHAN CAPEHART, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LEE ATWATER, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOUTHERN STRATEGY, SOVIET UNION, 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 INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WILLIAM BRANGHAM, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2024 at 12:10 am
There are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”
Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.
Example 1: Republicans are now organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.
Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor is the Biden Justice Department indicting those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
More than three years have passed, and not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason has been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would by now be far more advanced than it is. Republicans who are raising funds for re-election campaigns would instead be raising them to pay huge legal bills.
They would have far less time to focus on plotting to overthrow democracy in November. Instead, their attention would be increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.
Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration has tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.
Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.
A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
There can be no doubt that if Trump wins re-election in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.
Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
And Smith has allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial.
Meanwhile, Trump has won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol, guaranteeing he will not be prosecuted for this crime before the 2024 election—if ever.
To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.
To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau has applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.
For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.
America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The United States cannot afford to make that same fatal mistake.
1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, AILEEN CANNON, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARI FLEISCHER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ECONOMY, FBI, FEAR, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, GREED, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HATRED, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMAN NATURE, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JACK SMITH, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JONATHAN CAPEHART, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, JUOHN GOTTI, LEE ATWATER, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOUTHERN STRATEGY, SOVIET UNION, 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 INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WILLIAM BRANGHAM, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2024 at 12:28 am
There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.
Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.
Reason #3: Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny.
This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.
When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”
In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
Lee Atwater
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….
“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
Reason #4: Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.
There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Reason #5: Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.
That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.
Reason #6: Republicans know that if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they feel even less comfortable with foreigners who don’t.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance falls on deaf ears. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.
For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.
“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”
Democrats believe that voters are creatures of rationality.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that what counts with most voters is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2024 at 12:11 am
If you’re wondering what’s going to happen during the Presidential election of 2024—you can stop wondering.
The Democrats are going to lose the Senate while Republicans retain the House on November 5. The Democrats are also going to lose the White House.
Why?
Reason #1: Because Republicans understand the darker sides of human nature far better than Democrats—and don’t hesitate to take full advantage of them.
Democrats believe that people want to become altruistically better than they are. They don’t.
Reason #2: Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
They may claim concern for others, but if given a choice between their pocketbook and a higher goal, most will vote for their pocketbook.
A first-rate example of this appeared on The PBS Newshour on July 15, 2022, during an exchange between conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for the Washington Post.
David Brooks (left) and Jonathan Capehart (right) on the PBS Newshour
Host William Brangham led off the exchange:
“I want to switch, Jonathan, to this issue of the continued fallout of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. And Democrats seem to believe that this could be one of the things that might give them at least some trace of a fighting chance in the midterms.
“And we saw we this week this sort of horrendous case of a young 10-year-old girl who had been raped. She got pregnant. She then had to leave her state [Ohio] and go to another state [Indiana] where abortion would still be allowed.
“And GOP officials tried to make hay of it. They doubted that that story really existed. The local [Attorney General] said, we’re going to go after the doctor that performed this.
“Do you think that—that issue and the extremity of the way that this is being handled will actually benefit Democrats?”
Capehart: “It should. The idea that we’re talking about violence against a child, and then being forced by the state to give birth to this child, going to another state so she can terminate that pregnancy, and then being persecuted and prosecuted by the state for doing that….
“We are in “Handmaid’s Tale” territory here. We are turning into Gilead. And if there are people out there who are upset by the Supreme Court decision, by what Republican legislators around the country in states and localities are doing to further restrictions and bans on abortion.
“I don’t know what else could push people to the polls more than not just being stripped of a constitutional right, but having your right to — right to freedom, right to privacy, right to liberty not just taken away, but local officials doing everything they can to ensure that you don’t have autonomy over your own body.
“If that doesn’t get people out to the polls, I don’t know what will.”
Brangham then turned to Brooks:
“I mean, David, this was an incredibly extreme case, in some ways crystallized the sharpness and the horribleness of this division in this country.
“Do you think it will redound to the Democrats’ benefit?”
Brooks: “A little, but, frankly, not much.
“Now, abortion rights defenders, they should pursue their cause with the passion that they’re bringing to it….
“But there’s just a giant gap between what a lot of Democrats want to talk about and what the whole rest of the country wants to talk about. And if you ask people, what’s the most important issues, progressives want to talk about abortion and guns.
“The entire rest of the country, independents, conservatives, unaffiliated people, they want talk about the economy. And, for them, the economy is way up here. Jobs are number one. Inflation is number two.
“And so why is Joe Biden at 33 percent approval in the latest Times poll? It’s the economy. Why in the same poll do half of Hispanics support the Republicans now? The economy. These are earthquake numbers for Democrats…..
“But if Democrats, if they’re not talking about economic policy every day, then they’re just not talking about the policy that is clearly ranking number one with a vast majority of voters.”
No Republican has appealed more directly to greed as a motivator than Donald Trump.
On August 23, 2018, Trump, as President, offered additional evidence that he’s “not like other people.” He did so by giving an unprecedented reason why he shouldn’t be impeached: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubtless spoke for millions of Trump supporters when she said, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
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SAN FRANCISCO’S SCHIZOID PLAN TO END ADDICTION: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 23, 2024 at 12:11 amIn San Francisco, if your house is infested with bedbugs, don’t get rid of the bedbugs—close down the house.
Proof of this came on June 18, when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved legislation to place a curfew on food markets and tobacco businesses in the city’s latest attempt at preventing drug abuse in the crime-ridden Tenderloin district.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin district is about 50 square blocks in size, with a population of around 35,000 people. It’s bordered on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue.
The Tenderloin
The new curfew rules will prevent businesses in the Tenderloin selling “prepackaged food or tobacco products from operating” between midnight and 5 a.m.
“The drug markets happening at night in this neighborhood are unacceptable and must be met with increased law enforcement and new strategies, but this must be done in partnership with community, which we are doing,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
The legislation is designed as a two-year pilot program, according to the press release, and will be enforced by fines from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and investigation from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
The legislation does not apply to restaurants, bars, or non-retail businesses, such as event halls. Fines can be levied for up to $1,000 for each hour a store operates in violation of the ordinance.
The curfew program targets these businesses that, “in effect, facilitate the late night-time drug market by providing a lighted gathering point,” according to the legislation.
Some local businesses are saying if they take a loss in revenue or jobs, they want the city to offer financial mitigation, such as a reduction in fees.
Residents appear divided about the effectiveness of the legislation.
“That’s backwards,” said Abdul Malik Muhammad, about allowing liquor stores to remain open past midnight. “Those are the stores that should be shut down, I believe.”
Wallie, one of the owners of Plaza Snacks and Delli at 7th and McAllister street, said: “That’s not gonna make any difference, I guarantee you. I’ve been here for 20 years. They just move them from one block to the next.”
“Some of the stores are like magnets, and they attract problems,” said Muhammad. He accused some store owners of price-gouging their low-income customers.
Many residents feel imprisoned in their own homes “when the sun goes down,” several business organizations wrote the city. They speak of drug sales in the open, rapes, murders and shootings with human waste left in the wake.
Yet much of this can be traced directly to the city’s open door welcome to those euphemistically termed as “the homeless.” The vast majority of these fall into four major groups: Drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and those who refuse to work.
In short: DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
Another casualty of booze or drugs
“Our challenges still occur at night,” said Assistant Chief David Lazar. “Crowds of people that are there selling stolen property, selling narcotics. We have drug users all over. And the problem is that when you have businesses that are open, like liquor stores and smoke shops, it just attracts more people.”
A study by WalletHub, a personal finance company, recently found that San Francisco was the “worst run” city in the United States. The study measured the “effectiveness of local leadership” by comparing the quality of city services matched against the city’s total budget to determine its operating efficiency.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Breed’s office defended the mayor’s policy actions to reduce drug use in San Francisco:
“Mayor Breed has taken aggressive steps to shut down open-air drug markets and that is why she established the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) in May 2023, activating resources across the City to dismantle the illegal drug markets in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.
“Since May 28, 2023, SFPD has seized over 225 kilos of narcotics and made more than 3,400 arrests related to drug activity in these neighborhoods, including more than 1,400 drug dealers and over 1,500 drug users arrested. For fentanyl seizures, over 77 million lethal doses have been seized since the start of DMACC.”
And while city officials laud their efforts to “crack down” on drug use, the city operates a second program to provide vodka or beer to “homeless” people struggling with severe alcohol addiction.
The city set up its Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) in 2020 as part of its COVID-19 response, to keep “homeless” people out of jails and emergency rooms.
Adam Nathan, chair of the Salvation Army’s advisory board in San Francisco, posted on X that he recently “stumbled across” the former hotel from which the program operates:
“It’s set up so people in the program just walk in and grab a beer, and then another one. All day. The whole thing is very odd to me and just doesn’t feel right. Providing free drugs to drug addicts doesn’t solve their problems. It just stretches them out. Where’s the recovery in all of this?”
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