Posts Tagged ‘2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 24, 2024 at 12:12 am
On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 79,658,000 votes, or 51% of the vote, compared to 73,886,400 votes, or 47.2% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
Joe Biden
Despite this, Trump steadfastly refused to concede. He made a series of baseless claims that he was cheated of victory by
- Illegal aliens being allowed to vote.
- A sinister computer program that turned Trump votes into Biden ones.
He repeatedly filed legal challenges to the vote, claiming himself the victim of massive fraud. This despite the utter lack of evidence of it.
On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.
By November 21, Trump had lost in 30 cases dismissed by judges or withdrawn by his own attorneys.
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
Mitch McConnell
In a November 17, 2020 analysis, entitled “Donald Trump Doesn’t Seem to Want to Do His Job Anymore,” CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza wrote:
While Trump relentlessly asserted that he won the 2020 election, “he’s done next to nothing—at least publicly—to suggest he plans to continue doing the job in any serious manner through January 20.”
According to Cillizza, since losing the election, Trump had filled his days with:
- Golfing
- Tweeting
- Making controversial military decisions
- Firing people
Specifically:
Golfing: He played golf at his club in Virginia twice on the weekend of November 14-15. He was golfing the previous weekend, when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 race by CNN and other media outlets.
Tweeting: He tweeted numerous lies and conspiracy theories, claiming he won a second term but was cheated by the counting of fraudulent votes. This led Twitter to flag a large number of his tweets as “inaccurate.”
Making controversial military decisions: The Pentagon signaled it was planning—on Trump’s orders—to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. [American forces had been warring with the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2001; they had been warring against Iraqi insurgents since 2003.]
And in a move that was truly frightening: The New York Times reported that Trump asked his top advisers for options to strike at Iran’s nuclear capabilities before he left office. This would embroil the United States in a war that could easily turn nuclear.
Firing people: On November 9, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Four senior civilian officials were subsequently fired or resigned—Esper’s chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence.
They were replaced with flunkies loyal to Trump personally.
[This was in fact how Adolf Hitler took control of the Wehrmacht.
Adolf Hitler
[Since taking command of Germany in the summer of 1934, Hitler wanted to replace two high-ranking military officials: General Werner von Fritsch and Colonel General Werner von Blomberg. Both were convinced that Hitler’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy was putting Germany on a collision course with war—a war the Fatherland could not win.
[Hitler, in fact, meant to go to war—and despised Fritsch’s and Blomberg’s hesitation to do so. He decided to rid himself of both men.
[On January 12, 1938, Blomberg married Erna Gruhn, with Hitler and Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring attending as witnesses. Soon afterward, Berlin police discovered that Gruhn had a criminal record as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic photographs.
[Marrying a woman with such a background violated the standard of conduct expected of German officers. Hitler saw the scandal as an opportunity to dispose of Blomberg—who was forced to resign.
[Shortly after Blomberg was forced out in disgrace, the SS—Hitler’s private police force—presented Hitler with a file that falsely accused Werner von Fritsch of homosexuality. Fritsch angrily denied the accusation but resigned on February 4, 1938.
[From that point on, Hitler was in de facto command of the German Armed Services.]
Eighty-two years later, on November 3, 2020, President Donald Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden.
But Trump seemed determine to inflict as much damage as possible on the agencies responsible for protecting the security of the nation.
Besides wreaking havoc on the Pentagon, Trump was reportedly preparing to fire CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Trump had accused Haspel of stonewalling the release of documents that would supposedly expose “deep state” plots against Trump’s campaign and transition during the Obama administration.
In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential campaign such as Trumps.
And he was furious that Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that:
- “Rampant voter fraud” was a widespread problem; and
- Antifa posed a greater terrorism danger than white supremacist groups.
For Trump, contradiction was the same as treason.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 23, 2024 at 12:13 am
Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled.
His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler had triggered World War II with the invasion of Poland. This led to a series of quick, spectacular victories—over Poland, Norway, Denmark and France.
Then, on June 22, 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a non-aggression pact in August, 1939.
It had taken the Wehrmacht six weeks to conquer France. Hitler believed that was how long it would take to defeat the Soviet Union.
German soldiers invading the Soviet Union
Again, a series of spectacular battlefield victories followed—before the Wehrmacht was halted at the gates of Moscow. A year later, still enmeshed in Russia, the turning point came at Stalingrad, with the loss of the elite Sixth Army and 800,000 soldiers.
Starting in 1943, the Red Army slowly but steadily regained ground it had lost—the western half of Russia—and began pushing back the Germans. By March, 1945, it was fighting inside Germany—and heading straight for its capital: Berlin.
And by March, 1945, so were American and British forces. After landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, they had steadily pushed their way across Europe and into Germany.
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war. And he entrusted the campaign to Albert Speer, his favorite architect-turned-Minister-of-Armaments.
Click here: Hitler’s “Scorched Earth” Decree and Albert Speer’s Response
Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.
Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.
“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”
* * * * *
Seventy-five years after Adolf Hitler planned the destruction of Germany, Donald Trump planned the same fate for the United States.
On November 3, 2020, Trump lost his bid to win another four years as President of the United States. In the early hours of November 4, 2020, he poured out his fury and self-pity in a televised address from the White House:
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it, we will not stand for it.”
Donald Trump
Sounding like a petulant child whose party has been called off, Trump continued:
“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote, such a success.”
It was Trump—not his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden—who was demanding that the electoral process be halted. And that those votes that had not yet been counted be, in effect, flushed down the toilet.
“The citizens of this country have come out in record numbers, this a record, there’s never been anything like it to support our incredible movement….Most importantly, we’re winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount of votes. We’re up 690,000 votes.”
Owing to the Coronavirus pandemic—which Trump had refused to aggressively address from its outset in January—millions of Americans had voted by mail. This was especially true of Democrats, who didn’t want to stand in Coronavirus-infected lines.
But Trump had convinced millions of Republican voters that voting by mail was subversive. So they showed up at the polls or stayed away out of a secret fear of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, at the White House on Election Night, Trump continued to rant:
“These aren’t even close, this is not like, Oh, it’s close. With 64% of the vote in, it’s going to be almost impossible and we’re coming into good Pennsylvania areas where they happen to like your president. We’re winning Michigan…I said ‘Wow, that’s a lot’…
“And we’re winning Wisconsin…so when you take those three states in particular and you take all of the others…and all of a sudden it’s not like we’re up 12 votes and we have 60% left, we won states and all of a sudden, I said, ‘What happened to the election? It’s off.’ And we have all these announcers saying, ‘What’s happened’ and then they said, ‘Ohhh.’”
But this did not alter the reality that Joe Biden had become President-elect of the United States by winning 79,106,010 votes, or 51% of the vote.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 2, 2024 at 12:11 am
On November 22, 2019, Mark Shields—a liberal syndicated columnist—and David Brooks—a conservative one for The New York Times—reached disturbingly similar conclusions about President Donald Trump’s attempt to extort “a favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky..
Trump had blocked a congressionally mandated $400-million military aid package to Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden and thus jeopardize his presumed 2020 candidacy for President.
DAVID BROOKS: “What strikes me [is] that everyone was in the loop, that this was not something they tried to hide.
“This was just something they thought was the way politics gets done or foreign policy gets done, that there’s no division between personal gain and public service.”
MARK SHIELDS: “People talked about Lyndon Johnson being a fearsome political leader….[Trump] strikes fear into the hearts of Republicans up and down the line. And I think that….has been eye-opening in its dimensions.”
David Brooks and Mark Shields
Nor did the GOP try to reign Trump in.
In a November 14, 2019 column, “Republicans Can’t Abandon Trump Now Because They’re All Guilty,” freelance journalist Joel Mathis warned: “Trump’s abuses of power mirror those of the GOP as a whole. Republicans can’t turn on him, because doing so would be to indict their party’s entire approach to politics.”
For example:
- At the state level, GOP legislatures have passed numerous voter ID laws over the last decade. Officially, the reason has been to prevent non-citizens from voting. In reality, the motive is to depress turnout among Democratic constituencies.
- When Democrats have won elections, Republicans have tried to block them from carrying out their policies. In Utah, voters approved Medicaid expansion at the ballot box—but Republicans nullified this.
- In North Carolina, Republican legislators prevented voters from choosing their representatives. Instead, Republican representatives chose voters through partisan sorting. In September, the state’s Supreme Court ruled the legislative gerrymandered district map unconstitutional.
The upshot of all this: “The president and his party are united in the belief that their entitlement to power allows them to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes….”
On November 21, 2019, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, attacked Republicans’ total rejection of the overwhelming evidence linking Trump with extortion:
Adam Schiff
“But apparently, it’s all hearsay. Even when you actually hear the President….that’s hearsay. We can’t rely on people saying what the President said. Apparently, we can only rely on what the President says, and there, we shouldn’t even rely on that either….
“We should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption, instead of what he actually said, which was, ‘I want you to do us a favor, though. I want you to look into this 2016 CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, and I want you to look into the Bidens.’
“I guess we’re not even supposed to rely on that because that’s hearsay….That would be like saying you can’t rely on the testimony of the burglars during Watergate because it’s only hearsay, or you can’t consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. They actually didn’t get what they came for, so, you know, kind of no harm, no foul. That’s absurd.
“The difference between [Watergate and Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukraine] is not the difference between [Richard] Nixon and [Donald] Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one. And so, we are asking, where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty?
“But the other defense besides ‘It failed, the scheme failed, they got caught,’ the other defense is ‘The President denies it.’ Well, I guess that’s case closed, right?
“….This President believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical President who believes they are above the law.”
* * * * *
The United States has indeed become a polarized country. But it’s not the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals.
It’s the polarization between
- Those intent on enslaving everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their Fascistic beliefs and agenda—and those who resist being enslaved.
- Those who believe in reason and science—and those who believe in an infallible “strong man” who rejects both.
- Those who cherish education—and those who celebrate ignorance.
- Those who believe in the rule of law—and those who believe in their right to act as a law unto themselves.
- Those who believe in treating others (especially the less fortunate) with decency—and those who believe in the triumph of intimidation and force.
Those who hoped that Republicans would choose patriotism over partisanship got their answer on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Donald Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become a sharply divided nation. But those who lament this should realize there is only one choice:
Either non-Fascist Americans will destroy the Republican party and its voters that threaten to enslave them—or they will be enslaved by Republicans and their voters who believe they are entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes.
There is no middle ground.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Military, RELIGION, Social commentary on January 1, 2024 at 12:49 am
New Year’s Eve, 2023, will soon lie behind us.
And for many people, saying “Goodbye” to 2023 can’t happen soon enough.
New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time for people to reflect on the major events of the previous 12 months. Some of these are highly personal. Others have been shared by the entire country.
Some of these remembrances inevitably bring pleasure. Others bring pain.
And 2023 has been a year of pain for millions.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to violently assault Ukraine. Despite a series of military setbacks, he continued to hurl missiles at Russia’s “brother nation.” Many Ukrainians spent a second Christmas without electricity or running water.
- On October 7, the Hamas terrorist group launched an attack on Israel, slaughtering 1,400 men, women and children and kidnapping at least 250 others. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and ground assault on Gaza, killing upwards of 20,000.
Emblem of Hamas
- In the United States, Donald Trump continued to lie that he had been cheated of victory in the 2020 Presidential election. His lie resonated with millions of Fascistic Americans, including members of Congress.
- And he prepared to run again for President—even as he faced 91 felony counts in four criminal cases. Determined to make himself “President-for-Life,” he posed the single greatest threat to American democracy in its history.
But 2023 also brought reason for hope:
- Republicans remained lethal but divided, ousting Kevin McCarthy, their own Speaker of the House and threatening to cannibalize others in their quest for dictatorial power.
- The COVID-19 pandemic had been largely contained, although the virus posed a lethal threat to those refusing to get vaccinated.
- Conscious of the dangers of climate change, Americans made wind, solar and hydropower more than 20 percent of the power supply.
Every New Year’s Eve celebration brings the fantasy that you get to start fresh in a matter of hours. And with that fantasy comes hope—that, this time, you can put your sorrows and failures behind you.
And each new year comes with lessons to be learned—and applied.
Each year gives us the chance to learn from history—our own and that of others. Try to learn from your mistakes—and especially those of others. With luck, you won’t repeat your past ones—or those of others. But don’t expect to lead a mistake-free life.
There is a time to be bold—and a time to be cautious. As Niccolo Machiavelli put it: “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.” Learn to tell when is the appropriate time to be which—and to play that role to the hilt.
Niccolo Machiavelli
There is image—and there is reality. J.P. Morgan once said: “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: A good reason and the real reason.” This is never truer than when a corporation or politician is asking for your money / vote.
When trying to decide whether to commit yourself to either, ask yourself: Who benefits? For example: When studying a proposed law that claims to aid the environment, find out who supports it. That will usually tell you what you need to know.
Learn how to evaluate others. Once again, Niccolo Machiavelli supplies the answer: “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him. When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
Don’t confuse wealth with virtue. Too many Americans believe that God bestows wealth on the worthy. If this were true, every Mafia boss would be a candidate for sainthood.
Each year is a journey unto itself—filled with countless joys and sorrows. Many of these joys can’t be predicted. And many of these tragedies can’t be prevented.
Learn to tell real dangers from imaginary ones. Computers are real—and sometimes they crash. Men who died 2,000 years ago do not leap out of graveyards, no matter what their disciples predict.
Don’t expect any particular year to usher in the Apocalypse. In any given year there will be wars, famines, earthquakes, riots, floods and a host of other disasters. These have always been with us—and always will be. As Abraham Lincoln once said: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”
Don’t expect some Great Leader to lead you to success. As Gaius Cassius says in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”: “Men at some time are masters of their fate. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.”
Don’t expect any particular year or event to usher in your happiness. To again quote Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
If your life seems to make no sense to you, consider this: The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once noted: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 29, 2023 at 12:17 am
On April 15, 2019, millions across France gasped in horror at the sight of Notre Dame Cathedral going up in flames.
The Cathedral, perhaps the most iconic building in Paris, is visited by more than 14 million people every year. Built between 1160 and 1345, it has long been one of the most important sites in Christendom.
A law passed in 1905 classified the cathedral as a Historical Monument and thus the property of the state. But its use is dedicated exclusively to the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics are estimated to comprise between 41% and 88% of France’s population.
Yet by April 19, for untold numbers of French citizens, horror and sadness had been replaced by anger.
Notre Dame Cathedral fire
LeLaisserPasserA38, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
So what had happened to arouse this?
First, French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation to speak about the fire. In doing so, he totally ignored the violent protests against inequality that had erupted throughout the country since November 2018.
Low-paid workers and pensioners accused Macron’s government of favoring the rich. The activists were named Yellow Vests—after the fluorescent jackets French motorists are required to keep in their cars.
Second, in just a few hours, billionaires pledged hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) to help restore the damaged cathedral.
“You’re there, looking at all these millions accumulating, after spending five months in the streets fighting social and fiscal injustice. It’s breaking my heart,” Ingrid Levavasseur, a founding leader of the movement, told The Associated Press.
“What happened at Notre Dame is obviously a deplorable tragedy. But nobody died,” Levavasseur said. “I’ve heard someone speaking of national mourning. Are they out of their minds?”
“The yellow vests will show their anger against the billion found in four days for stones, and nothing for the needy,” wrote Pierre Derrien on Facebook.
More than $1 billion was pledged for the cathedral’s restoration, and many French citizens believed the money could be better spent elsewhere. And the billionaires’ donations entitled them to huge tax deductions.
“If they can give dozens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame, they should stop telling us there is no money to respond to the social emergency,” CGT trade union leader Philippe Martinez said.
But this is generally how the rich and powerful react to the needs of the neediest.
In 2016, returning to Congress after their traditional summer recess, House Republicans planned to cut $23 billion in food stamps for the poor. This included ending waivers that allowed some adults to get temporary assistance while they were in school or training for a job.
The cuts were to include drug tests of applicants and tougher work rules. As Republicans see it: There’s no point in “helping” the poor if you can’t humiliate them.
The food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, served more than 46 million Americans and cost $74 billion in 2015.
Meanwhile, Republicans were eager to spend billions of dollars for another project: An unnecessary war with Syria.
One of these right-wingers was Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard—and one of the leading instigators of the 2003 war with Iraq.
Bill Kristol
He—like senior officials on the George W. Bush administration—falsely claimed that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and planned to use them against the United States.
Another Kristol lie: Hussein planned 9/11 with Osama bin Laden.
He has never apologized for either lie—or the resulting war that cost $3 trillion and killed 4,487 American soldiers and wounded another 32,226.
In a September, 2013 column, Kristol called for a return to slaughter—not only in Syria but Iran as well:
“…Soon after voting to authorize the use of force against the [Bashar al-] Assad regime, Republicans might consider moving an authorization for the use of force against the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
“They can explain that [President Barack] Obama’s dithering in the case of Syria shows the utility of unequivocally giving him the authority to act early with respect to Iran.”
Among Republican U.S. Senators calling for war were Arizona’s John McCain and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, who issued a joint statement:
“Using stand-off weapons, without boots on the ground, and at minimal risk to our men and women in uniform, we can significantly degrade Assad’s air power and ballistic missile capabilities and help to establish and defend safe areas on the ground.”
In addition: A major weapon for “degrading Assad’s air power” would be Tomahawk Cruise missiles. A single one of these costs $1,410,000.
Firing of a Tomahawk Cruise missile
A protracted missile strike would rain literally billions of dollars’ worth of American missiles on Syria.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon was spending about $27 million a week to maintain the increased U.S. Navy presence in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East region to keep watch over Syria and be prepared to strike.
Navy officials said it cost about $25 million a week for the carrier group and $2 million a week for each destroyer.
Is there a lesson to be learned from all this?
Yes.
Powerful people—whether generals, politicians or the wealthy—will always find abundant money and resources available for pet projects they consider important.
It’s only when it comes to projects that other people actually need that the powerful will claim there is, unfortunately, a cash shortage.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 28, 2023 at 12:28 am
Next hero: Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).
In May 2019, on President Donald Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network-–and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Marie Yovanovitch
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son, Hunter, had had business dealings in Ukraine.
On October 11, 2019, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani, might have thought “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.”
Another victim on Trump’s hate-list was Chis Krebs.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda had played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Trump didn’t win a majority of the popular vote. But he got enough help from Russian President Vladimir Putin to triumph in the Electoral College.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And point man for this was Chris Krebs.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
Now he was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:
- Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
As a result of the vast increase in election security, Trump not only failed to win the popular vote again but couldn’t get the help he expected from Putin.
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:
“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.
“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.”
Yet, by depriving Trump of Russian help, Krebs ensured a victory for democracy.
On January 6, the House and Senate counted the Electoral Votes—and pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 27, 2023 at 12:07 am
Next up: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich (September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975)
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.
Third hero: Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1992, he received his Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2007.
From 2017 to 2018 he commanded the USS Blue Ridge. In November, 2019, he was given command of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
On March 24, 2020, reports circulated that three members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19. The next day the number of stricken sailors increased to eight. A few days later, it was “dozens.” The sailors reportedly became ill at sea, two weeks after a port call at Danang, Vietnam.
The initial cases were airlifted to a military hospital. The Roosevelt was ordered to Guam. After the ship docked on March 27, 2020, all 5,000 aboard were ordered to be tested for the virus. But only about 100 stricken sailors were allowed to leave the ship. The rest remained on board.
On March 30, Crozier emailed a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore. Given the crowded sleeping quarters and narrow passageways of the vessel, Crozier wrote that it was impossible to follow social distancing and quarantine procedures:
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors….
“This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”
Brett Crozier
Crozier sent his letter via a non-secure, unclassified email to 20 to 30 recipients, as well as the captain’s immediate chain of command. He reportedly believed that his immediate supervisor would not allow him to send it.
And his superior later confirmed that he would not have allowed Crozier to send it.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated. A skeleton crew of 400 remained aboard to maintain the nuclear reactor, the fire-fighting equipment, and the ship’s galley.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
By that time, about 114 crew members—out of a total of around 4,000—reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
As Crozier disembarked, sailors loudly saluted him with a standing ovation: “Cap-tain Cro-zier!”
Modly claimed that Crozier’s letter “raised alarm bells unnecessarily. It undermines our efforts and the chain of command’s efforts to address this problem, and creates a panic and this perception that the Navy’s not on the job, that the government’s not on the job, and it’s just not true.”
Actually, the Trump administration had frittered away January and February, with President Donald Trump giving multiple—and misleading—press conferences. In these, he played down the dangers of COVID-19, saying that “we’re on top of it”—even as the virus spread across the country.
“It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public’s forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC,” continued Modly. [Italics added]
This was the United States Navy under Donald Trump—who threw “betrayal” and “treason” at anyone who dared reveal the truth about institutional crimes and failures.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 26, 2023 at 12:17 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, three villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; three are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); two American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky).
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a major Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 26 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Postage stamp honoring Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD secret police sent to arrest him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 8, 2023 at 12:07 am
In his ongoing war against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump may have the last word.
The former President has warned that if he can’t be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2024, “he’s willing to burn it all down.”
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who has intimately covered Trump for years, has tweeted:
“Yes, Trump is more vulnerable than he’s been in a long time. But that has happened before and he’s survived.”
Maggie Haberman
Andrew Lih, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“Trump has extremely few major donors who want to do anything for him right now and a number of them are having active conversations about the best way to stop him. But. Again….sound familiar?
“Trump has made clear he’s willing to burn it all down if he doesn’t get what he wants, which is maintaining his grip on the product line he’s been developing for six years: the Republican party. So a lot of electeds will have to make a choice they’ve not had to before.”
There is precedent for this. After serving two terms in the White House (1901-1909) Theodore Roosevelt became increasingly disillusioned with his handpicked successor: William Howard Taft.
Theodore Roosevelt
By 1912, he decided to run for a third term as a third-party candidate. His candidacy split the Republican vote—and enabled Democrats to elect Woodrow Wilson President.
No doubt many Democrats are now salivating at the possibility of the same occurring in 2024.
And even more of them are looking forward to seeing two would-be tyrants—Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis—trading lethal blows for most of the Presidential year.
Their reaction would be similar to that expressed by then-Senator Harry S. Truman when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.”
* * * * *
As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, its dictator, Adolf Hitler, sought to punish the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.
His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”
In his infamous “Nero Order,” he decreed the destruction of everything still remaining–industries, ships, harbors, communications, roads, mines, bridges, stores, utility plants, food stuffs.
Fortunately for Germany, one man–Albert Speer–finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.
Albert Speer
Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he mounted a successful effort to block such destruction and persuade influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.
As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.
Throughout his four years in office, President Donald Trump made it clear that America faced a stark choice: It could remain a constitutional democracy—or allow him to become an all-powerful “President-for-Life.”
Among his outrages:
- Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Giving 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.
- Shutting down the Federal Government for 35 days in 2018-19 because Democrats refused to fund his ineffective “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. The shutdown ended due to public outrage—without Trump getting the funding amount he had demanded.
- Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
- Repeatedly lying about the dangers posed by the COVID-19 virus, and thus enabling it to ravage the country and ultimately kill 400,000 by the time Trump left office.
- Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
Trump’s ultimate act of criminality and treason came on January 6, 2021, when he 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 Joe Biden: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.
Fortunately for American democracy, there were enough patriots determined to prevent Trump from becoming the absolute dictator he clearly intended to be.
Like Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump’s attitude was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.”
Deprived of his chance to destroy the country he claimed to love, Trump now threatens to destroy the political party that brought him to near-absolute power in 2016.
And Ron DeSantis stands ready to establish himself as an equally Trumpian dictator.
Their party is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive brutalities of its own Right-wing fanatics.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 7, 2023 at 12:25 am
Having been defeated in 2020 for a second term by former Vice President Joe Biden, Donald Trump has convinced himself—and millions of his fanatical followers—that he was cheated by voter fraud.
He is convinced that the 2024 GOP Presidential nomination rightfully belongs to him. And that anyone who stands in his way must be mercilessly crushed.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, is equally convinced that it’s now the turn of a younger, more vigorous and equally ruthless man to hold the White House.
Not only does Trump believe DeSantis owes him absolute loyalty, but so do many of his supporters.
“Sadly, everything President Trump says is true. Ron DeSantis owes his governorship to Donald Trump and challenging him in 2024 would be a treacherous act of disloyalty,” said Roger Stone, a long-time Trump adviser.
Donald Trump
Moreover, Trump has never allowed a sense of loyalty to stand in the way of his ambitions—in business or politics.
In DeSantis, Trump faces an opponent every bit as ruthless as himself—and endowed with several built-in advantages. Even so, Trump remains the odds-on favorite to win the 2024 Republican nomination for President.
On November 11, 2022, the CNN website carried an opinion piece by Nichole Hemmer, an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University.
Entitled “Even the DeSantis bubble may burst,” it noted:
“On paper, DeSantis looks like Trump’s natural heir. Since winning the governorship by a whisper-thin margin in 2018, he has consciously molded himself after Trump, picking up everything from Trump’s hand gestures and speech cadence to his media-bashing and calculated viciousness….
“He has married that political style with a strongman persona. As governor, he has targeted protesters, universities, public health workers and corporations for opposing his policies.
“He has sent police to round up voters with felony convictions who, confused by the state’s efforts to strip their voting rights after voters reinstated them a few years ago, mistakenly voted in recent elections.
“He has bent the Florida legislature to his will, whipping up support for anti-gay laws, a new redistricting map and punitive legislation targeting Disney after the company criticized the state’s infamous ‘don’t say gay” bill.'”
Nichole Hemmer
Thus, in DeSantis, Trump faces an opponent every bit as ruthless as himself—and endowed with several built-in advantages.
First, DeSantis, at 45, is 32 years younger than the 77-year-old Trump.
Second, DeSantis, unlike Trump, has an existing power-base: The Governorship of a pivotal swing state: Florida.
Trump, an ex-President, lives at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Third, DeSantis doesn’t carry the baggage of scandals and notoriety that Trump has acquired as a businessman and President.
Fourth, DeSantis can reach far greater numbers of people through his Twitter account than Trump has been able to do through his failing website, Truth Social.
Trump’s Twitter account was closed—by Twitter—after he incited a mob of his followers to attack the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
It has since been restored by Elon Musk since he acquired Twitter (now X) in 2022. But Trump prefers to use his subscriber-based website, Truth Social.
Ron DeSantis
Fifth, many Republicans are blaming Trump for their failure to sweep Democrats from state and Federal offices in a widely heralded “Red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser,” read the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board’s headline. Fox News and right-wing podcasts and radio shows repeated the charge in the days after the elections.
Sixth, DeSantis has gained huge popularity within Florida by molding himself after Trump by tapping into the politics of resentment. Among the targets of his attacks:
Protesters: DeSantis enacted a 2021 “anti-riot” bill that:
- Grants civil legal immunity to people who drive through protesters blocking a road;
- Creates a broad category for misdemeanor arrest during protests;
- Anyone charged will be denied bail until their first court appearance;
- Creates a new felony crime of “aggravated rioting” that carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a new crime of “mob intimidation.”
Schools:
- Installed GOP allies in top university posts;
- Successfully pushed legislation that could change tenure and limit how university professors can teach lessons on race.
Blacks: Pushed through the legislature a new congressional map that will dilute the voting power of black Floridians.
COVID-19: Attacked wearing masks and getting vaccinated as threats to “American freedom”—to support a family, attend school, run a business.
Gays: Signed legislation prohibiting classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity with younger students—a measure critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Walt Disney Corporation: Disney CEO Bob Chapek criticized DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” bill. DeSantis rammed through the legislature a bill eliminating the decades-long status Disney had held to operate as an independent government around its Orlando-area theme parks.
Asylum-seekers: Sent two planeloads of illegal aliens—at Florida’s expense—to the island of Martha’s Vineyard as a pre-election publicity stunt.
Nor has DeSantis neglected to make himself appear as a true “man of the people.”
A month before the election, he declared a gas tax holiday. He also suspended campaigning and focused on effective hurricane relief after Hurricane Ian.
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REPUBLICANS: STILL AWAITING THEIR “ALBERT SPEER SAVIOR”—PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 24, 2024 at 12:12 amOn November 3, 2020, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 79,658,000 votes, or 51% of the vote, compared to 73,886,400 votes, or 47.2% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
Joe Biden
Despite this, Trump steadfastly refused to concede. He made a series of baseless claims that he was cheated of victory by
He repeatedly filed legal challenges to the vote, claiming himself the victim of massive fraud. This despite the utter lack of evidence of it.
On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.
By November 21, Trump had lost in 30 cases dismissed by judges or withdrawn by his own attorneys.
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
Mitch McConnell
In a November 17, 2020 analysis, entitled “Donald Trump Doesn’t Seem to Want to Do His Job Anymore,” CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza wrote:
While Trump relentlessly asserted that he won the 2020 election, “he’s done next to nothing—at least publicly—to suggest he plans to continue doing the job in any serious manner through January 20.”
According to Cillizza, since losing the election, Trump had filled his days with:
Specifically:
Golfing: He played golf at his club in Virginia twice on the weekend of November 14-15. He was golfing the previous weekend, when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 race by CNN and other media outlets.
Tweeting: He tweeted numerous lies and conspiracy theories, claiming he won a second term but was cheated by the counting of fraudulent votes. This led Twitter to flag a large number of his tweets as “inaccurate.”
Making controversial military decisions: The Pentagon signaled it was planning—on Trump’s orders—to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. [American forces had been warring with the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2001; they had been warring against Iraqi insurgents since 2003.]
And in a move that was truly frightening: The New York Times reported that Trump asked his top advisers for options to strike at Iran’s nuclear capabilities before he left office. This would embroil the United States in a war that could easily turn nuclear.
Firing people: On November 9, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Four senior civilian officials were subsequently fired or resigned—Esper’s chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence.
They were replaced with flunkies loyal to Trump personally.
[This was in fact how Adolf Hitler took control of the Wehrmacht.
Adolf Hitler
[Since taking command of Germany in the summer of 1934, Hitler wanted to replace two high-ranking military officials: General Werner von Fritsch and Colonel General Werner von Blomberg. Both were convinced that Hitler’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy was putting Germany on a collision course with war—a war the Fatherland could not win.
[Hitler, in fact, meant to go to war—and despised Fritsch’s and Blomberg’s hesitation to do so. He decided to rid himself of both men.
[On January 12, 1938, Blomberg married Erna Gruhn, with Hitler and Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring attending as witnesses. Soon afterward, Berlin police discovered that Gruhn had a criminal record as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic photographs.
[Marrying a woman with such a background violated the standard of conduct expected of German officers. Hitler saw the scandal as an opportunity to dispose of Blomberg—who was forced to resign.
[Shortly after Blomberg was forced out in disgrace, the SS—Hitler’s private police force—presented Hitler with a file that falsely accused Werner von Fritsch of homosexuality. Fritsch angrily denied the accusation but resigned on February 4, 1938.
[From that point on, Hitler was in de facto command of the German Armed Services.]
Eighty-two years later, on November 3, 2020, President Donald Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden.
But Trump seemed determine to inflict as much damage as possible on the agencies responsible for protecting the security of the nation.
Besides wreaking havoc on the Pentagon, Trump was reportedly preparing to fire CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Trump had accused Haspel of stonewalling the release of documents that would supposedly expose “deep state” plots against Trump’s campaign and transition during the Obama administration.
In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential campaign such as Trumps.
And he was furious that Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that:
For Trump, contradiction was the same as treason.
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