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Posts Tagged ‘BARACK OBAMA’

IT’S “JEZEBEL SPIRIT” VS. THE PORN MODEL: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 5, 2024 at 12:09 am

Christian nationalist leaders are telling their followers that Vice President Kamala Harris is under the influence of a “Jezebel spirit.”  

The term immediately conjures up the Biblical story of the evil Queen Jezebel, who persecuted prophets and worshiped false gods. As a result, she was punished by being thrown out a window, trampled by a horse, then eaten by dogs.

Harris is a former San Francisco District Attorney, California Attorney General and United States Senator from California.

Meanwhile, those who fanatically support Donald Trump have embraced a woman of an entirely different sort: A former illegal alien and porn model named Melania Trump.

The Associated Press has found documentation showing that Melania Trump broke immigration law when she first entered the country from Slovenia in August, 1996, on a tourist visa.

Tourist visas allow someone to stay in the United States for six months, but they can’t seek employment in the United States during that time. Nevertheless, Melania quickly gained work s a professional model.

Then on October 18, 1996, she got an H-1B visa for “skilled workers” allowing her to work legally in America as a model. Melania was “paid for 10 modeling assignments between September 10 and October 15”—while she was still on the tourist visa.

In March, 2001, she was granted a green card for permanent residency through the EB-1 program, nicknamed the “Einstein visa” due to its allocation to top academics, business leaders and Oscar-winning actors. 

Yet the only “genius” she demonstrated lay in posing for nude and seminude photos. One of them showed her being hugged by another naked woman.

Occupy Democrats - This HAS to be said! | Facebook

Another photo—published during the 2016 Presidential campaign by the New York Post—showed her totally nude, with stars covering her breasts. Its title: “The Ogle Office.”

Melania’s foray into nude modeling might now be forgotten except:

  1. Many of those photos were splashed across the Internet. And, has been often remarked: Everything is forever on the Internet; and 
  2. Melania herself has resurrected this sordid phase of her life to promote her new book: Melania.

Seeking to redeem the value of her “nude work,” she has placed it in the context of the esthetic value of “Art.”

In a post on X, she writes: “Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body? Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape, evoking profound emotions and admiration.

“We should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self-expression.” 

Some social media posters—enraged by her violation of the immigration laws when she did these shoots—haven’t bought into this: 

“I really don’t care that you were a nude model. What I do care about is the fact that you worked as a nude model while in this country on a visitor visa, that’s illegal. You had the audacity to attack President Obama, who was born a U.S. citizen, about his birth certificate and push racist lies.”

Others have been infuriated by Republican hypocrisy and the double moral standard they apply:

“I don’t take issue with her posing nude for any reason. My concern lies with the MAGA crowd who overlook her nude photos while criticizing and shaming other women for doing the same. The level of hypocrisy is remarkable.

“Right, her husband posted a meme suggesting Harris gave blowjobs to get where she is.” 

Whereas Melania became an American citizen by having an extramarital affair with Donald Trump while he was married to Marla Maples. 

After they married in 2005, she further anchored herself to America by giving birth to Barron, who was born in 2006.

During an interview with radio talk show host Larry King, Trump—who had cheated on his previous two wives–said: “There’s nothing like a good marriage.”

Kamala Harris has repeatedly said that she wants to be “the President of all Americans.” Assuming this is true, the blunt reality is: She will never be, even if she wins the Oval Office.

At least half of this country is solidly Fascistic, and will always remain so. Its members not only lust to live under a Right-wing dictatorship but, even more so, force non-Fascists to do so.

A similar situation existed in the United States in the decades leading up to the Civil War: Half of the country—that is, 13 Southern states—were determined to preserve slavery at all costs. The other half—19 Northern states—were determined to prevent its spread, if not end it altogether.

Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories

Civil War America

Júlio Reis, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Newly-elected President Abraham Lincoln said in his Inaugural Address that he did not intend to abolish slavery. In fact, he emphatically declared that he did not have the legal power to do so.

Nevertheless, Southerners couldn’t live under an administration that condemned them as morally damned. Their tattered pride led to the April 12, 1861 attack on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. 

The resulting civil war lasted four years, killed 750,000 Americans—and rid the United States of legalized slavery after 246 years.

It may yet take another such wholesale bloodletting before the United States becomes wholly free—or wholly Fascist.

IT’S “JEZEBEL SPIRIT” VS. THE PORN MODEL: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 4, 2024 at 12:05 am

Christian nationalist leaders are telling their followers that Vice President Kamala Harris is under the influence of a “Jezebel spirit.”    

The term immediately conjures up the Biblical story of the evil Queen Jezebel, who persecuted prophets and worshiped false gods. As a result, she  was punished by being thrown out a window, trampled by a horse, then eaten by dogs. 

The term has long been used against women, especially black women. During the 246 years that slavery existed throughout the South, it was used to justify the systemic sexual assault and rape of black women and girls.

It has been used to target other women such as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, and to categorize movements such as feminism and abortion rights.

Jezebel 

19th-century painting by John Liston Byam Shaw  

As used by Right-wing white Christian nationalists, “Jezebel spirit” accuses a woman of being under the influence of demons in a spiritual battle between good and evil. Many of those who tried to violently overturn the 2020 victory of Joseph R. Biden were motivated such rhetoric—and beliefs.

The language is used to convince apocalyptic Christians that the next election is “do or die,” said Matthew Taylor, author of The Violent Take It By Force

This details the history of the New Apostolic Reformation and its influence in the January 6, 2021 coup attempt. During the attack, people sang religious songs, prayed and blew shofars—a horn in Jewish tradition that supposedly played a key role in the Biblical Battle of Jericho.

“It’s used as a means of justifying aggression. Christians are supposed to love their enemies. But Christians are allowed to hate demons,” Taylor said.

File:2021 storming of the United States Capitol 2021 storming of the United States Capitol DSC09363-2 (50820534723).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

January 6 coup attempt

“People … are hearing this woman is possessed by a demonic spirit that is hardcore, terrible, hates men, hates authority, is going to do whatever she wants to do,” said Anthea Butler, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book White Evangelical Racism

Christian nationalists seek a privileged role for Christianity in American public life—in the same way that Islam holds an all-powerful place in public life in Iran and Afghanistan.

Its leaders claim that “America is a Christian nation” whose followers hold the divine right to base national laws on the Bible and have religious leaders in positions of government.

One such leader is Lance Wallnau, who has one million Facebook followers. He has used “Jezebel spirit” to describe Harris, and says he receives messages directly from God. He’s considered a prophet in the New Apostolic Reformation. 

In a video he posted on X, he said, “With Kamala you have a Jezebel spirit, a characteristic in the Bible, that is a Jezebel spirit. The personification of intimidation, seduction, domination and manipulation. 

“She can look presidential and that’s the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft.”

Harris, formally dressed up and made up, smiles for her portrait.

Kamala Harris

Bradley Onishi, a former evangelical minister who once identified as a Christian nationalist, describes the movement as: “A national renewal project that envisions a pure American body that is heterosexual, white, native-born, that speaks English as a first language, and that is thoroughly patriarchal.

“They….are deeply invested in the notion of spiritual warfare, the idea that we are called as Christians to fight a cosmic battle between good and evil, and that it’s our duty to be boots on the ground for God in that conflict.

“What this has led to some decades later is, the New Apostolic Reformation leaders, the apostles and the prophets that are really at the head of this movement were some of the earliest to support Donald Trump in 2016. And they have remained steadfast in that support.

“They were at the very avant-garde of trying to get the 2020 election overturned in the wake of Joe Biden’s victory and mobilizing folks to be at January 6. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of New Apostolic Reformation Christians at January 6, as an example.”

According to Reverend Cathy Young, a retired pastor with the Presbyterian Church of the USA, the Christian Nationalist movement “is dangerous in its assertion that God has a special bond with the United States and with selected politicians. It is unwise, undemocratic and destructive. 

“A national survey conducted jointly by Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, found 64 percent of white evangelical Protestants are Christian Nationalism adherents or sympathizers to the movement. Thirty-five percent of Americans have never heard of the term ‘Christian Nationalism.’  

Appeal to Heaven flag of The New Apostolic Reformation

“Christian Nationalism is fueled by white supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and should dominate them. They are taught to shun LGBTQIA persons, embrace dominance of men over women and believe that only Christianity—one of 10,000 distinct religions—should rule Congress, state governments and the court system….

“Christian Nationalism is a political movement couched in religious language. Their ultimate goal is earthly power—control over people and issues they don’t like—which is the exact opposite of what the gospels teach us….”

Meanwhile, those who fanatically support Donald Trump have embraced a woman of an entirely different sort: A former illegal alien and porn model named Melania Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: THE MIND OF A PSYCHOPATH COMES TO VIDEO: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2024 at 12:09 am

After taking office as President on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump continued to hurl threats of violence against those he hates.           

“Trump’s language of violence started with immigrants when he launched his presidential campaign in 2015,” wrote Washington Post Reporter Eugene Scott.There is a direct line from his language to real violence against immigrants and other innocent Americans caught in the maniacal mass shootings of the past year.

“And this cancer is spreading: to Congress, to the media, to the intelligence community, to foreign allies. There is no end in sight as Trump becomes increasingly unhinged and the GOP remains frozen in abject silence.”

On October 2, 2019, Journalist Nina Burleigh wrote: “Since 2015, TV-watching Americans have been subject to the deimatic spectacle of more than 400 rallies (at least 80 since his election) in which Trump sometimes openly and more often coyly urged supporters to violence. These spectacles have conditioned many Americans to fear him and his more enthusiastic supporters.” 

Image result for Images of people giving the "Sieg heil" salute to Trump

Supporters giving the “Seig Heil” salute to Donald Trump

“Over the last few days, the President’s rhetoric of violence and hate has spread,” stated an October 3, 2019 press release by America’s Voice, a liberal immigration group.

“As Jamelle Bouie noted yesterday, ‘Over the weekend, in a rage over impeachment, President Trump accused Representative Adam Schiff of ‘treason,’ promised ‘Big Consequences’ for the whistle-blower who sounded the alarm about his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and shared a warning — from a Baptist pastor in Dallas — that impeachment ‘will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.’” 

Trump’s opponents have good reason to fear. And not simply the public demonstrations by the President’s fanatical base. They should fear the secret fantasies of the Right. 

Those secret fantasies have been revealed in a series of Right-wing videos featuring graphic acts of violence against those whom the Right—and Trump—hate.

From October 10 to 12, 2019, attendees of the American Priority Conference at the Trump National Doral Miami resort enjoyed many of those videos.

One of these, “The Trumpsman,” featured a digitized Trump shooting, stabbing and setting fire to such liberals—and even conservatives—as: 

  • Former President Bill Clinton
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden
  • Former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
  • Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
  • Former President Barack Obama
  • Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders
  • Utah Senator Mitt Romney
  • The late Arizona Senator John McCain 

And legitimate news media—such as CBS, BBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times and The  Washington Post—were also depicted as among Trump’s victims.

Image result for images of the trumpsman video

The video was produced by Rightists who believed it reflected what Donald Trump would do to his enemies if only he could get away with it. And given his near-constant calls for violence against his critics, they were absolutely correct.  

But the video’s critics were wrong to call for its suppression.

On the contrary—it should have bene widely seen for what it was: The Mein Kampf of Donald Trump and his fanatical followers, in and outside the Republican party.

Like Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, it depicted the future America can expect if the Right gains the power to live out its murderous fantasies. And the fantasy Right-wingers prize most: The brutal extermination of everyone who refuses to submit to their Fascistic tyranny.

“The Trumpsman” is part of a growing genre of pro-Trump memes that routinely earn thousands of views on sites like YouTube and Twitter. Many superimpose the faces of Trump and his chief supporters slaughtering Democrats, liberal celebrities and/or members of the media.

The event’s organizer, Alex Phillips, hurriedly claimed that the “unauthorized video” was shown “in a side room” at the American Priority Conference.

But there was an upside to this exercise in Right-wing porn. Democrats could have run TV ads showing limited clips from “The Trumpsman” video.

Unfortunately, the majority of Democrats lack the courage to attack their Right-wing enemies with the same ruthlessness used against them. That’s why they lost most Presidential elections of the 20th century.

Americans should be constantly warned: These videos were not made by liberals to parody the values and goals of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.

These videos were made by Right-wingers—and reflect the true values and intentions of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters

The boiler-plate rhetoric that gushes out of Republican conventions—about love of family, God and flag—is the public mask of the Right.

The videos that depict Right-wingers ruthlessly slaughtering anyone who dares to disagree with them reflect the real face of the Right.

Of course, most Americans never imagined that a President would:

  • Refuse to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election;
  • Spend four years lying that he had lost through massive voter fraud; 
  • Incite a mob to attack Congress while it counted Electoral College votes—which he knew proved he had lost in 2020.

Trump’s opponents should stop deluding themselves that: “Surely he’ll never do that.”

Whatever they fear he will do, he will do.

Like all predators, he will stop only when he meets a stronger opponent.

Germans—and the rest of the world—learned that about Adolf Hitler. But only when it was too late.

DONALD TRUMP: THE MIND OF A PSYCHOPATH COMES TO VIDEO: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 31, 2024 at 12:14 am

On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.            

About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen. 

Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.

Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.

At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Of this he served only nine months before being released.

Hitler used his time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria, to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—for a revitalized Germany and the conquest of other nations.

Image result for Images of Adolf Hitler outside Landsberg prison

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924

Published in 1925, it was long ignored by all but the most fanatical Nazis. But as Hitler gained increasing numbers of votes in a series of elections, many people—inside and outside Germany—began paying attention to its contents.

By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages.

Most of those who bought the book never read it. Its style was bombastic, repetitious and illogical. The first edition contained grammatical errors, reflecting a self-educated man.

Few who read it took Hitler’s intentions seriously. Comedians portrayed him as a wildly gesturing  crank who screamed constantly.

Hitler made no effort to hide his program for Germany under his rule. His candor led many people to believe he was a lunatic who could be safely ignored. 

He was especially insistent on the need for eliminating world Jewry and conquering the Soviet Union. 

On the former topic he wrote: “The nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated. 

“If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.”

A mere 17 years later, Hitler’s “Thousand-Year Reich” would translate those words into horrific action in a series of extermination camps equipped with gas chambers.

Mein Kampf(german Language Edition) (German Edition)

Hitler was equally insistent that Germany needed to find Lebensraum“Living space”-–in the east. And by “east” he meant “Russia.” 

Specifically: “And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago.

“We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future.

“If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.” 

Hitler finally attained power on January 30, 1933. He realized that Germany was not yet strong enough to impose its will on other nations. So he set out on a secret crash program to make Germany the strongest military power in Europe.

In 1936, he set out on his “mission of Providence”:

  • March, 1936: Ordering German troops to reoccupy the demilitarised zone between France and Germany (the Rhineland), in violation of the Versailles Treaty, which ended World War 1.
  • July, 1936: Sending troops to Spain to support the Fascist army of General Francisco Franco.
  • March 12, 1938: Occupying Austria and “unifying” it with Germany (the “Anschluss“).
  • September 29, 1938: Bullying British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain into surrendering Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland districts to Germany.
  • September 1, 1939: Ordering the invasion of Poland, which unintentionally launched World War II.
  • June 22, 1941: Ordering the invasion of the Soviet Union. 
  • 1941: Secretly ordering “the Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” resulting in the extermination of at least six million Jews.

Only after Hitler set out to conquer, first Europe, then the Soviet Union, did his victims and intended victims realize that Mein Kampf had given them a deadly warning. A warning too many of them had refused to heed.

By the time World War II ended:

  • Fifty million men, women and children were died—most of them dying in agony.
  • The Soviet Union, having crushed Nazi Germany, become a world power.
  • Poland and eastern Europe—once captives of Nazi Germany—now found themselves captives of the Soviet Union.
  • The United States, untouched by the war, emerged as the world’s superpower—and the only country strong enough to contain the Soviet Union.

But Adolf Hitler isn’t the only would-be dictator to give ample warning of his murderous intentions.

And, like most Germans in the Weimar Republic, which preceded Nazi Germany, most Americans refuse to take that warning seriously. 

MY PHILOSOPHY AS A BLOGGER

In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 23, 2024 at 12:59 am

On November 13, 2012, Dave, a conservative friend of mine who reads my blog, sent this email to a friend:  

Warren,

This is the propaganda blog editor friend of mine in San Francisco that I talked about during my presentation last Thursday evening at the Opera House.

As you can see, he is a typical unbiased uournalist…. As I said, I love the guy dearly and truly have the utmost respect for his ability and intellect (although it’s sometimes pointed). Nonetheless, I thought you and others would get a kick out of this blog.I would suggest that you log onto his site and read some of his other postings.  You will then see why I am such an admirer….   

* * * * *

Thus, here is my philosophy as a blogger for those of you who read my blog.

Many years ago I worked as an investigative reporter, covering local police and courts for a small Utah newspaper

As a reporter, I adhered strictly to a policy of objectivity: Reporting only what I knew to be true.  And in crime-related stories, reporting only what I knew I could legally prove to be true.

For example: You might feel absolutely certain that So-and-So committed a crime.  But to avoid libel suits, you had better have the proof in legal documents. And if you can find sources who are willing to back up those legal documents, so much the better.

Another thing: As a straight journalist, you have no right to inject your opinion into anything you write.

So if you write a story about a mayor or councilman you know is corrupt, you don’t have the right to add: “This guy needs to be tossed out of office and indicted.”

If a prosecutor says that, quote him. But your opinion doesn’t matter.

As a blogger I editorialize by pointing out what these facts mean (at least to me) and offering, when possible, a proposed solution to problems.

Take my column about Right-wing columnist Ann Coulter.

On November 13, 2012, I posted a column entitled, “Tears for the Miss America Nazi.”

Coulter had been outraged that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had not deprived Barack Obama of a second term as President.

First, I laid out her recent, public weeping over the re-election of President Obama. Then I quoted comedian Bill Maher and political commentator Chris Matthews on their reactions to Coulter’s comment that “There is no hope.”

Ann Coulter

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

So far, I had adhered to journalistic principles of fairness and objectivity—the who, what, when, where, how and why of journalism.

Only in the last six paragraphs of my column did I venture an opinion.

First, I laid out the historical precedent for what I intended to recommend. When her Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide, Magda Goebbels murdered her six children. Then she and her husband, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, killed themselves. 

Magda Goebbels - Wikipedia

Magda and Joseph Goebbels and their children 

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-086-03 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Then I offered the depressed Coulter an option she might not have considered: She could follow the example of Magda (minus the husband and children that Magda had and Coulter lacked).

Not that I expected her to do so.

Frankly, I didn’t consider Ann Coulter a legitimate journalist. She and Rush Limbaugh were the ultimate propaganda icons for the Republican party. They made a career out of attacking the integrity and patriotism of anyone who dared to disagree with them.

For example: Take Coulter’s book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.

One of her heroes is Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who unleashed a wave of hysteria across America with his slanderous accusations of massive Communist infiltration of the Federal Government.

Joseph McCarthy

Coulter maintains that McCarthy was a true patriot, and that he—not his victims—was the true victim of history.

This is on a par with rewriting history as the son of Laventi Beria, Joseph Stalin’s infamous secret police chief, has attempted. He insists that his father was a good man who was forced by Stalin to do bad things.

Jesus was right: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I hugely admire those who seek out the truth and speak it forcefully, without fear or favor.

And I despise those who ride to fame, power or wealth on a carpet of lies and evasions. Although I have written heavily about the infamies of the Right, I realize there is plenty of stupidity, arrogance and criminality on the Left.

I don’t believe that any person, agency, political party or corporation has a monopoly on virtue, intelligence or judgment. On the contrary: Members of agencies, political parties and corporations should be held to the highest level of scrutiny. This is especially true when those institutions hold vast power over the lives of ordinary citizens.

Throughout the last half-century Republicans have dominated American politics—and the lives of Americans. Thus I have written far more about their all-consuming lust for absolute power than I have on the usually secondary role played by Democrats.

“AMBUSHED AT CREDIBILITY GAP”: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 21, 2024 at 12:10 am

After being presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, Meryl Streep criticized Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s mocking of disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski.          

Kovaleski suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts the movement of the muscles in his arms.  

At a South Carolina rally on November 24, 2015, Trump claimed that Kovaleski was backing away from an article he had written four years earlier.

Trump had earlier said the article proved that New Jersey Muslims had celebrated the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Kovaleski had insisted there was no credible proof of such celebrations.  

Angered at being contradicted, Trump mocked Kovaleski: He flopped his right arm around with his hand held at an odd angle while imitating the reporter: “Now, the poor guy, you’ve got to see this guy: ‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. Uhh, I don’t remember,’ he’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.'”

Image result for Images of Serge Kovaleski

Trump mocking Kovaleski, left; Kovaleski, right

At the Golden Globe Awards on January 8, Streep denounced this behavior that “broke my heart.”

“And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. 

“Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”

Related image

Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes

Streep’s words outraged Trump’s supporters—especially his mouthpiece, Kelleyanne Conway. 

Appearing on Right-wing Fox and Friends the next morning, she said: “We have to now form a government, and I’m concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is also, I think, inciting people’s worst instincts. 

“When she won’t get up there and say, ‘I don’t like it, but let’s try to support him and see where we can find some common ground with him, which [Trump] has actually done from moment one.”

Conway didn’t say what common ground Streep should find with Trump. Perhaps agreeing on mocking the disabled? 

Kellyanne Conway by Gage Skidmore 3.jpg

Kelleyanne Conway

Then Conway visited CNN’s “New Day,” where she offered a “black-is-white” defense for Trump’s videotaped ridiculing of Kovaleski: It didn’t happen.  

The host, Chris Cuomo, having seen the video, wasn’t buying it.

CUOMO: But is [Streep] wrong? Is she wrong that it was wrong for Trump to make gestures like that about a man with disabilities?  

CONWAY: He didn’t—but that is not what he did and he has said that a thousand times. As he tweeted out today—

CUOMO: He can say it a million. Look at the video.

CONWAY: Why can’t you—wait, excuse me. Why can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt the way the benefit of the doubt was given to CNN’s polling, all of its analysts?

CUOMO: Because he’s making a disgusting gesture on video talking about Serge.

CONWAY: Not about that reporter and that’s just a fact. That is what he’s said. You should give him—

CUOMO: But how is it not about the reporter?

CONWAY: —the deference and respect if he says that it was—he was not mocking, he was mocking the groveling. He said it again this morning. He has three tweets out about it.

CUOMO: But he’s doing a gesture that goes right to the guy’s vulnerability.

CONWAY: You’re saying you don’t believe him. You’re calling him a liar and you shouldn’t.

CUOMO: Look, Kellyanne, to me that’s like you’re trying to scare me off the point and we both know it’s a waste of time.

CONWAY: I’m not going to scare you off anything.

CUOMO: He’s making a gesture that is so keenly tuned to what Serge’s vulnerability is. 

CONWAY: And now you’re giving oxygen to what Meryl Streep said.

CUOMO: Forget about Meryl Streep. This happened before her. If our kids did that, could you imagine what we would say to them?  

Conway said she would not bring her children into the discussion.

CUOMO: I will. If my kid did something like that, it’d be a really tough day.

CONWAY: You have to listen to what the president has said about that. Why don’t you believe him? 

Conway tried to change the subject to Hillary Clinton: “She was given the benefit of the doubt here constantly.”  

When Cuomo asked for specifics, she refused to give them. Then she returned to claiming that Trump had never mocked Kovaleski:

CONWAY: You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this, when he’s telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth, rather than look at what’s in his heart.  

* * * * *

Previously, politicians had defended themselves with arguments like: “You can see right here on the tape, I did (or, I didn’t)….”  

Trump has cast aside that logic—and the taped evidence—by demanding: “Believe what I’m telling you, not what you’ve just seen.”

By that rationale, if a security camera shows Trump robbing a bank at gunpoint, we’re supposed to believe him if he says: “No, I didn’t rob that bank. I was simply checking my bank balance.”

Such “logic” holds appeal for paid shills like Kelleyanne Conway. But most people will continue to judge by the evidence.

“AMBUSHED AT CREDIBILITY GAP”: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 18, 2024 at 12:22 am

For five years, Donald Trump, more than anyone else, popularized the slander that Barack Obama was born in Kenya—and was therefore an illegitimate President.      

For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued doing so. 

As his popularity fell to less than 1% among blacks, the managers of his campaign urged: Put the “birther” issue behind you.

So, on September 16, 2016—10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton—Trump made his version of a reversal.  

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Donald Trump: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States.”

He did so in about seven seconds and 40 words—after spending a half hour paying tribute to the military and promoting his new upscale hotel in Washington, D.C.:

“Now, not to mention her in the same breath, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.

“I finished it.  I finished it.  You know what I mean.

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”  

His tone made it clear that he felt uneasy making that statement–and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.

He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. Nor did he apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.  

On the evening of September 16, Hillary Clinton strongly responded to Trump’s comments: 

“For five years, he has led the birther movement to de-legitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”  

And First Lady Michelle Obama slammed Trump for his “birther” claims: 

“Then, of course, there were those who questioned, and who continue to question for the past eight years, and up to this very day, whether my husband was even born in this country.

“Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the examples he set, by going high when they go low. And he’s answered these questions with the progress we’ve achieved together.” 

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Michelle Obama

But perhaps the best perspective on this event was provided by syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Each Friday they appear on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events. 

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David Brooks and Mark Shields

On September 16, 2016, Shields (a liberal) and Brooks (a conservative) addressed Trump’s about-face on birtherism.    

MARK SHIELDS: “I think it’s important to establish right at the outset that [Trump] wasn’t only the loudest and the highest-profile and the most persistent and the most well-publicized birther, he, Donald Trump. He lied. He lied consistently and persistently.

“And, today, without explanation or excuse, he just changed his position and tried to absolutely falsely shift the blame onto Hillary Clinton.

“And this was an appeal to—he debased democracy. He debased the national debate. He appealed to that which is most ignoble or least noble in all of us.”

DAVID BROOKS: “Usually, there’s some tangential relationship to the truth, but a corroding relationship to the truth, frankly, as politics has gone on over the years.

“But now we’re in a reverse, Orwellian inversion of the truth with this. And so we have a team of staffers and then the candidate himself who have taken the normal spin and smashed all the rules.

“And so we are really in Orwell land. We are in 1984. And it’s interesting that an authoritarian personality type comes in at the same time with a complete disrespect for even tangential relationship to the truth that words are unmoored.

“And so I do think this statement sort of shocked me with the purification of a lot of terrible trends that have been happening. And so what’s white is black, and what is up is down, what is down is up. And that really is something new in politics.

“And the fact that there is no penalty for it, apparently—he’s doing fantastic in the last two weeks in the polls–is just somehow where we have gotten.”  

Less than two months later, Trump won the Presidency.  

Since then, Trump has continued to inhabit what David Brooks called “Orwell land.”

The most recent example of this occurred on January 9, 2017.  

The night before, Meryl Streep had enraged Trump and his mouthpiece, Kelleyanne Conway, at the Golden Globes Awards ceremony.

While being presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, she had criticized Trump’s mocking, on November 25, 2015, of disabled New York Times reporter Serve Kovaleski:  

“There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. 

“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.” 

“AMBUSHED AT CREDIBILITY GAP”: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 17, 2024 at 12:12 am

In 2011, Donald Trump, host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Barack Obama.     

Seeking to gain popularity among America’s Right-wing, Trump almost singlehandedly created the popular fiction that the President was born in Kenya—and was not an American citizen.

His motive: To convince Americans that Obama was an illegitimate President.

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Donald Trump

Among the statements Trump made:

February 10, 2011: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.”

March 23, 2011: “I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. … There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”

March 28, 2011: “I am really concerned” [that Obama wasn’t born in the United States]. He said that the birth announcement for Obama in a Hawaii newspaper could have been planted “for whatever reason.”

March 30, 2011: “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”

April 7, 2011: “I have people that have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now I have real doubts.”

April 25, 2011: “I’ve been told very recently…that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”

On April 27, President Obama released his original, long-form Hawiian birth certificate.

The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate 

“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.

“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”

And on May 1, he announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.

SEALS attacking bin Laden’s compound in the 2012 movie, “Zero Dark Thirty”

And how did Trump respond?  With the following series of Tweets on Twitter:

May 18, 2012:  “Let’s take a closer look at that birth certificate.@BarackObama was described in 2003 as being “born in Kenya.” http://bit.ly/Klc9Uu

August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”

August 27, 2012: “Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called “birther” issue? No more apologies—take the offensive!”

September 13, 2012: “Wake Up America! See article: “Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake” 

June 30, 2013: @davidrhythmguit: @realDonaldTrump @Chuffman48 Mark Cuban accepts the fact that the President of the United States was born here. Doubt it”

August 22, 2013: “Why are people upset w/ me over Pres Obama’s birth certificate? I got him to release it, or whatever it was, when nobody else could!”

December 12, 2013:  “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived”

November 23, 2014: “@futureicon: @pinksugar61 Obama also fabricated his own birth certificate after being pressured to produce one by @realDonaldTrump

Even after declaring his candidacy for President on June 16, 2015, Trump continued to insist that Barack Obama was an illegitimate President.

Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity among blacks had steadily fallen. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters. By comparison, 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.

Among the reasons for this:

  • His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
  • His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya—and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
  • His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.

Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.

And so, on September 16—10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton—Trump made his version of a reversal.

In doing so, he entered into what conservative New York Times political columnist David Brooks called “Orwell land.”

“AMBUSHED AT CREDIBILITY GAP”: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2024 at 12:26 am

“Credibility gap” is a term that came into use during the mid-1960s to describe public and journalistic distrust of President Lyndon B. Johnson. In particular, the term was applied to his administration’s conduct of the Vietnam war.      

It was, in short, a euphemism for accusing government officials of outright lying.

An example of the credibility gap in full swing appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1987 Vietnam war movie, Full Metal Jacket

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Vietnam was a war where military and political officials spewed a gung-ho version of constant American progress against a tough enemy.

And where civilian reporters like David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite saw—and labeled—the war as a brutal, wasteful and ultimately doomed effort. 

Midway through the film, there’s an editorial meeting of The Sea Tiger, the official Marine newspaper.

Lieutenant Lockhart is presiding–and he is determined to give his superiors an endless stream of “all-systems-go” propaganda reports. He reads a series of stories that have been published:

Story #1: DIPLOMATS IN DUNGAREES—MARINE ENGINEERS LEND A HELPING HAND REBUILDING DONG PHUC VILLAGES.

LOCKHART: “Chili, “if we move Vietnamese, they are evacuees. If they come to us to be evacuated, they are refugees.”

Story #2: N.V.A. SOLDIER DESERTS AFTER READING PAMPHLETS.

LOCKHART: “A young North Vietnamese Army regular, who realized his side could not win the war, deserted from his unit after reading Open Arms program pamphlets.”

Story #3: NOT WHILE WE’RE EATING: N.V.A. LEARN MARINES ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION DON’T LIKE TO BE INTERRUPTED WHILE EATING CHOW.

LOCKHART: “‘Search and destroy.’  Uh, we have a new directive on this. In the future, in place of ‘search and destroy,’ substitute the phrase ‘sweep and clear.’ Got it?” 

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Lt. Lockhart, editor of The Sea Tiger 

LOCKHART:  “And, Joker—where’s the weenie?”

JOKER:  “Sir?”

LOCKHART  “The Kill, Joker. I mean, all that fire, the grunts must’ve hit something.”

JOKER:  “Didn’t see ’em.”

LOCKHART:  “Joker, I’ve told you, we run two basic stories here: Grunts who give half their pay to buy gooks toothbrushes and deodorants—winning of hearts and Minds—okay? And combat action that results in a kill—Winning the War. Now you must have seen blood trails … drag marks?”

JOKER:  “It was raining, sir.”

LOCKHART:  “Well, that’s why God passed the law of probability. Now rewrite it and give it a happy ending–say, uh, one kill. Make it a sapper or an officer. Grunts like reading about dead officers.”

JOKER:  “Okay, an officer. How about a general?”

LOCKHART:  “Joker, maybe you’d like our guys to read the paper and feel bad. I mean, in case you didn’t know it, this is not a particularly popular war. Now, it is our job to report the news that these why-are-we-here civilian newsmen ignore.”

So great became the divide between truth and lies during military “press briefings” that reporters started calling them “The Five O’clock Follies.” And even some soldiers took to wearing buttons that said: “Ambushed at Credibility Gap.”

Reporters who dared to write truthfully about the military’s crimes and failures—like David Halberstam of the New York Times and Peter Arnett of the Associated Press—were regarded as traitors by military and political officials.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy became enraged by Halberstam’s reporting on the corruption of the South Vietnamese government. He pressured New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to transfer Halberstam to another locale. Sulzberger politely refused—and then, to send a message to Kennedy, extended Halberstam’s stay in Vietnam another six months.

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David Halberstam

In 1965, when CBS Correspondent Morley Safer filmed Marines setting fire to the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters, President Lyndon B. Johnson was similarly outraged.

He placed an early-morning call to CBS News President Frank Stanton and shouted: “Your boys shat on the American flag!”

The trail of deceit and attempted censorship continued right up to the end of the war—in April, 1975. That was when North Vietnamese forces invaded the South and quickly overwhelmed the incompetent defenses arrayed against them.

And while America was still bogged down in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal erupted on June 17, 1972.

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Watergate Hotel

Members of the Nixon administration’s secret “Plumbers Unit” burglarized the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel.

Obsessed with re-electing Richard Nixon, they sought incriminating information to discredit U.S. Senator George McGovern, the Democrats’ nominee for President.

When the burglars were caught, President Richard M. Nixon and his topmost officials lied and stonewalled both reporters and investigators seeking the truth.

Nixon’s press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, repeatedly slandered the integrity of The Washington Post for its coverage of the mushrooming Watergate scandal. He called the Watergate break-in “a third-rate burglary” and attacked the Post for “shabby journalism.”

Finally, on April 17, 1973, Ziegler, announced at a press conference: “This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.”

In short: We’ve been lying to you for the last 10 months.  But now we’re telling the truth.

Like Vietnam, the Watergate scandal destroyed the reputations of many of its chief architects. Forty government officials were indicted or jailed.

Vietnam and Watergate were seminal events for Americans coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They taught an entire generation: Don’t trust the government. Its officials routinely lie, and their lies can be deadly

GERMANS ONCE BACKED A FASCIST DICTATOR; NOW IT’S AMERICA’S TURN

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 8, 2024 at 12:07 am

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. 

“[They] 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….

“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”

On November 8, 2016, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.

Yet, in some ways, Americans had fewer excuses for turning to a Fascistic style of government than the Germans did.

Adolf Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.

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Adolf Hitler

In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.

After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.

When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.

Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer—who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.

In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor could do this.

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Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg was reluctant to do so. He considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he let himself be convinced that he could “box in” and control Hitler by putting him in the Cabinet.

So, on January 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor (the equivalent of Attorney General) of Germany.

On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died. Hitler immediately assumed the titles—and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President. His rise to total power was complete.

It had taken him 14 years to do so.

In 2015, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President.

Now, consider this:

  • The country was technically at war in the Middle East—but the fate of the United States was not truly threatened, as it had been during the Civil War.
  • There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the casualties taking place.
  • Nor were these conflicts—in Iraq and Afghanistan—imposing domestic shortages on Americans, as World War II had.
  • Thanks to government loans from President Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
  • Employment was up. CEOs were doing extremely well.
  • While corruption had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan, there had been none during the Obama Presidency.
  • Nor had there been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—as there had on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.

Yet—not 17 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.

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Donald Trump

The slogan of Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign had been: “Yes, We Can!”

That of Donald Trump’s campaign might well have been: “No, You Can’t!”

Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

Birthrates among non-whites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.

The 2008 election of the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.

Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Hillary Clinton.

After became President, he:

  • Fired an FBI director for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
  • Attacked Federal judges whose rulings displeased him.
  • So tyrannized his staffers that 43% of them have abandoned him.
  • Repeatedly defended Communist dictators Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un.
  • Attacked America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
  • Shut down the United States Government, imperiling the lives of 800,000 Federal employees, to extort money from Congress for a worthless wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
  • Attacked the free press as “the enemy of the people.” 
  • Used his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
  • Refused to accept the results of the 2020 Presidential election and continues to lie he was cheated by vote fraud.
  • Incited a deadly riot against Congress to stop the counting of Electoral College votes so he could become “President-for-Life.”

As Election Day 2024 rapidly approaches, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans again lust to send Donald Trump back to the White House.

All of this should be remembered the next time an American blames Germans for their embrace of Adolf Hitler.