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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 8, 2022 at 12:16 am
During the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans ran—as usual—on the basis of hate and fear. And Democrats—as usual—ran as on the basis of cowardice and naivety.
On June 24, when six Right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court finally banned legalized abortion, Democrats believed they had a sure issue-winner come November.
But in the months since then, momentum has steadily swung to the Republicans. They have blamed President Joe Biden—and Democrats generally—for the following:
- Inflation;
- Crime;
- Illegal immigration.
While all of these have proven popular with voters, they reveal a tide of ignorance and unrealism among the electorate. Consider:
Inflation: This is a worldwide problem, not simply an American one. Some of this can be blamed on the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. But another reason is simply old-fashioned corporate greed—and the refusal of the Federal Government to attack it.
According to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA): From May to August, corporate profit margins were the widest since the 1950s. During the second quarter of 2022 companies continued jacking up prices. This pushed inflation to a 40-year high at the expense of workers and consumers.
“We can argue until the cows come home about the cause of inflation,” writes Chris Becker, senior economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. “But we can’t lose sight of the basic moral point that it is outrageous that corporations are seeing skyrocketing profits while purchasing power for so many American households is declining.”
The Justice Department could deal with this through RICO—the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. Corporations guilty of extortion—such as those that have priced insulin out of the reach of most Americans—could be prosecuted for extortion.
That would not only bring prices down but serve as a warning for future greed-fueled corporations.
But it takes more than laws to protect the citizens of a nation; it takes prosecutorial courage to enforce those laws. And in Attorney General Merrick Garland, that courage is pathetically lacking.
Republicans claim to have a “plan” for turning around this situation. Yet they have repeatedly voted against:
- Cheaper gas
- Cheaper insulin
- Cheaper prescription drugs
- Stimulus checks
- Child tax credits
In November, 2017, Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress.
According to Chye-Ching Huang, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy, the law:
- Encouraged rampant tax avoidance and gaming that undermines the integrity of the tax code.
- Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans.
- Cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.
- Allowed multinational corporations’ foreign profits to go largely untaxed.
- Benefitted overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly paid executives.
Yet poor and middle-class Americans remain ignorant of this and believe Republicans truly care about them.
One symptom of inflation that especially infuriates Americans: High prices for gas.
In October, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by two million barrels per day. OPEC wants to prop up oil prices as global demand slows down.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Biden administration tried to persuade OPEC countries to not cut oil output. But Saudi Arabia—the biggest member of the oil-producing cartel—refused.
Some commentators believe that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was primarily responsible for this. Biden had once pledged to treat Salman as a “pariah” after the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yet there is nothing Biden can do—short of invading Saudi Arabia and taking control of its oil fields.
(President Donald Trump said the United States should have done this after it invaded Iraq.)
Crime: According to the Pew Research Center: Around six-in-10 registered voters (61%) say violent crime is very important when making their decision about who to vote for in this year’s congressional elections.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics, however, reports no recent increase in the U.S. violent crime rate. The FBI also estimates that there was no increase in the violent crime rate in 2021.
There has been a record number of mass shootings in the United States—622 by October. But while Republicans rail against violent crime, they consistently block all efforts to curb the sale of semi-automatic weaponry to anyone who wants it.
AR-15 Rifle
Moreover, while Federal law enforcement agencies—especially the FBI—receive major news coverage, most crime occurs at the local level. The Federal Government has no role to play in it—unless the violation occurs on Federal property or involves a Federal official.
Illegal Immigration: For Republicans, illegal aliens come exclusively from Central and Latin American countries.
Yet David DePape, who assaulted Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a Canadian who overstayed his visa.
According to the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), overstayers numbered more than 500,000 in 2020. They represent up to 40% of the total illegal alien population.
Moreover, dealing with illegal alien invasions is a problem that confronts every President, Republican and Democrat.
President Barack Obama was often attacked by immigration groups as the “Deporter in Chief.” Between 2009 and 2015, his administration removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders.
According to government data, the Obama administration deported more people than any other administration in history.
Yet, for Republicans, “the crisis at the border” will always remain a rallying cry—as long as it’s aimed at Hispanics.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on November 4, 2022 at 12:17 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear—barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. As a result, Republicans now may capture both houses of Congress and—in 2024—the Presidency.
An example of this occurred on March 25, 2018.
On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.”
Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”
Jimmy Carter
By March 25, 2018, Trump—having held office for little more than a year—had:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign;
- Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing;
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people”;
- Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia subverted the 2016 Presidential campaign—and planned to do the same for the upcoming mid-term elections in November, 2018.
- Repeatedly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and refused to enforce Congressionally-mandated sanctions against Russia for its subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Trump, in short, had only contempt for the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama, like Carter, believes in rationality and decency. He feels more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies.
As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.
Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
They fully expected to win the White House again, and thought they might retake the Senate—and maybe even the House of Representatives.
Michelle Obama’s mantra of “When they go low, we go high” proved no match for Trump’s millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Business, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 2, 2022 at 12:14 am
On October 3, former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN for defamation.
Seeking $475 million in punitive damages, he charged the network with conducting a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Trump is claiming that CNN had used its influence to defeat him politically.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit focuses largely on CNN’s use of the term, “The Big Lie,” to describe Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 Presidential election.
The phrase dates from Adolf Hitler’s use of it in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: People “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Trump’s lawsuit claims “The Big Lie” has been used in referring to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January, 2021.
In addition, the lawsuit cites instances where CNN compared Trump to Hitler. In a January, 2022 report, Fareed Zakaria provided footage of Germany’s dictator.
So what are his odds of winning? Far less than your own of finding loose change in sofa cushions.
First: Donald Trump is a public figure—arguably the most public figure in the world. Plaintiffs who are public figures or government officials must prove themselves victims of actual malice to collect damages.
In the landmark case, New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) the Supreme Court declared that actual malice occurs when a statement is made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
This is a more stringent standard than private citizens have to meet, which is negligence.
Second: Truth is an absolute defense against libel (unless the plaintiff is suing for invasion of privacy). And Trump’s history as a liar, criminal and traitor has been thoroughly established.
Liar:
- He created the lie that Barack Obama—whose birth certificate states unequivocally that he was born in Hawaii—was not an American citizen. The reason: To de-legitimize Obama as a Presidential candidate and President.
- Throughout 2020, he repeatedly lied about the dangers of COVID-19—attacking medical experts who urged citizens to mask up and social distance. As a result, by the time he left office, 400,000 Americans had died of COVID.
Donald Trump
Criminal:
- He has been forced to shut down his Trump Foundation and forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Foundation for political purposes.
- He was also forced to close his unaccredited Trump University for scamming its students. He had promised to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with many of those students.
Traitor:
- On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of his Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists who had ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The reason: To obtain “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
- On July 27, 2016, Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
These incidents were nothing less than treason—inviting a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
Third—and perhaps the most important of all: In a libel suit, the plaintiff must answer—under oath—all questions put to him by the defendant’s attorneys.
Trump, better than anyone, knows the depths of his own criminality. Just as Al Capone knew his notoriety for evil would make it impossible for him to win a libel suit, so does Trump.
On August 10, he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination nearly 450 times during a deposition at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, in its probe into the Trump Organization’s business practices.
He would not be allowed to do so as a litigant in a libel suit.
Moreover, he has a history of threatening to file lawsuits—and then failing to do so.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, at least 12 women publicly accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior—if not assault.
Trump’s reaction: “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
Six years later, he has not filed a single lawsuit for defamation.
So why has he filed a defamation suit against CNN?
Money—not by winning an impossible lawsuit, but by raising it from his gullible and Fascistic followers.
He will claim—once again—that he’s being persecuted and that “they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you.”
And his millions of media-hating followers will gladly pony up money they will never see again.
If he loses the lawsuit—or pulls out of it—he will claim he’s the victim of “the deep-state establishment.”
And ask his followers for even more money—which they’ll cough up.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2022 at 12:13 am
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Donald Trump fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- Obamacare
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Donald Trump
During his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and institutions on his @realDonaldTrump account.
Then, on March 4, 2017, Trump falsely accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
Thus, without offering a shred of evidence to back it up, Trump accused his predecessor—on Twitter—of committing an impeachable offense.
President Barack Obama
On May 9, 2017, Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey—for pursuing an investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
Just 72 hours after firing Comey, Trump threatened him via Twitter: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Trump had no such tapes.
And Twitter’s reaction to such a blatant threat? Silence.
James B. Comey
On February 17, 2017, Trump used Twitter to attack the Constitutionally-protected free press:
“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
“Enemy of the people” was a popular charge during the 30-year reign of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
On July 2, 2017, Trump tweeted a video showing him punching a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head during a WWE wrestling match.
Yet Twitter’s Terms of Service stated:
Hateful imagery and display names: You may not use hateful images or symbols in your profile image or profile header. You also may not use your username, display name, or profile bio to engage in abusive behavior, such as targeted harassment or expressing hate towards a person, group, or protected category. We will begin enforcing this rule on December 18, 2017. [Italics added.]
Even foreign leaders were unnerved by Trump’s obsession with Twitter. As CNN Political Analyst Julian Zelizer outlined in a July 3, 2017 article:
“To have one of the most powerful people in the room being someone who is willing to send out explosive and controversial statements through social media, including nasty personal attacks or an edited video of him physically assaulting the media, does not make others….feel very confident about how he will handle deliberations with them.”
On September 25, 2017, Twitter’s top executives justified allowing these repeated violations of “Twitter Rules,” tweeting:
“We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules.
“Among the considerations is ‘newsworthiness’ and whether a Tweet is of public interest. This has long been internal policy and we’ll soon update our public-facing rules to reflect it. We need to do better on this, and will.”
Only after Trump incited a mob of his Right-wing followers to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, did Twitter ban him from its website.
But Twitter has never acknowledged publicly that Trump violated any of its guidelines. It rarely even acknowledged Trump’s tweets.
Trump’s apologists fiercely defended his tweetstorms, claiming they allowed him to bypass the media and “communicate directly with the American people.”
One of those apologists was former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: “I believe it’s really important to have these conversations out in the open, rather than have them behind closed doors.”
Jack Dorsey
In April, 2017, Twitter announced that it had added 9,000,000 new users, its largest quarter-over-quarter jump in two years.
“We believe Twitter is the best at showing you what’s happening in the world and what’s being talked about,” said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer.
“Having political leaders of the world as well as news agencies participating and driving that is an important element to reinforcing what we’re the best at.”
In short: Trump is good at attracting more Twitter users. and if the company needs to overlook his blatant and repeated violations of its “Twitter Rules,” so be it.
Twitter has been so plagued by trolling that potential investors like the Walt Disney Company have refused to taint their own reputations by partnering with it.
Cyber-bullying, racist comments, violent threats and reputation-smashing phony celebrity accounts have repeatedly brought Twitter harsh criticism.
And now its new owner, Tessla CEO Elon Musk, clearly intends to restore Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
Not content with that, Musk has engaged in a Twitter-smear of his own.
On October 28, David DePape, a Right-wing QAnon fanatic, assaulted Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in his San Francisco house.
Hours later, Musk tweeted a Right-wing slander: That DePape is a male sex worker who was hired by Paul Pelosi.
Musk later deleted the tweet.
Anyone who wanted to know what the “new” Twitter will be like just found out.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 31, 2022 at 12:22 am
Behind the racism
And the tweet
Behind the venom
And the act
Lies the Hatred.
In less than 12 hours, Roseanne Barr demolished her hit show, Roseanne, and threw the lives of dozens of men and women into unemployed chaos.
A short timeline is instructive:
May 28, 2018 – 1:45 a.m.
Roseanne Barr takes to Twitter and tweets: “muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes had a baby = vj”
[“vj” stands for “Valerie Jarrett,” a former senior adviser and assistant for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs for then-President Barack Obama. The reference to “planet of the apes” is Barr’s way of comparing Jarrett—who is black—to an ape.]
May 29 – 6:29 a.m.
“It’s a joke.”
[Apparently, Barr has suddenly realized that posting such a racist, poisonous tweet just might not be a good career move. So she’s trying to defuse the bomb before it can explode on her.]
May 29 – 9:28 a.m.
“I apologize. I am now leaving Twitter.”
[Obviously, she’s really worried now.]
May 29 – 7:33 a.m.
“I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me–my joke was in bad taste.”
[This looks like standard boiletplate, perhaps crafted by someone familiar with corporate-speak. It’s clear that Barr or someone close to her not only recognizes the public relations dangers of her tweet but made an “I was only joking” effort to deflect those dangers. Barr’s idol, President Donald Trump, has often hurled despicable insults at people—and then claimed: “I was only joking.” Perhaps Barr believes—or at least hopes—the same tactic will work for her.]
Roseanne Barr (Pinterest)
May 29 – 9:15 a.m.
Channing Dungey, entertainment president of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), issues the following announcement: “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
Robert Iger, CEO of Disney (which owns ABC) tweets: “There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.”
This was, of course, not the first time that Roseanne Barr had starred in her own series. From 1988 to 1997, she had portrayed Roseanne Conner, wife and mother of an Illinois working-class American family. John Goodman had played her husband.
Their three children (Becky, Darlene, and DJ) were played by, respectively, Lecy Goranson (and, later, Sarah Chalke); Sarah Gilbert; and Michael Fishman.
The series reached No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings, and became the most-watched television show in the United States from 1989 to 1990.
The show remained in the top four for six of its nine seasons, and in the top 20 for eight seasons. In 2002, Roseanne was ranked No. 35 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
So when Roseanne pitched an updated version of her show to ABC in 2017, the network was naturally excited.
On May 16, 2017, ABC announced that it would revive Roseanne as a mid-season replacement in 2018, with the original cast returning. Eight episodes were ordered. In November, ABC ordered a ninth episode.
The rebooted version premiered on March 27, 2018, to an initial audience of 27.26 million viewers. On March 30, thrilled by the success of its premiere, ABC renewed Roseanne for another 13 episodes.
Thirteen new episodes of Roseanne represented steady work for dozens of men and women:
- Actors portraying the Conner family.
- Actors in minor roles.
- Costume designers.
- Writers
- Editors
- Makeup artists.
- Caterers.
- Sound techs.
- Lighting techs.
- Production assistants.
Then came Roseanne Barr’s tweet.
And, suddenly, all of these people found themselves unemployed—and uncertain about their futures in the fickle and often unforgiving entertainment industry.
Of course, the person most immediately—and rightly—blamed was Roseanne Barr herself. But she was by no means the only one worthy of condemnation.
A major portion of blame is owed the men who run Twitter.
According to “The Twitter Rules,” posted on the Twitter website:
We believe in freedom of expression and open dialogue, but that means little as an underlying philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up.
In order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, we prohibit behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.
Context matters when evaluating for abusive behavior and determining appropriate enforcement actions. Factors we may take into consideration include, but are not limited to whether:
- the behavior is targeted at an individual or group of people;
- the report has been filed by the target of the abuse or a bystander;
- the behavior is newsworthy and in the legitimate public interest.
Abuse: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice….
Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. Read more about our hateful conduct policy.
All of which leads to the question: Why didn’t Twitter police—and purge—the single greatest abuser of its “Twitter Rules”: Donald Trump?
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2022 at 12:53 am
On March 13, 2020, then-President Donald Trump addressed a subject he clearly resented being asked: His gutting of an early-warning medical system set up to confront pandemics.
In 2014, following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Barack Obama created the White House Pandemic Office, run by the White House’s National Security Council (NSC).
Heading it was Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer. Under President George W. Bush, he had successfully fought malaria overseas. His topflight team of infectious disease and public health experts was creating a national bio-defense strategy.
Their goal: Coordinate agencies to make the United States more resilient to the threat of epidemics and biological warfare.
In May, 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s global health security unit shut down. The reason: Trump’s pathological jealousy of and hatred for Obama.
On March 13, 2020, at a White House press conference, Yamiche Alcindor, the PBS Newshour’s White House Correspondent, dared to ask Trump:
“My first question is: You said that you don’t take responsibility, but you did disband the White House Pandemic Office and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So, what responsibility do you take to that?
Yamiche Alcindor
“And the officials that worked in that office said that you—that the White House—lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that?”
Then followed this exchange:
TRUMP: Well, I just think it’s a nasty question, because what we’ve done is—and Tony had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing. And when you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people.
ALCINDOR: It’s your administration.
TRUMP: I could ask, perhaps—my administration, but I could perhaps ask Tony about that, because I don’t know anything about it. I mean, you say we did that. I don’t know anything about it.
Donald Trump
ALCINDOR: You don’t know about the—
TRUMP: We’re spending—
ALCINDOR: — About the reorganization that happened in the National Security Council?
TRUMP: No, I don’t know. It’s the—it’s the administration, perhaps they do that. You know, people let people go. You know, you used to be with a different newspaper than you are now. You know, things like that happen.
Trump’s refusal to accept responsibility for the greatest crisis of his tenure as President flagrantly contrasts with how President John F. Kennedy responded to a similar crisis.
On April 17, 1961, the U.S. Navy landed 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles on Cuba to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. Landing at the Bay of Pigs, they were supposed to head into the mountains—as Castro himself had done against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956—and raise the cry of revolution.
When the invaders surged onto the beaches, they found Castro’s army waiting for them. Many of the invaders were killed on the spot. Others were captured.
It was a major public relations setback for the newly-installed Kennedy administration, which had raised hopes for a change in American-Soviet relations.
Kennedy, trying to abort widespread criticism, publicly took the blame for the setback: “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan….I’m the responsible officer of the Government.”
John F. Kennedy press conference
Ironically, the crisis—and his taking responsibility for it—hugely increased Kennedy’s popularity. The national Gallup Poll reported that 83 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing as President.
To a White House aide, Kennedy half-joked: “It’s just like Eisenhower—the worse I do, the more popular I get.”
By contrast, Trump’s “handling” of the Coronavirus plague brought him the worst reviews of his Presidency.
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks attacked Trump in terms usually reserved for serial killers. On the March 13, 2020 edition of The PBS Newshour, he said:
“This is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president, who doesn’t care, who has treated this whole thing for the past month as if it’s about him. ‘How do people like me?’ Minimizing the risks. ‘Does the stock market reflect well on me?’ And he hasn’t done the things a normal human being would do, which was to, let’s take precautions….
“And he’s incapable of that. And he’s even created an information distortion field around him.”
And Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post, said: “He likes having powerful people around him to praise what he’s done. He tried to get them all up to the podium to talk about how great of a response he has provided, and I think that’s—trying to get that co-signed from CEOs and powerful people is a key part of his presidency.”
Kimberly Atkins, senior Washington news correspondent for WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station: “We have seen the president not only be all over the place but his instinct was to try to downplay it [Coronavirus] because he saw it as a political threat—to say that people would get better….
“Even today he’s saying, ‘We have everything under control. We have this website that people can go to and find out where they can get tested.’ The website isn’t even done yet.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 2, 2022 at 12:10 am
August 9, 2022, marked an anniversary increasingly fewer Americans remember: Forty-eight years to the day that Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, resigned in disgrace.
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, remains virtually unknown outside the journalism profession. Yet his paper did more than any other to bring Nixon down.
Both Nixon and Bradlee were driven to succeed. And both achieved fame and power in doing so.
Bradlee made his name in journalism.
Benjamin C. Bradlee
Nixon made his name in politics.
Richard Nixon
Both served in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II.
Both had strong connections to John F. Kennedy.
- Bradlee knew him as a friend and reporter during JFK’s years as a Senator and President.
- Nixon—as a Senator and later Vice President—knew Kennedy as a Senatorial colleague and as a political adversary, unsuccessfully contesting him for the Presidency in 1960.
For both, 1948 was a pivotal year.
- Bradlee joined The Washington Post as a reporter.
- Nixon, as a U.S. Representative, accused Algier Hiss, a former State Department official, of having been a Communist spy. Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury and sent to prison.
Both reached their positions of maximum power in 1968:
- Bradlee became executive editor of The Washington Post.
- Nixon became the 37th President of the United States.
But there was a fundamental difference between them:
- Bradlee made it his business to dig up the truth.
- Nixon made it his business to distort the truth—or to conceal it when distortion wasn’t enough.
Nixon and Bradlee had their first major clash in 1971 with the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study of how the United States became enmeshed in the Vietnam war.
- Although the Papers concerned events that had occurred during the Presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon was outraged at their release by a former Defense Department analyst named Daniel Ellsberg.
- Bradlee, as executive editor of The Washington Post, successfully urged his publisher, Katherine Graham, to publish the papers after The New York Times was enjoined from doing so.
- The controversy ended when the Supreme Court ruled, 6–3, that the government failed to meet the burden of proof required for prior restraint of the press.
In 1972, Bradlee and Nixon squared off for their most important battle—a “third-rate burglary” of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Benjamin C. Bradlee
- Bradlee backed two young, aggressive reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as they probed the burglary.
- This led to their discovering a series of illegal dirty tricks the Nixon re-election campaign had aimed at various Democratic opponents.
- The Post’s revelations led to the formation of the Senate Watergate Committee, the discovery of Nixon’s tape-recordings of his private—and criminal—conversations, and, finally, to Nixon’s own resignation in disgrace on August 9, 1974.
Bradlee became an advocate for education and the study of history.Nixon entered history as the only American President forced to resign from office.
:Richard Nixon saying farewell at the White House
Bradlee became a media celebrity. Nixon became a media target.
- Bradlee was portrayed by Jason Robards in the hit 1976 film, All the President’s Men (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor).
- Nixon was portrayed—in Oliver Stone’s 1995 drama, Nixon—by Anthony Hopkins.
Bradlee and Nixon each published a series of books.
- Bradlee’s: That Special Grace and Conversations With Kennedy focused on his longtime friendship with John F. Kennedy; A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures was Bradlee’s memoirs.
- Nixon’s: Among his 11 titles: Six Crises; RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon; The Real War; Leaders; Real Peace; No More Vietnams; Beyond Peace.
After leaving the White House, Nixon worked hard behind-the-scenes to refashion himself into an elder statesman of the Republican Party.
- Throughout the 1980s, he traveled the lecture circuit, wrote books, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries.
- He supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, making television appearances portraying himself as the senior statesman above the fray.
- For the rest of his life, he fought ferociously through the courts to prevent the release of most of the infamous “Watergate tapes” that chronicled his crimes as President.
- Only since his death have many of these been made public.
Nixon died on April 22, 1994.
- Eulogists at his funeral included President Bill Clinton and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, California Governor Pete Wilson and the Reverend Billy Graham.
- Despite his efforts to portray himself as an elder statesman, Nixon could never erase his infamy as the only President to resign in disgrace.
- To this day, he remains a nonperson within the Republican Party.
Bradlee remained executive editor of The Washington Post until retiring in 1991. But he continued to serve as vice president-at-large until his death on October 21, 2014.
- In 2007, he received the French Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government, at a ceremony in Paris.
- In 2013, he was named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. He was presented the medal at a White House ceremony on November 20, 2013.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 1, 2022 at 12:10 am
There’s a reason why Republicans win so many elections—especially at the Presidential level.
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions.
And Republicans long ago became experts at appealing to these—especially the baser ones.
For Republicans, the Big Three are:
Hatred
Greed
Fear
Hatred: There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Greed: On August 23, 2018, Trump, as President, offered additional evidence that he’s “not like other people.” He did so by giving an unprecedented reason why he shouldn’t be impeached: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubtless spoke for millions of Trump supporters when she said, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA TODAY, summed up the popularity of the “Greed Appeal” to voters on the March 13 edition of “Washington Week in Review”:
“USA Today has conducted a poll about the economic concerns that are out there….And Congress—you’re seeing fear in this country about the economy.
“In fact, when we did this poll this week about how Americans’ lives have been affected by the Coronavirus, people expressed more concern about the economic and financial effect than they did about the health effect. And you know, that goes to why this matters so much to President Trump.
“How many voters have you talked to who said, you know, I don’t really like President Trump’s tweets, but I like what I see happening in my 401(k)? And when they look at their 401(k) this week, it may not look quite as bright as it did before.”
Fear: From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq. Seventeen years later, that war continues.
So how can Democrats counter such appeals? By making equally ruthless use of them.
For example—Fear: Republicans rely heavily on support from rural America—where fundamentalist religious beliefs hold sway. Instead of ridiculing those beliefs, Democrats—even those who are atheists—should make use of them.
How?
- By recognizing that fundamentalists believe that widespread plague is a sign of God’s displeasure; and
- Repeatedly proclaiming that the Coronavirus is God’s judgment on a sinful nation for electing Donald Trump President.
Democrats must closely study the beliefs of their sworn enemies and make skillful use of them—as the Israelis have done.
Suicide bombers’ attacks in Israel sharply decreased after Israelis started patrolling with bomb-sniffing dogs.
Why?
Islamics believe that dogs are defiling creatures—and that if their blood is mingled with that of a dog, they won’t go to Heaven to claim those 72 willing virgins.
To defeat your enemy, you must learn his weaknesses—and ruthlessly attack them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2022 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump’s followers are doing what even the Mafia has never dared: Threatening the lives of FBI agents and openly challenging the authority of the Justice Department.
On August 8, the FBI, under a search warrant issued by the Justice Department, seized 11 sets of classified documents from the former President’s home at Mar-a-Lago. These included four sets that were classified as “top secret,” according to the unsealed search warrant.
Since then, Trump’s legions of fanatical Right-wing followers have vented their fury at a wide range of their self-declared enemies: President Joe Biden, Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department—-and especially the FBI.
On August 12, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security [DHS] issued a joint Intelligence bulletin warning of the increased threats aimed at federal law enforcement agencies.
FBI seal
“Since 8 August 2022, the FBI and DHS have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial, law enforcement, and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant.
“The FBI and DHS have also observed the personal identifying information of possible targets of violence, such as home addresses and identification of family members, disseminated online as additional targets.”
“These threats are occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites, web forums, video sharing platforms, and image boards. The FBI and DHS would like to ensure that law enforcement, court, and government personnel are aware of the range of threats and criminal and violent incidents.
“The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for ‘civil war’ and ‘armed rebellion.'”
Even the Mafia—with one or two exceptions—has never threatened the lives of FBI agents. And when individual mobsters did, they found the consequences frightening.
In April, 1963, four New York mobsters knocked FBI agent John Foley to the ground, and then severely beat and kicked him. Foley had been conducting surveillance at the Brooklyn funeral of Carmine “The Doctor” Lombardozzi, a capo in the Gambino Mafia Family.
The FBI retaliated by launching an all-out war against the Gambinos. Agents leaned on the cartel’s boss, underboss, counselor and lieutenants. The Bureau also intensified the use of illegal electronic surveillance (wiretaps and hidden microphones) against the mobsters.
Map of Mafia families
Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime syndicate, unwittingly informed a hidden microphone about how the FBI brutally drove home the message to “boss of all bosses” Carlo Gambino:
BRUNO: “They [the FBI] went to Carlo and named all his capos [lieutenants] to him. The FBI asked him: “Did you change the laws in your family, that you could hit FBI men, punch and kick them? Well, this is the test—that if you change the laws, and now you are going to hit FBI men, every time we pick up one of your people we are going to break their heads for them.’
“And, really, they picked up our guy, they almost killed him, the FBI. They don’t do that, you know. But they picked up one of his fellows and crippled him. They said, ‘This is an example. Now, the next time anyone lays a hand on an FBI man, that’s just a warning. There’s nothing else we have got to tell you.'”
Word traveled quickly through the nationwide organized crime network—and its leaders decreed there should be no further assaults on FBI agents.
The FBI may be gearing up to declare war on the radical Right. And it could be done the same way the FBI destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1960s.
Klansmen had shot, lynched and bombed their way across the Deep South, especially in Alabama and Mississippi. Many Southern sheriffs and police chiefs were Klan sympathizers, if not outright members and accomplices.
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
President Lyndon B. Johnson called J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI, and ordered an all-out investigation: “I want you to have the same kind of Intelligence [on the Klan] that you have on the communists.”
Poster for missing civil rights workers
For decades, Hoover had refused to tackle white hate groups. And, in truth, no President had been willing to give him the order to do so. But now a President had given him such an order.
In August, the FBI uncovered the bodies of the three missing civil rights activists—Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney.
On September 2, 1964, the Bureau launched a full-blown counterintelligence program against the Klan—COINTELPRO—WHITE HATE in FBI-speak.
Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, chronicles the methods used by the Bureau:
“WHITE-HATE intensified in the fall of 1964. It involved all the techniques in the FBI’s long-running attack on the Left. Once a week….FBI agents interrogated all known members of the White Knights of the KKK, blaming other Klansmen for being snitches and naming names, sowing deep suspicion among Klan members. Few knew who was an informer and who was not.”
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2022 at 12:15 am
On July 20, 1944, members of the Wehrmacht high command failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
Adolf Hitler
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. According to records of the Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 were executed.
Had the conspiracy succeeded, history would have turned out differently:
Thus, history can be altered by the appearance—or disappearance—of a single individual.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Just as Germans did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler’s inexorable march toward war—and the destruction of millions of lives and Germany itself—so, too, did Americans seem paralyzed to put an end to the equally self-destructive reign of the man often dubbed “Carrot Caligula.”
- Trump’ could have been non-violently removed via the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- No Cabinet members dared to invoke this.
- When Trump praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-On or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain, House and Senate Republicans stayed silent. When he falsely charged massive voter fraud, they stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
- On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
- Pentagon generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—and even gave classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
- High-ranking field marshals in Hitler’s Wehrmacht held their tongues when he insulted them. So did American generals when Trump belittled their intelligence and even patriotism.
- The CIA overthrew Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953 and Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954. It repeatedly tried—unsuccessfully—to assassinate and/or overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But it made no effort to halt the ongoing treachery of Donald Trump.
- When Trump arbitrarily decided to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest in 2018. But then he was simply replaced by Mark Esper.
- Despite the fact that many of these men regularly came into contact with Trump, not one of them apparently plotted his removal.
- Similarly, Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of the men and women of the FBI—even firing its director, James Comey, for daring to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election. If its armed agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution, it has never come to light.
- Neither did any of his armed Secret Service agents register the slightest protest, despite his arrogant behavior toward them. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018. They also had to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them became stricken with this often fatal disease as a result.
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.
Yet almost two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.
This toxic lie has been feverishly embraced by millions of Right-wingers, robbing the Biden administration of its deserved legitimacy.
This refusal to acknowledge the outcome initially denied Biden access to the money, information-sharing and machinery traditionally accorded the President-elect. Trump himself was the beneficiary of such assistance in 2016, after his win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Only on November 23 was Biden acknowledged as the winner by the General Services Administration, as the Trump administration finally began the formal transition process.
Trump’s refusal to accept reality posed an unprecedented danger to democracy: No presidential candidate had ever refused to concede defeat once all the votes were counted and legal challenges resolved.
By refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump took on the classic mantle of of a dictator.
Historians have uncovered at least 42 assassination plots against Adolf Hitler. That resistance movement has earned honor for its members, many of whom died heroically for standing firm against a brutal tyrant.
To its eternal shame, the same cannot be said of America during the reign of Donald Trump.
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SECRETS OF THE 2020 MIDTERMS
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 8, 2022 at 12:16 amDuring the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans ran—as usual—on the basis of hate and fear. And Democrats—as usual—ran as on the basis of cowardice and naivety.
On June 24, when six Right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court finally banned legalized abortion, Democrats believed they had a sure issue-winner come November.
But in the months since then, momentum has steadily swung to the Republicans. They have blamed President Joe Biden—and Democrats generally—for the following:
While all of these have proven popular with voters, they reveal a tide of ignorance and unrealism among the electorate. Consider:
Inflation: This is a worldwide problem, not simply an American one. Some of this can be blamed on the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. But another reason is simply old-fashioned corporate greed—and the refusal of the Federal Government to attack it.
According to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA): From May to August, corporate profit margins were the widest since the 1950s. During the second quarter of 2022 companies continued jacking up prices. This pushed inflation to a 40-year high at the expense of workers and consumers.
“We can argue until the cows come home about the cause of inflation,” writes Chris Becker, senior economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. “But we can’t lose sight of the basic moral point that it is outrageous that corporations are seeing skyrocketing profits while purchasing power for so many American households is declining.”
The Justice Department could deal with this through RICO—the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. Corporations guilty of extortion—such as those that have priced insulin out of the reach of most Americans—could be prosecuted for extortion.
That would not only bring prices down but serve as a warning for future greed-fueled corporations.
But it takes more than laws to protect the citizens of a nation; it takes prosecutorial courage to enforce those laws. And in Attorney General Merrick Garland, that courage is pathetically lacking.
Republicans claim to have a “plan” for turning around this situation. Yet they have repeatedly voted against:
In November, 2017, Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress.
According to Chye-Ching Huang, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy, the law:
Yet poor and middle-class Americans remain ignorant of this and believe Republicans truly care about them.
One symptom of inflation that especially infuriates Americans: High prices for gas.
In October, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by two million barrels per day. OPEC wants to prop up oil prices as global demand slows down.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Biden administration tried to persuade OPEC countries to not cut oil output. But Saudi Arabia—the biggest member of the oil-producing cartel—refused.
Some commentators believe that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was primarily responsible for this. Biden had once pledged to treat Salman as a “pariah” after the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yet there is nothing Biden can do—short of invading Saudi Arabia and taking control of its oil fields.
(President Donald Trump said the United States should have done this after it invaded Iraq.)
Crime: According to the Pew Research Center: Around six-in-10 registered voters (61%) say violent crime is very important when making their decision about who to vote for in this year’s congressional elections.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics, however, reports no recent increase in the U.S. violent crime rate. The FBI also estimates that there was no increase in the violent crime rate in 2021.
There has been a record number of mass shootings in the United States—622 by October. But while Republicans rail against violent crime, they consistently block all efforts to curb the sale of semi-automatic weaponry to anyone who wants it.
AR-15 Rifle
Moreover, while Federal law enforcement agencies—especially the FBI—receive major news coverage, most crime occurs at the local level. The Federal Government has no role to play in it—unless the violation occurs on Federal property or involves a Federal official.
Illegal Immigration: For Republicans, illegal aliens come exclusively from Central and Latin American countries.
Yet David DePape, who assaulted Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a Canadian who overstayed his visa.
According to the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), overstayers numbered more than 500,000 in 2020. They represent up to 40% of the total illegal alien population.
Moreover, dealing with illegal alien invasions is a problem that confronts every President, Republican and Democrat.
President Barack Obama was often attacked by immigration groups as the “Deporter in Chief.” Between 2009 and 2015, his administration removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders.
According to government data, the Obama administration deported more people than any other administration in history.
Yet, for Republicans, “the crisis at the border” will always remain a rallying cry—as long as it’s aimed at Hispanics.
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