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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2018 at 12:24 am
There are two ways to deal with bullies: Submit to them—or stand up to them.
Here are three stories of what happened when intended victims counterattacked their would-be predators.
Story #1:
Karen Handel, vice president of public affairs for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, had it all worked out.
She had fashioned what she believed was a politically viable plan for Komen to pull its grant monies from Planned Parenthood (PP).
Karen Handel
She didn’t care that this money went entirely for breast cancer screenings for poor women. What she did care about was that about 3% of all PP revenues went toward providing abortion services.
Since being hired by Komen as vice president of public affairs, in April, 2011, Handel had pushed to drop PP from grants. She had promised to de-fund PP during her failed 2010 campaign for governor of Georgia.
So, in 2012, she made her move.
The official version, as put out by Handel and the top brass of Komen, went: “We’ve halted grants to Planned Parenthood because it’s under investigation by Congress for misuse of funds.”
Unfortunately for Komen, the public instantly saw through the lie. And the results for Komen were as devastating as those that threatened to engulf Arizona two years later.
Any crank in Congress can start an “investigation” into anything.
And PP was “under investigation” by a crank: Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Stearns, a fanatical anti-abortionist, claimed he wanted to determine whether PP had spent public money on abortions over the last decade.
But Stearns didn’t hesitate to slander the patriotism of thousands of 9/11 “first responders”–the police, firefighters, construction workers and others who risked their lives to save their fellow Americans.
Rep. Cliff Stearns
He did so by demanding that they submit their names, birthplaces, addresses, government ID numbers and other personal data to the FBI to prove they were not terrorists.
Only then could they receive federally-subsidized medical care for injuries caused by exposure to toxic dust and debris at the site.
Not one terrorist was discovered in the resulting investigations.
Public outrage at Komen was immediate and overwhelming:
- More than 50 members of Congress signed letters asking Komen to reverse course.
- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly rebuked Komen and pledged $250,000 to PP.
- Approximately 37,000 people from all over the country signed a petition demanding Handel’s resignation.
- PP raised nearly $3 million in contributions.
Reeling before this onslaught of criticism, Komen issued a statement: “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants.”
Having failed in their latest assault on women’s rights, the Right’s would-be predators now portrayed themselves as victims:
- “The last time I checked,” Handel told Right-wing Fox News, “private non-profit organizations have a right and a responsibility to be able to set the highest standards and criteria on their own without interference, let alone the level of vicious attacks and coercion that has occurred by Planned Parenthood. It’s simply outrageous.”
- “Planned Parenthood campaigns to destroy anyone who questions them,” charged Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.
- “Their attitude is that of an immature teenager with an enormous sense of entitlement. This is just more proof that Planned Parenthood will pulverize anyone who dares to question them,” Dannenfelser said.
- “What Planned Parenthood did to that venerable and honorable organization [Komen Foundation] is nothing less than a Mafia-style shakedown,” said Steven H. Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. The Fund bitterly opposes abortion, gay marriage, birth control and the separation of church and state.
Many conservatives correctly defended Komen’s right, as a private charitable organization, to give—or withhold—its money as it saw fit.
But these same conservatives refused to grant PP’s outraged supporters the same right: To withhold their own monies from Komen.
National Review’s Daniel Foster called the backlash to Komen “disgusting,” attacking PP and “the Left” for their “gangsterism.”
Story #2:
Two years later, in 2014, the Right made another move to strip Americans it didn’t like of their most basic rights. Their weapon of choice: Arizona Senate Bill 1062.
The legislation had been passed by the Republican-controlled State House of Representatives and Senate. Its intent:
- Allow business owners to turn away gay and lesbian customers.
- Allow employers to deny equal pay to women.
- Allow individuals to renege on contract obligations.
- Allow hospitals to refuse to provide medical care to a gay or lesbian patient.
And all of these actions would have been legally protected—so long as “sincere religious belief” was cited as the reason.
The legislation was written by the Right-wing advocacy group Center for Arizona Policy and the Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.
Officially, its intent was to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent was to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
Gays and their supporters reacted by threatening a legal business and tourism boycott of Arizona. And the business community and its supporters, alarmed, took notice.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 28, 2018 at 12:12 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.
- 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….”
German soldiers in Stalingrad
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 hold both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
An example of this occurred as recently as March 25.
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
Since becoming President on January 20, 2017, Trump has:
- 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 tried to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign—and plans to do the same for the upcoming mid-term elections in November.
- Repeatedly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and refused to enforce Congressionally-mandated sanctions against Russia for its attempted subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Trump, in short, is not going to be “helped” by the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama, like Jimmy Carter, believes in rationality and decency. Like Carter, 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.
But Donald Trump had a different plan—to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and 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 Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 23, 2018 at 12:22 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about Donald Trump.
Eerily, their conclusions echo those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
Heinz Guderian
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941.
He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Moderator Judy Woodruff noted that “polls show Trump’s standing with women voters has worsened in recent months.”
A Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed that 64% of women said they had a strongly unfavorable reaction to Trump. That was 18 points higher than it was in August, 2015.
Judy Woddruff
This led David Brooks to declare that Trump has shown “a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat. It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent.”
Judy Woodruff noted that Fox News Correspondent Megyn Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.
MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.
“But there is something really creepy about this that’s beyond locker room. It’s almost like a stalker, and I just—I thought this was—it actually did the impossible. It made Ted Cruz look like an honorable, tough guy on the right side of an issue.”
Donald Trump
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Once in power, Hitler quickly—and violently—eliminated his opposition.
He make no attempt to disguise this aspect of his character, because the opposition was weak and divided and soon collapsed after the first violent attack.
This allowed Hitler to pass laws which destroyed the safeguards enacted by the Weimar Republic against the the dangers of dictatorship.
MARK SHIELDS: “And I don’t know at what point it becomes…politically, he’s still leading. And I would have to say he’s the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler promised to “make Germany great again” both domestically and internationally. And this won him many followers. In time he controlled the largest party in the land and this allowed him, by democratic procedure, to assume power.
DAVID BROOKS: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: [Hitler] was isolated as a human being. He had no real friend. There was nobody who was really close to him.
Adolf Hitler
There was nobody he could talk to freely and openly. And just as he never found a true friend, he was denied the ability to deeply love a woman.
DAVID BROOKS: “And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Everything on this earth that casts a glow of warmth over our life as mortals—friendship with fine men, the pure love for a wife, affection for one’s own children—all this was and forever remained unknown to him.
DAVID BROOKS: “And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the aurhoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude toward women.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: He lived alone, cherishing his loneliness, with only his gigantic plans for company. His relationship with Eva Braun may seem to contradict what I have written. But it is obvious that she could not have had any influence over him. And this is unfortunate, for it could only have been a softening one.
* * * * *
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.”
On November 8, 2016, 62,979,879 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
And thus this man—“who received no love, can give no love”—assumed all the awesome power that goes with that office.
Future historians—if there are any—will similarly condemn those Americans who stood by like “good Germans” and allowed their country to fall into the hands of a ruthless tyrant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2018 at 12:30 am
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
—Lord Acton
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
As the business magnate moved ever closer to winning the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
Eerily, their conclusions about Trump’s character echoed those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941. He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Heinz Guderian
Moderator Judy Woodruff opened the discussion by alluding to the blood feud then raging between Trump and his fellow Republican, Texas U.S. Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
Both were seeking their party’s Presidential nomination—and both were ruthlessly determined to attain it.
Cruz accused Trump of being behind a recent National Enquirer story charging him with having a series of extramarital affairs.
An anti-Trump Super PAC posted on Facebook a photo of a scantily-clad Melania Trump—his wife. The photo had been taken 16 years ago when, as a model, she posed for British GQ. Its publication came just ahead of the primary caucuses in sexually conservative Utah, which Cruz won.
Trump quickly responded on Twitter, accusing the Cruz campaign of leaking the photo, warning Cruz: “Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.”
Cruz struck back, defending his wife, Heidi, and calling Trump a coward. The next day, Trump retweeted an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz.
Heidi Cruz
By MaverickLittle (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This “war of the wives” had cost Trump dearly in his standing with American women. In March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 64% of women felt highly unfavorably disposed toward him.
DAVID BROOKS: “The Trump comparison of the looks of the wives, he does have, over the course of his life, a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat.
Donald Trump
“It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent. And so we have seen a bit of that show up again.
“But if you go back over his past, calling into radio shows bragging about his affairs, talking about his sex life in public, he is childish in his immaturity. And his–even his misogyny is a childish misogyny….
“He’s of a different order than your normal candidate. And this whole week is just another reminder of that.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: As Hitler’s self-confidence grew, and as his power became more firmly established both inside and outside Germany, he became overbearing and arrogant. Everyone appeared to him unimportant compared to himself.
Previously, Hitler had been open to practical considerations, and willing to discuss matters with others. But now he became increasingly autocratic.
Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields if the uproar over Donald Trump’s disdain for women could really hurt his candidacy.
MARK SHIELDS: The ad featuring a scantily-clad Melania Trump “elicited from Donald Trump the worst of his personality, the bullying, the misogyny, as David has said, brought it out.
“But I think it’s more than childish and juvenile and adolescent. There is something creepy about this, his attitude toward women.
“Take Megyn Kelly of FOX News, who he just has an absolute obsession about, and he’s constantly writing about, you know, how awful she is and no talent and this and that.
Megyn Kelly
“And I don’t know if he’s just never had women—strong, independent women in his life who have spoken to him. It doesn’t seem that way….”
Judy Woodruff noted that Kelly “has asked him tough questions” in a recent debate.
MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.”
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler’s most outstanding quality was his will power. It was by this that he compelled men to follow him. When Hitler spoke to a small group he closely observed each person to determine how his words were affecting each man present.
If he noticed that some member of the group was not being swayed by his speech, he spoke directly to that person until he believed he had won him over. But if the target of his persuasive effort still remained obstinate, Hitler would exclaim: “I haven’t convinced that man!”
His immediate reaction was to get rid of such people. As he grew increasingly successful, he grew increasingly intolerant.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 19, 2018 at 1:18 am
While Adolf Hitler ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, “the persuasive influence of the Nazi regime reached into every corner of everyday life in Germany.”
So reads the paperback cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich.
“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents.
“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.”
And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945, a strange thing happened: Virtually no one in Germany admitted to having been a Nazi—or having even known one.
As for who was responsible for losing the war itself: As far as most Germans were concerned, that blame fell entirely on the man they had once worshiped as Der Fuhrer. If he had just let his brilliant generals run operations, Germany would have triumphed.
In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.
In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.
Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes.”
“Hogan’s Heroes”
“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.”
And that is why Republicans have stuck so closely with President Donald J. Trump.
A typical example of this occurred on June 8, 2017, after former FBI director James Comey testified before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Comey revealed that, on February 14, Trump had ordered everyone but Comey to leave a crowded meeting in the Oval Office.
“I want to talk about Mike Flynn,” said Trump.
Flynn had resigned the previous day from his position as National Security Adviser. The FBI was investigating him for his previously undisclosed ties to Russia.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” said Trump. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
This was clearly an attempt by Trump to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.
Yet Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan rushed to excuse his clearly illegal behavior: “He’s new at government, so therefore I think he’s learning as he goes.”
Paul Ryan
Republicans don’t fear that Trump will trash the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.
He has already attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense.
And despite Trump’s repeated threats to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Republicans have refused to enact any safeguards to prevent this. In fact, if Trump did so, it’s doubtful that most Republicans would vote to impeach and convict him.
The reason: They fear losing the support of his fanatical base—even if it constitutes only 36% of all registered voters.
At the same time, Republicans fear that Trump will finally cross one line too many. And that the national outrage following this will force them to launch impeachment proceedings against him.
But it isn’t even Trump they fear will be destroyed.
What they most fear losing is their own hold on nearly absolute power in Congress and the White House.
If Trump is impeached and possibly indicted, he will become a man no one any longer fears. He will be a figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
Like Adolf Hitler. Like Richard Nixon.
And his Congressional supporters will be branded as losers along with him.
Republicans vividly remember what happened after Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.
Thus, Americans who are fed up with the chaos and cruelties of the Trump administration must find a way to separate Trump from his knee-jerk supporters in Congress.
And here it is:
American voters need not wait until the fall elections to “send a message” to Republicans in the House and Senate. Instead, they can immediately launch recall campaigns against all Republicans in both houses of Congress.
That would have a far greater impact on Republicans than sending mere letters of outrage. Or even rejecting individual Republican candidates, such as Roy Moore in Alabama and Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania.
And this is where the Democratic party must finally show some backbone.
Democrats must launch an unceasing advertising campaign to persuade voters to force a nationwide recall of all Republicans.
Republicans must be forced to realize they will lose their privileged positions for supporting a vicious, unstable President who sells out the Nation to a hostile foreign power—Russia.
Only then will they sweep him out of the White House like a dead rat on the kitchen floor.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 7, 2018 at 12:28 am
One year and almost two months after taking office, President Donald Trump remains haunted by “the Russian connection.”
Throughout 2016, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) found numerous ties between officials of the Trump Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
And many of those he has appointed to office have strong ties to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One of these is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In 2013, as the chief executive of ExxonMobil, he was presented with the 2013 Order of Friendship award. He had just signed deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. Its chief, Igor Sechin, is a loyal Putin lieutenant.
Rex Tillerson
Another such official is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the 2016 campaign, Session—hen serving as a surrogate for Donald Trump’s campaign—twice spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But during his Senate nomination hearings, Sessions denied that he had had “communications with the Russians” during the campaign. Following this disclosure after he became Attorney General, Sessions removed himself from oversight of the investigation into Russian subversion of the election.
The discovery of numerous contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian Intelligence agents led the FBI to launch an investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. That investigation is still ongoing.
And the House and Senate Intelligence Committees launched their own investigations into the same.
On March 30, 2017, Clinton Watts, an expert on cyber warfare, testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. As part of his testimony, he presented a prepared statement on “Disinformation: A Primer In Russian Active Measures And Influence Campaigns.”
FROM WATTS’ STATEMENT: Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives. But winning a single election is not their end goal.
Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies….from the inside out [by] creating political divisions….
[Their ultimate goals are] the dissolution of the European Union and the break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
Achieving these two victories against the West will allow Russia to reassert its power globally and pursue its foreign policy objectives bilaterally through military, diplomatic and economic aggression.
Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
SCARBOROUGH: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
TRUMP: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
At a press conference in Doral, Florida, Trump declared: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
On October 19, 2016, Trump’s admiration of Putin became a major target for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
This occurred during their third and last Presidential debate.
CLINTON: … that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.
So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election.
We have 17–17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing. And I think it’s time you take a stand…
TRUMP: She has no idea whether it’s Russia, China, or anybody else.
CLINTON: I am not quoting myself.
TRUMP: She has no idea.
CLINTON: I am quoting 17…
TRUMP: Hillary, you have no idea.
CLINTON: … 17 intelligence–do you doubt 17 military and civilian…
TRUMP: And our country has no idea.
CLINTON: … agencies.
TRUMP: Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 6, 2018 at 12:17 am
Clinton Watts is a consultant and researcher on cyberwarfare. He has served as
- A U.S. Army infantry officer;
- An FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF);
- The Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC); and
- As a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB).
In a statement he prepared for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to influence the 2016 Presidential campaign.
He delivered this on March 30, 2017. Part of this reads as follows:
Through the end of 2015 and start of 2016, the Russian influence system….began pushing themes and messages seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election.
Russia’s overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin. The final months leading up to the election have been the predominate focus of Russian influence discussions to date.
Clinton Watts
However, Russian Active Measures were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary season and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests long before the field narrowed.
The final piece of Russia’s modern Active Measures surfaced in the summer of 2016 as hacked materials from previous months were strategically leaked.
On 22 July 2016, Wikileaks released troves of stolen communications from the Democratic National Committee and later batches of campaign emails. Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks revealed hacked information from a host of former U.S. government officials throughout July and August 2016.
For the remainder of the campaign season, this compromising material powered the influence system Russia successfully constructed in the previous two years.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump—as both Presidential candidate and President—has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the efforts of Vladimir Putin’s government to ensure his election.
Consider his exchange about this with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the third and final Presidential debate on October 19, 2016:
CLINTON: So I actually think the most important question of this evening, Chris, is, finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past?
Those are the questions we need answered. We’ve never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before.
CHRIS WALLACE: Well?
TRUMP: That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders, OK? How did we get on to Putin?
[After insisting that Clinton wants “open borders” and “people are going to pour into this country,” Trump deigned to address Wallace’s question.]
TRUMP: Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me.
If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president.
And I’ll tell you what: We’re in very serious trouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads—1,800, by the way—where they expanded and we didn’t, 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she’s playing chicken.
FROM WATTS’ STATEMENT: This pattern of Russian falsehoods and social media manipulation of the American electorate continued through Election Day and persists today.
Many of the accounts we watched push the false Incirlik story in July now focus their efforts on shaping the upcoming European elections, promoting fears of immigration or false claims of refugee criminality.
They’ve not forgotten about the United States either. This past week, we observed social media campaigns targeting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst U.S. democratic institutions, their leaders and their constituents.
As we noted two days before the Presidential election in our article describing Russian influence operations, Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives.
But winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five complementary objectives:
- Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
- Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
- Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
- Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
- Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
From these objectives, the Kremlin can crumble democracies from the inside out creating political divisions resulting in two key milestones:
- The dissolution of the European Union and
- The break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
FROM THE TRUMP-CLINTON DEBATE:
TRUMP: … from everything I see, [Putin] has no respect for this person.
CLINTON: Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.
TRUMP: No puppet. No puppet.
CLINTON: And it’s pretty clear…
TRUMP: You’re the puppet!
CLINTON: It’s pretty clear you won’t admit…
TRUMP: No, you’re the puppet.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2018 at 12:08 am
On February 14, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz slaughtered two faculty members and 15 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
His weapon of choice: An AR-15 assault rifle, often favored by gun massacre killers.
Since then, the National Rifle Association (NRA), President Donald Trump and their shills (paid and unpaid) have sought to distract attention from the reason for the massacre: Easy access to military assault weaponry by virtually anyone.
Among those they have blamed:
- “The elites” (who, says Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, “don’t care about America’s schoolchildren”);
- Unarmed school teachers (who should have been armed);
- Cruz’ neighbors and classmates (who didn’t report his obsession with violence to police);
- The media (who “love mass shootings,” according to Dana Loesch, the NRA’s spokeswoman);
- The FBI (which fumbled tips that Cruz was a live grenade waiting to go off).
- Scot Peterson (the armed school resource officer who stayed outside the school as the shooting unfolded).
According to a series of police reports, Cruz suffered from mental illness and was on behavioral medication. The records described fights at home—and his mother’s fear that Cruz was out of control even as an adolescent.
Nikolas Cruz
Even so, it was not mental illness that made it possible for Cruz to slaughter 17 innocent students and faculty.
It was his access to military-style firepower.
Without that, all he could have done was fantasize about inflicting torment on others. Having access to that firepower allowed him to make his fantasies come true.
And who made it possible for Cruz to obtain that firepower? Those Republicans who are literally on the payroll of the NRA.
To start at the top: President Donald Trump. In 2016, the NRA spent more than $30 million to support him and defeat his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump
And that investment has already paid off: In February, 2017, Trump signed a bill making it easier for the mentally ill to buy guns. This repealed an Obama-era regulation that restricted the rights of seriously incapacitated people to own death-dealing firepower.
In fact, during the 2016 election, the NRA and its affiliate, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, spent a total of $54 million. The vast majority of these monies went to support Republicans or oppose Democrats.
Even so, the NRA has been willing to open its pocketbook to Democrats willing to toe the organization’s line. Rep. Sanford Bishop, of Georgia, has received about $47,000 during his tenure in Congress.
From January 1 to mid-February, 2018, the NRA has spent absolutely nothing to support Democrats, and $337,000 to oppose them.
Then there are Florida’s Republican legislators. All of the following received contributions from the NRA during the 2016 election cycle:
- Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis: $2,000
- Rep. Carlos Curbelo: $2,500
- Rep. Ted Yoho: $1,000
- Rep. Daniel Webster: $1,000
- Rep. John Rutherford: $1,000
- Sen. Marco Rubio: $9,900
- Rep. Dennis Ross: $2,000
- Rep. Tom Rooney: $2,000
- Rep. Bill Posey: $2,000
- Rep. Brian Mast: $4,950
- Rep. Matt Gaetz: $1,000
- Rep. Neal Dunn: $1,000
- Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart: $2,000 Rep.
- Ron DeSantis: $1,000
Then there is Florida Governor Rick Scott.
In 2014, Scott won the praise of the NRA’s Political Victory Fund: “Rick has signed more pro-gun bills into law in one term than any other governor in Florida history.” All of this resulted in his getting an “A+” rating from the organization.
Rick Scott
And what has all this highly-paid political influence bought?
- An AR-15 rifle—designed to kill the maximum number of people—is legally easier to obtain than a handgun.
- Federal law requires gun buyers to be 21 before buying a handgun. But in Florida, an AR-15 can be purchased at age 18.
- Residents aren’t required to register their gun.
- But Floridians must be 21 to buy an alcoholic beverage.
- No permit or license is needed to buy a gun.
- No permit is needed to conceal carry a rifle or shotgun; one is required to conceal carry a handgun.
- The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is required to issue a concealed carry permit to anyone who desires one, as long as: S/he is an American citizen; 21 or older; without a felony conviction; and can prove that s/he is competent with a firearm.
- Floridians can buy as many guns as they want at one time.
- Florida does not regulate assault weapons, .50-caliber rifles and large capacity ammunition magazines.
- Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law allows for the use of deadly force without any obligation to try to avoid violence.
And when criminals and/or the criminally insane turn the weaponry they have legally purchased onto scores of defenseless men, women and children, the NRA again benefits.
For example: One week after the mass slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida legislators voted 71-36 against a measure to consider a ban on semi-automatic weapons.
Yet they declared pornography a public health risk. The bill “recognizes public health risk created by pornography & acknowledges need for education, prevention, research, & policy change to protect citizens of this state.”
Almost all the lawmakers who voted against an assault rifle ban have an “A” rating from the NRA.
Watching in stunned disbelief and outrage were 100 Marjory Stoneman High School students. They had traveled 400 miles from Parkland to the state capital in Tallahassee, hoping to speak with legislators and Governor Scott.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 23, 2018 at 12:03 am
In March, 2013, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its Right-wing allies declared war on comedian Jim Carrey.
The reason: His music parody video: “Cold Dead Hand,” which mocked gun fanatics and the late Charlton Heston, former president of the NRA.
Click here: Jim Carrey’s Pro-Gun Control Stance Angers Conservatives
Among its lyrics:
Charlton Heston movies are no longer in demand
And his immortal soul may lay forever in the sand.
The angels wouldn’t take him up to heaven like he’d planned.
’Cause they couldn’t pry that gun from his cold, dead hand.
The phrase, “cold dead hand,” originated with Heston himself.
Charlton Heston in his prime
On May 20, 2000, the actor and then-president of the NRA addressed the organization at its 129th convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He warned that then-Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidade Al Gore “is going to smear you as the enemy,” and concluded:
“So, as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: ‘From my cold, dead hands!’”
Carrey’s stance on gun control couldn’t have been more opposite.
In in February, 2013, he outraged Right-wingers by tweeting: “Any1 who would run out to buy an assault rifle after the Newton massacre has very little left in their body or soul worth protecting.”
Jim Carrey
Fox Nation referred to the tweet as “nasty.”
Red Alert Politics writer Erin Brown dismissed it as “a careless remark …rooted in the shallow, parroted talking points so commonly espoused by liberal elites.”
But that was nothing compared to the rage that has greeted “Cold Dead Hand.” Reason TV’s Remy offered a parody rebuttal to Carrey’s song. Its lyrics included:
It takes a talking ass
to oppose a vaccination
when your PhD is in
making funny faces.
None of which bothered Carrey. In fact, he exulted in Right-wing outrage, tweeting: “Cold Dead Hand’ is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids. Sorry if you’re offended…”
Among its lyrics:
It takes a cold, dead hand to decide to pull the trigger.
Takes a cold, dead heart and as near as I can figger.
With your cold, dead aim you’re tryin’ to prove your dick is bigger …..
Many psychologists have long theorized that a fascination with firearms can compensate for inadequate sexual performance.
But it’s one thing for an unknown psychologist to write this in an obscure medical journal—and another for a famous comedian to splash it across the Internet.
Carrey is especially ruthless in attacking those who—like the NRA—make a lucrative living off gun sales:
Imagine if the Lord were here…
And on the ones
Who sell the guns
He’d sic the vultures and coyotes
Only the devil’s true devotees
Could profiteer
From pain and fear.
Many Rightists attacked Carrey for parodying a man—Heston—who died in 2008 and could not defend himself. But Heston had appeared several times on “Saturday Night Live” to spoof his granite-hard image.
In his video, Carrey dares to attack not simply the masculinity of the Rightist NRA crowd, but even its courage:
You don’t want to get caught
With your trousers down
When the psycho killer
Comes around
So you make your home
Like a Thunderdome
And you’re always packin’
Everywhere you roam.
Perhaps that’s what most outraged the Right—the accusation that its members live in fear and do their best to generate needless fear in others.
Fear that can supposedly be abated by turning America into a society where everyone packs a weapon and every moment holds a potential High Noon.
Carrey was not shy in responding to his Rightist critics. On March 29, 2013, he issued this statement:
“Since I released my “Cold Dead Hand” video on Funny or Die this week, I have watched Fux News rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles.
“I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery. That would gain them far too much attention which is all they really care about.
“I’ll just say this: in my opinion Fux News is a last resort for kinda-sorta-almost-journalists whose options have been severely limited by their extreme and intolerant views; a media colostomy bag that has begun to burst at the seams and should be emptied before it becomes a public health issue.”
The NRA has spent decades bribing and intimidating its way through Congress. Those members who subscribe to its “guns for everyone” agenda get legalized bribes (i.e., “campaign contributions”).
Those who refuse to do so face the threat—if not the reality—of being ousted.
Bullies are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Their only “defense” is to smash anyone who dares to mock their folly, brutality or pretense to omnipotence.
Or, as Ernest Hemingway once put it: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on February 22, 2018 at 12:05 am
Bullies do not like to be mocked.
Anyone who doubts this need only examine the Right’s reaction to actor Jim Carrey’s March, 2013 “Cold Dead Hand” music video.
In this, Carrey—–a strong advocate of gun control—mocked the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its right-wing allies.
These included rural America and (for the video’s purposes) the late actor Charlton Heston, who served as the NRA’s five-term president (1998-2003).
Jim Carrey as Charlton Heston
The video featured Carrey and alt-rock band Eels as “Lonesome Earl And The Clutterbusters,” a country band on a TV set modeled after the 1960s variety show, “Hee Haw.” Carrey also portrayed Heston as a dim-witted, teeth-clenching champion of the NRA.
“I find the gun problem frustrating,” Carrey said in a press release, “and ‘Cold Dead Hand’ is my fun little way of expressing that frustration.”
Carrey’s frustration triggered NRA outrage.
Click here: Jim Carrey’s Pro-Gun Control Stance Angers Conservatives
Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld ranted: “He is probably the most pathetic tool on the face of the earth and I hope his career is dead and I hope he ends up sleeping in a car.
“This video made me want to go out and buy a gun. He thinks this is biting satire going after rural America and a dead man… He’s a dirty, stinking coward… He’s such a pathetic, sad, little freak. He’s a gibbering mess. He’s a modern bigot.”
Columnist Larry Elder spared no venom in attacking Carrey: “Let’s be charitable—call Carrey ignorant, not stupid.”
Click here: Jim Carrey: Not ‘Dumb & Dumber,’ Just Ignorant
Much of his March 29 column centered on defending Heston, who died at 84 in 2008.
A lyric in Carrey’s song says “Charlton Heston’s movies are no longer in demand.” This prompted Elder to defend the continuing popularity of Heston’s 1956 movie, “The Ten Commandments,” where he played Moses.
Elder felt compelled to defend Heston’s off-screen persona as well, citing his 64-year marriage to his college sweetheart, Lydia.
On the other hand, writes Elder, Carrey, “followed the well-worn Hollywood path: Get famous; get rich; dump the first wife/mother of your kid(s), who stood by you during the tough times; and act out your social life in the tabs to the embarrassment of your kid(s).”
Clearly, Carrey’s video struck a nerve with Right-wing gun fanatics. But why?
Start with Gutfield’s accusation that Carry was “going after rural America.”
Rural America—home of the most superstitious, ignorant and knee-jerk Fascistic elements in American society—boastfully refers to itself as “The Heartland.”
In short: a prime NRA and Rightist constituency.
It was rural America to which Senator Barack Obama referred—accurately—during his 2008 Presidential campaign:
“They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Second, there’s Elder’s outrage that Carrey should dare to say that Heston’s movies “are no longer in demand.”
Among these movies: “Major Dundee,” “El Cid,” “Khartoum,” “The War Lord.” And even the hammiest film for which he is best-known: “The Ten Commandments.”
In a film career spanning 62 years, Heston vividly portrayed such historical characters as:
- Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar in “El Cid’:
- Mark Anthony in “Julius Caesar”;
- John the Baptist in “The Greatest Story Ever Told”;
- Andrew Jackson in “The President’s Lady” and “The Buccaneer”;
- Michaelangelo in “The Agony and the Ecstasy”;
- General Charles Gordon in “Khartoun.”
And he played fictitious characters, too:
- Civil War officers (“Major Dundee”);
- Norman knights (“The War Lord”);
- Ranchers (“Three Violent People”;
- Explorers (“The Naked Jungle”).
- Judah Ben-Hur (“Ben-Hur”); and
- Astronauts (“Planet of the Apes”)’
Heston was a widely respected actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1959 for “Ben Hur” and servecd as the president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1965 to 1971.
But it was not Heston’s film career that Carrey focused on—but his role as president of the NRA.
Charlton Heston at the NRA convention
Ironically, Heston had identified himself with liberal causes long before he became the face and voice of the gun lobby.
In 1961, he campaigned for Senator John F. Kennedy for President. In 1963, he took part in Martin Luther King’s March on Washington.
In 1968, after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, he joined actors Kirk Douglas, James Stewart and Gregory Peck in issuing a statement supporting President Lyndon Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968.
But over the coming decades, Heston became increasingly conservative:
- Reportedly voting for Richard Nixon in 1972;
- Supporting gun rights; and
- Campaigning for Republican Presidential candidates Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
When asked why he changed political alliances, Heston replied: “I didn’t change. The Democratic party changed.”
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COMBATING FASCISM TODAY: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2018 at 12:24 amThere are two ways to deal with bullies: Submit to them—or stand up to them.
Here are three stories of what happened when intended victims counterattacked their would-be predators.
Story #1:
Karen Handel, vice president of public affairs for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, had it all worked out.
She had fashioned what she believed was a politically viable plan for Komen to pull its grant monies from Planned Parenthood (PP).
Karen Handel
She didn’t care that this money went entirely for breast cancer screenings for poor women. What she did care about was that about 3% of all PP revenues went toward providing abortion services.
Since being hired by Komen as vice president of public affairs, in April, 2011, Handel had pushed to drop PP from grants. She had promised to de-fund PP during her failed 2010 campaign for governor of Georgia.
So, in 2012, she made her move.
The official version, as put out by Handel and the top brass of Komen, went: “We’ve halted grants to Planned Parenthood because it’s under investigation by Congress for misuse of funds.”
Unfortunately for Komen, the public instantly saw through the lie. And the results for Komen were as devastating as those that threatened to engulf Arizona two years later.
Any crank in Congress can start an “investigation” into anything.
And PP was “under investigation” by a crank: Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Stearns, a fanatical anti-abortionist, claimed he wanted to determine whether PP had spent public money on abortions over the last decade.
But Stearns didn’t hesitate to slander the patriotism of thousands of 9/11 “first responders”–the police, firefighters, construction workers and others who risked their lives to save their fellow Americans.
Rep. Cliff Stearns
He did so by demanding that they submit their names, birthplaces, addresses, government ID numbers and other personal data to the FBI to prove they were not terrorists.
Only then could they receive federally-subsidized medical care for injuries caused by exposure to toxic dust and debris at the site.
Not one terrorist was discovered in the resulting investigations.
Public outrage at Komen was immediate and overwhelming:
Reeling before this onslaught of criticism, Komen issued a statement: “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants.”
Having failed in their latest assault on women’s rights, the Right’s would-be predators now portrayed themselves as victims:
Many conservatives correctly defended Komen’s right, as a private charitable organization, to give—or withhold—its money as it saw fit.
But these same conservatives refused to grant PP’s outraged supporters the same right: To withhold their own monies from Komen.
National Review’s Daniel Foster called the backlash to Komen “disgusting,” attacking PP and “the Left” for their “gangsterism.”
Story #2:
Two years later, in 2014, the Right made another move to strip Americans it didn’t like of their most basic rights. Their weapon of choice: Arizona Senate Bill 1062.
The legislation had been passed by the Republican-controlled State House of Representatives and Senate. Its intent:
And all of these actions would have been legally protected—so long as “sincere religious belief” was cited as the reason.
The legislation was written by the Right-wing advocacy group Center for Arizona Policy and the Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.
Officially, its intent was to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent was to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
Gays and their supporters reacted by threatening a legal business and tourism boycott of Arizona. And the business community and its supporters, alarmed, took notice.
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