Posts Tagged ‘BILL O’REILLY’
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANNE APPLEBAUM, AP, ASSASSINATION, AUTOCRACY INC. (BOOK), “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DICTATORSHIP, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FBI, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC), FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, JACK SMITH, JAMES MATTIS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JUDICIARY, Kamala Harris, KIM JONG-UN, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MILITARY AGENCIES, MORNING JOE (SHOW), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION (NOAA), NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT, PROJECT 2025, PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SCARFACE (MOVIE), SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNING POINT BELIEVERS’ SUMMIT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, X, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 14, 2025 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- Republicans believe the Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
- The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States—the way Islam is designated as the official religion of Saudi Arabia.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
Trump has prospered by slandering Democrats as “Marxists,” “Socialists” and “Communists.” And other Republicans have also deployed the terms. Yet he has repeatedly expressed admiration for such brutal Communist dictators as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and China’s Xi Jinping.
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, then-President Trump had revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Another Communist dictator he has lavishly praised is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Asked by a Fox News reporter why he did so, he replied:
“He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
in short: Kim must be doing something right, because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Asked about his relationship with Kim, Trump infamously said: “[Kim] wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
- He intended to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
- When FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANNE APPLEBAUM, AP, ASSASSINATION, AUTOCRACY INC. (BOOK), “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DICTATORSHIP, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FBI, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC), FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, JACK SMITH, JAMES MATTIS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JUDICIARY, Kamala Harris, KIM JONG-UN, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MILITARY AGENCIES, MORNING JOE (SHOW), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION (NOAA), NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT, PROJECT 2025, PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SCARFACE (MOVIE), SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNING POINT BELIEVERS’ SUMMIT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, X, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 13, 2025 at 12:10 am
“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana, “Scarface”
“Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
On July 26, former President and Presidential candidate Donald Trump confirmed—intentionally or unintentionally—that the fears of his enemies were correct. If he won office for a second time, he would act as the all-powerful dictator he has long lusted to be.
And which he nearly became in 2020, after refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election where former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than he did.
The site of his confession was the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. To his audience of evangelical Christians, Trump announced:
“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian.
“I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”
Why would they not have to vote again? Because Trump would be President until he died.
Donald Trump at Turning Point Believers’ Summit
From the moment Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency on June 15, 2015, throughout his four years in office and the Presidential campaign of 2024, much of the mainstream media repeatedly ignored the threats he posed.
But Trump’s comments at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit grabbed attention from the nation’s most important news media. Among these:
- MSN Metro
- Reuters
- CBS News
- The New York Times
- Mother Jones
- News Nation
- USA Today
- Newsweek
- The Hill
- CNN
- National Public Radio
- The Washington Post
Democrats pounced on Trump’s statements. Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement of her own: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who had presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.”
Naturally Trump’s campaign disagreed: “President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”
In fact, it was Donald Trump who had created “the divisive political environment.” On July 31 he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists—to falsely accuse Kamala Harris of misleading voters about her race:
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
As for the motives for Thomas Matthew Crooks’ July 13 assassination attempt on Trump: A vigorous FBI investigation has revealed him as an intelligent loner with few friends, a thin social media presence and no strong political beliefs offering a motive for his action.
Officially, now that Trump has won a second term in the White House, he can—by law—serve only four years. But Trump has spent his entire life defying the law—including when he was President.
His most egregious offense came after he lost the 2020 Presidential election: He refused to accept his defeat, refused to leave office, tried to pressure states to “find” non-existent Electoral College votes for him, and finally incited a violent riot against Congress to stop the Electoral Vote count.
Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building
Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In May, 2024, speaking at a National Rifle Association gathering, Trump “joked” about serving more than two terms as president.
He referred to the four-term, 12-year Presidency of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s death.
“You know, FDR, 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”
By raising the question of “three terms,” Trump was resurrecting The Big Lie: That he won the 2020 Presidential campaign but was cheated of victory by massive voter fraud.
In fact, Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace heretofore protected federal civil servants.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANNE APPLEBAUM, AP, ASSASSINATION, AUTOCRACY INC. (BOOK), “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DICTATORSHIP, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FBI, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC), FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, JACK SMITH, JAMES MATTIS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JUDICIARY, Kamala Harris, KIM JONG-UN, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MILITARY AGENCIES, MORNING JOE (SHOW), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION (NOAA), NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT, PROJECT 2025, PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SCARFACE (MOVIE), SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNING POINT BELIEVERS’ SUMMIT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, X, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 22, 2024 at 12:12 am
On August 1, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum warned about Donald Trump’s dictatorial ambitions on the PBS Newshour. As the author of Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, she brings a specialist’s perspective to this subject.
She defines an “autocrat” as someone “who seeks to rule with no checks and balances, with no checks on his authority, with no judges, no media, no intermediary figures or institutions, who wants to control everything that happens in the state and to make all of the decisions.”
Asked if Trump wants to be an autocrat, she replied:
“Sometimes, he says so in the language he uses about—whether it’s about President Xi, who he admires, or President Putin, who he admires, or even the dictator of North Korea, who’s driven his country into poverty and isolation, who he also admires….
“And he has very few kind words for American allies or for fellow democracies. It’s really the absolute—people with absolute power that he wants to be like.
“And you can also hear in the language he uses, whether it’s about judges, or whether it’s about the media, or whether it’s about American institutions of other kind, about the electoral system, that he has great disdain for the institutions of democracy and the rules that were set up to make sure that power is checked in our country and that the executive isn’t a king.
“And those are disturbing traits. And they would be disturbing at any time in history, but they’re particularly disturbing now, when we have the rise of so many leaders with absolute power around the world who would love to have a transactional American president to do deals with.”
Anne Applebaum
Hb19821970, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump deliberately set out to attack or undermine one long-cherished public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American Intelligence agencies: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and NSA that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
- “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.”
- American military agencies: In 2020, Trump declined to visit an American military cemetery near Paris, and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”
- While President, Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and his former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
Mark Milley
- The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- At the Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC)on February 24, 2017, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
- The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first Muslim travel ban.
- In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
- Barack Obama: For five years, Trump popularized the slander that Obama was born in Kenya—and not an American citizen or a legitimate President.
- Trump was later forced to admit he had no evidence to back up his slanderous claims.
* * * * *
Since leaving the White House, Donald Trump has continued to undermine one American institution after another.
- Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he has attacked judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
- He has attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
- He claims voter fraud where none exists, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
- He has attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
- He claims himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
- He attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.
He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public.
If he succeeds, there will be:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANNE APPLEBAUM, AP, ASSASSINATION, AUTOCRACY INC. (BOOK), “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DICTATORSHIP, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FBI, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC), FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, JACK SMITH, JAMES MATTIS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JUDICIARY, Kamala Harris, KIM JONG-UN, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MILITARY AGENCIES, MORNING JOE (SHOW), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION (NOAA), NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT, PROJECT 2025, PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SCARFACE (MOVIE), SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNING POINT BELIEVERS’ SUMMIT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, X, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 21, 2024 at 12:13 am
Donald Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- Republicans believe the Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
- The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
Trump has prospered by slandering Democrats as “Marxists,” “Socialists” and “Communists.” And other Republicans have also deployed the terms. Yet he has repeatedly expressed admiration for such brutal Communist dictators as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and China’s Xi Jinping.
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, then-President Trump had revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Another Communist dictator he has lavishly praised is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Asked by a Fox News reporter why he did so, he replied:
“He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
in short: Kim must be doing something right, because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Asked about his relationship with Kim, Trump infamously said: “[Kim] wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
- He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- He intended to fire Mueller during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
- When FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANNE APPLEBAUM, AP, ASSASSINATION, AUTOCRACY INC. (BOOK), “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DICTATORSHIP, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FBI, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC), FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, JACK SMITH, JAMES MATTIS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JUDICIARY, Kamala Harris, KIM JONG-UN, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MILITARY AGENCIES, MORNING JOE (SHOW), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION (NOAA), NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT, PROJECT 2025, PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SCARFACE (MOVIE), SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNING POINT BELIEVERS’ SUMMIT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, X, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 20, 2024 at 12:10 am
“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana, “Scarface”
“Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
On July 26, former President Donald Trump confirmed—intentionally or unintentionally—that the fears of his enemies were correct. If he won office for a second time, he would act as the all-powerful dictator he has long lusted to be.
And which he nearly became in 2020, after refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election where former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than he did.
The site of his confession was the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. To his audience of evangelical Christians, Trump announced:
“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian.
“I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”
Why would they not have to vote again? Because there won’t be any more elections for President because Trump would be President until he died.
Donald Trump at Turning Point Believers’ Summit
From the moment Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency on June 15, 2015, throughout his four years in office and the almost eight months the Presidential campaign of 2024, much of the mainstream media has repeatedly ignored the threats he poses.
But Trump’s comments at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit have grabbed attention from the nation’s most important news media. Among these:
- MSN Metro
- Reuters
- CBS News
- The New York Times
- Mother Jones
- News Nation
- USA Today
- Newsweek
- The Hill
- CNN
- National Public Radio
- The Washington Post
Democrats pounced on Trump’s statements. Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement of her own: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who had presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.”
Naturally Trump’s campaign disagreed: “President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”
In fact, it has been Donald Trump who created “the divisive political environment.” On July 31 he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists—to falsely accuse Kamala Harris of misleading voters about her race:
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
As for the motives for Thomas Matthew Crooks’ July 13 assassination attempt on Trump: A vigorous FBI investigation has revealed him as an intelligent loner with few friends, a thin social media presence and no strong political beliefs offering a motive for his action.
If Trump wins a second term in the White House, he can—by law—serve only four years. But Trump has spent his entire life defying the law—including when he was President.
His most egregious offense came after he lost the 2020 Presidential election: He refused to accept his defeat, refused to leave office, tried to pressure states to “find” non-existent Electoral College votes for him, and finally incited a violent riot against Congress to stop the Electoral Vote count.
Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building
Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In May, 2024, speaking at a National Rifle Association gathering, Trump “joked” about serving more than two terms as president.
He referred to the four-term, 12-year Presidency of Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s death.
“You know, FDR, 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”
By raising the question of “three terms,” Trump was resurrecting The Big Lie: That he won the 2020 Presidential campaign but was cheated of victory by massive voter fraud.
In fact, Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALCIBIADES, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS CHANNEL, GATES OF FIRE (BOOK), HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, MEDIA MATTERS, MERCENARIES, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SPARTA, STEVEN PRESSFIELD, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE AFGHAN CAMPAIGN (BOOK), THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE O'REILLY FACTOR, THE PROFESSION (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE VIRTUES OF WAR, THE VIRTUES OF WAR (BOOK), THE WASHINGTON POST, THERMOPYLAE, THINKPROGRESS, TIDES OF WAR (BOOK), TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, X
In Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2024 at 12:12 am
Bill O’Reilly, the former host of the Fox News Channel program The O’Reilly Factor, has offered his own solution to fighting terrorism: A multinational mercenary army, based on a NATO coalition and trained by the United States.
“We would select them, special forces would train them—a 25,000-man force to be deployed to fight on the ground against worldwide terrorism. Not just ISIS,” O’Reilly said on “CBS This Morning” on September 24, 2014.
Bill O’Reilly
Actually, O’Reilly’s idea is the subject of The Profession, a 2011 novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Pressfield made his literary reputation with four classic novels about classical Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In Tides of War (2000) Pressfield depicted the rise and fall of Alcibiades, Athens’ greatest general, as he shifted his loyalties from that city to its arch-enemy, Sparta, and then to Persia, the enemy of both.
In The Virtues of War (2004) he took on the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining to his readers what it was like to command armies that swept across the known world, destroying all who dared oppose them.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) Pressfield—this time from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—refought Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
Steven Pressfield
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set into the future of 2032. The book’s own dust jacket offers the best summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over. The 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory. Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup. Russians and Turks are clashing in the Caspian Basin.
“Iranian armored units, supported by the satellite and drone power of their Chinese allies, have emerged from their enclaves in Tehran and are sweeping south attempting to recapture the resource rich territory that had been stolen from them, in their view, by Lukoil, BP, and ExxonMobil and their privately-funded armies.
“Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.”
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal. Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition is no less than to become President himself—by popular acclaim.
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields, then offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
And in 2032 the United States is a far different nation from the one its Founding Fathers created in 1776.
“Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc,” says Salter.”The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament. We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.'”
Americans, asserts Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to to make them go away.”
And so Salter will “accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me.”
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.
Niccolo Machiavelli
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”
Centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli issued a warning against relying on men whose first love is their own enrichment.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a not-so-distant America where “Name your price” has become the byword for an age.
Both warnings are well worth heeding.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, ONE DAY WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT FEAR (BOOK), PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2024 at 12:10 am
In January, 2018, the White House of President Donald Trump banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believed that leaks wouldn’t end unless Trump started firing staffers. But that risked firing the wrong people. To protect themselves, those who leaked might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
According to the 2016 book, One Day We Will Live Without Fear: Everyday Lives Under the Soviet Police State, by Mark Harrison, the methods used to keep conversations secret included:
- Turning on the TV or radio to full volume.
- Turning on a water faucet at full blast.
- Turning the dial of a rotary phone to the end—and sticking a pencil in one of the small holes for numbers.
- Standing six to nine feet away from the hung-up receiver.
- Going for “a walk in the woods.”
- Saying nothing sensitive on the phone.
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels.
He’s never been able to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does.
At Christmastime, 2018, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.”
In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”
By saying that, Trump showed his contempt for the role of the First Amendment in American history.
Cartoonists portrayed President Andrew Jackson (1829 -1837) wearing a king’s robes and crown, and holding a scepter. This thoroughly enraged Jackson—who had repulsed a British invasion in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans. To call a man a monarchist in 1800s America was the same as calling him a Communist in the 1950s.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was lampooned as an ape and a blood-stained tyrant. And Theodore Roosevelt proved a cartoonist’s delight, with attention given to his bushy mustache and thick-lensed glasses.
Thus, the odds are slight that an American court would even hear a case brought by Trump against “SNL.”
Such a case made its way through the courts in the late 1980s when the Reverend Jerry Falwell sued pornographer Larry Flyint over a satirical interview in Hustler magazine. In this, “Falwell” admitted that his first sexual encounter had been with his own mother.
In 1988, the United States Supreme Court, voting 8-0, ruled in Flynt’s favor, saying that the media had a First Amendment right to parody a celebrity.
“Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist—an appointee of President Richard Nixon—wrote in his majority decision in the case.
Moreover, Trump would have been forced to take the stand in such a case. The attorneys for NBC and “SNL” would have insisted on it.
The results would have been:
- Unprecedented legal exposure for Trump—who would have been forced to answer virtually any questions asked or drop his lawsuit; and
- Unprecedented humiliation for a man who lives as much for his ego as his pocketbook. Tabloids and late-night comedians would have had a field-day with such a lawsuit.
And while Trump loves to sue those he hates, he does not relish taking the stand himself.
On October 12, 2016, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
He accused the Times of inventing accusations to hurt his Presidential candidacy. And he threatened to sue for libel if the Times reported the women’s stories. He also said he would sue the women making the accusations.
He never sued the Times, The Post, People—or the women.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, ONE DAY WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT FEAR (BOOK), PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 27, 2024 at 12:12 am
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
McCain, a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967, and captured. He spent five and a half years as a POW in North Vietnam—and was often brutally tortured. He wasn’t released until March 14, 1973.
Recently, he had opposed the nomination of Gina Haspel as director of the CIA.
The reason: In 2002, Haspel had operated a “black” CIA site in Thailand where Islamic terrorists were often waterboarded to make them talk.
For John McCain, waterboarding was torture, even if it didn’t leave its victims permanently scarred and disabled.
Aware that the 81-year-old McCain was dying of brain cancer, Sadler joked to intimates about the Senator’s opposition to Haspel: “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying anyway.”
John McCain
Leaked to CNN by an anonymous White House official, Sadler’s remark sparked fierce criticism—and demands for her firing.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain, said: “Ms. Sadler, may I remind you that John McCain has a lot of friends in the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle. Nobody is laughing in the Senate.”
“People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday,” said then-former Vice President Joe Biden.
“John McCain makes America great. Father, grandfather, Navy pilot, POW hero bound by honor, an incomparable and irrepressible statesman. Those who mock such greatness only humiliate themselves and their silent accomplices,” tweeted former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Officially, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to confirm or deny Sadler’s joke: “I’m not going to get into a back and forth because people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings.”
Unofficially, Sanders was furious—not at the joke about a dying man, but that someone had leaked it. After assailing the White House communications team, she pouted: “I am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. And that’s just disgusting.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
No apology was offered by any official at the White House—including President Donald Trump.
In fact, Senior White House communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp reportedly expressed her support for Sadler: “I stand with Kelly Sadler.”
On May 11—the day after Sadler’s comment was reported—reporters asked Sanders if the tone set by Trump had caused Sadler to feel comfortable in telling such a joke.
“Certainly not!” predictably replied Sanders, adding: “We have a respect for all Americans, and that is what we try to put forward in everything we do, but in word and in action, focusing on doing things that help every American in this country every single day.”
On May 14, 2018, Trump revealed his “respect” for “all Americans”—especially those working in the White House.
“The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible,” Trump tweeted.
“With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!”
This from the man who, during the 2016 Presidential campaign, shouted: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks!”
Of course, that was when Russian Intelligence agents were exposing the secrets of Hillary Clinton, his Presidential opponent.
And, in a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump ordered an all-out investigation to find the person who leaked Sadler’s “joke.”
In January, 2018, the White House had banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
Officials now had two choices:
- Leave their cell phones in their cars, or,
- When they arrive for work, deposit them in lockers installed at West Wing entrances. They can reclaim their phones when they leave.
Several staffers huddled around the lockers throughout the day, checking messages they had missed. The lockers buzzed and chirped constantly from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
More ominously, well-suited men roamed the halls of the West Wing, carrying devices that pick up signals from phones that aren’t government-issued. “Did someone forget to put their phone away?” one of the men would ask if such a device was detected.
If no one said they have a phone, the detection team started searching the room.
Phone detector
The devices can tell which type of phone is in the room.
This is the sort of behavior Americans have traditionally—and correctly—associated with dictatorships
In his memo outlining the policy, former Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that anyone who violated the phone ban could be punished, including “being indefinitely prohibited from entering the White House complex.”
Yet even these draconian methods did not end White House leaks.
White House officials still spoke with reporters throughout the day and often aired their grievances, whether about annoying colleagues or competing policy priorities.
Aides with private offices sometimes called reporters on their desk phones. Others used their cell phones to call or text reporters during lunch breaks.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, ONE DAY WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT FEAR (BOOK), PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 26, 2024 at 12:10 am
“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake news NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!”
So tweeted President Donald J. Trump on February 17, 2019.
Less than nine hours earlier, “SNL” had once again opened with actor Alec Baldwin mocking the 45th President. In this skit, Baldwin/Trump gave a rambling press conference declaring: “We need wall. We have a tremendous amount of drugs flowing into this country from the southern border—or The Brown Line, as many people have asked me not to call it.”
Right-wingers denounce their critics as “snowflakes”—that is, emotional, easily offended and unable to tolerate opposing views.
Yet here was Donald Trump, who prides himself on his toughness, whining like a child bully who has just been told that other people have rights, too.
The answer is simple: Trump is a tyrant—and a longtime admirer of tyrants.
Donald Trump
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Asked by a Fox News reporter why he praised murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, he replied: “He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
In short: Kim must be doing something right because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Actually, for all their differences in appearance and nationality, Trump shares at least two similarities with Kim.
Kim Jong-Un
Blue House (Republic of Korea) [KOGL (http://www.kogl.or.kr/open/info/license_info/by.do)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
First, both of them got a big boost into wealth and power from their fathers.
- Trump’s father, Fred Trump, a real estate mogul, reportedly gave Donald $200 million to enter the real estate business. It was this sum that formed the basis for Trump’s eventual rise to wealth and fame—and the Presidency.
- Kim’s father was Kim Jong-Il, who ruled North Korea as dictator from 1994 to 2011. When his father died in 2011, Kim Jong-Un immediately succeeded him, having been groomed for years to do so.
Second, both Trump and Kim have brutally tried to stamp out any voices that contradict their own.
- Trump has constantly attacked freedom of the press, even labeling it “the enemy of the American people.” He has also slandered his critics on Twitter—which refused to enforce its “Terms of Service” and revoke his account until he incited the January 6 attack on Congress.
- Kim has attacked his critics with firing squads and prison camps. Amnesty International estimates that more than 200,000 North Koreans are now suffering in labor camps throughout the country.
Thus, Trump—-elected to lead the “free world”—believes, like all dictators:
- People are evil everywhere—so who am I to judge who’s better or worse? All that counts is gaining and holding onto power.
- And if you can do that, it doesn’t matter how you do so.
Actually, it’s not uncommon for dictators to admire one another—as the case of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler nicely illustrates.
Joseph Stalin
After Hitler launched a blood-purge of his own private Stormtroopers army on June 30, 1934, Stalin exclaimed: “Hitler, what a great man! That is the way to deal with your political opponents!”
And Hitler was equally admiring of Stalin’s notorious ruthlessness: “After the victory over Russia,” he told his intimates, “it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country, with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
One characteristic shared by all dictators is intolerance toward those whose opinions differ with their own. Especially those who dare to actually criticize or make fun of them.
All Presidents have thin skins. John F. Kennedy often phoned reporters and called them “sonofbitches” when he didn’t like stories they had written on him.
Richard Nixon went further, waging all-out war against the Washington Post for its stories about his criminality.
But Donald Trump took his hatred of dissidents to an entirely new—and dangerous—level.
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
Trump was outraged—not that one of his aides had joked about a man stricken with brain cancer, but that someone in the White House had leaked it.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BLACK LIKE ME, BLOOMBERG, BOOKS, BUZZFEED, CATCH-22, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DR. ZHIVAGO, DRACULA, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, LES MISERABLES, LIBRARIES, LORD OF THE FLIES, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRIMAN-WEBSTER’S ELEMENTARY DICTIONARY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT, RON DESANTIS, SALON, SCHINDLER’S LIST, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, THE ATLANTIC, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOM X, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, THE GUARDIAN, THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS, THE HANDMAID’S TALE, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WINDS OF WAR, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 5, 2024 at 12:38 am
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis likes to refer to his state as “the free state of Florida.”
But for those who cherish the right to read whatever they want, Florida’s legislative agenda offers anything but freedom.
Among those books pulled from public libraries—temporarily or permanently—are John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” Colleen Hoover’s “Hopeless,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Grace Lin’s picture story “Dim Sum for Everyone!”
Florida’s Martin County school district removed dozens of books from its middle schools and high schools. Among these: Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved,” James Patterson’s “Maximum Ride” thrillers, and numerous novels by Jodi Picoult.
Ron DeSantis
Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News host, staunchly supported Florida’s book ban laws enacted by DeSantis. Then two of his own books—Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency—were temporarily removed from the Escambia County School District.
Suddenly, O’Reilly changed his mind.
“It’s absurd. Preposterous,” O’Reilly told Newsweek. He threatened to “find out exactly who made the decisions … [and] put their pictures on television and on my website … and I’m going to ask them for a detailed explanation of why they did that.
“When DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme because there was abuse going on in Florida. There were far-left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children, there’s no doubt about it.”
So O’Reilly believes it’s OK to censor books promoting a “far-left progressive” view. Censorship is wrong only when it condemns his books to oblivion.
Bill O’Reilly
Bill O’Reilly at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.jpg: World Affairs Council of Philadelphiaderivative work: Karppinen, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Under Florida’s HB 1069 bill, affected titles include dictionaries, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl.
A partial list of the 1,600 books banned in Escambia County, Florida, includes:
- The Guinness Book of World Records
- Ripley’s Believe It or Not
- Biographies of Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Thurgood Marshall
- The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
- Titans and Olympians: Greek and Roman Myths
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- The Martian Chronicles
- Van Gough and Gauguin: The Studio of the South
- Invisible Man
- As I Lay Dying
- Light in August
- The Reivers
- The Sound and the Fury
- Tender Is the Night
- Lord of the Flies
- I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
- Catch-22
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Heretics of Dune
- Brave New World
- Ulysses
- Dubliner
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- Carrie
- Pet Sematary
- Daniel Boone
- Babbitt
- Doctor Zhivago
- Coping with Date Rape and Acquaintance Rape
- Super Human Encyclopedia: Discover the Amazing Things Your Body Can Do
- HIV infection: The Facts You Need to Know
- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
- Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles
- The Fountainhead
Nazi book burning
- The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison
- Black Like Me
- Atlas Shrugged
- Flowers for Algernon
- James Dean: Rebel Life
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Slaughterhouse Five
- The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood
- Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters
- Paul McCartney: The Life
- Augustus Caesar
- Dracula
- Coping As a Survivor of Violent Crime
- Schindler’s List
- Date Rape
- France: A History in Art
- The AIDS Epidemic: Disaster & Survival
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Tupac Shakur
- Hernan Cortes
- Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters
- Native Son
- The Clear and Simple Thesaurus Dictionary
- Illustrated Who’s Who in Mythology
- Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America
- STDs
- Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary
- Encyclopedia of World Costume
- The Winds of War
- Early Humans
- Child Abuse
- The Bible Book
- Les Misérables
All of which means: If you want to read something forbidden by the State and can’t meet the high prices of bookstores, you’re not going to read it.
At least, not in Florida.
In 1969, the Young Rascals sang:
All the world over, so easy to see
People everywhere just wanna be free
but this ignores a grim and fundamental truth: Many people don’t want to be free.
Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm noted this in his 1941 bestseller, Escape From Freedom.
Its thesis: People who can’t accept the dangers and responsibilities that come with freedom will probably turn to authoritarianism.
Democracy has freed many people, but it also makes others feel alienated and dehumanized. Many Germans turned to Nazism for a sense of belonging and purpose.
Many people hold a twisted concept of what accounts for freedom. They accuse their enemies of being tyrants, while fiercely supporting a dictatorship of their own. A favorite marching song of Hitler’s SS went:
Clear the streets, the SS marches!
They will take the road from tyranny to freedom!
Such people fervently believe that they are being persecuted if they aren’t allowed to persecute those they hate.
Thus, during the Presidency of Barack Obama, millions of Republicans believed themselves victims because they weren’t allowed to
(1) discriminate on the basis of race or sex; and
(2) deny medical care to millions of poor and middle-class Americans.
The same holds true for the followers of Ron DeSantis.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANNE APPLEBAUM, AP, ASSASSINATION, AUTOCRACY INC. (BOOK), “PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (C-PAC), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DICTATORSHIP, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FBI, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC), FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (FTC), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS SUNDAY, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, JACK SMITH, JAMES MATTIS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JUDICIARY, Kamala Harris, KIM JONG-UN, MARK MILLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MILITARY AGENCIES, MORNING JOE (SHOW), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ASSOCIATION (NOAA), NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT, PROJECT 2025, PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD J. ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SCARFACE (MOVIE), SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNING POINT BELIEVERS’ SUMMIT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER FRAUD, X, XI JINPING
THE COMING DICTATORSHIP–AND ITS AGENDA: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 14, 2025 at 12:10 amDonald Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.
This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
Seal of the Justice Department
Trump has prospered by slandering Democrats as “Marxists,” “Socialists” and “Communists.” And other Republicans have also deployed the terms. Yet he has repeatedly expressed admiration for such brutal Communist dictators as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and China’s Xi Jinping.
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, then-President Trump had revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Another Communist dictator he has lavishly praised is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Asked by a Fox News reporter why he did so, he replied:
“He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
in short: Kim must be doing something right, because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Asked about his relationship with Kim, Trump infamously said: “[Kim] wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
Share this: