Posts Tagged ‘BLOOMBERG NEWS’
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH R. MCCARPTHY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, KIM JONG UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MIKA BREZINSKI, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RODNEY KING, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2022 at 12:12 am
In 2016, “reality show” host Donald Trump—with major assistance from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—was elected President.
Throughout his four-year term, the Right enthusiastically supported him despite a record of unprecedented infamy—which included:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Praising Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen.
- Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
- Attacking and alienating America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans supported Trump’s actions or refused to actively oppose them.
On April 27, 2020, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long:
“I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage. You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.”
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided strong evidence for this when she bragged, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
Donald Trump
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
But COVID-19 changed all that. Suddenly, millions of Americans found themselves stuck at home with their children. Many of them couldn’t go to work—because they were sick or their jobs had disappeared. Their 401Ks suddenly became worthless.
Had COVID-19 not intervened, Trump would still be President. And he wouldn’t have had to call on aid from Vladimir Putin. Millions of Right-wing, “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” Americans would have happily returned him to office as “President-for-Life.”
During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 overthrow plots. The most famous of these occurred on July 20, 1944.
So far as is known, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.
- No Cabinet members dared to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump for office as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
- House and Senate Republicans rubberstamped his every infamy. When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain or falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
- On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
- Just hours after Trump incited the deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the United States Capitol, 147 Republicans lawmakers in the House and Senate voted to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss—following months of his baseless claims that the November election had been stolen.
- At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly abused their ability and integrity, while pursuing policies calculated to aid Russia.
- Although they regularly met with Trump, none of them plotted his removal.
- No FBI agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution. This despite his attacking their integrity and even firing their director, James Comey, for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
Trump knows he cannot win office in a free election.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, revamped the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increased coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election was virtually free of fraud. As a result, Trump lost.
That’s why legislators in Republican-controlled states are trying to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels—to nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
If they can restore a lifelong criminal to absolute power in 2024, Joseph Biden will be the last democratically-elected American President.
And Donald Trump will live out his dictatorial fantasies as “President-for-Life.”
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH R. MCCARPTHY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, KIM JONG UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MIKA BREZINSKI, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RODNEY KING, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 8, 2022 at 12:10 am
In his January 19 press conference, President Joseph Biden said: “I actually like Mitch McConnell. We like one another.”
In reality, McConnell refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy as President-elect until December 15, 2020—more than one month after Biden’s election on November 3.
Additionally, at least 147 Republicans sided with Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. And even after the treasonous attempted coup of January 6, 2021, many of them still refuse to accept the legitimacy of Biden’s win.
January 6, 2021’s attempted coup
Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Republicans have enthusiastically embraced Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him—despite overwhelming evidence that it wasn’t.
Legislators in Republican-controlled states are now working furiously to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels so they can nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Their ultimate goal: Restore a lifelong criminal and Russia-appeasing traitor to absolute power as “President-for-Life.”
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” It encouraged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them are emotions. And Republicans have become experts at appealing to these—especially the baser ones.
For Republicans, the Big Three emotions are: Hatred, Greed and Fear.
This has enabled Republicans to repeatedly score impressive electoral victories: Out of 17 Presidential elections since the end of World War II, Republicans have won 10.
But it’s not enough to see Republicans for what they are. Americans need to be seen for what they are.
Historically, the United States has always been a highly conservative nation. Going from “conservative” to “Fascist” is a relatively easy step—as millions of Donald Trump’s supporters have proven.
Since the end of World War 11, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
The fact that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason was conveniently overlooked during his lifetime.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate” because he had briefly visited the Soviet Union during his college years.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Republicans lost their “soft on Communism” slander-line. So they tried to persuade voters that Democrats were “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
George H.W. Bush
After losing the White House to Clinton at the polls in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried to oust him another way: By impeaching him over a tryst with a penis-loving intern named Monica Lewinsky.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach, but the effort was defeated in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
And while the Right lusts to constantly compare Democrats and liberals (the two aren’t always the same) to Nazis, its propaganda campaign draws heavily on Adolf Hitler’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, the Nazi leader laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.
“[The masses] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Thus, Republicans spent the eight years of Barack Obama’s Presidency repeating the lie that he was born in Kenya—not Hawaii, as the long-form version of his birth certificate attests.
The reason: To “prove” that he was an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office.
To Republicans’ dismay, their slander campaign didn’t prevent Obama from being elected in 2008—and re-elected in 2012.
In 2016, “reality show” host Donald Trump—with major assistance from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—was elected President. Throughout his four-year term, the Right enthusiastically supported him—despite a record of unprecedented infamy.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID SATTER, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO AND IT NEVER HAPPENED ANYWAY (BOOK), JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH REPUBLICANS, JOSEPH STALIN, jOSH HAWLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, MO BROOKS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAFAEL EDUARDO "TED" CRUZ, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 7, 2022 at 12:11 am
Sixty-nine years ago, Joseph Stalin, absolute dictator of the Soviet Union, died on March 5, 1953.
And, 69 years later, Russians are still trying to come to terms with his almost 30-year legacy of mass imprisonment, wholesale executions, man-made famine and forced labor.
Of the eight leaders who succeeded Stalin, only Mikhail Gorbachev dared to confront the horrors of the Stalinist past. He recognized that the Soviet Union had reached a point of economic and political stagnation.
And he believed the only way to revitalize Communist society was to face the brutal truths of the Soviet past so new generations of Russians could reach beyond them to create the ideal “workers paradise.”
That experiment, known as glasnost, or “openness,” lasted through the reigns of Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991) and Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999) and ended with the arrival of Vladimir Putin (2000).
The price for this unwillingness to face brutalities of the past—and, worse, to deny that they occurred—has been devastating.
It has been vividly described by David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union for the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.
As the dust jacket of his 2012 history, It Was a Long Time Ago and It Neve Happened Anyway, sums up:
“Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid.
“A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten.
“In this book David Satter….presents a striking new interpretation of Russia’s great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia’s failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state.
“Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights.”
Today, Stalin’s estimated 20 million victims—the vast majority of them Russians—are being consigned to oblivion. In their place is the image of Joseph Stalin as the victor of “The Great Patriotic War” against Nazi Germany.
Joseph Stalin
World War II—now over for almost 75 years—remains a pivotal event for Russians. It marks the time when—after horrifically suffering 22 million casualties—the Soviet Union pushed the German armies all the way back to Berlin.
Left out in this history: The Soviet Union received massive amounts of American military equipment from its 1941 invasion to its ultimate triumph in 1945.
Also removed from this history:
- Stalin’s wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack; and
- So had Stalin’s “nonaggression” pact with Germany in 1939, where he and Hitler secretly and aggressively divided Poland between them.
It was the German invasion of Poland, on September 1, 1939, that ignited World War II.
But Russian Communists no longer have a monopoly on rewriting the past. Today they have been joined by American Republicans.
Just hours after the January 6, 2021 attempted coup at the United States Capitol Building, 147 Republican lawmakers voted to overturn then-president Donald Trump’s election loss. This followed two months of his lies that the November 3 Presidential election had been stolen.
For more than a year since that election, most Republicans have refused to say whether Joseph Biden was legitimately elected President of the United States.
Reuters asked the office of every lawmaker who voted against certifying Biden’s victory through the Electoral College: “Do you believe that Donald Trump lost the election because of voter fraud?”
Fully 133 lawmakers, or 90%, refused to answer or respond to multiple inquiries.
Among them: Senators Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz and Josh Hawley—who led the coalition of objectors—and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who also tried to overturn the election.
Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz
Hawley claimed in a December 30 statement that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws.
That was an argument multiple courts had already rejected.
But he later told CNN: “I was very clear from the beginning that I was never attempting to overturn the election.”
Josh Hawley
On the contrary: His actions had made it abundantly clear that he was attempting to do exactly that.
Hawley refused to respond to Reuters’ multiple inquiries on whether he believed Trump lost because of voter fraud,
Cruz also tried to stretch the truth in two different directions.
In a January 2, 2021 joint statement with 10 other Senators and Senators-elect, he said: “By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.”
But on January 6—the day of the Capitol attack—Cruz said: “Let me be clear. I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election.”
In fact, he had been doing exactly that.
And the lies spun by Republicans that Donald Trump had been cheated of victory by fraud directly triggered the treasonous attempt by Trump’s followers to brutally overturn the results of that election.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ACAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BRETT CROZIER, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES PIERCE, CHRIS KREBS, CNN, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, GREAT TERROR, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUFFINGTON POST, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MARIA YOVANOVICH, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKHAIL TUKHACHEVESKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKOLAI ZHILAYEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MODLY, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR ii, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2022 at 12:14 am
Dictators bring out the worst in their followers.
But they also bring out the best in those who dare to oppose them.
Next hero: Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).
In May 2019, on President Donald Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network—and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Marie Yovanovitch
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son, Hunter, had had business dealings in Ukraine.
On October 11, 2019, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani, might have thought “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.”
Another victim on Trump’s hate-list was Chis Krebs.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda had played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Trump didn’t win a majority of the popular vote. But he got enough help from Putin to triumph in the Electoral College.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And point man for this was Chris Krebs.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
Now he was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:
- Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
As a result of the vast increase in election security, Trump not only failed to win the popular vote again but couldn’t get the help he expected from Putin.
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:
“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.
“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.”
Yet, by depriving Trump of Russian help, Krebs ensured a victory for democracy.
On January 6, the House and Senate counted the Electoral Votes—and pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOOD PRICES, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, HUNTER BIDEN, INFLATION, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHELLE OBAMA, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRICE-GOUGING, Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RIDICULE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM COTTON, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 1, 2022 at 12:12 am
After holding office little more than a year, President Joseph Biden finds himself under unrelenting assault by Republicans for his domestic and foreign policies.
Although he no doubt believes otherwise, many of his current problems are self-inflicted. But they can be resolved—and he can still be re-elected in 2024—if he breaks with his longtime attitude of: “Can’t we all just get along?”
In Part One of this series, three such remedies were listed. Here are the remaining two.
WEAPON #4: REASSURE VOTERS THAT HE IS ATTACKING INFLATION IN A WAY THEY CAN UNDERSTAND
When people are frightened and angry, they look for simple answers and solutions—and scapegoats. That is how Republicans deal with crises.
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions.
And Republicans have become experts at appealing to these—especially the baser ones. For Republicans, the Big Three are: Hatred, Greed, Fear.
President Biden should do the same in combating rising food prices, which are frightening and angering millions.
Instead of accepting the conventional explanation of “supply chain difficulties,” he should blame rising prices on the entrenched greed of corporations. In many cases, it no doubt happens to be true.
This will be widely accepted and divert criticism of the President.
More importantly, Biden should propose a bill to make price gouging a national crime, punishable by a lengthy prison term. It can be modeled on the anti-extortion provisions in the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
No matter what happens on the bill, the President faces a win/win situation.
If it passes, he can rightly take credit for it and reap the popularity certain to result. And if Republicans block its passage, he can rightly blame them, thus ensuring that he and Democrats are seen as “the people’s champions.”
WEAPON #5: ACCUSE REPUBLICANS OF SUPPORTING DICTATORSHIP
Republicans have enthusiastically embraced Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him—despite overwhelming evidence that it wasn’t.
Legislators in Republican-controlled states are now working furiously to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels so they can nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Their ultimate goal: Restore a lifelong criminal and Russia-appeasing traitor to absolute power as “President-for-Life.”
Donald Trump
In 1968, Richard Nixon ran for President on the slogan: “This time, vote like your whole world depends on it.”
Democrats should make this their slogan for 2022—and 2024: “This time, vote like your whole democracy depends on it.”
* * * * *
Millions of Americans believe that only liberals can be Communist sympathizers and traitors. This is the direct result of decades of Republican propaganda dating back to 1946.
Republicans, having lost the White House from 1932 to 1948, furiously sought a return to power. And they found their remedy in attacking the patriotism of their fellow Americans—ushering in the infamous era of Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon and the Hollywood Blacklist.
Democrats need to similarly damn Republicans with the charge of “Traitor.” The difference: There is plenty of evidence—much of it on video—to document its truth.
For example:
- On Right-wing Fox News Network, its popular broadcaster, Tucker Carlson, asked: “Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?”
- Arkansas’ Republican United States Senator Tom Cotton has blamed Putin’s aggression against Ukraine on Biden: “It is a result of a year of Joe Biden’s impotence and incompetence towards Russia in particular and in foreign policy more generally.”
- More than 60% of Democrats view Putin very unfavorably, but only 30 to 40% of Republicans do.
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language. They have also refused to see most of their fellow Americans for what they are.
Historically, the United States has always been a highly conservative nation. Going from “conservative” to “Fascist” is a relatively easy step—as millions of Donald Trump’s supporters have proven.
On April 27, 2020, Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long: “I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.”
But COVID-19 changed all that. Suddenly, millions of Americans found themselves stuck at home with their children. Many of them couldn’t go to work—because they were sick or their jobs had disappeared. Their 401Ks suddenly became worthless.
Suddenly, “the happy time” for Americans was over—just as it had ended for Nazi Germany after Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.Had COVID-19 not intervened, Trump would still be President.
And he wouldn’t have had to call on aid from Vladimir Putin. Millions of Right-wing, “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” Americans would have happily returned him to office as “President-for-Life.”
Democrats have powerful weapons to use against their sworn Republican enemies. But first they must recognize Republicans as their enemies.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOOD PRICES, FOX NEWS NETWORK, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, HUNTER BIDEN, INFLATION, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHELLE OBAMA, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRICE-GOUGING, Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RIDICULE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM COTTON, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 31, 2022 at 12:10 am
President Joseph Robinette Biden is a decent, well-intentioned man.
Yet, holding office little more than a year, he finds himself under unrelenting assault by Republicans for his domestic and foreign policies.
Unfortunately, many of his current problems are self-inflicted. And they can be resolved only by his taking ruthless action against his sworn Republican enemies.
According to Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics: A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good. And therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.
Niccolo Machiavelli
For example, in his January 19 press conference, Biden said: “I actually like Mitch McConnell [the Kentucky Republican and Senate Minority Leader]. We like one another.”
In reality, McConnell refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy as President-elect until December 15, 2020—more than one month after Biden’s election on November 3.
Biden is convinced that his low ratings have resulted from being in Washington, D.C., so much: “I find myself in a situation where I don’t get a chance to look people in the eye, because of both COVID and things that are happening in Washington, to be able to go out and do the things that I’ve always been able to do pretty well: connect with people, let them take a measure of my sincerity, let them take a measure of who I am.”
President Joe Biden
This is a fallacy. Americans facing high prices at the supermarket and a continuing COVID-19 plague don’t want Biden to “feel your pain,” as Presidential candidate Bill Clinton assured voters in 1992.
Voters want to buy groceries at an affordable price—and to walk streets and enter stores without wearing a mask. And they want Biden to give them concrete reasons to believe that these can become reality.
Biden does command powerful weapons that will enable him to do this. But to use them he must be willing to abandon his “can’t-we-all-just-get-along” nature.
Among those weapons:
WEAPON #1: STOP THINKING OF REPUBLICANS AS “OUR FRIENDS”
The President should stop referring to “our Republican friends.” He has no friends among men and women dedicated to overthrowing Constitutional government and imposing a lifelong criminal and tyrant in his place.
Just hours after the deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the United States Capitol, 147 Republicans lawmakers in the House and Senate voted to overturn then-president Donald Trump’s election loss, following months of his baseless claims that the November election had been stolen.
January 6, 2021 attempted coup
And more than a year after that treasonous attempted coup, many Republicans still refuse to accept the legitimacy of Biden’s win.
Would Franklin D. Roosevelt have referred to his Right-wing enemies as “our Nazi friends”?
WEAPON #2: BLAME DONALD TRUMP AND HISTORMTRUMPERS FOR COVID-19 DEATHS
Trump learned how deadly the virus was in January, 2020. But he
- Publicly denied this and attacked mask-wearing and social distancing;
- Attacked governors who issued stay-at-home orders to contain the virus;
- Incited his followers to defy those orders; and
- Secretly got vaccinated before leaving office and has only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of vaccinations.
His legacy of defying science continues to live on in his millions of Stormtrumper followers—who refuse to mask up, social distance and, most importantly, get vaccinated. The vast majority of those now flooding hospital ER and ICU rooms are unvaccinated.
As a result, countless victims of crime, accidents, heart attacks, strokes and other debilitating conditions find their surgeries/treatments canceled or indefinitely postponed. And doctors and nurses treating these patients are nearing the breaking point of exhaustion.
President Biden and the health officials of his administration should blame the unvaccinated for their egotistical selfishness in causing this crisis. This will put Republicans on the defensive and divert attacks on the President.
He should also propose a national law allowing hospitals to stop admitting unvaccinated anti-vaxxers. These people need to face the consequences of their own irresponsible behavior. Only then will hospitals be free to care for those who deserve medical treatment.
WEAPON #3: BLAME TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS FOR THE CURRENT CRISIS IN UKRAINE
Republicans are blaming President Biden for Vladimir Putin’s latest aggression against Ukraine. They claim that Biden has been weak and confusing in his foreign policy.
In July, 2019, Trump tried to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the Congressionally authorized $400 million in military aid.
Biden should cite this incident—and incidents where Trump groveled before Putin. Example: Siding with Putin against the FBI and CIA when they agreed that Russia had interfered in the 2016 Presidential election. The words “traitor” and “treason” should be routinely used when he discusses these incidents.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVARO OBREGON, AMERICABLOG, ANCHOR BABIES, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORRUPTION, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, EMILIANO ZAPATA, FACEBOOK, FELIPE CALDERON, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCISCO "PANCHO" VILLA, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, illegal immigration, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICAN REVOLUTION, MEXICO, MIGRANT CARRAVAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RACIAL PROFILING, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIJUANA, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VENUSTIANO CARRANZA, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 28, 2022 at 12:05 am
On May 20, 2010, Mexico’s then-President Felipe Calderon addressed a joint session of the United States Congress—and attacked a recently-enacted Arizona law that allowed law enforcement officials to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
According to Calderon, the law “introduces a terrible idea: using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement.”
And to make certain his audience got the point, he offered: “I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”
The hypocrisy of Calderon’s words was staggering. He was condemning the United States for doing what Mexico itself has long done: Strictly enforcing control of its own borders.
Felipe Calderon
World Economic ForumCopyright by World Economic Forum / Photo by Remy Steinegger
From a purely political viewpoint, it made sense that Calderon didn’t say anything about this.
Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:
- In the country legally;
- Have the means to sustain themselves economically;
- Not destined to be burdens on society;
- Of economic and social benefit to society;
- Of good character and have no criminal records; and
- Contribute to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
- Immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
- Foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
- Foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
- Foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
- Foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
- Those who aid in illegal immigration are sent to prison.
But Mexico doesn’t mind when millions of its own citizens routinely violate America’s immigration laws.
Then, only eight years after Calderon’s self-righteous demand that Americans repeal their immigration laws, irony struck.
Mexicans suddenly discovered that “illegal alien” was no longer a dirty phrase.
On October 13, 2018, a caravan of at least 5,000 men, women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras set out for the United States.
On October 18, President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the United States military and close the U.S.-Mexico border to keep the caravan from entering the country.
And then Trump did just that.
By November 19, migrants had begun piling up in Tijuana, which borders San Diego.
And that’s when Tijuana residents began carrying signs reading “No illegals,” “No to the invasion” and “Mexico First.” And marching in the streets wearing Mexico’s red, white and green national soccer jersey and vigorously waving Mexican flags.
“We want the caravan to go; they are invading us,” said Patricia Reyes, a 62-year-old protester. “They should have come into Mexico correctly, legally, but they came in like animals.”
And the situation will only worsen in the months ahead.
Trump has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to draft new rules to limit the number of asylum-seekers.
As increasing numbers of migrants pour into Tijuana, access to housing, schools, hospitals and other social services will become increasingly strained. Violent clashes between Tijuana’s 1.6 million residents and its thousands of uninvited arrivals will almost certainly be the result.
The Tijuana city government—aided by nonprofit humanitarian groups—is providing a stadium as a migrant shelter, as well as blankets, sleeping pads, food and basic medical care.
But Tijuana’s mayor, Juan Manuel Gastélum, says Tijuana lacks the funds to continue supporting the migrants. He believes they will be there for more than six months as they are processed through the American asylum system. He has requested support from Mexico’s federal authorities.
So why has the Mexican Government refused to halt illegal immigration to the United States?
Because it still remembers the bloody upheaval known as the Mexican Revolution. This lasted 10 years (1910-1920) and wiped out an estimated one to two million men, women and children.
Massacres were common on all sides, with men shot by the hundreds in bullrings or hung by the dozen on trees.
A Mexican Revolution firing squad
All of the major leaders of the Revolution—Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Alvaro Obregon—died in a hail of bullets.
Francisco “Pancho” Villa
Emiliano Zapata
As a result, every successive Mexican Government has lived in the shadow of another such wholesale bloodletting. These officials have thus quietly decided to turn the United States border into a safety valve.
If potential revolutionaries leave Mexico to find a better life in the United States, the Government doesn’t have to fear the rise of another “Pancho” Villa.
If somehow the United States managed to seal its southern border, all those teeming millions of “undocumented workers” who completely lack documents would have to stay in “Mexico bonita.”
They would be forced to live with the rampant corruption and poverty that have forever characterized this failed nation-state. Or they would have to demand substantial reforms.
There is no guarantee that such demands would not lead to a second—and equally bloody—Mexican revolution.
So Felipe Calderon and his successors in power have found it easier—and safer—to turn the United States into a dumping ground for citizens that the Mexican Government itself doesn’t want.
Now with that safety valve shut off, another Mexican Revolution may be just around the corner.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTRAL AMERICA, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, CHINA, CNN, COLUMBIA, COMMUNISM, CRIMEA, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, CZECHOSLAVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GUATEMALA, GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, HUNGARY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LATIN AMERICA, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MAO TSE-TUNG, MEDIA MATTERS, MICK MULVANEY, MITT ROMNEY, MONROE DOCTRINE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, PANAMA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCHI OLYMPICS, SOVIET UNION, SPHERES OF INFLUENCE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM COTTON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VICTOR YANUKOVYCH, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on January 24, 2022 at 12:35 am
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right felt dejected.
Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hasn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
Then fate intervened.
The torch had barely gone out at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Ukraine vs. Russia
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And that didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”—Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for its reestablishment. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards European institutions—especially NATO.
So it was almost a certainty that Putin would retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he began moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea. Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimean peninsula and backed separatists who captured large swathes of eastern Ukraine.
On December 3, 2021, the Washington Post reported: “The Kremlin is planning a multi-front offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops” against Ukraine.
And where there is activity by Russians, American Rightists are eager to turn such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR): ”It is a result of a year of Joe Biden’s impotence and incompetence towards Russia in particular and in foreign policy more generally.”
Cotton had vigorously defended President Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the face of Russian aggression.
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine.
Then, on July 25, Trump telephoned Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the military aid.
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest—and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no legitimacy except the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Latin and Central America
Similarly, the Soviet Union forced many nations—such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion—as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans—who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens—want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine—even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
"1984, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CONDOLEEZA RICE, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DICK CHENEY, DONALD RUMSFELD, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE ORWELL, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISTORY, HUFFINGTON POST, JEB BUSH, JOSEPH STALIN, LAVRENTI BERIA, MARCO RUBIO, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI-SOVIET NONAGGRESSION PACT, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NPR, PAUL WOLFOWITZ, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, RICHARD CLARKE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WASHINGTONPOST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on January 21, 2022 at 12:10 am
At one time, Americans believed that the wholesale rewriting of history happened only in the Soviet Union.
“The problem with writing about history in the Soviet Union,” went the joke, “is that you never know what’s going to happen yesterday.”
A classic example of this occurred in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Lavrenti Beria had been head of the NKVD, the dreaded secret police, from 1938 to 1953. In 1953, following the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Beria was arrested and executed on orders of his fellow Communist Party leaders, who feared they were targets of a coming purge.
Lavrenti Beria
But the Great Soviet Encyclopedia had just gone to press with a long article singing Beria’s praises.
What to do?
The editors of the Encyclopedia wrote an equally long article about “the Bering Straits,” which was to be pasted over the article about Beria, and sent this off to its subscribers. An unknown number of them decided it was safer to paste accordingly.
During the 2016 Presidential election, the Republican party furiously rewrote history in a desperate attempt to win the White House.
Specifically, its members tried to convince Americans that:
- President George W. Bush “kept us safe” (excluding, of course, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, which snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans); and/or
- President Bush isn’t to blame for 9/11—it’s his predecessor, Bill Clinton (who left office more than a year and a half before 9/11).
Joseph Stalin was depicted in Soviet “history” texts as the architect of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
No “historian” dared mention that Stalin’s wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack in 1941. As had Stalin’s “nonaggression” pact with Germany in 1939, where he and Hitler aggressively divided Poland between them.
Joseph Stalin
But Russians no longer have a monopoly on rewriting history.
In 2015, Jeb Bush entered the “Rewriting History for Americans” sweepstakes.
On October 16, 2015, during an interview on Bloomberg TV, Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for President in 2016, dared speak (for Republicans) the unspeakable:
“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time. He was President, OK? Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Bush was quick to respond on Twitter: “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Jeb Bush
Trump replied:
“At the debate you said your brother kept us safe–I wanted to be nice & did not mention the WTC came down during his watch, 9/11.”
And: “No @JebBush, you’re pathetic for saying nothing happened during your brother’s term when the World Trade Center was attacked and came down.”
Suddenly, on February 13, another Republican Presidential candidate rushed to rewrite 9/11: Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
According to Rubio: “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.”
And on the following day, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he again made the charge: “If you’re going to ascribe blame, don’t blame George W. Bush, blame a decision that was made years earlier, not to take out bin Laden when the opportunity presented itself.”
All of which ignores such embarrassing truths as:
- During the first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was not permitted to brief President Bush, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new Al-Qaeda outrage.
- From January 20 to September 11, 2001, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
- National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject of terrorism. Then she insisted that the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting.
- Paul Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
- Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz—whose real target was Saddam Hussein—said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
- Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
- Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
- Neither Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld nor Wolowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor has any of them been brought to account.
People who say the Republicans are “batshit crazy” for denying responsibility for 9/11 clearly haven’t read—or understood—George Orwell’s novel, 1984.
The unnamed Party’s slogan is: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
The same holds true for Republicans: They hope to rewrite the past, as Joseph Stalin did, to wash away their crimes and errors–and pin these on their self-declared enemies.
And thus gain—and retain—absolute power over 300 million Americans.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, APALACHIN RAID, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUGGING, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CLYDE TYOLSON, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL BUREAU OF NARCOTICS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY ANSLINGER, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, IRAN, IRAN-CONTRA, J. EDGAR HOOVER, MAFIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MEYER LANSKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OLIVER NORTH, ORGANIZED CRIME, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SANDINISTAS, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE LABOR RACKETS COMMITTEE, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOP HOODLUM PROGRAM, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WAL-MART, WILLIAM ROEMER, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2022 at 12:13 am
In 1959, J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI, declared war on the Mafia.
He set up a Top Hoodlum Program and encouraged his agents to use wiretapping and electronic surveillance (“bugging”) to make up for lost time and Intelligence.
But planting “bugs” demanded illegal trespass into mob hangouts.
Making this even more hazardous: Hoover imposed restrictions on these assignments that could destroy an agent’s professional and personal life.
William E. Roemer, Jr., assigned to the FBI’s Chicago field office, was one of the first agents to volunteer for such duty.
William Roemer
In his memoirs, Man Against the Mob, published in 1989, Roemer laid out the dangers that went with such work:
- If confronted by police or mobsters, agents were to try to escape without being identified.
- If caught by police, agents were not to identify themselves as FBI employees.
- They were to carry no badges, credentials or guns—or anything else connecting themselves with the FBI.
- If they were arrested by police and the truth emerged about their FBI employment, the Bureau would claim they were “rogue agents” acting on their own.
- Such agents were not to refute the FBI’s portrayal of them as “rogues.”
If he had been arrested by the Chicago Police Department and identified as an FBI agent, Roemer would have:
- Been fired as an FBI agent.
- Almost certainly been convicted for at least breaking and entering.
- Disbarred from the legal profession (Roemer was an attorney).
- Perhaps served a prison sentence.
- Been disgraced as a convicted felon.
- Been unable to serve in his chosen profession of law enforcement.
If he had been intercepted by the mobsters, he would have likely been shot.
Given the huge risks involved, many agents, unsurprisingly, shunned “black bag jobs.”
The agents who took them on were so committed to penetrating the Mob that they willingly accepted Hoover’s dictates.
In 1989, Roemer speculated that former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had fallen victim to such a “Mission: Impossible” scenario: “The secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions….”
Oliver North’s mugshot
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan’s “arms-for-hostages” deal known as Iran-Contra had been exposed.
To retrieve seven Americans taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, Reagan had secretly agreed to sell some of America’s most sophisticated missiles to Iran.
During this operation, several Reagan officials—including North—diverted proceeds from the sale of those missiles to fund Reagan’s illegal war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
In Roemer’s view: North had followed orders from his superiors without question. But when the time came for those superiors to step forward and protect him, they didn’t.
They let him take the fall.
Roemer speculated that North had been led to believe he would be rescued from criminal prosecution. Instead, in 1989, he was convicted for
- Accepting an illegal gratuity;
- Aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry; and
- Ordering the destruction of documents via his secretary, Fawn Hall.
That is how many employers expect their employees to act: To carry out whatever assignments they are given and take the blame if anything goes wrong.
Take the case of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s biggest retailer.
In March, 2005, Wal-Mart escaped criminal charges when it agreed to pay $11 million to end a federal probe into its use of illegal aliens as janitors.
Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided 60 Wal-Mart stores across 21 states in October, 2003. The raids led to the arrest of 245 illegal aliens.
An ICE raid
The illegal aliens had been hired as janitors at Wal-Mart stores.
Many of the employees worked seven days or nights a week without overtime pay or injury compensation. Those who worked nights were often locked in the store until morning.
According to Federal officials, court-authorized wiretaps revealed that Wal-Mart executives knew their subcontractors hired illegal aliens.
Once the raids began, Federal agents invaded the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, seizing boxes of records from the office of a mid-level executive.
Of course, Wal-Mart admitted no wrongdoing in the case. Instead, it blamed its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens and claiming that Wal-Mart hadn’t been aware of this.
Just as the FBI planned to have its agents take the fall in “black bag” cases, Wal-Mart meant to sacrifice its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens.
The only reason Wal-Mart couldn’t make this work: The Feds had, for once, treated corporate executives like Mafia leaders and had tapped their phones.
Which holds a lesson for how Federal law enforcement agencies should treat future corporate executives when their companies are found violating the law.
Instead of seeing CEOs as “captains of industry,” a far more realistic approach would be giving this term a new meaning: Corrupt Egotistical Oligarchs.
Their phones should be tapped, their boardrooms and bedrooms bugged, and their closest associates should be given immunity to testify against them.
A smart investigator/prosecutor should always remember:
Widespread illegal and corrupt behavior cannot happen among the employees of a major government agency or private corporation unless:
- Those at the top have ordered it and are profiting from it; or
- Those at the top don’t want to know about it and have taken no steps to prevent or punish it.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH R. MCCARPTHY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, KIM JONG UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MIKA BREZINSKI, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RODNEY KING, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
DEMOCRACY HANGS BY A THREAD: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2022 at 12:12 amIn 2016, “reality show” host Donald Trump—with major assistance from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—was elected President.
Throughout his four-year term, the Right enthusiastically supported him despite a record of unprecedented infamy—which included:
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans supported Trump’s actions or refused to actively oppose them.
On April 27, 2020, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long:
“I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage. You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.”
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided strong evidence for this when she bragged, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
Donald Trump
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
But COVID-19 changed all that. Suddenly, millions of Americans found themselves stuck at home with their children. Many of them couldn’t go to work—because they were sick or their jobs had disappeared. Their 401Ks suddenly became worthless.
Had COVID-19 not intervened, Trump would still be President. And he wouldn’t have had to call on aid from Vladimir Putin. Millions of Right-wing, “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” Americans would have happily returned him to office as “President-for-Life.”
During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 overthrow plots. The most famous of these occurred on July 20, 1944.
So far as is known, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.
Trump knows he cannot win office in a free election.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, revamped the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increased coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election was virtually free of fraud. As a result, Trump lost.
That’s why legislators in Republican-controlled states are trying to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels—to nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
If they can restore a lifelong criminal to absolute power in 2024, Joseph Biden will be the last democratically-elected American President.
And Donald Trump will live out his dictatorial fantasies as “President-for-Life.”
Share this: