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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 8, 2024 at 12:10 am
In May 17, 2017, Former FBI director Robert Mueller III, was appointed Special Counsel of the Department of Justice.
As such, he was charged with investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election. On March 22, 2019, he submitted his findings to Attorney General William Barr.
By that date, Mueller had:
- Indicted 34 people—including four former Trump campaign advisers.
- Indicted three Russian companies.
- Obtained eight guilty pleas to felonies or convictions—including five Trump associates and campaign officials.
- Unveiled Russians’ determination to elect Trump over Hillary Clinton.
- Revealed that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn discussed removing sanctions against Russia with then-Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, during the transition period.
- Discovered that Trump associates knew about Russian outreach efforts during the campaign.
Donald Trump
On July 24, 2019, Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. There he revealed that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, had:
- Sought Russian interference during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
- Benefited from that intervention.
- Concealed his close personal economic ties to Vladimir Putin by lying to the public about his hidden attempts to secure a construction project in Moscow.
- Lied to the special prosecutor.
- Directed subordinates to falsify records.
- Tried to exert “undue influence” on law enforcement in order to protect himself and his allies.
While appearing before Congress, Mueller was forced to:
- Testify for seven hours before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.
- Endure powerful, hot klieg lights needed by television cameras.
- Patiently take questions that were at times self-serving
- Respectfully answer questions meant to attack his personal and professional integrity.
- Simplify complex legal scenarios for men and women who have the attention span of a gnat.
Although Mueller was joined by former deputy special counsel Aaron Zebley, Zebley was forbidden to give testimony. He could only serve as Mueller’s counsel, giving quiet advice.
So the entire seven hours of public testimony fell on the shoulders of a 74-year-old man. No wonder he appeared tired by the end of the day.
And what was his reward?
A July 26, 2019 article in The Atlantic—entitled “The Press Has Adopted Trump’s Reality-Show Standards”—sums up the general reaction of the nation’s press to these bombshell revelations:
“In any other administration, in any other time, a special prosecutor, former FBI director, and decorated Marine testifying that the president of the United States was an unprosecuted felon who encouraged and then benefited from an attack on American democracy in pursuit of personal and political gain would bring the country to a grinding halt.
“But the American political press found Mueller insufficiently dazzling.”
Among those media:
- The New York Times: “Mueller’s Performance Was a Departure From His Much-Fabled Stamina.”
- The Washington Post: “On Mueller’s Final Day on the National Stage, a Halting, Faltering Performance.” And another reporter dubbed him a “weary old man.”
- The Hill: “Muller’s ‘Blockbuster’ Appearance Turned into ‘Bomb’ of Performance.”
- Politico: “Bob Mueller Is Struggling.”
- Right-wing media openly questioned Mueller’s health. These same media never mentioned that Trump is grotesquely overweight, never walks when he can ride, and eats a diet high in fats and calories.
In short: The nation’s most influential news media—on which citizens depend for their understanding of national and international personalities and events—has adopted the standards of teenagers.
* * * * *
Americans like their heroes young and powerful—preferably invincible. They want their heroes to be handsome and their villains to be ugly. They want to see lots of explosions and collapsing buildings.
And if a superhero can deliver a zinger of a line while throwing a KO punch, so much the better.
Lacking a sense of history—or concern for it—most Americans remain ignorant of the men, women and events that have shaped the era in which they live.
Most of those who watched Robert Mueller testify before Congress knew nothing of the sacrifices he had made for his country:
- As a Marine Vietnam veteran decorated for heroism (1968-1971);
- As a United States Attorney (1986-1987 and 1998-2001);
- As a United States Assistant Attorney General (1990-1993 and 2001); and
- As director of the FBI (2001-2013).
Robert Mueller
A news media that prizes glitz over substance has abdicated the role intended for it by the Founding Fathers: To act as a watchdog over the nation’s leaders.
That does not, however, diminish the legacy of Robert Mueller’s achievements—as Special Counsel and every other position he has held.
Revered within the law enforcement community, he will forever rank among the giants who personify courage and integrity
As a soldier, prosecutor, FBI director and Special Counsel, Robert Mueller took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
So did Donald Trump when he was inaugurated the nation’s 45th President. And so did every Republican member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The difference between Robert Mueller and Trump—and the overwhelming majority of Republican Congressional members—is this: Mueller, like a compass pointing True North, has always stayed faithful to that oath.
In doing so, he carried on his shoulders the burdens created when millions of racist, hate-filled Americans deliberately sent a corrupt, Russian-backed egomaniac and would-be dictator to the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 7, 2024 at 12:14 am
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom had announced he was withdrawing several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
- Ties: Made in China
- Suits: Made in Indonesia
- Trump Vodka: Made in the Netherlands, and later in Germany
- Crystal glasses, decanters: Made in Slovenia
- And the clothing and accessories line of his daughter, Ivanka, is produced entirely in factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around [with North Korea]. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
- Trump has boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.” Then he met with Kim in Vietnam—and got stiffed on a deal for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
- On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
- Damned him as a racist, a conman and a cheat.
- Revealed that Trump had cheated on his taxes and bought the silence of a porn “star” to prevent her revealing a 2006 tryst before the 2016 election.
- Estimated he had stiffed, on Trump’s behalf, hundreds of workers Trump owed money to.
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2024 at 12:12 am
“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveals his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 5, 2024 at 12:10 am
“One man in the free world has the power to launch a nuclear war that might destroy civilization: the President of the United States. What if that man were mentally unbalanced?”
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
He wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, Hollenbach believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel rereleased in 2018? The answer lay in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president [Donald Trump] has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
From the beginning of his Presidency, Trump aroused fear—based not only of what he might do, but that he might be mentally unbalanced. Consider:
On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department turned up no evidence to substantiate Trump’s foray into Presidential libel.
Donald Trump
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who dared to answer this question was John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his Presidency to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
Facing a hostile Democratic House of Representatives and a potentially explosive report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw down the gauntlet.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on July 26, 2024 at 12:07 am
On August 24, 2020, Kimberly Guilfoyle delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) that met the psychological meaning of “projection”: Unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don’t like about yourself and attributing them to someone else.
Guilfoyle, then 51, was a former attorney, prosecutor and television news personality who is now best-known as the girlfriend of Donald Trump, Jr..
In 2001, Guilfoyle married San Francisco supervisor Gavin Newsom. Two years later, Newsom was elected mayor of San Francisco. In January 2004, Guilfoyle moved to New York to host the program Both Sides on Court TV and work as a legal analyst on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.
In 2006, citing the strain of a bi-coastal marriage, Guilfoyle and Newsom divorced.
She joined Fox News in February 2006, as host of the weekend show The Lineup. When this was canceled, she remained a regular contributor to the network.
But in 2018, she abruptly left Fox News. According to the Huffington Post:
“Six sources said Guilfoyle’s behavior included showing personal photographs of male genitalia to colleagues (and identifying whose genitals they were), regularly discussing sexual matters at work and engaging in emotionally abusive behavior toward hair and makeup artists and support staff.”
Kimberly Guilfoyle
Photographer: Jill Lotenberg, Jill PhotographyPublisher: Chase Backer, 25A Magazine / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
In May 2018, Guilfoyle and Donald Trump, Jr.—the son of the President—attended an event together. News subsequently leaked that the two were dating—while he was separated from but still married to his wife, Vanessa. Guilfoyle had been friends with the Trump family for years
Vanessa and Donald Trump, Jr. divorced at the end of 2018.
Since 2018, Trump Jr. has been openly dating Guilfoyle. According to The New York Times Magazine, they “have become fund-raising powerhouses,” helping the President amass a huge war chest.
Donald Trump Junior
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)
Among the statements Guilfoyle made at the RNC:
“President Trump is the law and order President.”
[Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, attacked Federal judges who found his policies unconstitutional, and fired Inspectors General for investigating his corrupt officials. He is only the third President—after Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton—to be impeached. And the first to be impeached twice.]
“Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Socialists will fundamentally change this nation.”
[Communist dictators Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un are the only major world leaders whom Trump has never attacked nor even criticized. He rejected the findings of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency that Putin intervened in the 2016 Presidential campaign to ensure Trump’s election.]
“[Democrats] will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich.”
[Trump has more than 100 trademarks in China, including 35 granted pre-approval since he took office.]
Donald Trump
“They will defund, dismantle, and destroy America’s law enforcement.”
[Trump urged his followers to disobey state laws requiring them to wear masks and maintain social distancing. Many of them marched on state capitols brandishing automatic weapons.]
“My mother, Mercedes, was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American Dream.”
[Trump tried to stop both legal and illegal immigration. Starting in July, 2017, U.S. immigration authorities separated more than 5,400 children from their parents at the Mexico border.]
“Human sex drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border.”
[Trump partied heartily with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. When Epstein’s widow, Ghislaine Maxwell, was charged with the enticing of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls, Trump wished her well.]
“In President Trump’s America, we light things up. We don’t dim them down.”
[Trump “lit up” Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Park with tear gas against peaceful protesters so he could pose for a photo op at St. John’s Church following the death of George Floyd.]
“This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture?”
[When protesters object to honoring treasonous Confederate generals with monuments, Trump called that “cancel culture.” But when a tire-making company banned MAGA caps from its workplace, Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear Tires.]
“[Democrats] want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live.”
[When Twitter dared to fact-check Trump’s false tweets about mail-in ballots, he signed an executive order targeting liability protection for social media companies.]
“…President Trump cut middle class taxes, putting tens of thousands of dollars back in the pockets of working class Americans….”.
[Forbes magazine, which calls itself “the capitalist tool,” stated that “Trump tax cuts helped billionaires pay less taxes than the working class in 2018.” Reported Forbes: “For the first time in American history, the 400 wealthiest people paid a lower tax rate than any other group.”]
“Don’t let the Democrats take you for granted. Don’t let them step on you. Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future.”
[Furious that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) mocked him during a session of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump tweeted: “I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..”]
* * * * *
Ernest Hemingway warned: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”
On the first night of the Republican National Convention, Kimberly Guilfoyle proved that Hemingway’s warning still holds true.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 24, 2024 at 12:10 am
San Francisco set up its Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) in 2020 as part of its COVID-19 response, to keep “homeless” people out of jails and emergency rooms.
Public health officials say that alcohol is given out by nurses, who give regimented doses of beer and vodka at certain points throughout the day, depending on a person’s specific care plan.
A typical San Francisco scene
Attorney Laura Powell damned the program on X, writing: “San Francisco’s managed alcohol program provides homeless alcoholics with housing, meals, activities (including crafts and outings to Giants games), and a quantity of alcoholic beverages determined by their ‘need and desire,’ with no expectation of reducing consumption.
“With a reported budget of $5 million for 20 beds (half set aside for Latinx or indigenous people), it would be cheaper to accommodate these people in all-inclusive resorts.”
San Francisco officials claim the program saves taxpayer money by reducing calls to emergency services.
But the San Francisco Chronicle found that, in July 2022, five alcoholics in the program needed ambulance transportation at least 1,727 times in a period of five years, costing the taxpayer $4 million.
Another critic of the program is addiction specialist Amara Durham: “Where’s the medical supervision for when someone does hit that tipping point and they have been over-served because they happen to come in and get their last drink that takes them over the edge from this facility?”
Perhaps the best way to evaluate the effectiveness of the Managed Alcohol Program is this: Since 2020, it has served just 55 clients.
Meanwhile, store owners are being forced to literally pay the price for San Francisco’s failed policies on “the homeless.”
On June 18, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors slapped a midnight-to-5-a.m. curfew on food markets and tobacco businesses in the city’s latest attempt to prevent drug abuse in the crime-ridden Tenderloin district.
But restaurants, bars and non-retail businesses are exempt. Stores can be fined up to $1,000 for each hour they operate in violation of the ordinance.
So what can San Francisco do to effectively combat the drug- and alcohol-related plagues of Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums (DDMBs)?
They can recognize that the United States Supreme Court has finally supplied at least a partial answer to this problem.
“Homeless” tents lined up toward City Hall
On June 28, the Court, in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, empowered cities to enforce laws prohibiting camping and vagrancy.
On September 28, 2018, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued Martin v. City of Boise. This held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter.”
People could be evicted only if beds or shelter were available to those who were being evicted.
The Supreme Court’s ruling overrides that decision, stating that the Eighth Amendment does not prevent a municipality from evicting homeless people from public spaces. Now dozens of Western cities are armed with greater enforcement powers to keep those spaces open and safe for everyone.
As a result, communities nationwide can fine, ticket or arrest DDMBs. But they aren’t forced to take any specific actions or to actively engage in criminal punishment.
Given the extent of the “homeless” plague facing San Francisco, the city could—and should—impose the following reforms:
- Launch a “Please Do Not Feed the Bums” publicity campaign—as it has against feeding pigeons. And those caught doing so should be heavily fined.
- Trash cans should be equipped with locked doors, to prevent bums from using them as food dispensers.
- Those living on the street should be given two choices: Go to a local shelter or face arrest and the immediate confiscation of their possessions;
- An “Untermenschen City” should be set up near the city dump. There they can live in their tents and/or sleeping bags while being unable to daily confront or assault others to obtain free money.
- San Francisco’s rent control laws should be strengthened, to prevent future evictions owing to the unchecked greed of landlords. Tenants on fixed incomes should be given special protections against extortionate rent increases.
- Bus drivers should be able to legally refuse passengers who stink of urine/feces, as they present a potential health-hazard to others.
- The owners of restaurants, theaters and grocery stores should likewise be allowed to refuse service on the same basis.
- Those applying for welfare benefits should be required to provide proof of residence. Too many people come to San Francisco because, upon arrival, they can immediately apply for such benefits.
- Set up a special unit to remove “street people” and their possessions from city sidewalks. This could be a division of the Sanitation Department, since its personnel are used to removing filth and debris of all types.
- Forcefully tell alcoholics, drug addicts and bums: “Your anti-social behavior is not welcome here. Take your self-destructive lifestyles elsewhere. We won’t subsidize them.”
It may not be perfect, but it will certainly go further to clean up the drug- and alcohol-soaked Tenderloin than any program now on the books.
And it will not penalize those who are struggling to make a living as they brave long hours, often hostile customers, and the ever-present threat of armed robbery.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 23, 2024 at 12:11 am
In San Francisco, if your house is infested with bedbugs, don’t get rid of the bedbugs—close down the house.
Proof of this came on June 18, when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved legislation to place a curfew on food markets and tobacco businesses in the city’s latest attempt at preventing drug abuse in the crime-ridden Tenderloin district.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin district is about 50 square blocks in size, with a population of around 35,000 people. It’s bordered on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue.
The Tenderloin
The new curfew rules will prevent businesses in the Tenderloin selling “prepackaged food or tobacco products from operating” between midnight and 5 a.m.
“The drug markets happening at night in this neighborhood are unacceptable and must be met with increased law enforcement and new strategies, but this must be done in partnership with community, which we are doing,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
The legislation is designed as a two-year pilot program, according to the press release, and will be enforced by fines from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and investigation from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
The legislation does not apply to restaurants, bars, or non-retail businesses, such as event halls. Fines can be levied for up to $1,000 for each hour a store operates in violation of the ordinance.
The curfew program targets these businesses that, “in effect, facilitate the late night-time drug market by providing a lighted gathering point,” according to the legislation.
Some local businesses are saying if they take a loss in revenue or jobs, they want the city to offer financial mitigation, such as a reduction in fees.
Residents appear divided about the effectiveness of the legislation.
“That’s backwards,” said Abdul Malik Muhammad, about allowing liquor stores to remain open past midnight. “Those are the stores that should be shut down, I believe.”
Wallie, one of the owners of Plaza Snacks and Delli at 7th and McAllister street, said: “That’s not gonna make any difference, I guarantee you. I’ve been here for 20 years. They just move them from one block to the next.”
“Some of the stores are like magnets, and they attract problems,” said Muhammad. He accused some store owners of price-gouging their low-income customers.
Many residents feel imprisoned in their own homes “when the sun goes down,” several business organizations wrote the city. They speak of drug sales in the open, rapes, murders and shootings with human waste left in the wake.
Yet much of this can be traced directly to the city’s open door welcome to those euphemistically termed as “the homeless.” The vast majority of these fall into four major groups: Drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and those who refuse to work.
In short: DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
Another casualty of booze or drugs
“Our challenges still occur at night,” said Assistant Chief David Lazar. “Crowds of people that are there selling stolen property, selling narcotics. We have drug users all over. And the problem is that when you have businesses that are open, like liquor stores and smoke shops, it just attracts more people.”
A study by WalletHub, a personal finance company, recently found that San Francisco was the “worst run” city in the United States. The study measured the “effectiveness of local leadership” by comparing the quality of city services matched against the city’s total budget to determine its operating efficiency.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Breed’s office defended the mayor’s policy actions to reduce drug use in San Francisco:
“Mayor Breed has taken aggressive steps to shut down open-air drug markets and that is why she established the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) in May 2023, activating resources across the City to dismantle the illegal drug markets in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.
“Since May 28, 2023, SFPD has seized over 225 kilos of narcotics and made more than 3,400 arrests related to drug activity in these neighborhoods, including more than 1,400 drug dealers and over 1,500 drug users arrested. For fentanyl seizures, over 77 million lethal doses have been seized since the start of DMACC.”
And while city officials laud their efforts to “crack down” on drug use, the city operates a second program to provide vodka or beer to “homeless” people struggling with severe alcohol addiction.
The city set up its Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) in 2020 as part of its COVID-19 response, to keep “homeless” people out of jails and emergency rooms.
Adam Nathan, chair of the Salvation Army’s advisory board in San Francisco, posted on X that he recently “stumbled across” the former hotel from which the program operates:
“It’s set up so people in the program just walk in and grab a beer, and then another one. All day. The whole thing is very odd to me and just doesn’t feel right. Providing free drugs to drug addicts doesn’t solve their problems. It just stretches them out. Where’s the recovery in all of this?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 22, 2024 at 12:19 am
On July 21, President Joe Biden officially withdrew from the 2024 Presidential race and chose Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him.
Harris had served as District Attorney of San Francisco (2004 – 2011) and as California Attorney General (2011 – 2017). Then, in 2016, she won election to the United States Senate.
In 2020, when then-former Vice President Biden declared his candidacy for President, he chose Harris as his Vice Presidential running mate.
In her memoirs: The Truths We Hold, published in 2019, she described herself as a “progressive prosecutor.”
But among the truths she holds secret: When she served as District Attorney for San Francisco, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal alien felons out of prison—and in the United States.
Today, with millions of illegal aliens from Central and Latin America flooding into the United States, the spotlight has shifted from the incarceration of blacks to that of Hispanics.
Illegal immigration—and what to do about it—is now the hottest political issue in the country.
For liberals of the Democratic party, “open borders” appears to be the solution to illegal immigration. Yet the vast majority of Americans support legal immigration—while rejecting illegal immigration.
And Kamala Harris’ record as San Francisco District Attorney is hardly reassuring on this issue.
Secretly, she created a program, called Back on Track, to train convicted illegal aliens for jobs they could not legally hold. This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris
Completion led to the expunging of a felony conviction, making it highly popular among convicted criminals.
One such alumnus was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal alien who had been arrested twice within eight months—for purse-snatching and selling cocaine.
In July, 2008, four months after pleading guilty to selling cocaine, Izaguirre assaulted Amanda Kiefer, a legal San Francisco resident.
Snatching her purse, he jumped into an SUV, then tried to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and a driver laughing.
The driver slammed on the brakes, sending Kiefer flying onto the pavement and fracturing her skull.
D.A.’S OFFIE LET ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS GO https://tinyurl.com/yyhp3hb6
Back on Track became a centerpiece of Harris’ campaign for state Attorney General.
Until the the Los Angeles Times questioned her about the Izaguirre case, Harris had never publicly admitted that the program included illegal aliens.
Harris claimed she first learned that illegal aliens were training for jobs only after Izaguirre was arrested for the Kiefer assault.
Harris said it was a “flaw in the design” of the program to let illegal aliens into the program. “I believe we fixed it,” she told the Times.
Harris never released statistics on how many illegal aliens were included since the program started in 2005.
She said that after Izaguirre’s arrest she never asked—or learned—how many illegal aliens were in Back on Track. A strange lapse in curiosity for a prosecutor charged with enforcing the law.
When Harris learned that illegal aliens were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records expunged.
It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
So much for her oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of California “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
From 2005 to 2009, 113 admitted drug dealers graduated from Back on Track. Another 99 were kicked off the program for failing to meet the requirements. They were sentenced under their guilty plea, the D.A.’s office claimed.
Harris told the Times that graduates of Back on Track were less likely than other offenders to commit crimes again. But her spokeswoman refused to offer detailed statistics to back this up.
When Harris became San Francisco District Attorney, she vowed she would “never charge the death penalty.”
Amanda Kiefer left California. Interviewed by the Times, she said she could not understand why San Francisco police and prosecutors would allow convicted illegal aliens back onto the streets.
“If they’re committing crimes,” she said, “I think there’s something wrong that they’re not being deported.”
At the outset of his Presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to choose a woman for his Vice Presidential running mate. Among those he could have chosen:
- Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who stood up to Trump-inspired anti-mask protesters threatening violence; and
- Illinois United States Senator Tammy Duckworth, who, as an Army officer, lost both legs in Iraq in 2004 after her helicopter was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Either would have lent significant gravitas to Biden’s candidacy. But Whitmer and Duckworth suffered the misfortune of being white—at a time when Uber liberals were demanding that Biden pick a “woman of color.”
By which they meant: Any color other than white.
Illegal immigration is former President Donald Trump’s signature issue. And he has repeatedly accused Biden of opening the border to unlimited numbers of illegal aliens.
Harris, with her record of protecting criminal illegal aliens at the expense of law-abiding American citizens, will be forced to choose: Demand a crackdown on illegal aliens—or lose the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2024 at 12:10 am
President Joseph Biden now faces the most monumental decision of his life. And no matter what choice he makes, his name will live in infamy for millions of Americans—whether they lean Right or Left.
Thanks entirely to the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling giving almost unlimited immunity to former President Donald Trump, Biden can go down in history as the man who saved—at least temporarily—the American republic.
Joseph Biden
Or he can go down in history as the man who presided over the end of the American republic.
To save it, he must
- Purge, through arrests and trials, almost the entire treason-conspiring Republican party, starting with Trump, its Fuhrer-in-waiting.
- Do this officially, because the Court has ruled that he (and future Presidents) can only be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
- Do this while he still commands the full resources of the military and Justice Department.
- Sweep clean the Federal courts of all Right-wing, treason-supporting judges—such as Aileen Cannon, who has repeatedly thwarted efforts to try Trump for stealing and hiding almost 300 highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
- This includes the six Right-wing Supreme Court Justices who have given future Presidents the legal authority to assassinate rivals, take bribes and/or foment coups.
If Biden does this, he will damned as the first President since Abraham Lincoln to brutally crush political opposition.
But he will also be hailed for having—at least temporarily—prevented a wholesale Right-wing takeover and dictatorship under Project 2025. Its’ goal: Replace existing federal civil service workers with tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers.
To preside over the end of the American republic, all Biden need do is what he’s done for the last three years: Nothing.
Example #1: Only on November 18, 2022, did Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election and become “President-for-Life.”
This was clearly treason—and Garland should have appointed Smith, at the latest, by mid-2021.
Merrick Garland
Example #2: Trump’s accomplices included 147 members of Congress who voted to invalidate the 2020 Electoral College vote count. A total of 139 served in the House of Representatives, and eight served in the Senate.
To date, not one of these accessories has even been indicted, let alone convicted, for treason.
Arguably, Biden’s worst appointment has been Merrick Garland as Attorney General.
In 1961, when Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General, he moved quickly and forcefully to wage war on America’s organized crime syndicates. Unprecedented numbers of mobsters found themselves facing vigorous FBI investigations, indictments and/or convictions.
By contrast, Garland’s timidity in prosecuting the crimes of Right-wing Republicans serves as not only a national embarrassment but a threat to national security.
On May 30, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies for falsifying New York business records in 2016. He had done so to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
Donald Trump
Even though the Biden administration had nothing to do with the case, Republicans immediately blamed the President—and demanded wholesale prosecutions of the Left.
Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk urged Republican prosecutors to get “creative” in bringing charges: “Indict the left, or lose America,” he said on X.
And Trump quickly issued his own calls for “vengeance”:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president’s wife, into jail? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it,” Trump said in an interview on Newsmax.
“It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”
Nor has Trump forgotten former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who chaired the House 1/6 Committee investigating the Trump-inspired attack on Congress.
“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” Trump posted on his social media website Truth Social. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
There can be absolutely no doubt that Trump will pursue “vengeance” against everyone who has ever opposed him if he is re-elected President.
There can also be no doubt that he will remain in office until he dies as “President-for-Life.”
When Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, was close to death, he asked his doctor: “What act of my administration will be most severely condemned by future Americans?”
“Perhaps the removal of the bank deposits,” said the doctor—referring to Jackson’s withdrawal of U.S. Government monies from the first Bank of the United States.
“Oh, no,” said Jackson, his eyes blazing. “I can tell you. Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
John C. Calhoun had once been Vice President under Jackson and later a United States Senator from South Carolina. His fiery, pro-slavery rhetoric and radical theories of “nullification” of Federal laws played a major role in bringing on the Civil War (1861-1865).
Whether Biden moves to prevent a Trump/Republican dictatorship or allows it to become reality, he will be simultaneously praised and damned by future generations of Americans.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Supreme Court has spoken. And Donald Trump, who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election and make himself “President-for-Life,” is now armed with the almost total immunity he has long sought.
As Trump and his entrenched Right-wing allies move ever closer to establishing an absolute dictatorship, this is an apt time to discover—or rediscover—the frighteningly real world of The Profession, a 2011 futuristic novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Steven Pressfield
Pressfield had previously made his mark as an author of historical novels—primarily set in ancient 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 The Virtues of War (2004) Pressfield adopted the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining what it was like to command invincible armies that swept across the known world.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) he chronicled—from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set in the future. The book’s dust jacket offers an excellent summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. 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.
“A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home…as Commander in Chief.”
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—like MacArthur—is to become President himself by popular acclaim.
Douglas MacArthur
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields and strategically rigs them with explosives to be used if threatened.
Then he 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.
Stanley McCrystal
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 make them go away.”
Yet unlike Donald Trump, who infamously shouted, “I love the poorly educated!” Salter is a highly intellectual man. He feels himself a tragic figure, lamenting that the United States has abandoned its longstanding political values even as he prepares to extinguish the most basic one by becoming dictator.
“The moment compels me to seize it. If I don’t someone or something worse will step in. But if I perform the bidding of Necessity, I violate the code of the republic to which all of us have sworn allegiance. I cross a line, beyond which there can be no return.
“But what, I ask, is the alternative? The nation has lost its way and is struggling desperately, merely to hang on. The nation can’t go on as it is, and everyone knows it. If not me, who? If not me, what?
“So, yes, I will go home. And yes, I will accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me. Not because I believe such a coronation will make any difference in the long run.
“But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well-intentioned or whose consciousness so painfully evolved.”
At a nationally televised press conference, Salter hands a loaded pistol to a longtime friend and disciple who now fears his dictatorial ambitions.
“Go ahead,” says Salter. “You’ll be saving the republic. And me, too.”
But the former disciple cannot bring himself to kill his longtime idol: “Now I’m guilty with you,” he says.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a futuristic America.
Donald Trump and his Right-wing disciples may soon make that vision a reality.
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A SHAMEFUL “REWARD” FOR AN AMERICAN HERO
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 8, 2024 at 12:10 amIn May 17, 2017, Former FBI director Robert Mueller III, was appointed Special Counsel of the Department of Justice.
As such, he was charged with investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election. On March 22, 2019, he submitted his findings to Attorney General William Barr.
By that date, Mueller had:
Donald Trump
On July 24, 2019, Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. There he revealed that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, had:
While appearing before Congress, Mueller was forced to:
Although Mueller was joined by former deputy special counsel Aaron Zebley, Zebley was forbidden to give testimony. He could only serve as Mueller’s counsel, giving quiet advice.
So the entire seven hours of public testimony fell on the shoulders of a 74-year-old man. No wonder he appeared tired by the end of the day.
And what was his reward?
A July 26, 2019 article in The Atlantic—entitled “The Press Has Adopted Trump’s Reality-Show Standards”—sums up the general reaction of the nation’s press to these bombshell revelations:
“In any other administration, in any other time, a special prosecutor, former FBI director, and decorated Marine testifying that the president of the United States was an unprosecuted felon who encouraged and then benefited from an attack on American democracy in pursuit of personal and political gain would bring the country to a grinding halt.
“But the American political press found Mueller insufficiently dazzling.”
Among those media:
In short: The nation’s most influential news media—on which citizens depend for their understanding of national and international personalities and events—has adopted the standards of teenagers.
* * * * *
Americans like their heroes young and powerful—preferably invincible. They want their heroes to be handsome and their villains to be ugly. They want to see lots of explosions and collapsing buildings.
And if a superhero can deliver a zinger of a line while throwing a KO punch, so much the better.
Lacking a sense of history—or concern for it—most Americans remain ignorant of the men, women and events that have shaped the era in which they live.
Most of those who watched Robert Mueller testify before Congress knew nothing of the sacrifices he had made for his country:
Robert Mueller
A news media that prizes glitz over substance has abdicated the role intended for it by the Founding Fathers: To act as a watchdog over the nation’s leaders.
That does not, however, diminish the legacy of Robert Mueller’s achievements—as Special Counsel and every other position he has held.
Revered within the law enforcement community, he will forever rank among the giants who personify courage and integrity
As a soldier, prosecutor, FBI director and Special Counsel, Robert Mueller took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
So did Donald Trump when he was inaugurated the nation’s 45th President. And so did every Republican member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The difference between Robert Mueller and Trump—and the overwhelming majority of Republican Congressional members—is this: Mueller, like a compass pointing True North, has always stayed faithful to that oath.
In doing so, he carried on his shoulders the burdens created when millions of racist, hate-filled Americans deliberately sent a corrupt, Russian-backed egomaniac and would-be dictator to the White House.
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