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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2021 at 12:08 am
According to American political scientist George Michael: “Right-wing terrorism and violence has a long history in America.”
The Supreme Court’s decision, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), striking down segregated facilities, unleashed a wave of Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks, civil rights activists and Jews. Between 1956 and 1963, an estimated 130 bombings ravaged the South.
Ku Klux Klan flag
During the 1980s, more than 75 Right-wing extremists were prosecuted in the United States for acts of terrorism, carrying out six attacks.
The April 19, 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people. It was the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States until 9/11.
By 2020, Right-wing terrorism accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the United States. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report stated that Right-wing extremist groups were responsible for 73% of violent extremist incidents resulting in deaths since September 12, 2001.
Right-wing violence rose sharply during the Barack Obama administration and especially during the Presidency of Donald Trump. His remark after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that there were “some very fine people on both sides” convinced white supremacists that he favored their goals, if not their methods.
On January 6, 2021, thousands of Right-wing Trump supporters—many of them armed—stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
Their goal: To stop members of Congress from counting Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election, from which former Vice President Joseph R. Biden was expected to emerge the winner.
After overwhelming the Capitol Police force, they damaged and occupied parts of the building for several hours. Legislators huddled fearfully while National Guard units from several states finally evicted the insurrectionists.
The Capitol attack marked the first time in American history when a defeated Presidential candidate violently sought to remain in office.
It may also mark a desperately-needed change in the priorities of American law enforcement, which has traditionally focused on Left-wingers—and especially blacks—as the country’s mortal enemies.
Numerous commentators have noted the contrast between the tepid police response to the Capitol attack by white Right-wingers and the brutal crackdown on peaceful liberal blacks protesting the murder of George Floyd in Washington D.C. on June 1, 2020.
U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops used tear gas, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, horses, shields and batons to clear protesters from Lafayette Square—so Trump could stage a photo-op at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
After 9/11, American law enforcement and Intelligence agencies initiated major reforms to focus on Islamic terrorism.
A similar reform effort, focusing on Right-wing terrorism, could include the following:
- The FBI’s designating Right-wing political and terrorist groups as the Nation’s #1 enemy.
- Turning the Bureau’s powerful arsenal—bugs, wiretaps, informants, SWAT teams—on them.
- Prosecuting militia groups for violating Federal firearms laws.
- Using Federal anti-terrorist laws to arrest, prosecute and imprison Right-wingers who openly carry firearms and threaten violence, even if states allow such display of firearms.
FBI SWAT member
- Creating tip hotlines for reporting illegal Right-wing activities—and offering rewards for information that leads to arrests.
- Treating calls for the murder of members of Congress—as Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has done—as felonies punishable by lengthy imprisonment.
- Prosecuting Right-wing leaders involved in the treasonous attempt to overthrow the United States in the Capitol Building attack.
- Prosecuting as “accessories to treason” all those Republican members of Congress who stoked Right-wing anger by lying that the 2020 Presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, although every objective news source proved he had lost.
- Directing the Treasury Department’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) at fundamentalist Christian churches that finance Right-wing terrorism—just as it halts the financing of Islamic terrorist groups by Islamic organizations.
- Using drones, planes and/or helicopters to provide security against similar Right-wing terror demonstrations—especially in Washington, D.C.
- Using the Federal Communications Commission to ban Fox News—the Nation’s #1 Right-wing propaganda network—from representing itself as a legitimate news network, and requiring that its stories carry labels warning viewers: “This is Right-wing propaganda, NOT news.”
- Encouraging victims of Right-wing hate-speech—such as the parents of murdered children at Sandy Hook Elementary School—to file libel/slander lawsuits against their abusers.
- Seizing the assets of individuals and organizations found guilty of Right-wing terrorism offenses.
Such an overhaul would almost certainly include the Justice Department indicting and prosecuting Donald Trump for inciting the treasonous attack on the Capitol Building on January 6.
The 75,000,000 Americans who voted to give him a second term still look to him for leadership. As do the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate.
It is a certainty that Senate Republicans will refuse to convict him in his second impeachment trial—just as they refused in the first. They have already offered their excuse: “It’s unconstitutional to impeach a former President.”
But as a former President, he can still be prosecuted for crimes he committed while in office—just as a former Senator or Supreme Court Justice can.
Whatever the outcome, this would send an unmistakable message to Right-wing terrorists: Your days of immunity are over—and you will be held accountable for your terrorist acts, just as Islamic terrorist groups are.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2021 at 12:10 am
Before 9/11, the United States did not attack Islamic terrorism in a coordinated basis.
In the October 4, 2001 episode of the PBS investigative series, “Frontline,” legendary journalist Bob Woodward described the results that followed:
“These terrorist incidents—they used the tools that were available, but it was never in a coherent way. I know from talking to those people at the time, it was always, ‘Oh, we’ve got this crisis. We’re dealing with the Achille Lauro now,’ or ‘We’re dealing with Quaddafi,’ or ‘We’re dealing with Libyan hit squads,’ or ‘We’re dealing with Beirut.’
“And it never—they never got in a position where they said, ‘You know, this is a real serious threat,’ not just episodically, but it’s going to be a threat to this country throughout the administration, future administrations.
“We need to organize to fight it. It can’t be a back-bench operation for the FBI and the CIA. It’s got to be somebody’s issue, so it’s on their desk every day. What do we know? What’s being planned? What are the threats out there?”
Bob Woodward
The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center well illustrates what Woodward was talking about.
On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 pound urea nitrate-hydrogen device was supposed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower, bringing down both towers and killing tens of thousands of people.
It failed to do so, but killed six people, and injured over 1,000.
The attack was planned by a group of Islamic terrorists including Ramzi Yousef, Mohammed Salameh, Abdul Rachman Yasin, Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmed Ajaj and Nidal A. Ayyad.
They received financing from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who later became the principal financier of the 9/11 attacks.
Instead of treating this as a declaration of Islamic war upon the United States, the newly-installed Bill Clinton administration chose to consider it a purely criminal matter.
In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad, and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property, and interstate transportation of explosives.
In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the organizer behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.
On September 11, 2001, 19 Islamic terrorists snuffed out the lives of 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
They did so by turning four commercial jetliners into fuel-bombs—and crashing them into, respectively, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C.; and—unintentionally—a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
(The fourth airliner had been aimed at the White House or the Capitol Building. But its passengers, alerted by radio broadcasts of the doom awaiting them, resolved to take over the plane instead. The hijackers slammed the jet into the ground to avoid capture.)
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
But within less than a month, American warplanes began carpet-bombing Afghanistan, whose rogue Islamic “government” refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, the had of Al-Qaeda who had masterminded the attacks.
By December, 2001, the power of the Taliban was broken—and bin Laden was driven into hiding in Pakistan.
For more than 16 years, the United States—through its global military and espionage networks—relentlessly hunted down most of those responsible for that September carnage.
On May 1, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALS invaded bin Laden’s fortified mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan—and shot him dead.
And today—almost 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States continues to wage war against Islamic terrorists.
One by one, the leading figures of Taliban, Haqqani and Al-Qaeda have been identified, located with help from coerced or paid-off informants, and targeted for drone strikes. Taking a leadership position in any of these—or other—Islamic terrorist groups has become virtually a death-sentence.
A Predator drone
Nor is the Pentagon the only agency targeting Islamic terrorism. After 9/11, the Treasury Department initiated the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) to identify, track, and pursue terrorists and their networks.
The program tracks terrorist money flows, assists in uncovering terrorist cells and mapping terrorist networks within the United States and abroad.
Yet another result of 9/11 was increased cooperation between the FBI and the CIA.
The CIA’s mandate, prior to the September 11 attacks, had been to target foreign enemies. The FBI’s mandate had been to target domestic ones.
This often brought the two agencies into bureaucratic conflict when confronting foreign-based or -financed terrorists. Neither agency was certain where its jurisdiction ended and the other one’s began.
The 9/11 attacks forced the FBI and CIA—and, even more importantly, Congress—to recognize the need for sharing information.
Almost 20 years after the devastating attacks of September 11, no Islamic terrorist group has mounted a similar one in the United States.
But on January 6, thousands of Right-wing supporters of President Donald J. Trump—many of them armed—stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
Inside, members of Congress were counting Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden was expected to emerge the winner.
For Trump—who had often “joked” about becoming “President-for-Life”—this was intolerable. And it must be prevented by any means—legal or otherwise.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2021 at 12:12 am
With the swearing in of Joseph R. Biden as the 46th President of the United States, a new—and desperately needed—chapter in the saga of COVID-19 has finally begun.
President Donald Trump had made the wearing of masks a divisive political issue. Wearing a mask, according to him, made you a wimp and a liberal Never-Trumper. Not wearing a mask showed you’re a macho man or woman—and in solidarity with him.
In effect, he was egotistically demanding that his followers risk death to prove their loyalty to him.
Biden, from the first, has seen COVID-19 as a plague—and not as a test of personal loyalty.
During a June 26, 2020 television interview he said that, if he were elected President, he would require wearing face masks in public to prevent the spread of Coronavirus: “The one thing we do know—these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask.”
Since becoming President, he has:
- Issued a national mask mandate on federal property, airlines, trains and other public transit systems.
- Created an office of White House COVID-19 response. Its goals: Secure more protective equipment for workers, increase testing and vaccinations and reopen schools.
- Restored science to its rightful place in fighting the plague. “You’re going to be hearing a lot from [Infectious disease expert] Dr. [Anthony] Fauci again,” Biden promised, saying that public health officials would be “free from political interference.”
- Promised to push for a $1.9 trillion economic relief and COVID response package. Although he has repeatedly said he wants to pass this with bipartisan support, he has also warned that he will try to do so without Republican agreement if necessary.
- Promised to level with the country on both the progress and setbacks in his war on COVID-19. He has predicted that 100,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 during his first six weeks in office.
President Joseph Biden
Biden’s mask rules come as close to a national mask mandate as his federal powers allow. Only states and municipalities can require residents to wear masks at a local level.
And even in states that require wearing a mask in public, many people refuse to do so. Fights have erupted between mask-less and mask-wearing customers—and sometimes store employees—who asked them to put on a mask before entering. Even store security guards have been assaulted.
So: How should those who refuse to wear a mask—and thus threaten the lives of others—be dealt with?
Governors, mayors and business owners need to fill the leadership void. They should issue emergency orders mandating the wearing of masks in public. And these orders should be forcibly backed up by the following:
- Stop stressing that wearing a mask will protect others from “you.” Most people don’t care about strangers. Emphasize that wearing a mask will protect “you and your family” from others.
- Don’t hand out tickets to mask-evaders. They will simply ignore them—or write them off as a cheap price for going without a mask.
- Major retailers should hire professional guards to handle mask-evaders—who should be turned over to police.
- Police should arrest everyone not wearing a mask in public and jail them—without bond—until the plague is over or a vaccine is found.
- These inmates should be lodged together—and away from those who are not infected with COVID-19.
- Police should create tip hotlines for reporting mask-evaders—and offer rewards for tips that lead to arrests.
- The media should publicize these arrests and jailings—to warn other potential mask-evaders.
- Right-wingers who openly carry firearms and threaten violence should be arrested and imprisoned under State and Federal anti-terrorism laws.
It was the failure of German police and courts to abort Right-wing violence during the Weimar Republic that led to even greater violence through the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party.
Laws are useless if citizens believe they are unfairly or unpredictably enforced. As Niccolo Machiavelli warns in his classic work, The Discourses:
…Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it. If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself.
This is how United States authorities dealt with “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938).
Mary Mallon
An Irish-born cook, she was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and is believed to have infected 53 people, three of whom died. Because she persisted in working as a cook, she exposed others to the disease.
As a result, she was twice forcibly quarantined by authorities, and died after a total of nearly 30 years in isolation at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, in New York City.
It’s long past time for responsible Federal, state and local officials to get tough on those who, through sheer egotism or allegiance to a medically discredited American traitor, place others at risk of a deadly plague.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 1, 2021 at 12:21 am
Here’s a new game you can play the next time you take a walk: Count the Stupids!
These are the people who, during a deadly pandemic:
- Don’t wear a mask.
- Don’t wear a mask—and suck on a cigarette.
- Wear a mask—just under their nose.
- Wear a mask—around their neck like a bandanna.
The number of people who fall into these categories will vary each day.
But they all constitute a clear and present danger to those who want to stay clear of COVID-19. Here’s why:
- NOT WEARING A MASK exposes the non-wearer and anyone else not wearing one to the possibility of COVID-19. You can sneeze or cough into someone’s face—or someone can sneeze or cough into yours.
- NOT WEARING A MASK WHILE SMOKING exposes the smoker to both the probability of getting COVID-19 and the almost certainty of getting lung cancer, heart disease and/or emphysema.
- WEARING A MASK JUST UNDER THE NOSE means you can sneeze COVID-19 into someone’s face—or someone with COVID-19 can sneeze into your nose.
- WEARING A MASK AROUND THE NECK may make you feel like a range-roving cowboy, but it offers the same degree of protection as NOT WEARING A MASK: Zero.
N95 mask
The Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, emerged in China in December, 2019, and has since spread throughout the world.
By February 1, 2021, it had infected 102,659,554 people worldwide. Of these, 2,221,640 have died.
In the United States, case totals have reached 26,075,932. Of these, 439,536 have died.
Coronavirus
For the first three months of the plague, masks were hard to come by. Top-of-the-line masks such as the N95 were quickly snapped up by hospitals filling with COVID cases. This forced many families to sew their own masks. Many of these were made of porous material, allowing the wearer to become easily infected.
But today masks are advertised—and sold—everywhere.
Wearing a mask and “social distancing”—keeping at least six feet between yourself and others while in public—have been the Golden Rules urged by public health officials for months.
Scientists have learned, for example, that COVID-19 can be spread by those who show no symptom of the disease. And mounting evidence has proven that masks are essential for protecting people from the virus.
Coronavirus is spread by respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks—especially if large numbers of people are packed indoors. The danger goes up if the talker is shouting or singing loudly.
If not blocked by a face covering, the droplets can travel six to 13 feet.
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University found that some masks were more effective than others. One study showed that well-fitted homemade masks with multiple layers of fabric, as well as off-the-shelf cone style masks, were the most effective in reducing droplet dispersal.
The N95 mask—made by the 3M Company—has been rated the best. Its Chinese counterpart—the KN95—has been rated its equivalent.
Bandannas turned out to be the least effective in reducing transmission.
There are at least seven reasons why so many Americans refuse to wear a mask—even in the midst of a deadly pandemic.
First: A feeling of solidarity. According to David Abrams, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health: People who don’t wear masks may see it as a sign of solidarity, as if they are taking a stand against authority.
Second: “If liberals do it, it’s fascistic.” Many mask protesters accuse those who wear masks of being fascists. This is a hallmark of Right-wing politics—accusing their opponents of being what they are themselves.
Third: They have utterly rejected the rising death-toll caused by the virus. They claim stories of such deaths are mere “fake news”—the term Donald Trump uses to dismiss any news stories that highlight his mistakes and criminality.
Fourth: Republicans disdain education in general—and science in particular. In March, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
Fifth: Religious Fanaticism: Many fundamentalist Christians believe that their faith in Jesus will protect them against COVID-19. They continue to attend services indoors in defiance of warnings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that such meetings are dangerous.
A female member of the Solid Red Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio, told CNN: “I wouldn’t be anywhere else. I’m covered in Jesus’ blood. I’m covered in Jesus’ blood.”
Sixth: Hypocrisy. Since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the Right has demanded that even women who are pregnant due to rape or incest carry the fetus to term.
Yet now that Right-wingers are being asked to wear masks in public—to protect themselves and others from a deadly plague—they’ve suddenly discovered the mantra: “It’s my body!”
Seventh: Identifying with Donald Trump. The former President made it clear that his followers don’t wear masks. And they have fallen into line, refusing to mask up even in crowded, indoor arenas where infection is most likely.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 26, 2021 at 12:09 am
On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.
About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.
Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.
Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.
At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.
Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924
Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.
Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.
On January 30, 1933, those intrigues made him Chancellor of Germany.
Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental 2016 biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….
“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”
The United States Senate—and Justice Department—now face the same dilemma faced by the judges of the Weimar Republic.
On January 6, thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters—incited by the then-President—attacked the United States Capitol. Stormtrumpers ransacked the building while legislators—protected by only a small cadre of police—huddled fearfully. Five people—including a Capitol Hill policeman—were killed.
The Stormtrumpers’ goal: To illegally overturn Trump’s defeat in the November 3 Presidential election.
The storming of the United States Capitol
TapTheForwardAssist, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On January 23, the Daily Mail carried a story under the headline: “Justice Department Debate NOT Charging Up to 800 MAGA Rioters at Capitol”:
“The FBI and prosecutors at the Justice Department are debating whether to decline to charge some of the MAGA rioters who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to derail President Joe Biden’s certification.
“There is concern among DOJ officials that bringing charges against all of the estimated 800 rioters who ransacked the Capitol building could flood the local federal courthouse in Washington, DC, with cases.
“There have been internal discussions about forgoing charges against those who were not involved in any violence or vandalism but were simply trespassing or ‘going along with the crowd,’ The Washington Post reported.”
Meanwhile, many Republicans are strongly opposing Trump’s second impeachment trial—which is set to open on February 8.
Some claim that the only way to “heal” the country after four divisive years of Trump is to forgive his every crime.
This amounts to Right-wing hypocrisy, since Trump himself wanted his Attorney General to “lock up” those who had not broken the law—former FBI Director James Comey, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady and Senator Hillary Clinton.
Other Republicans are asserting that since Trump has left office, his crimes cannot be prosecuted.
Yet no other United States official has ever been granted such immunity. If an ex-Senator is found to have taken bribes, he can be tried for bribery—so long as the statute hasn’t expired
More than 500 years ago, the father of political science, Niccolo Machiavelli, examined the issue of rewards and punishments. He concluded:
“…No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits. But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits. And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin.
“For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.”
For those who require more contemporary advice, the example of the Weimar Republic offers a continuing warning.
Right-wing judges and police, sympathizing with men like Adolf Hitler—who had publicly sworn to destroy the fledging Republic—ultimately made that a reality.
They must not be allowed to do the same to the American Republic.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 25, 2021 at 12:05 am
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln serves up a timely reminder that has long been obscured by past and current Southern lies that the Civil War was not about slavery.
From first to last, the cause of the Civil War was slavery.
According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, arguments over “states’ rights” or economic conflict between North and South didn’t lead 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect” of their “peculiar institution”—i.e., slavery.
“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.
“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.
“It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North was increasingly unwilling to do.”
Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860. Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country.
Southerners found all of this intolerable.
The British author, Anthony Trollope, explained to his readers:
“It is no light thing to be told daily, by our fellow citizens…that you are guilty of the one damning sin that cannot be forgiven. All this [Southerners] could partly moderate, partly rebuke and partly bear as long as political power remained in their hands.”
It is to Spielberg’s credit that he forces his audience to look directly at the real cause of the bloodiest conflict on the North American continent.
At the heart of Spielberg’s film: Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants to win ratification of what will be the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. An amendment that will forever ban slavery.
But, almost four years into the war, slavery still has powerful friends—-in both the North and South.
Many of those friends belong to the House of Representatives, which must ratify the amendment for it to become law. Some are hostile to Lincoln personally. One of them dubs him a dictator: “Abraham Africanus.” Another accuses him of shifting his positions for the sake of expediency.
Other members—white men all—are hostile to the idea of “equality between the races.
”To them, ending slavery means opening the door to interracial marriage—especially marriage between black men and white women. Perhaps even worse, it means possibly giving blacks—or women—the right to vote.
Members of Lincoln’s own Cabinet—such as Secretary of State William Seward—warn him: You can negotiate the end of the war immediately—if you’ll just let Southerners keep their slaves.
After the amendment wins ratification, Lincoln agrees to meet with a “peace delegation” from the Confederate States of America.
At the top of their list of concerns: If they persuade the seceded states to return to the Union, will those states be allowed to nullify the amendment?
No, says Lincoln. He’s willing to make peace with the South, and on highly generous terms. But not at the cost of allowing slavery to live on.
Too many men—North and South—have died in a conflict whose root cause is slavery. Those lives must count for more than simply reuniting the Union.
The South has lost thousands of men (260,000 is the generally accepted figure for its total casualties) and the war is clearly lost. But for its die-hard leaders, parting with slavery is simply unthinkable.
Like Nazi Germany 80 years into the future, the high command of the South won’t surrender until their armies are too beaten down to fight any more.
The major difference between the defeated South of 1865 and the defeated Germany of 1945, is this: The South was allowed to build a beautiful myth of a glorious “Lost Cause,” epitomized by the Margaret Mitchell novel, Gone With the Wind.
In that telling, dutiful slaves were well-treated by kindly masters. Southern aristocrats wore white suits and their slender-waisted ladies wore long dresses, carried parasols and said “fiddle-dee-dee” to young, handsome suitors.
One million people attended the premier of the movie version in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. The celebration featured stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, false antebellum fronts on stores and homes, and a costume ball.
In keeping with Southern racial tradition, Hattie McDaniel and the other black actors from the film were barred from attending the premiere. Upon learning this, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event. McDaniel convinced him to attend.
When today’s Southerners fly Confederate flags and speak of “preserving our traditions,” they are actually celebrating their long-banned “peculiar institution.”
By contrast, post-World War II Germany outlawed symbols from the Nazi-era, such as the swastika and the “Heil Hitler” salute, and made Holocaust denial punishable by imprisonment.
America has refused to confront its own shameful past so directly. But Americans can be grateful that Steven Spielberg has had the courage to serve up a long-overdue and much needed lesson in past–and still current–history.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 22, 2021 at 12:10 am
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is more than a mesmerizing history lesson. It’s a timely reminder that racism and repression are not confined to any one period or political party.
At the heart of the film: Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants to win ratification of what will be the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. An amendment that will forever ban slavery.
True, Lincoln, in 1862, had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This—in theory—freed slaves held in the Confederate states that had seceded from the Union in 1861.
But Lincoln regards this as a temporary wartime measure. He fears that once the war is over, the Supreme Court may rule the Proclamation unconstitutional. This might allow Southerners to continue practicing slavery, even after losing the war.
To prevent this, Congress must pass an anti-slavery amendment. But winning Congressional passage of such an amendment won’t be easy.
The Senate had ratified its passage in 1864. But the amendment must secure approval from the House of Representatives to become law.
And the House is filled with men—there are no women members during the 19th century—who seethe with hostility.
Some are hostile to Lincoln personally. One of them dubs him a dictator—“Abraham Africanus.” Another accuses him of shifting his positions for the sake of expediency.
Other members—white men all—are hostile to the idea of “equality between the races.” To them, ending slavery means opening the door to interracial marriage—especially marriage between black men and white women.
Perhaps even worse, it means possibly giving blacks—or women—the the right to vote.
In fact, the possibility that blacks might win voting rights arises early in the movie. Lincoln is speaking to a couple of black Union soldiers, and one of them is unafraid to voice his discontent. He’s upset that black soldiers are paid less than white ones—and that they’re led only by white officers.
He says that, in time, maybe this will change. Maybe, in 100 years, he guesses, blacks will get the right to vote.
(To the shame of all Americans, that’s how long it will eventually take. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will blacks be guaranteed legal protection against discriminatory voting practices.)
To understand the Congressional debate over the Thirteenth Amendment, it’s necessary to remember this: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party of progressives.
The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.” And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic.
Democrats were the ones defending the status quo—slavery—and opposing freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.
In short, in the 18th century, Democrats in the South acted as Republicans do now. The South went Republican only after a Democratic President—Lyndon B. Johnson—rammed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress.
Thus, the re-enactment of the 1865 debate in Lincoln casts an embarrassing light on the racial conflicts of our own time. The same mentalities are at work:
-
Those (in this case, slave-owners) who already have a great deal want to gain even more at the expense of others.
-
Those (slaves and freed blacks) who have little strive to gain more or at least hang onto what they have.
-
Those who defend the privileged wealthy refuse to allow their “social inferiors” to enjoy similar privileges (such as the right to vote).
During the 2012 Presidential race, Republicans tried to bar those likely to vote for President Barack Obama from getting into the voting booth. But their bogus “voter ID” restrictions were struck down in courts across the nation.
Listening to those opposing the amendment, one is reminded of Mitt Romney’s infamous comments about the “47%”:
“Well, there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what….
“Who are dependent upon government, who believe that—that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it. But that’s—it’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”
Put another way: “Who says people have a right to obtain medical care, food and housing? If they can’t inherit unearned wealth the way I did, screw them.”
In the end, it’s Abraham Lincoln who has the final word—and leaves his nation the better for it. Through diplomacy and backroom dealings (trading political offices for votes) he wins passage of the anti-slavery amendment.
The ownership of human chattel is finally an ugly memory of the American past.
The movie closes with a historically-correct tribute to Lincoln’s generosity toward those who opposed him—in Congress and on the battlefield. It occurs during Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all….To bind up the nation’s wounds. To care for him who shall have bourne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan….”
This ending presents a vivid philosophical contrast with the increasingly mean-spirited rhetoric and policies of today’s Republican Presidential candidates—and Presidents.
Watching Lincoln, you realize how incredibly lucky America was as a nation to have had such leadership when it was most urgently needed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 21, 2021 at 12:05 am
During the week of November 24 – 26, 2019, The Economist and YouGov conducted a poll of 1,500 American adults. The purpose of that poll: To compare President Donald Trump with President Abraham Lincoln—and find out who was more popular within the Republican party.
Lincoln served as President from 1861 to 1865, steering the United States through the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Abraham Lincoln
Trump, by contrast, has largely made the United States a pariah nation throughout the world—and is now presiding over a pandemic which has killed more than 25,000 Americans.
So what was the result of the poll?
Fifty-three percent of Republicans believe that Trump is a better President than Lincoln.
This starkly contrasts with the verdict of both Democratic and independent voters. Ninety-four percent of Democrats preferred Lincoln—and so did 78% of independents.
Overall, 75% of poll respondents picked Lincoln; only 25% picked Trump.
Some Twitter users found this sardonically hilarious.
One of these was Billy Baldwin, the brother of Alec Baldwin, who portrays Trump as a befuddled tyrant on Saturday Night Live: “53% of Republicans apparently don’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.”
Baldwin also posted an animated photo of the Lincoln Memorial with the Great Emancipator giving The Finger to Trump and First Lady Melania.
“Economist/YouGov Poll: 53% of Republicans believe Donald Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln was while 47% believe the president that got this country through the Civil War was better,” wrote Josh Jordan. “If you were wondering what segment of the population can not be swayed by facts.”
Political commentator Ashley Pratte took a more serious view of the matter.
Describing herself in a December 9, 2019 column as “a lifelong Republican before 2016,” she wrote: “According to a 2017 C-Span survey of the nation’s top presidential historians, Lincoln sits above all other presidents as the greatest of all time.
“The Republican party has strayed far since the days of Lincoln; it’s shameful to see how Trumpism has hijacked it. It’s truly shocking how Republicans are allowing him to carry the mantle of conservatism too with little-to-no hesitation.
“Trump’s years in office have been full of nepotism, scandal, profiting from his position as President and now he is about to become the third-ever president to be impeached.”
Donald Trump
Specifically:
- He gave unprecedented access to the Oval Office to unqualified members of his family and personal friends.
- When his son-in-law Jared Kushner was denied a security clearance, Trump pushed it through anyway.
- Republicans refused to accept the conclusion of the Mueller Report that Trump campaign officials colluded with Russian Intelligence agents to win the Presidency in 2016.
- They also acquitted him—against overwhelming evidence—of trying to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to run a smear campaign against former Vice President Joe Biden.
- Trump personally profited from his role as President. At least 250 officials in the executive branch made 630 visits to Trump properties, and 90 members of Congress have made 180 visits.
For Pratte, Trump’s worst offense is this: “Trump has also been the most divisive president in our nation’s history….. From his Twitter rants and off-color statements to his pursuit of a travel ban and destruction of Obamacare, he’s not even bothered to try to get support for his policies.
“Instead, he’s forged ahead, continually pressed to build an impossible wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and threatened to withdraw from NAFTA as a way to negotiate a slightly new version of it.
“…Republican officials should be eager to uphold the ideals of accountability, no matter which political party controls the White House. The problem is that these so-called morals are just a sham, and abandoning them is the only way to defend the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
There are two major reasons why Republicans regard Trump more highly than Lincoln.
First: In 2002, Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott gave away the game at the 100th birthday party for racist South Carolina Republican Senator Strom Thurmond:
”I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”
In short: If America had elected Thurmond—who ran ran for president in 1948 as the Dixiecrat candidate on a States Rights platform supporting racial segregation—we wouldn’t be having all these problems now with “uppity” blacks.
Thus, Lincoln—who freed blacks from slavery—is for Republican voters the root cause of “all these problems over all these years.”
Second, Lincoln waged a civil war to restore the Union—which meant sending Federal armies into the rebellious South.
Under the banner of “States’ rights,” today’s Republicans openly court millions of voters in the South who still wish the Civil War had ended differently: With a triumphant South still running its slave empire—and millions of blacks still held in bondage.
While these voters secretly regret that those “good old days” will never return, they can at least show their support for “States’ rights” by backing Trump—whose racism toward non-whites is universally known and applauded by white supremacist groups.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2021 at 12:08 am
Why are some Presidents remembered with affection, while others are detested—or forgotten altogether?
Generally, Presidents who are warmly remembered are seen as making positive contributions to the lives of their fellow Americans and being “people-oriented.”
Among these:
- Abraham Lincoln
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Franklin Roosevelt
- John F. Kennedy
Among the reasons they are held in such high regard:
- Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and restored the Union. Although he ruthlessly prosecuted the Civil War, his humanity remains engraved in stories such as his pardoning a soldier condemned to be shot for cowardice: “If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running away with him?”
Abraham Lincoln
- Theodore Roosevelt championed an era of reform, such as creating the Food and Drug Administration and five National Parks. Popularly known as “Teddy,” he even had a toy bear—the teddy bear—named after him.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully led America through the Great Depression and World War II. He was the first President to insist that government existed to directly better the lives of its citizens: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- John F. Kennedy supported civil rights and called for an end to the Cold War. He challenged Americans to “ask what you can do for your country” and made government service respectable, even chic. His youth, charisma, intelligence and handsomeness led millions to mourn for “what might have been” had he lived to win a second term.
John F. Kennedy
Presidents who remain unpopular among Americans are seen as unlikable and responsible (directly or not) for mass suffering.
Among these:
- Herbert Hoover
- Lyndon B. Johnson
- Richard M. Nixon
Among the reasons they are held in such low regard:
- Herbert Hoover is still blamed for the 1929 Great Depression. He didn’t create it, but his conservative, “small-government” philosophy led him to refuse to aid its victims. An engineer by profession, he saw the Depression as a machine that needed repair, not as a catastrophe for human beings. This lack of “emotional intelligence” cost him heavily with voters.
- Lyndon B. Johnson is still blamed as the President “who got us into Vietnam.” John F. Kennedy had laid the groundwork by placing 16,000 American troops there by the time he died in 1963. But it was Johnson who greatly expanded the war in 1965 and kept it going—with hugely expanding casualties—for the next three years. Unlike Kennedy, whom he followed, he looked and sounded terrible on TV. Voters compared LBJ’s Texas drawl and false piety with JFK’s wit and good looks—and found him wanting.
Lyndon B. Johnson
- Richard M. Nixon will be remembered foremost as the President who was forced to resign under threat of impeachment and removal from office. Like Herbert Hoover, he was not a “people person” and seemed remote to even his closest associates. Although he took office on a pledge to “bring us together” and end the Vietnam war, he attacked war protesters as traitors and kept the war going another four years. His paranoid fears of losing the 1972 election led to his creating an illegal “Plumbers” unit which bugged the Democratic offices at the Watergate Hotel. And his attempted cover-up of their illegal actions led to his being forced to resign from office in disgrace.
Richard M. Nixon
Which brings us to the question: How is President Donald J. Trump likely to be remembered?
Historian Joachim C. Fest offers an unintended answer to this question in his 1973 bestselling biography Hitler:
“An ancient tenet of aesthetics holds that one who for all his remarkable traits is a repulsive human being, is unfit to be a hero.”
Among the reasons for Hitler’s being “a repulsive human being,” Fest cites the Fuhrer’s
- “intolerance and vindictiveness”;
- “lack of generosity”; and
- “banal and naked materialism—power was the only motive he would recognize.”
Fest then quotes German chancellor Otto von Bismarck on what constitutes greatness: “Impressiveness in this world is always akin to the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his plans and efforts, but without success, proud but sad.”
And Fest concludes: “If this is true greatness, Hitler’s distance from it is immeasurable.”
What Fest writes about Adolf Hitler applies just as brutally to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
He has:
- Boasted about the politicians he’s bought and the women he’s bedded—and forced himself on.
- Slandered entire segments of Americans—blacks, Hispanics, women, journalists, Asians, the disabled.
- Attacked the FBI and CIA for accurately reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had intervened in the 2016 Presidential election to ensure Trump’s victory.
- Refused to effectively attack the Coronavirus pandemic, leaving 400,000 dead by the end of his Presidency.
- Refused to accept that Democratic nominee Joseph Biden legitimately won the 2020 Presidential election.
- Ordered a mob of his Fascistic followers to attack the Capitol Building and stop the certifying of Biden as the winner of Electoral College votes.
At this stage, it’s hard to imagine Trump joining that select number of Presidents Americans remember with awe and reverence.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 19, 2021 at 12:38 am
“At the time of the Civil War [white anger and resentment] took the form of Southern white men angry at the idea that the federal government would interfere with their right to own Black slaves.
“Today, I think this takes the form of white people who believe that Black and brown people are making gains, or getting special treatment, at their expense,” warns Nina Silber, co-president of the Society of Civil War Historians.
And California Democratic Representative Maxine Waters believes this anger could lead to civil war: “Since his first day in office, [Donald Trump] has spent four years abusing his power, lying, embracing authoritarianism (and) radicalizing his supporters against democracy.
“This corruption poisoned the minds of his supporters, inciting them to willingly join with white supremacists, neo-Nazis and paramilitary extremists in a siege of the United State Capitol building, the very seat of American democracy.”
Attack on the Capitol Building
But there is a way to abort that danger—provided that those who cherish democracy are willing to employ weapons as effective as those used by the Right.
Case in point: The FBI’s successful war on the Ku Klux Klan.
Klansmen had shot, lynched and bombed their way across the Deep South, especially in Alabama and Mississippi. Many Southern sheriffs and police chiefs were Klan sympathizers, if not outright members and accomplices.
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
President Lyndon B. Johnson called J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI, and ordered an all-out investigation: “I want you to have the same kind of Intelligence [on the Klan] that you have on the communists.”
Poster for missing civil rights workers
For decades, Hoover had refused to tackle white hate groups. And, in truth, no President had been willing to give him the order to do so. But now a President had given him such an order.
In August, the FBI uncovered the bodies of the three missing civil rights activists—Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney.
On September 2, 1964, the Bureau launched a full-blown counterintelligence program against the Klan—COINTELPRO—WHITE HATE in FBI-speak.
Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, chronicles the methods used by the Bureau:
“WHITE-HATE intensified in the fall of 1964. It involved all the techniques in the FBI’s long-running attack on the Left. Once a week….FBI agents interrogated all known members of the White Knights of the KKK, blaming other Klansmen for being snitches and naming names, sowing deep suspicion among Klan members. Few knew who was an informer and who was not.
A Ku Klux Klan meeting
“The FBI dangled small fortunes before potential Klan informers, offered outright bribes to Klansmen who could serve as double agents inside state and local police forces, planted bugs and wiretaps in Klaverns, carried out black bag jobs to steal membership lists….”
Other tactics included:
- Contacting the news media to publicize arrests and identify Klan leaders;
- Informing the employers of known Klansmen of their employees’ criminal activity, resulting in the firing of untold numbers of them;
- Breaking up the marriages of Klansmen by circulating rumors of their infidelity among their wives.
“My father fought the Klan in Massachusetts,” recalled William C. Sullivan, who headed the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division in the 1960s. “I always used to be frightened when I was a kid and I saw the fiery crosses burning in the hillside near our farm.
“When the Klan reached 14,000 in the mid-sixties, I asked to take over the investigation of the Klan. When I left the Bureau in 1971, the Klan was down to a completely disorganized 4,300. It was broken.
“They were dirty, rough fellows. And we went after them with rough, tough methods.”
William C. Sullivan
According to Neil J. Welch, the retired Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the FBI’s Buffalo, New York office:
In a rural county near Natchez, two Klansmen threatened to kill the next FBI agent who came to town. Agent Paul Cummings organized a squad of G-men and visited the Klansmen’s favorite bar. He dared the Klansmen to back up their threat. When none appeared, Cummings shot out the bar’s windows. There were no more threats on FBI agents in that area.
“A Klan Bureau of Investigation (KBI) was created to counter the FBI, and its members placed the wives and children of agents under surveillance, harassing them with taunts and anonymous phone calls,” wrote Welch in his memoir, Inside Hoover’s FBI.
“It was a serious miscalculation. The most dangerous members of the KBI were systematically identified and assigned to agents selected solely because they were comparatively dangerous. The agents had full discretion.
“During the next few months, a number of men previously involved in Klan violence around the state seemed, by remarkable coincidence, to experience misfortune. Some disappeared from the area. Some were forced to leave Mississippi for health reasons. A few took unplanned trips to places like Mexico and seemed to lose all interest in the Klan upon their return.”
The FBI’s counterintelligence war against the Klan ended in 1971.
Only when America has a President willing to wage all-out war on the Fascistic Right will the country be safe from this enemy within.
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BRING THE WAR ON TERROR HOME: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2021 at 12:08 amAccording to American political scientist George Michael: “Right-wing terrorism and violence has a long history in America.”
The Supreme Court’s decision, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), striking down segregated facilities, unleashed a wave of Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks, civil rights activists and Jews. Between 1956 and 1963, an estimated 130 bombings ravaged the South.
Ku Klux Klan flag
During the 1980s, more than 75 Right-wing extremists were prosecuted in the United States for acts of terrorism, carrying out six attacks.
The April 19, 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people. It was the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States until 9/11.
By 2020, Right-wing terrorism accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the United States. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report stated that Right-wing extremist groups were responsible for 73% of violent extremist incidents resulting in deaths since September 12, 2001.
Right-wing violence rose sharply during the Barack Obama administration and especially during the Presidency of Donald Trump. His remark after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that there were “some very fine people on both sides” convinced white supremacists that he favored their goals, if not their methods.
On January 6, 2021, thousands of Right-wing Trump supporters—many of them armed—stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
Their goal: To stop members of Congress from counting Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election, from which former Vice President Joseph R. Biden was expected to emerge the winner.
After overwhelming the Capitol Police force, they damaged and occupied parts of the building for several hours. Legislators huddled fearfully while National Guard units from several states finally evicted the insurrectionists.
The Capitol attack marked the first time in American history when a defeated Presidential candidate violently sought to remain in office.
It may also mark a desperately-needed change in the priorities of American law enforcement, which has traditionally focused on Left-wingers—and especially blacks—as the country’s mortal enemies.
Numerous commentators have noted the contrast between the tepid police response to the Capitol attack by white Right-wingers and the brutal crackdown on peaceful liberal blacks protesting the murder of George Floyd in Washington D.C. on June 1, 2020.
U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops used tear gas, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, horses, shields and batons to clear protesters from Lafayette Square—so Trump could stage a photo-op at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
After 9/11, American law enforcement and Intelligence agencies initiated major reforms to focus on Islamic terrorism.
A similar reform effort, focusing on Right-wing terrorism, could include the following:
FBI SWAT member
Such an overhaul would almost certainly include the Justice Department indicting and prosecuting Donald Trump for inciting the treasonous attack on the Capitol Building on January 6.
The 75,000,000 Americans who voted to give him a second term still look to him for leadership. As do the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate.
It is a certainty that Senate Republicans will refuse to convict him in his second impeachment trial—just as they refused in the first. They have already offered their excuse: “It’s unconstitutional to impeach a former President.”
But as a former President, he can still be prosecuted for crimes he committed while in office—just as a former Senator or Supreme Court Justice can.
Whatever the outcome, this would send an unmistakable message to Right-wing terrorists: Your days of immunity are over—and you will be held accountable for your terrorist acts, just as Islamic terrorist groups are.
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