Posts Tagged ‘CORY GARDNER’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on December 13, 2024 at 12:13 am
As anti-vaccine zealot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepares to take over the Department of Health and Human Services, a cautionary historical reminder is in order.
During 2020, Donald Trump’s last year as President, many Republicans—who refused to acknowledge the dangers of Coronavirus—found themselves fighting for their lives.
Among these:
- Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
- Senator Mitt Romney
- Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)
- Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ)
- Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
- Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
- Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO)
- Representative Ann Wagner (R-MO)
- Senator Rick Scott (R-FL)
- Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
- Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA)
- Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
- Representative Tom Cole (R-OK)
- Representative Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
- Representative Doug Collins (R-GA)
- Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA)
Of course, Republicans were not the only members of Congress who got Coronavirus.
Democrats did, too:
- Representative Julia Brownley (CA)
- Representative Don Beyer (VA)
- Representative John Yarmuth (KY)
- Representative Ben Ray Luján (NM)
- Representative Gwen Moore (WI)
- Representative Jason Crow (CO)
- Representative Matt Cartwright (PA)
- Representative Stephanie Murphy (FL)
- Representative Kathleen Rice (NY)
- Representative Anthony Brindisi (NY)
- Representative Joe Cunningham (SC)
- Representative David Price (NC)
- Representative Sharice Davids (KS)
- Representative Andy Kim (NJ)
- Representative Vicente Gonzalez (TX)
The difference between the two political parties: While Democrats overwhelmingly accepted Coronavirus as a deadly reality, a far smaller portion of Republicans did.
A Pew Research Center study released on March 18, 2020 found that 59% of Democrats called the virus a major threat to Americans’ health.
But only 33% of Republicans agreed.
This despite the fact that medical experts and epidemiologists warned that there was then no vaccination against the virus.
Twelve percent of Democrats believed President Donald Trump was doing a good job handling the crisis and 23% believed Vice President Mike Pence was doing a somewhat or very good job.
But 82% of Republicans said Trump was doing a somewhat or very good job, and 78% said the same for Pence.
Donald Trump
Much of this divide stemmed from Trump’s initial refusal to take the disease seriously. On February 28, 2020, at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump claimed: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….This is their new hoax.”
Throughout his Presidency, Trump used “hoax” to attack his opponents—such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump’s collaboration with Russian Intelligence agents during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
And Republicans had utterly tied themselves to him since the 2018 mid-term elections, where many moderate Republicans lost their seats.
According to Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post:
“They have realized that if they’re going to keep their seats, if they’re going to be able to have any future in the party, they have to be completely tied to President Trump and really wait for his call in terms of what exactly they’re going to do.”
Another reason why Republicans—voters and politicians—refused to take the Coronavirus outbreak seriously lay in their hostile attitude toward higher education.
An August 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 59% of Republicans said higher education had a negative effect on the country.
Only 18% of Democrats agreed with that.
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, attitudes changed little among Democrats and Republicans.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, released on September 6, 2022:
Democrats often expressed gratitude for the appearance of vaccines and the speed at which they were developed. They also showed respect for science generally.
For Republicans, skepticism toward vaccines was their top response. They also expressed strong distrust toward the pharmaceutical industry and government officials.
Democrats emphasized the need for better preparation to deal with future outbreaks of infectious disease. They also spoke of the need for greater trust of public health guidance and faster responses.
Republicans agreed that better preparation was necessary—but cited low trust in government officials and a need to avoid shutdowns and prevent limits on individual freedom.
These differences were not without consequences. And they proved especially lethal for Republicans and their Right-wing allies.
An October 6, 2022 report on NBC News stated:
“COVID deaths are unevenly distributed among Republicans and Democrats…
“A study in June, 2022 published in Health Affairs…found that counties with a Republican majority had a greater share of COVID-19 deaths through October 2021, relative to majority-Democratic counties.”
The researchers believed that the refusal of millions of Republicans to get vaccinated might be the biggest reason for the disparity in casualties.
“In counties where a large share of the population is getting vaccinated, we see a much smaller gap between Republicans and Democrats,” said Jacob Wallace, an author of that study and an assistant professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.
But the researchers suggested that the refusal of millions of Right-wingers to get vaccinated explained just 10% of the partisan gap in the deaths. Added to this must be their refusal to comply with such public health measures as wearing masks and social distancing.
Thus, Republicans’ contempt for government (unless headed by a Right-winger) and science left huge numbers of them dead—and likely played a major role in electing Joseph R. Biden President in 2020.
Altogether, 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 by the time Trump left office.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 10, 2023 at 12:22 am
Americans are living through extraordinary times. For many Republicans, who have fought to convince Americans that Coronavirus was simply a Democratic hoax, are now fighting for their lives.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was the first United Sates Senator to test positive for the virus. But other Republicans have also been forced to self-quarantine.
Among these:
- Senator Mitt Romney
- Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)
- Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ)
- Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
- Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
- Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO)
- Representative Ann Wagner (R-MO)
- Senator Rick Scott (R-FL)
- Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
- Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA)
- Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
- Representative Tom Cole (R-OK)
- Representative Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
- Representative Doug Collins (R-GA)
- Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA)
Of course, Republicans are not the only members of Congress who have gotten Coronavirus.
Democrats have, too—and have self-quarantined:
- Representative Julia Brownley (CA)
- Representative Don Beyer (VA)
- Representative John Yarmuth (KY)
- Representative Ben Ray Luján (NM)
- Representative Gwen Moore (WI)
- Representative Jason Crow (CO)
- Representative Matt Cartwright (PA)
- Representative Stephanie Murphy (FL)
- Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY)
- Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi (NY)
- Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham (SC)
- Democratic Rep. David Price (NC)
- Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids (KS)
- Democratic Rep. Andy Kim (NJ)
- Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (TX)
The difference between the two political parties: While Democrats overwhelmingly accept Coronavirus as a deadly reality, a far smaller portion of Republicans do.
A Pew Research Center study released on March 18, 2020 found that 59% of Democrats called the virus a major threat to Americans’ health.
But only 33% of Republicans agreed.
This despite the fact that medical experts and epidemiologists warned that there was then no vaccination against the virus.
Twelve percent of Democrats believed President Donald Trump was doing a good job handling the crisis and 23% believed Vice President Mike Pence was doing a somewhat or very good job.
But 82% of Republicans said Trump was doing a somewhat or very good job, and 78% said the same for Pence.
Donald Trump
Much of this divide stems from Trump’s initial refusal to take the disease seriously. On February 28, 2020, at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump claimed: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….This is their new hoax.”
Throughout his Presidency, Trump used “hoax” to attack his opponents—such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump’s collaboration with Russian Intelligence agents during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
And Republicans have utterly tied themselves to him since the 2018 mid-term elections, where many moderate Republicans lost their seats.
According to Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post:
“They have realized that if they’re going to keep their seats, if they’re going to be able to have any future in the party, they have to be completely tied to President Trump and really wait for his call in terms of what exactly they’re going to do.”
Another reason why Republicans—voters and politicians—refuse to take the Coronavirus outbreak seriously lies in their hostile attitude toward higher education.
An August 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 59% of Republicans said higher education has a negative effect on the country.
Only 18% of Democrats agreed with that.
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, attitudes have changed little among Democrats and Republicans.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, released on September 6, 2022:
Democrats often express gratitude for the appearance of vaccines and the speed at which they were developed. They also show respect for science generally.
For Republicans, skepticism toward vaccines is their top response. They also express strong distrust toward the pharmaceutical industry and government officials.
Democrats emphasize the need for better preparation to deal with future outbreaks of infectious disease. They also speak of the need for greater trust of public health guidance and faster responses.
Republicans agreed that better preparation was necessary—but cited low trust in government officials and a need to avoid shutdowns and prevent limits on individual freedom.
These differences are not without consequences. And they have been especially lethal for Republicans and their Right-wing allies.
An October 6, 2022 report on NBC News stated:
“Covid deaths are unevenly distributed among Republicans and Democrats…
“A study in June, 2022 published in Health Affairs…found that counties with a Republican majority had a greater share of Covid deaths through October 2021, relative to majority-Democratic counties.”
The researchers believed that the refusal of millions of Republicans to get vaccinated might be the biggest reason for the disparity in casualties.
“In counties where a large share of the population is getting vaccinated, we see a much smaller gap between Republicans and Democrats,” said Jacob Wallace, an author of that study and an assistant professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.
But the researchers suggested that the refusal of millions ofRight-wingers to get vaccinated explained just 10% of the partisan gap in the deaths. Added to this must be their refusal to comply with such public health measures as wearing masks and social distancing.
Thus, Republicans’ contempt for government (unless headed by a Right-winger) and science left huge numbers of them dead—and likely played a major role in electing Joseph R. Biden President in 2020.
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2022 at 12:10 am
It takes courage to stand up to dictators. These Russians—and Americans—did so.
And paid the price.
Next up: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich (September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975)
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.
Third hero—Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1992, he received his Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2007.
From 2017 to 2018 he commanded the USS Blue Ridge. In November, 2019, he was given command of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
On March 24, 2020, reports circulated that three members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19. The next day the number of stricken sailors increased to eight. A few days later, it was “dozens.” The sailors reportedly became ill at sea, two weeks after a port call at Danang, Vietnam.
The initial cases were airlifted to a military hospital. The Roosevelt was ordered to Guam. After the ship docked on March 27, 2020, all 5,000 aboard were ordered to be tested for the virus. But only about 100 stricken sailors were allowed to leave the ship. The rest remained on board.
On March 30, Crozier emailed a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore. Given the crowded sleeping quarters and narrow passageways of the vessel, Crozier wrote that it was impossible to follow social distancing and quarantine procedures:
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors….
“This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”
Brett Crozier
Crozier sent his letter via a non-secure, unclassified email to 20 to 30 recipients, as well as the captain’s immediate chain of command. He reportedly believed that his immediate supervisor would not allow him to send it.
And his superior later confirmed that he would not have allowed Crozier to send it.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated. A skeleton crew of 400 remained aboard to maintain the nuclear reactor, the fire-fighting equipment, and the ship’s galley.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
By that time, about 114 crew members—out of a total of around 4,000—reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
As Crozier disembarked, sailors loudly saluted him with a standing ovation: “Cap-tain Cro-zier!”
Modly claimed that Crozier’s letter “raised alarm bells unnecessarily. It undermines our efforts and the chain of command’s efforts to address this problem, and creates a panic and this perception that the Navy’s not on the job, that the government’s not on the job, and it’s just not true.”
Actually, the Trump administration had frittered away January and February, with President Donald Trump giving multiple—and misleading—press conferences. In these, he played down the dangers of COVID-19, saying that “we’re on top of it”—even as the virus spread across the country.
“It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public’s forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC,” continued Modly. [Italics added]
This was the United States Navy under Donald Trump—who threw “betrayal” and “treason” at anyone who dared reveal the truth about institutional crimes and failures.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2022 at 1:38 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, three villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; three are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); two American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky).
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a major Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 26 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky appears on a 1963 Soviet Union postage stamp
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD secret police sent to arrest him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2020 at 12:04 am
On March 30, Captain Brett Crozier, commanding the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, sent a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore in Guam.
The reason: Dozens of his crew members had been stricken with the deadly Coronavirus. And the ship’s cramped compartments and narrow passageways made “social distancing” impossible.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
Not content to fire Crozier, Modly visited the ship and stated over its public address system: “If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out to the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either (a) too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose.
“It was a betrayal of trust with me, with his chain of command, with you.”
Thus, for Modly, Crozier’s “crime” was making public what everyone on the ship and countless Navy officials knew.
President Donald Trump echoed Modly’s attitude: “The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place. That’s not appropriate.
“I thought it was terrible, what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear powered. And he shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter.”
But Crozier wasn’t the only victim of Trump’s “integrity-is-treason” mindset that week.
On April 3, Trump informed Congress that he was removing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general who alerted Congress to his extortion attempt against Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, on July 25, 2019.
Trump told Zelensky: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joe Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.
To underline the seriousness of his “request,” Trump had withheld $400 million in promised military aid to Ukraine, which is facing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Reporters asked Congressional Republicans: “Is it appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask a foreign government to investigate his political opponent?”
Donald Trump
And those Republicans refusing to answer or condemn such behavior:
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst: “We don’t have all the facts, we don’t know what is accurate. We have a picture painted by the media and we don’t know if that picture is accurate.”
Arizona Senator Martha McSally: “I think what we’ve seen out of [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi and [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff and others in the House is quite partisan and I think people want us to take a serious look at this and not have it be just partisan bickering going on.”
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis: “I’m going to leave it to the President to make that decision” on whether his actions were appropriate.
The reason for Republicans’ deafening silence: They didn’t want to anger Trump or his fanatical supporters. And they feared losing their Congressional seats and the perks that go with them.
Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, showed no such fear.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Atkinson left private law practice and worked for the United States Department of Justice for 15 years.
In 2017, President Trump nominated him as Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. The Senate confirmed him in 2018.
Michael Atkinson
Atkinson, informed by an Intelligence whistleblower of Trump’s extortion attempt, was appalled. He believed that he was obligated by law to report it to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
Trump was ultimately impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for abusing his office for personal political gain and obstruction of Congress.
But a Republican-controlled Senate—which refused to hear witnesses or act on the overwhelming evidence—quickly exonerated him.
In his April 3 letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Trump wrote: “This is to advise that I am exercising my power as President to remove from office the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
“it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General. That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General.”
Clearly, there is a reason why Trump no longer has “the fullest confidence” in Atkinson: He can’t depend on “this Inspector General” to conceal and support any future crimes he might commit.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 24, 2020 at 12:05 am
Americans are living through extraordinary times. For many Republicans, who have fought to convince Americans that Coronavirus was simply a Democratic hoax, are now fighting for their lives.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is the first United Sates Senator to test positive for the virus. But other Republicans have also been forced to self-quarantine.
Among these:
- Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee (R-UT) announced on March 22 that they would self-quarantine because of their association with Paul.
- On March 15, Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ) said that he would work from home “until otherwise told by doctors” after learning that “a member of our DC team” had tested positive.
- Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) put out a statement on March 8 saying that he had been notified that during his attendance of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March, he was in contact with someone who had tested positive for Coronavirus. He said that he would “remain at my home in Arizona until the conclusion of the 14-day period following my interaction with this individual.”
- On March 17, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that he had completed a period of self-quarantine.
- On March 17, the office of Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) announced that he had decided to self-quarantine after meeting with a Colorado constituent who later tested positive for Coronavirus.
- Representative Ann Wagner (R-MO) said in a statement on March 18 that she would self-quarantine after meeting with a member of Congress who had tested positive for Coronavirus.
- On March 12, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) said that he would self-quarantine after possibly mingling with a member of a Brazilian delegation at Mar-a-Lago who tested positive for Coronavirus.
- On March 15, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced that he tested negative for Coronavirus.
- Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) said on March 18 that he was going into self-quarantine after he held an “extended meeting” with Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) who has tested positive for Coronavirus.
- On Mach 19, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) announced that he would self-quarantine upon learning that Diaz-Balart had tested positive for Coronavirus.
- Representative Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) announced on March 10 that his Coronavirus test results came back negative.
- On March 9, Representative Doug Collins (R-GA) said that he would self-quarantine after CPAC organizers found of photo of him and the conference attendee who tested positive.
- Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA) said on March 18 on Twitter that he was going into self-quarantine after being in contact with a member of Congress who has tested positive for Coronavirus.
This is not to imply that only Republican members of Congress have gotten Coronavirus.
Democrats have, too—and will self-quarantine:
- Representative Julia Brownley (CA)
- Representative Don Beyer (VA)
- Representative John Yarmuth (KY)
- Representative Ben Ray Luján (NM)
- Representative Gwen Moore (WI)
- Representative Jason Crow (CO)
- Representative Matt Cartwright (PA)
- Representative Stephanie Murphy (FL)
- Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY)
- Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi (NY)
- Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham (SC)
- Democratic Rep. David Price (NC)
- Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids (KS)
- Democratic Rep. Andy Kim (NJ)
- Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (TX)
The difference between the two political parties: While Democrats overwhelmingly accept Coronavirus as a deadly reality, a far smaller portion of Republicans do.
A Pew Research Center study released on March 18 found that 59% of Democrats called the virus a major threat to Americans’ health. But only 33% of Republicans agreed.
This despite the fact that medical experts and epidemiologists have warned that the virus could affect many millions of Americans, regardless of political party or state.
Twelve percent of Democrats believe President Donald Trump is doing a good job handling the crisis and 23% believe Vice President Mike Pence is doing a somewhat or very good job. But 82% of Republicans said Trump was doing a somewhat or very good job, and 78% said the same for Pence.
Donald Trump
No doubt much of this divide stems from Trump’s initial refusal to take the disease seriously. On February 28, at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump claimed: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….This is their new hoax.”
Throughout his Presidency, Trump has used “hoax” to attack his opponents, such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump’s collaboration with Russian Intelligence agents during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
And Republicans have utterly tied themselves to him since the 2018 mid-term elections, where many moderate Republicans lost their seats.
According to Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post: “They have realized that if they’re going to keep their seats, if they’re going to be able to have any future in the party, they have to be completely tied to President Trump and really wait for his call in terms of what exactly they’re going to do.”
Another reason why Republicans—voters and politicians—refuse to take the Coronavirus outbreak seriously lies in their changed attitude toward higher education.
An August 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 59% of Republicans say higher education has a negative effect on the country. Only 18% of Democrats agreed with that.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump infamously said: “I love the poorly educated!”
Now they have a champion in their contempt for education generally and science in particular.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2019 at 12:05 am
In his poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who managed to maintain their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives.
Yevgeney Yevtushenko
In late September, news broke that, on July 25, President Donald Trump had tried to extort a “favor” from the president of Ukraine: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joe Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.
To underline the seriousness of his “request,” Trump had withheld $400 million in promised military aid to Ukraine, which is facing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Since late September, reporters have repeatedly asked Congressional Republicans: “Is it appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask a foreign government to investigate his political opponent?”
And the overwhelming majority of Republicans have refused to answer—even though, on October 3, Trump said publicly on the south lawn of the White House: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”
Donald Trump
Among those refusing to answer:
Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner: “Well look, that’s what we’re going to get into. The Senate Intelligence Committee is having an investigation, a bipartisan investigation.”
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst: “We don’t have all the facts, we don’t know what is accurate. We have a picture painted by the media and we don’t know if that picture is accurate.”
Arizona Senator Martha McSally: “I think what we’ve seen out of [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi and [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff and others in the House is quite partisan and I think people want us to take a serious look at this and not have it be just partisan bickering going on.”
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis: “I’m going to leave it to the President to make that decision” on whether his actions were appropriate.
The reason for Republicans’ deafening silence: They don’t want to anger Trump or his fanatical supporters. Many of them face tough reelection campaigns. And they fear losing their Congressional seats and the perks that go with them.
So they’re willing to support a President who calls on hostile foreign nations to subvert an American Presidential election.
Enter Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).
Marie Yovanovitch
In May 2019, on Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network—and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden.
On August 12, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Intelligence community’s Inspector General, Michael Atkinson.
In it, he warned that Yovanovitch’s ousting raised red flags that Trump was abusing his office by soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election.
From that complaint ultimately resulted the impeachment inquiry by the House of Representatives.
With so many Republicans cowering before Trump, Yovanovitch emerged as the first real hero of the Trump era.
On October 11, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
In response, the Committee issued a subpoena to compel her testimony—and provide her with a measure of protection against wrongful termination.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, might have believed “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.
“We need to rebuild diplomacy as the first resort to advance America’s interests and the front line of America’s defense. I fear that not doing so will harm our nation’s interest, perhaps irreparably.”
Frontier general Andrew Jackson once said: “One man with courage makes a majority.”
By courageously defying Trump, Marie Yovanovitch may lead other conscientious men and women to do the same.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 15, 2019 at 12:11 am
Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky appears on a 1963 Soviet Union postage stamp
Third hero—James Brien Comey (December 14, 1960)
Comey served as United States Attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Southern District of New York (2002-2003).
As United States Deputy Attorney General (2003-2005), he opposed the warrantless wiretapping program of the George W. Bush administration. He also argued against the use of water boarding as an interrogation method.
In 2005, he entered the private sector as General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Lockheed Martin, the biggest contractor for the Department of Defense.
On July 29, 2013, the United States Senate voted 93 -1 to confirm Comey as director of the FBI, the seventh in its history.
James B. Comey
He directed the FBI from his appointment in 2013 by President Barack Obama until his firing on May 9, 2017, by President Donald Trump.
In a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump gave no warning of his intentions. Instead, he sent Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard, to the FBI with a letter announcing Comey’s dismissal.
Trump had three reasons for firing Comey:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made this “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January. After refusing to make that pledge, Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief.
- Trump had tried to coerce him into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
As a Presidential candidate and President, Trump:
- Steadfastly denied those revelations;
- Repeatedly attacked the “fake news” media reporting these revelations. Chief among his targets: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post; and
- Attacked the Intelligence agencies responsible for America’s security.
On May 10—the day after firing Comey—Trump met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Kislyak was reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign Intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions and Mike Flynn—respectively,, Trump’s fired Attorney General and fired National Security Adviser.
“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
During that meeting he gave the Russians sensitive Intelligence on ISIS that had been supplied by Israel.
Two days later, on May 12, Trump tweeted a threat to the fired FBI director: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.”
But shortly afterward, it appeared Trump was the one who should worry: Reports surfaced that Comey had written memos to himself immediately after his private meetings with Trump.
He had also told close aides that Trump was trying to pressure him into dropping the investigation into close ties between Russian Intelligence agents and Trump campaign staffers.
As for Trump’s threat of having tapes of his and Comey’s conversations: Like Trump’s claim that he could prove that Barack Obama wasn’t an American citizen, this, too, proved to be a lie.
And Comey’s firing led directly to a result Trump did not anticipate: Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein yielded to demands from Democrats and appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller III as a special prosecutor to investigate those ties.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 14, 2019 at 12:09 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, two villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; two are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); one American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky)
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a leading Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 20 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
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COVID SEPARATED REPUBLICAN VOTERS FROM DEMOCRATS–BUT NOT FROM GRAVEYARDS
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on December 13, 2024 at 12:13 amAs anti-vaccine zealot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepares to take over the Department of Health and Human Services, a cautionary historical reminder is in order.
During 2020, Donald Trump’s last year as President, many Republicans—who refused to acknowledge the dangers of Coronavirus—found themselves fighting for their lives.
Among these:
Of course, Republicans were not the only members of Congress who got Coronavirus.
Democrats did, too:
The difference between the two political parties: While Democrats overwhelmingly accepted Coronavirus as a deadly reality, a far smaller portion of Republicans did.
A Pew Research Center study released on March 18, 2020 found that 59% of Democrats called the virus a major threat to Americans’ health.
But only 33% of Republicans agreed.
This despite the fact that medical experts and epidemiologists warned that there was then no vaccination against the virus.
Twelve percent of Democrats believed President Donald Trump was doing a good job handling the crisis and 23% believed Vice President Mike Pence was doing a somewhat or very good job.
But 82% of Republicans said Trump was doing a somewhat or very good job, and 78% said the same for Pence.
Donald Trump
Much of this divide stemmed from Trump’s initial refusal to take the disease seriously. On February 28, 2020, at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump claimed: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….This is their new hoax.”
Throughout his Presidency, Trump used “hoax” to attack his opponents—such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump’s collaboration with Russian Intelligence agents during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
And Republicans had utterly tied themselves to him since the 2018 mid-term elections, where many moderate Republicans lost their seats.
According to Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post:
“They have realized that if they’re going to keep their seats, if they’re going to be able to have any future in the party, they have to be completely tied to President Trump and really wait for his call in terms of what exactly they’re going to do.”
Another reason why Republicans—voters and politicians—refused to take the Coronavirus outbreak seriously lay in their hostile attitude toward higher education.
An August 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 59% of Republicans said higher education had a negative effect on the country.
Only 18% of Democrats agreed with that.
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, attitudes changed little among Democrats and Republicans.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, released on September 6, 2022:
Democrats often expressed gratitude for the appearance of vaccines and the speed at which they were developed. They also showed respect for science generally.
For Republicans, skepticism toward vaccines was their top response. They also expressed strong distrust toward the pharmaceutical industry and government officials.
Democrats emphasized the need for better preparation to deal with future outbreaks of infectious disease. They also spoke of the need for greater trust of public health guidance and faster responses.
Republicans agreed that better preparation was necessary—but cited low trust in government officials and a need to avoid shutdowns and prevent limits on individual freedom.
These differences were not without consequences. And they proved especially lethal for Republicans and their Right-wing allies.
An October 6, 2022 report on NBC News stated:
“COVID deaths are unevenly distributed among Republicans and Democrats…
“A study in June, 2022 published in Health Affairs…found that counties with a Republican majority had a greater share of COVID-19 deaths through October 2021, relative to majority-Democratic counties.”
The researchers believed that the refusal of millions of Republicans to get vaccinated might be the biggest reason for the disparity in casualties.
“In counties where a large share of the population is getting vaccinated, we see a much smaller gap between Republicans and Democrats,” said Jacob Wallace, an author of that study and an assistant professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.
But the researchers suggested that the refusal of millions of Right-wingers to get vaccinated explained just 10% of the partisan gap in the deaths. Added to this must be their refusal to comply with such public health measures as wearing masks and social distancing.
Thus, Republicans’ contempt for government (unless headed by a Right-winger) and science left huge numbers of them dead—and likely played a major role in electing Joseph R. Biden President in 2020.
Altogether, 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 by the time Trump left office.
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