Posts Tagged ‘DAVID BROOKS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 5, 2023 at 12:10 am
One reason why a handful of House Republicans threatened to shut down the Federal Government by October 1: Calling themselves “budget deficit hawks,” they demanded huge cuts in non-military spending.
Among the programs these cuts would have devastated: Food safety, education, law enforcement, housing, public health, Head Start and child care, Meals on Wheels.
Their attitude toward budget deficits had been vastly different while Donald Trump was President.
On August 2, 2019, Trump signed into law a two-year budget deal that raised spending by $320 billion over existing spending caps set in a 2011 law—and boosted military and domestic spending.
The bill also lifted the debt ceiling, which is the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can have.
The bill threatened to push the budget deficit to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for only the second time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and add $1.7 trillion to the federal debt over a decade.
Donald Trump
By January, 2021, the national debt had risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s four years in office. It amounted to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) praised the Republicans’ massive contribution to the national debt.
Now, with a Democratic President in office, Republicans—invoking the my-way-or-else “negotiating” strategy of Adolf Hitler—were threatening to plunge the United States into financial ruin unless their extortion demands were met.
The casualties of a government shutdown would include:
- Seven million vulnerable mothers and children would stop receiving monies for food under the Women and Children (WIC) program.
- All active-duty military personnel and law enforcement officers would be forced to work without pay until appropriated funds became available.
- If additional catastrophes occurred, FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund could be depleted, thus complicating new emergency response efforts.
- Critical research on diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s would stall because the National Institutes of Health would be forced to delay new clinical trials.
- Air traffic controllers and Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) officers would be forced to work without pay. The added stress they would face from being unable to meet rent and food payments could dangerously affect their job performance.
- Most EPA-led inspections at hazardous waste sites as well as drinking water and chemical facilities would stop.
- The Food and Drug Administration would be forced to delay food safety inspections for a wide variety of products across the country.
Here’s what Republicans demanded in return for not shutting down the government:
- Severe cuts would be made to Social Security by increasing the age of future retirees.
- Disabled Americans on Medicare would be forced to wait longer to receive benefits.
- Medicare would be turned into a voucher system—which would remove the guarantee for seniors to have access to affordable medical care.
- Taxes would be cut for the wealthy and corporations.
- More requirements would be imposed on the poor trying to obtain social services.
- “Regulatory reforms that increase economic growth” (i.e. allowing corporations to ignore laws protecting employees, customers and/or the environment) would become law.
- Further funding to defend Ukraine against continuing aggression by Russia would end.
By a last-minute compromise between House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Democrats, this latest Republican extortion attempt was averted.
But current funding will expire on November 17. And then the country will face yet another date with financial disaster.
Fortunately, there are several ways to permanently address these exercises in political criminality.
REMEDY 1: LEGALLY REQUIRE CONGRESS TO STAY IN SESSION UNTIL A BUDGET COMPROMISE IS REACHED.
The federal government’s fiscal year ends every September 30. Before this deadline, Congress must write and pass the budget for the next fiscal year. If a budget agreement is not reached in time, funding for federal agencies lapse and the government shuts down.
Yet with the shutdown deadline looming, on July 29, the House and Senate broke for their annual August recess. The Senate remained in recess until September 5; the House remained in recess until September 12.
Congress had to enact all 12 appropriations bills or pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the federal government funded and avoid a shutdown on October 1.
NEEDED: A law requiring Congress to remain in session until a budget compromise is reached. Any Congressional member who leaves before this occurs would be immediately discharged and never allowed to return.
PROBLEM: This would require Congressional members to impose restrictions on themselves—which they are unwilling to do.
REMEDY 2: THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SHOULD INDICT FOR EXTORTION THOSE HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT HOSTAGE.
President Joseph Biden could order the Justice Department to invoke the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Passed by Congress in 1970, as Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968, its goal was to destroy the Mafia. But in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981), the Supreme Court held that RICO applied as well to legitimate enterprises being operated in a criminal manner.
After Turkette, RICO could also be used against corporations, political protest groups, labor unions and loosely knit-groups of people.
RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys.
These activities include a Republican favorite: Extortion.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 4, 2023 at 12:15 am
Republicans have repeatedly utilized the same my-way-or-else “negotiating” strategy as Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
And Democrats—out of cowardice or an ignorance of history—have repeatedly refused to publicly make this comparison.
By studying Adolf Hitler’s mindset and “negotiating” methods, we can learn much about the mindset and “negotiating” style of today’s Republican party.
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thus:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.
“He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”
Republicans have repeatedly threatened to shut down the government unless their constantly escalating demands are met.
A shutdown occurs when Congress fails to approve funding for federal agencies.
In November, 1995, Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, carried out his threat to shut down the government. Gingrich unwisely admitted that he did so because President Bill Clinton had put him in the back of Air Force One during a recent trip to Israel.
The shutdown proved a disaster for Republicans. Clinton was handily re-elected in 1996 and Gingrich suddenly resigned from Congress in 1998.
Still, the Republicans continued their policy of my-way-or-else.
In April, 2011, the United States government almost shut down over Republican demands about subsidized pap smears.
During a late-night White House meeting with President Barack Obama and key Congressional leaders, Republican House Speaker John Boehner made this threat: His conference would not approve funding for the government if any money were allowed to flow to Planned Parenthood through Title X legislation.
Facing an April 8 deadline, negotiators worked day and night to strike a compromise—and finally reached one.
Three months later—on July 9—Republican extortionists again threatened the Nation with financial ruin and international disgrace unless their demands were met.
Symbol of the Mafia “Black Hand”
This time, Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agreed to massively cut social programs for the elderly, poor and disabled.
And while Republicans demanded that the disadvantaged tighten their belts, they rejected any raising of taxes on their foremost constituency—the wealthiest 1%.
To raise taxes on the wealthy, they insisted, would be a “jobs-killer.” It would “discourage” corporate CEOs from creating tens of thousands of jobs they supposedly wanted to create.
President Obama had offered to make historic cuts in the federal government and the social safety net—on which millions of Americans depend for their most basic needs.
But House Speaker John Boehner rejected that offer. He could not agree to the tax increases that Democrats wanted to impose on the wealthiest 1% as part of the bargain.
As the calendar moved ever closer to the fateful date of August 2, Republican leaders continued to insist: Any deal that includes taxes “can’t pass the House.”
One senior Republican said talks would go right up to—and maybe beyond—the brink of default.
“I think we’ll be here in August,” said Republican Representative Pete Sessions, of Texas. “We are not going to leave town until a proper deal gets done.”
President Obama had previously insisted on extending the debt ceiling through 2012. But in mid-July, he simply asked congressional leaders to review three options with their members:
- The “Grand Bargain” choice—favored by Obama—would cut deficits by about $4 trillion, including spending cuts and new tax revenues.
- A medium-range plan would aim to reduce the deficit by about $2 trillion.
- The smallest option would cut between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, without increased tax revenue or any Medicare and Medicaid cuts.
And the Republican response?
Said Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: “Quite frankly, [Republican] members of Congress are getting tired of what the president won’t do and what the president wants.”
Noted political analyst Chris Matthews summed up the sheer criminality of what happened within the House of Representatives.
Chris Matthews
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” on July 28—five days before Congress reached its August 2 deadline to raise the debt-ceiling—Matthews noted:
“The first people to bow to the demands of those threatening to blow up the economy were the Republicans in the House, the leaders. The leaders did what the followers told them to do: meet the demands, hold up the country to get their way.
“Those followers didn’t win the Senate, or the Presidency, just the House. But by using the House they were able to hold up the entire United States government. They threatened to blow things up economically and it worked.
“They said they were willing to do that—just to get their way—not by persuasion, not by politics, not by democratic government, but by threatening the destruction of the country’s finances.
“Right. So what’s next? The power grid? Will they next time threaten to close down the country’s electricity and communications systems?”
With the United States teetering on the brink of national bankruptcy, President Obama caved in to Republican demands.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 3, 2023 at 12:41 am
In facing off against President Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proved the embodiment of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “lion and the fox.”
Trump couldn’t believe that Pelosi meant it when she politely refused to let him give his State of the Union address in the House of Representatives until he reopened the Federal Government.
He dared her to say plainly that she would deny him access.
So she did—issuing a statement saying that the speech was off until the government reopened.
Donald Trump
Pelosi didn’t let herself be drawn into any Twitter slugfests with a semi-literate dictator. She could well afford to sit out the shutdown, since only the Fascistic Right truly believed she was responsible for it.
And she capitalized on the unexpected help she received from one of Trump’s highest-ranking officials: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Asked on CNBC if he knew that many Federal employees had been reduced to going to food banks, Ross—a billionaire—said yes, but he didn’t understand why.
His suggestion: They could just take out a loan.
“So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it, and we’ve seen a number of ads of financial institutions doing that.
“True, the people might have to pay a little bit of interest. But the idea that it’s ‘paycheck or zero’ is not a really valid idea.”
Wilbur Ross
It was a remark worthy of Marie Antoinette’s reported (but inaccurate) dismissal of the miseries of impoverished French citizens: “Let them eat cake.”
And Pelosi didn’t hesitate to point it out:
“Is this the ‘Let them eat cake,’ kind of attitude? Or ‘Call your father for money?’ Or ’This is character-building for you; it’s all going to end up very well—just as long as you don’t get your paychecks?’”
As CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza saw it: “What Pelosi seems to understand better than past Trump political opponents is that giving ANY ground is a mistake. You have to not only stand firm, but be willing to go beyond all political norms—like canceling the SOTU—to win.”
And Julian Zelitzer, another CNN political analyst, agreed: “Pelosi did not hesitate to use her political power aggressively. From the start of this process, she has remained steadfast in her insistence that closing the government was not a legitimate way to make demands for new forms of spending.
“While sometimes Democrats become leery about seeming too partisan and not being civil enough, Pelosi and the Democrats stood their ground. She drew a line in the sand and stuck by it.”
When Republicans claim that Democrats aren’t being “civil,” they mean: “They’re not doing exactly as we tell them to do.”
And of course Republicans tried to convince voters that Trump had not threatened to shut down the government—and then had done so. Republicans like Texas United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz repeatedly railed against the “Pelosi-Schumer shutdown.”
But the vast majority of voters weren’t having it. They had seen the original broadcast where Trump made his threat. And if they had missed the original, there were plenty of re-broadcasts of that moment on news networks to alert them.
As Pelosi and Democrats held firm, Republicans began getting desperate.
- They were being depicted in the news as extortionists while 800,000 of their fellow Americans suffered.
- Those businesses that served them—such as grocery stores and auto repair shops—were being starved of revenue.
- There was legitimate fear that the entire airline industry might have to shut down for lack of enough air traffic controllers to regulate air traffic.
- Worst of all for Republicans, chaos at airports threatened the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of people traveling to and from the upcoming Super Bowl. Most Americans might not know the name of their Senator, but they take their sports fetish seriously.
By January 25, the 35th day of the shutdown, an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 53% of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown. His popularity had fallen to a historic low of 37%. And 60% disapproved of how he was handling negotiations to reopen the government.
So, on that same date, Trump did what his Hispanic-hating base thought was impossible: He caved.
He walked into the White House Rose Garden and said he would sign a bill to reopen the government for three weeks.
Nancy Pelosi
Trump had said he would not give the State of the Union address on his originally scheduled date of January 29th. But eventually he did.
Unlike Trump, who revels in bragging about how powerful and brilliant he is, Pelosi didn’t have to.
Simply sitting behind him, probably trying hard to suppress a gleeful smile, she nevertheless reminded the audience that she was the one who had taught this failed businessman “the art of the deal.”
Pelosi turned over the Speakership to Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) in 2023. There was no guarantee that future Speakers would stand so forthrightly against extortion.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2023 at 12:16 am
In the waning hours of September 30, the United States averted the latest Republican shutdown of the Federal Government.
President Joseph Biden signed into law the stopgap bill to avert a government shutdown passed by Congress.
Funding for federal agencies was set to run out at midnight on October 1.
The Senate passed the measure after the House of Representatives abruptly reversed course earlier in the day and passed a bipartisan bill to extend government funding.
For weeks, no one knew whether a shutdown could be averted.
So the government will remain open—until November 17.
Then the country will be treated to yet another Republican extortion attempt: “Give us what we want or we’ll shut down the government again.”
The last time a government shutdown occurred was in December, 2019, during the Presidency of Donald J. Trump.
As Speaker of the House (2007 – 2011); (2018 – 2023), Nancy Pelosi proved she was equal to the challenge.
On December 11, 2018, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer met with Trump in the Oval Office.
And, true to his love of publicity, Trump made sure the meeting was televised live on TV.
Nancy Pelosi
Trump soon moved to the matter he truly cared about: Demanding $5.6 billion to create a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border: “And one way or the other, it’s going to get built. I’d like not to see a government closing, a shutdown. We will see what happens over the next short period of time.”
PELOSI: I think the American people recognize that we must keep government open, that a shutdown is not worth anything, and that you should not have a Trump shutdown. You have the White House—
TRUMP: Did you say Trump—
PELOSI: A Trump shutdown. You have the White House—
TRUMP: I was going to call it a Pelosi shutdown.
Charles Schumer
TRUMP: The wall is a part of border security. You can’t have very good border security without the wall.
PELOSI: That’s simply not true. That is a political promise.
[By “political promise,” Pelosi meant this was an appeal Trump made to his hardcore base. which he expected to re-elect him.]
SCHUMER: Twenty times you have called for, “I will shut down the government if I don’t get my wall.” None of us have said—you’ve said it.
TRUMP: Okay, you want to put that on my—I’ll take it. You know what I’ll say: “Yes, if we don’t get what we want, one way or the other…I will shut down the government. Absolutely.”
Trump, determined to bully Pelosi and Schumer into bending to his will, didn’t realize he had just set himself up for disaster.
Trump shut down the government on December 22. About 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
And Trump told Congressional leaders the shutdown could last months or even years.
For Trump, “the wall” was absolutely necessary—but not to keep illegal aliens out. They would go over, under or around it.
The real intent of the wall was to keep Trump in—the White House.
Trump’s fanatical base believed that a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border would stop all illegal immigration. And he knew that if he didn’t build it, they wouldn’t re-elect him.
The effects of the shutdown quickly became evident:
- For weeks, hundreds of thousands of government workers missed paychecks.
- Increasing numbers of employees of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA)—which provides security against airline terrorism—began refusing to come to work, claiming to be sick.
- At the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) many air traffic controllers called in “sick.” Those who showed up to work without pay grew increasingly frazzled as they feared being evicted for being unable to make rent or house payments.
- Due to the shortage of air traffic controllers, many planes weren’t able to land safely at places like New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
- Many Federal employees—such as FBI agents—were forced to rely on soup kitchens to feed their families.
- Celebrity chef Jose Andres launched ChefsForFeds, which offered free hot meals for government employees and their families at restaurants across the country.
- Many workers tried to bring in money by babysitting or driving for Uber,
Pelosi, unlike many Democrats, realized this was America’s version of the Munich Conference: Democrats must hold firm against a tyrant’s extortionate demands. Otherwise, every time Trump didn’t get his way, there would be no end to such shutdowns in the future.
From the start, Pelosi insisted that Democrats would not surrender to threats of a government shutdown. And Democrats held firm, refusing to make concessions on the wall.
Second, Pelosi publicly stated that Trump could not make his annual State of the Union speech in the House of Representatives until the government was re-opened.
She politely cited as her reason that the building would not be “secure” owing to the shutdown and the nonpayment of the men and women who would be charged with its protection.
Since both the House and Senate must jointly issue an invitation to the President to make such an address, Pelosi’s veto effectively scotched Trump’s appearance.
For the publicity-addicted Trump, who revels in pontificating to adoring crowds, this was a major—and unexpected—blow.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 29, 2023 at 12:16 am
As former President Donald Trump lurches almost daily from one legal setback to another, many Americans ask: “Why do so many Republicans continue to support him?”
The answer lies in what happened 78 years ago in Berlin—when the “Thousand-Year” Third Reich collapsed after little more than 12 years.
While the Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, its influence over all aspects of Germans’ lives was suffocating.
“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents,” reads the back cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich.
“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.”
And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945, a strange thing happened: Virtually no German admitted to having been a Nazi—or having even known one.
American and British soldiers couldn’t find any German veterans willing to admit they had ever fought against Western, democratic nations. All the once-proud legionaries of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS swore they had been fighting “the real enemy”—the Russians—on the Eastern front.
Countless Germans claimed to have hidden Jews in their attics—despite the fact that six million Jews died horrifically before the Reich fell.
And almost universally, they blamed the conflict on the man they had embraced as their Fuhrer.
In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.
In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.
Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes.”
“Hogan’s Heroes”
“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.”
And that is why Republicans have stuck so closely with Donald J. Trump—as President and former President.
A typical example of this occurred on June 8, 2017 after former FBI director James Comey testified before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Comey revealed that, on February 14, 2017, Trump had ordered everyone but Comey to leave a crowded meeting in the Oval Office.
Flynn had resigned the previous day from his position as National Security Adviser. The FBI was investigating him for his previously undisclosed ties to Russia.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” said Trump. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
This was clearly an attempt by Trump to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.
Yet Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan rushed to excuse Trump’s clearly illegal behavior: “He’s new at government, so therefore I think he’s learning as he goes.”
Paul Ryan
David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, offered a more accurate explanation of Trump’s motives. Speaking on The PBS Newshour, Brooks said:
“We are a nation of laws. Donald Trump lives in an entirely different cultural universe. He is more clannist, believing in clan, believing in family, believing in loyalty, not recognizing objective law, not recognizing the procedures that is really how modern government operates….
“It’s not only that he doesn’t know the rules, but at all along and throughout his presidency, he has sort of trampled on the rules almost as a matter of policy, as a matter of character, because he doesn’t believe in that kind of relationships. It’s all personal loyalty, not about laws and norms and standards.”
Republicans don’t care that Trump has trashed the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.
He has viciously attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense. Many of them have tried to short-circuit Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and prosecution of Trump’s inciting a deadly riot against Congress on January 6, 2021.
What Republicans truly fear about Donald Trump is that if they dare to hold him accountable for his lifetime of criminality, his Fascistic base will turn on them—and turn them out of Congress.
If Trump is convicted of multiple crimes, he will become a man no one any longer fears.
He will likely become the Republican nominee for President—and one almost guaranteed to lose in 2024 as he did in 2000.
He will become a figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
Like Adolf Hitler. Like Richard Nixon.
And his Congressional supporters will be branded as losers along with him.
Republicans vividly remember what happened after Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.
If they are conflicted—whether to continue supporting Trump or desert him—the reason is the same: How can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that go with it?
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 28, 2023 at 12:10 am
A tall, blond-haired former naval officer, Reinhard Heydrich was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.
Reinhard Heycrich
In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.
Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.
In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders in Wannsee, Germany, to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.
Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.
The Czech government-in-exile, headquartered in London, feared that Heydrich’s incentives might lead the Czechs to passively accept domination. They decided to assassinate Heydrich.
Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague.
On May 27, 1942, Kubis and Gabcik waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun—which jammed.
Rising in his seat, Heydrich aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.
Scene of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination
Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38.
The assassination sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Third Reich. No one had dared assault—much less assassinate—a high-ranking Nazi official.
Nazis had slaughtered tens of thousands without hesitation—or fear that the same might happen to them.
Suddenly they realized that the fury they had aroused could be turned against themselves.
Which brings us to the leaders of America’s own Right-wing.
The names of infamous Nazis were widely known:
- Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering;
- Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels;
- Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess;
- Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl;
- SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler;
- “Hanging Judge” Roland Freisler;
- Architect Albert Speer;
- Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop;
- SS Obergruoppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich; and
- The most infamous Nazi of all: Adolf Hitler.
Members of the Nazi government
And so are the names of the infamous leaders of the American Right:
- House Majority Leader Mike Johnson
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell;
- Texas Senator Ted Cruz;
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas;
- Evangelist Franklin Graham;
- Florida Senator Marco Rubio;
- Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito;
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis;
- Former President Donald Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leadership
The difference between these two infamous groups is this:
In Nazi Germany, ordinary Germans could not learn about the personal lives of their dictators—including their home addresses—and to conspire against them.
In the United States, ordinary citizens have an array of means to do this. They can turn to newspapers, TV and magazines. And if that isn’t enough, “people finder” websites, for a modest price, provide addresses and names of relatives of potential targets.
In Nazi Germany, firearms were tightly controlled.
In the United States, the Right’s National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied to put lethal firepower into the hands of virtually anyone who wants it.
Which brings us to the impending Republican shutdown of the Federal Government.
Behind this lies a civil war within the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.
The warring parties include Fascistic Right-wingers, moderates and those whom conservative columnist David Brooks says “simply want to burn the place down.”
A chief demand among Right-wingers: End all economic and military aid to Ukraine.
In the past, Republicans prided themselves on their staunch anti-Communism.
But since Russian President Vladimir Putin began making “campaign contributions” to Republican House and Senate candidates, Republicans have gone from being “Better Dead than Red” to “Better Red Than Un-Elected.”
Another Right-wing demand: Make drastic cuts in programs to help the poor—such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
A shutdown would halt paychecks for millions of federal employees. Among these:
- Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers;
- Two million active duty military troops and reservists;
- FBI agents, prosecutors and Border Patrol officers.
Other consequences:
- Over seven million dependents on the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program would lose their benefits.
- National parks, monuments and campgrounds would be closed.
Depriving millions of hard-working Americans of the salaries they need to support themselves and their families will arouse fury in even the most law-abiding men and women.
So will depriving millions of needy Americans of food and/or medical care.
This is especially true when a political party—such as the Nazis and Republicans—makes clear its intention to rule by force, rather than by public consent.
Reinhard Heydrich believed himself invulnerable from the hatred of the enemies he had made. That arrogance cost him his life.
The day may soon come when America’s own Right-wingers start learning the same lesson.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on July 24, 2023 at 12:10 am
The father of modern political science, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) is widely thought of as the personification of Satan.
Actually, Machiavelli was a passionate republican, who spent most of his life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
Florence, despite its wealth, lacked a strong army—and lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his masterwork, The Discourses, he warned that life is complex and no course of action is guaranteed safe or successful.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a man of simplistic “solutions” for simplistic audiences.
By early April, 2020, he refused to issue a national “stay-at-home” order to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. When states began issuing shutdown orders of their own, he railed against those orders and demanded that “we need to reopen the country.”
Donald Trump
What lay behind this demand were two hidden agendas. He wanted to:
- Quickly revitalize—and take credit for—a once-booming economy, even though this was largely created by President Barack Obama.
- Return to his Nuremberg-style rallies, where he could slander anyone he wanted while basking in the worship of thousands of his fanatical followers.
Which is why he clearly missed this warning Machiavelli offered in The Discourses:
“…I shall speak here only of those dangers to which those expose themselves who counsel a republic or a prince to undertake some grave and important enterprise in such a manner as to take upon themselves all the responsibility of the same.
“For as men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment….
“I see no other course than to take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.
“If either then the republic or the prince decides to follow it, they may do so, as it were, of their own will, and not as though they were drawn into it by your importunity.
“In adopting this course it is not reasonable to suppose that either the prince or republic will manifest any ill will towards you on account of a resolution not taken contrary to the wishes of the many.”
But, by May, more Americans were wary about “reopening the country” than about rushing to do so.
On the May 15, 2020 edition of The PBS Newshour, New York Times columnist David Brooks noted:
“If you look at actual behavior, people locked themselves down before any politician took a move. And even in those states where the politicians are opening up, people are still locking down….
“And so I think the key decisions right now are not being made in statehouses and certainly not the White House. They’re being made in living rooms, as people decide, is it safe? Can I go out?”
Coronavirus
By pushing his mantra—“America needs to reopen NOW!”—Trump was risking the lives of millions of Americans. But he was also risking the future of his Presidency.
If “reopening” the country proved disastrous, he had no back-up plan to offer.
Several states—such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—that re-opened saw swarms of people flooding into bars and restaurants. They didn’t wear masks or practice “social distancing.” Packed together like sardines, they offered themselves like a Right-wing sacrifice to Coronavirus.
The results were inevitable.
A new wave of COVID-19 erupted after America “reopened.” More employees were laid off—or refused to come to work for fear of Coronavirus.
The economy continued to tank.
As summer neared its end and millions of students faced returning to school, Trump offered his next “solution” to the Coronavirus pandemic: Send them back to school—-and not through virtual classes at home.
Trump wanted children to return to possibly COVID-19-infected classrooms.
And he wasn’t asking parents to send their children back to school. He was ordering them to.
On July 8, he tweeted that he might withhold federal funding from schools that did not resume in-person classes this fall.
Why was he so insistent on this?
Trump knew that before parents could return to work, their kids needed to return to class, He hoped that would boost the economy—for which he could take credit.
And that would boost his chances for re-election in November.
Just as the ancient Canaanites sacrificed their children to the god Moloch, so Trump expected his followers—and opponents—to risk their children’s lives for him.
A child sacrifice to Moloch
Ancient Canaanites offering their children as sacrifices to Moloch
And the sacrifices quickly started coming. On August 10, 2020, CBS News reported:
“Nearly 100,000 children tested positive for the Coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics finds. Just over 97,000 children tested positive for the Coronavirus from July 16 to July 30, according to the association.”
Those who still support Trump clearly value the lives of their children far less than putting a ruthless psychopath back into power.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 23, 2023 at 12:10 am
President Joseph Biden acts as if he must accept Republican extortion demands or watch the country’s economy collapse.
But there are legal remedies for punishing such criminal behavior. Biden needs only to direct the Justice Department to apply them.
- Biden can direct Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate whether actions by Republican Congressmen broke Federal anti-racketeering and/or anti-terrorism laws.
- Garland, in turn, can order the FBI to conduct that investigation.
- If the FBI finds sufficient evidence that these laws have been violated, Garland can convene criminal grand juries to indict those violators.
Merrick Garland
Criminally investigating and possibly indicting members of Congress would not violate the separation-of-powers principle. Congressmen have in the past been investigated, indicted and convicted for various criminal offenses.
Aside from their guilt for extortion, at least 147 Republican Congressional members tried to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election to illegally retain Donald Trump in the White House. They can easily be indicted and prosecuted for electoral fraud.
Making the job easier for prosecutors: Former President Donald Trump, still de facto boss of the Republican party, has openly stated his desire to see default happen.
At his infamous May 10 town hall interview with CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins, Trump urged Republicans to default on the United States national debt if President Biden won’t agree to budget cuts.
Donald Trump
TRUMP: I say to the Republicans out there—Congressmen, Senators—if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default. And I don’t believe they’re going to do a default because I think the Democrats will absolutely cave because you don’t want to have that happen.
But it’s better than what we’re doing right now because we’re spending money like drunken sailors. You know the expression?
COLLINS: You once said that using the—that using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge just could not happen. You—you said that when you were in the Oval Office.
TRUMP: Sure, that’s when I was President.
COLLINS: So why is it different now that you’re out of office?
TRUMP: Because now I’m not President.
In short: If I’m not President, the country can be destroyed for all I care.
Yet for all of Trump’s professed concern about the national deficit, on August 2, 2019, he signed into law a two-year budget deal that raised spending by $320 billion over existing spending caps set in a 2011 law.
The bill also boosted military and domestic spending, and lifted the debt ceiling, which is the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can have.
The bill threatened to push the budget deficit to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for only the second time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and add $1.7 trillion to the federal debt over a decade.
Besides ordering the Justice Department to indict extortionist Republicans, Biden could stand up to them in another way: By urging his fellow Americans to rally to him in a moment of supreme national danger.
President John F. Kennedy did just that—successfully—during the most dangerous crisis of his administration.
Addressing the Nation on October 22, 1962, Kennedy shocked his fellow citizens by revealing that the Soviet Union had installed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba.
John F. Kennedy
Kennedy outlined a series of steps he had taken to end the crisis—most notably, a blockade of Cuba. Then he sought to reassure and inspire his audience:
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.”
President Biden could send that same message to the extortionists of the Republican Party—but he has refused to do so.
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the newly-installed Speaker of the House of Representatives, has told CNN that Republicans would demand spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling. Those cuts would come at the expense of the poorest American citizens, as this has been the standard Republican practice.
Appearing on The PBS Newshour on January 17, Wendy Edelberg of the Hamilton Project, a liberal economic think tank, warned of potential disaster if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling:
“It’s playing a game with the U.S. economy and people’s lives that I think is irresponsible….I’m very confident that the White House and Democrats in Congress stand ready to negotiate on future tax and spending laws and changes to those laws.
“What I don’t understand is why those negotiations are linked to the debt ceiling. Maybe they’re both about borrowing, and so people have gotten confused. One is about backward-looking obligations based on previous laws, tax and spending laws that were enacted, and one is about future.”
There’s no mystery: By linking the debt ceiling to tax and spending negotiations, Republicans believe they can extort any concessions they want from President Biden.
But this doesn’t have to happen.
Biden can choose to invoke criminal law against criminal extortion. If he does so, he will save the Nation from financial extinction.
And he will send a message to future Right-wing extortionists: The lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage to gain leverage in a political settlement..
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 22, 2023 at 12:23 am
Once again, Republicans are ruthlessly playing “chicken” with the nation’s financial security.
During the Presidency of Barack Obama, Republicans threatened to plunge the country into defaulting on its loans to force sharp budget cuts to non-military spending.
Seven years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) praised the Republicans’ massive contribution to the national debt under President Donald Trump.
On August 2, 2019, Trump signed into law a two-year budget deal that raised spending by $320 billion over existing spending caps set in a 2011 law—and boosted military and domestic spending.
The bill also lifted the debt ceiling, which is the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can have.
The bill threatened to push the budget deficit to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for only the second time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and add $1.7 trillion to the federal debt over a decade.
By January, 2021, the national debt had risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. It amounted to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
But now, with Democrat Joseph Biden as President, Republicans have become “fiscal conservatives.”
Joseph Biden
And they are prepared to plunge the United States into financial ruin unless Democrats once again meet their extortion demands.
The debt ceiling is the legal limit for how much debt the United States can take on as a country. Once that limit is hit, the U.S. Treasury can no longer issue bonds to raise funds to pay for everything that the government does.
In a January 13th letter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned congressional leaders that the United States is expected to hit the debt limit by June 1—and urged them to raise the debt limit as soon as possible.
“Once the limit is reached, the Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations.”
Janet Yellen
Congress last raised the debt ceiling in December 2021 to more than $31.3 trillion. At the time, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.
But the 2022 mid-term elections gave Republicans control of the House. And Republicans are threatening the nation with defaulting on its loans now that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is its new Speaker.
New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks described these Republicans on the January 6, 2023 edition of The PBS Newshour: “These are nihilists. They came here, and they’re quite open about that, especially with their friends, and they say, we just want to burn the place down.
“And so they just want to be negative, be oppositional, and then go on TV and say everyone else has screwed up. And so this is a form of nihilism that is in the Republican Party.”
Congressional Republicans have:
- Rejected a new White House offer to essentially freeze domestic spending at FY2023 levels;
- Demanded work requirements for SNAP recipients that are more rigid than those they originally proposed;
- Demanded that new immigration provisions be added to the GOP’s recently passed border bill (which Republicans didn’t include in their own debt ceiling bill).
If default occurrs, the results will be disastrous. Payments for some or many federal expenditures could go unpaid for part or all of the impasse. Affected payments and programs would include:
- Interest on the national debt
- Social Security
- FBI
- Medicare
- Income tax refunds
- Veterans’ benefits
- Defense
- Food safety inspections
- Border security
- Air traffic control
- Medicaid
- The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Yet President Joe Biden can end that threat via the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Passed by Congress in 1970, as Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968, its goal was to destroy the Mafia.
Originally, RICO was aimed at the Mafia and other organized crime syndicates. But in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981), the Supreme Court held that RICO applied as well to legitimate enterprises being operated in a criminal manner.
After Turkette, RICO could also be used against corporations, political protest groups, labor unions and loosely knit-groups of people.
United States Department of Justice
RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys. Among those crimes: Extortion.
Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”
The RICO Act defines “a pattern of racketeering activity” as “at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years…after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.”
And if President Biden believes that RICO isn’t sufficient to deal with Republicans’ extortion attempts, he can rely on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of 9/11. In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism. Among the behavior that is defined as criminal:
“Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior are now legally in place. President Biden needs only to direct the Justice Department to apply them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on April 27, 2023 at 12:10 am
Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”
And the vast majority of the white votes Trump got were in the South.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.
Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
And for macho, largely uneducated, anti-black Southern males, the idea of a woman dictating to men was simply too much to bear.
The third map of Southern infamy: The election of Donald Trump
When Trump declared his candidacy:
- The country was essentially at peace.
- Thanks to government loans from President Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
- Employment was up.
- Unlike the administration of Ronald Reagan, there had been no corruption scandals during the Obama Presidency.
- Unlike the administration of George W. Bush, there not been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—like 9/11.
Above all, the news was filled with reputable reports—later confirmed—that Trump’s campaign was backed by Russian oligarchs linked to Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB and now President of Russia.
In short: Southerners-–who had long portrayed themselves as America’s most dedicated patriots—flocked to the banner of a man who publicly called on “Russia” to interfere in an American Presidential election.
Red States voted for Donald Trump – 2016
BobWyatt07, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The fourth map of Southern infamy: COVID-19
Donald Trump’s four-year Presidency produced a legacy of unprecedented racism, criminality, abuse of power and treason.
But the crime for which he will be longest-remembered—and which finally brought him down—was his unwillingness to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 catastrophe slammed into the United States in January, 2020. It was the inevitable result of a natural disaster colliding with an evil and incompetent administration.
Trump’s “cures” for COVID-19 included denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, demands to “re-open the country,” Ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”).
Early on, Trump made the virus a referendum on himself. If you supported him, you didn’t wear a mask in public. Even though, throughout 2020, no vaccine was available and hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed by debilitated and dying casualties of the virus.
“I think, once Donald Trump and other Republicans made it a manhood issue, or a freedom issue, or whatever kind of issue they made it, it’s hard to walk back that culture war signal,” said conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks on the PBS Newshour on July 23, 2021.
Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart echoed him: “I think, if we had had a president of the United States who took this seriously when this first came on the scene, if we had a Republican party that took this seriously enough to warn everyone, their constituents saying, wash your hands, then put on a mask, then go get the vaccine, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”
Jonathan Capehart
But neither Trump nor the Republican party urged Americans to “wash your hands, put on a mask, then go get the vaccine.”
By March, 2021, three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—became available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines had been given. And 30.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the virus.
But after a triumphant beginning, the pace of vaccinations slowed, then halted. By late July, 2021, only 49.6% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 vaccination map – July 21, 2021
George Karabassis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Many of those who had gotten one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines refused to get the necessary second one. These must be given almost a month apart.
(The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one shot.)
What had happened?
“The people I know personally who are not getting the vaccine, for them, it was like, ‘They rushed this thing,'” theorized David Brooks. “‘Who knows what’s going to happen to all these people who get the shots in 10 years or 20 years?’ So, why should I take the risk?’
“And that’s not completely crazy, but it’s not—it’s based on some sense of general distrust for the establishment, including the medical establishment. And that establishment—that distrust is the core of this thing.”
David Brooks
And leading the way to this catastrophe of self-destruction were the states of the South and Midwest: Mississippi (47.1%,), Alabama (50.5%), Arkansas (53.2%), and Tennessee (52.9%) with the lowest rates of residents who have gotten at least one shot.
By late July, 2021, three states—Florida, Texas and Missouri-–with lower vaccination rates accounted for 40 percent of all cases nationwide.
And colliding head-on with the refusals of millions to get vaccinated was the newer—and deadlier—Delta variant of COVID-19.
Just as the South unleashed the Civil War on America, it had ignited a new wave of COVID-19 on America.
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PREVENTING THE NEXT REPUBLICAN SHUTDOWN: PART FOUR (OF FIVE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 5, 2023 at 12:10 amOne reason why a handful of House Republicans threatened to shut down the Federal Government by October 1: Calling themselves “budget deficit hawks,” they demanded huge cuts in non-military spending.
Among the programs these cuts would have devastated: Food safety, education, law enforcement, housing, public health, Head Start and child care, Meals on Wheels.
Their attitude toward budget deficits had been vastly different while Donald Trump was President.
On August 2, 2019, Trump signed into law a two-year budget deal that raised spending by $320 billion over existing spending caps set in a 2011 law—and boosted military and domestic spending.
The bill also lifted the debt ceiling, which is the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can have.
The bill threatened to push the budget deficit to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for only the second time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and add $1.7 trillion to the federal debt over a decade.
Donald Trump
By January, 2021, the national debt had risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s four years in office. It amounted to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) praised the Republicans’ massive contribution to the national debt.
Now, with a Democratic President in office, Republicans—invoking the my-way-or-else “negotiating” strategy of Adolf Hitler—were threatening to plunge the United States into financial ruin unless their extortion demands were met.
The casualties of a government shutdown would include:
Here’s what Republicans demanded in return for not shutting down the government:
By a last-minute compromise between House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Democrats, this latest Republican extortion attempt was averted.
But current funding will expire on November 17. And then the country will face yet another date with financial disaster.
Fortunately, there are several ways to permanently address these exercises in political criminality.
REMEDY 1: LEGALLY REQUIRE CONGRESS TO STAY IN SESSION UNTIL A BUDGET COMPROMISE IS REACHED.
The federal government’s fiscal year ends every September 30. Before this deadline, Congress must write and pass the budget for the next fiscal year. If a budget agreement is not reached in time, funding for federal agencies lapse and the government shuts down.
Yet with the shutdown deadline looming, on July 29, the House and Senate broke for their annual August recess. The Senate remained in recess until September 5; the House remained in recess until September 12.
Congress had to enact all 12 appropriations bills or pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the federal government funded and avoid a shutdown on October 1.
NEEDED: A law requiring Congress to remain in session until a budget compromise is reached. Any Congressional member who leaves before this occurs would be immediately discharged and never allowed to return.
PROBLEM: This would require Congressional members to impose restrictions on themselves—which they are unwilling to do.
REMEDY 2: THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SHOULD INDICT FOR EXTORTION THOSE HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT HOSTAGE.
President Joseph Biden could order the Justice Department to invoke the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Passed by Congress in 1970, as Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968, its goal was to destroy the Mafia. But in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981), the Supreme Court held that RICO applied as well to legitimate enterprises being operated in a criminal manner.
After Turkette, RICO could also be used against corporations, political protest groups, labor unions and loosely knit-groups of people.
RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys.
These activities include a Republican favorite: Extortion.
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