Posts Tagged ‘DEMOCRATS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2024 at 12:10 am
On March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, speaking at the University of Kansas, called on his fellow citizens to show compassion for those less fortunate and in need of relief through the Federal Government.
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
Finally, Kennedy did something almost no other politician—in his time or since—has ever done: He dared to attack that holy-of-holies, the Gross Domestic Product (then called the Gross National Product).
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product….counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
“It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.
“It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans….
Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
“George Bernard Shaw once wrote, ‘Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?’
“So I come here to Kansas to ask for your help. In the difficult five months ahead, before the convention in Chicago. I ask for your help and for your assistance.
“If you believe that the United States can do better. If you believe that we should change our course of action. If you believe that the United States stands for something here internally as well as elsewhere around the globe, I ask for your help and your assistance and your hand over the period of the next five months.
“And when we win in November….and we begin a new period of time for the United States of America, I want the next generation of Americans to look back upon this period and say as they said of Plato: ‘Joy was in those days, but to live.’ Thank you very much.”
At the end of Kennedy’s wildly popular speech at Kansas State University, photographer Stanley Tretick, of Look magazine, shouted, “This is Kansas, fucking Kansas! He’s going all the fucking way!”
But he didn’t go all the way. On June 5, 1968—82 days after announcing his Presidential candidacy—an assassin’s bullet suddenly halted his short-lived campaign—and his life.
Robert Kennedy’s funeral train
Historian William L. O’Neil delivered a poignant summary of Robert Kennedy’s legacy in his 1971 book, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and through error and tragic accident, failed at…..He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That, too, must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death, something precious vanished from public life.”
As United States Attorney General (1961-1964) Robert F. Kennedy had the courage to wage all-out war on the Mafia. As a United States Senator (1964-1968) he had the compassion to champion aid to impoverished Americans.
Even in his own era—a half-century ago—Robert Kennedy stood out as the only major Presidential candidate who could legitimately make both claims.
Today, most Democrats—battered by decades of Republican charges that they’re “big spenders”—fear supporting big-ticket items to help the poor.
And the Black Lives Matter movement has made any connection to law enforcement a disqualification for higher office—as former California Attorney General Kamala Harris found out as a 2020 Presidential candidate.
America may never again see a Presidential candidate who can combine a strong stand against crime with an equally strong commitment to helping the poor and disadvantaged.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 4, 2024 at 12:10 am
On March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy did what few politicians have ever done: He accepted public responsibility for a war that had since become a national disaster—the Vietnam war.
Addressing a packed audience of students and faculty at Kansas State University, he said:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported—governments, one after another, riddled with corruption, inefficiency, and greed; governments which did not and could not successfully capture and energize the national feeling of their people.
“If that is the case, as it well may be, then I am willing to bear my share of the responsibility, before history and before my fellow citizens. But past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
“Now as ever, we do ourselves best justice when we measure ourselves against ancient tests, as in the Antigone of Sophocles: ‘All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride.’
Sophocles
And he dared to attack the war as more than a military and political disaster: He saw it as a stain on America’s moral fiber:
“Can we ordain to ourselves the awful majesty of God—to decide what cities and villages are to be destroyed, who will live and who will die, and who will join the refugees wandering in a desert of our own creation?
“If it is true that we have a commitment to the South Vietnamese people, we must ask, are they being consulted—in Hue, or Ben Tre, or in the villages from which the three million refugees have fled?
“If they believe all the death and destruction are a lesser evil than the Wet Cong, why did they not warn us when the Viet Cong came into Hue, and the dozens of other cities, before the Tet Offensive? Why did they not join the fight?
“Will it be said of us, as Tacitus said of Rome: ‘They made a desert and called it peace?'”
Robert F. Kennedy
The students gave him an ovation worthy of a rock star.
Time correspondent Hays Gorey said the electricity between Kennedy and the K.S.U. students was “real and rare.” “A good part of it is John F. Kennedy’s, of course, but John Kennedy…himself couldn’t be so passionate, and couldn’t set off such sparks.”
Jim Slattery, who would later be elected to Congress from Kansas, reread the K.S.U. speech during the second Iraq war and decided it was so powerful “because Kennedy was talking about what was right!”
As Kennedy started to leave, students rushed the platform where he stood, knocking over chairs and grabbing at him. They stroked his hair and ripped his shirtsleeves.
Later that day, Kennedy addressed another wildly enthusiastic audience—at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas.
Then he addressed the glaring disparities between rich and poor Americans—a topic now generally ignored by Democrats and turned into an attack line by Republicans:
“All around us, all around us….men have lost confidence in themselves, in each other. It is confidence which has sustained us so much in the past. Rather than answer the cries of deprivation and despair….hundreds of communities and millions of citizens are looking for their answers, to force and repression and private gun stocks— so that we confront our fellow citizen across impossible barriers of hostility and mistrust.
Robert F. Kennedy talking with black children
“And again, I don’t believe that we have to accept that. I don’t believe that it’s necessary in the United States of America. I think that we can work together. I don’t think that we have to shoot at each other, to beat each other, to curse each other and criticize each other, I think that we can do better in this country. And that is why I run for President of the United States….
“I have seen children in Mississippi starving, their bodies so crippled from hunger and their minds have been so destroyed for their whole life that they will have no future. I have seen children in Mississippi—here in the United States—with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars.
“I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation, and we haven’t developed a policy so we can get enough food so that they can live, so that their children, so that their lives are not destroyed, I don’t think that’s acceptable in the United States of America and I think we need a change.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 3, 2024 at 12:43 am
He remains forever frozen in time—young, vigorous, with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice calling on Americans to do better for those less fortunate.
And he exuded an idealism which seems totally out of place with today’s “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” politics.
It’s been 56 years since his life was brutally cut short—yet he remains forever the age at which he died: 42. Born in 1925, he would turn 99 on November 20 if he were alive today.
On March 16, 1968, from the Caucus Room of the Old Senate Office building, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy declared his candidacy for President of the United States.
Eight years earlier, on January 2, 1960, his brother, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy had announced his own candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination from the same place.
Ten months later, on November 8, that campaign had ended in victory with his election. And that victory, in turn, ended in bitter sorrow with his assassination two years, 10 months and two days later on November 22, 1963.
Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign would not last as long as his late brother’s. Nor would it end in the victory he and his supporters yearned for.
Robert F. Kennedy
Eighty-two days later, he was dead—shot in the back of the head by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab furious at Kennedy’s avowed support for Israel.
For Kennedy, making up his mind to run for the Presidency was no easy task.
Since the assassination of his brother, millions of Americans had assumed—as his admirers or detractors—that he would one day become President.
For his admirers, there was an element of “the once and future king” about this young, intense man with tousled hair and a high-pitched voice. He—they believed—was the man who would somehow avenge his martyred brother by restoring “Camelot” and returning youth, energy and idealism to the White House.
A playwright—Barbara Garson—had even written a 1967 satire depicting then-President Lyndon B. Johnson as the MacBeth-like murderer of John Ken O-Dunc. In the end, he was confronted and killed by Robert Ken O’Dunc.
His detractors saw him as a ruthless upstart who wanted to foist too-liberal policies on the United States. They distrusted his sympathy for the downtrodden—especially blacks and Hispanics. Worse, they saw the Kennedy family as trying to found a dynasty of Presidents that could last until the mid-1980s.
But the real Robert Kennedy was long torn between running against Johnson—whom he had long personally loathed—and letting someone else do so.
Kennedy’s hatred of Johnson—and his irrational belief that LBJ was somehow responsible for his brother’s death—was well-known. And Kennedy feared that if he ran against Johnson, his many enemies would charge he was doing so out of personal animosity.
And there was another reason: Johnson, who had won the Presidency in a landslide in 1964, was certain to seek re-election in 1968. If Kennedy challenged him for the nomination, it might well split the party and result in the election of a Republican that November. And he—Kennedy—would be blamed for it.
Throughout 1966-7, Kennedy was urged to run against Johnson. Still, he dithered.
Then, on March 12, Minnesota United States Senator Eugene McCarthy entered the New Hampshire Democratic primary against Johnson—and won a surprising 42.2% of the vote to Johnson’s 49.4%.
Four days later, Robert Kennedy announced his own candidacy.
McCarthy’s supporters were outraged: Their candidate had dared to do what Kennedy had not—directly take on Johnson. And now that he had shown it could be done, the opportunistic Kennedy had jumped in.
On March 18—two days after announcing his candidacy—Kennedy gave his first campaign speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. This was the heart of conservative country, and Kennedy didn’t know how his audience would accept many of his decidedly liberal proposals.
“Do you think they’ll boo him?” his wife, Ethel, asked a friend before the speech. “Will they hate him?”
Arriving at the university, Kennedy ate breakfast at the student union—and told a group of university officials and student leaders: “Some of you may not like what you’re going to hear in a few minutes, but it’s what I believe; and if I’m elected President, it’s what I’m going to do.”
Kansas State University
As events unfolded, he—and Ethel—had no reason to worry.
Kennedy had served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. Yet he had not limited himself to simply fighting organized crime and enforcing civil rights. He had aggressively urged his brother, the President, to take a hard line on fighting the Communist forces in Vietnam.
But now he did something almost no other politician had—or has—ever done: He publicly accepted responsibly for the disaster the war had become since 1965:
“Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions that helped set us on our present path.
“It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of the successive governments we supported.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 28, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is a secular, political organization that leads the Republican party of the United States.
But on February 4, 2022, it acted as the reincarnation of the Spanish Inquisition—a judicial institution which attacked heresy in Spain from 1478 to 1834.
Under its reign of terror, countless “heretical” men and women found themselves sentenced by kangaroo courts to hideous torture and death.
Seal of the Spanish Inquisition
User:Di (they-them), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On February 4, 2022, the RNC’s chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, “cast out” two fellow Republicans: Representtives Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Ronna Romney McDaniel
Part One of this series analyzed the first major paragraph of this censure. Part Two will analyze the remaining six.
“WHEREAS, Winning back the majority in Congress, including the United States House of Representatives, in 2022 must be the primary goal of the House Republican Conference (“Conference”) and requires all Republicans working together to accomplish the same….”
- Here, at least, the RNC and its chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, offered the truth: Gaining absolute power over the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government is this party’s “primary goal.”
- Punishing those who engage in treasonous attacks on Constitutional government is not a priority—so long as the perpetrators are Fascistic Right-wingers.
“WHEREAS, The Conference must not be sabotaged by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who have demonstrated, with actions and words, that they support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022….
DESTROYING PRESIDENT TRUMP:
- It was Trump who tried to destroy Constitutional government by stripping every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. Had he succeeded, there would have been:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for remaining in office in 2020—and thereafter—as “President-for-Life.”
WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger have engaged in actions in their positions as members of the January 6th Select Committee not befitting Republican of Congress, which include the Committee’s disregard for minority rights, traditional checks and balances, due process, and adherence to other precedent and rules of the U.S. House and which seem intent on advancing a political agenda to buoy the Democrat bleak prospects in the upcoming midterm elections….”
WINNING BACK A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN 2022:
- This, for the RNC, takes precedence over investigating a treasonous plot to overthrow democratic government and establish a one-party (Republican) state, presided over by a lifetime criminal and proven traitor.
Liz Cheney
Adam Kinzinger
“WHEREAS, Congressional Republicans bear ultimate responsibility for their own success or failure and the RNC supports their efforts by denouncing those who deliberately jeopardize victory in November on which the future of our constitutional republic depends at this critical moment in history….”
DELIBERATELY JEOPARDIZING VICTORY:
- Once again, the RNC admits that gaining absolute power for itself takes precedence over investigating and punishing those who sought to overthrow American democracy.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger purport to be members of the Republican Party….”
“PURPORT” TO BE REPUBLICANS:
- Liz Cheney had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Wyoming since 2017. She voted in line with Trump’s policies 93% of the time, according to the data journalism site Five Thirty-Eight.
- Heritage Action, a Right-wing policy advocacy organization, gave her a “lifetime score” of 80%.
- Adam Kinzinger had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois since 2011.
- According to Five Thirty-Eight, he voted in support of Trump’s agenda 90% of the time,
- Thus, the “crime” committed by Cheney and Kinzinger was to investigate the treasonous attempted coup by a lifelong criminal and would-be tyrant.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it
“RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee hereby formally censures Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.”
* * * * * * * * *
The RNC’s action was one worthy of the Spanish Inquisition.
And it serves as a warning to democracy-loving Americans of the fate awaiting them if Republicans’ revenge fantasies become reality.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 27, 2024 at 12:10 am
On February 4, 2022, the Republican National Committee (RNC) officially endorsed the use of violence on behalf of the party.
It described the January 6, 2021 attack on the nation’s Capitol—a violent and treasonous attempt to prevent the orderly and legal transition of power from one President to another—as “legitimate political discourse.”
This is no private opinion of a single Republican—or even a fringe group of Republicans.
The RNC is described on Wikipedia as:
“A U.S. political committee that leads the Republican party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising, election strategy, and a ‘party brand.’ It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Convention.”
The endorsement came during an official censure of two of the Committee’s fellow Republicans—Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Predictably, the statement opened with a series of grotesque lies:
“WHEREAS, The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism; eliminate border security in favor of lawless, open borders; create record inflation designed to steal the American dream from our children and grandchildren; neuter our national defense and a peace through strength foreign policy; replace President ‘Operation Warp Speed’ with incompetence and illegal mandates; and destroy America’s economy with the Green New Deal….”
To address these lies:
REPLACING LIBERTY WITH SOCIALISM:
- It was Donald Trump—not Joseph Biden—who said that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”
- It was Trump—not Biden—who attacked American Intelligence agencies for their unanimous conclusion that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 Presidential election.
- It was Trump—not Biden—who never once attacked nor even criticized Putin, although he has viciously attacked literally hundreds of others, verbally and on Twitter.
Donald Trump
ELIMINATING BORDER SECURITY:
- Attacking Hispanics—both those who are United States citizens and those who wish to become citizens—is a potent weapon for Republicans. It’s the single most galvanizing issue for their base, and the one guaranteed to win and retain Right-wing votes.
- The Biden administration—like every previous administration—is trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens on the southern border. But it’s a never-ending struggle marked by legal and logistical complications.
CREATE RECORD INFLATION:
- Biden—like every other President—has few weapons to use in controlling inflation. Much of this has been caused by COVID-19 and the resulting slowdowns and/or shutdowns in employment it has produced.
- As a capitalist nation, the United States does not often intervene in what is euphemistically called “the free enterprise system”—even though much of that is dominated by predatory corporations.
- Biden could propose legislation making price-gouging a Federal crime, punishable by a lengthy prison term. But this—modeled on the anti-extortion provisions in the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—would never gain Republican Congressional support.
NEUTER OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE:
- It was Trump—not Biden—who tried to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
- Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the Congressionally authorized $400 million in military aid.
- It was Trump who repeatedly defended Vladimir Putin while attacking America’s longstanding allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
REPLACE “OPERATION WARP SPEED” WITH INCOMPETENCE, ILLEGAL MANDATES:
- Trump learned how deadly the virus was in January, 2020. But he publicly denied this and attacked mask-wearing and social distancing.
- He attacked governors who issued stay-at-home orders to contain the virus—and incited his followers to defy those orders.
- He secretly got vaccinated before leaving office and only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of vaccinations.
- His legacy of defying science continues to live on in his millions of Stormtrumper followers—who refuse to mask up, social distance and, most importantly, get vaccinated. The vast majority of those now flooding hospital ER and ICU rooms—and graveyards—are unvaccinated.
- Biden instead launched a nationwide campaign to persuade Americans to wear masks, socially distance and, above all, get vaccinated.
DESTROY AMERICA’S ECONOMY WITH A GREEN NEW DEAL:
- Despite Right-wing lies to the contrary, global warming is an established fact.
- If there is to be any chance of halting—let alone reversing—the planet-threatening dangers this brings, it must come through the elimination of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
- But corporate CEOs—such as West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin—have a vested financial interest in continuing the sale of fossil fuels.
- And they have the backing of corrupt Right-wing politicians and millions of their voters who refuse to accept science.
1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, AILEEN CANNON, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARI FLEISCHER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ECONOMY, FBI, FEAR, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, GREED, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HATRED, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMAN NATURE, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JACK SIMITH, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOHN GOTTI, JONATHAN CAPEHART, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LEE ATWATER, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOUTHERN STRATEGY, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WILLIAM BRANGHAM, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2024 at 12:10 am
There are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”
Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.
Example 1: Republicans are now organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.
Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor is the Biden Justice Department indicting those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
More than three years have passed, and not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason has been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would by now be far more advanced than it is. Republicans who are raising funds for re-election campaigns would instead be raising them to pay huge legal bills.
They would have far less time to focus on plotting to overthrow democracy in November. Instead, their attention would be increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.
Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration has tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.
Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.
A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
There can be no doubt that if Trump wins re-election in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.
Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
And Smith has allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial.
Meanwhile, Trump has won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol, guaranteeing he will not be prosecuted for this crime before the 2024 election—if ever.
To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.
To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau has applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.
For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.
America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The United States cannot afford to make that same fatal mistake.
1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, AILEEN CANNON, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARI FLEISCHER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ECONOMY, FBI, FEAR, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, GREED, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HATRED, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMAN NATURE, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JACK SMITH, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JONATHAN CAPEHART, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, JUOHN GOTTI, LEE ATWATER, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOUTHERN STRATEGY, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WILLIAM BRANGHAM, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2024 at 12:28 am
There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.
Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.
Reason #3: Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny.
This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.
When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”
In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
Lee Atwater
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….
“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
Reason #4: Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.
There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Reason #5: Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.
That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.
Reason #6: Republicans know that if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they feel even less comfortable with foreigners who don’t.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance falls on deaf ears. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.
For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.
“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”
Democrats believe that voters are creatures of rationality.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that what counts with most voters is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, AILEEN CANNON, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARI FLEISCHER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ECONOMY, FBI, FEAR, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, GREED, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HATRED, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMAN NATURE, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JACK SMITH, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JONATHAN CAPEHART, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, JUOHN GOTTI, LEE ATWATER, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOUTHERN STRATEGY, SOVIET UNION, SUSAN PAGE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEIMAR REPUBLIC, WILLIAM BRANGHAM, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2024 at 12:11 am
If you’re wondering what’s going to happen during the Presidential election of 2024—you can stop wondering.
The Democrats are going to lose the Senate while Republicans retain the House on November 5. The Democrats are also going to lose the White House.
Why?
Reason #1: Because Republicans understand the darker sides of human nature far better than Democrats—and don’t hesitate to take full advantage of them.
Democrats believe that people want to become altruistically better than they are. They don’t.
Reason #2: Republicans realize that most people like themselves as they are—and don’t want to change. At least, not in the altruistic ways Democrats envision.
If they want to change anything about themselves, it’s strictly at the materialistic level: More money, lower prices, more big-ticket toys.
They may claim concern for others, but if given a choice between their pocketbook and a higher goal, most will vote for their pocketbook.
A first-rate example of this appeared on The PBS Newshour on July 15, 2022, during an exchange between conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for the Washington Post.
David Brooks (left) and Jonathan Capehart (right) on the PBS Newshour
Host William Brangham led off the exchange:
“I want to switch, Jonathan, to this issue of the continued fallout of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. And Democrats seem to believe that this could be one of the things that might give them at least some trace of a fighting chance in the midterms.
“And we saw we this week this sort of horrendous case of a young 10-year-old girl who had been raped. She got pregnant. She then had to leave her state [Ohio] and go to another state [Indiana] where abortion would still be allowed.
“And GOP officials tried to make hay of it. They doubted that that story really existed. The local [Attorney General] said, we’re going to go after the doctor that performed this.
“Do you think that—that issue and the extremity of the way that this is being handled will actually benefit Democrats?”
Capehart: “It should. The idea that we’re talking about violence against a child, and then being forced by the state to give birth to this child, going to another state so she can terminate that pregnancy, and then being persecuted and prosecuted by the state for doing that….
“We are in “Handmaid’s Tale” territory here. We are turning into Gilead. And if there are people out there who are upset by the Supreme Court decision, by what Republican legislators around the country in states and localities are doing to further restrictions and bans on abortion.
“I don’t know what else could push people to the polls more than not just being stripped of a constitutional right, but having your right to — right to freedom, right to privacy, right to liberty not just taken away, but local officials doing everything they can to ensure that you don’t have autonomy over your own body.
“If that doesn’t get people out to the polls, I don’t know what will.”
Brangham then turned to Brooks:
“I mean, David, this was an incredibly extreme case, in some ways crystallized the sharpness and the horribleness of this division in this country.
“Do you think it will redound to the Democrats’ benefit?”
Brooks: “A little, but, frankly, not much.
“Now, abortion rights defenders, they should pursue their cause with the passion that they’re bringing to it….
“But there’s just a giant gap between what a lot of Democrats want to talk about and what the whole rest of the country wants to talk about. And if you ask people, what’s the most important issues, progressives want to talk about abortion and guns.
“The entire rest of the country, independents, conservatives, unaffiliated people, they want talk about the economy. And, for them, the economy is way up here. Jobs are number one. Inflation is number two.
“And so why is Joe Biden at 33 percent approval in the latest Times poll? It’s the economy. Why in the same poll do half of Hispanics support the Republicans now? The economy. These are earthquake numbers for Democrats…..
“But if Democrats, if they’re not talking about economic policy every day, then they’re just not talking about the policy that is clearly ranking number one with a vast majority of voters.”
No Republican has appealed more directly to greed as a motivator than Donald Trump.
On August 23, 2018, Trump, as President, offered additional evidence that he’s “not like other people.” He did so by giving an unprecedented reason why he shouldn’t be impeached: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubtless spoke for millions of Trump supporters when she said, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 17, 2024 at 12:09 am
“I’ve chosen this life. I know what it is. There are things about it that sometimes are disturbing. But you just focus on the job you have to do. And just put all that other stuff aside.”
The speaker wasn’t a longtime Mafia enforcer turned-State’s-witness. He was Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
And he was speaking with an NBC News reporter about death threats he had received.
At 83, Fauci is getting the sort of protection reserved for organized crime witnesses through the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program.
Dr. Anthony Fauci
Cmichel67, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2020, the U.S. Marshals Service deputized nine officers from the Department of Health and Human Services as bodyguards for Fauci.
And since leaving government service as Chief Medical Advisor to the President in 2022, he’s still receiving protection from the U.S. Marshals Service.
For which Fox News is furious.
A July 17, 2023 story on its website blared: “Fauci still Getting U.S. Marshal security detail on taxpayers’ dime, despite retirement, documents snow.”
So what has this man—who has dedicated his entire adult life to protecting Americans against infectious diseases—done to require such protection?
He has merely spoken the hard medical truth about Coronavirus. In doing so, he has at times contradicted former President Donald Trump’s ignorance- and lie-riddled statements.
For example: Trump loudly touted hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for the Coronavirus.
Yet Fauci dared to point out there have been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Moreover, given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal.
Such statements have infuriated Trump’s base of—at best—half-educated fans.
During the 2016 Presidential race, after winning the Nevada primary, Trump infamously celebrated his victory: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
A February 24, 2016 USA Today story covering this event carried the headline: “Donald Trump loves the poorly educated—and they love him.”
An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “67% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents say higher education is having a positive effect on the country compared to only 33% of Republicans and Republican-leaning participants.”
Furthermore, “The percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017). Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”
In March, 2020, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
These are the same people who get their version of reality from Right-wing sources like Fox News Network and Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On his March 27, 2020 show, Limbaugh dismissed Coronavirus as “the common cold,” then added: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.
“And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC and they’re at the NIH, and they’re up, well—yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there.”
This is the same Rush Limbaugh who said, in 2015: “Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does. Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.”
In February, 2020, Limbaugh—a longtime and heavy cigar smoker—announced that he had Stage Four lung cancer. He died on February 17, 2021.
And then there is former President Trump—and his chorus of cheerleaders.
Among these: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). At a House subcommittee hearing about the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Greene screeched: “You know what this committee should be doing? We should be recommending you to be prosecuted.
“We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci!”
Later, on X, she posted: “No one should get death threats and I get them ALL THE TIME.
“But lucky for Mr Fauci, he has Secret Service Protection at the tax payers expense. I DO NOT, and have to pay for my own security and am a gun owner.
“It’s not my comments that have people furious at Mr Fauci, it’s the FACT that his ridiculous, non-scientific, tyrannical policies DESTROYED people’s lives and he’s a narcissistic ass hole and liar which is why SO MANY people hate him.”
These, then, are the types of “reliable sources” that millions of Right-wingers take as gospel—while dismissing the warnings of the medical profession as erroneous or, worse, products of a liberal conspiracy.
And by daring to contradict such blatant ignorance—if not outright lies—Dr. Anthony Fauci has made himself a target for Right-wing hatred and death threats.
By the time Trump left office—on January 20, 2021—more than 400,000 Americans had died of COVID-19.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2024 at 12:16 am
Commentators have long speculated on why millions of Americans remain fanatically committed to Donald Trump.
There has been far less speculation on why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason.
Among those guilty:
- The Justice Department did not indict Trump for the series of threats he made—directly and indirectly—against Republicans and Democrats throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign.
- The United States Secret Service did not charge him with threatening the life of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. On July 27, 2016. Trump publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Vladimir Putin—to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
There are at least two reasons why Trump has been allowed to insult and even threaten prosecutors and judges without facing the punishment an ordinary citizen would:
Cowardice: They fear Trump will slander them by claiming he’s the victim of a “witch hunt” to remove him from the 2024 Presidential race.
And/or they fear physical attack from his legions of fanatical followers.
Awe of the Presidency: They fear their careers will be tainted by prosecuting or judging a man who won the votes of 70 million Americans.
There are, however, remedies for both cowardice and awe:
Cowardice: Prosecutors and judges should expect threats and slanders from Trump. This is how he has traditionally responded to attempts to hold him legally accountable.
If judges and prosecutors fear violence from Trump’s fanatical followers, they can easily obtain round-the-clock protection by local and/or federal law enforcement agencies.
Awe: Trump is no longer President. He no longer commands Presidential immunity nor the powers of that office—such as being able to cite “executive privilege” to prevent the release of documents or testimony.
His refusals to accept this reality should be bluntly ignored.
More importantly, as President, he:
- Took no action to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 virus;
- Constantly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the United States;
- Attacked the independent judiciary and free press;
- Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen;
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump and turn the agency into Trump’s private police force;
- Used his position as President to further enrich himself in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution;
- Attacked and alienated America’s oldest democratic allies, such as Canada and Great Britain;
- Refused to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election; and
- Incited a deadly attack on Congress so he could illegally remain in office.
Those are only some of the despicable actions he took while in office.
The Presidency has long held most Americans in awe. This is largely because the man (and it’s always been a man) who holds it is elected by all Americans, and not just those of a particular city or state.
And he alone has control of America’s enormous military—the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—as well as a nuclear arsenal that can literally destroy all life on Earth.
Americans have long assumed that a victorious Presidential candidate has been blessed by God, and thus automatically commands a respect—if not reverence—denied to ordinary mortals.
But respect must be earned. And anyone guilty of even a small number of the crimes committed by Donald Trump long ago forfeited any right to such regard.
Once a President leaves office, he should be treated as any other American citizen—and held to the same standards as an ordinary citizen.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and father of modern political science, has eloquently warned of the dangers of ignoring this truth:
…No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits. But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits. And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin.
For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.
Putting an end to “all power of the law” and setting himself up as “The Law” is precisely what Donald Trump tried to do after losing the 2020 Presidential election—and is still trying to do.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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YOUTH, COURAGE AND IDEALISM–NOW SORELY NEEDED IN A PRESIDENT: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2024 at 12:10 amOn March 18, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, speaking at the University of Kansas, called on his fellow citizens to show compassion for those less fortunate and in need of relief through the Federal Government.
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
Finally, Kennedy did something almost no other politician—in his time or since—has ever done: He dared to attack that holy-of-holies, the Gross Domestic Product (then called the Gross National Product).
“If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product….counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
“It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.
“It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans….
Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
“George Bernard Shaw once wrote, ‘Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?’
“So I come here to Kansas to ask for your help. In the difficult five months ahead, before the convention in Chicago. I ask for your help and for your assistance.
“If you believe that the United States can do better. If you believe that we should change our course of action. If you believe that the United States stands for something here internally as well as elsewhere around the globe, I ask for your help and your assistance and your hand over the period of the next five months.
“And when we win in November….and we begin a new period of time for the United States of America, I want the next generation of Americans to look back upon this period and say as they said of Plato: ‘Joy was in those days, but to live.’ Thank you very much.”
At the end of Kennedy’s wildly popular speech at Kansas State University, photographer Stanley Tretick, of Look magazine, shouted, “This is Kansas, fucking Kansas! He’s going all the fucking way!”
But he didn’t go all the way. On June 5, 1968—82 days after announcing his Presidential candidacy—an assassin’s bullet suddenly halted his short-lived campaign—and his life.
Robert Kennedy’s funeral train
Historian William L. O’Neil delivered a poignant summary of Robert Kennedy’s legacy in his 1971 book, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and through error and tragic accident, failed at…..He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That, too, must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death, something precious vanished from public life.”
As United States Attorney General (1961-1964) Robert F. Kennedy had the courage to wage all-out war on the Mafia. As a United States Senator (1964-1968) he had the compassion to champion aid to impoverished Americans.
Even in his own era—a half-century ago—Robert Kennedy stood out as the only major Presidential candidate who could legitimately make both claims.
Today, most Democrats—battered by decades of Republican charges that they’re “big spenders”—fear supporting big-ticket items to help the poor.
And the Black Lives Matter movement has made any connection to law enforcement a disqualification for higher office—as former California Attorney General Kamala Harris found out as a 2020 Presidential candidate.
America may never again see a Presidential candidate who can combine a strong stand against crime with an equally strong commitment to helping the poor and disadvantaged.
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