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LOVE THY DICTATOR: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 22, 2024 at 12:12 am

On August 1, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum warned about Donald Trump’s dictatorial ambitions on the PBS Newshour. As the author of Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, she brings a specialist’s perspective to this subject.

She defines an “autocrat” as someone “who seeks to rule with no checks and balances, with no checks on his authority, with no judges, no media, no intermediary figures or institutions, who wants to control everything that happens in the state and to make all of the decisions.”

Asked if Trump wants to be an autocrat, she replied:

“Sometimes, he says so in the language he uses about—whether it’s about President Xi, who he admires, or President Putin, who he admires, or even the dictator of North Korea, who’s driven his country into poverty and isolation, who he also admires….

“And he has very few kind words for American allies or for fellow democracies. It’s really the absolute—people with absolute power that he wants to be like.

“And you can also hear in the language he uses, whether it’s about judges, or whether it’s about the media, or whether it’s about American institutions of other kind, about the electoral system, that he has great disdain for the institutions of democracy and the rules that were set up to make sure that power is checked in our country and that the executive isn’t a king.

“And those are disturbing traits. And they would be disturbing at any time in history, but they’re particularly disturbing now, when we have the rise of so many leaders with absolute power around the world who would love to have a transactional American president to do deals with.”

Anne Applebaum

Hb19821970, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump deliberately set out to attack or undermine one long-cherished public or private institution after another.

Among these:

American Intelligence agencies: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and NSA that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
American military agencies: In 2020, Trump declined to visit an American military cemetery near Paris, and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”
While President, Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and his former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”

Mark Milley

The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC)on February 24, 2017, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first Muslim travel ban.
In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
Barack Obama: For five years, Trump popularized the slander that Obama was born in Kenya—and not an American citizen or a legitimate President.
Trump was later forced to admit he had no evidence to back up his slanderous claims.

* * * * *

Since leaving the White House, Donald Trump has continued to undermine one American institution after another.

Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he has attacked judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
He has attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
He claims voter fraud where none exists, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
He has attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
He claims himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
He attacks the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.

Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.

He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public.

If he succeeds, there will be:

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 independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”

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LOVE THY DICTATOR: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 21, 2024 at 12:13 am

Donald Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.

This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.

Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.

Under Project 2025:

Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
Republicans believe the Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.

Seal of the Justice Department

Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.

Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
Abortion would be outlawed.
Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.

Trump has prospered by slandering Democrats as “Marxists,” “Socialists” and “Communists.” And other Republicans have also deployed the terms. Yet he has repeatedly expressed admiration for such brutal Communist dictators as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and China’s Xi Jinping.

In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, then-President Trump had revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.

He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.

He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:

“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama.

During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.

O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”

Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”

Another Communist dictator he has lavishly praised is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Asked by a Fox News reporter why he did so, he replied:

“He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”

in short: Kim must be doing something right, because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.

Asked about his relationship with Kim, Trump infamously said: “[Kim] wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.

Among these:

American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
He intended to fire Mueller during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
When FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.

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LOVE THY DICTATOR: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 20, 2024 at 12:10 am

“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana, “Scarface”

“Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”

On July 26, former President Donald Trump confirmed—intentionally or unintentionally—that the fears of his enemies were correct. If he won office for a second time, he would act as the all-powerful dictator he has long lusted to be.

And which he nearly became in 2020, after refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election where former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than he did.

The site of his confession was the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. To his audience of evangelical Christians, Trump announced:

“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.

“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian.

“I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

Why would they not have to vote again? Because there won’t be any more elections for President because Trump would be President until he died.

Donald Trump at Turning Point Believers’ Summit

From the moment Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency on June 15, 2015, throughout his four years in office and the almost eight months the Presidential campaign of 2024, much of the mainstream media has repeatedly ignored the threats he poses.

But Trump’s comments at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit have grabbed attention from the nation’s most important news media. Among these:

MSN Metro
Reuters
CBS News
The New York Times
Mother Jones
News Nation
USA Today
Newsweek
The Hill
CNN
National Public Radio
The Washington Post

Democrats pounced on Trump’s statements. Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement of her own: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who had presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.”

Naturally Trump’s campaign disagreed: “President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”

In fact, it has been Donald Trump who created “the divisive political environment.” On July 31 he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists—to falsely accuse Kamala Harris of misleading voters about her race:

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

As for the motives for Thomas Matthew Crooks’ July 13 assassination attempt on Trump: A vigorous FBI investigation has revealed him as an intelligent loner with few friends, a thin social media presence and no strong political beliefs offering a motive for his action.

If Trump wins a second term in the White House, he can—by law—serve only four years. But Trump has spent his entire life defying the law—including when he was President.

His most egregious offense came after he lost the 2020 Presidential election: He refused to accept his defeat, refused to leave office, tried to pressure states to “find” non-existent Electoral College votes for him, and finally incited a violent riot against Congress to stop the Electoral Vote count.

Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building

Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In May, 2024, speaking at a National Rifle Association gathering, Trump “joked” about serving more than two terms as president.

He referred to the four-term, 12-year Presidency of Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s death.

“You know, FDR, 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”

By raising the question of “three terms,” Trump was resurrecting The Big Lie: That he won the 2020 Presidential campaign but was cheated of victory by massive voter fraud.

In fact, Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.

This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.

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RONALD REAGAN’S WARNING COMES HOME: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 2, 2024 at 12:10 am

Why aren’t Republicans—allegedly the party of “family values”—morally outraged at Donald Trump for his adulterous tryst with a porn “star” and his hush money payment to conceal it during the 2016 Presidential campaign?

Why are they instead outraged at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself?

Republican party logo

Simple: They see Trump as their best chance to not only reclaim the White House but establish a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.

Under this, the Republican party will become—in fact, if not officially—the only recognized political party in the nation.

Democratic candidates—for the House, Senate and Presidency—will be prevented from taking office by gerrymandering or false claims that they committed election fraud.

These—and other goals—have been enshrined in Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.

Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.

Under Project 2025:

Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
The Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House. The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.

Seal of the Justice Department

Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
Funding for the Department of Justice would be slashed.
The FBI would be dismantled.
The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.

States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.

Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
Abortion would be outlawed.
Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.

* * * * *

In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:

“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….

“[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”

On November 8, 2016, 62,984,828 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man, charged conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.

And on November 3, 2020, 74,223,975 of those same Americans again voted for him. This despite Trump’s legacy of:

Brutally attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
Lying about the dangers of the deadly COVID-19 virus, thus allowing it to ravage the country and kill 400,000 Americans.
Refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election in 2020 and falsely claiming himself the victim of massive voter fraud.
Inciting thousands of his followers to storm the United States Capitol Building to prevent the winner, Joe Biden, from being declared President-elect.

So why have millions of Americans stood by Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?

Their #1 reason: Hatred—of most of their fellow Americans.

Fortunately, 80 million Americans braved the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts by Republicans to overturn their voting rights—and elected Joseph Biden President of the United States.

Only time will tell if the country proves so lucky in 2024.

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RONALD REAGAN’S WARNING COMES HOME: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 1, 2024 at 12:10 am

The May 31, 2024 episode of Washington Week With the Atlantic raised the question: Why were Republicans so obsessed with Bill Clinton’s adulterous affair with Monica Lewinsky but are furiously supporting Donald Trump’s tryst with Stormy Daniels?

Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg opened with: “Donald Trump isn’t a convicted felon yet. Sorry to be pedantic here, but he technically acquires that status only at sentencing come July 11th.

“But a New York jury has spoken, finding him guilty of engaging in a financial scheme to keep the porn star, Stormy Daniels, quiet about their sexual encounter, one that occurred shortly after Trump’s wife gave birth to their son.

“Trump, in addition to this guilty verdict, was recently found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. In total, more than 25 women have accused him of sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels

“The reaction of the Republican Party leaders to the verdict was to rally around Trump. Evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, also doubled down on their support. Graham, writing on X, said, ‘What we saw today has never happened before, and I think for the majority of Americans, it raises questions about whether our legal system can be trusted….’

“[In] the 1990s…. when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans were outraged and many other people were legitimately outraged that the president of the United States was having sexual relations with a White House intern. Explain to us, if you can, the different dynamics here, the party of family values.”

McKay Coppins, staff writer at the Atlantic: “Well, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the way the Republican party, the conservative movement, think about morality and public leadership.

“Something that I always think about when issues like this come up is that before Donald Trump came on the scene, I can’t remember, it was 2013, 2014, if you surveyed Republican voters and asked them how important is public — it is personal morality in an elected leader to you.

“Something like two-thirds of them would say it’s very important, that I would rather have somebody of high moral character than somebody with policies I agree with.

“A couple years into the Trump presidency, that had flipped and it was only a third of voters said that that was the case, if you were a Republican.

McKay Coppins

“And it just shows kind of the sea change in evangelical ethics and social conservative ethics. I think a lot of conservatives now, because of negative partisanship and polarization….they want to, you know, line up with their team right?

“They want to be with their guy, and then they kind of create a moral architecture around being able to do that.

“But, you know, [he] cheated on his wife with a porn star, and then….is now been convicted of committing fraud to cover it up.

“[It’s] almost a cliché to say if a Democrat had done that, we know what we would be hearing from social conservatives and evangelicals, but they want Donald Trump to be elected.

“And so they are pivoting away from the specifics of the case and the underlying facts of the case to [say] this is a rigged system, this is a legal persecution, Donald Trump is a victim, and we need to back him because they’re going to come after us next.”

There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in the foregoing. But there is also a great deal of truth in a statement that was not made:

Republicans’ professed outrage at Bill Clinton’s infidelities and their furious defense of those by Donald Trump actually share a common link.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, once the poster boy for Republican values, best described the current mindset of the Republican party. Ironically enough, at the time, he was assailing the leaders of the Soviet Union:

“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”

Ronald Reagan

In January, 1998, when the public learned of President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Republicans gushed moral outrage.

They portrayed Lewinsky—who had had a seven-year extramarital affair with her former high school drama instructor and flashed her thong at Clinton, signaling her readiness for an affair—as a Vestal Virgin, and Clinton as Grigori Rasputin incarnate.

By 1992, Republicans had come to regard the White House as theirs by Divine Right. Anyone who ran against them automatically became—for them—a traitor. And anyone who won against them became—for them—an usurper.

Thus, Clinton’s true “crime” had been defeating, first, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992, and then Kansas Senator Bob Dole, in 1996.

Fast-forward to the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a sexual tryst with porn “star” Stormy Daniels.

Suddenly, Republicans aim their cries of moral outrage not at Trump but at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself.

The reason: They see Trump as their best chance for not simply reclaiming the White House but for establishing a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.

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SPEAKING TRUTH TO TYRANTS–RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN

In History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on March 25, 2021 at 12:05 am

Speaking truth to tyrants is always risky. But those who do—and survive—can find consolation in knowing they have done something few others have dared to do.

Two women—one Russian, the other American—have had this experience.

Maria Veniaminovna Yudina (1899 – 1970) was a gifted pianist who joined the piano faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1936, where she taught until 1951.

Maria Yudina

From 1944 to 1960, Yudina taught chamber ensemble and vocal class at the Gnessin Institute. In 1960, she was fired from the Institute because of her religious beliefs and championing of modern Western music.

She continued to perform in public, but her recitals were forbidden to be recorded. At one of her recitals in Leningrad, she read Boris Pasternak’s poetry from the stage as an encore.

For that, Yudina was banned from performing for five years. In 1966, when the ban was lifted, she gave a cycle of lectures on Romanticism at the Moscow Conservatory.

Although born into a Jewish family, she joined and remained a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Perhaps her most courageous act occurred during the last years of the reign of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet dictator was responsible for the deaths of 20 to 25 million people—through execution, famine, torture, imprisonment and deportations.

Joseph Stalin

One night in 1944, Stalin, listening to the radio, heard a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. Yudina had played the piano, backed up by a full orchestra.

Stalin, impressed, ordered that an envelope containing 20,000 rubles be sent to Yudina.

According to Russian composer and pianist Dimitri Shostakovich, Yudina then did the unthinkable.

In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich writes that Yudina sent Stalin a letter almost certain to result in her arrest.

The gist of the letter: “I thank you, Iosif Vissarionovich, for your aid.

“I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country. The Lord is merciful and He will forgive you. I gave the money to the church that I attend.”

Stalin read the letter to his inner circle. Although he could have destroyed Yudina as easily as killing a fly, he set aside the letter and did nothing.

Yudina’s recording of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 was on Stalin’s record player when he collapsed with a cerebral hemorrhage on March 1, 1953. It was the last music he had listened to.

Shostakovich believed that Stalin was superstitious—and it was this that saved Yudina.

Throughout her life, Yudina remained an uncompromising critic of the Soviet regime. She died in Moscow in 1970.

Seventy-four years later, another woman—Michelle Wolf—dared speak truth to a tyrant in a different way.

Wolf (1985 – ) is an American comedian and writer. In 2007, she graduated from the College of William & Mary, a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her major: Kinesiology (the scientific study of human or non-human body movement.

She decided to enter the comedy world and made her first appearance on late-night television in 2014, on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She made repeated appearances on the show, A regular at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, she joined The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in 2016

Michelle Wolf

In 2017, she made her HBO stand-up debut, Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady.

On April 28, 2018, she hosted the annual White House Correspondents Dinner.

Traditionally, it’s been an occasion where Washington’s political and media elites enjoy dinner and trade barbed quips at one another.

But President Donald Trump chose to skip the dinner in 2017 and 2018. Trump—who repeatedly insults others—is too thin-skinned to accept even harmless jokes aimed at him.

That, however, didn’t deter Wolf. And she served up a series of barbed jokes aimed at the greed, deceit and hypocrisy of high-ranking Trump administration officials. Among these:

[Trump] loves white nationalists, which is a weird term for a Nazi. Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling a pedophile a kid friend or Harvey Weinstein a ladies’ man.
[Vice President] Mike Pence is a weirdo, though. He’s a weird little guy. He won’t meet with other women without his wife present. When people first heard this, they were like, “That’s crazy.” But now, in this current climate, they’re like, “That’s a good witness.”
A tree falls in the woods is [Environmental Protection Agency director] Scott Pruitt’s definition of porn. Yeah, we all have our kinks.

But Wolf also had plenty of jabs for assembled media bigwigs.

The most useful information on CNN is when Anthony Bourdain tells me where to eat noodles.
People want me to make fun of [Fox News host] Sean Hannity tonight, but I cannot do that; this dinner is for journalists.

Wolf’s jokes—especially those about White Hose Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders—triggered harsh attacks in turn from Trump officials and media critics.

But Jimmy Kimmel—who has also performed at the correspondents dinner—tweeted:

“Michelle did exactly what she should do, which was [to] upset everybody. That’s the role of a commentator and a bomb thrower and a comedian. Your job is not to make people comfortable and your job is definitely not to stay within the line. Your job is to say the things that make people uncomfortable and upset.”

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YOUR CORONAVIRUS CZAR

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 16, 2020 at 12:09 am

On February 26, President Donald Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead a task force to combat the spread of the Coronavirus.

In doing so, he rejected calls to appoint an outside medical expert.

This put the Federal medical establishment under a trusted sycophant—and gave Trump a convenient scapegoat if something went wrong.

So here’s what America is getting as its medical savior.

Michael Richard “Mike” Pence served as a Republican member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013. He also served as Chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2009 to 2012. His record included:

Voted, in 2007, to defund Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions.
Opposed, in 2009, giving American citizenship to children born to illegal aliens living within the United States.
Compared the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Voted to eliminate funding for climate education programs and to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2012, he ran for Governor of Indiana, won the election, and assumed this office in 2013.

As Governor, Pence:

Signed legislation in 2015 that repealed an 80-year-old Indiana law requiring construction companies working on publicly funded projects to pay a prevailing wage.
Successfully lobbied in 2013 to limit reductions in sentences for marijuana offenses.

On July 15, 2016, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had selected Pence as his Vice Presidential running mate in the 2016 Presidential election.

But for all of Pence’s actions as Congressman and Governor, the one which may prove the most far-reaching may be this: His signing into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

As Governor of Indiana, he did this on March 26, 2015. The law allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.

Mike Pence

Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs. Unofficially, its purpose is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.

Thus, a bakery can legally refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding or a restaurant can refuse to serve lesbian patrons.

And a hospital can refuse to provide care to a gay or lesbian patient.

The bill was passed overwhelmingly by both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature.

“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” Pence said in a statement on the day he signed the bill.

“The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”

Yet for all his praise for the bill, Pence signed it in a ceremony closed to the public and the press. The media were asked to leave even the waiting area of the governor’s office.

At least one unintended consequence of that legislation has already surfaced: The First Church of Cannabis.

The day after Pence signed the Act, church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that he had filed paperwork with the office of the Indiana Secretary of State.

Its registration had been approved—and Levin was ecstatic: “Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health.

“Donate $100 or more and become a GREEN ANGEL. Donate $500 or more and become a GOLD ANGEL. Donate $1000 or more and become a CHURCH POOHBA.”

This legislation has not only brought legal marijuana to Indiana. It may bring Sharia law as well.

Since 9/11, Right-wingers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America. And now Indiana’s legislators, in elevating religion above the law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.

Muslims demanding the imposition of Sharia law–on themselves and non-Muslims

What will happen when:

Muslims in Indiana claim their right—guaranteed in Islamic religious law—to have as many as four wives?
Muslims demand a taxpayer-funded “halal” non-pork food shelf at free food pantries for the poor? (Exactly this happened among Somali refugees in Minnesota in 2015.)
Muslims demand that police departments cancel counter-terrorism courses by claiming that their materials are anti-Muslim? (Exactly this happened to several police departments in Illinois.)

And when they claim that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects those rights?

Now that Pence is Coronizavirus Czar, it’s essential to remember:

In 2001, when he ran for Congress, he posted on his campaign website: “Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.”
As a Congressman, Pence voted against legislation allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry.
During a CNN panel in 2002 about abstinence education, Pence said: “Frankly, condoms are a very, very poor protection against sexually transmitted diseases.”
In 2015, Indiana had an unprecedented HIV outbreak. Although the Centers for Disease Control recommended clean needle exchanges, Pence, as governor, opposed this.

As the Coronavirus threatens to overwhelm the United States as it has Italy, the appointment of Mike Pence as America’s Dr. Marcus Welby is not an event to celebrate.

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TYRANTS AND TRUTH

In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on March 11, 2019 at 12:13 am