Posts Tagged ‘FACEBOOK’
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALAN KURDI, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BASHAR AL-ASSAD, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS (CAIR), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, IRAQ, ISALM, ISLAMICS, JAMES COMEY, KUWAIT, LIBYA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OMRAN DAQNEESH, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, PEW RESEARCH CENTER, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, QTAR, RAW STORY, REAL ID ACT, RELIGION, REUTERS, SALON, SAUDI ARABIA, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SUICIDE BOMBERS, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNHCR, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED NATIONS, UPI, USA TODAY, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 17, 2023 at 12:16 am
Americans are suckers for children. Even if many of them might come wrapped in suicide vests.
On September 2, 2015, the body of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey.
He and his family had boarded a small rubber boat to reach Europe amid the carnage of the Syrian civil war. The boat capsized.
The resulting photo flashed around the world and triggered international demands by humanitarian organizations that the West “do something.”
Drowned Alan Kurdi lies on a Turkish beach
Only eight days later, on September 10, 2015, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that it would take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrian refugees over the next year. That was in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States had already accepted.
Almost one year later—on August 17, 2016—another photo captured the world’s attention.
It depicted a five-year-old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance. Covered head to toe in dust, his face bloodied, he seemed dazed. He had been pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria.
Once again, demands arose among liberal interventionists, especially in the United States: “We must do something.”
All of which overlooks the increasing threat posed to the United States by Islamic terrorism.
According to U.S. Census data, America legally welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are at least 3.45 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
Meanwhile, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, then-FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faced in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers. But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see [the FBI’s] stopping these [plots] indefinitely.”
The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts—against seven million potential suspects. And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
And even children, for all their supposed innocence, are not to be ignored as potential weapons of Islamic terrorist organizations.
On August 20, 2016, a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 attacked a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, killing at least 51 people. Preliminary evidence indicated that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was behind the attack.
Palestinian child suicide bomber
America may well become a similar target for child suicide bombers.
How did all of this come to be?
On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war. By December, 2022, it was estimated that 580,000 Syrians had so far died in the conflict.
Put in a positive way:
- More than 580,000 potential or actual Islamic terrorists will never again pose a threat to the United States or Western Europe.
- Additional thousands are certain to follow their example.
- And the United States cannot be held in any way responsible for it.
But Americans and Europeans have chosen to see these positives as negatives.
The United Nations refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that, in 2021, 123,300 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. .
And while the West has thrown open its doors to fleeing Syrians, the reaction of neighboring Islamic nations has been entirely different.
This was brutally but accurately depicted in a cartoon of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at the body of Alan Kurdi.
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for their Islamic brethren.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries—Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain—have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Meanwhile, democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential—if not actual—Islamic terrorists.
* * * * *
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 40,000 people to date in both countries.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Turkey—long a staunch NATO ally—has tilted increasingly toward Russia. Syria, meanwhile, remains an international pariah owing to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and his support of anti-Western terrorism.
Yet that hasn’t prevented both countries from pleading with the “infidel” West to sacrifice money and resources on their behalf. And, once again, the West is responding with unearned generosity.
As always, the type of aid most sought is money. In response, Doctors Without Borders, for example, is running full-page ads soliciting donations from $5 to $1,000.
As Karl Marx once famously said—but in another context: “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLACKS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CNN, COMMUNISM, CORONAVIRUS, CRIME, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DENNIS HASTERT, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, ECONOMY, ELECTION-RIGGING, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, FOOD STAMPS, FRANCIS BELLAMY, GAYS, GLOBALISM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISPANICS, HUFFINGTON POST, illegal immigration, IMPORTS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSH DUGGAR, KIM JONG-UN, LESBIANS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MEXICO, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, NUCLEAR FAMILY, PBS NEWSHOUR, PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, RICK SCOTT, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL SECURITY, SOCIALISM, 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, TRADEMARKS, TRANSGENDERS, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 16, 2023 at 12:10 am
Next to the American flag, Republicans have loudly pledged their loyalty to the nuclear family.
And Florida United States Senator Rick Scott, in his “11 Point Plan to Rescue America,” is no exception.
Point 8: We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs. The nuclear family is crucial to civilization, it is God’s design for humanity, and it must be protected and celebrated. To say otherwise is to deny science.
Scott claims that the nuclear family is “God’s design for humanity”—and that to disagree is to “deny science.”
Here are the facts:
First of all, there is no scientific proof for the existence of God. It is simply a belief.
Second, the nuclear family—a married couple and their dependent children under the age of 18—is a fast-disappearing species.
Nuclear family – 1955
Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
There are currently just 23.1 million American homes with “nuclear families,’ which is the fewest since 1959. So much for “God’s design for humanity.”
Point 9: Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies.
“Men are men, women are women”: Republicans seek to frighten voters into voting for them by appealing to the fear that “Gays and transgenders are coming for your children.”
Without offering proof, they slander their opponents as “groomers”—pedophiles who befriend children and build their trust, leading to their sexual abuse.
Actually, gays don’t prey on heterosexuals but seek out others of their own sexual persuasion. The same is true for transgenders.
Meanwhile, the Republican party has had its own share of closeted pedophiles.
Among them:
- Josh (“18 Kids and Counting”) Duggar, recently sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for possession of child pornography;
- Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who sexually molested four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach.
Josh Duggar
As for “Unborn babies are babies”: Those who have not yet been born are fetuses.
While Republicans have waged an almost 50-year war against legalized abortion, they have waged an equally aggressive war against Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, food stamps, affordable housing, and aid to the blind and disabled.
In short: They oppose all those programs intended to help those who have already been born.
Point 10: Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives, and we will stop all government efforts to deny our religious freedom and freedom of speech.
The Democratic party is not trying to “deny our religious freedom and freedom of speech.”
On the contrary: It’s Republicans who have crafted laws to turn claimed religious beliefs into a weapon of discrimination.
A classic example: On March 26, 2015, Indiana’s then-Governor Mike Pence signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Mike Pence
This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
Thus, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons can legally refuse to do so.
Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well—such as Kansas, Arizona and South Dakota. So far, all have failed to win passage.
Republicans claim they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” But their fixation on regulating the sexual lives of Americans ensures government intrusions of the most intimate kind.
Point 11: We are Americans, not globalists. America will be dependent on NO other country. We will conduct no trade that takes away jobs or displaces American workers.
This would be laughable except for the bitter truth: Countless numbers of Americans have lost their jobs because their companies deserted the United States for Third World nations like China, Vietnam or Mexico.
Employers have done this for three reasons:
- To pay their employees far less than they would be paid in the United States;
- To avoid American health and safety restrictions on how employees can be treated; and
- To avoid enforcement of quality control regulations which ensure that products are safe and effective for use.
During Donald Trump’s Presidency, the Chinese government granted 18 trademarks to companies linked to him and his daughter, Ivanka, within two months.
In addition, Trump won approval to register three dozen trademarks in China covering everything from bars and hotels to child-care and massage services, raising further concerns over potential conflicts of interest.
From 2005 to 2017, Trump filed for 126 trademarks in China for his business empire.
As for Scott’s claim, “America will be dependent on NO other country”:
Despite Right-wing rhetoric, the United States can no longer separate itself from the rest of the world.
The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has badly affected American imports of grain products from Ukraine. And America’s continued reliance on fossil fuels forces it to depend on despotic Middle East oil kingdoms.
Finally, the Coronavirus pandemic has led to crucial shortages in goods America has long imported: Medicines, electronics, auto parts, solar panels, toys, air conditioners.
Thus, this provision—like the rest of Scott’s plan—runs head-on into the ugliness of sheer reality.
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLACKS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CNN, COMMUNISM, CORONAVIRUS, CRIME, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DENNIS HASTERT, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, ECONOMY, ELECTION-RIGGING, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, FOOD STAMPS, FRANCIS BELLAMY, GAYS, GLOBALISM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISPANICS, HUFFINGTON POST, illegal immigration, IMPORTS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSH DUGGAR, KIM JONG-UN, LESBIANS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MEXICO, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, NUCLEAR FAMILY, PBS NEWSHOUR, PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, RICK SCOTT, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL SECURITY, SOCIALISM, 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, TRADEMARKS, TRANSGENDERS, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 15, 2023 at 12:10 am
Florida’s Republican United States Senator Rick Scott’s has an “11 Point Plan to Rescue America”—and catapult himself into the White House.
Point 4: We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.
The United States is surrounded by water on three sides—East, West and South. So anyone with a boat can smuggle illegal aliens into the country at any point along its 12,383 miles of coastline.
For those who get seasick, there’s a land route available—not across burning Mexican deserts but under them.
Over the years, officials have found at least 200 tunnels along the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, mostly in Arizona and California. They range from rudimentary crawlspaces to “super tunnels” that cost more than a million dollars and are equipped with elevators, ventilation shafts electric lights, and disguised exits and entrances.
Drug tunnel
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Many of those who want to infiltrate the United States can simply fly in.
Wealthy and pregnant Chinese women often fly to the United States to “anchor” themselves via a baby born on American soil. The same is true for many Russian women.
And the Number One cause of illegal immigration: Foreigners’ overstaying their visas. In 2017, more than 600,000 foreigners who legally entered the United States overstayed their visas and remained in the country by the end of the year, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
So a wall is not going to solve America’s problem with illegal immigration.
Point 5: We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism.
When Republicans promise to “grow America’s economy,” they mean: Remove all government controls from business.
In real-world terms, this means corporations will be legally allowed to:
- Ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
- Ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
- Produce unsafe goods and fraudulent services;
- Pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies;
- Discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or sexual orientation; and/or
- Pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.
Anyone who doubts this need only look at the living standards in “Red”, Republican-governed states such as Florida and Texas.
“Starve Washington’s economy” means: Eliminating programs that Republicans don’t like—starting with Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. Anything that benefits ordinary Americans and not multi-billion dollar corporations will be slated for scrapping.
“Stopping socialism” is ludicrous: During his Presidency, Donald Trump’s best friends were Communist dictators: Vladimir Putin (Russia), Kim Jong-Un (North Korea) and Xi Jinping (China).
Trump actually bragged that, after an exchange of letters between himself and the murderous Kim Jong-Un, “We fell in love.”
Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump
Had a Democratic President made a similar statement, Republicans would have screamed “Treason!” In Trump’s case, they said nothing.
Point 6: We will eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress.
As for “enacting term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress”: This is the party that tried to illegally and treasonously overturn the results of a legitimate Presidential election so its candidate—Donald Trump—could remain in office as “President-for-Life” after losing the vote.
Point 7: We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections.
Scott’s platform is worth quoting in full on this issue:
Today’s Democrat Party is trying to rig elections and pack the courts because they have given up on Democracy. They don’t believe they can win based on their ideas, so they want to game the system and legalize voter fraud to stay in power. In true Orwellian fashion, Democrats refer to their election rigging plans as “voting rights”. We won’t allow the radical left to destroy our democracy by institutionalizing dishonesty and fraud.
Immediately after the verdict of the November 3, 2020 Presidential election was announced, President Donald Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits overturning the results.
Donald Trump
- On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
- In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.
- By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
- Throughout November and December, 2020, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.
- On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, 2020, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
This is the party that, since November, 2020, has sold a lie to millions of Right-wing Americans that the election was “stolen” from Donald trump.
It is Republicans—not Democrats—who have stopped trying to win elections based on their ideas and are now trying to win them by massive voter suppression. It’s hardly a party to be entrusted with election security.
2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLACKS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CNN, COMMUNISM, CORONAVIRUS, CRIME, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DENNIS HASTERT, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, ECONOMY, ELECTION DENIERS, ELECTION-RIGGING, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, FOOD STAMPS, FRANCIS BELLAMY, GAYS, GLOBALISM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISPANICS, HUFFINGTON POST, illegal immigration, IMPORTS, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE BIDEN, JOSH DUGGAR, KIM JONG-UN, LESBIANS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MEXICO, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, NUCLEAR FAMILY, PBS NEWSHOUR, PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, RICK SCOTT, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL SECURITY, SOCIALISM, 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, TRADEMARKS, TRANSGENDERS, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 14, 2023 at 12:10 am
Rick Scott, former governor of Florida and now a United States Senator from that state, wants to prove there is a difference between him and every other Presidential candidate.
That’s why Scott has crafted “An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America.”
It merits close inspection—because if Scott or someone else with his agenda becomes President of the United States with a united Republican House and Senate behind him, this country will become entirely different from the one that exists today.
At the heart of Scott’s plan lies the decades’-long desire of Republicans to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
Of course, Republicans furiously deny any such thing.
Yet:
- President George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security;
- Former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s budget proposed sweeping changes to Medicare; and
- President Donald Trump’s budget called for cuts in Social Security and Medicaid.
On February 27, President Joe Biden touched off a Republican explosion during his State of the Union address: “Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset.”
Republicans erupted with boos and shouts of “Liar!”
Biden then turned Republicans’ feigned rage against them: “We agree Medicare is off the books now. We got unanimity!”
Like criminals eager to prove they aren’t criminals, Republicans joined Democrats in a standing ovation.
Rick Scott
Rick Scott wants all federal legislation—including Social Security and Medicare—to sunset in five years, with Congress having to vote to pass it again.
But he doesn’t want to admit that Social Security and Medicare will be disastrously affected by his proposal.
“This is clearly and obviously an idea aimed at dealing with ALL the crazy new laws our Congress has been passing of late,” he told Newsweek in a statement. “Joe Biden is confused…to suggest that this means I want to cut Social Security or Medicare is a lie, and is a dishonest move.”
Nevertheless, Scott remains convinced that he has crafted the winning formula for Republicans—and for his election as President in 2024.
Its provisions follow.
Point 1: Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.
Like so many Right-wingers, Scott is apparently unaware that the Pledge of Allegiance was written in August, 1892, by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy. He hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country, not just the United States.
Francis Bellamy
In its original form it read:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1923, the words, “the Flag of the United States of America” were added.
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” to distinguish Americans from “Godless” Communists.
“Learn that America is a great country” conjures up images of the propaganda force-fed to students of the former Soviet Union—and now in Russia. Just as Russians are taught that their military has never fought an aggressive war, so, too, do Republicans want to erase the subjects of slavery, racial discrimination and imperialistic wars from American classrooms
Point 2: Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government forms.
Republicans have made race—as a source of friction between voters—a crucial part of their electoral campaigns. As far back as 1968, Richard Nixon campaigned on a “Southern strategy”—of stoking white fears of blacks.
It was this that won Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
As blacks have gained in population and political clout, they have been succeeded by Hispanics as the Great Enemy for Republicans.
The top priority for Donald Trump—both as a Presidential candidate and President—was building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. That this would not have stopped illegal immigration meant nothing to him—or his millions of Right-wing followers.
Without a way to track the growth rates of nonwhites, Republicans won’t know how to target their self-declared enemies.
Point 3: The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because they, not the criminals, are the good guys.
On January 6, 2021, “law and order” President Donald Trump incited a mob to attack the United States Capitol Building. Inside, members of Congress were meeting to count and certify Electoral College votes for the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump had clearly lost that election in November, yet for the previous two months he had repeatedly and falsely claimed he was the victim of a “rigged” election. His followers, believing that lie, intended to overturn the results of a legitimate election.
After more than three hours, police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol. More than 150 officers were injured in the attack by “law and order” Republicans.
January 6, 2021 coup attempt
TapTheForwardAssist, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Even after the failed coup, 147 House and Senate Republicans voted to overturn the election.
Not the sort of behavior calculated to instill respect for the rule of law.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD J. TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GESTAPO, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, INDEPENDENT COUNSEL, JEWS, JOE BIDEN, JOE SCARBOROUGH, MEDIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICO, MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI ATROCITIES, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, 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 LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUMP UNIVERSITY SCANDAL, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 13, 2023 at 12:25 am
On April 27, 2020, Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored President Donald Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long:
“Back in January Joe Biden wrote an Op-Ed that the President was not prepared for this coming pandemic, and things were going to get worse. And he said ‘Let your doctors talk. Let your scientists talk. Follow their lead.’
“…And it’s been one scam idea after another, that people then promoted on other networks, scam doctors promoting these scam solutions, claiming that everybody who had taken this malaria drug had been cured in certain hospitals. This is just the sort of thing that catches up to Donald Trump.
“I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.
“But all of these lies, all of these [COVID-19] scams that he’s been pushing…have been revealed as lies—not by the people on cable news, but by their doctors. By nurses they know. If you’ve got a doctor who’s been treating your family for 20-25 years, you’re going to believe that person more than a scam artist that’s pushing propaganda for Donald Trump on talk radio.”
On August 23, 2018, Trump appearing on “Fox and Friends,” said: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
Donald Trump
Thus, he appealed to the greed and fear of his voting base—and no doubt hoped to reach beyond it: “Keep me in power or you’ll all suffer for it.”
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had bragged, 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.”
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
For eight years, Nazi Germany underwent such an epoch. Germans called it “The Happy Time.”
It began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor—and lasted until June 22, 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
Germans knew about the Nazis’ cruelty to the Jews, the conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the mass arrests and concentration camps.
They didn’t care.
Frenzied Germans greet Adolf Hitler
The Gestapo didn’t have to watch everyone: German “patriots” gladly reported their fellow citizens—especially Jews—to the secret police.
As far as everyday Germans were concerned:
- The streets were clean and peaceful.
- Employment was high.
- The trouble-making unions were gone.
- Germany was once again “taking its rightful place” among ruling nations, after its catastrophic defeat in World War 1.
The height of “The Happy Time” came in June, 1940. In just six weeks, the Wehrmacht accomplished what the German army hadn’t in four years during World War 1: The total defeat of its longtime enemy, France.
Suddenly, French clothes, perfumes, delicacies, paintings and other “fortunes of war” came pouring into the Fatherland.
Most Germans believed der Krieg—“the war”—was over, and only good times lay ahead.
Then, on June 22, 1941, three million Wehrmacht soldiers slashed their way into the Soviet Union. The Third Reich was now locked in a death-struggle with a nation even more powerful than itself.
German soldiers in the Soviet Union
And then, on December 11, 1941—four days after Germany’s ally, Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor—Hitler declared war on the United States.
“The Happy Time” for Germans was over. Only prolonged disaster lay ahead.
Donald Trump has spent his life appealing to the greed or fear of those around him. For example:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign.
- According to an April 14, 2019 story by ABC News, a nationwide review uncovered at least 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.
- In nine cases, attackers hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically assaulting victims. In 10 more cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant’s violent or threatening behavior.
But starting in January, 2020, Trump faced an enemy—to his re-election—that he couldn’t bribe or intimidate.
A deadly virus like COVID-19 doesn’t accept bribe-monies or grovel before a raging tyrant.
Millions of Germans made a devil’s-bargain with Adolf Hitler as Germany’s avenger.
Millions of greedy Americans made a devil’s-bargain with Donald Trump as America’s economic savior.
By May 8, 1945, Germany lay in ruins and about 5.3 million Germans had died. By January 20, 2021, about 400,000 Americans were dead.
2018 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AMERICABLOG, AP, APPLE, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL GEORGE, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHECHNYA, CNN, COVID-19, CRIMEAN PENINSULA, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, E. JEAN CARROLL, ELON MUSK, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, ESPIONAGE ACT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCES HAUGEN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, KING CROESUS OF LYDIA, LETITIA JAMES, MARK ZUCKERBERG, MASTODON, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MEXICO, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA, REUTERS, RIGHT-WINGERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, SOLON THE ATHENIAN, SPECIAL COUNSEL, 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, TIKTOK, TIME, TRIBEL, TRUMP ORGANIZATION, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WAGNER GROUP, WALL STREET JOURNAL, WORKER ADJUSTMENT AND RETRAINING NOTIFICATION ACT OF 1988
In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2023 at 12:10 am
The year 2022 proved a disastrous one for dictators.
The first of these profiled in this two-part series was Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But the United States is not immune to those with dictatorial ambitions. Easily the most dangerous of these is former President Donald Trump.
But after escaping justice for decades, he now stands in danger of its catching up with him.
- Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg won a resounding verdict against two Trump Organization companies for criminal tax fraud. Their executives had falsified business records in a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation for top executives.
- New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization for engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a wide range of economic benefits. Also named in the suit: His children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump.
- E. Jean Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he accused her of lying when she alleged he raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in the ’90s. Shielded from lawsuits during his Presidency, he lost that immunity when he left office.
- In 2022, Carroll sued Trump again under the Adult Survivors Act, a newly-passed New York state law that re-opens the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims in the state.
- Altogether, Trump is now a defendant in 17 lawsuits at the local, state and Federal level.
Dictator #3: Elon Musk
Elon Musk had made himself the wealthiest man on the planet through his ownership of Tesla, the premier electric car company. But it wasn’t enough for him.
In October, he bought Twitter for $44 billion.
Immediately afterward, he careened from one self-inflicted crisis to another. Among these:
- Laying off about half of Twitter’s 7,500 staffers.
- Giving an ultimatum to the remaining staff that they must do “extremely hardcore” work or leave—causing about 1,000 employees to head for the exits.
- Firing employees who openly disagreed with him.
Elon Musk
The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- Frequently and arbitrarily changing Twitter’s rules and banning people who violated them—including several tech journalists.
- Allowing Right-wingers to engage in misinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech, and restoring permanently banned accounts—such as Donald Trump’s.
As a result:
- According to Media Matters for America, Twitter lost half of its top 100 advertisers, which spent $750 million on ads in 2022.
- Several current and former employees sued Twitter for violating the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 for Musk’s failing to provide a 60-day notice prior to mass firings.
- As Twitter’s fortunes have increasingly declined, several Twitter alternatives have appeared. One of these is Mastodon, with 2.5 million members. Another is Tribel. Both emphasize their freedom from Right-wing hate speech and conspiracy theories.
Dictator #4: Mark Zuckerberg
Since he created Facebook in 2004, Zuckerberg has ruled as its unchallenged dictator. But his all-consuming drive for absolute control over not only Facebook but other domains has led to a series of highly publicized scandals.
According to the company’s profile on Wikipedia:
“Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance….
“Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.”
Mark Zuckerberg
Anthony Quintano from Westminster, United States, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2021-22, retribution began catching up with Zuckerberg’s empire.
- Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, disclosed tens of thousands of Facebook’s internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Wall Street Journal in 2021. She testified before Congress that Facebook promotes conflict to increase its readership and keep them reading—and buying.
- Haugen’s revelations included that since at least 2019, Facebook had studied the negative impact that its photo and video sharing social networking service, Instagram, had on teenage girls. Yet the company did nothing to mitigate the harms and publicly denied that was the case.
- In response to Haugen’s testimony, Congress promised legislation and drafted several bills to address Facebook’s power.
- In April, 2021, Apple launched a new alert system to warn its users how Facebook was tracking their browsing habits. Facebook’s advertising profits have fallen, because a lack of data makes it hard to target people using iPhones.
- Zuckerberg has spent at least $38 billion to expand his empire and create an immersive, virtual “Metaverse.” So far, however, the gamble has not paid off.
- TikTok has siphoned off a large part of Facebook’s original audience.
- “I think Facebook is not going to do well as long as [Zuckerberg]’s there,” said Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School. “He’s likely one of the reasons so many people are turning away from the company. He’s really lost his way.”
“Look to the end,” Solon the Athenian warned King Croesus of Lydia. “Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness and then utterly ruins him.”
2018 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AMERICABLOG, AP, APPLE, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL GEORGE, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHECHNYA, CNN, COVID-19, CRIMEAN PENINSULA, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, E. JEAN CARROLL, ELON MUSK, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, ESPIONAGE ACT, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCES HAUGEN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, KING CROESUS OF LYDIA, LETITIA JAMES, MARK ZUCKERBERG, MASTODON, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MEXICO, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA, REUTERS, RIGHT-WINGERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, SOLON THE ATHENIAN, SPECIAL COUNSEL, 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, TIKTOK, TIME, TRIBEL, TRUMP ORGANIZATION, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WAGNER GROUP, WALL STREET JOURNAL, WORKER ADJUSTMENT AND RETRAINING NOTIFICATION ACT OF 1988
In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 1, 2023 at 12:15 am
The year 2022 was not a good one for dictators.
Four of them—one Russian, three American—suffered humiliating defeats. If these didn’t herald their coming overthrow, they certainly erased these dictators’ pretense at invincibility.
Dictator #1: Russian President Vladimir Putin
When he attacked Ukraine with 200,000 soldiers on February 24, Putin had every reason to believe that his unprovoked war would be a cakewalk.
Intent on restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union, he had swept from one successful war to the next:
- In 1999-2000, he waged the Second Chechen War, restoring federal control of Chechnya.
- In 2008, he invaded the Republic of Georgia, which had declared its independence as the Soviet Union began to crumble. By war’s end, Russia occupied 20% of Georgia’s territory.
- In 2014, Putin invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched only verbal condemnations.
The reasons:
- Fear of igniting a nuclear war;
- Belief that Russia was simply acting within its own sphere of influence; and/or
- Then-President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on NATO and displays of subservience to Putin.
The assault on Ukraine opened with missiles and artillery, striking major Ukrainian cities, including its capitol, Kiev.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
When Russia invaded, the United States—now led by anti-Putin President Joe Biden—and its Western European allies retaliated with unprecedented economic sanctions.
Among the resulting casualties:
- The ruble crashed.
- Russia’s central bank more than doubled interest rates to 20%.
- The European subsidiary of Russia’s biggest bank almost collapsed in a massive Depression-era run by savers.
- Economists predicted the Russian economy could decline by five percent.
- The West—especially the United States—froze at least half of the $630 billion in international reserves that Putin had amassed to stave off tough sanctions.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, fierce Ukrainian resistance staggered the Russians:
- Kiev remained unconquered.
- In late August, using missile systems supplied by the United States, Ukrainian forces destroyed Russian ammunition dumps and a Russian air base in Crimea.
- In September, Ukraine reclaimed 3,090 square miles of northeastern territory from Russian forces.
- On September 21, with Russian forces bogged down or retreating, Putin announced the partial mobilization of 300,000 military reservists. All male citizens below 60 are now eligible to be drafted.
- Ukrainian forces retook the key city of Kherson in November; Russian forces, which had occupied the city since March, withdrew.
Ukraine vs. Russia
- On December 11, Putin’s infamous mercenary army, the Wagner Group, suffered “significant losses” after its Luhansk headquarters was hit during a Ukraine artillery strike.
- Tensions have flared between the regular Russian army and Wagner Group, with each blaming the other for continuing defeats.
- Unable to win on the battlefield, Putin has turned to terroristic bombings and drone attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure to break the will of the populace. Defiant Ukrainians continue to hunker down in makeshift shelters against cold and hunger.
- Putin has been plagued by widespread reports that he’s suffering from cancer, Parkinson’s or some other disabling malady. Most embarrassing of all: A report that, going down a flight of stairs, he tripped and soiled himself upon landing at the bottom.
- Most importantly: Putin’s attack on Ukraine triggered the danger he most feared: A hardening of the NATO alliance against Russia.
Dictator #2: Donald Trump
The United States has its own share of would-be dictators. Of these, the most dangerous was former President Donald Trump.
For decades, Trump escaped justice for a litany of infamies—including those committed while he was President. Among these:
- Giving highly classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
- Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his useless “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay for 35 days.
Donald Trump
- Allowing the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
- Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves against COVID-19.
- Illegally trying to pressure state legislatures and governors to stop the certification of the vote that had made Joe Biden the President-elect.
- Inciting his followers to attack the Capitol Building where Senators and Representatives were meeting to count the Electoral Votes won by himself and Joe Biden. His objective: Stop the count, which he knew would prove him the loser.
In 2022, Trump found the law finally closing in on him:
- Attorney General Merrick Garland launched an investigation into his illegally taking—before he left the White House—11 boxes of highly classified documents. If found guilty for obstruction of justice, mishandling government records and violating the Espionage Act, Trump could go to prison for decades.
- After waiting 22 months, Garland finally appointed a Special Counsel to determine if Trump incited a treasonous riot against the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to prevent Congressional members from determining the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORIS YELTSIN, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOSEPH GOEBBELS, JOSEPH STALIN, KGB, MEDIA MATTERS, MISS TEEN USA, MISS UNIVERSE, MISS USA, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RED ARMY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, 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, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WEHRMACHT, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2023 at 12:17 am
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have rightly gotten a lot of publicity—for how much they admire each other.
On the surface, this might seem surprising. Putin spent most of his adult life as a fervent member of the Communist Party, which swore eternal warfare against capitalism.
After joining the KGB in 1975, he served as one of its officers for 16 years, eventually rising to the level of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1991, he retired to enter politics in his native St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad).
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This, in turn, brought him to the attention of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who groomed Putin as his successor. When Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned on December 31, 1999, Putin became Acting President.
In 2000, he was elected President in his own right, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging. He won re-election in 2004, but could not run for a third term in 2008 because of constitutionally-mandated term limits.
So Putin ran his handpicked successor, Dimitry Medvedev, as president. When Medvedev won, he appointed Putin as prime minister.
Of course, the man who actually called the shots in Russia was not Medvedev but Putin.
In 2012, Putin again ran for president and won.
Trump, on the other hand, is the personification of capitalistic excess. He has been an investor, real estate mogul, television personality as former host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” and alleged author.
The Trump Organization sponsored the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants.
Donald Trump
He is notorious for stamping “Trump” on everything he acquires, most notably Trump Tower, a 58-story skyscraper at 725 Fifth Avenue in New York City.
On June 16, 2015, he declared himself a candidate for the Presidency in the 2016 election. Since July, he was consistently the front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
So it came as a surprise to many in the United States when, on December 17, 2015, Putin described Trump as “a bright and talented person without any doubt,” and “an outstanding and talented personality.”
He summed up Trump as “the absolute leader of the presidential race.”
Trump, in turn, was quick to respond: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”
Two months earlier, in October, Trump had said of Putin: “I think that I would probably get along with him very well.”
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump said: “Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia.”
The conservative host, Joe Scarborough, took exception to Trump’s praise for Putin: “Well, I mean, he’s also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?”
TRUMP: “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.”
SCARBOROUGH: “But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.”
TRUMP: “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe. You know. there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on and a lot of stupidity…”
Absolute dictators like Vladimir Putin and would-be dictators like Donald Trump often gravitate toward each other. At least temporarily.
Adolf Hitler
On January 30, 1933, anti-Communist Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. For the next six years, the Nazi press hurled insults at its arch-enemy, the Soviet Union.
And the Soviet press hurled insults at Nazi Germany.
Then, on August 23, 1939, Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed the Treaty of Non-aggression between Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R).
Signing for the Soviet Union was its own foreign minister, Vyachelsav Molotov.
The reason: Hitler planned to invade Poland on September 1. He needed to neutralize the military might of the U.S.S.R. And only Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin could do that.
Democratic nations like France, Great Britain and the United States were stunned.
But there had long been a grudging respect between the two brutal dictators.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a bloody purge throughout Germany. Privately, Stalin offered praise: “Hitler, what a great man! This is the way to deal with your political opponents.”
Joseph Stalin
Hitler was—privately—equally admiring of the series of purges Stalin inflicted on the Soviet Union. Even after he broke the non-aggression pact by invading the U.S.S.R. on June 22, 1941, he said:
“After the victory over Russia, it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country—with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
In April, 1945, as he waited for victorious Russian armies to reach his underground bunker, Hitler confided to Joseph Goebbels, his propaganda minister, his major regret:
He should have brutally purged the officer corps of the Wehrmacht, as Stalin had that of the Red Army. Stalin’s purges had cleaned “deadwood” from the Russian ranks, and a purge of the German army would have done the same.
For Adolf Hitler, the lesson was clear: “Afterward, you rue the fact that you’ve been so kind.”
It’s the sort of sentiment that dictators like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump can appreciate.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEBORAH BIRX, DISINFECTANT, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMANN GOERING, HUFFINGTON POST, HUGH TREVOR-ROPER, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOSEPH GOBBELS, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, NUREMBERG WAR CRIMES TRIALS, PBS NEWSHOUR, PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPES), POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT H. JACKSON, SALON, SANJAY GUPTA, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED LIEU, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HOLOCAUST, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE SS, THE THIRD REICH, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT, UNITED STATES ARMY, UPI, USA TODAY, WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE, WONKETTE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 23, 2022 at 12:10 am
From January to early March, 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear from COVID-19.
Donald Trump
Barnstorming the country in a series of hate-filled political rallies, Trump told his supporters:
- “We have it totally under control.”
- “This is [the Democrats’] new hoax.”
- “It will go away. Just stay calm.”
On February 27, 2020, Dr. Deborah Birx was appointed White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator for President Donald J. Trump.
On March 26, Birx reassured Americans in a press conference that “there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion [that ventilators or ICU hospital beds might be in limited supply].”
A day earlier, The New York Times had run the headline: “Amid Desperate Need for Ventilators, Calls Grow for Federal Intervention.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took a different tack. The coronavirus could become cyclical; a vaccine was still many months away; and therapeutic treatments—which Trump had pushed as a “game changer”—were still unproven.
Deborah Birx
Trump insisted that each state was responsible for securing its needed supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for its doctors and nurses aiding Coronavirus patients. This created ruthless competition and scarcity, with Americans not only fighting the virus but each other. But it ensured that Trump remained the final voice of authority.
Birx did not publicly urge the Federal Government—i.e., Trump—to create a streamlined approach to providing these necessities. Nor did she protest Trump’s refusal to do so.
On March 27, The New York Times reported: “Dr. Birx’s comments casting doubt on talk of ventilator and hospital-bed shortages, and praising Mr. Trump’s attention to detail in lavish terms, have raised questions about her independence as the number of coronavirus infections in the United States has soared past 100,000….
“Conservative commentators have praised her as a truth-teller, pushing back on coronavirus hysteria. Critics of Mr. Trump accused her of squandering the credibility she had developed as a health official in Democratic and Republican administrations.”
In April, she asserted that COVID-19 infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly. In fact, infections quickly surged.
Birx helped create a reopening plan—presented by Trump on April 16, 2020—with voluntary standards for states to end coronavirus lockdowns.
On April 23, Trump, in a public press conference, recommended the use of ultraviolet light and disinfectant as possible cures for COVID-19.
Birx remained silent.
The Internet—and medical experts—did not.
Trump’s critics—including many medical experts—believed that, by her silence, Birx forfeited her opportunity to confront the cascade of lies and crackpot theories Trump was promoting.
One of these was California’s Democratic Representative Ted Lieu: “The malicious incompetence that resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths starts at the top, with the former President and his enablers. And who was one of his enablers? Dr. Birx, who was afraid to challenge his unscientific rhetoric and wrongfully praised him.”
Political commentator Joe Scarborough said: “…And it’s been one scam idea after another, that people then promoted on other networks, scam doctors promoting these scam solutions, claiming that everybody who had taken this malaria drug had been cured in certain hospitals. This is just the sort of thing that catches up to Donald Trump.”
In July 2020, a working group convened by Birx ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and send all COVID-19 patient information to a database at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The continuing flood of alarming Coronavirus information was undermining Trump’s “everything-is-OK” assurances. Some public health officials warned that bypassing the CDC would allow Trump to politicize the findings and withhold them from the public.
In November, Birx stated in an internal report: “There is an absolute necessity of the Administration to use this moment to ask the American people to wear masks, physical distance and avoid gatherings in both public and private spaces.”
But she did not say this in public.
Trump had politicized the wearing of masks, dividing the country into his supporters, who didn’t wear masks, and “Never Trumpers” who did. He also called for the “liberation” of states that had ordered lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus.
Birx never publicly criticized Trump for creating this divisiveness.
During Thanksgiving, Birx hosted three generations of her family from two households—after she had urged Americans to restrict such gatherings to “your immediate household.”
After her term ended on January 20, 2021, Birx said that she had often considered quitting her position due to the administration’s hyper-partisanship, especially during the 2020 Presidential election.
Perhaps the most damning verdict on Deborah Birx came from Birx herself.
On March 29, 2021, speaking with Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, she said: “The first time, we have an excuse. There were about 100,000 deaths that came from the original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”
By mid-March, 2021, nearly 550,000 Americans had died from COVID-19. By the time Trump left office, 400,000 Americans would be dead of it.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEBORAH BIRX, DISINFECTANT, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMANN GOERING, HUFFINGTON POST, HUGH TREVOR-ROPER, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOSEPH GOBBELS, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, NUREMBERG WAR CRIMES TRIALS, PBS NEWSHOUR, PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPES), POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT H. JACKSON, SALON, SANJAY GUPTA, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED LIEU, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HOLOCAUST, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE SS, THE THIRD REICH, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT, UNITED STATES ARMY, UPI, USA TODAY, WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 22, 2022 at 12:08 am
Born on March 19, 1905 and trained as an architect, Albert Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Adolf Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year.
Hitler was thoroughly impressed.
From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings for the Third Reich, meant to last for a thousand years.
In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for Berlin. This made him responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement that evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in Berlin. The vast majority of these men, women and children ended up in extermination camps.
Adolf Hitler
Speer had nothing to do with their imprisonment; that was strictly the province of SS-Reichsuhrer Heinirich Himmler. Nevertheless, he knew the end results of his evictions.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland—unintentionally igniting World War II.
In 1943, Hitler appointed Speer Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.
As Hitler’s architect, Speer had stayed aloof from the political intrigues of such power-driven men as Himmler, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering and Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
But as Minister of Armaments, Speer thrust himself into the currents of intrigue surrounding the Fuhrer. It was this role that earned him 20 years in Spandau Prison for war crimes.
Albert Speer
With millions of able-bodied German men drafted for his endless wars, Hitler turned to slave laborers to keep his arms factories going.
“Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation,” charged chief United States prosecutor Robert H. Jackson during the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Speer’s attorney, Hans Flächsner, presented Speer as an artist thrust into political life who had always remained apolitical.
Both at Nuremberg and for the rest of his life, Speer claimed that he was unaware of Nazi extermination plans. But in a letter dated December 23, 1971, Speer wrote: “There is no doubt—I was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943, that all Jews would be killed.”
If Speer’s extensive involvement in the Holocaust had been known at the time of his trial he would have been sentenced to death. Twelve of his fellow defendants were so sentenced—and died by hanging.
Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor and forced labor. He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, and was released from Spandau Prison on October 1, 1966.
He spent the rest of his life portraying himself as “the good Nazi” who, as an apolitical technocrat, deeply regretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. Out of this came his bestselling autobiography, Inside the Third Reich, published in 1969.
He died of a heart attack on September 1, 1981—42 years to the day his Fuhrer had plunged the world into war.
British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper considered Speer an administrative genius whose basic instincts were peaceful and constructive. Nevertheless, he assailed Speer for failing to recognize the immorality of the Hitler regime—and called him “the real criminal of Nazi Germany.”
Specifically:
“For ten years he sat at the very centre of political power; his keen intelligence diagnosed the nature and observed the mutations of Nazi government and policy; he saw and despised the personalities around him; he heard their outrageous orders and understood their fantastic ambitions; but he did nothing.
“Supposing politics to be irrelevant, he turned aside and built roads and bridges and factories, while the logical consequences of government by madmen emerged. Ultimately, when their emergence involved the ruin of all his work, Speer accepted the consequences and acted. Then it was too late; Germany had been destroyed.”
Germans are not, however, the only ones to clinch a deal with the Devil.
Eighty-seven years after Albert Speer began his rise to power—and infamy—Deborah Birx, an American physician and diplomat, reached her own height of power—and infamy.
Born on April 4, 1956, Deborah Birx served from 1980 to 1994 as an active duty reserve officer in the United States Army. From 1994 to 2008, Birx was on active duty regular Army, achieving the rank of Colonel.
From 1980 to 1989, Birx worked as a physician at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In 1981, she completed a one-year internship and did a two-year residency in internal medicine. From 1983 to 1986, she completed two fellowships in clinical immunology in the areas of allergies and diagnostics.
From 1985 to 1989, Birx was the assistant chief of the Walter Reed Allergy/Immunology Service. Birx started her career as a clinician in immunology, eventually specializing on HIV/AIDS vaccine research.
She served as the United States global AIDS coordinator for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump (2014-2020). She also served as the country’s special representative for global health diplomacy between 2015 and 2021.
On February 27, 2020, she was appointed White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator for President Donald J. Trump.
The virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019, quickly spread around the world.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, they can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
Coronavirus
On February 29, 2020, the first American died of Coronavirus.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALAN KURDI, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BASHAR AL-ASSAD, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS (CAIR), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, IRAQ, ISALM, ISLAMICS, JAMES COMEY, KUWAIT, LIBYA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OMRAN DAQNEESH, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, PEW RESEARCH CENTER, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, QTAR, RAW STORY, REAL ID ACT, RELIGION, REUTERS, SALON, SAUDI ARABIA, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SUICIDE BOMBERS, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNHCR, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED NATIONS, UPI, USA TODAY, WORLD TRADE CENTER
ISLAMICS: “SAVE US, INFIDELS, SAVE US!”
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 17, 2023 at 12:16 amAmericans are suckers for children. Even if many of them might come wrapped in suicide vests.
On September 2, 2015, the body of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey.
He and his family had boarded a small rubber boat to reach Europe amid the carnage of the Syrian civil war. The boat capsized.
The resulting photo flashed around the world and triggered international demands by humanitarian organizations that the West “do something.”
Drowned Alan Kurdi lies on a Turkish beach
Only eight days later, on September 10, 2015, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that it would take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrian refugees over the next year. That was in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States had already accepted.
Almost one year later—on August 17, 2016—another photo captured the world’s attention.
It depicted a five-year-old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance. Covered head to toe in dust, his face bloodied, he seemed dazed. He had been pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria.
Once again, demands arose among liberal interventionists, especially in the United States: “We must do something.”
All of which overlooks the increasing threat posed to the United States by Islamic terrorism.
According to U.S. Census data, America legally welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are at least 3.45 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
Meanwhile, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, then-FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faced in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers. But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see [the FBI’s] stopping these [plots] indefinitely.”
The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts—against seven million potential suspects. And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
And even children, for all their supposed innocence, are not to be ignored as potential weapons of Islamic terrorist organizations.
On August 20, 2016, a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 attacked a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, killing at least 51 people. Preliminary evidence indicated that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was behind the attack.
Palestinian child suicide bomber
America may well become a similar target for child suicide bombers.
How did all of this come to be?
On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war. By December, 2022, it was estimated that 580,000 Syrians had so far died in the conflict.
Put in a positive way:
But Americans and Europeans have chosen to see these positives as negatives.
The United Nations refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that, in 2021, 123,300 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. .
And while the West has thrown open its doors to fleeing Syrians, the reaction of neighboring Islamic nations has been entirely different.
This was brutally but accurately depicted in a cartoon of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at the body of Alan Kurdi.
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for their Islamic brethren.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries—Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain—have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Meanwhile, democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential—if not actual—Islamic terrorists.
* * * * *
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 40,000 people to date in both countries.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Turkey—long a staunch NATO ally—has tilted increasingly toward Russia. Syria, meanwhile, remains an international pariah owing to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and his support of anti-Western terrorism.
Yet that hasn’t prevented both countries from pleading with the “infidel” West to sacrifice money and resources on their behalf. And, once again, the West is responding with unearned generosity.
As always, the type of aid most sought is money. In response, Doctors Without Borders, for example, is running full-page ads soliciting donations from $5 to $1,000.
As Karl Marx once famously said—but in another context: “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
Share this: