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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 14, 2020 at 12:30 am
President Donald Trump frittered away two vital months—January and February—by refusing to take Coronavirus seriously. Even worse, he repeatedly downplayed the virus in a series of public appearances.
Consider:
- January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
- February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
- February 26: “The 15 cases within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
- February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
- February 28: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….We did one of the great jobs….One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
- March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country of keeping it down. A tremendous job of keeping it down.”
Now, with more than 23,000 Americans dead—10,000 of them alone in New York—Trump’s fanatical defenders are desperate to rewrite history.
Donald Trump
The outbreak of Coronavirus, first detected in Wuhan, China, in late December, 2019, has taken more American lives in the 21st century than any other disaster—natural or man-made.
Consider:
- 9/11: 2,977 deaths
- Hurricane Katrina: 1,836 deaths
- Benghazi Embassy attack: 4
- Ebola: 2
- Hurricane Maria: 2,982,
- Coronavirus: 23,604 (by April 14, 2020)
One of these defenders is Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
On April 9, appearing on the Fox News network’s “Sean Hannity” show, Graham said: “The first thing I want to do is get the United States Senate on the record where we don’t blame Trump. We blame China.
“The Chinese government is responsible for 16,000 American deaths and 17 million Americans being unemployed. It’s the Chinese government and the way they behave that led to this pandemic. This is the third one to come out of China.
Lindsey Graham
“I want to make our response to this so overwhelming that China will change its behavior. I want to get the medical supply chain back into the United States, and I want to stop cancelling some debt that we owe to China because they should be paying us, not us paying China.”
Graham said that the “wet markets” in China should be shut down, because they have been the source of three pandemics that originated in China.
“So, I think you’re going to see a bipartisan push back against China to punish them so severely to deter them in the future.”
[As for “getting the medical supply chain back into the United States”: In 2018, China accounted for 95% of American imports of ibuprofen, 91% off hydrocortisone, 70% of acetaminophen, 40% to 45% of penicillin and 40% of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. Eighty percent of the American supply of antibiotics are made in China.]
* * * * * * * * * *
Seventy-three years earlier, Chief United States Counsel Robert H. Jackson had been assigned to prosecute the major Nazi defendants for war crimes at Nuremberg.
On July 26, 1946, Jackson delivered his closing remarks to the court. He might as well have been speaking about Donald Trump and his cheerleading—and misleading—chorus on Coronavirus:
“Lying has always been a highly approved Nazi technique. [Adolf] Hitler, in Mein Kampf, advocated mendacity as a policy. {Foreign Minister Joachim] Von Ribbentrop admits the use of the ‘diplomatic lie.’
“….Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. They all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary….’Final solution’ of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination. ‘Special treatment’ of prisoners of war meant killing. ‘Protective custody’ meant concentration camp.
Robert H. Jackson
“Besides outright false statements and double talk, there are also other circumventions of truth in the nature of fantastic explanations and absurd professions.
“[Rabid anti-Semite Julius] Streicher has solemnly maintained that…his reason for destroying synagogues…was only because they were architecturally offensive….
“This was the philosophy of the National Socialists. When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue their habits of a lifetime in this dock?
“It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs.”
Citing William Shakespeare’s play about the murderous Richard III, Jackson concluded:
“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: ‘Say I slew them not.’ And the Queen replied, ‘Then say they were not slain. But dead they are…’
“If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”
If Americans find Donald Trump blameless for refusing to take decisive action against the Coronavirus threat, it will be as true to say there has been no plague, there are no thousands of dead Americans, there has been no dereliction of Presidential responsibility.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 13, 2020 at 12:26 am
“I’ve chosen this life. I know what it is. There are things about it that sometimes are disturbing. But you just focus on the job you have to do. And just put all that other stuff aside.””
The speaker wasn’t a longtime Mafia enforcer turned-State’s-witness. He was Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
And he was speaking with an NBC News reporter about death threats he had received.
At 79, Fauci is getting the sort of protection reserved for organized crime witnesses through the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program.
Dr. Anthony Fauci
The U.S. Marshals Service has deputized nine officers from the Department of Health and Human Services as bodyguards for Fauci.
So what has this man—who has dedicated his entire adult life to protecting Americans against infectious diseases—done to require such protection?
He has merely spoken the hard medical truth about Coronavirus. In doing so, he has at times contradicted President Donald Trump’s statements filled with ignorance or outright lies.
For example: Trump has been loudly touting hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for the Coronavirus.
Yet Fauci has dared to point out there have been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Moreover, given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal.
Statements like this have infuriated Trump’s base of—at best—half-educated fans.
During the 2016 Presidential race, after winning the Nevada primary, Trump infamously celebrated his victory: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
A February 24, 2016 USA Today story covering this event carried the headline: “Donald Trump loves the poorly educated—and they love him.”
And at the bottom of the story came this warning: “Some—journalists, mostly—noted that Trump’s proud embrace of poorly less educated voters and the resulting shock may only cause those less educated voters to embrace Trump all the more.”
And they do.
There has been a growing divide between Democrats and Republicans on the merits of higher education.
An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “67% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents say higher education is having a positive effect on the country compared to only 33% of Republicans and Republican-leaning participants.”
Furthermore, “the percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017). Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”
This disdain for education in general—and science in particular—has led to the following: In March, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
These are the same people who get their version of reality from Right-wing sources like Fox News Network and Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On his March 27 show, Limbaugh dismissed Coronavirus as “the common cold,” then added: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.
“And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC and they’re at the NIH, and they’re up, well—yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there.
“But has there been any job assessment for them? They’re just assumed to be the best because they’re in government. But, these are all kinds of things that I’ve been questioning.”
This is the same Rush Limbaugh who said, in 2015: “Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.”
Five years later, in February, 2020, Limbaugh—a longtime and heavy cigar smoker—announced that he had Stage Four lung cancer.
And then there is President Trump—and his chorus of cheerleaders, both within his administration and on Fox News.
On February 25, Kayleigh McEnany, his fourth press secretary in three years, said on Fox Business: “This President will always put America first. He will always protect American citizens. We will not see diseases like the Coronavirus come here.”
During February and March, she repeatedly downplayed the threat of the disease, even as it spread across the United States.
By April 11 there were 561,103 cases of Coronavirus throughout the country, with 22,106 deaths.
These, then, are the types of “reliable sources” that millions of Right-wingers take as gospel—while dismissing the warnings of the medical profession as erroneous or, worse, products of a liberal conspiracy.
And by daring to contradict such blatant ignorance—if not outright lies—Dr. Anthony Fauci has made himself a target for Right-wing hatred and death threats.
Their hatred for Fauci proves once again the correctness of Ernest Hemingway’s definition of Fascism: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on March 30, 2020 at 12:42 am
It has been said that President John F. Kennedy left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy asked his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means hopeless:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, Right-wingers exchange superstition for science and insults for solutions.
One of these was Landon Spradlin, a Virginia pastor who claimed the “mass hysteria” around the Coronavirus pandemic was part of a media plot against President Donald Trump.
The 66-year-old father and husband from Virginia died due to complications from COVID-19 on March 25. in Concord, North Carolina.
At a time when responsible Americans are self-isolating to halt the spread of Coronavirus, he was returning home from a mission trip to New Orleans to “wash it from its Sin and debauchery.”
On his Facebook page Spradlin misleadingly compared Coronavirus to the swine flu. He added that the media had created “mass hysteria” to damage Trump:
Spradlin also claimed that a missionary in South Africa “protected” himself from the bubonic plague with the “Spirit of God”: “As long as I walk in the light of that law [of the Spirit of life], no germ will attach itself to me.”
Had Spradin been as knowledgeable about history as he presumably was about the Bible, he would have known:
- The bubonic plague—better known as the Black Death—raged from 1347 to 1351.
- It spread quickly and virulently throughout Europe and Asia.
- It killed 75 to 200 million people.
- Faith proved no protection from its deadliness.
Reacting to the news, a Twitter user wrote: “On March 13, Pastor Landon Spradlin shared this post suggesting #COVID19 is a hoax. On March 24th he died of that hoax. You can thank Trump and @FoxNews for perpetuating that narrative. This is not a game.”
The despicable role that Fox News Network has played in convincing millions of Americans that COVID-19 is a hoax cannot be overestimated.
By March 9, the virus had stricken 1,016 Americans and caused 31 deaths. It was raging in 33 states.The stock market had had its worst week of trading since the “Wall Street meltdown” of 2008.
But on March 9, Trish Regan, host of Trish Regan Primetime on the Fox Business Network, attacked not the virus but those who do not share her fervent embrace of Donald Trump.
“We’ve reached a tipping point,” said Regan. “The hate is boiling. Many in the liberal media are using Coronavirus in an attempt to demonize and destroy the President, despite the virus originating halfway around the world.
“This is yet another attempt to impeach the President. And sadly, it seems the left cares little for any of the destruction they leave in their wake, including losses in the stock market. This, unfortunately, is all just part of the political casualties for them.”
To make certain no one in the television audience missed the point, an electronically generated caption read: “Coronavirus Impeachment Scam.”
Unfortunately for Regan, by March 9, too many Americans—including many Fox News viewers—realized the virus was not a Democratic hoax, as she and Trump had claimed.
A firestorm of outrage descended on Fox—and on March 14, Fox Business Network announced that Regan’s program would be on “hiatus” until further notice.
But far worse is almost certain to come.
President Trump has repeatedly said he wants to “re-open the country” to end the “social distancing” and shuttered businesses recommended by the medical community. Only this, they believe, will halt or at least slow the spread of COVID -19.
He intended to use Easter Sunday—April 12—as a pretext for his real reason: He wants to return to what many of his critics refer to as “Nuremberg rallies.” Packing stadiums with his most fanatical followers, he thunders insults and lies with abandon.
Unable to do this while “social distancing” is officially on throughout the country, he has substituted nearly constant “press conferences” filled with equal parts of lies and ignorance about Coronavirus.
On March 21, for example, Trump insisted he had a “very good” feeling about using a malaria drug to combat the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had to set the record straight: “No.”
On March 29, Trump announced he would postpone “reopening the country” until April 30. By March 29, the United States had more than 139,000 COVID-19 cases, with at least 2,425 deaths.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 13, 2020 at 12:44 am
Donald Trump has been compared to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Gaius Caligula. But perhaps his counterpart lies not in history but in fiction.
Specifically, the fictional news anchor Howard Beale in Network, the 1976 satire written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It starred Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight.
Howard Beale (Finch) the longtime anchor of the UBS Evening News, is about to be fired because of declining ratings.
So he announces on live television that he will commit suicide on next Tuesday’s broadcast.
UBS fires him, but then agrees to let Beale appear one more time to leave with dignity.
But once Beale is back on the air, he launches into a rant that contains the most famous—and most often-quoted—line in the film:
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter….
“We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat….
“So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'”
Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network
Beale is clearly losing it. But his outburst causes the newscast’s ratings to spike. Instead of pulling him off the air, the top brass of UBS decide to exploit Beale’s antics.
Soon he’s hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, where he’s billed as “the mad prophet of the airwaves.” Ultimately, the show becomes the most highly rated program on television.
But then Beale’s ratings slide as audiences find his sermons on the dehumanization of society depressing.
To rid themselves of Beale and boost their season-opener ratings, the network’s top executives hire a band of terrorists called the Ecumenical Liberation Army to assassinate Beale—on the air!
Forty years after Network, Right-wing voters sent “reality show” host and real estate mogul Donald Trump to the White House.
Donald Trump
Republicans have reveled in his antics and enthusiastically supported his most heinous acts, which have included:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Repeatedly “hinting” that he wants to be “President-for-Life.”
- Allowing predatory corporations to subvert Federal regulatory protections for consumers and the environment.
- Repeatedly and viciously attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—for unanimously agreeing that Russia interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government for more than a month on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico.
- Pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide “dirt” on Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic Presidential candidate Joseph Biden—and threatening to withhold military aid if Zelensky refused.
The greed-obsessed honchos of the fictional UBS Network believed they could parley Howard Beale’s madness into greater profits.
Similarly, power-obsessed Republicans in the House and Senate believe they can parley Donald Trump’s tyrannical and unstable nature into lifetime tenure for themselves.
They have silently watched—or given their enthusiastic support—as he has attacked one cherished American institution after another:
- A free press
- An incorruptible Justice Department
- An independent judiciary.
Yet, like the executives at UBS, Congressional Republicans may soon be forced to turn on their most poisonous creation.
Right-wing Fox News Network gave its enthusiastic support to Trump during the 2016 Presidential race. And it has continued to do so throughout his more than three-year Presidency.
But on September 22, 2019, Fox News declared: “Many voters are frustrated with how the federal government is working and a growing number are nervous about the economy….
“Fifty-one percent say the economy is in only fair or poor shape.
“[Trump’s] job ratings on every other issue tested are underwater: national security (45 approve-48 disapprove), immigration (42-54), international trade (38-53), foreign policy (36-54), guns (35-56), health care (34-56) and Afghanistan (31-49).
“Currently, 45 percent approve of the overall job the president’s doing, while 54 percent disapprove.
“About two-thirds (64 percent) think many people — if not nearly all people — in government are corrupt, and almost half (46 percent) say the Trump administration is more corrupt than previous ones.”
This was before the Coronavirus pandemic hit the United States—and the Trump administration’s inept mishandling of it. While Trump insists that everything is under control, there aren’t enough testing kits for the ever-growing number of victims. More importantly, there is no vaccine for the virus.
Republicans may soon be forced to face the following dilemma:
- Can I hold onto my power—and privileges—by supporting Trump? Or:
- Can I hold onto my power—and privileges—by deserting him?
This is how Republicans define morality today.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 14, 2020 at 12:05 am
Since the end of the Cold War, the American military and Intelligence communities have grown increasingly dependent on private contractors.
In his 2007 bestseller, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Tim Weiner writes:
“Patriotism for profit became a $50-billion-a-year business….The [CIA] began contracting out thousands of jobs to fill the perceived void by the budget cuts that began in 1992.
“A CIA officer could file his retirement papers, turn in his blue identification badge, go to work for a much better salary at a military contractor such as Lockheed Martin or Booz Allen Hamilton, then return to the CIA the next day, wearing a green badge….”
Much of the CIA became totally dependent on mercenaries. They appeared to work for the agency, but their loyalty was actually to their private—and higher-paying—companies.
Writes Weiner: “Legions of CIA veterans quit their posts to sell their services to the agency by writing analyses, creating cover for overseas officers, setting up communications networks, and running clandestine operations.”
One such company was Total Intelligence Solutions, founded in 2007 by Cofer Black, who had been the chief of the CIA’s counter-terrorism center on 9/11. His partners were Robert Richer, formerly the associate deputy director of operations at the CIA, and Enrique Prado, who had been Black’s chief of counter-terror operations at the agency.
Future CIA hires followed suit: Serve for five years, win that prized CIA “credential” and sign up with a private security company to enrich themselves.
This situation met with full support from Right-wing “pro-business” members of Congress and President George W. Bush.
They had long championed the private sector as inherently superior to the public one. And they saw no danger that a man dedicated to enriching himself might put greed ahead of safeguarding his country.
Now President Donald Trump is carrying the employment of mercenaries to an entirely different level.
A January 11 headline in Rolling Stone sums it up thus: “Trump Brags About Serving Up American Troops to Saudi Arabia for Nothing More Than Cash.”
On January 10, Trump, interviewed by Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham, bragged about his positive relationship with Saudi Arabia—and how the Saudi royal family is paying to use American troops:
“Saudi Arabia is paying us for [our troops]. We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia. I said, ‘Listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us.’
“They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1 billion in the bank.
“We are going to help them, but these rich countries have to pay for it. South Korea gave us $500 million… I said, ‘You gotta help us along. We have 32,000 soldiers in South Korea protecting you from North Korea. You’ve gotta pay.’”
Republicans have been silent on Trump’s plan to turn American soldiers into foreign-paid mercenaries. But at least one former Republican has dared to speak out.
Rep. Justin Amash (I-Michigan) recently tweeted: “He sells troops.”
In October, 2019, on “Meet the Press,” Amash accused Trump of breaking his campaign promise to bring troops home.
“There are people who support the president, who believe things he says, but it’s pretty clear he’s not bringing home the troops. He’s just moving them to other parts of the Middle East.”
But there are dangers to relying on mercenaries. Recent examples include:
- Edward Snowden deliberately joined Booz Allen Hamilton to secure a job as a computer systems administrator at the National Security Agency (NSA). This gave him access to thousands of highly classified documents—which, in 2013, he began publicly leaking to a wide range of news organizations.
- His motive, he has claimed, was to warn Americans of the privacy-invading dangers posed by their own Intelligence agencies.
- On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks published a “data dump” of 8,761 documents code-named “Vault 7.”
- The documents exposed that the CIA had found security flaws in software operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Android and Apple iOS. These allowed an intruder—such as the CIA—to seize control of a computer or smartphone. The owner could then be photographed through his iPhone camera and have his text messages intercepted.
- According to anonymous U.S. Intelligence and law enforcement sources, the culprits were CIA contract employees.
More ancient sources have also warned against the use of mercenaries. One of these was Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman of the Renaissance.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In The Prince, Machiavelli writes:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure. For they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal. They are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to man, and destruction is deferred only as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.
“The cause of this is that they have no love or other motive to keep them in the field beyond a trifling wage, which is not enough to make them ready to die for you.”
Centuries after Machiavelli’s warning, Americans are realizing the bitter truth of it firsthand.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2019 at 12:16 am
On July 25, 2019, President Donald J Trump tried to extort a “favor” from Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joe Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.
Joseph Biden
To underline the seriousness of his “request,” Trump had withheld $400 million in promised military aid to Ukraine, which is facing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it.
On November 22, 2019, Mark Shields—a liberal syndicated columnist—and David Brooks—a conservative one for The New York Times—reached disturbingly similar conclusions about the corruption reveled by hearings of the House Intelligence Committee.
DAVID BROOKS: “I think Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, I don’t think it ever occurred to them that this was unethical. What strikes me [is] that everyone was in the loop, that this was not something they tried to hide.
“This was just something they thought was the way politics gets done or foreign policy gets done, that there’s no division between personal gain and public service.”
MARK SHIELDS: “What I have underestimated….is the fear that Donald Trump exercises over Republicans.I mean, people talked about Lyndon Johnson being a fearsome political leader. They don’t even approach. I mean, he strikes fear into the hearts of Republicans up and down the line. And I think that….has been eye-opening in its dimensions.”
Nor is there any reason to hope that the GOP will reign Trump in.
In a November 14 column, “Republicans Can’t Abandon Trump Now Because They’re All Guilty,” freelance journalist Joel Mathis warns: “Trump’s abuses of power mirror those of the GOP as a whole. Republicans can’t turn on him, because doing so would be to indict their party’s entire approach to politics.”
For example:
- At the state level, GOP legislatures have passed numerous voter ID laws over the last decade. Officially, the reason has been to prevent non-citizens from voting. In reality, the motive is to depress turnout among Democratic constituencies.
- When Democrats have won elections, Republicans have tried to make it impossible for them to carry out their policies. In Utah, voters approved Medicaid expansion at the ballot box—but Republicans nullified this.
- In North Carolina, Republican legislators prevented voters from choosing their representatives. Instead, Republican representatives chose voters through partisan sorting. In September, the state’s Supreme Court ruled the legislative gerrymandered district map unconstitutional.
The upshot of all this: “The president and his party are united in the belief that their entitlement to power allows them to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes….
“In the meantime, it is probably best to give up waiting for that impeachment-induced moment—a Watergate—when Republicans realize their duty to country and come around to opposing him. The president and today’s GOP share the same sins. It will be difficult for them to abandon each other.”
That appears to be the judgment of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Concluding the proceedings for November 21, Schiff attacked Republicans’ total rejection of the overwhelming evidence linking Trump with extortion:
Adam Schiff
“But apparently, it’s all hearsay. Even when you actually hear the president….that’s hearsay. We can’t rely on people saying what the president said. Apparently, we can only rely on what the president says, and there, we shouldn’t even rely on that either….
“We should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption, instead of what he actually said, which was, ‘I want you to do us a favor, though. I want you to look into this 2016 CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, and I want you to look into the Bidens.’
“I guess we’re not even supposed to rely on that because that’s hearsay….That would be like saying you can’t rely on the testimony of the burglars during Watergate because it’s only hearsay, or you can’t consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. They actually didn’t get what they came for, so, you know, kind of no harm, no foul. That’s absurd.
“The difference between [Watergate and Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukraine] is not the difference between [Richard] Nixon and [Donald] Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one. And so, we are asking, where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty?
“But the other defense besides ‘It failed, the scheme failed, they got caught,’ the other defense is ‘The president denies it.’ Well, I guess that’s case closed, right?
“….This president believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law.”
* * * * *
Those who lament that the United States has become a polarized nation must realize there is only one choice: Either Americans will remain free—or they will be enslaved by a ruthless political party convinced it is entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes;
There is no middle ground.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 28, 2019 at 12:26 am
On November 14, the CNN website showcased an opinion piece by Jane Carr and Laura Juncadella entitled: “Fractured States of America.”
And it opened:
“Some worry that it’s already too late, that we’ve crossed a threshold of polarization from which there is no return. Others look toward a future where more moderate voices are heeded and heard, and Americans can find better ways to relate to each other. Still others look back to history for a guide—perhaps for what not to do, or at the very least for proof that while it’s been bad before, progress is still possible.”
Then followed a series of anecdotes. The sub-headlines summed up many of the comments reported.
- “I was starting to hate people that I have loved for years.”
- “Voting for Trump cost me my friends.”
- “I feel like I’m living in hostile territory.”
- “Our children are watching this bloodsport.”
- “A student’s Nazi-style salute reflects the mate.”
- “Our leaders reflect the worst of us.”
- “I truly believe I will be assaulted over a bumper sticker.”
- “It already feels like a cold war.”
Abraham Lincoln warned: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half-slave and half-free. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
America now faces such a choice:
- To submit to the tyrannical aggression of a ruthless political party convinced that they are entitled to power to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes; or
- To fiercely resist that aggression and the destruction of those democratic processes.
Consider the face-off between President Donald J. Trump and Army Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.
Vindman is is a United States Army officer who serves as the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council. He is also a witness to Trump’s efforts to extort “a favor” from the president of Ukraine.
Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman
Адміністрація Президента України [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)%5D
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faces increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who has had business dealings in Ukraine.
The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.
“I was concerned by the call,” Vindman, having overheard Trump’s phone call, testified before the House Intelligence Committee. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. Government’s support of Ukraine.
“I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security.”
Trump denounced Vindman as a “Never Trumper”—as if opposing his extortion attempt constituted a blasphemy. Republicans and their shills on the Fox News Network attacked him as well. As a result, he sought protection by the Army for himself and his family.
Donald Trump
On November 15, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and liberal syndicated columnist Mark Shields summed up the different reactions by Republicans and Democrats to Trump’s extortion attempt.
Their forum: The PBS Newshour. While they often reach different conclusions on the same matter, on this occasion they found themselves in virtual agreement.
David Brooks and Mark Shields on “The PBS Newshour”
DAVID BROOKS: “The case is very solid and airtight that there was the quid pro quo. All the testimony points to that. And, mostly, you see a contrast. The first two gentlemen that testified on the first day, they were just upstanding, solid public servants.
“I felt like I was looking back in time, because I was looking at two people who are not self-centered. They cared about the country. They were serving. They had not partisan axe to grind. They were just honest men of integrity.
“And I thought we saw that again today with [former Ambassador to Ukraine] Marie Yovanovitch. And in her case, the day was more emotional, because you got to see a case of bullying against a strong, upstanding woman.
“And so I thought she expressed—like, the heavy moments of today where when she expressed her reaction to how badly she was treated. And so that introduces an element of emotion and pathos into what shouldn’t be just a legal proceeding. It should be something where people see the contrast between good people and bad people.”
MARK SHIELDS: “There’s a sense of outrage building. This is a story of corruption, corruption not in Ukraine, corruption in the United States.
“I mean, why? Why did they go to such lengths to denigrate, to attack, to try and destroy and sabotage the career of a dedicated public servant [United States Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich], a person who had put her life on the line? Why did they do it? What was it, money? Was it power?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 12, 2019 at 12:07 am
Donald Trump has a longstanding hatred of whistleblowers when they betray his crimes and follies. But he feels completely different about “flippers” when their revelations serve his interests.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The leak revealed a DNC bias for Hillary Clinton and against her lone challenger, Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders. Clinton, who was about to receive the Democratic nomination for President, was thoroughly embarrassed. Sanders’ supporters were enraged.
Presidential candidate Trump’s reaction:
- “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.”
- “This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. It tells you the inner heart, you gotta read it.”
- This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove.”
- “WikiLeaks just came out with a new one just a little while ago it’s just been shown that a rigged system with more collusion, probably illegal, between the Department of Justice the Clinton campaign and the State Department, you saw that.”
But now Trump has reverted to his longtime hatred of “leakers.”
In July, 2019, he told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faces increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who has had business dealings in Ukraine.
The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.
Joe Biden
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tweeted: “The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown: — We do a lot for Ukraine — There’s not much reciprocity — I have a favor to ask — Investigate my opponent — My people will be in touch — Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her.”
On September 24, 2019, Nancy Pelosi, speaker to the House of Representatives, announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
On September 26, Trump told a private group at a midtown hotel: “I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy.
“You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
Trump can’t refute the sheer number of witnesses who have testified to his extortion attempt on Ukraine. So he now seeks to shift blame to the person who originally testified to his extortion.
On November 6, his son, Donald, Jr., tweeted out an article which might—or might not—have contained the name of the Intelligence community whistleblower.
A Trump shill later claimed that Trump hadn’t known about his son’s efforts to attack that official.
The law firm, Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, called on Attorney General William Barr to open a criminal investigation into any leaks of the whistleblower’s identity.
“As attorneys representing whistleblowers for over 35-years we are extremely concerned about the nation-wide ‘chilling effect’ the disclosure of the identity of any intelligence community whistleblower will necessary cause. Whistleblowers need to reassurance that the laws protecting them will be strictly enforced.
“If the [whistleblower’s] name is revealed by any person, including Donald Trump, Jr., we hereby request that the persons engaging in this obstruction of justice be immediately arrested.”
Yet Barr, as Trump’s handpicked Attorney General, has so far refused to take any action against those in violation of whistleblower statutes.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enforces the provisions of more than 20 whistleblower statutes protecting employees from retaliation for reporting violations of various workplace-related laws.
According to a 2002 amendment to the federal retaliation statute:
“Whoever knowingly, with intent to retaliate, takes any action harmful to any person, including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood of any person, for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.”
These forbid an employer to fire, lay off, threaten, reduce pay or hours, blacklist, demote, deny overtime, benefits or promotion to anyone protected by such laws.
One such witness is Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an expert on Ukraine. A member of the National Security Council, he felt it improper for a President to ask a foreign leader to investigate an American citizen.
Trump called Vindman, a Purple Heart winner who was wounded in Iraq, “Yesterday’s Never Trumper witness.”
Ultimately, the identity of the whistleblower doesn’t matter.
As Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) tweeted on November 8: “One more time for the people in the back: The whistleblower pulled the fire alarm. The 1st responders showed up and saw smoke, flames, and @realDonaldTrump holding matches. Does it matter who pulled the fire alarm?”
The truth of the original complaint about Trump’s extortion attempt has been repeatedly validated by multiple witnesses.
It now remains to be seen whether Republicans care more about the truth of that complaint—or bowing in subservience to a thoroughly corrupt President.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 11, 2019 at 12:07 am
Before 1966, witnesses who dared expose the deadly secrets of the Mafia came to a brutal end once trials ended. And sometimes before trials even began.
For example: In 1940, Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, a notorious hitman for Murder, Inc., the execution squad of the New York Mafia, turned State’s evidence against his cronies. His testimony sent his former boss, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, to the electric chair for murder.
He was set to testify against Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia, the chief of Murder, Inc., in November, 1941. Then fate—or bribed police—intervened.
Reles was being guarded round-the-clock by a lieutenant and six detectives at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island. Nevertheless, he “fell” 42 feet to his death from his sixth-floor room. No one was prosecuted for his murder.
As Joseph Valachi, a future Mafia witness, later testified: “I never met anybody yet who thought Reles went out that window on purpose.”
Abe “Kid Twist” Reles
In 1966, the United States Justice Department indicted Rhode Island Mafia Boss Raymond Patriarca. Thus, protection of its star witness, hitman Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, became a top priority.
Assigned to guard him was a small, handpicked detail of deputy U.S. marshals under the command of John Partington. For 18 months, the marshals foiled every effort by the Mafia to “clip” Barboza.
His testimony convicted a half-dozen top Mafiosi—including Patriarca. Then the marshals packed Barboza off to California under a new identity—and a new life.
Other Mafiosi—having run afoul of the Mafia and impressed by the success of the marshals in keeping Barboza alive—signed on as witnesses.
This, in turn, led the Justice Department to create an official Witness Security Program. By 2019, the Program had protected, relocated and given new identities to more than 8,600 witnesses and 9,900 of their family members.
Deputy U.S. marshals guarding a witness
Every President since John F. Kennedy has championed the vigorous prosecution of organized crime. And fueling this drive is the testimony of endangered witnesses requiring air-tight security.
Donald Trump is the first President to blatantly attack those who dare to “rat out” their former criminal associates.
On August 21, 2018, attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud. He also said he had made illegal campaign contributions “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office”—Donald Trump.
Among his revelations:
- Trump has repeatedly asserted that Russia didn’t interfere with the 2016 Presidential election. But Cohen said he believed it did.
- Trump has repeatedly claimed he had “no business” in Russia. But Cohen testified that the Trump Organization had sought to “pursue a branded property in Moscow.”
- Trump denied having had sex with and paid off porn “actress” Stormy Daniels. But Cohen confirmed that Trump had instructed him to pay her $130,000 to buy her silence during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him: “For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.
“You know, campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly. But if somebody defrauded a bank and he’s going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you’ll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made.”
Making “flipping” illegal would undo decades of organized crime prosecutions—and make future ones almost impossible.
U.S. Department of Justice
To penetrate the secrets of criminal organizations, investigators and prosecutors need the testimony of those who are parties to those secrets.
The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 gave Justice Department prosecutors unprecedented weapons for attacking crime syndicates across the country. One of these was the authority to give witnesses immunity from prosecution on the basis of their own testimony.
Thus, a witness to a criminal conspiracy could be forced to tell all he knew—and thus implicate his accomplices—and bosses. In turn, he wouldn’t be prosecuted on the basis of his testimony.
Organized crime members aggressively damn such “rats.” There is no more obscene word in a mobster’s vocabulary.
But no President—until Trump—has ever attacked those who make possible a war on organized crime.
On August 19, he tweeted: “The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel [sic] Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel [sic] he must be a John Dean type ‘RAT.’
“But I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide……”
In 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified before the United States Senate on a litany of crimes committed by President Richard M. Nixon. Dean didn’t lie about Nixon—who ultimately resigned in disgrace.
For Trump, Dean’s sin is that he “flipped” on his former boss, violating the Mafia’s code of omerta, or silence.
But Trump feels completely different abut “flippers” when their revelations serve his interests.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on October 11, 2019 at 12:07 am
Donald Trump routinely makes fun of others.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, he infamously mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting the joints.
In 2018, Trump viciously attacked Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who had come forward to allege that Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, had sexually assaulted her when she was 15.
But he holds himself immune from ridicule.
On September 26, Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, rose to the occasion.
Adam Schiff
During a hearing of his committee, he gave a dramatic reading—part news summary, part parody. It centered on an extortion call Trump had made on July 25 to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump had wanted a “favor”: Investigate 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who has had business dealings in Ukraine.
Unspoken was the threat of cancelling $400 million in promised American military aid to Ukraine.
So Schiff—whose committee is investigating that incident—gave a summary of that call during a hearing.
It wasn’t the news summary part that infuriated Trump, but the mockery included within it.
As Schiff explained to CNN: “The fact that that’s not clear is a separate problem in and of itself. Of course, the President never said, ‘If you don’t understand me I’m going to say it seven more times.’ My point is, that’s the message that the Ukraine president was receiving in not so many words.”
Trump had aimed his own brand of juvenile humor at Schiff in the past, referring to him as “little Adam Schit.”
Donald Trump
But for Schiff to dare to make fun of him was—for Trump—entirely too much.
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump tweeted. “It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”
Trump is the first President to openly equate criticism—especially mockery—of himself with treason. Like the French King, Louis X1V, he believes: L’État, c’est moi—“I am the State.”
And treason is a crime that has traditionally been punished with death.
So Trump more than gave the game away when he tweeted, on October 7: “Nancy Pelosi knew of all of the many Shifty Adam Schiff lies and massive frauds perpetrated upon Congress and the American people.
“This makes Nervous Nancy every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason. I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly ‘Colluded’ with them, must all be immediately Impeached!”
Nancy Pelosi, as speaker of the House of Representatives, has done nothing that meets the Constitutional definition of treason: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
Moreover, members of Congress cannot be impeached. Impeachment is a Congressional tool for investigating judges or executive branch officials they believe may have committed crimes.
No doubt many people believe that Trump wouldn’t dare ask his hand-picked Attorney General, William Barr, to indict Adam Schiff or Nancy Pelosi for treason.
Of course, there were many people who believed that Trump wouldn’t dare fire FBI Director James Comey for pursuing an investigation into Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Or that he would openly call on a hostile foreign power—China—to intervene in the 2020 Presidential election.
A President who can invite a hostile foreign power to slander his political opponent can just as easily call on a hostile foreign power to assassinate that opponent.
Trump has claimed: “Let me tell you, I’m only interested in corruption. I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about Biden’s politics….”
But if Trump were concerned about fighting corruption, he wouldn’t have:
- Focused his anti-corruption campaign entirely on Biden;
- Defended his former 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who made millions working for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych;
- Praised others mired in corruption scandals—such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump is counting on Americans’ awe of the Presidency to convince them of his integrity.
But according to Robert A. Prentice, Professor of Government and Society at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin:
“President Donald Trump’s lying is off the charts. No prominent politician in memory bests Trump for spouting spectacular, egregious, easily disproved lies. The birther claim. The vote fraud claim. The attendance at the inauguration claim. And on and on and on.
“Every fact checker—Kessler, Factcheck.org, Snopes.com, PolitiFact—finds a level of mendacity unequaled by any politician ever scrutinized. For instance, 70 percent of his campaign statements checked by PolitiFact were mostly false, totally false, or “pants on fire” false.”
Donald Trump prides himself on setting Presidential precedents. He may turn out to be the first President who invoked “treason” against his political opponents—and was himself found to be a menace to the nation he claimed to love.
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“SAY TRUMP IS BLAMELESS. SAY THERE ARE NO DEAD.”
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 14, 2020 at 12:30 amPresident Donald Trump frittered away two vital months—January and February—by refusing to take Coronavirus seriously. Even worse, he repeatedly downplayed the virus in a series of public appearances.
Consider:
Now, with more than 23,000 Americans dead—10,000 of them alone in New York—Trump’s fanatical defenders are desperate to rewrite history.
Donald Trump
The outbreak of Coronavirus, first detected in Wuhan, China, in late December, 2019, has taken more American lives in the 21st century than any other disaster—natural or man-made.
Consider:
One of these defenders is Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
On April 9, appearing on the Fox News network’s “Sean Hannity” show, Graham said: “The first thing I want to do is get the United States Senate on the record where we don’t blame Trump. We blame China.
“The Chinese government is responsible for 16,000 American deaths and 17 million Americans being unemployed. It’s the Chinese government and the way they behave that led to this pandemic. This is the third one to come out of China.
Lindsey Graham
“I want to make our response to this so overwhelming that China will change its behavior. I want to get the medical supply chain back into the United States, and I want to stop cancelling some debt that we owe to China because they should be paying us, not us paying China.”
Graham said that the “wet markets” in China should be shut down, because they have been the source of three pandemics that originated in China.
“So, I think you’re going to see a bipartisan push back against China to punish them so severely to deter them in the future.”
[As for “getting the medical supply chain back into the United States”: In 2018, China accounted for 95% of American imports of ibuprofen, 91% off hydrocortisone, 70% of acetaminophen, 40% to 45% of penicillin and 40% of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. Eighty percent of the American supply of antibiotics are made in China.]
* * * * * * * * * *
Seventy-three years earlier, Chief United States Counsel Robert H. Jackson had been assigned to prosecute the major Nazi defendants for war crimes at Nuremberg.
On July 26, 1946, Jackson delivered his closing remarks to the court. He might as well have been speaking about Donald Trump and his cheerleading—and misleading—chorus on Coronavirus:
“Lying has always been a highly approved Nazi technique. [Adolf] Hitler, in Mein Kampf, advocated mendacity as a policy. {Foreign Minister Joachim] Von Ribbentrop admits the use of the ‘diplomatic lie.’
“….Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. They all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary….’Final solution’ of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination. ‘Special treatment’ of prisoners of war meant killing. ‘Protective custody’ meant concentration camp.
Robert H. Jackson
“Besides outright false statements and double talk, there are also other circumventions of truth in the nature of fantastic explanations and absurd professions.
“[Rabid anti-Semite Julius] Streicher has solemnly maintained that…his reason for destroying synagogues…was only because they were architecturally offensive….
“This was the philosophy of the National Socialists. When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue their habits of a lifetime in this dock?
“It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs.”
Citing William Shakespeare’s play about the murderous Richard III, Jackson concluded:
“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: ‘Say I slew them not.’ And the Queen replied, ‘Then say they were not slain. But dead they are…’
“If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”
If Americans find Donald Trump blameless for refusing to take decisive action against the Coronavirus threat, it will be as true to say there has been no plague, there are no thousands of dead Americans, there has been no dereliction of Presidential responsibility.
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