Posts Tagged ‘HILLARY CLINTON’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 1, 2017 at 12:26 am
President Barack Obama came into office determined to find common ground with Republicans.
But they quickly made it clear to him that they only wanted his political destruction. At that point, he should have put aside his hopes for a “Kumbaya moment” and re-read what Niccolo Machiavelli said in The Prince on the matter of love versus fear:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved or feared, or feared more than love. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Finally, warns Machiavelli, a leader should not allow a threat to go unchecked. The motive for this is usually the hope of avoiding conflict And the result is usually catastrophe.
A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good. And therefore it is necessary, for a prince who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.
For Obama, such a moment came in 2011, when House Republicans threatened to to destroy the credit rating of the United States unless the President agreed to scrap Obamacare.
Obama, a former attorney, heatedly denounced House Republicans for “extortion” and “blackmail.”
Unless he was exaggerating, both of these are felony offenses that are punishable under the 2001 USA Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act of 1970.
Among the crimes that can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys under RICO: Extortion.
Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”
And if President Obama didn’t believe that RICO was sufficient to deal with extortionate behavior, he could have ordered the Justice Department to cite the USA Patriot Act, passed in the wake of 9/11.
In Section 802, among the behaviors that are defined as domestic terrorism: “Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
Activities such as threatening to destroy the financial stability of the United States.
The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were legally in place. President Obama could have directed the Justice Department to apply them.
If violations had been discovered, indictments could have quickly followed–and then prosecutions. The results of such action could be easily predicted:
- Facing lengthy prison terms, those indicted Republicans would have first had to lawyer-up.
- This would have imposed huge monetary costs on them, since good criminal attorneys don’t come cheap.
- Obsessed with their personal survival, they would have had little time to engage in more of the same thuggish behavior that got them indicted. In fact, doing so would have only made their convictions more likely.
- Those Republicans who hadn’t (yet) been indicted would have feared; “I could be next.” This would have produced a chilling effect on their willingness to engage in further acts of subversion and extortion.
- The effect on Right-wing Republicans would have been the same as that of President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers: “You cross me and threaten the security of this nation at your own peril.”
It would no doubt have been a long time before Republicans dared to engage in such behavior–at least, while Obama held office.
So: Why didn’t President Obama act to punish such criminal conduct?
Obama Mistake No. 4: He allowed himself to be cowed by his enemies.
In The Prince, Machiavelli laid out the qualities that a successful ruler should avoid–
He is rendered despicable by being thought changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid and irresolute–which a prince must guard against as a rock of danger….
–and possess:
As to the government of his subjects, let his sentence be irrevocable, and let him adhere to his decisions so that no one may think of deceiving or cozening him.
Niccolo Machiavelli
On July 2, 2013, the Treasury Department announced a major change in the application of the Affordable Care Act:
“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively…We have listened to your feedback. And we are taking action.
“The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin.”
And the Republican response?
On July 30, 2013, House Republicans voted to sue the President for failing to enforce the Affordable Care Act–which they had voted 54 times to repeal, delay or change.
As Machiavelli warned: Timidity invites contempt–and aggression.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2017 at 12:13 am
Barack Obama was easily one of the most highly educated Presidents in United States history. He is a graduate of Columbia University (B.A. in political science in 1983).
In 1988, he entered Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude–“with great honor”–in 1991.
He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year, and president of the journal in his second year.
President Barack Obama
He then taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years–as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.
Yet, his signature plan to give every American access to healthcare, the Affordable Care Act–universally known as “Obamacare”–remains stricken with dangerous flaws.
So where did he go wrong?
Several ways–in all, at least six.
Obama Mistake No. 1: Putting off what people wanted while concentrating on what they didn’t.
Obama started off well when he took office. Americans had high expectations of him. This was partly due to his being the first black to be elected President.
And it was partly due to the disastrous legacies of needless war and financial catastrophe left by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Obama entered office intending to reform the American healthcare system, to make medical care available to all citizens, and not just the richest. But that was not what the vast majority of Americans wanted him to concentrate his energies on.
With the lost of 2.6 million jobs in 2008, Americans wanted Obama to find new ways to create jobs. This was especially true for the 11.1 million unemployed, or those employed only part-time.
Jonathan Alter, who writes sympathetically about the President in The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, candidly states this.
But Obama chose to spend most of his first year as President pushing the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–which would soon become known as Obamacare–through Congress.
The results were:
- Those desperately seeking employment felt the President didn’t care about them.
- The reform effort became a lightning rod for Right-wing groups like the Koch-brothers-financed Tea Party.
- In 2010, a massive Rightist turnout cost the Democrats the House of Representatives, and threatened Democratic control of the Senate.
Obama Mistake No. 2: He underestimated the amount of opposition he would face to the ACA.
For all of Obama’s academic brilliance and supposed ruthlessness as a “Chicago politician,” he displayed an incredible naivety in dealing with his political opposition.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), the Florentine statesman and father of modern politics, could have warned him of the consequences of this–through the pages of The Prince, his infamous treatise on the realities of politics.
Niccolo Machiavelli
And either Obama skipped those chapters or ignored their timeless advice for political leaders.
He should have started with Chapter Six: “Of New Dominions Which Have Been Acquired By One’s Own Arms and Ability”:
…There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.
For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
This proved exactly the case with the proposed Affordable Care Act.
Its supporters–even when they comprised a majority of the Congress–have always shown far less fervor than its opponents.
This was true before the Act became effective on March 23, 2010. And it has remained true since, with House Republicans voting more than 60 times to repeal, delay or revise the law.
So before President Obama launched his signature effort to reform the American medical system, he should have taken this truism into account.
Obama Mistake No. 3: Failing to consider–and punish–the venom of his political enemies.
The ancient Greeks used to say: “A man’s character is his fate.” It was Obama’s character–and America’s fate–that he was by nature a man of conciliation, not conflict.
Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s winning of the White House in his 2009 book, Renegade: The Making of a President. He noted that Obama was always more comfortable when responding to Republican attacks on his character than he was in making attacks on his enemies.
President Obama came into office determined to find common ground with Republicans.
But they quickly made it clear to him that they only wanted his political destruction. At that point, he should have put aside his hopes for a “Kumbaya moment” and re-read what Niccolo Machiavelli said in The Prince on the matter of love versus fear:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved or feared, or feared more than love. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2017 at 10:29 am
The love-fest between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump certainly got off to a great start.
No doubt well-informed on Trump’s notorious egomania, Putin called a press conference to announce: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Vladimir Putin
That was on December 17, 2015.
Trump didn’t lose any time responding. On the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he said: “Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant,’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia.
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country”–yet another insult at President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump
Both Putin and Trump are well-known for their authoritarian characteristics. But more than one dictator’s admiration for another might explain their continuing “bromance.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more.
He has also said that, if Russia attacked NATO members, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after determining whether those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.”
If he believed that they had not done so, he would tell them: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”
For Putin, this clearly signaled a reason to prefer Trump over his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. Trump’s statement marked the first time that a major Presidential candidate placed conditions on the United States’ coming to the defense of its major allies.
The withdrawal of the United States from NATO would instantly render that alliance kaput. Its European members that have long hurled insults at the United States would suddenly face extinction.
Even if their armed forces proved a match for Russia’s–which they wouldn’t–their governments would cower before the threat of Russia’s huge nuclear arsenal.
Trump’s motives for his “bromance” with Putin are more difficult to decipher.
Some believe that Trump–a notorious egomaniac–is simply responding to an overdoses of Putin flattery.
Others think that, while visiting Moscow, Trump made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
There are unconfirmed Intelligence reports that he paid–and watched–several Russian prostitutes urinate on a bed once slept on by President Obama and his wife at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The alleged incident was reportedly captured by hidden microphones and cameras operated by the FSB, the successor to the KGB.
A recent “Saturday Night Live” sketch featured a Putin lookalike intimidating Alec Baldwin’s Trump at a press conference–by holding up a video tape marked “Pee-Pee Tape.”
Still others believe that Trump–who has refused to release his tax returns–is deeply in dept to Russian oligarchs.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the DNC. And they clearly revealed a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her competitor, Bernie Sanders.
The leak badly embarrassed Clinton. About to receive the Democratic Presidential nomination, she found herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Cyber-security experts believed the hacking originated from Russia–and that Putin had authorized it.
Even so, Putin is not the first Communist dictator to find common cause with an avowed Right-winger.
On August 23, 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin signed a “non-aggression pact” with Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
Joseph Stalin
The reason: Hitler intended to invade Poland–but feared going to war with the neighboring Soviet Union if he did so. By signing a non-aggression pact with Stalin, he avoided this danger–and gained “rights” to the western half of Poland.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
In addition, Nazi Germany began receiving huge shipments of raw materials from the Soviet Union–as part of Stalin’s effort to placate Hitler and avoid a Nazi-Soviet clash.
And Stalin got something, too: The eastern half of Poland, which would be occupied by the Red Army.
But the Hitler-Stalin alliance lasted less than two years. It ended without warning–on June 22, 1941.
With 134 divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more for deployment behind the front–a total of three million men–the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Hitler had long intended to obtain “living space” for Germany–in Russia. By 1941, having conquered most of Europe, he felt strong enough to embark on his great crusade.
There are three ways Putin may come to regret his “bromance” with Trump.
First: Trump may be not be able to lift the sanctions imposed on Russia by President Obama for interfering in the 2016 election.
Second: Increasing political pressure on Trump by Democrats and even Republicans for that interference may result in even tougher action against Russia.
And third: Trump is known for his egomania, not his loyalty. He may take offense at some future perceived Putin slight. In such case, he may well decide he doesn’t owe anything to the man he once called “a leader.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 23, 2017 at 3:39 pm
The love-fest between Donald and Vladimir Putin began on December 17, 2015.
Putin made the first move: “He is a bright and talented person without any doubt. He is the absolute leader of the presidential race.
“He says he will want to reach another, deeper, level of relations (with Russia). What else can we do but to welcome it? Certainly, we welcome it.
“That is none of our business to evaluate his accomplishments, but he remains the absolute front-runner in the presidential race. He is an outstanding and talented personality without any doubts.”
Appearing on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump responded in kind: “Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant,’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia.”
“It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”
Donald Trump
The host, Joe Scarborough, was taken aback: “Well, I mean, [Putin’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: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.
SCARBOROUGH: I’m confused. So I mean, you obviously condemn Vladimir Putin killing journalists and political opponents, right?
TRUMP: Oh sure, absolutely.
When Trump praised Putin as a leader–“unlike what we have in this country”–he no doubt meant President Barack Obama.
Ironically, it was not Obama but President George W. Bush to whom his insult applies.
In June 2001, Bush and Vladimir Putin met in Slovenia. During the meeting a truly startling exchange occurred.
Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush
Putin, a former KGB Intelligence officer, had clearly done his homework on Bush. When he mentioned that one of the sports Bush had played was rugby, Bush was highly impressed.
“I did play rugby,” said Bush. “Very good briefing.”
Bush knew that Putin had worked for Soviet intelligence. So he should not have been surprised that the KGB had amassed a lengthy dossier on him.
But more was to come.
BUSH: Let me say something about what caught my attention, Mr. President, was that your mother gave you a cross which you had blessed in Israel, the Holy Land.
PUTIN: It’s true.
BUSH: That amazes me, that here you were a Communist, KGB operative, and yet you were willing to wear a cross. That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President. May I call you Vladimir?
Putin instantly sensed that Bush judged others–even world leaders–through the lens of his own fundamentalist Christian theology.
Falling back on his KGB training, Putin seized on this apparent point of commonality to build a bond. He told Bush that his dacha had once burned to the ground, and the only item that had been saved was that cross.
“Well, that’s the story of the cross as far as I’m concerned,” said Bush, clearly impressed. “Things are meant to be.”
Afterward, Bush and Putin gave an outdoor news conference.
“Is this a man that Americans can trust?” Associated Press correspondent Ron Fournier asked Bush.
“Yes,” said Bush. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”
Now Putin is putting his KGB skills to work with another President–Trump.
At Putin’s direction, an Intelligence dossier is being prepared on Trump. According to Andrei Fedorov, former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, a team of retired diplomats and Putin staffers are compiling a seven-page profile of Trump’s psychological state.
Trump is depicted as a naive risk-taker who acts like a “tough guy.”
The dossier will be given to Putin before their first meeting–for which no date has been set.
Federov said that Trump doesn’t understand Putin and should listen more to his team, “especially in the areas where he is weak.”
Trump’s constant battles with the American press worry the Kremlim: “He’s dancing on thin ice,” said Federov. “It’s a risky game.”
Mikhail Kasyanov, who was once prime minister under Putin, said that Putin was worried that, unless Trump is careful, he will lose the political clout he needs to improve relations with Russia.
In particular, Putin wants American economic sanctions against Russia–imposed by President Barack Obama over Russian interference in the 2016 election–lifted.
American hostility toward Russia has been increased by three major revelations:
- Russia’s hacks against the Democratic party to sway the election in favor of Trump;
- Members of Trump’s Presidential campaign were in regular contact with senior Russian Intelligence officials; and
- Trump’s being forced to fire his National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, over his ties with Russia.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 22, 2017 at 12:31 am
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thusly:
“He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”
What was true for Adolf Hitler was equally true for Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican nominee for President of the United States.
Trump’s vindictive streak was evident on October 9, 2016p, during his second Presidential debate with Hillary Clinton: “If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation–there has never been so many lies and so much deception.”
This played well with Trump’s essentially Fascistic followers, but even conservatives like political columnist Charles Krauthammer disagreed with it:
“I’m one of those who thinks there was a miscarriage of justice in not indicting her. But the problem here is the pattern from Trump.
“He has spoken about using the powers of the government to go after other opponents like the publisher of The Washington Post.
“Do we want to invest in him all the powers of the government if he acts where he seems to want to carry out vendettas?”
Charles Krauthammer
But making threats against anyone who has dared to cross him or has merely roused his ire is a longtime Trump characteristic.
In 2010, Tarla Makaeff, a former customer of Trump’s real-estate seminar business, filed a fraud lawsuit against now-defunct Trump University.
Trump retaliated by filing a defamation suit against her. The case was dismissed by a judge. But Trump continued to attack her during his Presidential candidacy.
During a campaign rally he assailed her as a “horrible, horrible witness,” and then posted on Twitter that she was “Disgraceful!”
Makaeff ultimately persuaded the judge presiding over the Trump University case to let her remove her name as a plaintiff.
Trump has long employed a series of hardball tactics against anyone who threatens his ego:
- Countersuits, threats and personal insults against outsiders; and
- Stringent confidentiality agreements against employees, business partners, his former spouses and now his campaign staffers.
As an authoritarian who demands the right to craft his own image. Trump furiously denies others the right to dissent from it.
In February, 2016, Trump said that he was “gonna open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”
After the New York Times published pages from his 1995 tax return, Trump tweeted that his lawyers “want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting.”
Trump is a master of “dog whistle” threats. On August 9, 2016, he falsely told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment.
“If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Hillary Clinton
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
Trump–and his apologists–claimed he was simply “joking.”
But Trump was not done with making threats against Hillary Clinton–and her husband, Bill.
Donald Trump
On October 7, 2016, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women (“I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”).
The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood.
The admissions ignited a firestorm against Trump, even among many Republicans.
Rather than accept responsibility for his actions, Trump blamed the Clintons–who had nothing to do with the release.
Speaking before a rally in Pennsylvania on October 10, Trump threatened: “If they wanna release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks.”
Since being elected President, Trump has continued to lash out at a wide range of people, organizations and even countries.
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, offered a still-timely warning to those inclined to gratuitously hand out insults and threats:
“I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
“For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautions, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
And for those who expect Trump to stop constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has an equally stern warning:
“No man can be found so prudent as to be able to [adopt his mode of operating to changing circumstances] either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it….”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2017 at 1:44 am
On December 14, 2016, NBC News reported that “U.S. intelligence officials now believe with ‘a high level of confidence’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.”
According to senior Intelligence officials, Putin had several motives:
- Waging a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, whom he has long disliked;
- Publicly disgrace the United States by revealing corruption at the heart of its politics; and
- “Split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore.”
The CIA believed that Putin wanted to elect Donald Trump. The FBI wasn’t so certain, feeling that Putin might have simply wanted to do as much harm as possible.
Even so, an air of unreality clung to all of this.
On June 2, 2016, before an audience in San Diego, California, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had noted Trump’s strange attraction to dictators:
“And I have to say, I don’t understand Donald [Trump’s] bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.
“He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength.
“He said, ‘You’ve got to give Kim Jong Un credit’ for taking over North Korea–something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie.
“And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he’d give him an A. Now, I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants,” said Clinton.
Vladimir Putin
On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: 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: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is.
SCARBOROUGH: I’m confused. So I mean, you obviously condemn Vladimir Putin killing journalists and political opponents, right?
TRUMP: Oh sure, absolutely.
And Trump went far beyond handing out compliments.
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). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
And Trump’s reaction?
At a press conference in Doral, Florida he declared: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing–I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason–calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
As President, Trump has defended the leader of the Communist world against hostile journalists and American Intelligence agencies.
Donald Trump
On February 5, he gave an interview to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. As startled viewers watched, there occurred this exchange:
O’REILLY: Do you respect Putin?
TRUMP: I do respect him but—
O’REILLY: Do you? Why?
TRUMP: Well, I respect a lot of people but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him. He’s a leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world —that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.
O’REILLY: But he’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer.
TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think—our country’s so innocent? You think our country’s so innocent?
O’REILLY: I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers.
TRUMP: Well—take a look at what we’ve done, too. We made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
O’REILLY: But mistakes are different than—
TRUMP: A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.
Trump launched his Presidential campaign on June 16, 2015. According to The New York Times, by late October, 2016, he had aimed nearly 4,000 insulting tweets at 281 targets.
Among those insulted:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- The media
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Asians
- The Pope
- Prisoners-of-war.
Considering his hair-trigger temper and willingness to insult virtually anyone, Trump’s careful, even fawning attitude toward Vladimir Putin stands out.
No wonder House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, following Trump’s February 5 remarks on Putin:
“I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump. I think we have to have an investigation by the FBI into his financial, personal and political connections to Russia, and we want to see his tax returns, so we can have truth in the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 7, 2017 at 4:00 pm
Donald Trump has changed Presidential campaigning–perhaps forever.
First, he routinely insulted his opponents. He made angry and brutal attacks on a wide range of persons and organizations–including his fellow Republicans, journalists, news organizations, other countries and even celebrities unconnected with politics.
Among those groups:
- Mexicans
- Prisoners-of-War
- Blacks
- Handicapped
Second, he weaponized social media. He made Twitter an essential arm of his campaign, swiftly insulting his opponents and keeping them constantly off-balance. He proved himself a master at the tabloid news culture and thoroughly in tune with his target audience.
Third, he used the media for free publicity. Since announcing his candidacy on June 16, 2015, he got a year’s worth of free media advertising. This wasn’t the result of a networks’ conspiracy to favor Trump.
Instead, it owed to the media’s lust for sensational copy. And scenes of conflict–such as making brutal attacks on others–generate huge viewership.
This was most apparent in debates, during which he belittled his Republican opponents with insulting nicknames, such as:
- “Little Marco” – Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
- “Goofy” – Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
- “Lyin’ Ted” – Texas U.S. Senator Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz
And looking beyond the Republican primary cycle, he created one for his future Democratic antagonist: “Crooked Hillary”–Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State.
Political pundits marveled at Trump’s ability to jettison long-held niceties of political discourse and not pay an electoral price for it. They kept predicting that eventually this might happen. But it never did.
Fourth, he openly called for the subversion of the American political system.
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).
Cyber-security experts believed the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized it.
The emails revealed the DNC’s bias for Clinton for President. And they showed clear animosity toward her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Sanders’ supporters had long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign.
Five days later, on July 27, at a press conference in Doral, Florida. Trump said:
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Trump hoped to score points on Hillary Clinton’s using a private email server as Secretary of State. Instead, he ignited criticism–of himself–on both Left and Right.
“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” said Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser. “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was equally quick to react. “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug,” said Brendan Buck, Ryan’s spokesman. “Putin should stay out of this election.”
“If he is talking about the State Department emails on her server, he is inviting a foreign intelligence service to steal sensitive American government information,” said Michael Hayden, head of the CIA under President George W. Bush.
“In addition to its implications for national security today,” wrote Benjy Sarlin, political reporter for MSNBC, “the incident raised disturbing questions about how Trump would govern as president. If a leader is willing to turn to ask foreign spy agencies to target a political opponent, what would he ask of his own spy agencies?”
The avalanche of criticism led Trump to claim: “I was only being sarcastic.”
For at least one normally conservative newspaper, Trump’s words were simply too much. In a July 27 editorial, The Dallas Morning News declared:
“Words have meaning. The world is listening. And what the world is hearing is a man demonstrating that he is unfit to sit in the Oval Office.”
Since the end of World War II, Republicans had taken an intensely anti-Communist stance. Now their Presidential nominee had not only complimented an ex-KGB agent but had even invited him to target the American political system.
Despite the criticism, the overwhelming majority of Republicans–including Paul Ryan–continued to support Trump’s candidacy. Nor did the Obama administration investigate or indict him for treason or subversion.
The ancient Greeks believed hubris–overweening pride–to be the greatest of sins. And, they warned, it was usually punished by divine wrath.
In his book, The World of Herodotus, Aubrey de Selincourt writes that the Greek historian filled his book, The Histories, with “stories of the perils of pride–pride of wealth, pride of power, pride of success, and, deadliest of all, the pride which leads a man to forget that he is a nothing in the sight of the gods.”
And, in the pages of The Histories lies this warning: “Look to the end, no matter what it is you are considering. Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness, and then utterly ruins him.”
Donald Trump has finally made it to the White House. But there is still time for hubris to overtake and destroy him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on January 25, 2017 at 8:15 am
The first six months of Gaius Caligula’s reign were successful and popular.
After that, wrote his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.”
Gaius Caligula
Among his litany of crimes, according to Suetonius:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.
“He had the manager of his gladiatorial shows and beast-baitings beaten with chains in his presence for several successive days, and would not kill him until he was disgusted at the stench of his putrefied brain.”
Donald Trump has never been charged with murder. But during his second Presidential debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he previewed the dangers of a Trump Justice Department: “If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.”
Donald Trump
Nor did he limit himself to making threats against Democrats. On March 16, 2016, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
That Republicans clearly saw this as a threat is undeniable. Paul Ryan, their Speaker of the House, said: “Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable.”
Caligula’s egomania soon reached psychotic heights.
- He gave himself several surnames: “Pious,” “Child of the Camp,” “Father of the Armies,” and “Greatest and Best of Caesars.”
- Flattered that he had risen higher than princes and kings, he began to believe himself a god.
- He appeared at the temple of Castor and Pollux to be worshiped as Jupiter Latiaris.
- He also set up a special temple to his own godhead.
Trump’s egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them–52%–bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”
Among the references he’s made to himself:
- “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
- “My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest–and you all know it.”
When Caligula wasn’t ordering wholesale Stalin-like purges–ranging from Roman aristocrats to slaves–he was setting new records for debauchery.
According to the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “He lived in habitual incest with all his [three] sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor.”
Trump has never been charged with incest, but he’s repeatedly made sexually inappropriate comments about his daughter, Ivanka:
- “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …”
- When Trump appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, he was joined on stage by Ivanka. After they kissed, Dr. Oz said: “It’s nice to see a dad kiss his daughter.” Trump: “I kiss her every chance I get.” The remark was edited before the show aired.
- When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, posed for Playboy, Trump replied: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
- “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body.”
I
Ivanka Trump
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Among the groups Trump gratuitously insulted during the 2016 Presidential race:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The Disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
- Journalists
- Celebrities
- Ordinary citizens
The number of people, places and institutions Trump has insulted is so extensive The New York Times compiled a list of 273 of them.
Before taking office as President, Trump added to this list the United States Secret Service. He did so by keeping his longtime private security force, and combining its members with the elite federal agency.
By marginalizing the Secret Service, he clearly sent the message: You’re not good enough, and I don’t trust you.
It remains to be seen if Trump suffers the final fate of Caligula.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 24, 2017 at 12:40 pm
Donald Trump is now officially the 45th President of the United States.
But even many Republicans secretly believe he’s better-suited for the role of Gaius Caligula. It was Caligula who, as the mad emperor of Rome, once said: “Bear in mind that I can treat anyone exactly as I please.”
Gaius Caligula
On October 7, 2016, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women.
The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood (and now host of Today).
The two were traveling in an Access Hollywood bus to the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where Trump was to make a cameo appearance.
Neither Trump nor Bush could be seen during the exchange–the video focuses entirely on the bus. But the audio came in clearly–and, for Trump, damningly:
Donald Trump: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.
Unknown: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.
Trump: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married.
Unknown: That’s huge news.
Trump: No, no, Nancy. No this was—and I moved on her very heavily, in fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.
I took her out furniture. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
[At that point, they spot Adrianne Zucker, the starring actress in Days in Our Lives.]
Donald Trump
Bush: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple.
Various: Whoa! Yes! Whoa!
Bush: Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!
Trump: Look at you. You are a pussy. Maybe it’s a different one.
Bush: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s her. It’s—
Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.
Bush: Whatever you want.
Trump: Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
When the Washington Post broke the story on October 7, the reaction was immediate–and explosive.
This was not a testosterone-fueled teenager fantasizing about making love with a girl he adored.
This was a 70-year-old man bragging about having used deceit to try to lure a married woman into bed.
And about having used his celebrity status to force himself on women: I moved on her very heavily. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.
Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
Gaius Caligula himself couldn’t have said it better.
Gaius Caligula lived 29 years and ruled Rome three years, 10 months and eight days. When he died, his reign of depravity and terror died with him.
Today, millions of Americans fear a similar fate will sweep their country now that Donald Trump has become President.
Caligula’s life spanned August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D. His chief biographer was Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
Trump was born on June 14, 1946.
Caligula became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Trump was elected President on November 8, after winning 304 electoral votes to 227 for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Trump began his real estate career at his father’s real estate and construction company. He rose to wealth and fame after his father, Fred, gave him control of the business in 1971.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and destroyed lists of those Tiberius had declared traitors. He allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
Similarly, soon after acquiring the family business, Trump set out to build his own empire–hotels, golf courses, casinos, skyscrapers across North and South America, Europe and Asia. He named many of them after himself.
He appeared at the Miss USA pageants, which he owned from 1996 to 2015. He hosted and co-produced The Apprentice, an NBC reality television series from 2004 to 2015.
The ancient historians describe Caligula as a noble and enlightened ruler during the first six months of his reign. But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began laying claim to divine majesty, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered a tribune to murder his brother Tiberius, and drove his father-in‑law Silanus to cut his throat with a razor.
He favorite method of execution was to have a victim tortured with many slight wounds. His infamous order for this: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 23, 2017 at 1:21 am
On January 21, Donald Trump–on his first full day as President–visited the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Officially, he was there to pay tribute to the men and women who serve on the front lines of America’s Intelligence community.
The men and women who dedicate their lives to finding out when and where America’s enemies are planning to strike. And to countering those threats.
Unofficially, Trump was there for a reason he would never admit: To make amends for a smear campaign he had waged since November against the CIA in particular and the Intelligence community in general.
The reason: He had been enraged at the unanimous findings by the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency that Russian President Vladimir Putin had intervened in the 2016 Presidential election to ensure the defeat of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
And now Trump was appearing before what, to CIA employees, was the agency’s most sacred site: The star-studded memorial wall honoring the 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty.
Donald Trump at the CIA
So what did Trump spend much of his time talking about?
Himself, of course.
Here are the major excerpts:
….You know, when I was young and when I was — of course, I feel young. I feel like I’m 30, 35, 39. Somebody said, are you young? I said, I think I’m young. You know, I was stopping — when we were in the final month of that campaign, four stops, five stops, seven stops. Speeches, speeches, in front of 25,000, 30,000 people, 15,000, 19,000 from stop to stop. I feel young….
When I was young, we were always winning things in this country. We’d win with trade. We’d win with wars….We don’t win anymore. The old expression, “to the victor belong the spoils” — you remember.
I always used to say, keep the oil. I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you, when we were in, we got out wrong. And I always said, in addition to that, keep the oil….
Now, I said it for economic reasons. But if you think about it….if we kept the oil you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance….
And the reason you’re my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth.
And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community. And I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number-one stop is exactly the opposite — exactly. And they understand that, too.
And I was explaining about the numbers. We did a thing yesterday at the speech. Did everybody like the speech? I’ve been given good reviews. But we had a massive field of people. You saw them. Packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field.
I say, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, the field was — it looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there.
Crowds at Trump and Obama Inaugurals
And they said, Donald Trump did not draw well. I said, it was almost raining, the rain should have scared them away, but God looked down and he said, we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.
In fact, when I first started, I said, oh, no. The first line, I got hit by a couple of drops. And I said, oh, this is too bad, but we’ll go right through it. But the truth is that it stopped immediately.
It was amazing. And then it became really sunny. And then I walked off and it poured right after I left. It poured. But, you know, we have something that’s amazing because we had — it looked — honestly, it looked like a million and a half people. Whatever it was, it was….
We had 250,000 people literally around — you know, in the little bowl that we constructed. That was 250,000 people. The rest of the 20-block area, all the way back to the Washington Monument, was packed. So we caught them, and we caught them in a beauty. And I think they’re going to pay a big price.
So a reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on there cover, like, 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine.
I’ve been on it for 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record….that can ever be broken. Do you agree with that? What do you think?
* * * * *
At least one former CIA director, John Brennan, thought Trump’s remarks were “despicable.”
“Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes. Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself,” Nick Shapiro, Brennan’s former deputy chief of staff, said in a tweeted statement.
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THE SIX DEADLY FLAWS IN “OBAMACARE”: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on March 1, 2017 at 12:26 amPresident Barack Obama came into office determined to find common ground with Republicans.
But they quickly made it clear to him that they only wanted his political destruction. At that point, he should have put aside his hopes for a “Kumbaya moment” and re-read what Niccolo Machiavelli said in The Prince on the matter of love versus fear:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved or feared, or feared more than love. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Finally, warns Machiavelli, a leader should not allow a threat to go unchecked. The motive for this is usually the hope of avoiding conflict And the result is usually catastrophe.
A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good. And therefore it is necessary, for a prince who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.
For Obama, such a moment came in 2011, when House Republicans threatened to to destroy the credit rating of the United States unless the President agreed to scrap Obamacare.
Obama, a former attorney, heatedly denounced House Republicans for “extortion” and “blackmail.”
Unless he was exaggerating, both of these are felony offenses that are punishable under the 2001 USA Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act of 1970.
Among the crimes that can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys under RICO: Extortion.
Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”
And if President Obama didn’t believe that RICO was sufficient to deal with extortionate behavior, he could have ordered the Justice Department to cite the USA Patriot Act, passed in the wake of 9/11.
In Section 802, among the behaviors that are defined as domestic terrorism: “Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
Activities such as threatening to destroy the financial stability of the United States.
The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were legally in place. President Obama could have directed the Justice Department to apply them.
If violations had been discovered, indictments could have quickly followed–and then prosecutions. The results of such action could be easily predicted:
It would no doubt have been a long time before Republicans dared to engage in such behavior–at least, while Obama held office.
So: Why didn’t President Obama act to punish such criminal conduct?
Obama Mistake No. 4: He allowed himself to be cowed by his enemies.
In The Prince, Machiavelli laid out the qualities that a successful ruler should avoid–
He is rendered despicable by being thought changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid and irresolute–which a prince must guard against as a rock of danger….
–and possess:
As to the government of his subjects, let his sentence be irrevocable, and let him adhere to his decisions so that no one may think of deceiving or cozening him.
Niccolo Machiavelli
On July 2, 2013, the Treasury Department announced a major change in the application of the Affordable Care Act:
“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively…We have listened to your feedback. And we are taking action.
“The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin.”
And the Republican response?
On July 30, 2013, House Republicans voted to sue the President for failing to enforce the Affordable Care Act–which they had voted 54 times to repeal, delay or change.
As Machiavelli warned: Timidity invites contempt–and aggression.
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