Posts Tagged ‘JIMMY CARTER’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 23, 2023 at 12:10 am
Once again, Republicans are ruthlessly playing “chicken” with the nation’s financial security.
During the Presidency of Barack Obama, Republicans threatened to plunge the country into defaulting on its loans to force sharp budget cuts to non-military spending.
Seven years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) praised the Republicans’ massive contribution to the national debt under President Donald Trump.
On August 2, 2019, Trump signed into law a two-year budget deal that raised spending by $320 billion over existing spending caps set in a 2011 law—and boosted military and domestic spending.
The bill also lifted the debt ceiling, which is the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can have.
The bill threatened to push the budget deficit to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for only the second time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and add $1.7 trillion to the federal debt over a decade.
Donald Trump
By January, 2021, the national debt had risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. It amounted to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
But now, with Democrat Joseph Biden as President, Republicans have become “fiscal conservatives.”
And they are prepared to plunge the United States into financial ruin unless Democrats once again meet their extortion demands.
The debt ceiling is the legal limit for how much debt the United States can take on as a country. Once that limit is hit, the U.S. Treasury can no longer issue bonds to raise funds to pay for everything that the government does.
In a January 13th letter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned congressional leaders that the United States is expected to hit the debt limit on January 19th—and urged them to raise the debt limit as soon as possible.
“Once the limit is reached, the Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations.”
Janet Yellen
Congress last raised the debt ceiling in December 2021 to more than $31.3 trillion. At the time, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.
But the 2022 mid-term elections gave Republicans control of the House. And Republicans are threatening the nation with defaulting on its loans as Congress reopens with Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as its new Speaker.
New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks described these Republicans on the January 6 edition of The PBS Newshour: “These are nihilists. They came here, and they’re quite open about that, especially with their friends, and they say, we just want to burn the place down.
“And so they just want to be negative, be oppositional, and then go on TV and say everyone else has screwed up. And so this is a form of nihilism that is in the Republican Party.”
Republicans, in short, are one again utilizing the same “negotiating” strategy as Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
And Democrats—out of cowardice or an ignorance of history—are once again refusing to publicly make this comparison.
By studying Adolf Hitler’s mindset and “negotiating” methods, we can learn much about the mindset and “negotiating” style of today’s Republican party.
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thus:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.
“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.”
A classic example of Hitler’s “bargaining style” came in 1938, when he invited Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to his mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, Germany.
Hitler, an Austrian by birth, intended to annex his native land to Germany. Schuschnigg was aware of Hitler’s desire, but nevertheless felt secure in accepting the invitation. He had been assured that the question of Austrian sovereignty would not arise.
Kurt von Schuschnigg
The meeting occurred on February 12, 1938.
Shuschnigg opened the discussion with a friendly compliment. Walking over to a large window, he admired the breathtaking view of the mountains.
HITLER: We haven’t come here to talk about the lovely view or the weather!
Austria has anyway never done anything which was of help to the German Reich….I am resolutely determined to make an end to all this business. The German Reich is a great power. Nobody can and nobody will interfere if it restores order on its frontiers.
SCHUSCHNIGG: I am aware of your attitude toward the Austrian question and toward Austrian history….As we Austrians see it, the whole of our history is a very essential and valuable part of German history….And Austria’s contribution is a considerable one.
HITLER: It is absolutely zero—that I can assure you! Every national impulse has been trampled underfoot by Austria….
I could call myself an Austrian with just the same right—indeed with even more right—than you, Herr Schuschnigg. Why don’t you once try a plebiscite in Austria in which you and I run against each other? Then you would see!
Next up: Hitler “negotiates” Austria out of existence, then turns to Czechoslovakia.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on November 4, 2022 at 12:17 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear—barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. As a result, Republicans now may capture both houses of Congress and—in 2024—the Presidency.
An example of this occurred on March 25, 2018.
On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.”
Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”
Jimmy Carter
By March 25, 2018, Trump—having held office for little more than a year—had:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign;
- Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing;
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people”;
- Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia subverted the 2016 Presidential campaign—and planned to do the same for the upcoming mid-term elections in November, 2018.
- Repeatedly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and refused to enforce Congressionally-mandated sanctions against Russia for its subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Trump, in short, had only contempt for the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama, like Carter, believes in rationality and decency. He feels more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies.
As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.
Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
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.
Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
They fully expected to win the White House again, and thought they might retake the Senate—and maybe even the House of Representatives.
Michelle Obama’s mantra of “When they go low, we go high” proved no match for Trump’s millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 14, 2022 at 12:11 am
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war. neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in every country.”
—Hermann Goering
On September 12, 2001, President George W. Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”—not Iraq.
On November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.
Liars Club: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld
Bush and his war-hungry Cabinet officials knew that Americans demanded vengeance on Al-Qaeda’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, and not Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. So they repeatedly fabricated “links” between the two:
- Saddam had worked hand-in-glove with Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
- Saddam was harboring and supporting Al-Qaeda throughout Iraq.
- Saddam, with help from Al-Qaeda, was scheming to build a nuclear bomb.
Yet as early as September 22, 2001, Bush had received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al-Qaeda.
Even more important: Saddam had tried to monitor Al Qaeda through his intelligence service–because he saw Al-Qaeda and other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime.
Bush administration officials repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed huge quantities of chemical and biological weapons, in violation of UN resolutions. And they further claimed that US intelligence agencies had determined:
- The precise locations where these weapons were stored;
- The identities of those involved in their production; and
- The military orders issued by Saddam Hussein for their use in the event of war.
Among other lies issued by members of the Bush administration:
- Iraq had sought uranium from Niger, in west Africa.
- Thousands of aluminum tubes imported by Iraq could be used in centrifuges to create enriched uranium.
- Iraq had up to 20 long-range Scud missiles, prohibited under UN sanctions.
- Iraq had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological agents, including nerve gas, anthrax and botulinum toxin.
- Saddam Hussein had issued chemical weapons to front-line troops who would use them when US forces crossed into Iraq.
Consider the following:
August 26, 2002: Vice President Dick Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.”
September 8, 2002: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice said on CNN: ”There is certainly evidence that Al-Qaeda people have been in Iraq. There is certainly evidence that Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists.”
September 18, 2002: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee, “We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons–including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas.”
October 7, 2002: President George W. Bush declared in a nationally televised speech in Cincinnati that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.”
March 16, 2003: Cheney declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “We believe [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
March 30, 2003: On ABC’s “This Week” program, 10 days into the war, Rumsfeld said: “We know where they [weapons of mass destruction] are.”
Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq, which occurred on March 20, 2003.
Even as American occupying forces repeatedly failed to turn up any evidence of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs), Bush and his minions claimed the invasion a good thing.
In fact, Bush—who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard—even joked publicly about the absence of WMDs.
He did so at a White House Correspondents dinner on March 24, 2004—one year after he had started the war.
George W. Bush at the 2004 White House Correspondents’ dinner
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.
“Nope—no weapons over there! Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
Meanwhile, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women—the elite of America’s media and political classes—laughed heartily during Bush’s performance. It was a scene worthy of the court of the ancient Caesars, complete with royal flunkies.
Ultimately, the war that Bush had deliberately provoked
- Took the lives of 4,484 Americans.
- Cost the United States Treasury at least $2 trillion.
- Created a Middle East power vacuum.
- Allowed Iran—Iraq’s arch enemy—to eagerly fill it.
- Killed at least 655,000 Iraqis.
- Bush retired from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection.
- He wrote his memoirs and was paid $7 for the first 1.5 million copies.
- Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice retired to private business, wrote their own memoirs, and lived in comfort as respected elder statesmen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 13, 2022 at 12:20 am
Colonel Brandt: “I wonder what we’ll do after we lose the war.”
Captain Kiesel: “Prepare for the next one.”
–-“The Cross of Iron,” film by Sam Peckinpah
September 11, 2022, marks the 21ist anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. Inevitably, this is a time to remember all those whose lives were so cruelly snuffed out.
But it should also be a time to remember those who made this atrocity inevitable—by refusing to acknowledge and address the impending threat from Al-Qaeda.
British historian Nigel Hamilton has chronicled their arrogance and indifference in his 2010 biography: American Caesars: Lives of the Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Hamilton noted that Richard Clarke, the national security advisor on terrorism, was certain that Osama bin Laden had arranged the [USS.]Colebombing in Aden on October 12, 2000.
Richard Clarke
For months, Clarke tried to convince others in the Bush Administration that Bin Laden was plotting another attack against the United States—either abroad or at home.
But Clarke could not prevail against the know-it-all arrogance of such higher-ranking Bush officials as Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject. Then she “insisted the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting” in April, 2001, writes Hamilton.
Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz–whose real target was Saddam Hussein–said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
Wolfowitz insisted that bin Laden couldn’t carry out his terrorist acts without the aid of a state sponsor—namely, Iraq.
Wolfowitz, in fact, blamed Iraq for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Clarke was stunned, since there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement in this.
“Al-Qaeda plans major acts of terrorism against the United States,” Clarke warned his colleagues. He pointed out that, like Adolf Hitler, bin Laden had actually published his plans for future destruction.
Osama bin Laden
And he added: “Sometimes, as with Hitler in Mein Kampf, you have to believe that these people will actually do what they say they will do.”
Wolfowitz heatedly traded on his Jewish heritage to bring Clarke’s unwelcome arguments to a halt: “I resent any comparison between the Holocaust and this little terrorist in Afghanistan.”
Writing in outraged fury, Hamilton sums up Clarke’s agonizing frustrations:
- Bush’s senior advisors treated their colleagues who had served in the Clinton administration with contempt.
- President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz seemed content to ignore the danger signals of an impending al-Qaeda attack.
- This left only Secretary of State Colin Powell, his deputy Richard Armitage, Richard Clarke and a skeptical Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, to wage “a lonely battle to waken a seemingly deranged new administration.”
Clarke alerted Federal Intelligence agencies that “Al-Qaeda is planning a major attack on us.” He asked the FBI and CIA to report to his office all they could learn about suspicious persons or activities at home and abroad.
Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
Neither Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor would any of them be brought to account.
Disgustingly, these were the same officials who, afterward, posed as the Nation’s saviors–and branded anyone who disagreed with them as a traitor, practices the Right continues to exploit to this day.
Only Richard Clarke–who had vainly argued for stepped-up security precautions and taking the fight to Al-Qaeda–gave that apology.
On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings. Addressing relatives of victims in the audience, he said: “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you.”
Yet even worse was to come.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush took Clarke aside during a meeting in the White House Situation Room:
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam [Hussein, the dictator of Iraq] did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al-Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
Hussein had not plotted the attack–and there was no evidence proving that he did. But the attack gave “W” the excuse he wanted to remove the man he blamed for the 1992 defeat of his father, President George H.W. Bush.
Bush believed that his father would have been re-elected if he had “gone all the way” into Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War.
He would finish the job that his father had started but failed to compete.
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 12, 2022 at 2:18 am
It’s that time of year again—yet another anniversary celebration of September 11, 2001.
The day when Islamic terrorists slammed two jetliners into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon.
They would have crashed a fourth jetliner into the White House or Capitol Building—except for the heroic resistance of passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
In the years immediately following 9/11, politicians of both parties used this anniversary to wave flags and make self-serving patriotic speeches.
This was especially true for officials of the administration of President George W. Bush—which, even as the rubble was being cleared at the Pentagon and World Trade Center, was preparing to use the attack as an excuse to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Hussein had not plotted 9/11, and there was no evidence that he did. But that didn’t matter to Bush and those planning the invasion and conquest of Iraq.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
So here it is, 21 years later, and, like Pearl Harbor, 9/11 has become a distant memory of terror and loss.
At that time, Americans feared Islamic terrorism above all else. Today, millions of Americans fear terror from another source: A Republican party intent on imposing dictatorship through voter suppression and intimidation.
Its likely Presidential nominee in 2024: Ex-President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly admitted he wants to become “President-for-Life.”
As on past commemorations of 9/11, those who died will be remembered by friends and relatives of those who knew and loved them.
Tribute to 9/11 World Trade Center Victims
It is in fact appropriate to remember the innocents who died on that day—and the heroism of the police and firefighters who died trying to save them.
But it’s equally important to remember those who made 9/11 not simply possible but inevitable.
And that does not mean only the 19 highjackers who turned those planes into fuel-bombs. It means the officials at the highest levels of the administration of President George W. Bush.
Officials who, to this day, have never been held accountable in any way for the resulting death and destruction.
And who have been allowed to blatantly lie that they “kept us safe” from terrorism.
Obviously, such an indictment is not going to be presented by TV commentators today—not even on such liberal networks as CNN and MSNBC. And most definitely not on the right-wing Fox network.
Fortunately, British historian Nigel Hamilton has dared to lay bare the facts of this disgrace. Hamilton is the author of several acclaimed political biographies, including JFK: Reckless Youth and Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency.
Nigel Hamilton
CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2007, he began research on his latest book: American Caesars: The Lives of the Presidents From Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
The inspiration for this came from a classic work of ancient biography: The Twelve Caesars, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus–known as Suetonius.
Suetonius, a Roman citizen and historian, had chronicled the lives of the first twelve Caesars of imperial Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
Hamilton wanted to examine post-World War II United States history as Suetonius had examined that of ancient Rome: Through the lives of the 12 “emperors” who had held the power of life and death over their fellow citizens–and those of other nations.
For Hamilton, the “greatest of American emperors, the Caesar Augustus of his time,” was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led his country through the Great Depression and World War II.
His “”great successors” were Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy—who, in turn, contained the Soviet Union abroad and presided over sustained economic prosperity at home.
By contrast, “arguably the worst of all the American Caesars” was “George W. Bush, and his deputy, Dick Cheney, who willfully and recklessly destroyed so much of the moral basis of American leadership in the modern world.”
Among the most lethal of Bush’s offenses: The appointing of officials who refused to take seriously the threat posed by Al-Qaeda.
And this arrogance and indifference continued–right up to September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and Pentagon became targets for destruction.
Among the few administration officials who did take Al-Qaeda seriously was Richard Clarke, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council.
Clarke had been thus appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton. He continued in the same role under President Bush–but the position was no longer given cabinet-level access.
This put him at a severe disadvantage when dealing with other, higher-ranking Bush officials—such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
These turned out to be the very officials who refused to believe that Al-Qaeda posed a lethal threat to the United States.
“Indeed,” writes Hamilton, “in the entire first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Clarke was not permitted to brief President Bush a single time, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new al-Qaeda outrage.” [Italics added]
Nor did it help that, during his first eight months in office before September 11, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 26, 2021 at 12:14 am
Having made threats of violence an integral part of his successful 2016 campaign for President, Donald Trump continued to make violence a hallmark of his Presidency.
Throughout his run for President, Trump’s followers chanted, “Lock her up!” at Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Yet Clinton has never been tried for a crime, let alone convicted of one.
As President, Trump still encouraged his followers to shout this chant.
On July 2, 2017, Trump tweeted a video showing him punching a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head during a WWE wrestling match.
And on August 15, 2017, Trump retweeted a cartoon photo of a “Trump Train” running over a CNN reporter.
Summing up Trump’s legacy of hatred, longtime Republican Presidential adviser David Gergen said:
“Trump unleashed the dogs of hatred in this country from the day he declared he was running for president, and they’ve been snarling and barking at each other ever since. It’s just inevitable there are going to be acts of violence that grow out of that.”
Gergen said this on October 24, 2018—the day that pipe bombs were mailed to:
- Former President Barack Obama
- Former President Bill Clinton
- Former First Lady and United States Senator Hillary Clinton
- Former Attorney General Eric Holder
- Congresswoman Maxine Waters
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Actor Robert De Niro
- Former CIA Director John Brennan
Trump had brutally and repeatedly attacked all of these intended victims. And the man who sent the bombs—Cesar Sayoc Jr. of Aventura, Florida—had plastered his van with stickers supporting Trump.
Donald Trump
On October 8, 2020, 13 Right-wingers were arrested and charged in a terrorism plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The terrorists intended to overthrow several state governments that they “believe are violating the US Constitution,” including the government of Michigan, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Trump had repeatedly attacked Whitmer for issuing a March 23 stay-at-home order to stem the COVID-19 pandemic in that state.
After losing the 2020 Presidential election, Trump ordered his campaign to file at least 63 lawsuits contesting Joseph Biden’s victory. Upon losing all of these, Trump turned to violence as his last-ditch remedy to stay in office.
On January 6, he incited thousands of his supporters to storm the United States Capitol Building where members of the Senate were counting the electoral votes cast in the election.
The Stormtrumpers’ goal: Stop the ballot counting—and thus maintain Trump in office.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police.
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents, metal poles and lead pipes.
- At least 140 police officers suffered injuries, including concussions, broken ribs, smashed spinal discs, a lost eye.
- Many lawmakers’ offices were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
- Lawmakers huddled under desks and behind locked doors, expecting to die any minute.
- More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
Stormtrumpers scaling Capitol Building walls
And Republicans?
Even after being forced to flee for their lives or barricade themselves in House or Senate rooms, Republicans refused to condemn Trump. On January 11, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection against the United States government.
Senate Democrats wanted to try Trump while he was still in office. But then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused. On February 13, after a five-day trial, Republicans acquitted Trump by a vote of 57-43, failing 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
Since then, Republicans such as Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have recast the attempted coup as a non-violent—even patriotic—event.
“Outright propaganda and lies are being used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding U.S. citizens, especially Trump voters,” Gosar said, condemning the Justice Department’s Investigation of Capitol attackers.
And Greene claims: “January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”
A party—Republican—that has made such a heavy, long-running—and successful—investment in violence is not going to voluntarily turn pacifist.
And a party—Democratic—that has generally behaved like cowards and appeasers toward its sworn enemies isn’t going to survive, let alone preserve democracy.
In May, 1967, Israel faced a similar deadly threat.
On May 22, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would be closed to all Israeli shipping. And Nasser mobilized the Egyptian military along the border with Israel.
On May 30, Jordan and Egypt signed a defence pact. The next day, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armored units in Jordan. They were reinforced by an Egyptian contingent.
Israel was being surrounded—and its sworn enemies were about to attack.
“We are being bullied,” said longtime Israeli soldier Moshe Dayan. “And the only way to handle a bully is to punch him in the face.”
On June 5, Israel struck first, defeating its enemies and securing huge tracts of territory as a defensive barrier.
Democrats have yet to learn Dayan’s lesson. They—and the country—may not turn out to be as fortunate as Israel.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 25, 2021 at 12:05 am
With the rise of Donald Trump to Republican standard-bearer in 2015, threats of violence entered the rhetoric—and tactics—of the Republican party.
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.”
Donald Trump
Republicans clearly saw this as a threat is undeniable.
Paul Ryan, their Speaker of the House, said on March 17: “Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable.”
And Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich chinned in. “Leaders don’t imply violence,” Kasich told “Face the Nation” on March 20. “When he says that there could be riots, that’s inappropriate. I think you understand that, okay? Secondly, while we have our differences and disagreements, we’re Americans. Americans don’t say, ‘Let’s take to the streets and have violence.'”
But threatening his Republican and Democratic opponents with violence played a major role in Donald Trump’s campaign for President.
No other candidate—Republican or Democrat—had ever made such repeated and brutal use of threats of physical assault in pursuing the Presidency.
- Philip Klein, the managing editor of the Washington Examiner, wrote on the eve of the Republican National Convention in July: “Political commentators now routinely talk about the riots that would break out in Cleveland if Trump were denied the nomination, about how his supporters have guns and all hell could break loose, that they would burn everything to the ground. It works to Trump’s advantage to not try too hard to dispel these notions.”
- On August 9, Trump 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.”
- “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.”
- “Well, let me say if someone else said that outside of the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now, with the Secret Service questioning him,” said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA).
Threats of this type continued to be made by Trump supporters right up to the day of the election.
- On July 29, Roger Stone, a notorious Right-wing political consultant acting as a Trump strategist, told Breitbart News: “The first thing Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
- At a town hall meeting where Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence appeared, a woman named Rhonda said: “For me personally, if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself am ready for a revolution.”
- In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the race: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,”
- Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee: “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take….I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Even Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, expressed fear of what might happen if Trump lost the election:
Fergus Cullen
“That’s really scary,” Cullen said, recounting the violence at Trump rallies around the country leading up to the Republican National Convention. “In this country, we’ve always had recriminations after one side loses. But we haven’t had riots. We haven’t had mobs that act out with violence against supporters of the other side.
“There’s no telling what his supporters would be willing to do at the slightest encouragement from their candidate,” he said.
Trump even began encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He urged them to act as poll watchers in “other” [non-white] communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”
Many of his supporters promised to do so.
“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.
“I’ll look for…well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 24, 2021 at 12:17 am
Republicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking whites’ fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…
“’We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
Since the end of World War II, Republicans regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-approved thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech.
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—a “Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents—or at least unwitting pawns—of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their “evidence”: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas—one of America’s poorest states—and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—-and their right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
For several years, fears of Islamic terror carried Republicans to electoral victory—most importantly in 2004, when George W. Bush won re-election as President.
But after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Americans lost interest in The Maniacal Muslim as a surefire election tactic.
With the rise of Donald Trump to Republican standard-bearer in 2015, threats of violence entered the rhetoric—and tactics—of the Republican party.
For example:
- 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.”
- An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear on [March 16]: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.'”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 23, 2021 at 12:27 am
It was a moment both poignant and prophetic: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responding to a brutal virtual attack on her by a fellow member of Congress.
Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) had tweeted a doctored anime video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez and then turning his sword towards President Joseph Biden.
Paul Gosar
As a result, the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives was now meeting to decide if he should be censured over that video.
“What is so hard, what is so hard about saying this is wrong?” asked Ocasio-Cortez. “This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar. This is about what we are willing to accept. If you believe that this behavior should not be accepted, then vote yes. It’s really that simple.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
And the Republican response was equally telling: Of the 213 Republicans serving in the House, only two—Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois)—dared to support censure of Gosar.
A censure resolution is the most severe form of punishment in the House, and stripping a member of committee assignments removes a powerful platform to influence legislation and give voice to constituent priorities.
The resolution approved by the House removed Gosar from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which Ocasio-Cortez also serves on, and the Natural Resources Committee.
“We cannot have a member joking about murdering each other or threatening the President of the United States,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech.
“Disguising death threats as a video doesn’t make it less real. It’s a sad day for the House of Representatives, but a necessary day.”
Nancy Pelosi
Before the vote which censured him, Gosar said: “I have said decisively there is no threat in the cartoon other than the threat that immigration poses to our country. And no threat was intended by my staff or me.
“I voluntarily took the cartoon down not because it was itself a threat, but because some thought it was. Out of compassion for those who generally felt offense, I self-censored.”
Yet only minutes after the House voted to censure him, Gosar retweeted the video. He also retweeted Right-wing podcaster Elijah Schaffer’s tweet of the video: “Really well done. We love @DrPaulGosar, don’t we folks?”
This marriage of violence with Right-wing ideology is not new.
Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund noted in a June 19, 2015 editorial: “The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it. “
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent—-and violence-arousing—-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Republicans like Paul Gosar fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs—and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
If a “nutcases” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked—-shocked!—that such a thing could have happened.
And if the attempt proves successful, then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.
The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.
Consider the following:
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Representative Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: “You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
- Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MINN.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
- Former Governor (R-Alaska) Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
- Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-TEX.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
Republicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking white fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 11, 2021 at 12:14 am
In 2011, Republicans threatened to destroy the Nation’s credit rating unless their budgetary demands were met.
President Barack Obama could have ended that threat via the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Unfortunately for him and the Nation, he didn’t.
Originally, RICO was aimed at the Mafia and other organized crime syndicates. But in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981), the Supreme Court held that RICO applied as well to legitimate enterprises being operated in a criminal manner.
After Turkette, RICO could also be used against corporations, political protest groups, labor unions and loosely knit-groups of people.
Department of Justice
RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys. Among those crimes: 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.”
The RICO Act defines “a pattern of racketeering activity” as “at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years…after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.”
And if President Obama had believed that RICO was not sufficient to deal with Republicans’ extortion attempts, he could have relied on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of 9/11.
In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism. Among the behavior that is defined as criminal:
“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.”
The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were now legally in place. President Obama needed only to direct the Justice Department to apply them.
- President Obama could have directed Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether actions by Republican Congressman—and their Tea Party cohorts—broke Federal anti-racketeering and/or anti-terrorism laws.
- Holder, in turn, could have ordered the FBI to conduct that investigation.
- If the FBI found sufficient evidence that these laws had been violated, Holder could have convened criminal grand juries to indict those violators.
Criminally investigating and possibly indicting members of Congress would not violate the separation-of-powers principle. Congressmen have in the past been investigated, indicted and convicted for various criminal offenses.
Such indictments and prosecutions—-and especially convictions—would have served notice on current and future members of Congress: The lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage to gain leverage in a political settlement.
In short: Obama could have replaced the law of fear with the rule of law.
And Obama could have stood up to Republican extortionists in another way: By urging his fellow Americans to rally to him in a moment of supreme national danger.
President John F. Kennedy did just that—successfully—during the most dangerous crisis of his administration.
Addressing the Nation on October 22, 1962, Kennedy shocked his fellow citizens by revealing that the Soviet Union had installed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba.
John F. Kennedy
Kennedy outlined a series of steps he had taken to end the crisis—most notably, a blockade of Cuba. Then he sought to reassure and inspire his audience:
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.”
President Obama could have sent that same message to the extortionists of the Republican Party—by explaining to the American people:
- Republicans have adopted the same my-way-or-else “negotiating” stance as Adolf Hitler.
- Like the Nazis, they are determined to gain absolute power—or destroy the Nation they claim to love.
- They raised the debt ceiling seven times during the eight-year Presidency of George W. Bush.
- But now that a Democrat holds the White House, raising the debt ceiling is unacceptable.
- Despite Republican lies, we cannot revitalize the economy by slashing taxes on the wealthy and on cash-hoarding corporations while cutting benefits for millions of average Americans.
- We will need both tax increases and sensible entitlement cuts to regain our economic strength.
And he could have ended his speech with a direct call for action by the American people:
“We stand on the edge of economic disaster. Therefore, I am asking each of you to stand up for America tonight—by demanding the recall of the entire membership of the Republican Party.
“This is the moment when each of us must decide—whether we will survive as a Republic, or allow ruthless political fanatics to destroy what has lasted and thrived for more than 200 years.”
To paraphrase Winston Churchill: President Obama had to choose between timidity and confrontation.
He chose timidity.
Today, Republicans are once again threatening the Nation with economic destruction unless their extortionate demands are met.
President Joseph Biden now faces that same choice as President Obama: Timidity or confrontation.
If he chooses correctly, he will save the Nation from financial extinction. And he will send a message to future extortionists: The lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage to gain leverage in a political settlement.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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“NEGOTIATING” REPUBLICANAZI STYLE: PART ONE (OF SIX)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 23, 2023 at 12:10 amOnce again, Republicans are ruthlessly playing “chicken” with the nation’s financial security.
During the Presidency of Barack Obama, Republicans threatened to plunge the country into defaulting on its loans to force sharp budget cuts to non-military spending.
Seven years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) praised the Republicans’ massive contribution to the national debt under President Donald Trump.
On August 2, 2019, Trump signed into law a two-year budget deal that raised spending by $320 billion over existing spending caps set in a 2011 law—and boosted military and domestic spending.
The bill also lifted the debt ceiling, which is the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can have.
The bill threatened to push the budget deficit to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for only the second time since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and add $1.7 trillion to the federal debt over a decade.
Donald Trump
By January, 2021, the national debt had risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. It amounted to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
But now, with Democrat Joseph Biden as President, Republicans have become “fiscal conservatives.”
And they are prepared to plunge the United States into financial ruin unless Democrats once again meet their extortion demands.
The debt ceiling is the legal limit for how much debt the United States can take on as a country. Once that limit is hit, the U.S. Treasury can no longer issue bonds to raise funds to pay for everything that the government does.
In a January 13th letter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned congressional leaders that the United States is expected to hit the debt limit on January 19th—and urged them to raise the debt limit as soon as possible.
“Once the limit is reached, the Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations.”
Janet Yellen
Congress last raised the debt ceiling in December 2021 to more than $31.3 trillion. At the time, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.
But the 2022 mid-term elections gave Republicans control of the House. And Republicans are threatening the nation with defaulting on its loans as Congress reopens with Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as its new Speaker.
New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks described these Republicans on the January 6 edition of The PBS Newshour: “These are nihilists. They came here, and they’re quite open about that, especially with their friends, and they say, we just want to burn the place down.
“And so they just want to be negative, be oppositional, and then go on TV and say everyone else has screwed up. And so this is a form of nihilism that is in the Republican Party.”
Republicans, in short, are one again utilizing the same “negotiating” strategy as Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
And Democrats—out of cowardice or an ignorance of history—are once again refusing to publicly make this comparison.
By studying Adolf Hitler’s mindset and “negotiating” methods, we can learn much about the mindset and “negotiating” style of today’s Republican party.
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thus:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.
“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.”
A classic example of Hitler’s “bargaining style” came in 1938, when he invited Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to his mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, Germany.
Hitler, an Austrian by birth, intended to annex his native land to Germany. Schuschnigg was aware of Hitler’s desire, but nevertheless felt secure in accepting the invitation. He had been assured that the question of Austrian sovereignty would not arise.
Kurt von Schuschnigg
The meeting occurred on February 12, 1938.
Shuschnigg opened the discussion with a friendly compliment. Walking over to a large window, he admired the breathtaking view of the mountains.
HITLER: We haven’t come here to talk about the lovely view or the weather!
Austria has anyway never done anything which was of help to the German Reich….I am resolutely determined to make an end to all this business. The German Reich is a great power. Nobody can and nobody will interfere if it restores order on its frontiers.
SCHUSCHNIGG: I am aware of your attitude toward the Austrian question and toward Austrian history….As we Austrians see it, the whole of our history is a very essential and valuable part of German history….And Austria’s contribution is a considerable one.
HITLER: It is absolutely zero—that I can assure you! Every national impulse has been trampled underfoot by Austria….
I could call myself an Austrian with just the same right—indeed with even more right—than you, Herr Schuschnigg. Why don’t you once try a plebiscite in Austria in which you and I run against each other? Then you would see!
Next up: Hitler “negotiates” Austria out of existence, then turns to Czechoslovakia.
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