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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2024 at 12:19 am
Donald Trump has been compared to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Gaius Caligula. But perhaps his counterpart lies not in history but in fiction.
Specifically, the fictional news anchor Howard Beale in Network, the 1976 satire written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It starred Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight.
Howard Beale (Finch) the longtime anchor of the UBS Evening News, is about to be fired because of declining ratings.
So he announces on live television that he will commit suicide on next Tuesday’s broadcast.
UBS fires him, but then agrees to let Beale appear one more time to leave with dignity.
But once Beale is back on the air, he launches into a rant that contains the most famous—and most often-quoted—line in the film:
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter….
“We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat….
“So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'”
Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network
Beale is clearly losing it. But his outburst causes the newscast’s ratings to spike. Instead of pulling him off the air, the top brass of UBS decide to exploit Beale’s antics.
Soon he’s hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, where he’s billed as “the mad prophet of the airwaves.” Ultimately, the show becomes the most highly rated program on television.
But then Beale’s ratings slide as audiences find his sermons on the dehumanization of society depressing.
To rid themselves of Beale and boost their season-opener ratings, the network’s top executives hire a band of terrorists called the Ecumenical Liberation Army to assassinate Beale—on the air!
Forty years after Network, Right-wing voters sent “reality show” host and real estate mogul Donald Trump to the White House.
Donald Trump
Republicans have reveled in his antics and enthusiastically supported his most heinous acts, which have included:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Repeatedly “hinting” that he wants to be “President-for-Life.”
- Allowing predatory corporations to subvert Federal regulatory protections for consumers and the environment.
- Repeatedly and viciously attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—for unanimously agreeing that Russia interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government for more than a month on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico.
- Pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide “dirt” on Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic Presidential candidate Joseph Biden—and threatening to withhold military aid if Zelensky refused.
- Inciting a deadly riot against Congress where Senators and Representatives were meeting to count the Electoral College votes won by himself and Joe Biden in 2020. His objective: Stop the count, which he knew would prove him the loser.
The greed-obsessed honchos of the fictional UBS Network believed they could parley Howard Beale’s madness into greater profits.
Similarly, power-obsessed Republicans in the House and Senate believe they can parley Donald Trump’s tyrannical and unstable nature into lifetime tenure for themselves.
Yet, like the executives at UBS, Congressional Republicans may soon be forced to turn on their most poisonous creation.
Right-wing Fox News Network gave its enthusiastic support to Trump during the 2016 Presidential race. And it continues to do so throughout his 2024 campaign.
But now, in 2024, Trump seems unable to come to grips with Vice President Kamala Harris. He still yearns to run against President Joe Biden—whose unexpected exit on July 21 caught him totally by surprise.
So he attacks her race, her intelligence, her crowd size, her integrity (“Crooked Kamala”)—the last despite her having been a prosecutor and his being a convicted felon.
Fellow Republicans—such as commentator Bill Kristol and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy—keep pressing him to focus on policy, not character assassination.
Former U.N. Ambassador and defeated GOP primary rival Nikki Haley said on Fox News: “Quit whining about her. We knew it was going to be her….Republicans need to be fighting for suburban women, for college-educated, for independents, for moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.”
But Trump, seeing his polls dwarfed by those of Harris, sticks to what he knows best: Lies and smears.
They don’t seem to be working as well for him as they did in 2016.
Republicans may soon face the following dilemma:
- Can I hold onto my power—and privileges—by supporting Trump? Or:
- Can I hold onto my power—and privileges—by deserting him?
This is how Republicans define morality today.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2024 at 12:10 am
President Joseph Biden now faces the most monumental decision of his life. And no matter what choice he makes, his name will live in infamy for millions of Americans—whether they lean Right or Left.
Thanks entirely to the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling giving almost unlimited immunity to former President Donald Trump, Biden can go down in history as the man who saved—at least temporarily—the American republic.
Joseph Biden
Or he can go down in history as the man who presided over the end of the American republic.
To save it, he must
- Purge, through arrests and trials, almost the entire treason-conspiring Republican party, starting with Trump, its Fuhrer-in-waiting.
- Do this officially, because the Court has ruled that he (and future Presidents) can only be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
- Do this while he still commands the full resources of the military and Justice Department.
- Sweep clean the Federal courts of all Right-wing, treason-supporting judges—such as Aileen Cannon, who has repeatedly thwarted efforts to try Trump for stealing and hiding almost 300 highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
- This includes the six Right-wing Supreme Court Justices who have given future Presidents the legal authority to assassinate rivals, take bribes and/or foment coups.
If Biden does this, he will damned as the first President since Abraham Lincoln to brutally crush political opposition.
But he will also be hailed for having—at least temporarily—prevented a wholesale Right-wing takeover and dictatorship under Project 2025. Its’ goal: Replace existing federal civil service workers with tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers.
To preside over the end of the American republic, all Biden need do is what he’s done for the last three years: Nothing.
Example #1: Only on November 18, 2022, did Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election and become “President-for-Life.”
This was clearly treason—and Garland should have appointed Smith, at the latest, by mid-2021.
Merrick Garland
Example #2: Trump’s accomplices included 147 members of Congress who voted to invalidate the 2020 Electoral College vote count. A total of 139 served in the House of Representatives, and eight served in the Senate.
To date, not one of these accessories has even been indicted, let alone convicted, for treason.
Arguably, Biden’s worst appointment has been Merrick Garland as Attorney General.
In 1961, when Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General, he moved quickly and forcefully to wage war on America’s organized crime syndicates. Unprecedented numbers of mobsters found themselves facing vigorous FBI investigations, indictments and/or convictions.
By contrast, Garland’s timidity in prosecuting the crimes of Right-wing Republicans serves as not only a national embarrassment but a threat to national security.
On May 30, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies for falsifying New York business records in 2016. He had done so to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
Donald Trump
Even though the Biden administration had nothing to do with the case, Republicans immediately blamed the President—and demanded wholesale prosecutions of the Left.
Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk urged Republican prosecutors to get “creative” in bringing charges: “Indict the left, or lose America,” he said on X.
And Trump quickly issued his own calls for “vengeance”:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president’s wife, into jail? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it,” Trump said in an interview on Newsmax.
“It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”
Nor has Trump forgotten former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who chaired the House 1/6 Committee investigating the Trump-inspired attack on Congress.
“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” Trump posted on his social media website Truth Social. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
There can be absolutely no doubt that Trump will pursue “vengeance” against everyone who has ever opposed him if he is re-elected President.
There can also be no doubt that he will remain in office until he dies as “President-for-Life.”
When Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, was close to death, he asked his doctor: “What act of my administration will be most severely condemned by future Americans?”
“Perhaps the removal of the bank deposits,” said the doctor—referring to Jackson’s withdrawal of U.S. Government monies from the first Bank of the United States.
“Oh, no,” said Jackson, his eyes blazing. “I can tell you. Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
John C. Calhoun had once been Vice President under Jackson and later a United States Senator from South Carolina. His fiery, pro-slavery rhetoric and radical theories of “nullification” of Federal laws played a major role in bringing on the Civil War (1861-1865).
Whether Biden moves to prevent a Trump/Republican dictatorship or allows it to become reality, he will be simultaneously praised and damned by future generations of Americans.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Supreme Court has spoken. And Donald Trump, who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election and make himself “President-for-Life,” is now armed with the almost total immunity he has long sought.
As Trump and his entrenched Right-wing allies move ever closer to establishing an absolute dictatorship, this is an apt time to discover—or rediscover—the frighteningly real world of The Profession, a 2011 futuristic novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.
Steven Pressfield
Pressfield had previously made his mark as an author of historical novels—primarily set in ancient Greece.
In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society—and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.
In The Virtues of War (2004) Pressfield adopted the identity of Alexander the Great, explaining what it was like to command invincible armies that swept across the known world.
Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) he chronicled—from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier—Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.
But in The Profession, Pressfield created a seemingly plausible world set in the future. The book’s dust jacket offers an excellent summary of its plot-line:
“The year is 2032. Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.
“Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
“Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.
“A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home…as Commander in Chief.”
Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal. Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President—and paid dearly for it. Now his ambition—like MacArthur—is to become President himself by popular acclaim.
Douglas MacArthur
And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men. Salter seizes Saudi oil fields and strategically rigs them with explosives to be used if threatened.
Then he offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country—and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.
Stanley McCrystal
And in 2032 the United States is a far different nation from the one its Founding Fathers created in 1776.
“Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc,” says Salter. “The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament. We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics. In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.'”
Americans, asserts Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order. They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….
“They want their problems to go away. They want me to make them go away.”
Yet unlike Donald Trump, who infamously shouted, “I love the poorly educated!” Salter is a highly intellectual man. He feels himself a tragic figure, lamenting that the United States has abandoned its longstanding political values even as he prepares to extinguish the most basic one by becoming dictator.
“The moment compels me to seize it. If I don’t someone or something worse will step in. But if I perform the bidding of Necessity, I violate the code of the republic to which all of us have sworn allegiance. I cross a line, beyond which there can be no return.
“But what, I ask, is the alternative? The nation has lost its way and is struggling desperately, merely to hang on. The nation can’t go on as it is, and everyone knows it. If not me, who? If not me, what?
“So, yes, I will go home. And yes, I will accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me. Not because I believe such a coronation will make any difference in the long run.
“But maybe in the short run, it’s better that my hand be on the wheel rather than some other self-aggrandizing sonofabitch whose motives might not be as well-intentioned or whose consciousness so painfully evolved.”
At a nationally televised press conference, Salter hands a loaded pistol to a longtime friend and disciple who now fears his dictatorial ambitions.
“Go ahead,” says Salter. “You’ll be saving the republic. And me, too.”
But the former disciple cannot bring himself to kill his longtime idol: “Now I’m guilty with you,” he says.
Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a futuristic America.
Donald Trump and his Right-wing disciples may soon make that vision a reality.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 2, 2024 at 12:10 am
Why aren’t Republicans—allegedly the party of “family values”—morally outraged at Donald Trump for his adulterous tryst with a porn “star” and his hush money payment to conceal it during the 2016 Presidential campaign?
Why are they instead outraged at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself?
Republican party logo
Simple: They see Trump as their best chance to not only reclaim the White House but establish a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
Under this, the Republican party will become—in fact, if not officially—the only recognized political party in the nation.
Democratic candidates—for the House, Senate and Presidency—will be prevented from taking office by gerrymandering or false claims that they committed election fraud.
These—and other goals—have been enshrined in Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.
Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.
Under Project 2025:
- Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
- Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
- The Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
- As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House. The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
Seal of the Justice Department
- Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
- Funding for the Department of Justice would be slashed.
- The FBI would be dismantled.
- The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
- States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
- Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished.
- Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
- Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
- The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
- Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
- Abortion would be outlawed.
- Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
- Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States.
- The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.
* * * * *
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….
“[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”
On November 8, 2016, 62,984,828 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man, charged conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
And on November 3, 2020, 74,223,975 of those same Americans again voted for him. This despite Trump’s legacy of:
- Brutally attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Lying about the dangers of the deadly COVID-19 virus, thus allowing it to ravage the country and kill 400,000 Americans.
- Refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election in 2020 and falsely claiming himself the victim of massive voter fraud.
- Inciting thousands of his followers to storm the United States Capitol Building to prevent the winner, Joe Biden, from being declared President-elect.
So why have millions of Americans stood by Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?
Their #1 reason: Hatred—of most of their fellow Americans.
Fortunately, 80 million Americans braved the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts by Republicans to overturn their voting rights—and elected Joseph Biden President of the United States.
Only time will tell if the country proves so lucky in 2024.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on July 1, 2024 at 12:10 am
The May 31, 2024 episode of Washington Week With the Atlantic raised the question: Why were Republicans so obsessed with Bill Clinton’s adulterous affair with Monica Lewinsky but are furiously supporting Donald Trump’s tryst with Stormy Daniels?
Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg opened with: “Donald Trump isn’t a convicted felon yet. Sorry to be pedantic here, but he technically acquires that status only at sentencing come July 11th.
“But a New York jury has spoken, finding him guilty of engaging in a financial scheme to keep the porn star, Stormy Daniels, quiet about their sexual encounter, one that occurred shortly after Trump’s wife gave birth to their son.
“Trump, in addition to this guilty verdict, was recently found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. In total, more than 25 women have accused him of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
“The reaction of the Republican Party leaders to the verdict was to rally around Trump. Evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, also doubled down on their support. Graham, writing on X, said, ‘What we saw today has never happened before, and I think for the majority of Americans, it raises questions about whether our legal system can be trusted….’
“[In] the 1990s…. when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans were outraged and many other people were legitimately outraged that the president of the United States was having sexual relations with a White House intern. Explain to us, if you can, the different dynamics here, the party of family values.”
McKay Coppins, staff writer at the Atlantic: “Well, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the way the Republican party, the conservative movement, think about morality and public leadership.
“Something that I always think about when issues like this come up is that before Donald Trump came on the scene, I can’t remember, it was 2013, 2014, if you surveyed Republican voters and asked them how important is public — it is personal morality in an elected leader to you.
“Something like two-thirds of them would say it’s very important, that I would rather have somebody of high moral character than somebody with policies I agree with.
“A couple years into the Trump presidency, that had flipped and it was only a third of voters said that that was the case, if you were a Republican.
McKay Coppins
“And it just shows kind of the sea change in evangelical ethics and social conservative ethics. I think a lot of conservatives now, because of negative partisanship and polarization….they want to, you know, line up with their team right?
“They want to be with their guy, and then they kind of create a moral architecture around being able to do that.
“But, you know, [he] cheated on his wife with a porn star, and then….is now been convicted of committing fraud to cover it up.
“[It’s] almost a cliché to say if a Democrat had done that, we know what we would be hearing from social conservatives and evangelicals, but they want Donald Trump to be elected.
“And so they are pivoting away from the specifics of the case and the underlying facts of the case to [say] this is a rigged system, this is a legal persecution, Donald Trump is a victim, and we need to back him because they’re going to come after us next.”
There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in the foregoing. But there is also a great deal of truth in a statement that was not made:
Republicans’ professed outrage at Bill Clinton’s infidelities and their furious defense of those by Donald Trump actually share a common link.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, once the poster boy for Republican values, best described the current mindset of the Republican party. Ironically enough, at the time, he was assailing the leaders of the Soviet Union:
“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
Ronald Reagan
In January, 1998, when the public learned of President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Republicans gushed moral outrage.
They portrayed Lewinsky—who had had a seven-year extramarital affair with her former high school drama instructor and flashed her thong at Clinton, signaling her readiness for an affair—as a Vestal Virgin, and Clinton as Grigori Rasputin incarnate.
By 1992, Republicans had come to regard the White House as theirs by Divine Right. Anyone who ran against them automatically became—for them—a traitor. And anyone who won against them became—for them—an usurper.
Thus, Clinton’s true “crime” had been defeating, first, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992, and then Kansas Senator Bob Dole, in 1996.
Fast-forward to the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a sexual tryst with porn “star” Stormy Daniels.
Suddenly, Republicans aim their cries of moral outrage not at Trump but at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, at President Joseph Biden, at the criminal justice system itself.
The reason: They see Trump as their best chance for not simply reclaiming the White House but for establishing a permanent Right-wing dictatorship.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 28, 2024 at 12:10 am
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is a secular, political organization that leads the Republican party of the United States.
But on February 4, 2022, it acted as the reincarnation of the Spanish Inquisition—a judicial institution which attacked heresy in Spain from 1478 to 1834.
Under its reign of terror, countless “heretical” men and women found themselves sentenced by kangaroo courts to hideous torture and death.
Seal of the Spanish Inquisition
User:Di (they-them), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
On February 4, 2022, the RNC’s chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, “cast out” two fellow Republicans: Representtives Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Ronna Romney McDaniel
Part One of this series analyzed the first major paragraph of this censure. Part Two will analyze the remaining six.
“WHEREAS, Winning back the majority in Congress, including the United States House of Representatives, in 2022 must be the primary goal of the House Republican Conference (“Conference”) and requires all Republicans working together to accomplish the same….”
- Here, at least, the RNC and its chair, Ronna Romney McDaniel, offered the truth: Gaining absolute power over the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government is this party’s “primary goal.”
- Punishing those who engage in treasonous attacks on Constitutional government is not a priority—so long as the perpetrators are Fascistic Right-wingers.
“WHEREAS, The Conference must not be sabotaged by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who have demonstrated, with actions and words, that they support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022….
DESTROYING PRESIDENT TRUMP:
- It was Trump who tried to destroy Constitutional government by stripping every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. Had he succeeded, there would have been:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for remaining in office in 2020—and thereafter—as “President-for-Life.”
WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger have engaged in actions in their positions as members of the January 6th Select Committee not befitting Republican of Congress, which include the Committee’s disregard for minority rights, traditional checks and balances, due process, and adherence to other precedent and rules of the U.S. House and which seem intent on advancing a political agenda to buoy the Democrat bleak prospects in the upcoming midterm elections….”
WINNING BACK A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN 2022:
- This, for the RNC, takes precedence over investigating a treasonous plot to overthrow democratic government and establish a one-party (Republican) state, presided over by a lifetime criminal and proven traitor.
Liz Cheney
Adam Kinzinger
“WHEREAS, Congressional Republicans bear ultimate responsibility for their own success or failure and the RNC supports their efforts by denouncing those who deliberately jeopardize victory in November on which the future of our constitutional republic depends at this critical moment in history….”
DELIBERATELY JEOPARDIZING VICTORY:
- Once again, the RNC admits that gaining absolute power for itself takes precedence over investigating and punishing those who sought to overthrow American democracy.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger purport to be members of the Republican Party….”
“PURPORT” TO BE REPUBLICANS:
- Liz Cheney had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Wyoming since 2017. She voted in line with Trump’s policies 93% of the time, according to the data journalism site Five Thirty-Eight.
- Heritage Action, a Right-wing policy advocacy organization, gave her a “lifetime score” of 80%.
- Adam Kinzinger had been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois since 2011.
- According to Five Thirty-Eight, he voted in support of Trump’s agenda 90% of the time,
- Thus, the “crime” committed by Cheney and Kinzinger was to investigate the treasonous attempted coup by a lifelong criminal and would-be tyrant.
“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it
“RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee hereby formally censures Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.”
* * * * * * * * *
The RNC’s action was one worthy of the Spanish Inquisition.
And it serves as a warning to democracy-loving Americans of the fate awaiting them if Republicans’ revenge fantasies become reality.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 27, 2024 at 12:10 am
On February 4, 2022, the Republican National Committee (RNC) officially endorsed the use of violence on behalf of the party.
It described the January 6, 2021 attack on the nation’s Capitol—a violent and treasonous attempt to prevent the orderly and legal transition of power from one President to another—as “legitimate political discourse.”
This is no private opinion of a single Republican—or even a fringe group of Republicans.
The RNC is described on Wikipedia as:
“A U.S. political committee that leads the Republican party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising, election strategy, and a ‘party brand.’ It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Convention.”
The endorsement came during an official censure of two of the Committee’s fellow Republicans—Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee.
That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.”
Predictably, the statement opened with a series of grotesque lies:
“WHEREAS, The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism; eliminate border security in favor of lawless, open borders; create record inflation designed to steal the American dream from our children and grandchildren; neuter our national defense and a peace through strength foreign policy; replace President ‘Operation Warp Speed’ with incompetence and illegal mandates; and destroy America’s economy with the Green New Deal….”
To address these lies:
REPLACING LIBERTY WITH SOCIALISM:
- It was Donald Trump—not Joseph Biden—who said that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”
- It was Trump—not Biden—who attacked American Intelligence agencies for their unanimous conclusion that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 Presidential election.
- It was Trump—not Biden—who never once attacked nor even criticized Putin, although he has viciously attacked literally hundreds of others, verbally and on Twitter.
Donald Trump
ELIMINATING BORDER SECURITY:
- Attacking Hispanics—both those who are United States citizens and those who wish to become citizens—is a potent weapon for Republicans. It’s the single most galvanizing issue for their base, and the one guaranteed to win and retain Right-wing votes.
- The Biden administration—like every previous administration—is trying to stem the flow of illegal aliens on the southern border. But it’s a never-ending struggle marked by legal and logistical complications.
CREATE RECORD INFLATION:
- Biden—like every other President—has few weapons to use in controlling inflation. Much of this has been caused by COVID-19 and the resulting slowdowns and/or shutdowns in employment it has produced.
- As a capitalist nation, the United States does not often intervene in what is euphemistically called “the free enterprise system”—even though much of that is dominated by predatory corporations.
- Biden could propose legislation making price-gouging a Federal crime, punishable by a lengthy prison term. But this—modeled on the anti-extortion provisions in the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—would never gain Republican Congressional support.
NEUTER OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE:
- It was Trump—not Biden—who tried to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
- Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the Congressionally authorized $400 million in military aid.
- It was Trump who repeatedly defended Vladimir Putin while attacking America’s longstanding allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
REPLACE “OPERATION WARP SPEED” WITH INCOMPETENCE, ILLEGAL MANDATES:
- Trump learned how deadly the virus was in January, 2020. But he publicly denied this and attacked mask-wearing and social distancing.
- He attacked governors who issued stay-at-home orders to contain the virus—and incited his followers to defy those orders.
- He secretly got vaccinated before leaving office and only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of vaccinations.
- His legacy of defying science continues to live on in his millions of Stormtrumper followers—who refuse to mask up, social distance and, most importantly, get vaccinated. The vast majority of those now flooding hospital ER and ICU rooms—and graveyards—are unvaccinated.
- Biden instead launched a nationwide campaign to persuade Americans to wear masks, socially distance and, above all, get vaccinated.
DESTROY AMERICA’S ECONOMY WITH A GREEN NEW DEAL:
- Despite Right-wing lies to the contrary, global warming is an established fact.
- If there is to be any chance of halting—let alone reversing—the planet-threatening dangers this brings, it must come through the elimination of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
- But corporate CEOs—such as West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin—have a vested financial interest in continuing the sale of fossil fuels.
- And they have the backing of corrupt Right-wing politicians and millions of their voters who refuse to accept science.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on June 24, 2024 at 12:10 am
On October 7, 2023, about 2,500 Hamas terrorists launched coordinated attacks on Israeli outposts and settlements, firing over 5,000 rockets and burning houses.
They killed over 1,139 people, of which 695 were civilians—including women, children and the elderly. They also kidnapped over 250 others—including 30 children—to Gaza.
Most of those hostages have since been murdered.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. Palestinian health authorities claim that Israel’s ground and air campaign has killed more than 35,000 people,
Liberal Democrats have demanded that President Joseph Biden stop shipping military equipment to Israel.
The World Court has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Three European countries—Spain, Ireland, and Norway—announced that they would recognize a Palestinian state.
Across the United States, scores of university students have protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.
Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.
Columbia University, Barnard College and the University of Southern California (USC) canceled their graduation ceremonies owing to fears of violent protests by terrorism-sympathizing students.
Such holier-than-thou attitudes ignore three important truths:
First: Soldiering is by its nature a brutal business.
- The purpose of boot camp is to “break down” the restraints of pacifism and individuality and turn “boys” into “fighting men.” This must be done in weeks, so the process is shockingly brutal.
- Recruits are repeatedly taught such maxims as: “Ambushes are murder—and murder is fun.”
- Denigrating the enemy is a time-worn habit in all armies—including the American army. During the Indian wars, soldiers referred to Indians as “Red niggers.”
- In World War II—the “Good War”—America’s servicemen fought “Japs” and “Krauts.” During the Vietnam war, Vietnamese became “dinks” and “gooks.”
Marine drill instructor
- Today’s servicemen and women routinely (but unofficially) refer to their Islamic enemies as “ragheads” or “sand niggers.”
- Soldiers who aren’t toughened by boot camp are by the battlefield. As General George S. Patton often warned: “When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.”
- Those who are demanding that Israel “pause” its offensive against Gaza ignore that when Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, the capitol of Nazi Germany, Americans did not demand that Nazis be given a chance to reorganize and counterattack.
Second: Atrocities in wartime are nothing new—including for U.S. forces.
- During the Mexican War, Texas Rangers accompanying the U.S. Army acted as commandos—and exacted reprisals against Mexicans engaging in terrorist acts.
- During the army’s wars against the Indians, soldiers and scouts—such as William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody—routinely took scalps as trophies.
- During World War II, Marines posted in the Pacific rarely took prisoners. The reason: Japanese soldiers often pretended to surrender––and thus lured American troops into ambushes.
- GIs fighting in the European theater generally shot fanatical Waffen-SS soldiers—including those who tried to surrender. This was especially true during the Battle of the Bulge, when Germans dressed in American uniforms stirred panic among Allied forces.
Waffen-SS soldier
- During the Vietnam war, some “grunts” made necklaces of ears taken from dead Vietcong. Vietnam Correspondent Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches, relates the story of a grunt who was “building his own gook” from actual body parts.
Third: Those who provoke war do not have a right to dictate how their opponents should defend themselves.
- In 1815, just before the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson ordered American snipers to harass invading British forces—and especially to take out officers. The British commander angrily protested this “barbarism.” Jackson sent back a message of his own: “You have invaded our country and we will defend ourselves as we see fit.”
- William Tecumseh Sherman, defending the conduct of his men during their legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia, said: “Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
- Israelis have learned to deter Palestinian suicide-bombers by the use of police dogs. Muslims protest because they consider dogs defiled—and defiling—creatures. Islamic terrorists fear that blowing up themselves near a dog risks mingling their blood with that of the dead or wounded animal—thus forfeiting their opportunity to enter Paradise and claim those 72 willing virgins.
- In early November, 2001—two months after 9/11—Muslims throughout the Islamic world demanded that the United States halt its attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan out of “respect” for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
- In short: Islamic “holy warriors” could launch attacks that murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children. But “infidels” were supposed to defend themselves according to Islamic rules.
- The United States wisely refused to bow to this Islamic version of “political correctness.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2024 at 12:10 am
There are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy
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. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq.
Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”
Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.
Example 1: Republicans are now organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.
Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor is the Biden Justice Department indicting those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.
Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.
More than three years have passed, and not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason has been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would by now be far more advanced than it is. Republicans who are raising funds for re-election campaigns would instead be raising them to pay huge legal bills.
They would have far less time to focus on plotting to overthrow democracy in November. Instead, their attention would be increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.
Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration has tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.
Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.
Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.
A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.
There can be no doubt that if Trump wins re-election in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.
Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.
Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
And Smith has allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial.
Meanwhile, Trump has won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol, guaranteeing he will not be prosecuted for this crime before the 2024 election—if ever.
To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.
To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau has applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.
For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.
America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler).
The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.
The United States cannot afford to make that same fatal mistake.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2024 at 12:28 am
There are many reasons why Democrats consistently lose elections.
Democrats expect people to rise above their worst selves and embrace a higher, altruistic cause—civil rights, abortion rights, healthcare for all.
Reason #3: Republicans look for those who are comfortable in their racism, their greed, their hatred for women. They don’t try to reform them—they encourage them in their racism, greed and misogyny.
This began long before Donald Trump became a Presidential candidate in 2016.
When Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President in 1968, he pursued what was euphemistically termed “a Southern strategy.”
In reality, this was aimed to exploit whites’ fear and hatred of blacks.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
Lee Atwater
“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.”
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
Reason #4: Republicans are experts at inciting hatred—and reaping huge gains in power as a result.
There can be no better example of a politician who has played successfully on the hatred of American voters than Donald Trump. If Barack Obama was the 2008 candidate of “Hope and Change,” then Trump was the 2016 candidate of “Hate and Fear.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- The New York Times
- President Barack Obama
- CNN
- Actress Meryl Streep
- The Washington Post
- Singer Neil Young
- Democrats
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Republicans
- Comedian John Oliver
- The State of New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
Democrats want to believe a day will come when all races, colors and creeds will live together in harmony. Their policies aim at creating that sort of society.
Reason #5: Republicans know that most people instinctively feel comfortable with those who most resemble themselves. And they don’t seek out those who differ from themselves.
That’s why—in schools and prisons—whites sit mostly with whites, blacks sit mostly with blacks, and Hispanics sit mostly with Hispanics.
Reason #6: Republicans know that if most Americans feel uncomfortable with fellow Americans who don’t resemble themselves, they feel even less comfortable with foreigners who don’t.
This is especially true when inflation is high, jobs and housing are scarce, and local schools and hospitals are crammed with illegal aliens—who, by law, shouldn’t even be in the country.
For these Americans, the Democrats’ “Kumbaya” message of love and tolerance falls on deaf ears. By contrast, Republicans’ cries of “Get rid of the illegal aliens!” ring loud and clear.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
Moreover, the “illegal alien” tagline often allows Republicans to sidestep criticism on even the most outrageous of their actions.
Example: The case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped—and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade.
Ohio has a “heartbeat” law making abortion a crime after a fetal heartbeat is determined—usually within the first six weeks.
For Ohio’s Republican legislators and governor, the “rights” of a fetus far outweigh those of an actual human being—even if she is a child.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, said on Fox News that the girl’s illegal alien rapist from Guatemala was the villain, not the fetal heartbeat law.
“The agenda is to allow people to come into America without having to come here legally. If you start pointing things out like this, it makes it a moral question. And that’s why the press doesn’t want to face up to the fact it’s a moral issue that people should not be allowed in America unless they come here legally.”
Democrats believe that voters are creatures of rationality.
Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that what counts with most voters is emotions—such as fear.
From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.
Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,” “fellow traveler” was considered at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.
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DONALD TRUMP AS THE GOP’S HOWARD BEALE
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2024 at 12:19 amDonald Trump has been compared to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Gaius Caligula. But perhaps his counterpart lies not in history but in fiction.
Specifically, the fictional news anchor Howard Beale in Network, the 1976 satire written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It starred Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight.
Howard Beale (Finch) the longtime anchor of the UBS Evening News, is about to be fired because of declining ratings.
So he announces on live television that he will commit suicide on next Tuesday’s broadcast.
UBS fires him, but then agrees to let Beale appear one more time to leave with dignity.
But once Beale is back on the air, he launches into a rant that contains the most famous—and most often-quoted—line in the film:
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter….
“We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat….
“So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'”
Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network
Beale is clearly losing it. But his outburst causes the newscast’s ratings to spike. Instead of pulling him off the air, the top brass of UBS decide to exploit Beale’s antics.
Soon he’s hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, where he’s billed as “the mad prophet of the airwaves.” Ultimately, the show becomes the most highly rated program on television.
But then Beale’s ratings slide as audiences find his sermons on the dehumanization of society depressing.
To rid themselves of Beale and boost their season-opener ratings, the network’s top executives hire a band of terrorists called the Ecumenical Liberation Army to assassinate Beale—on the air!
Forty years after Network, Right-wing voters sent “reality show” host and real estate mogul Donald Trump to the White House.
Donald Trump
Republicans have reveled in his antics and enthusiastically supported his most heinous acts, which have included:
The greed-obsessed honchos of the fictional UBS Network believed they could parley Howard Beale’s madness into greater profits.
Similarly, power-obsessed Republicans in the House and Senate believe they can parley Donald Trump’s tyrannical and unstable nature into lifetime tenure for themselves.
Yet, like the executives at UBS, Congressional Republicans may soon be forced to turn on their most poisonous creation.
Right-wing Fox News Network gave its enthusiastic support to Trump during the 2016 Presidential race. And it continues to do so throughout his 2024 campaign.
But now, in 2024, Trump seems unable to come to grips with Vice President Kamala Harris. He still yearns to run against President Joe Biden—whose unexpected exit on July 21 caught him totally by surprise.
So he attacks her race, her intelligence, her crowd size, her integrity (“Crooked Kamala”)—the last despite her having been a prosecutor and his being a convicted felon.
Fellow Republicans—such as commentator Bill Kristol and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy—keep pressing him to focus on policy, not character assassination.
Former U.N. Ambassador and defeated GOP primary rival Nikki Haley said on Fox News: “Quit whining about her. We knew it was going to be her….Republicans need to be fighting for suburban women, for college-educated, for independents, for moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.”
But Trump, seeing his polls dwarfed by those of Harris, sticks to what he knows best: Lies and smears.
They don’t seem to be working as well for him as they did in 2016.
Republicans may soon face the following dilemma:
This is how Republicans define morality today.
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