Posts Tagged ‘JOSEPH STALIN’
ABC NEWS, ADMIRAL IVAN ISAKOV, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, ANDREW MCCABE, AP, BOB WOODWARD, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CIA, CNN, COUNTER-SURVEILLANCE, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FSB, GENRIKH YAGODA, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMANN GOERING, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOSEPH STALIN, KGB, KRISJEN NIELSEN, LAVRENTY BERIA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKOLAI YEZHOV, NKVD, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, RACHEL BRAND, RANDOLPF “TEX” ALLES, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, SALLY YATES, SALON, SEAN SPICER, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SS, STORMY DANIELS, SURVEILLANCE, THE APPRENTICE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 12, 2019 at 12:11 am
In January, 2018, the White House banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing. The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
More ominously, well-suited men roam the halls of the West Wing, carrying devices that pick up signals from phones that aren’t government-issued.
“Did someone forget to put their phone away?” one of the men will ask if such a device is detected. If no one says they have a phone, the detection team start searching the room.
Phone detector
The devices can tell which type of phone is in the room.
This is the sort of behavior Americans have traditionally—and correctly—associated with dictatorships
In his memo outlining the policy, then-Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that anyone who violated the phone ban could be punished, including “being indefinitely prohibited from entering the White House complex.”
Yet even these draconian methods may not end White House leaks.
White House officials still speak with reporters throughout the day and often air their grievances, whether about annoying colleagues or competing policy priorities.
Aides with private offices sometimes call reporters on their desk phones. Others get their cell phones and call or text reporters during lunch breaks.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believe that leaks won’t end unless Trump starts firing staffers. But there is always the risk of firing the wrong people. Thus, to protect themselves, those who leak might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
Among the methods used to keep conversations secret:
- Turning on the TV or radio to full volume.
- Turning on a water faucet at full blast.
- Turning the dial of a rotary phone to the end—and sticking a pencil in one of the small holes for numbers.
- Standing six to nine feet away from the hung-up receiver.
- Going for “a walk in the woods.”
- Saying nothing sensitive on the phone.
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels. And he’s threatened or filed lawsuits against those he couldn’t or didn’t want to bribe—such as contractors who have worked on various Trump properties.
But Trump can’t buy the loyalty of employees working in an atmosphere of hostility—which breeds resentment and fear. And some of them are taking revenge by sharing with reporters the latest crimes and follies of the Trump administration.
The more Trump wages war on the “cowards and traitors” who work most closely with him, the more some of them will find opportunities to strike back. This will inflame Trump even more—and lead him to seek even more repressive methods against his own staffers.
This is a no-win situation for Trump.
The results will be twofold:
- Constant turnovers of staffers—with their replacements having to undergo lengthy background checks before coming on; and
- Continued leaking of embarrassing secrets by resentful employees who stay.
**********
As host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” Trump became famous for booting off contestants with the phrase: “You’re fired.” In fact, he so delighted in using this that, in 2004, he tried to gain trademark ownership of it.
But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected his application. American copyright law explicitly prohibits copyright protections for short phrases or sayings.
Since taking office as President, Trump has bullied and insulted even White House officials and his own handpicked Cabinet officers. This has resulted in an avalanche of firings and resignations.
The first two years of Trump’s White House have seen more firings, resignations, and reassignments of top staffers than any other first-term administration in modern history. His Cabinet turnover exceeds that of any other administration in the last 100 years.
In 1934, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion in 1941.
No one was safe from execution—not even the men who slaughtered as many as 20 to 60 million.
Fittingly, for all the fear he inspired, Stalin was plagued by paranoia. He lived in constant fear of assassination. Although surrounded by bodyguards, he distrusted even them.
Thus Stalin, who had turned the Soviet Union into a vast prison, became its leading prisoner.
Similarly, Donald Trump daily proves the truth of the age-old warning: “You can build a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it.”
Like this:
Like Loading...
ABC NEWS, ADMIRAL IVAN ISAKOV, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, ANDREW MCCABE, AP, BOB WOODWARD, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CIA, CNN, COUNTER-SURVEILLANCE, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FSB, GENRIKH YAGODA, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMANN GOERING, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOSEPH STALIN, KGB, KRISJEN NIELSEN, LAVRENTY BERIA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKOLAI YEZHOV, NKVD, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, RACHEL BRAND, RANDOLPF “TEX” ALLES, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, SALLY YATES, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SS, STORMY DANIELS, SURVEILLANCE, THE APPRENTICE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 11, 2019 at 12:17 am
Donald Trump has often been compared to Adolf Hitler. But his reign bears far more resemblance to that of Joseph Stalin.
Germany’s Fuhrer, for all his brutality, maintained a relatively stable government by keeping the same men in office—from the day he took power on January 30, 1933, to the day he blew out his brains on April 30, 1945.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
Heinrich Himmler, a former chicken farmer, remained head of the dreaded, black-uniformed Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads, known as the SS, from 1929 until his suicide in 1945.
In April, 1934, Himmler was appointed assistant chief of the Gestapo (Secret State Police) in Prussia, and from that position he extended his control over the police forces of the whole Reich.
Hermann Goering, an ace fighter pilot in World War 1, served as Reich commissioner for aviation and head of the newly developed Luftwaffe, the German air force, from 1935 to 1945.
And Albert Speer, Hitler’s favorite architect, held that position from 1933 until 1942, when Hitler appointed him Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. He held that position until the Third Reich collapsed in April, 1945.
Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, by contrast, purged his ministers constantly. For example: From 1934 to 1953, Stalin had no fewer than three chiefs of his secret police, then named the NKVD:
- Genrikh Yagoda – (July 10, 1934 – September 26, 1936)
- Nikolai Yezhov (September 26, 1936 – November 25, 1938) and
- Lavrenty Beria (November, 1938 – March, 1953).
Stalin purged Yagoda and Yezhov, with both men executed after their arrest.
Joseph Stalin
He reportedly wanted to purge Beria, too, but the latter may have acted first. There has been speculation that Beria slipped warfarin, a blood-thinner often used to kill rats, into Stalin’s drink, causing him to die of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Stalin’s record for slaughter far eclipses that of Hitler.
For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, Stalin slaughtered 20 to 60 million people.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion in 1941.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
Another Russian-installed tyrant who has sought to rule by fear: President Donald J. Trump.
In fact, he admitted as much to journalist Bob Woodward during the 2016 Presidential race: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.”
Donald Trump
As a Presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly used Twitter to attack hundreds of real and imagined enemies in politics, journalism, TV and films.
As President, he continues to insult virtually everyone, verbally and on Twitter. His targets include Democrats, Republicans, the media, foreign leaders and even members of his Cabinet.
In Russian, the word for “purge” is “chistka,” for “cleansing.” Among the victims of Trump’s recurring chistkas:
- Sally Yates – Assistant United States Attorney General
- James Comey – FBI Director
- Andrew McCabe – FBI Deputy Director
- Jeff Sessions – United States Attorney General
- Rachel Brand – Associate United States Attorney General
- Randolph “Tex” Alles – Director of the United States Secret Service
- Krisjen Nielsen – Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
In his infamous political treatise, The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, asked: “Is it is better to be loved or feared?”
And he answered it thus:
“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.
“For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours….
“And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined….
“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.”
But Machiavelli warned about relying primarily on fear: “Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred, for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
**********
Donald Trump has violated that counsel throughout his life. He not only makes enemies, he revels in doing so—and in the fury he has aroused.
Filled with a poisonous hatred that encompasses almost everyone, Trump, since taking office, has repeatedly played to the hatreds of his Right-wing base.
As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”
Like this:
Like Loading...
ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, ANDREW MCCABE, AP, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JUNIOR, EGOMANIA, ELAINE CHAO, ERIC SALWELL, FACEBOOK, FBI, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, HILLARY CLINTON, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JERRY NADLER, JOHN BRENNAN, JOSEPH STALIN, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, PURGE, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, RICK PERRY, ROBERT MUELLER, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TOM PEREZ, TOM PRICE, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2019 at 12:10 am
For Donald Trump, American history begins and ends with himself. To hear him tell it:
- “It is much easier to act presidential than what we are doing here tonight, believe me. With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office.”
- “Almost everyone agrees that my administration has done more in less than two years than any other Administration in the history of our Country. I’m tough as hell on people & if I weren’t, nothing would get done. Also, I question everybody and everything—which is why I got elected!”
- “Never has there been a President with few exceptions—case of FDR, he had a major Depression to handle—who has passed more legislation and who has done more things than what we’ve done.”
President Donald Trump
- “The amazing thing is that you have certain people who are conservative Republicans that if my name weren’t Trump, if it were John Smith, they would say I’m the greatest president in history and I blow Ronald Reagan away,”
- “How do you impeach a President who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?”
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin couldn’t tolerate criticism or dissent. He dubbed those who disagreed with him “enemies of the people.” And for 30 years, he unleashed a series of purges that slaughtered 20-25 million of his fellow Russians.
Joseph Stalin
President Donald Trump also can’t abide disagreement or criticism. He’s repeatedly called the media who report his crimes and follies “the enemy of the people.” And he’s used insults, lawsuits and threats of violence to intimidate and/or injure his perceived enemies.
Now Trump may be moving on to a new and even more dangerous phase.
Trump has repeatedly claimed to be “cleared” by the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This despite the fact that it’s been seen only by William Barr, his handpicked Attorney General.
Trump is now acting like a king who feels himself the victim of a failed overthrow. In fact, he has said as much:
“There are a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, very bad things—I would say treasonous things against our country. Those people will certainly be looked at. I’ve been looking at them for a long time.”
And: “This was an illegal takedown that failed and hopefully somebody’s going to be looking at the other side.”
On March 25, Trump’s re-election campaign sent a memo to television producers instructing them to “employ basic journalistic standards when booking” six current or former government officials that the campaign accused of making “outlandish, false claims, without evidence” about Trump’s collusion with Russia while on air.
Specifically:
- Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut)
- Representative Jerry Nadler (D-New York), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
- Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez
- John Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency
- Representative Adam Schiff (D-California), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
- Representative Eric Swalwell (D-California), who has indicated he might run for President
Rudolph Giuliani, Trump’s private attorney and a former Federal prosecutor, offered a chilling threat: “If there are people who contrived this investigation, who made up this collusion, maybe they themselves should be investigated.”
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) warned: “I believe that Donald Trump got scrutiny like nobody else in the history of the presidency, since Nixon probably ….To those who were abusive of the process in 2016 on the other side, you haven’t had much scrutiny, but that’s coming.”
And since Graham heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, that is no idle threat.
Lindsey Graham
Hurling an insult and threat at Adam Schiff, Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted: “#fullofSchiff has been flagrantly lying to the American people & slandering POTUS & me for years for airtime. Should he not face any repercussions for the lies?”
There was, of course, nothing illegal about a legitimate Justice Department investigation of proven links between Russian Intelligence agents and members of Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign.
What is almost certainly coming is an illegal purge worthy of Joseph Stalin.
And Americans who believe “it can’t happen here” also once couldn’t imagine that:
- Trump would demand that FBI Director James Comey pledge his loyalty to Trump. When he refused, Trump fired him.
- Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director, would open an investigation to determine if Trump “had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” When this became known, Trump forced him out of the Bureau.
- Trump would repeatedly demand that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions prosecute his former Presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, although the FBI had not found her guilty of a crime.
Trump commands the FBI and the Justice Department, and is backed by a compliant Republican Senate. He has appointed 92 Federal judges—and can expect at least some of them to uphold convictions against his real and imagined enemies.
In short: Trump is poised to “get even” with his critics in the media—and Congress.
Like this:
Like Loading...
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ANTHONY BOURDAIN, AP, BORIS PASTERNAK, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY, COMEDY CELLAR, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, FACEBOOK, HARVEY WEINSTEIN, HBO, JIMMY KIMMEL, JOSEPH STALIN, LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS, MARIA YUDINA, MICHELLE WOLF, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SCOTT PRUITT, SEAN HANNITY, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, USA TODAY JOSEPH STALIN, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER
In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on March 11, 2019 at 12:13 am
Speaking truth to tyrants is always risky. But those who do—and survive—can find consolation in knowing they have done something few others have dared to do.
Two women—one Russian, the other American—have had this experience.
Maria Veniaminovna Yudina (1899 – 1970) was a gifted pianist who joined the piano faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1936, where she taught until 1951.
Maria Yudina
From 1944 to 1960, Yudina taught chamber ensemble and vocal class at the Gnessin Institute. In 1960, she was fired from the Institute because of her religious beliefs and championing of modern Western music.
She continued to perform in public, but her recitals were forbidden to be recorded. At one of her recitals in Leningrad, she read Boris Pasternak’s poetry from the stage as an encore.
For that, Yudina was banned from performing for five years. In 1966, when the ban was lifted, she gave a cycle of lectures on Romanticism at the Moscow Conservatory.
Although born into a Jewish family, she joined and remained a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Perhaps her most courageous act occurred during the last years of the reign of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet dictator was responsible for the deaths of 20 to 25 million people—through execution, famine, torture, imprisonment and deportations.
Joseph Stalin
One night in 1944, Stalin, listening to the radio, heard a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. Yudina had played the piano, backed up by a full orchestra.
Stalin, impressed, ordered that an envelope containing 20,000 rubles be sent to Yudina.
According to Russian composer and pianist Dimitri Shostakovich, Yudina then did the unthinkable.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich writes that Yudina sent Stalin a letter almost certain to result in her arrest.
The gist of the letter: “I thank you, Iosif Vissarionovich, for your aid.
“I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive your great sins before the people and the country. The Lord is merciful and He will forgive you. I gave the money to the church that I attend.”
Stalin read the letter to his inner circle. Although he could have destroyed Yudina as easily as killing a fly, he set aside the letter and did nothing.
Yudina’s recording of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 was on Stalin’s record player when he collapsed with a cerebral hemorrhage on March 1, 1953. It was the last music he had listened to.
Shostakovich believed that Stalin was superstitious—and it was this that saved Yudina.
Throughout her life, Yudina remained an uncompromising critic of the Soviet regime. She died in Moscow in 1970.
Seventy-four years later, another woman—Michelle Wolf—dared speak truth to a tyrant in a different way.
Wolf (1985 – ) is an American comedian and writer. In 2007, she graduated from the College of William & Mary, a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her major: Kinesiology (the scientific study of human or non-human body movement).
She decided to enter the comedy world and made her first appearance on late-night television in 2014, on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She made repeated appearances on the show, A regular at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, she joined The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in 2016
Michelle Wolf
In 2017, she made her HBO stand-up debut, Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady.
On April 28, 2018, she hosted the annual White House Correspondents Dinner.
Traditionally, it’s been an occasion where Washington’s political and media elites enjoy dinner and trade barbed quips at one another.
But President Donald Trump chose to skip the dinner in 2017 and 2018. Trump—who repeatedly insults others—is too thin-skinned to accept even harmless jokes aimed at him.
That, however, didn’t deter Wolf. And she served up a series of barbed jokes aimed at the greed, deceit and hypocrisy of high-ranking Trump administration officials. Among these:
- [Trump] loves white nationalists, which is a weird term for a Nazi. Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling a pedophile a kid friend or Harvey Weinstein a ladies’ man.
- [Vice President] Mike Pence is a weirdo, though. He’s a weird little guy. He won’t meet with other women without his wife present. When people first heard this, they were like, “That’s crazy.” But now, in this current climate, they’re like, “That’s a good witness.”
- A tree falls in the woods is [Environmental Protection Agency director] Scott Pruitt’s definition of porn. Yeah, we all have our kinks.
But Wolf also had plenty of jabs for assembled media bigwigs.
- The most useful information on CNN is when Anthony Bourdain tells me where to eat noodles.
- People want me to make fun of [Fox News host] Sean Hannity tonight, but I cannot do that. This dinner is for journalists.
Wolf’s jokes—especially those about White Hose Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders—triggered harsh attacks in turn from Trump officials and media critics.
But Jimmy Kimmel—who has also performed at the correspondents dinner—tweeted:
“Michelle did exactly what she should do, which was [to] upset everybody. That’s the role of a commentator and a bomb thrower and a comedian. Your job is not to make people comfortable and your job is definitely not to stay within the line. Your job is to say the things that make people uncomfortable and upset.”
Like this:
Like Loading...
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 8, 2019 at 12:59 pm
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom announced the withdrawal of several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark—like virtually every remark Trump made at CPAC—got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
- Ties: Made in China
- Suits: Made in Indonesia
- Trump Vodka: Made in the Netherlands, and later in Germany
- Crystal glasses, decanters: Made in Slovenia
- And the clothing and accessories line of his daughter, Ivanka, is produced entirely in factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
- Trump has boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.” Then he met with Kim in Vietnam—and got stiffed on a deal for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
- On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
- Damned him as a racist, a conman and a cheat.
- Revealed that Trump had cheated on his taxes and bought the silence of a porn “star” to prevent her revealing a 2006 tryst before the 2016 election.
- Estimated he had stiffed, on Trump’s behalf, hundreds of workers Trump owed money to.
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
Like this:
Like Loading...
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 7, 2019 at 12:10 am
“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveales his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report may end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 21, 2019, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “7,645 ‘false or misleading claims.” He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Like this:
Like Loading...
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 6, 2019 at 1:10 pm
“One man in the free world has the power to launch a nuclear war that might destroy civilization: the President of the United States. What if that man were mentally unbalanced?”
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
He wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, Hollenbach believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel released in 2018? The answer lies in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, writes:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
From the beginning of his Presidency, Trump aroused fear—based not only of what he might do, but that he might be mentally unbalanced. Consider:
On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department turned up no evidence to substantiate Trump’s foray into Presidential libel.
Donald Trump
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who has dared to answer this question is John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his Presidency to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
Facing a hostile Democratic House of Representatives and a potentially explosive report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw down the gauntlet.
Like this:
Like Loading...
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HILLARY CLINTON, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2019 at 12:15 am
In January, 2018, the White House banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believe that leaks won’t end unless President Donald Trump starts firing staffers. But this could lead to his firing the wrong people. To protect themselves, those who leak might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
Among the methods used to keep conversations secret:
- Turning on the TV or radio to full volume.
- Turning on a water faucet at full blast.
- Turning the dial of a rotary phone to the end—and sticking a pencil in one of the small holes for numbers.
- Standing six to nine feet away from the hung-up receiver.
- Going for “a walk in the woods.”
- Saying nothing sensitive on the phone.
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
- Your enemy is hiding.
- Start from the usual suspects.
- Study the young.
- Stop the laughing.
- Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
- Stamp out every spark.
- Order is created by appearance.
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels.
He’s never been able to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does.
At Christmastime, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.” In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”
By saying that “SNL’s” right to parody him “should be tested in courts, can’t be legal?” Trump has chosen to ignore the role of the First Amendment in American history.
Cartoonists portrayed President Andrew Jackson wearing a king’s robes and crown, and holding a scepter. This thoroughly enraged Jackson—who had repulsed a British invasion in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans. To call a man a monarchist in 1800s America was the same as calling him a Communist in the 1950s.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was lampooned as an ape and a blood-stained tyrant. And Theodore Roosevelt proved a cartoonist’s delight, with attention given to his bushy mustache and thick-lensed glasses.
Thus, the odds are slight that an American court would even hear a case brought by Trump against “SNL.”
Such a case made its way through the courts in the late 1980s when the Reverend Jerry Falwell sued pornographer Larry Flyint over a satirical interview in Hustler magazine. In this, “Falwell” admitted that his first sexual encounter had been with his own mother.
In 1988, the United States Supreme Court, voting 8-0, ruled in Flynt’s favor, saying that the media had a First Amendment right to parody a celebrity.
“Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist—an appointee of President Richard Nixon—wrote in his majority decision in the case.
Moreover, there is absolutely no doubt that Trump would be forced to take the stand in such a case. The powers-that-be at NBC and “SNL” would insist on it.
And recent history has shown that while Trump loves to sue those he hates, he does not relish being put on the stand himself.
On October 12, The Palm Beach Post, The New York Times and People all published stories of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
He accused the Times of inventing accusations to hurt his Presidential candidacy. And he threatened to sue for libel if the Times reported the women’s stories. He also threatened to sue the women making the accusations.
He never sued the Times or the women.
Like this:
Like Loading...
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HILLARY CLINTON, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on February 20, 2019 at 12:11 am
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
McCain, a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967, and captured. He spent five and a half years as a POW in North Vietnam—and was often brutally tortured. He wasn’t released until March 14, 1973.
Recently, he had opposed the nomination of Gina Haspel as director of the CIA.
The reason: In 2002, Haspel had operated a “black” CIA site in Thailand where Islamic terrorists were often waterboarded to make them talk.
For John McCain, waterboarding was torture, even if it didn’t leave its victims permanently scarred and disabled.
Aware that the 81-year-old McCain was dying of brain cancer, Sadler joked to intimates about the Senator’s opposition to Haspel: “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying anyway.”
John McCain
Leaked to CNN by an anonymous White House official, Sadler’s remark sparked fierce criticism—and demands for her firing.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain, said: “Ms. Sadler, may I remind you that John McCain has a lot of friends in the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle. Nobody is laughing in the Senate.”
“People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday,” said former Vice President Joe Biden.
“John McCain makes America great. Father, grandfather, Navy pilot, POW hero bound by honor, an incomparable and irrepressible statesman. Those who mock such greatness only humiliate themselves and their silent accomplices,” tweeted former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Officially, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to confirm or deny Sadler’s joke: “I’m not going to get into a back and forth because people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings.”
Unofficially, Sanders was furious—not at the joke about a dying man, but that someone had leaked it. After assailing the White House communications team, she pouted: “I am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. And that’s just disgusting.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
No apology has been offered by any official at the White House—including President Donald Trump.
In fact, Senior White House communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp reportedly expressed her support for Sadler: “I stand with Kelly Sadler.”
On May 11—the day after Sadler’s comment was reported—reporters asked Sanders if the tone set by Trump had caused Sadler to feel comfortable in telling such a joke.
“Certainly not!” predictably replied Sanders, adding: “We have a respect for all Americans, and that is what we try to put forward in everything we do, but in word and in action, focusing on doing things that help every American in this country every single day.”
On May 14 Trump revealed his “respect” for “all Americans”—especially those working in the White House.
“The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible,” Trump tweeted.
“With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!”
This from the man who, during the 2016 Presidential campaign, shouted: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks!”
Of course, that was when Russian Intelligence agents were exposing the secrets of Hillary Clinton, his Presidential opponent.
And, in a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump ordered an all-out investigation to find the joke-leaker.
In January, 2018, the White House had banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing.
The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
Officials now have two choices:
- Leave their cell phones in their cars, or,
- When they arrive for work, deposit them in lockers installed at West Wing entrances. They can reclaim their phones when they leave.
Several staffers huddle around the lockers throughout the day, checking messages they have missed. The lockers buzz and chirp constantly from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
More ominously, well-suited men roam the halls of the West Wing, carrying devices that pick up signals from phones that aren’t government-issued. “Did someone forget to put their phone away?” one of the men will ask if such a device is detected. If no one says they have a phone, the detection team start searching the room.
Phone detector
The devices can tell which type of phone is in the room.
This is the sort of behavior Americans have traditionally—and correctly—associated with dictatorships
In his memo outlining the policy, former Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that anyone who violated the phone ban could be punished, including “being indefinitely prohibited from entering the White House complex.”
Yet even these draconian methods may not end White House leaks.
White House officials still speak with reporters throughout the day and often air their grievances, whether about annoying colleagues or competing policy priorities.
Aides with private offices sometimes call reporters on their desk phones. Others get their cell phones and call or text reporters during lunch breaks.
Like this:
Like Loading...
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADOLF HITLER, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FIRST AMENDMENT, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FSB, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMOR, HUSTLER MAGAZINE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, JERRY FALWELL, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH STALIN, KELLY SADLER, KGB, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, LARRY FLYNT, MGB, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PARODY, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WILLIAM REHNQUIST
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 19, 2019 at 12:43 am
“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake news NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!
So tweeted President Donald J. Trump on February 17.
Less than nine hours earlier, “SNL” had once again opened with actor Alec Baldwin mocking the 45th President. In this skit, Baldwin/Trump gave a rambling press conference declaring: “We need wall. We have a tremendous amount of drugs flowing into this country from the southern border—or The Brown Line, as many people have asked me not to call it.”
Right-wingers denounce their critics as “snowflakes”—that is, emotional, easily offended and unable to tolerate opposing views.
Yet here was Donald Trump, who prides himself on his toughness, whining like a child bully who has just been told that other people have rights, too.
The answer is simple: Trump is a tyrant—and a longtime admirer of tyrants.
Donald Trump
He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”:
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—a reference to then-President Barack Obama.
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.
O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Asked by a Fox News reporter why he praised murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, he replied: “He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father …If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.”
In short: Kim must be doing something right because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it.
Actually, for all their differences in appearance and nationality, Trump shares at least two similarities with Kim.
Kim Jong-Un
Blue House (Republic of Korea) [KOGL (http://www.kogl.or.kr/open/info/license_info/by.do)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
First, both of them got a big boost into wealth and power from their fathers.
- Trump’s father, Fred Trump, a real estate mogul, reportedly gave Donald $200 million to enter the real estate business. It was this sum that formed the basis for Trump’s eventual rise to wealth and fame—and the Presidency.
- Kim’s father was Kim Jong-Il, who ruled North Korea as dictator from 1994 to 2011. When his father died in 2011, Kim Jong-Un immediately succeeded him, having been groomed for years to do so.
Second, both Trump and Kim have brutally tried to stamp out any voices that contradict their own.
- Trump has constantly attacked freedom of the press, even labeling it “the enemy of the American people.” He has also slandered his critics on Twitter—which has refused to enforce its “Terms of Service” and revoke his account.
- Kim has attacked his critics with firing squads and prison camps. Amnesty International estimates that more than 200,000 North Koreans are now suffering in labor camps throughout the country.
Thus, Trump—-elected to lead the “free world”—believes, like all dictators:
- People are evil everywhere—so who am I to judge who’s better or worse? All that counts is gaining and holding onto power.
- And if you can do that, it doesn’t matter how you do so.
Actually, it’s not uncommon for dictators to admire one another—as the case of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler nicely illustrates.
Joseph Stalin
After Hitler launched a blood-purge of his own private Stormtroopers army on June 30, 1934, Stalin exclaimed: “Hitler, what a great man! That is the way to deal with your political opponents!”
And Hitler was equally admiring of Stalin’s notorious ruthlessness: “After the victory over Russia,” he told his intimates, “it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country, with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
One characteristic shared by all dictators is intolerance toward those whose opinions differ with their own. Especially those who dare to actually criticize or make fun of them.
All Presidents have thin skins. John F. Kennedy often phoned reporters and called them “sonofbitches” when he didn’t like stories they had written on him.
Richard Nixon went further, waging all-out war against the Washington Post for its stories about his criminality.
But Donald Trump has taken his hatred of dissidents to an entirely new—and dangerous—level.
On May 10, 2018, The Hill reported that White House Special Assistant Kelly Sadler had joked derisively about dying Arizona United States Senator John McCain.
Trump was outraged—not that one of his aides had joked about a man stricken with brain cancer, but that someone in the White House had leaked it.
Like this:
Like Loading...
ABC NEWS, ADMIRAL IVAN ISAKOV, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, ANDREW MCCABE, AP, BOB WOODWARD, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHEKA, CIA, CNN, COUNTER-SURVEILLANCE, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FSB, GENRIKH YAGODA, HEINRICH HIMMLER, HERMANN GOERING, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOSEPH STALIN, KGB, KRISJEN NIELSEN, LAVRENTY BERIA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKOLAI YEZHOV, NKVD, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, RACHEL BRAND, RANDOLPF “TEX” ALLES, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, SALLY YATES, SALON, SEAN SPICER, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SS, STORMY DANIELS, SURVEILLANCE, THE APPRENTICE, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
PRESIDENTS RULE BY CONSENT, DICTATORS RULE BY FEAR: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 12, 2019 at 12:11 amIn January, 2018, the White House banned the use of personal cell phones in the West Wing. The official reason: National security.
The real reason: To stop staffers from leaking to reporters.
More ominously, well-suited men roam the halls of the West Wing, carrying devices that pick up signals from phones that aren’t government-issued.
“Did someone forget to put their phone away?” one of the men will ask if such a device is detected. If no one says they have a phone, the detection team start searching the room.
Phone detector
The devices can tell which type of phone is in the room.
This is the sort of behavior Americans have traditionally—and correctly—associated with dictatorships
In his memo outlining the policy, then-Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that anyone who violated the phone ban could be punished, including “being indefinitely prohibited from entering the White House complex.”
Yet even these draconian methods may not end White House leaks.
White House officials still speak with reporters throughout the day and often air their grievances, whether about annoying colleagues or competing policy priorities.
Aides with private offices sometimes call reporters on their desk phones. Others get their cell phones and call or text reporters during lunch breaks.
According to an anonymous White House source: “The cellphone ban is for when people are inside the West Wing, so it really doesn’t do all that much to prevent leaks. If they banned all personal cellphones from the entire [White House] grounds, all that would do is make reporters stay up later because they couldn’t talk to their sources until after 6:30 pm.”
Other sources believe that leaks won’t end unless Trump starts firing staffers. But there is always the risk of firing the wrong people. Thus, to protect themselves, those who leak might well accuse tight-lipped co-workers.
Within the Soviet Union (especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin) fear of secret police surveillance was widespread—and absolutely justified.
Among the methods used to keep conversations secret:
The secret police (known as the Cheka, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, and now the FSB) operated on seven working principles:
Trump has always ruled through bribery and fear. He’s bought off (or tried to) those who might cause him trouble—like porn actress Stormy Daniels. And he’s threatened or filed lawsuits against those he couldn’t or didn’t want to bribe—such as contractors who have worked on various Trump properties.
But Trump can’t buy the loyalty of employees working in an atmosphere of hostility—which breeds resentment and fear. And some of them are taking revenge by sharing with reporters the latest crimes and follies of the Trump administration.
The more Trump wages war on the “cowards and traitors” who work most closely with him, the more some of them will find opportunities to strike back. This will inflame Trump even more—and lead him to seek even more repressive methods against his own staffers.
This is a no-win situation for Trump.
The results will be twofold:
**********
As host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” Trump became famous for booting off contestants with the phrase: “You’re fired.” In fact, he so delighted in using this that, in 2004, he tried to gain trademark ownership of it.
But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected his application. American copyright law explicitly prohibits copyright protections for short phrases or sayings.
Since taking office as President, Trump has bullied and insulted even White House officials and his own handpicked Cabinet officers. This has resulted in an avalanche of firings and resignations.
The first two years of Trump’s White House have seen more firings, resignations, and reassignments of top staffers than any other first-term administration in modern history. His Cabinet turnover exceeds that of any other administration in the last 100 years.
In 1934, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion in 1941.
No one was safe from execution—not even the men who slaughtered as many as 20 to 60 million.
Fittingly, for all the fear he inspired, Stalin was plagued by paranoia. He lived in constant fear of assassination. Although surrounded by bodyguards, he distrusted even them.
Thus Stalin, who had turned the Soviet Union into a vast prison, became its leading prisoner.
Similarly, Donald Trump daily proves the truth of the age-old warning: “You can build a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it.”
Share this:
Like this: