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ADAM SCHIFF: STANDING UP TO TYRANTS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 3, 2023 at 5:10 pm

On March 24, 2019, Attorney General William Barr received the long-awaited report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential election.

Barr claimed that the report—which no one else in the government had seen—showed no evidence that President Donald Trump had colluded with Russian Intelligence agents.

So House Republicans—acting entirely on that claim—suddenly went on the offensive.

On March 28, all nine Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence demanded in a letter that Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) resign as its chairman.

Other Republicans quickly joined the chorus:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California): Schiff owed “an apology to the American public” and should step down from his post as head of the Intelligence committee.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: “They [Schiff and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-New York] should be removed from their chairmanships. They owe the American people an apology. They owe this President an apology, and they have work to do to heal this democracy because this is our country we are talking about.”
White House Adviser Kelleyanne Conway: “He’s been on every TV show 50 times a day for practically the last two years, promising Americans that this President would either be impeached or indicted. He has no right, as somebody who has been peddling a lie, day after day after day, unchallenged. Unchallenged and not under oath. Somebody should have put him under oath and said, ‘You have evidence, where is it?’”

On March 28, Schiff—speaking in a firm and controlled voice—addressed his critics in the House and beyond.

It was a speech worthy of that given by Mark Antony at the funeral of Julius Caesar.

Adam Schiff

“My colleagues may think it’s okay that the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic candidate for President as part of what was described as ‘the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign.’ You might think that’s okay.

“My colleagues might think it’s okay that when that was offered to the son of the President, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the President’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help. No, instead that son said that he would ‘love’ the help of the Russians. You might think it’s okay that he took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience running campaigns, also took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that the President’s son-in-law also took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that they concealed it from the public.

“You might think it’s okay that their only disappointment after that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that when it was discovered a year later that they’d lied about that meeting and said it was about adoptions, you might think it’s okay that the President is reported to have helped dictate that lie. You might think that’s okay. I don’t.

“You might think it’s okay that the Presidential chairman of a campaign would offer information about that campaign to a Russian in exchange for money or debt forgiveness. You might think that’s okay. I don’t.

“You might think it’s okay that campaign chairman offered polling data, campaign polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that the President himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, ‘if they were listening.’

“You might think it’s okay that later that day, in fact, the Russians attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s okay.

“You might think that it’s okay that the President’s son-in-law sought to establish a secret back channel of communications with the Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility. I don’t think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that an associate of the President made direct contact with the GRU [the Russian military Intelligence agency] through Guccifer 2 and Wikileaks, that is considered a hostile Intelligence agency.

“You might think that it’s okay that a senior campaign official was instructed to reach that associate and find out what that hostile Intelligence agency had to say, in terms of dirt on his opponent.

“You might think it’s okay that the National Security Adviser-Designate [Mike Flynn] secretly conferred with the Russian ambassador about undermining U.S. sanctions, and you might think it’s okay he lied about it to the FBI. You might say that’s all okay.

“You might say that’s just what you need to do to win, but I don’t think it’s okay. I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical. I think it’s unpatriotic. And yes, I think it’s corrupt and evidence of collusion.”

Not one Republican dared challenge even one accusation Schiff had made.

With the coming retirement of 89-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Adam Schiff is now a candidate for United States Senator from California.

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ADAM SCHIFF: STANDING UP TO TYRANTS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 2, 2023 at 12:10 am

“Friends, Romans, countrymen—lend me your ears!”

It’s the opening line of a speech once widely memorized by schoolboys in English literature classes. It’s from William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and it’s a far more sophisticated piece of writing than most people realize.

Mark Antony, addressing a crowd of Romans at the funeral of his former patron, Julius Caesar, faces a serious problem.

Caesar has been murdered by a band of conspirators who feared he intended to make himself king. The chief conspirator, Marcus Brutus, is one of the most honored men in ancient Rome. And he has just addressed the same crowd.

As a result, they are now convinced that the assassination was fully justified. They assume that Antony intends to attack the conspirators. And they are ready to attack him—maybe physically—if he does.

But Antony is too smart to do that—at least initially.

Instead, he assures the crowd: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

And he praises the chief conspirator: “The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If so, it was a grievous fault—and grievously hath Caesar answered it.”

Then he introduces a line he will repeat with great effectiveness throughout the rest of his speech: “For Brutus is an honorable man—so are they all, all honorable men.”

The “Death of Julius Caesar,” as depicted by Vincenzo Camuccini.

For Antony, the line is ironic. But it serves his purpose to appease the crowd. Later, he will wield it like a sword against the same conspirators.

“He was my friend, faithful and just to me.” And then: “But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man.”

Antony then goes on to extol Caesar as the foremost Roman of his time:

As a military victor: “You all do know this mantle. I remember the first time ever Caesar put it on. ‘Twas on…that day he overcame the Nervii.”
As a humanitarian: “When that the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept.”

And then, as if against his better judgment, he says: “But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar. I found it in his closet—’tis his will. Let but the commons hear this testament—which, pardon me, I do not mean to read—and they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds.”

This inflames the crowd’s curiosity and greed: What has Caesar left them? And Antony’s refusing to read the alleged will only makes them determined to hear it.

Now the crowd is entirely at Antony’s disposal. They hurl abuse at the conspirators: “They were traitors!” “They were villains, murderers!”

So Antony, claiming to read Caesar’s will, pronounces: “To every Roman citizen he gives…seventy-five drachmas.”

Marlon Brando as Mark Antony in the 1953 film, “Julius Caesar”

Is this truly Caesar’s will? And, if so, does it really make this bequest? No one knows.

In addition, claims Antony, Caesar has left his fellow citizens “his private arbours and new-planted orchards on this side Tiber. He hath left them you, and to your heirs forever, common pleasures, to walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.”

By now the crowd is fired up—against the conspirators.

“Here was a Caesar!” cries Antony. “When comes such another?”

A citizen shouts: “We’ll burn [Caesar’s] body in the holy place. And with the brands fire the traitors’ houses.”

The crowd disperses—to pay fiery homage to Caesar and burn the houses of Brutus and the other conspirators.

Caesar’s assassins flee Rome for their lives. In time, they will face the legions of Antony and Octavian, the young nephew of Caesar—and choose suicide over capture and execution.

Apparently Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is familiar with Shakespeare’s play.

Because, on March 28, 2019, he used the same repetitive technique in addressing his “Republican colleagues” on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Days earlier, Attorney General William Barr had claimed to summarize the long-awaited report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential election.

According to Barr, the report—which no one else in the government had seen—showed no evidence that President Donald Trump had colluded with Russian Intelligence agents.

And now House Republicans—acting entirely on that claim—were going on the offensive.

On March 28, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) and all other eight Republicans on the Committee demanded in a letter that Schiff resign as its chairman.

“Mr. Chairman,” the letter read, “since prior to the inauguration of President Trump in January 2017, you’ve been at the center of a well-orchestrated media campaign claiming, among other things, that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government.

“On March 24, 2019, the special counsel delivered his findings to the Department of Justice….The special counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 election….

“Despite these findings, you continue to proclaim to the media that there is ‘significant evidence of collusion.’

“The findings of the Special Counsel conclusively refute your past and present conclusions and have exposed you as having abused your position to knowingly promote false information, having damaged the integrity of this Committee, and undermined faith in U.S. Government institutions.”

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WHAT AMERICA LOST WITH JFK

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 24, 2022 at 12:10 am

Fifty-nine years ago, on November 22, 1963, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

It has been said that JFK left his country with three great legacies:

The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
The Apollo moon landing; and
The Vietnam war.

Of these, the following can be said with certainty:

The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1972, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.

But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.

White House painting of JFK

At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means absurd:

“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”

Today, politicians from both parties cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.

On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, threw up their hands in defeat.

President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press-–and not for altruistic reasons. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.

During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.

Texas Governor Rick Perry (and later Secretary of Energy) showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court:

Rick Perry

“Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah—

“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”

In short, it’s the media’s fault if they ask you a question and your answer reveals your own ignorance, stupidity or criminality.

Donald Trump—as a Presidential candidate—went even further. After winning the Nevada caucuses in February, 2016 he said: “We won the evangelicals, we won with young, we won with old, we won with highly educated, we won with poorly educated! I love the poorly educated.”

Donald Trump

His senior adviser, Kelleyanne Conway, set the tone of his administration’s approach to the truth right at the outset. Asked why then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer had lied about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration, Conway replied:

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving—Sean Spicer, our press secretary—gave alternative facts.”

“Alternative facts” aren’t facts—they are falsehoods.

During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.

He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake–that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.

Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”

And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.

When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump infamously chortled after winning the Nevada Republican primary: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”

And, that November, “the poorly educated” elected him President.

In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.

It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.

The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy

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JFK’S LOST LEGACY

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 22, 2022 at 12:14 am

Fifty-eight years ago, on November 22, 1963, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

It has been said that JFK left his country with three great legacies:

The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
The Apollo moon landing; and
The Vietnam war.

Of these, the following can be said with certainty:

The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1973, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.

But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.

White House painting of JFK

“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”

Today, Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.

On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, threw up their hands in defeat.

During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.

An August 20, 2019 story in Forbes noted that a Pew Research survey, conducted in July, had found that “the percentage of Republicans attributing a positive effect to higher education has steadily eroded from 58% (2010), 53% (2012), 54% (2015), 43% (2016), and 36% (2017).

“Among Republicans, 59% now say higher education has a negative effect on the U.S., compared to just 18% of Democrats.”

When Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke announced his candidacy for President in 2020, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade attacked him for having a “huge library.”

“As if it’s a big plus that he reads books,” scoffed Kilmeade.

In March, 2020, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump infamously chortled after winning the Nevada Republican primary: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”

Donald Trump

And, that November, “the poorly educated” elected him President.

As President, he attacked the free press as “the enemy of America” for exposing his lies and criminality. He scorned legitimate mainstream news media while seeking guidance from ego-stroking Right-wing shills at Fox News—who often proved as ignorant as he was.

His senior adviser, Kelleyanne Conway, set the tone of his administration right at the outset. Asked why then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer had lied about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration, Conway replied:

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving—Sean Spicer, our press secretary—gave alternative facts.”

Kelleyanne Conway

“Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods,” Chuck Todd, the moderator on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” properly responded.

During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.

Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”

And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.

When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.

In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.

It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.

The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy

▶ Comment

ADAM SCHIFF CHANNELS MARK ANTONY: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 6, 2022 at 12:10 am

On March 24, 2019, Attorney General William Barr received the long-awaited report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential election.

According to Barr, the report—which no one else in the government had seen—showed no evidence that President Donald Trump had colluded with Russian Intelligence agents.

And now House Republicans—acting entirely on that claim—suddenly went on the offensive.

On March 28, all nine Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence demanded in a letter that Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) resign as its chairman.

On the same day, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!”

Other Republicans quickly joined the chorus:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California): Schiff owed “an apology to the American public” and should step down from his post as head of the Intelligence committee.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: “They [Schiff and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-New York] should be removed from their chairmanships. They owe the American people an apology. They owe this President an apology, and they have work to do to heal this democracy because this is our country we are talking about.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: “He’s getting into conspiracy land and he’s acting like an Oliver Stone type figure. That to me is not helpful to him but I’m not going to ask him to resign from Congress.”
White House Adviser Kelleyanne Conway: “He’s been on every TV show 50 times a day for practically the last two years, promising Americans that this President would either be impeached or indicted. He has no right, as somebody who has been peddling a lie, day after day after day, unchallenged. Unchallenged and not under oath. Somebody should have put him under oath and said, ‘You have evidence, where is it?’”

On March 28, Schiff—speaking in a firm and controlled voice—addressed his critics in the House and beyond.

It was a speech worthy of that given by Mark Antony at the funeral of Julius Caesar.

Adam Schiff

“You might think it’s okay that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience running campaigns, also took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that the President’s son-in-law also took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that they concealed it from the public.

“You might think it’s okay that their only disappointment after that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that campaign chairman offered polling data, campaign polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that the President himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, ‘if they were listening.’

“You might think it’s okay that later that day, in fact, the Russians attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s okay.

Not one Republican dared challenge even one accusation Schiff had made.

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A JUBILEE OF HATE BECOMES A RIGHT-WING NIGHTMARE

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 8, 2020 at 12:16 am

What began as the gloating jubilee of an expected Right-wing triumph has turned into a COVID-19 nightmare for the Trump administration.

On September 26, President Donald Trump hosted festivities in the Rose Garden to celebrate his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Amy Coney Barrett

Rachel Malehorn / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

Trump had already put two Justices—Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—on the Court. Gorsuch was nominated as a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died in 2016.

President Barack Obama had sought to confirm his own nominee, Merrick Garland, to the Court. But 2016 was a Presidential election year. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked giving Garland even the courtesy of a Senate hearing.

“The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next President nominates, whoever that might be,” claimed McConnell.

When Trump won, the way was clear for him to nominate his own candidate—who turned out to be Neil Gorsuch.

Then, in 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy decided to retire after spending 20 years on the Court. This gave Trump the chance to replace him with Brett Kavanaugh.

Then, on September 18, 2020, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suddenly died of cancer. Appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, she had been the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Her death offered Trump his third chance to shift the Court decisively to the Right for decades to come.

Stacking the Court with Right-wing judges has long been the goal of Republicans. And their two most important priorities:

Overturning Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973; and
Gutting the Affordable Care Act, the single most important achievement of the first black President of the United States.

So on September 26, Donald Trump hosted festivities in the Rose Garden to celebrate his third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Trump assembled his guest list, and the major domos of the Right showed up.

They knew–or should have known–that a deadly pandemic called COVID-19 was ravaging the country. They knew—or should have known—it had already killed more than 200,000 Americans.

But Trump had spent the year telling them there was nothing to worry about. The virus, he had said repeatedly, was no worse than the common flu. He had ridiculed those who wore masks, and had made not wearing one a sign of macho solidarity with himself.

Coronavirus

So they showed up without masks, and crammed together in folding chairs. And now many of them are dropping like poisoned Tsetse flies.

Among the casualties of the celebration so far:

President Donald Trump
First Lady Melania Trump
Presidential Aide Hope Hicks
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
United States Senator (R-UT) Mike Lee
United States Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
United States Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI)
Former Presidential adviser Kelleyanne Conway
White House Assistant Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
Trump Presidential Campaign Manager Bill Stepien
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
White House Senior Adviser for Policy Stephen Miller

For Trump, the Rose Garden celebration has turned into a nightmare.

First, it thrust the issue of the dreaded Coronavirus—and his administration’s failure to effectively combat it—to the front of the Presidential campaign.

Image result for Public domain images of Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Trump had been desperate to avoid talking about this subject—and with good reason.

When the virus struck the United States in January, Trump quickly learned how deadly it was. As he admitted to Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward: “It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch.

“The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues.”

But Trump didn’t share that warning with the American people. When Woodward published his book, Rage, in September, Trump was mortally embarrassed at having that conversation revealed.

Instead, Trump attacked the wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing. When states ordered businesses to close to halt the spread of COVID-19, Trump ordered his followers to protest in the streets. When businesses reopened, COVID rates spiked and so did unemployment rolls.

Second, the sidelining of so many top Republicans—including Senators—threatened to at least temporarily halt Senate confirmation hearings on Amy Coney Barrett.

Third—and probably most important: Trump himself was rushed to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 2 after he tested positive for Coronavirus.

For the image-conscious Trump, press reports that he received oxygen and experimental drugs proved highly embarrassing. On October 5, still highly infectious, he demanded to be returned to the White House.

With less than a month to go before the November 3 Presidential election, Trump found himself overwhelmed by media reports that the White House was now the Number One Coronavirus hotspot in the United States.

A celebration of hatred and arrogance has turned into a COVID-19 nightmare for the Trump administration. It’s a irony the ancient Greeks, with their understanding of hubris, would have appreciated.

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SELLING CLOTHES—AND PRESIDENTS: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 30, 2019 at 12:06 am

President Donald Trump was furious.

Nordstrom department store had just dared to drop the clothing and accessories lines of his daughter, Ivanka.

So, true to form, on February 8, 2017, he aired his displeasure on Twitter: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

Donald Trump

He used his personal Twitter account—@realDonaldTrump—to send this message. In fact, he sent it 21 minutes into his daily Intelligence briefing.

Still not satisfied, he retweeted his attack on Nordstrom on his official POTUS (President of the United States) Twitter account.

In short, he used a taxpayer-funded account to benefit his daughter.

Not content to attack Nordstrom by himself, Trump enlisted other members of his administration as assailants.

One of these was his then-press secretary, Sean Spicer:

“There’s a targeting of her brand and it’s her name. She’s not directly running the company. It’s still her name on it. There are clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her father’s positions on particular policies that he’s taken. This is a direct attack on his policies and her name. Her because she is being maligned because they have a problem with his policies.”

Sean Spicer

Nordstrom retorted that its decision to drop the Ivanka Trump line was “based on performance.”

“Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.

“We’ve had a great relationship with the Ivanka Trump team. We’ve had open conversations with them over the past year to share what we’ve seen and Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January.”

But for the Trumpinistas, that wasn’t the end of it.

On Februrary 9, 2017, Kelleyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, became a TV shill for Ivanka.

Kelleyanne Conway

Appearing on the Right-wing Fox News Channel program, “Fox and Friends,” Kelleyanne spoke from no less prestigious a forum than the White House itself:

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff. I hate shopping and I’m going to go get some myself today. It’s a wonderful line. I own some of it. I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.”

For Democrats and even some Republicans, Conway’s behavior was simply unacceptable.

Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, a member of the the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the committee.

In it, he requested a referral to the Office of Government Ethics for possible disciplinary action against Conway.

The office does not have investigative or enforcement authority, but officials there can contact and provide guidance to other enforcement agencies.

Chaffetz told the Associated Press that Conway’s behavior was “wrong, wrong, wrong, clearly over the line, unacceptable.”

Larry Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization of election law experts, said Trump’s tweet was “totally out of line.”

“He should not be promoting his daughter’s line, he should not be attacking a company that has business dealings with his daughter, and it just shows the massive amount of problems we have with his business holdings and his family’s business holdings,” Noble said.

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert, said the Nordstrom tweet could make other retailers hesitate to drop the Ivanka Trump brand. They may fear being similarly attacked by the President.

“The implicit threat was that he will use whatever authority he has to retaliate against Nordstrom, or anyone who crosses his interest,” said Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

* * * * *

In 1969, 25-year-old Joe McGinnis became famous overnight with the publication of his first book, The Selling of the President.

At the time, Americans were shocked to learn how Presidential candidate Richard Nixon had been sold to voters like any other product. In fact, the original book jacket featured Nixon’s face on a pack of cigarettes.

Today, Madison Avenue doesn’t simply sell Americans their Presidents. Now—with Donald J. Trump—Americans have a President determined to turn the White House into Trump, Inc.

A single example will serve to illustrate:

On January 27, 2017, Trump signed an executive order that:

Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;
Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely; and
Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Four Islamic countries not covered by Trump’s travel ban:

Saudi Arabia
The United Arab Emirates
Egypt
Turkey.

Approximately 3,000 Americans have been killed by immigrants from those countries—most of them during the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey are all countries where President Trump has close business ties. His properties include two luxury towers in Turkey and golf courses in the United Arab Emirates.

The full dimensions of Trump’s holdings throughout the Middle East aren’t known because he has refused to release his tax returns.

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SELLING CLOTHES—AND PRESIDENTS: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 27, 2019 at 12:26 am

Fifty-eight years after John F. Kennedy gave his first and only Inaugural Address, these words remain its single most-quoted sentence: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

John F. Kennedy Inaugural

So millions of Americans who were alive that day—January 20, 1961—were probably shocked when they learned that Melania Trump had a very different view of government service.

On August 20, 2016, The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published a story accusing her of having once worked as a prostitute.

The newspaper cited a Slovenian magazine’s report that a modeling agency that she worked with in New York in the 1990s also served as an escort business, linking wealthy clients with women for sexual services.

On September 1, 2016, Melania sued The Daily Mail in a state court in Montgomery County, Maryland. In early 2017, the Maryland court dismissed the case, saying it did not have jurisdiction.

On February 6, 2017, Melania filed another libel suit against The Daily Mail in the Manhattan Supreme Court.

Required to prove that she had been harmed in some way, Melania did not cite undeserved shame or how much her family and friends had been hurt.

Instead, she argued that the article had ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to cash in on the Presidency.

Melania Trump

According to the complaint that her attorney filed:

”Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person…to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world,” the Manhattan suit says.

“These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance.

“The [statements] also constitute defamation per se because they impugned on her fitness to perform her duties as First Lady of the United States,” the suit alleges.

Melania alleged $150 million in damages.

Enter the Emoluments Clause.

This is a United States government law that specifically forbids any leader from using government services to “enrich” the President and his family.

Among the greatest dangers facing the newly-created American government, feared the Founding Fathers, was foreign interference. And this could be obtained through the use of bribes—money or gifts.

The Constitution of the United States

To prevent this, the Founders inserted the Emoluments Clause into Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution:

“No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”

This illustrates one of the dangers of bringing a libel or slander suit.

(NOTE: Libel is a written defamation; slander is a spoken one)

Whoever brings the suit must open himself to unprecedented privacy-invading questions. And, in answering them, he may unintentionally give away revelations that can prove highly damaging.

Another Trump seeking to find out “what the country can do for you” is the President’s daughter, Ivanka.

Starting in 2016, Shannon Coulter, a brand and digital strategist, started the Grab Your Wallet boycott aimed at more than 30 retailers who carry Ivanka’s line of fashion apparel.

Among the retailers targeted:

Amazon.com
Belk
Bloomingdale’s
Bed, Bath and Beyond
Burlington Coat Factory
Century 21
DSW
Macy’s
Marshalls
TJ Maxx
Neiman Marcus
Nordstrom
Overstock.com
Ross
Saks Off Fifth
Sears
Walmart
Zappos

During the first week of February, 2017, Nordstrom told The Seattle Times that it would no longer carry Ivanka Trump’s line of clothing and accessories.

Nordstrom said the decision to drop Ivanka Trump’s line was based on poor sales performance.

“We’ve got thousands of brands,” said a Nordstrom spokesman. “Each year we cut about 10 percent and refresh our assortment with about the same amount. In this case, based on the brand’s performance we’ve decided not to buy it for this season.”

President Trump had often boasted that he would defend the free enterprise system against an intrusive Federal government.

But for a major department store to drop his daughter’s clothing line was, for him, akin to treason.

Turning to Twitter, his favorite weapon of insult, the President tweeted: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

Trump drafted other members of his administration to attack Nordstrom.

One of these was White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Spicer said that the store’s decision to stop carrying Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line was nothing less than an attack on the president’s policies and his daughter.

“I think this is less about his family’s business and an attack on his daughter. He ran for President, he won, he’s leading this country.

“I think for people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.”

But even worse was to come.

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WHAT’S AT STAKE IN THE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 27, 2019 at 12:07 am

On March 24, 2019, Attorney General William Barr received the long-awaited report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential election.

According to Barr, the report—which no one else in the government had seen—showed no evidence that President Donald Trump had colluded with Russian Intelligence agents.

And now House Republicans—acting entirely on that claim—suddenly went on the offensive.

On March 28, all nine Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence demanded in a letter that Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) resign as its chairman.

On the same day, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!”

Other Republicans quickly joined the chorus:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California): Schiff owes “an apology to the American public” and should step down from his post as head of the Intelligence committee.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: “They [Schiff and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-New York] should be removed from their chairmanships. They owe the American people an apology. They owe this President an apology, and they have work to do to heal this democracy because this is our country we are talking about.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: “He’s getting into conspiracy land and he’s acting like an Oliver Stone type figure. That to me is not helpful to him but I’m not going to ask him to resign from Congress.”
White House Adviser Kelleyanne Conway: “He’s been on every TV show 50 times a day for practically the last two years, promising Americans that this President would either be impeached or indicted. He has no right, as somebody who has been peddling a lie, day after day after day, unchallenged. Unchallenged and not under oath. Somebody should have put him under oath and said, ‘You have evidence, where is it?’”

On March 28, Schiff—speaking in a firm and controlled voice—addressed his critics in the House and beyond.

It was a speech worthy of the one William Shakespeare put into the mouth of Mark Antony at the funeral of Julius Caesar.

Adam Schiff

“You might think it’s okay that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience running campaigns, also took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that the President’s son-in-law also took that meeting.

“You might think it’s okay that they concealed it from the public.

“You might think it’s okay that their only disappointment after that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that campaign chairman offered polling data, campaign polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s okay.

“You might think it’s okay that the President himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, ‘if they were listening.’

“You might think it’s okay that later that day, in fact, the Russians attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s okay.

Not one Republican dared challenge even one accusation Schiff had made.

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ADAM SCHIFF CHANNELS MARK ANTONY: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2019 at 12:10 am

On March 24, 2019, Attorney General William Barr received the long-awaited report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential election.

According to Barr, the report—which no one else in the government has seen—showed no evidence that President Donald Trump had colluded with Russian Intelligence agents.

And now House Republicans—acting entirely on that claim—suddenly went on the offensive.

On March 28, all nine Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence demanded in a letter that Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) resign as its chairman.

On the same day, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!”

Other Republicans quickly joined the chorus:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California): Schiff owes “an apology to the American public” and should step down from his post as head of the Intelligence committee.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: “They [Schiff and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-New York] should be removed from their chairmanships. They owe the American people an apology. They owe this President an apology, and they have work to do to heal this democracy because this is our country we are talking about.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: “He’s getting into conspiracy land and he’s acting like an Oliver Stone type figure. That to me is not helpful to him but I’m not going to ask him to resign from Congress.”
White House Adviser Kelleyanne Conway: “He’s been on every TV show 50 times a day for practically the last two years, promising Americans that this President would either be impeached or indicted. He has no right, as somebody who has been peddling a lie, day after day after day, unchallenged. Unchallenged and not under oath. Somebody should have put him under oath and said, ‘You have evidence, where is it?’”