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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 17, 2024 at 12:12 am
In 2011, Donald Trump, host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Barack Obama.
Seeking to gain popularity among America’s Right-wing, Trump almost singlehandedly created the popular fiction that the President was born in Kenya—and was not an American citizen.
His motive: To convince Americans that Obama was an illegitimate President.
Donald Trump
Among the statements Trump made:
February 10, 2011: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.”
March 23, 2011: “I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. … There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”
March 28, 2011: “I am really concerned” [that Obama wasn’t born in the United States]. He said that the birth announcement for Obama in a Hawaii newspaper could have been planted “for whatever reason.”
March 30, 2011: “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”
April 7, 2011: “I have people that have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now I have real doubts.”
April 25, 2011: “I’ve been told very recently…that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”
On April 27, President Obama released his original, long-form Hawiian birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”
And on May 1, he announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.
SEALS attacking bin Laden’s compound in the 2012 movie, “Zero Dark Thirty”
And how did Trump respond? With the following series of Tweets on Twitter:
May 18, 2012: “Let’s take a closer look at that birth certificate.@BarackObama was described in 2003 as being “born in Kenya.” http://bit.ly/Klc9Uu
August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
August 27, 2012: “Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called “birther” issue? No more apologies—take the offensive!”
September 13, 2012: “Wake Up America! See article: “Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake”
June 30, 2013: “@davidrhythmguit: @realDonaldTrump @Chuffman48 Mark Cuban accepts the fact that the President of the United States was born here. Doubt it”
August 22, 2013: “Why are people upset w/ me over Pres Obama’s birth certificate? I got him to release it, or whatever it was, when nobody else could!”
December 12, 2013: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived”
November 23, 2014: “@futureicon: @pinksugar61 Obama also fabricated his own birth certificate after being pressured to produce one by @realDonaldTrump“
Even after declaring his candidacy for President on June 16, 2015, Trump continued to insist that Barack Obama was an illegitimate President.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity among blacks had steadily fallen. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters. By comparison, 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Among the reasons for this:
- His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
- His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya—and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
- His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16—10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton—Trump made his version of a reversal.
In doing so, he entered into what conservative New York Times political columnist David Brooks called “Orwell land.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2024 at 12:26 am
“Credibility gap” is a term that came into use during the mid-1960s to describe public and journalistic distrust of President Lyndon B. Johnson. In particular, the term was applied to his administration’s conduct of the Vietnam war.
It was, in short, a euphemism for accusing government officials of outright lying.
An example of the credibility gap in full swing appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1987 Vietnam war movie, Full Metal Jacket.
Vietnam was a war where military and political officials spewed a gung-ho version of constant American progress against a tough enemy.
And where civilian reporters like David Halberstam and Walter Cronkite saw—and labeled—the war as a brutal, wasteful and ultimately doomed effort.
Midway through the film, there’s an editorial meeting of The Sea Tiger, the official Marine newspaper.
Lieutenant Lockhart is presiding–and he is determined to give his superiors an endless stream of “all-systems-go” propaganda reports. He reads a series of stories that have been published:
Story #1: DIPLOMATS IN DUNGAREES—MARINE ENGINEERS LEND A HELPING HAND REBUILDING DONG PHUC VILLAGES.
LOCKHART: “Chili, “if we move Vietnamese, they are evacuees. If they come to us to be evacuated, they are refugees.”
Story #2: N.V.A. SOLDIER DESERTS AFTER READING PAMPHLETS.
LOCKHART: “A young North Vietnamese Army regular, who realized his side could not win the war, deserted from his unit after reading Open Arms program pamphlets.”
Story #3: NOT WHILE WE’RE EATING: N.V.A. LEARN MARINES ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION DON’T LIKE TO BE INTERRUPTED WHILE EATING CHOW.
LOCKHART: “‘Search and destroy.’ Uh, we have a new directive on this. In the future, in place of ‘search and destroy,’ substitute the phrase ‘sweep and clear.’ Got it?”
Lt. Lockhart, editor of The Sea Tiger
LOCKHART: “And, Joker—where’s the weenie?”
JOKER: “Sir?”
LOCKHART “The Kill, Joker. I mean, all that fire, the grunts must’ve hit something.”
JOKER: “Didn’t see ’em.”
LOCKHART: “Joker, I’ve told you, we run two basic stories here: Grunts who give half their pay to buy gooks toothbrushes and deodorants—winning of hearts and Minds—okay? And combat action that results in a kill—Winning the War. Now you must have seen blood trails … drag marks?”
JOKER: “It was raining, sir.”
LOCKHART: “Well, that’s why God passed the law of probability. Now rewrite it and give it a happy ending–say, uh, one kill. Make it a sapper or an officer. Grunts like reading about dead officers.”
JOKER: “Okay, an officer. How about a general?”
LOCKHART: “Joker, maybe you’d like our guys to read the paper and feel bad. I mean, in case you didn’t know it, this is not a particularly popular war. Now, it is our job to report the news that these why-are-we-here civilian newsmen ignore.”
So great became the divide between truth and lies during military “press briefings” that reporters started calling them “The Five O’clock Follies.” And even some soldiers took to wearing buttons that said: “Ambushed at Credibility Gap.”
Reporters who dared to write truthfully about the military’s crimes and failures—like David Halberstam of the New York Times and Peter Arnett of the Associated Press—were regarded as traitors by military and political officials.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy became enraged by Halberstam’s reporting on the corruption of the South Vietnamese government. He pressured New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to transfer Halberstam to another locale. Sulzberger politely refused—and then, to send a message to Kennedy, extended Halberstam’s stay in Vietnam another six months.
David Halberstam
In 1965, when CBS Correspondent Morley Safer filmed Marines setting fire to the village of Cam Ne with Zippo lighters, President Lyndon B. Johnson was similarly outraged.
He placed an early-morning call to CBS News President Frank Stanton and shouted: “Your boys shat on the American flag!”
The trail of deceit and attempted censorship continued right up to the end of the war—in April, 1975. That was when North Vietnamese forces invaded the South and quickly overwhelmed the incompetent defenses arrayed against them.
And while America was still bogged down in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal erupted on June 17, 1972.
Watergate Hotel
Members of the Nixon administration’s secret “Plumbers Unit” burglarized the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel.
Obsessed with re-electing Richard Nixon, they sought incriminating information to discredit U.S. Senator George McGovern, the Democrats’ nominee for President.
When the burglars were caught, President Richard M. Nixon and his topmost officials lied and stonewalled both reporters and investigators seeking the truth.
Nixon’s press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, repeatedly slandered the integrity of The Washington Post for its coverage of the mushrooming Watergate scandal. He called the Watergate break-in “a third-rate burglary” and attacked the Post for “shabby journalism.”
Finally, on April 17, 1973, Ziegler, announced at a press conference: “This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.”
In short: We’ve been lying to you for the last 10 months. But now we’re telling the truth.
Like Vietnam, the Watergate scandal destroyed the reputations of many of its chief architects. Forty government officials were indicted or jailed.
Vietnam and Watergate were seminal events for Americans coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They taught an entire generation: Don’t trust the government. Its officials routinely lie, and their lies can be deadly.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 1, 2024 at 12:26 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields (now deceased) and New York Times columnist David Brooks appeared every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about Donald Trump.
Eerily, their conclusions echoed those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
Heinz Guderian
Guderian thus enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941. He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
On the PBS Newshour, moderator Judy Woodruff noted that “polls show Trump’s standing with women voters had worsened in recent months.”
Judy Woodruff
Mark Shields noted that Trump clearly had an obsession with Fox News Correspondent Megyn Kelly.
MARK SHIELDS: But there is something really creepy about this that’s beyond locker room. It’s almost like a stalker….It actually did the impossible. It made Ted Cruz look like an honorable, tough guy on the right side of an issue.
Donald Trump
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Once in power, Hitler quickly—and violently—eliminated his opposition. He make no attempt to disguise this aspect of his character, because the opposition was weak and divided and soon collapsed after the first violent attack. This allowed Hitler to pass laws which destroyed the safeguards enacted by the Weimar Republic against the dangers of dictatorship.
MARK SHIELDS: And I don’t know at what point it becomes…politically, he’s still leading. And I would have to say he’s the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination.
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler promised to “make Germany great again” both domestically and internationally. And this won him many followers. In time he controlled the largest party in the land and this allowed him, by democratic procedure, to assume power.
DAVID BROOKS: The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.
HEINZ GUDERIAN: [Hitler] was isolated as a human being. He had no real friend. There was nobody who was really close to him.
Adolf Hitler
There was nobody he could talk to freely and openly. And just as he never found a true friend, he was denied the ability to deeply love a woman.
DAVID BROOKS: And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Everything on this earth that casts a glow of warmth over our life as mortals—friendship with fine men, the pure love for a wife, affection for one’s own children—all this was and forever remained unknown to him.
DAVID BROOKS: And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude towards women.
HEINZ GUDERIAN: He lived alone, cherishing his loneliness, with only his gigantic plans for company. His relationship with Eva Braun may seem to contradict what I have written. But it is obvious that she could not have had any influence over him. And this is unfortunate, for it could only have been a softening one.
* * * * *
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”
On November 8, 2016, almost 63 million ignorant, hate-filled, Fascistic Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
On November 3, 2020, 75 million equally ignorant, hate-filled, Fascistic Americans voted to give Trump another four years in office. This despite his ignoring the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and alienating America’s longtime allies like England and Canada while clearly showing preference for its mortal enemies like Russia and North Korea.
Future historians will similarly and harshly condemn those Americans who, like “good Germans,” joyfully embraced a regime dedicated to
- Lies
- Censorship
- Celebrating Trump’s egomania,
- Depriving America’s poor of their only source of healthcare
- Further enriching the ultra-wealthy and
- Threatening the use of force against those who desired to live as citizens in a republic, instead of a dictatorship..
Fortunately, 80 million Americans braved the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts by Republicans to overturn their voting rights—and elected Joseph Biden President of the United States.
Only time will tell if the country proves so lucky in 2024.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 30, 2024 at 12:14 am
In little more than one month—on November 5, 2024—Americans will decide whether to save their democracy by electing Vice President Kamala Harris—or allow its destruction by re-electing former President Donald Trump.
This despite the brutal truth that Trump’s egomania and vindictiveness, his plans to gut the Affordable Care Act and give tax breaks to the wealthy were known long before the 2016 election.
Among those who discussed them before the 2016 election: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who appeared every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Trump, then the Republican Presidential front-runner.
Mark Shields and David Brooks
Eerily, their conclusions echoed those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about the character of German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.
As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941. He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.
Heinz Guderian
Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-139-1112-17 / Knobloch, Ludwig / CC-BY-SA [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Moderator Judy Woodruff opened the discussion by alluding to the blood feud then raging between Trump and his fellow Republican, Texas United States Senator Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
Both were ruthlessly seeking their party’s Presidential nomination.
Cruz accused Trump of being behind a recent National Enquirer story charging him with having a series of extramarital affairs.
An anti-Trump Super PAC posted on Facebook a photo of a scantily-clad Melania Trump–-his wife. The photo had been taken 16 years ago when, as a model, she posed for British GQ.
Its publication came just ahead of the primary caucuses in sexually conservative Utah, which Cruz won.
Trump quickly responded on Twitter, accusing the Cruz campaign of leaking the photo, warning Cruz: “Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.”
Cruz struck back, defending his wife, Heidi, and calling Trump a coward. The next day, Trump retweeted an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz.
Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz
This “war of the wives” had cost Trump dearly in his standing with American women. In March, 2016, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 64% of women felt highly unfavorably disposed toward him.
DAVID BROOKS: The Trump comparison of the looks of the wives, he does have, over the course of his life, a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat.
Donald Trump
It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent. And so we have seen a bit of that show up again.
But if you go back over his past, calling into radio shows bragging about his affairs, talking about his sex life in public, he is childish in his immaturity. And his—even his misogyny is a childish misogyny….
He’s of a different order than your normal candidate. And this whole week is just another reminder of that.
HEINZ GUDERIAN: As Hitler’s self-confidence grew, and as his power became more firmly established both inside and outside Germany, he became overbearing and arrogant. Everyone appeared to him unimportant compared to himself.
Previously, Hitler had been open to practical considerations, and willing to discuss matters with others. But now he became increasingly autocratic.
Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields if the uproar over Donald Trump’s disdain for women could really hurt his candidacy.
MARK SHIELDS: The ad featuring a scantily-clad Melania Trump elicited from Donald Trump the worst of his personality, the bullying, the misogyny, as David has said, brought it out.
But I think it’s more than childish and juvenile and adolescent. There is something creepy about this, his attitude toward women.
Take Megyn Kelly of FOX News, who he just has an absolute obsession about, and he’s constantly writing about, you know, how awful she is and no talent and this and that.
Megyn Kelly
And I don’t know if he’s just never had women—strong, independent women in his life who have spoken to him. It doesn’t seem that way….
She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.
HEINZ GUDERIAN: Hitler’s most outstanding quality was his will power. It was by this that he compelled men to follow him. When Hitler spoke to a small group he closely observed each person to determine how his words were affecting each man present.
If he noticed that some member of the group was not being swayed by his speech, he spoke directly to that person until he believed he had won him over. But if the target of his persuasive effort still remained obstinate, Hitler would exclaim: “I haven’t convinced that man!”
His immediate reaction was to get rid of such people. As he grew increasingly successful, he grew increasingly intolerant.
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In Entertainment, History, Humor, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on August 14, 2024 at 12:10 am
Ridicule is a highly effective weapon. That’s why dictators always try to stamp it out. They know that if you’re laughing at them, you’re not afraid of them. And men like Donald Trump prize being feared above all else.
Yet Democrats and liberals (the two are not always the same) have failed to produce hard-hitting anti-Trump jokes.
They could, for example, ridicule those evangelicals who have lustily embraced Trump as the new Jesus:
- Why are Donald Trump’s supporters like Adam and Eve? They are naked, they have only one apple to eat, they live in a forest, and they think they’re in Paradise.
- It’s the twelfth year of the Donald Trump Presidency. Two old friends meet on the street. “What’s the difference between life in the time of Jesus, and life as it is under Trump?” asks one. “Well, in the days of Jesus, one man suffered for all,” says the second man. “And, today, we all suffer for one man.”
- When President Trump and First Lady Melania met Pope Francis: MELANIA thought: “Damn! I thought he’d go up in smoke when the Pope touched him.” TRUMP thought: “Being so close to so much holiness is terrible! I need a bath.” THE POPE thought: “Now I know what Jesus felt like when he met Satan.”
Amazingly in this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats have never assailed Trump with barrages of satirical musical videos. Yet the opportunities for incredible mirth lie all around us.
Trump’s notorious “bromance” with Vladimir Putin could be satirized by converting the Beatles’ hit, “With a Little Help From My Friends” into “With a Little Help From My Vlad”:
What do I do when the bank calls me in?
(Does it worry you to be in debt?)
How do I feel when I need rubles fast?
(Do you worry Vlad might say “Nyet”?)
No, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
The religious hymn, “Jesus Loves Me,” could take on new meaning when applied to the man whom millions of evangelicals have embraced as their new Savior:
Trumpy loves me, this I know.
For he often tells me so.
Screwing others is his right
‘Cause he’s rich and mean and white.
Yes, Trumpy loves me,
Yes, Trumpy loves me.
Trumpy loves me.
He often tells me so.
Trumpy tells me who to hate.
And it makes me feel so great.
He will build that great big wall
Then good times will be for all.
“Springtime for Hitler,” the signature tune of the hit play and movie, The Producers, could become “Springtime for Trumpland”—and help mightily in clearing up the mystery of his popularity among the Right:
Republicans were having trouble
What a sad, sad story.
Needed a new leader
To restore their former glory.
Where oh where was he?
Who could that man be?
They looked around and then they found
The man for you and me.
And now it’s…
Springtime for Trump goons and bigotry—
Winter for Reason and Light.
Springtime for Trumpland and infamy—
Come on, Trumpsters, let’s go pick a fight.
Many Americans have wondered how so many millions of their fellow citizens could support Trump. A parody of “Little Boxes” could help explain why:
And the voters in the “heartland”
All went off to the polling booth
Where they pulled hard on the levers
And the Nazis got a win.
And there’s bigots and oppressors
And screaming misogynists–
And they’re all made out of Fascist hatred
And they all sound just the same.
Nor should Republicans generally be ignored, since it’s their support for a proven adulterer, convicted rapist and friend of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein that remains the single greatest infamy of this party. Consider this parody of the classic Coasters’ song, “Yakety Yak”:
Support Marge Greene she is our trash
Or you don’t get no Fascist cash.
If you don’t praise and print her lies
You are a skunk in Republican eyes.
Republicans lie (Just say hi!)
You must “Sieg Heil!” to Donald Trump
‘Cause he’s your Fuhrer, he’s no chump.
You will not catch him with a book
He loves to steal but he’s our crook.
Republicans lie. (Just say hi!)
* * * * * * * * * *
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. She was going to “break the glass ceiling.” Democrats were going to retake the Senate—and maybe the House.
They were cheered on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Pollyannaish advice on political tactics: “When they go low, we go high!”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump planned to subvert the 2016 election with the aid of Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
History has proven which tactics proved superior.
It’s long past time for Democrats to accept that they—and the country’s democratic traditions—are engaged in a death-match with their Republican opponents.
Only certain defeat is guaranteed by adhering to Marquis of Queensbury when your enemy is using brass knuckles.
"SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER" (SONG), "THE PRODUCERS" (MOVIEI), "WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS" (SONG), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ASTROLOGY, “JESUS LOVES ME” (SONG), “LITTLE BOXES” SONG, “YAKETY YAK” (SONG), BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BERNIE SANDERS, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CRUELTY, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EGOTISM, ELIZABETH WARREN, EVANGELICALS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMOR, IGNORANCE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (MOVIE), IVANKA TRUMP, JEB BUSH, JEFFREY EPSTEIN, JESUS, JOHN KASICH, LAUGHTER, LIBERALS, MARCO RUBIO, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MARK HARRISON, MARK SHIELDS, MAYO CLINIC, MEDIA MATTERS, MELANIA TRUMP, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ONE DAY WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT FEAR: EVERYDAY LIVES UNDER THE SOVIET POLICE STATE (BOOK), PARODY, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPE FRANCIS, RAND PAUL, RAW STORY, READERS DIGEST, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICK PERRY, RIDICULE, SALON, SATIRE, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLANDER, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED CRUZ, THE ATLANTIC, THE BEATLES, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE COASTERS, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, X
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Humor, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on August 13, 2024 at 12:27 am
Donald Trump—as political candidate and President—has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and disdain for a wide array of democratic leaders.
Yet Democrats have never called called him to account for this—even though a plentiful series of insults exist:
- “TrumPutin”
- “Commissar-in-Chief”
- “Putin’s Poodle”
- “Commissar Bone Spurs”
- “Red Donald”
- “Putin’s Puppet”
The Kremlin
Trump has attached insulting nicknames to those he hates: “Little Marco” [Rubio], “Lyin’ Ted” [Cruz], “Crooked Hillary” [Clinton]. Yet Democrats have never inflicted the same on him, although a great many are available:
- DJTraitor
- Fake President
- Carrot Caligula
- El Dunce
- Trumpy Traitor
Ridicule is a highly effective weapon. That’s why dictators always try to stamp it out. They know that if you’re laughing at them, you’re not afraid of them. And men like Trump prize being feared above all else.
Yet Democrats and liberals (the two are not always the same) have failed to produce hard-hitting anti-Trump jokes.
For example, limitless opportunities exist to use humor to attack Trump’s notorious dictatorial nature:
- Trump is sitting in the Oval Office, when suddenly the door bursts open and an aide rushes in, shouting:.“Mr. President, the House and Senate are on fire!” Trump looks at his watch and says, “Already?
- A reporter asks him: “Mr. President, do you ever collect the jokes that some people tell about you?” Trump: “I sure do. Two camps full.”
- A man knocks at the door of his neighbor’s apartment, shouting: “Quick, get up, get dressed!” From inside he hears terrified screams. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not with the Trump Police. I just want you to know your flat is on fire.”
Donald Trump’s egomania is universally known:
- Trump says he’s smart because his uncle was smart. He could be related to Albert Einstein—but that wouldn’t make him an Einstein. It would, however, make Einstein turn over in his grave.
- What’s the difference between Donald Trump and God? God never thinks he’s Donald Trump.
- Donald Trump dies and ascends to Heaven. But God is so disgusted by him He returns him to Earth—as a mouse. Being Trump-Mouse, he immediately begins raping all the other mice he encounters. But then he decides: “I deserve something better. I’m going to bag me an elephant.” So he visits a nearby waterhole, where a female elephant is munching on grass. Trump-Mouse shimmies up her leg to her backside, and begins pounding away. Suddenly, the elephant grunts, and Trump-Mouse says: “Did I hurt you, sweetheart?”
Nor have Democrats attacked the ignorant semi-literates who comprise most of Trump’s voters:
- Why do Donald Trump’s supporters always travel in threes? One who can read, one who can write, and one to keep his eye on the two intellectuals.
- “Hey,” says a comedian to a stranger at a bar, “you wanna hear a good Donald Trump joke?” “I think you should know I’m a Trump supporter,” shouts the stranger. “Don’t worry,” says the comedian. “I’ll tell it very slowly.”
- What’s the difference between a smart Trump supporter and a unicorn? Nothing. They’re both fictional characters.
Trump’s legendary cruelty could fill volumes of joke books:
- What’s the difference between a Donald Trump optimist and a Donald Trump pessimist? A Donald Trump pessimist says Donald Trump can’t any more vindictive. A Donald Trump optimist says he can.
- After Donald Trump won the Presidency in 2016, news analysts wondered: Why did so many people vote for him instead of Hillary Clinton? Interviewed on the subject, a Trump spokesman said: “Voters really responded to his campaign slogan: ‘Trump in 2016—Or He’ll Shoot Your Family.”
- What is the Donald Trump version of a microwave oven? It seats 300.
There is overwhelming evidence that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin subverted the 2016 Presidential election to seat Trump in the White Houses:
- Over 70% of evangelicals say that God helped get Donald Trump elected President. If so, then God must speak with a Russian accent.
- Donald Trump says Democrats are like Communists. In Hell, Joseph Stalin is laughing—and waiting for Trump to show up.
- What’s the difference between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? Putin didn’t get HIS position through Donald Trump.
Trump’s well-known misogyny provides ample fodder for comedians:
- President Donald Trump is holding a press conference. REPORTER: “Do you talk with your wife when you’re having sex?” TRUMP: “Only if there’s a phone handy.”
- IVANKA TRUMP: “What’s the difference between kinky sex and perverted sex?” DONALD TRUMP: “In kinky sex, you use a feather. In perverted sex, you use the whole daughter.”
Then there is the very real threat that Trump represents to not only the United States but the world itself:
- Worried about the future if Donald Trump is elected President in 2024, a woman rushes to a local astrologer to ask: “If Donald Trump is elected President, will there still be life on the Earth in 2025?” And the astrologer replies: “Do you mean ‘LIFE’ the cereal or ‘Life’ the Milton-Bradley parlor game?”
- In President Donald Trump’s America, what is black and knocking at the door? The Future.
"SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER" (SONG), "THE PRODUCERS" (MOVIEI), "WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS" (SONG), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALEC BALDWIN, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ASTROLOGY, “JESUS LOVES ME” (SONG), “LITTLE BOXES” SONG, “YAKETY YAK” (SONG), BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BERNIE SANDERS, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CRUELTY, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EGOTISM, ELIZABETH WARREN, EVANGELICALS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMOR, IGNORANCE, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (MOVIE), IVANKA TRUMP, JEB BUSH, JEFFREY EPSTEIN, JESUS, JOHN KASICH, LAUGHTER, LIBERALS, MARCO RUBIO, MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, MARK HARRISON, MARK SHIELDS, MAYO CLINIC, MEDIA MATTERS, MELANIA TRUMP, MICHELLE OBAMA, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ONE DAY WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT FEAR: EVERYDAY LIVES UNDER THE SOVIET POLICE STATE (BOOK), PARODY, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPE FRANCIS, RAND PAUL, RAW STORY, READERS DIGEST, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICK PERRY, RIDICULE, SALON, SATIRE, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLANDER, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED CRUZ, THE ATLANTIC, THE BEATLES, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE COASTERS, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, X
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Humor, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on August 12, 2024 at 12:10 am
Reader’s Digest carried a page entitled: “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” And from a purely medicinal viewpoint, it’s absolutely true.
According to the Mayo Clinic website: “Whether you’re guffawing at a sitcom on TV or quietly giggling at a newspaper cartoon, laughing does you good. Laughter is a great form of stress relief, and that’s no joke.
“A good laugh has great short-term effects. When you start to laugh, it doesn’t just lighten your load mentally, it actually induces physical changes in your body. Laughter can: Stimulate many organs, activate and relieve your stress response, soothe tension.”
In the long term: “Laughter may improve your immune system, relieve pain, improve your mood, increase personal satisfaction.”
But laughter may also prove the best weapon against tyrants and self-righteous hypocrites.
According to the 2016 book, One Day We Will Live Without Fear: Everyday Lives Under the Soviet Police State, by Mark Harrison, tyrants operate 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.
Republicans have long won electoral victories through vivid appeals to Hatred, Greed and/or Fear. And in Donald Trump, they have found a candidate who delights in sticking ugly labels on his opponents.
Yet Trump carries a major Achilles heel: He’s unable to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does. Like all tyrants, he knows—and fears—that if people are laughing at you, they don’t fear you.
And, for Trump, being feared lies at the root of his drive for absolute power. As a result, “Stop the laughing” rises to the top of his list or priorities.
At Christmastime, 2018, “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.
Donald Trump
As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”
Despite Trump’s obvious vulnerability to ridicule, Democrats have proven utterly unable or unwilling to deploy this powerful weapon against him.
One reason for this: Their apparent indifference to or ignorance of the power of effective language.
Another reason: Democrats seem uneasy with using ridicule or insults as a weapon. Many of them fear it will make them look silly. Others—such as former President Barack Obama—take the view: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.”
Thus, they take the “high ground”—while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via ridicule and “smear and fear” tactics.
On May 27, 2016, syndicated columnist Mark Shields—a liberal, and New York Times columnist David Brooks, a conservative—exchanged opinions on Donald Trump’s use of insults against his political opponents.
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….”
Mark Shields
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’”
David Brooks
DC_Rebecca from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:
- Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
- Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
Only one of Trump’s opponents tried to match him in insults—Florida’s United States Senator Marco Rubio.
At the 11th GOP presidential debate in Detroit, Rubio “countered” Trump’s insult of “Little Marco” by calling him “Big Donald.”
Since Americans believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of ridicule. A better choice: “Red Donald,” to highlight his notorious admiration for Vladimir Putin.
So why hasn’t anyone come up with a way to counter Trump’s repeated insults?
According to David Brooks: Democrats face two choices in combating Trump:
“Either you do what [Massachusetts United States Senator] Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
Humor was not Hillary Clinton’s strong suit. But her limitations need not be those of other Democrats.
All that’s required: Creativity—and the courage to apply it.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ADAM SCHIFF, ALEXANDER VINDMAN, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, GERRYMANDERING, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOWARD BAKER, HUNTER BIDEN, IMPEACHMENT, JOE BIDEN, JOEL MATHIS, LYNDON JOHNSON, MARIA YOVANOVICH, MARK SHIELDS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICAID, MICK MULVANEY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RUDI GIULIANI, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, VOTER ID LAWS, WATERGATE, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 15, 2024 at 12:12 am
On November 22, 2019, Mark Shields—a liberal syndicated columnist—and David Brooks—a conservative one for The New York Times—reached disturbingly similar conclusions about President Donald Trump’s efforts to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
DAVID BROOKS: “What strikes me [is] that everyone was in the loop, that this was not something they tried to hide.
“This was just something they thought was the way politics gets done or foreign policy gets done, that there’s no division between personal gain and public service.”
MARK SHIELDS: “What I have underestimated….is the fear that Donald Trump exercises over Republicans. I mean, people talked about Lyndon Johnson being a fearsome political leader. They don’t even approach. I mean, he strikes fear into the hearts of Republicans up and down the line. And I think that….has been eye-opening in its dimensions.”
Nor did the GOP try to reign Trump in.
In a November 14, 2019 column, “Republicans Can’t Abandon Trump Now Because They’re All Guilty,” freelance journalist Joel Mathis warned: “Trump’s abuses of power mirror those of the GOP as a whole. Republicans can’t turn on him, because doing so would be to indict their party’s entire approach to politics.”
For example:
- At the state level, GOP legislatures have passed numerous voter ID laws over the last decade. Officially, the reason has been to prevent non-citizens from voting. In reality, the motive is to depress turnout among Democratic constituencies.
- When Democrats have won elections, Republicans have tried to block them from carrying out their policies. In Utah, voters approved Medicaid expansion at the ballot box—but Republicans nullified this.
- In North Carolina, Republican legislators prevented voters from choosing their representatives. Instead, Republican representatives chose voters through partisan sorting. In September, the state’s Supreme Court ruled the legislative gerrymandered district map unconstitutional.
The upshot of all this: “The president and his party are united in the belief that their entitlement to power allows them to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes….”
On November 21, 2019, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, attacked Republicans’ total rejection of the overwhelming evidence linking Trump with extortion:
Adam Schiff
“But apparently, it’s all hearsay. Even when you actually hear the President….that’s hearsay. We can’t rely on people saying what the President said. Apparently, we can only rely on what the President says, and there, we shouldn’t even rely on that either….
“We should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption, instead of what he actually said, which was, ‘I want you to do us a favor, though. I want you to look into this 2016 CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, and I want you to look into the Bidens.’
“I guess we’re not even supposed to rely on that because that’s hearsay….That would be like saying you can’t rely on the testimony of the burglars during Watergate because it’s only hearsay, or you can’t consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. They actually didn’t get what they came for, so, you know, kind of no harm, no foul. That’s absurd.
“The difference between [Watergate and Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukraine] is not the difference between [Richard] Nixon and [Donald] Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one. And so, we are asking, where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty?
“But the other defense besides ‘It failed, the scheme failed, they got caught,’ the other defense is ‘The President denies it.’ Well, I guess that’s case closed, right?
“….This President believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical President who believes they are above the law.”
* * * * *
The United States has indeed become a polarized country. But it’s not the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals.
It’s the polarization between
- Those intent on enslaving everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their Fascistic beliefs and agenda—and those who resist being enslaved.
- Those who believe in reason and science—and those who believe in an infallible “strong man” who rejects both.
- Those who cherish education—and those who celebrate ignorance.
- Those who believe in the rule of law—and those who believe in their right to act as a law unto themselves.
- Those who believe in treating others (especially the less fortunate) with decency—and those who believe in the triumph of intimidation and force.
Those who hoped that Republicans would choose patriotism over partisanship got their answer on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Donald Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and Abuse of Power.
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become a sharply divided nation. But those who lament this should realize there is only one choice:
Either non-Fascist Americans will destroy the Republican party and its voters that threaten to enslave them—or they will be enslaved by Republicans and their voters who believe they are entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes.
There is no middle ground.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 14, 2024 at 12:23 am
On November 14, 2019, the CNN website showcased an opinion piece by Jane Carr and Laura Juncadella entitled: “Fractured States of America.”
And it opened:
“Some worry that it’s already too late, that we’ve crossed a threshold of polarization from which there is no return. Others look toward a future where more moderate voices are heeded and heard, and Americans can find better ways to relate to each other. Still others look back to history for a guide—perhaps for what not to do, or at the very least for proof that while it’s been bad before, progress is still possible.”
A series of sub-headlines summed up many of the comments reported.
- “I was starting to hate people that I have loved for years.”
- “Voting for Trump cost me my friends.”
- “I feel like I’m living in hostile territory.”
- “Our children are watching this bloodsport.”
- “A student’s Nazi-style salute reflects the mate.”
- “Our leaders reflect the worst of us.”
- “I truly believe I will be assaulted over a bumper sticker.”
- “It already feels like a cold war.”
It’s natural to regret that the United States has become so self-destructively polarized. And to wish that its citizens could somehow reach across the chasm that divides them and find common cause with one another.
But that is to ignore the brutal truth that America now faces a choice:
- To submit to the tyrannical aggression of a ruthless political party convinced that they are entitled to power to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes; or
- To fiercely resist that aggression and the destruction of those democratic processes.
Consider the face-off between President Donald J. Trump and Army Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.
Vindman is a retired United States Army officer who served as the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council. He was also a witness to Trump’s efforts to extort “a favor” from the president of Ukraine.
Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman
Адміністрація Президента України [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)%5D
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faced increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.
It was clear that unless Zelensky found “dirt” on Biden, the promised aid would not be forthcoming.
“I was concerned by the call,” Vindman, who had heard Trump’s phone call, testified before the House Intelligence Committee. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. Government’s support of Ukraine.
“I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security.”
Trump denounced Vindman as a “Never Trumper”—as if opposing his extortion attempt constituted a blasphemy. Republicans and their shills on the Fox News Network attacked him as well. As a result, he sought physical protection by the Army for himself and his family.
(On February 7, 2020, he was reassigned from the National Security Council at Trump’s order.)
Donald Trump
On November 15, 2019, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and liberal syndicated columnist Mark Shields appeared on The PBS Newshour to offer their reactions by Republicans and Democrats to Trump’s extortion attempt.
David Brooks and Mark Shields on “The PBS Newshour”
DAVID BROOKS: “The case is very solid and airtight that there was the quid pro quo. All the testimony points to that. And, mostly, you see a contrast. The first two gentlemen that testified on the first day, they were just upstanding, solid public servants.
“I felt like I was looking back in time, because I was looking at two people who are not self-centered. They cared about the country. They were serving. They had no partisan ax to grind. They were just honest men of integrity.
“And I thought we saw that again today with [former Ambassador to Ukraine] Marie Yovanovitch. And in her case, the day was more emotional, because you got to see a case of bullying against a strong, upstanding woman.
“And so I thought she expressed—like, the heavy moments of today where when she expressed her reaction to how badly she was treated. And so that introduces an element of emotion and pathos into what shouldn’t be just a legal proceeding. It should be something where people see the contrast between good people and bad people.”
MARK SHIELDS: “This is a story of corruption—corruption not in Ukraine, corruption in the United States.
“I mean, why? Why did they go to such lengths to denigrate, to attack, to try and destroy and sabotage the career of a dedicated public servant [United States Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich], a person who had put her life on the line? Why did they do it? What was it, money? Was it power?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on March 12, 2024 at 12:50 am
Words are weapons—or can be, if used properly.
Republicans learned this truth after World War II.
- Richard Nixon became a United States Senator in 1950 by attacking Helen Gahagen Douglas as “The Pink Lady.”
- From 1954 onward, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and other Red-baiting Republicans essentially paralyzed the Democratic party through such slanderous terms as “Comsymps,” “fellow-travelers” and “Fifth Amendment Communists.”
Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam summed up the effectiveness of such tactics in his monumental study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [Joseph McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Joseph McCarthy
Democrats have generally proven indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Donald Trump solicited Russian Communist aid to win the Presidency in 2016. He solicited aid from Chinese Communists to retain it in 2020.
He attacked countless Americans and world leaders—including those presiding over America’s NATO alliance. But he never even criticized Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Yet even with such clear-cut evidence, Democrats refused to directly accuse him of treason, as in:
- “TrumPutin”
- “Commissar-in-Chief”
- “El Dunce”
- “Predator of the United States”
- “Carrot Caligula”
- “Red Donald”
- “DJTraitor”
The Kremlin
Similarly, Trump got a free pass on treason from the news media. None dared suggest the obvious: That he moved boxes of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate to sell them to America’s enemies in exchange for huge sums to pay his upcoming legal bills.
While Trump branded the news media “the enemy of the people,” no media outlet had the courage to hurl the same charge at him.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump repeatedly lied about its lethality and opposed the use of masks and social distancing to combat it. As a result, 400,000 Americans had died by the time he left office.
Yet no Democrat dared label him “Coronavirus-in-Chief.”
Nor has the news media directly held him accountable for those deaths.
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet here, too, Democrats proved unable or unwilling to make use of this powerful weapon.
In this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats could effectively assail Trump with a series of ridiculing videos. For example, Trump’s well-established “bromance” with Putin could be turned into a parody of the famous song, “Johnny B. Good”:
Way back inside the Kremlin where the lights glow red
There ruled a man named Putin who would poison you dead.
He came up with a plan to make his Russia great
And all it took was bribes and Republican hate.
And Trumpy was a man who couldn’t read or spell
But he could sell out his land just like he’s ringing a bell.
Many of Trump’s fiercest defenders in the House and Senate have taken “campaign contributions” (i.e., bribes) from Russian oligarchs linked to Putin. They could be pointedly attacked by turning the Muppet song, “The Rainbow Connection,” into “The Russian Connection.”
Why are there so many tales about Russians
And Right-wingers taking bribes?
Russians are Commies and have lots of rubles
For traitors with something to hide.
So I’ve been told and some choose to believe it
It’s clear as the old KGB.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection—
The bribers, the traitors—you’ll see.
A continuing theme among Republican politicians is that they are paragons of religious virtue, while Democrats are champions of Satan.
Yet Democrats have done nothing to publicize such truths as:
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is a serial adulterer.
- Former Speaker Dennis Hastert is a convicted sodomizer of teenage boys.
- Josh Duggar, a Right-wing star of the high-rated “reality” series, 19 Kids and Counting, has been sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for possessing child pornography.
- Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has boasted: “Marriage is a wonderful thing and I’m a firm believer in it.” Yet she engaged in open affairs with at least two members of her local gym—for which Perry Greene divorced her.
Most Americans don’t follow political news closely—and know nothing of such revelations.
Thus, Democrats must repeatedly advertise such facts—to counter Republicans’ constant claims of being the moral arbiters of America. And this needs to be done through major advertising campaigns on TV—where most Americans get their news about politics.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. They were cheered on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s naive advice on political tactics: “When they go, we go high.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump planned to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
History has proven which tactics proved superior.
Many Democrats echo former President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Joseph McCarthy: “I’m not going to get into the gutter with that man.”
The result: A series of lost elections.
Democrats need to accept that they—and the country’s democratic traditions—are engaged in a death-match with their Republican opponents.
Only certain defeat is guaranteed by adhering to Marquis of Queensbury when your enemy is using brass knuckles.
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“AMBUSHED AT CREDIBILITY GAP”: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 17, 2024 at 12:12 amIn 2011, Donald Trump, host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Barack Obama.
Seeking to gain popularity among America’s Right-wing, Trump almost singlehandedly created the popular fiction that the President was born in Kenya—and was not an American citizen.
His motive: To convince Americans that Obama was an illegitimate President.
Donald Trump
Among the statements Trump made:
February 10, 2011: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.”
March 23, 2011: “I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. … There’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like.”
March 28, 2011: “I am really concerned” [that Obama wasn’t born in the United States]. He said that the birth announcement for Obama in a Hawaii newspaper could have been planted “for whatever reason.”
March 30, 2011: “If you are going to be president of the United States you have to be born in this country. And there is a doubt as to whether or not he was. … He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”
April 7, 2011: “I have people that have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding. You are not allowed to be a president if you’re not born in this country. Right now I have real doubts.”
April 25, 2011: “I’ve been told very recently…that the birth certificate is missing. I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case, it’s a big problem.”
On April 27, President Obama released his original, long-form Hawiian birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
“We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama at a press conference, speaking as a father might to a roomful of spiteful children. “We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other…if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers.”
And on May 1, he announced the solving of one of those “big problems”: Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had been tracked down and shot dead by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.
SEALS attacking bin Laden’s compound in the 2012 movie, “Zero Dark Thirty”
And how did Trump respond? With the following series of Tweets on Twitter:
May 18, 2012: “Let’s take a closer look at that birth certificate.@BarackObama was described in 2003 as being “born in Kenya.” http://bit.ly/Klc9Uu
August 6, 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.”
August 27, 2012: “Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called “birther” issue? No more apologies—take the offensive!”
September 13, 2012: “Wake Up America! See article: “Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake”
June 30, 2013: “@davidrhythmguit: @realDonaldTrump @Chuffman48 Mark Cuban accepts the fact that the President of the United States was born here. Doubt it”
August 22, 2013: “Why are people upset w/ me over Pres Obama’s birth certificate? I got him to release it, or whatever it was, when nobody else could!”
December 12, 2013: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived”
November 23, 2014: “@futureicon: @pinksugar61 Obama also fabricated his own birth certificate after being pressured to produce one by @realDonaldTrump“
Even after declaring his candidacy for President on June 16, 2015, Trump continued to insist that Barack Obama was an illegitimate President.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity among blacks had steadily fallen. In June, 2016, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that Trump had 1% of support from black voters. By comparison, 91% of black voters backed Hillary Clinton.
Among the reasons for this:
Even the managers of Trump’s campaign urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
And so, on September 16—10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton—Trump made his version of a reversal.
In doing so, he entered into what conservative New York Times political columnist David Brooks called “Orwell land.”
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