Posts Tagged ‘MSNBC’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 6, 2018 at 12:11 am
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white high school dropout, gunned down three black men and six black women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At 21, Roof was unemployed, dividing his time between playing video games and taking drugs.
Dylann Roof
The signs of Roof’s malignant racism were evident long before he turned mass murderer:
- He had posed for a photo sitting on the hood of his parents’ car—whose license plate bore a Confederate flag.
- He had posed for pictures wearing a jacket sporting the white supremacist flags of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
- He told a friend that he hoped “to start a civil war” between the black and white races.
- Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people.
- In the midst of his massacre of unarmed worshipers, he told one of his victims: “You’ve raped our women, and you are taking over the country.” Then Roof shot him.
The evidence makes clear that Roof’s slaughter was racially motivated. Yet no 2016 Republican Presidential candidate dared acknowledge it:
- Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida: “I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.”
- Rick Santorum, former United States Senator from Pennsylvania: “You talk about the importance of prayer in this time and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.”
- Bobby Jindal, former governor of Louisiana: “I don’t think we’ll ever know what was going on in his mind.”
But Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund left no doubt as to what—and who—was ultimately responsible for this crime: Racism and Republicans.
In a June 19, 2015 editorial—published two days after the massacre—Lund noted: “This [crime] is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political.
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it.
“Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order.
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Click here: The Charleston Shooter: Racist, Violent, and Yes – Political | Rolling Stone
On December 15, 2016, Dylann Roof was convicted of 33 Federal hate crime charges. On January 11, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He remains on Death Row to this day.
Yet the leadership of the Republican party whose hate-filled rhetoric inspired Root escaped indictment—and even widespread condemnation.
The evidence that Republicans have weaponized hatred—with deadly results—was on display long before Dylann Roof opened fire on “uppity blacks” praying in their own church.
Consider:
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. After a miraculous recovery, she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50% of her vision in both eyes.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
She vowed to return to her former Congressional duties, but was forced to resign for health reasons in 2012.
Giffords was only one victim of a shooting spree that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.
Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.
Although the actual shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was immediately arrested, those who fanned the flames of political violence that consumed 19 people that day have remained unpunished.
Consider the circumstances behind the shootings:
John Roll is Arizona’s chief federal judge. Appointed in 2006, he wins acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.
In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.
In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.
Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.”
Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 5, 2018 at 12:02 am
In August 1983, two members of John Gotti’s “crew” were arrested for dealing heroin.
Paul Castellano, the most powerful Mafia boss in the nation, had continued the Gambino Family’s longtime “deal and die” policy against trafficking in narcotics. Castellano threatened to “whack” Gotti and his entire crew.
For Gotti, it was literally a case of kill-or-be-killed.
On December 16, 1985, four gunmen, wearing white trench coats and black Cossack Diplomat hats, shot Castellano as he exited his car to enter Sparks Steakhouse in downtown Manhattan. With him died his underboss, or second-in-command, Thomas Bilotti.
Gotti and his closest associates pretended they didn’t know who ordered the execution. But nearly all of the Family’s capos knew it was Gotti. Gotti assumed the position of “acting boss,” but nobody dared challenge his leadership.
Suddenly, Gotti burst into the public’s consciousness. He swaggered down streets, gave impromptu press conferences to reporters, partied at discos and nightclubs. He delighted in being approached by average citizens on streets and in restaurants.
John Gotti
Old-style Mafia bosses like Carlo Gambino had carefully avoided publicity. During the 1950s, newspapers didn’t have photos of Gambino in their files.
Gotti moved his headquarters from Queens to the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan. Like a king holding court, Gotti ordered all of his captains to report to him at the Ravenite once a week. Word quickly reached the FBI—and agents in vans shot video as they staked out Prince Street.
Gotti handed the FBI a mob organization chart.
Like other mobsters, he often found himself under indictment. Unlike other mobsters, he didn’t claim physical infirmity to avoid prison. He claimed he was a victim of anti-Italian prejudice. He taunted the FBI agents he knew were stalking him.
He swaggered into courtrooms and smirked as his attorney, Bruce Cutler, viciously attacked the prosecution’s witnesses. And he emerged victorious in three high-profile trials in a row.
Local and Federal prosecutors didn’t realize his secret: Jury tampering and witness intimidation.
The press dubbed him “The Teflon Don.”
In 1989, the FBI planted a hidden microphone in an apartment above the Ravenite where Gotti held his secret meetings. Tape recorders were running when he bragged that he had ordered three murders—and was running a criminal enterprise: The Gambino Mafia Family.
When he wasn’t bragging, he was badmouthing virtually everyone—past and present—in the Mafia: Paul Castellano, Carlo Gambino, Vincent “The Chins” Gigante. And, most fatally, his own underboss: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
Sammy Gravano
Gotti charged that Gravano was too greedy—and tried to frame him for the murders of three Mafiosi Gotti had ordered hit.
On December 11, 1990, FBI agents and NYPD detectives raided the Ravenite, arresting Gotti and Gravano. At a pretrial hearing, prosecutors played the FBI’s tapes of Gotti’s unintended confessions—including his badmouthing of Gravano.
Gravano, enraged, agreed to testify against Gotti and other Mafiosi in exchange for a five-year prison sentence.
On April 2, 1992, a jury convicted Gotti of five murders, conspiracy to murder, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery and tax evasion. He drew a life sentence, without possibility of parole.
Gotti was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, in virtual solitary confinement. In 1998, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He died on June 10, 2002, at the age of 61.
Donald Trump resembles his fellow New Yorker, John Gotti, in more ways than he would like to admit:
Donald Trump
- He craves publicity like a drug.
- His egomania long ago reached psychotic heights: In a 1990 interview with Playboy magazine, he offered his worldview: “The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere.”
- He impulsively and brutally badmouths virtually everyone—in press conferences and on Twitter.
- He brags constantly—about his wealth, his intelligence, his sexual prowess, his achievements: “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- He has bought his way out of legal trouble: Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from him while her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates. After Bondi dropped the case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign.
- He repeatedly threatens violence against his opponents: On March 16, 2016, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, “I think you’d have riots….I think bad things would happen.”
- Although not a member of the Mafia, he has often been linked—directly or indirectly—to men who are, such as “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano.
- He prizes being seen as a tough guy: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” At a Las Vegas rally in 2016, he said about a protester: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
- He has no loyalty to anyone: In April, 2018, his longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, came under investigation for bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law. Trump’s reaction: Cohen handled only a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of Trump’s overall legal affairs.
History still waits to learn if the hubris that struck down John Gotti will overtake Donald Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 4, 2018 at 1:08 am
He was tall, broad-shouldered and bushy-haired. He spoke in a heavily New York-accented voice, and his speech was often laced with crudities and obscenities.
He loved to strut in public, wearing $2,000 custom-made suits, and surrounded by a phalanx of tough-looking bodyguards. He loved being noticed, especially in restaurants and discos, by “my public.” Making the cover of Time magazine was probably the greatest thrill of his life.
And he loved to brag: He was the toughest, the smartest, the guy nobody dared cross. And when he wasn’t bragging about himself, he was disparaging even his closest associates.
He was rumored to be implicated in a long string of felonies. He knew the FBI was watching him. But he continually met openly with his cronies at the same place—a social club in Little Italy.
He ordered his subordinates to be extremely cautious when they talked on the phone. But he totally ignored his own advice—and created a litany of incriminating tapes that would destroy him.
No, he wasn’t Donald Trump.
He was John Gotti, once the boss of the most powerful crime family in America.
John Gotti’s 1990 mugshot
And he shared more than a few striking similarities with Donald Trump—another New Yorker who has since become President of the United States.
Like Trump, Gotti spent a good portion of his time in court—although Trump’s 3,500 lawsuits (filed by and against him) completely dwarf Gotti’s four high-profile trials.
Like Trump, he seemed invincible in court: He won three of those legal confrontations—and thus earned the nickname, “The Teflon Don.”
And, like Trump, he loved to taunt the FBI agents he knew were stalking him. After each court victory he gave a press conference, claiming he had been framed by FBI agents who hated Italians.
Warned to knock it off, to show humility instead of arrogance, Gotti told his would-be protectors to go to hell. He wasn’t going to be anything but what he was.
Years afterward, the FBI learned the reason for the Teflon: Gotti had used jury tampering and witness intimidation to beat the rap.
It was the fourth trial that did him in—and sent him away for life.
Unlike Trump, he wasn’t born into a wealthy family, with a father who gave him $200 million to start his own real estate business. Instead, he grew up in poverty, resenting a father who worked as a day laborer and liked to gamble.
He was born on October 27, 1940—almost six years before Trump (June 14, 1946). He turned to crime at the age of 12, working with street gangs affiliated with the New York City Mafia. By 1966 he had been jailed twice.
He hijacked trucks at John F. Kennedy Airport. Arrested three times for hijacking, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years at Pennsylvania’s Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.
Paroled in 1972, Gotti’s big break came in 1973. Emanuel Gambino, the nephew of the Mafia’s “Boss of all Bosses” Carlo Gambino, was kidnapped and murdered. Gambino sent a trio of hitmen—one of them Gotti—after the culprit: James McBratney. Although not the actual killer, Gotti was identified by eyewitnesses as a participant.
Carlo Gambino
Through a plea bargain arranged by attorney Roy Cohn, Gotti received a four-year prison sentence for attempted manslaughter.
Cohn had earned an infamous reputation as chief counsel for Red-baiting Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s. After leaving government service in 1954, Cohn went into private practice. Among his clients: Mafia bosses “Fat Tony” Salerno and Carmine Galante—and real estate mogul Donald Trump.
Released from prison in July, 1977, after only two years, Gotti finally received his dream gift: He was fully initiated as a “made man” into the Gambino Family.
Gambino himself had died of natural causes in 1976, and was now succeeded by his son-in-law, Paul “Big Paul” Castellano.
Gambino had represented the “old-school” Mafia: Men who shunned publicity like the plague and cultivated the image of a harmless small businessman. Although he had ordered his “soldiers” to steer clear of the drug trade, which brought too much heat, Gambino reaped millions from loansharking, extortion, hijacking, bookmaking and labor racketeering.
Castellano sought to “legitimize” the Mafia by moving it into legitimate business. He launched Dial Poultry, a poultry distribution business that once supplied 300 butchers in New York City. He profited as well by supplying construction concrete. No one could pour concrete for a project worth more than $2 million without the approval from the “Concrete Club”—a mob-controlled enterprise.
Paul Castellano
“Big Paul,” who had never “whacked” anyone, didn’t see himself as a gangster. He liked socializing with bankers and even once told his maid (with whom he was having an extramarital affair) that “I could even do a favor for a President.”
John Gotti, by contrast, was neither publicity-shy like Gambino nor seeking to enter the legitimate business world like Castellano. There was no point, he reasoned, in being a gangster if you weren’t going to act like one.
For Gotti, those two traits—his love of publicity and desire to be “a real gangster”—would prove a fatal combination.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 3, 2018 at 10:32 am
From 1965 to 1974, Americans watched “The FBI,” a highly fictionalized TV drama supposedly based on real stories from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the Bureau since 1924, made certain the series reflected the image of the FBI that he wanted seen.
FBI agents:
- Didn’t smoke or swear and seldom fired a gun.
- Never cheated on their wives.
- Never planted illegal bugs or wiretaps,
- Never suffered marital problems from the strains of an FBI career.
- Could summon a helicopter—like the show’s hero, Inspector Lewis Erskine—with the snap of their fingers.
Yet none of this mattered to the millions who tuned in every week to make this one of the highest-rated series on TV.
After decades of a generous self-advertising campaign, Americans generally saw the Bureau as not simply incorruptible but infallible. When agents zeroed in on a criminal—a bank robber, terrorist or member of the Mob—he was as good as caught.
So it would have been unimaginable to such an audience that the greatest threat to the Bureau would come not from the KGB or Mafia hitmen, but from the President of the United States.
Yet, 53 years after “The FBI” premiered on the ABC network in 1965, that is exactly the case.
On May 9, 2017, FBI Director James B. Comey was brutally fired without warning by President Donald Trump. Trump has since given several explanations why he did it. But the most convincing was the one he gave in the Oval Office to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I.,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
James Comey
Trump had three reasons for firing Comey:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made this “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January. After refusing to make that pledge, Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief.
- Trump had tried to coerce him into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
During that meeting where he disparaged Comey, Trump gave the Russian dignitaries sensitive Intelligence on ISIS that had been supplied by Israel.
On December 16, 2016, Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. had agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
Since the FBI launched its counterintelligence investigation into collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russian Intelligence agents, Trump has repeatedly attacked the American Intelligence and law-enforcement communities. But he has yet to condemn Moscow for its election interference.
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FBI Seal
In fact, he has—at least publicly—accepted Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s assertion that the Kremlin did not interfere in the 2016 election.
On February 17, 2018—three days after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, Trump tweeted:
“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”
This ignored that:
- The shooting was not a Federal crime, since it didn’t happen on Federal property nor involve Federal officials.
- Trump has steadfastly opposed any efforts at gun control—while accepting $21 million from the NRA during the 2016 Presidential race. This was the largest contribution the NRA has ever made to a Presidential candidate.
On May 20, 2018, he tweeted: “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”
Donald Trump
Trump was demanding that information about an FBI confidential source—in a probe directly relating to himself—be revealed to his cronies in the Republican party.
Trump was desperate to derail the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into proven ties between Russian Intelligence agents and members of his 2006 Presidential campaign. So now he was creating a false charge—that he had been illegally spied upon by the FBI—to divert public attention from that investigation.
With July 4—the 242nd anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence—fast approaching, the outcome of Trump vs. the FBI remains to be seen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 2, 2018 at 12:04 am
There was a time when Republicans saw—and portrayed themselves—as America’s foremost defenders against Communism.
This is well-illustrated by the career of Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Joseph McCarthy
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer.
Among those slandered:
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
- President Harry S. Truman
- Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast and John Steinbeck
- Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
So imagine how Red-baiting Republicans like McCarthy and then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon would feel dumbfounded at the following:
On February 20, 2018, a purge of Russian “bots” by Twitter sparked outrage by—yes!—Right-wingers.
Bots are fake accounts used to spread propaganda or advertising campaigns. Investigations by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have uncovered massive efforts by Russia to throw the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
They did so by swamping “social media” sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter with genuinely fake news.
The Twitter purge came a week after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in that election. The indictments detailed an elaborate plot to wage “information warfare” against the United States.
Right-wingers suddenly found thousands of their Russian bot followers had disappeared—and accused Twitter of secretly deleting like-minded accounts.
“Twitter is currently purging the followers on conservative accounts only. I just lost 3000 followers in one minute,” tweeted Candace Owens, director of urban engagement for Turning Point USA. This is a student organization promoting limited government and free markets.
Bill Mitchell, a Right-winger known for his controversial tweets defending President Donald Trump, claimed that he lost roughly 4,000 followers overnight.
“This is a damn joke,” tweeted Mike Zollo. “Twitter is absolutely censoring conservative and right wing speech for no damn reason other than their disagreement with it. But, liberals can write vile comments and threaten us with no punishment.”
From the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it would have been unthinkable for a Republican Presidential candidate to find common cause with a Soviet dictator.
But that utterly changed when Donald Trump won, first, the Republican Presidential nomination and, then, the White House. Trump lavishly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin—and even called on him to directly interfere in the 2016 Presidential race.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
“Russia, if you are listening,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, “I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
The last time dictator-worshiping Fascists found common cause with dictator-worshiping Communists was in August, 1939.
Germany’s Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin agreed to end—at least temporarily—their years of violent rivalry and personal slander.
Hitler planned to invade Poland, and feared he would have to fight its allies, France and England, if he did. He didn’t want to have to fight the Soviet Union, too.
And Stalin saw Hitler’s warlike ambitions as useful to his own dreams of conquest: He wanted—and got—-the eastern half of Poland, while Hitler’s legions occupied the western half.
Similarly, Donald Trump—the arch capitalist—and Vladimir Putin—the arch Communist—found common cause
Putin wanted a President who would withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—which would instantly render that alliance kaput. And give Russia a free hand to attack Europe.
And Trump had repeatedly said the United States was paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain that alliance.
And Trump wanted to be President—to enrich himself and his family, to become the center of the world’s attention, and to destroy anyone who dared confront or contradict him.
And in supporting his dictatorial agenda, his millions of Right-wing followers have found common cause with the followers of a Communist dictator’s agenda.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 29, 2018 at 12:02 am
Reince Priebus, the incoming White House Chief of Staff for soon-to-be President Donald J. Trump, summed up the essential attitude of the Republican party.
Millions of Americans were questioning whether Trump was legitimately elected. Their suspicions were based on solid evidence: According to the American Intelligence community, that Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 Presidential election to help him defeat Hillary Clinton.
And Priebus believed—or at least claimed to believe—that outgoing President Barack Obama should vouch for Trump’s legitimacy.
“I think President Obama should step up,” Priebus said on January 15, 2017 on ABC’s “This Week.” “We’ve had a great relationship with the White House….I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on the Republican side of the aisle, look, we may have lost the election on the Democratic side, but it’s time to come together.”
Reince Priebus
“You didn’t have Republicans questioning whether or not Obama legitimately beat John McCain in 2008,” Priebus added.
“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos replied that Trump had questioned Obama’s legitimacy as an American citizen until almost the end of the 2016 Presidential race.
“But look, George, that’s not the point!” Priebus said, visibly agitated. “The point is not where Barack Obama was born! The point is that we’ve got congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle that are questioning the legitimacy of President-elect Trump.”
In short: Let’s ignore Trump’s five-year slander campaign against the legitimacy of President Obama. What’s important is that people are questioning the legitimacy of a Republican elected with the help of Russian Communists.
In 2011, Trump, then-host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was thinking of running for President against Obama.
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.”
Trump responded with a series of tweets on Twitter—all of them attacking the legitimacy of the birth certificate that President Obama had released.
For more than a year during his 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump continued his campaign of slander. But as his popularity steadily fell among black voters, even his own campaign strategists urged him to put the “birther” issue behind him.
So, on September 16, 2016—10 days before his scheduled first debate with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton—Trump gave his version of a reversal.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
His clearly wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. He refused to take questions from reporters covering the event. And he didn’t apologize for his five-year campaign of slander.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2018 at 9:23 pm
On June 19, Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was heckled by protesters while dining at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.
The reason: To protest the Trump administration’s separation of illegal alien parents from their children in detention centers.
Then, three nights later, on June 22, the owner of a Lexington, Virginia, restaurant asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave.
The reason: To protest the Trump’s discrimination against transgenders’ entering the military.
Those verbally assailing Nielsen shouted:
- “Do you hear the babies crying?”
- “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace.”
- “Shame! Shame! Shame!”
- “In a Mexican restaurant of all places. The fucking gall.”
- “No borders, no wall, sanctuaries for all.”
On June 23, Sanders tweeted her version of her requested exit: “Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
According to The Washington Post, the Red Hen’s co-owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, got a call from her staff, reporting that Sanders was at the restaurant. Several employees are gay and knew Sanders had defended Trump’s efforts to bar transgenders from the military.
She added that her restaurant has “certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion and cooperation.”
From her statement, Wilkinson clearly believed Sanders was dishonest, inhumane and uncooperative.
On June 25, President Trump tweeted: “The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!”
Donald Trump
[Trump’s charge that the Red Hen is “dirty on the inside” was—as usual for him—false.
[According to its most recent state health inspection in February, the Red Hen restaurant had zero violations.
[On the other hand: Florida health inspectors cited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach with 15 violations in late January, 2017, days before Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there for a diplomatic visit.
Nor was this an exception. From 2014-2017, records show the club was cited 78 times for such violations as:
- Chefs handling food without washing their hands
- Dirty cutting boards
- A slicer “soiled with old food debris” and
- The “accumulation of black/green mold-like substance” in the ice machine.]
Mar-a-Lago
Ironically, Trump and his followers are responsible for Nielsen’s and Sanders’ evictions. They have pushed legislation allowing businesses to discriminate against anyone they dislike on the basis of “religious freedom.”
On March 26, 2015, Mike Pence, then Governor of Indiana before accepting Trump’s invitation to become his Vice Presidential nominee, signed into law the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
This allows any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs. Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
In short, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons can legally refuse to do so. Or a hospital can legally refuse to treat gay patients.
Although he praised the bill, Pence signed it in a ceremony closed to the public and the press.
On the eve of invading the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
Maybe Pence—like Hitler—sensed that he, too, was about to push open “a door into a dark, unseen room.”
On the day after Pence signed the Act, Bill Levin filed paperwork with the Indiana Secretary of State to register the First Church of Cannabis as a legitimate religious institution. The registration was approved.
By elevating religion above the law, Indiana’s legislators may have enabled Indiana’s Muslims to:
- Claim their right—guaranteed in Islamic religious law—to have as many as four wives.
- Demand a taxpayer-funded “halal” non-pork food shelf at free food pantries for the poor. (As happened among Somali refugees in Minnesota in 2015.)
- Demand that police departments cancel counter-terrorism courses by claiming that their materials are anti-Muslim. (As happened to several police departments in Illinois.)
And it was the Trump administration that supported the Supreme Court’s June 4 ruling 7-2 on behalf of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. He had claimed that doing so would violate his religious beliefs against homosexuality.
By championing the rights of businesses to legally discriminate against anyone they dislike—under the guise of “religious freedom”—Trump and his followers have opened a door that they themselves may now be forced to walk through.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2018 at 12:05 am
On May 7, 2018, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero-tolerance” policy for illegal entry into the United States: “If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”
In the past, those arrested while illegally entering the country were held in immigration detention and sent before an immigration judge. The judge decided if they would be deported as unauthorized immigrants. Most first-time offenders didn’t serve time in prison. As long as they pleaded guilty, they were sentenced, within minutes, to time served—and deported.
But illegal aliens referred for criminal prosecution were sent to a Federal jail. Several weeks later, a Federal judge determined if they would be imprisoned. And those in Federal jail cannot be kept with their children.
With the change in policy, all arrested illegal aliens would face criminal prosecution.
On June 15, Homeland Security officials confirmed to reporters that, from April 19 to May 31, 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults at the U.S.-Mexico border. These adults were referred for prosecution after illegally crossing the border.
Video images soon emerged of illegal alien children held behind chain-link cages. Photos showed children crying. An audio recording made secretly captured children calling for their mothers and fathers.
Illegal alien families held in cages
Over the weekend of June 16-17, Democrats almost unanimously attacked the “zero-tolerance” policy, while Republicans were divided over it.
What both Republican supporters and opponents of the policy had in common was the fear of being voted out of office—and losing their cushy and powerful positions.
Those who supported President Donald Trump feared he would order his Fascistic base to vote them out of office in the mid-term elections in November. Those who opposed Trump feared being voted out of office by overwhelming numbers of voters enraged by the policy.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration doubled-down. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said officials wouldn’t apologize for enforcing immigration laws that result in the separation of children and parents.
And on June 19, Trump tweeted: “Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!”
At this time, the fate of the family-separation policy remains uncertain.
If it is overturned, there is an even more drastic step that Trump might well take in his all-out war on illegal immigration.
Rather than deport them to countries in Central America—from which they would easily sneak back into the United States—the Federal Government could ship them off to more distant lands.
Like Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or Syria.
Such a policy change would:
- Close the Mexican revolving door, which keeps illegal immigration flowing; and
- Send an unmistakably blunt message to other would-be illegals: “The same fate awaits you.”
Although this might seem a far-fetched proposal, it could be easily carried out by the United States Air Force. According to its website: “The C-5 Galaxy is one of the largest aircraft in the world and the largest airlifter in the Air Force inventory.
“The C-5 has a greater capacity than any other airlifter. It [can] carry 36 standard pallets and 81 troops simultaneously.
C-5 transport plane
“[It can also carry] any of the Army’s air-transportable combat equipment, including such bulky items as the 74-ton mobile scissors bridge.
“It can also carry outsize and oversize cargo over intercontinental ranges and can take off or land in relatively short distances.”
The C-5 Galaxy’s maximum cargo weight: 281,001 pounds
Click here: C-5 A/B/C Galaxy and C-5M Super Galaxy > U.S. Air Force > Fact Sheet Display
Instead of being stuffed with cargo, these planes could be stuffed wall-to-wall with illegal aliens.
The United States Air Force has a proud history of successfully providing America’s soldiers—and allies—with the supplies they need.
From June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949, only the Berlin Airlift stood between German citizens and starvation.
The Soviet Union had blocked the railway, road, and canal access to the Berlin sectors under allied control. Their goal: Force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to supply Berlin with food, fuel, and aid.
This would have given the Soviets control over the entire city.
Air forces from the United States, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa flew over 200,000 flights in one year, dropping more than 4,700 tons of necessities daily to the besiged Berliners.
The success of the Berlin Airlift raised American prestige and embarrassed the Soviets, who lifted the blockade.
The Berlin Airlift
A similar triumph came during the Yom Kippur War after Egypt and Syria attacked Israel without warning on October 6, 1973.
A Watergate-embattled President Richard Nixon ordered “Operation Nickel Grass” to deliver urgently-needed weapons and supplies to Israel.
For 32 days, the Air Force shipped 22,325 tons of ammunition, artillery, tanks and other supplies. These proved invaluable in saving Israel from destruction.
So the mass deportation of millions of illegal aliens lies within America’s technological capability. The only uncertainty: Is Trump willing to give that order?
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL O'REILLY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, EXECUTIONS, FACEBOOK, FOX NEWS, FRED TRUMP, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HILLARY CLINTON, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-II, KIM JONG-UN, MORNING JOE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2018 at 12:16 am
“And I have to say, I don’t understand Donald [Trump’s] bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
The speaker was Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, addressing an audience in San Diego, California, on June 2, 2016.
“He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength.
“He said, ‘You’ve got to give Kim Jong Un credit’ for taking over North Korea—something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie.
“And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he’d give him an A. Now, I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants,” said Clinton.
Hillary Clinton
To many people, it’s the ultimate odd-couple: The lifelong Communist and former KGB officer (Putin) walking arm-in-arm with the billionaire, publicity-hungry capitalist.
First Putin:
“He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Now Trump:
“It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”
Donald Trump
Actually, it’s not uncommon for dictators to admire one another—as the case of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler nicely illustrates.
After Hitler launched a blood-purge of his own private Stormtroopers army on June 30, 1934, Stalin exclaimed: “Hitler, what a great man! That is the way to deal with your political opponents!”
And Hitler was equally admiring of Stalin’s notorious ruthlessness: “After the victory over Russia,” he told his intimates, “it would be a good idea to get Stalin to run the country, with German oversight, of course. He knows better than anyone how to handle the Russians.”
Appearing on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump said: “Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant,’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia.”
The host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin: “Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?”
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
When Trump praised Putin as a leader—“unlike what we have in this country”—he undoubtedly meant then-President Barack Obama.
And, as President, Trump has continued to worship the ground dictators cover with corpses. Asked by a Fox news anchor why he praised murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, Trump replied:
“He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father …if you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.
“Anybody that takes over a situation like he did, at 26 years of age, and is able to run it, and run it tough—I don’t say he was nice or I don’t say anything about it—he ran it.”
In short: Kim must be doing something right because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying because of it.
Kim Jong-Un
Blue House (Republic of Korea) [KOGL (http://www.kogl.or.kr/open/info/license_info/by.do)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Actually, for all their differences in appearance and nationality, Trump shares at least two similarities with Kim.
First, both of them got a big boost into wealth and power from their fathers.
- Trump’s father, Fred Trump, a real estate mogul, reportedly gave Donald $200 million to enter the real estate business. It was this sum that formed the basis for Trump’s eventual rise to wealth and fame—and the Presidency.
- Kim’s father was Kim Jong-Il, who ruled North Korea as dictator from 1994 to 2011. When his father died in 2011, Kim Jong-Un immediately succeeded him, having been groomed for years to do so.
Second, both Trump and Kim have brutally tried to stamp out any voices that contradict their own.
- Trump has constantly attacked freedom of the press, even labeling it “the enemy of the American people.” He has also slandered his critics on Twitter—which has refused to enforce its “Terms of Service” and revoke his account.
- Kim has attacked his critics with firing squads and prison camps. (Amnesty International estimates that more than 200,000 North Koreans are now suffering in labor camps throughout the country.)
During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”
Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Thus, Trump—-elected to lead the “free world”—believes, like all dictators:
- People are evil everywhere—so who am I to judge who’s better or worse? All that counts is gaining and holding onto power.
- And if you can do that, it doesn’t matter how you do so.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Humor, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 15, 2018 at 12:24 am
Many Republican strategists feared that, after Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton had a lock on the White House for 2016.
And the base of the Republican Party continued to demand candidates who were increasingly Fascistic.
The top officials of the Republican Party decided that science held the answer: They would use cloning to create the perfect, unbeatable Presidential candidate.
They directed scientists from the National Institute of Health to resurrect—via DNA samples—several past, hugely popular Republican leaders.
The first of these was Abraham Lincoln: Destroyer of slavery and defender of the Union. The scientists then introduced him to a sample of Republican voters to gauge his current popularity.
The test audience erupted—but not in the way party officials expected.
“Race-mixer!”
“He’s the reason we have all these damn civil rights laws.”
“He destroyed states’ rights!”
To head off a riot, the scientists rushed the startled Lincoln-clone off the stage.
Then they introduced their next resurrected candidate: Theodore Roosevelt, the trust-busting conservationist.
Again, the test-audience erupted:
“Tree-hugger! Tree-hugger!”
“He’s the guy who broke up the big corporations—lousy Socialist!”
Startled Republican officials hustled the Roosevelt-clone out of the building.
Finally, they brought out their third choice for victory: A cloned Ronald Reagan.
“Not him! He legalized abortion in California when he was Governor!”
“Yeah, and his first wife, Jane Wyman, divorced him. We can’t have a divorced guy in the White House!”
Desperate, Republican leaders went into a huddle.
“What are we going to do?” asked one. “Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan were our most popular Presidents.”
“Yeah, but that was in the past,” said another. “We need a candidate who speaks to our base today.”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. But it’s a bit radical. The guy I have in mind wasn’t actually born in the United States.”
“So what?”
“That would violate the Constitution.”
“Screw the Constitution. You know what our friends in the oil industry say: Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality?”
So the Republicans again ordered the scientists to return to work one last time.
When the last resurrected candidate was presented to the test-audience, the crowd rose as one, shouting: “That’s him! That’s him!”
“The one we’ve been waiting for!”
“The one who really speaks for us!”
“He’s totally anti-abortion and he hates upity women!”
“Yeah—he hates Socialists, gays and nonwhites, and he really believes in a strong military!”
“All right, all right, I vill do it,” said the clone-candidate. “But the last time I led people to greatness, they proved unworthy of me.
“So I vill do it again—but only under von condition!”
“Yes, yes!” screamed the test-audience. “Anything you want! What is it?”
“Ziss time….”
….no more Mr. Nice Guy!”
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REPUBLICANS: WEAPONIZING HATRED: PART ONE (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 6, 2018 at 12:11 amOn June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white high school dropout, gunned down three black men and six black women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At 21, Roof was unemployed, dividing his time between playing video games and taking drugs.
Dylann Roof
The signs of Roof’s malignant racism were evident long before he turned mass murderer:
The evidence makes clear that Roof’s slaughter was racially motivated. Yet no 2016 Republican Presidential candidate dared acknowledge it:
But Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund left no doubt as to what—and who—was ultimately responsible for this crime: Racism and Republicans.
In a June 19, 2015 editorial—published two days after the massacre—Lund noted: “This [crime] is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political.
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it.
“Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order.
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Click here: The Charleston Shooter: Racist, Violent, and Yes – Political | Rolling Stone
On December 15, 2016, Dylann Roof was convicted of 33 Federal hate crime charges. On January 11, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He remains on Death Row to this day.
Yet the leadership of the Republican party whose hate-filled rhetoric inspired Root escaped indictment—and even widespread condemnation.
The evidence that Republicans have weaponized hatred—with deadly results—was on display long before Dylann Roof opened fire on “uppity blacks” praying in their own church.
Consider:
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. After a miraculous recovery, she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50% of her vision in both eyes.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
She vowed to return to her former Congressional duties, but was forced to resign for health reasons in 2012.
Giffords was only one victim of a shooting spree that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.
Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.
Although the actual shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was immediately arrested, those who fanned the flames of political violence that consumed 19 people that day have remained unpunished.
Consider the circumstances behind the shootings:
John Roll is Arizona’s chief federal judge. Appointed in 2006, he wins acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.
In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.
In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.
Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.”
Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.
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