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TAKING OFF THE GLOVES AT THE FBI: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2022 at 12:10 am

Donald Trump’s followers are doing what even the Mafia has never dared: Threatening the lives of FBI agents and openly challenging the authority of the Justice Department.

On August 8, the FBI, under a search warrant issued by the Justice Department, seized 11 sets of classified documents from the former President’s home at Mar-a-Lago. These included four sets that were classified as “top secret,” according to the unsealed search warrant.

Since then, Trump’s legions of fanatical Right-wing followers have vented their fury at a wide range of their self-declared enemies: President Joe Biden, Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department—-and especially the FBI.

On August 12, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security [DHS] issued a joint Intelligence bulletin warning of the increased threats aimed at federal law enforcement agencies.

Federal Bureau of Investigation's seal

FBI seal

“Since 8 August 2022, the FBI and DHS have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial, law enforcement, and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant.

“The FBI and DHS have also observed the personal identifying information of possible targets of violence, such as home addresses and identification of family members, disseminated online as additional targets.”

“These threats are occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites, web forums, video sharing platforms, and image boards. The FBI and DHS would like to ensure that law enforcement, court, and government personnel are aware of the range of threats and criminal and violent incidents.  

“The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for ‘civil war’ and ‘armed rebellion.'”

Even the Mafia—with one or two exceptions—has never threatened the lives of FBI agents. And when individual mobsters did, they found the consequences frightening.

In  April, 1963, four New York mobsters knocked FBI agent John Foley to the ground, and then severely beat and kicked him.  Foley had been conducting surveillance at the Brooklyn funeral of Carmine “The Doctor” Lombardozzi, a capo in the Gambino Mafia Family. 

The FBI retaliated by launching an all-out war against the Gambinos. Agents leaned on the cartel’s boss, underboss, counselor and lieutenants. The Bureau also intensified the use of illegal electronic surveillance (wiretaps and hidden microphones) against the mobsters.

American Mafia - Wikipedia

Map of Mafia families

Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime syndicate, unwittingly informed a hidden microphone about how the FBI brutally drove home the message to “boss of all bosses” Carlo Gambino: 

BRUNO: “They [the FBI] went to Carlo and named all his capos [lieutenants] to him. The FBI asked him: “Did you change the laws in your family, that you could hit FBI men, punch and kick them? Well, this is the test—that if you change the laws, and now you are going to hit FBI men, every time we pick up one of your people we are going to break their heads for them.’

“And, really, they picked up our guy, they almost killed him, the FBI. They don’t do that, you know. But they picked up one of his fellows and crippled him. They said, ‘This is an example. Now, the next time anyone lays a hand on an FBI man, that’s just a warning. There’s nothing else we have got to tell you.'”

Word traveled quickly through the nationwide organized crime network—and its leaders decreed there should be no further assaults on FBI agents.

The FBI may be gearing up to declare war on the radical Right. And it could be done the same way the FBI destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1960s.

Klansmen had shot, lynched and bombed their way across the Deep South, especially in Alabama and Mississippi. Many Southern sheriffs and police chiefs were Klan sympathizers, if not outright members and accomplices.

On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson called J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI, and ordered an all-out investigation: “I want you to have the same kind of Intelligence [on the Klan] that you have on the communists.”

Related image

Poster for missing civil rights workers

For decades, Hoover had refused to tackle white hate groups. And, in truth, no President had been willing to give him the order to do so. But now a President had given him such an order.

In August, the FBI uncovered the bodies of the three missing civil rights activists—Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney.

On September 2, 1964, the Bureau launched a full-blown counterintelligence program against the Klan—COINTELPRO—WHITE HATE in FBI-speak. 

Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the FBI, chronicles the methods used by the Bureau:

“WHITE-HATE intensified in the fall of 1964. It involved all the techniques in the FBI’s long-running attack on the Left. Once a week….FBI agents interrogated all known members of the White Knights of the KKK, blaming other Klansmen for being snitches and naming names, sowing deep suspicion among Klan members. Few knew who was an informer and who was not.”

TAKING OFF THE GLOVES AT THE FBI: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 29, 2022 at 12:10 am

After taking office as President, Donald Trump openly waged war on his own Justice Department—and especially its chief investigative agency, the FBI.

Related image

FBI headquarters

Among his attacks on federal law enforcers:

  • Fired James Comey, the FBI director pursuing an investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 Presidential race to ensure Trump’s election.     
  • Threatened to fire Independent Counsel Robert Mueller, who continued that investigation after he fired Comey.
  • Repeatedly attacked—verbally and on Twitter—his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.
  • (Sessions did so after the press revealed that, during the 2016 race, he twice met secretly with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.)
  • Repeatedly attacked the integrity of the FBI, raising the possibility of his firing more of its senior leadership for investigating his ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
  • Forced House Republicans to release a memo falsely accusing the FBI of pursuing a vendetta against him.

But the FBI could have refused to meekly accept such assaults.

A February 2 episode of the popular CBS police drama, “Blue Bloods,” offered a vivid lesson on bureaucratic self-defense against tyrants.

Related image

A shootout erupts in a crowded pub between a gunman and NYPD officers. Results: One dead gunman and one wounded bystander.

Problem: The bystander is an aide to New York Governor Martin Mendez.

Mendez visits One Police Plaze, NYPD headquarters, for a private chat with Commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck). From the outset, he’s aggressive, rude and threatening.

MENDEZ:  I know you guys like to whitewash officer-involved shootings.

REAGAN: I do not.

MENDEZ: That’s not going to happen here. I want the cop who shot my guy fired and charged.

REAGAN: If the grand jury indicts, my officer could be terminated.

MENDEZ:  We all want to protect our people, but mine come first.

Governor Mendez leaves Commissioner Reagan’s office.  Later, he returns:

MENDEZ:  We’ve got a serious problem.

REAGAN:  Why? The grand jury declined to indict my officer.

MENDEZ: Your cop fired into a crowded room.

REAGAN: She returned fire, took out the shooter and likely saved lives.

MENDEZ: What are you going to do?

REAGAN: Our Internal Affairs investigation supports the grand jury’s finding, so the case is closed.

MENDEZ: Either you fire this cop, or I’ll order the Attorney General to investigate every questionable police shooting in the past 10 years and hold public hearings out loud and lights up.

REAGAN: Everybody loves a circus.

MENDEZ: Except the guy who’s got to shovel up afterwards.

At the end of the episode, a third—and final—meeting occurs in a restaurant between Reagan and Mendez.

MENDEZ: Have you dumped the cop who shot my guy?

REAGAN: No.

MENDEZ: Bad news.

REAGAN: Depends on what you compare it to. It turns out that your aide wasn’t drinking alone the night he was shot.

MENDEZ: So what? He’s single.

REAGAN: He was with a married woman.

MENDEZ: That’s on her, not on him.

REAGAN: Except she is married to his boss, your Chief of Staff.

MENDEZ: Sheesh!

REAGAN: Turns out this has been going on for over a year.

MENDEZ:  So what are we doing?

REAGAN:  If this gets out, the circus comes to Albany [where the governor has his office].

MENDEZ: Who else knows?

REAGAN:  Right now it’s safe in the notebook of my lead detective. Whether or not it finds its way into an arrest report that’s subject to a Freedom of Information Act request—that’s a judgment call.

MENDEZ: Your judgment?

REAGAN: Yes.

MENDEZ: And if my investigation goes away?

REAGAN: Neither of us is shoveling up after the circus.

MENDEZ: I have your word on that?

REAGAN: Yes.

MENDEZ: You have a good evening, Commissioner.

J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary FBI director, used Realpolitik to ensure his reign for 48 years.

J. Edgar Hoover

As William C. Sullivan, the onetime director of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division, revealed after Hoover’s death in 1972:

“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator, he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter.

“‘But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”

Donald Trump has long pursued a strategy of intimidation. But when people have refused to be cowed by his threats, he’s backed off.

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, more than a dozen women accused Trump of sexual misconduct, ranging from inappropriate comments to assault.

Trump responded: “The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

Yet he didn’t file a single slander suit.

Similarly, when New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Trump for running a fraudulent university, Trump initially said he would fight the charge.

Instead, he settled the case by paying $25 million to compensate the 3,700 students Trump University had defrauded.

“You never have to frame anyone,” says Governor Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1946 novel, All the King’s Men. “Because the truth is always sufficient.”

HUMANITY CAN PREVAIL WHEN VIOLENCE HAS FAILED

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 26, 2022 at 1:26 am

Two stories—one fictitious, the other historical.

Story #1: In the 1961 historical epic, “El Cid,” Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as “The Lord,” besieges the Spanish city of Valencia, which has been captured by the Moors.

Months have passed. The city’s population is starving and without hope.

Then, one day, El Cid (Charlton Heston) calls out over the city’s walls: “Soldiers and citizens of Valencia! We are not your enemy! Ben Yusof [the powerful emir who plans to conquer Spain with an invading army] is your enemy! 

“Join us! We bring you peace! We bring you freedom! We bring you bread!”

Amazon.com: El Cid Poster Movie 30x40 Charlton Heston Sophia Loren ...

Suddenly El Cid’s Spanish catapults spring into action—loaded not with stones but loaves of bread. The loaves land in the city’s streets, where starving citizens and soldiers greedily devour them. 

Then those citizens attack the bodyguards of the emir ruling Valencia—and throw the emir himself from a high wall. 

The army of El Cid marches peacefully into the city.

Story #2: In Book Three, Chapter 22 of his classic masterwork, The Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli offers the following: “An Act of Humanity Prevailed More With the Falacians Than All the Power of Rome.”

Marcus Furius Camillus, a Roman general, was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it. A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city decided to ingratiate himself with Camillus by leading those children into the Roman camp. 

Presenting them to Camillus the teacher said to him, “By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.”

Camillus not only declined the offer but went one step further. He ordered the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back. Then Camillus had a rod put into the hands of each of the children and directed them to whip the teacher all the way back to the city. 

Upon learning this, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense. 

Summing up the meaning of this, Machiavelli writes: “This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity.  It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.

“…History also shows us how much the people desire to find such virtues in great men, and how much they are extolled by historians and biographers of princes….Amongst these, Xenophon takes great pains to show how many victories, how much honor and fame, Cyrus gained by his humanity and affability, and by his not having exhibited a single instance of pride, cruelty or luxuriousness, nor of any of the other vices that are apt to stain the lives of men.”

Quote by Machiavelli: “Necessity is what impels men to take action ...

Niccolo Machiavelli

These stories—the first the product of a movie screenwriter’s imagination, the second recorded by a master political scientist and historian—remain highly relevant today.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. 

Cities across the United States erupted in mass protests over Floyd’s death—and police killings of black victims generally. Most of these demonstrations proved peaceful.

But cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Donald Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”

To drive home his point, Trump ordered police and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.  

The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo opportunity outside the church.

“I imposed a curfew at 7pm,” tweeted Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. “A full 25 minutes before the curfew & w/o provocation, federal police used munitions on peaceful protestors in front of the White House, an act that will make the job of @DCPoliceDept officers more difficult. Shameful!”

Contrast that with the example of Sheriff Christopher Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan. 

Walk with us!': Sheriff in Michigan shows solidarity to protestors ...

Sheriff Christopher Swanson

Confronting a mass of aroused demonstrators in Flint Township on May 30, Swanson responded: “We want to be with you all for real.”

So Swanson took his helmet off. His deputies laid their batons down.

“I want to make this a parade, not a protest. So, you tell us what you need to do.”

“Walk with us!” the protesters shouted.

“Let’s walk, let’s walk,” said Swanson. 

Cheering and applause resounded.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Swanson said as he and the cheering crowd proceeded. “Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.”

And Swanson and his fellow officers walked in sympathy with the protesters.

No rioting followed. 

RECRUITING SUPERSTITION TO ATTACK ABORTION

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on August 22, 2022 at 12:13 am

In the 1960 movie, “David and Goliath,” the hero and his girlfriend are sitting in a cave during a thunderstorm. David assures her of his undying love, and they share a passionate kiss.

Then, amidst the sound of thunder, she says, “I must go—I cannot tarry.” 

David tries to talk her out of it, but she rushes out of the cave into a nearby flock of sheep—and is struck dead by lightning.

David is horrified—and grief-stricken: “Why, Lord, why?”

In the ancient world, lightning bolts were seen as the arrows of Zeus—or Yahweh (the Hebrew name of God). There could be no clearer sign of Heaven’s anger at a particular person that s/he was struck by lightning.

Today, we know that lightning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory, is “a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere between clouds, the air, or the ground.”

At least, those who believe in science—not superstition—know this.

And if you are the tallest object around, or are close to water or trees or metallic objects, you are likely to be struck. It doesn’t matter whether you’re good or evil.

Lightning 

Yet millions of superstitious Americans continue to believe that their lives are ruled by forces of Good (as symbolized by God) or Evil (as symbolized by Satan). 

One of these is Assemblywoman Shannon Lee Grove, who represents Kern County in Central California. A Republican, she served as the minority leader of the California State Senate from 2019 to 2021.

Grove has a unique explanation for California’s worsening drought: Climate change/global warming has nothing to do with it.  It’s God’s wrath over legalized abortion.

Speaking before the California ProLife Legislative Banquet held in Sacramento on June 8, 2015, Grove said:

“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor [Rick] Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” she told the audience. “It rained that night.  Now God has his hold on California.”

Grove was referring to House Bill 2, a Texas bill banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, four weeks earlier than the standard set by Roe v. Wade. It was based on the unproven assertion that fetuses can feel pain after 20 weeks.

In addition, the bill: 

  • Required all clinics to become ambulatory surgical centers, even if they did not provide surgical abortions; and
  • Mandated that abortion clinics have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility.

Shannon Grove.jpg

 Shannon Lee Grove

“This is the infallible word of God,” Grove said, holding a Bible above her head as attendees clapped. “I fear Him more than I fear anyone.”

Among her audience at the Grand Hotel were anti-abortion activists and clergy, including Catholic Bishops for Life, Pray California, Californians for Life and the California Republican Assembly. 

Apparently, God still has his hold on Texas, even though Texans passed a rabidly anti-abortion bill. 

Almost all of Texas is facing a severe level of drought. Only a few parts of the state—such as El Paso—aren’t abnormally dry.

The website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the drought was primarily caused by natural climate variability and climate change caused by human activity. 

xxx

Drought

Asked specifically about her comments, Grove refused to expound on the relationship between abortion and drought.

But on June 11, 2015, she issued a statement on her Facebook page: “I believe—and most Americans believe—-that God’s hand is in the affairs of man, and certainly was in the formation of this country.

Is this drought caused by God? Nobody knows. But biblical history shows a consequence to man’s actions.

“We do know for sure that California’s water shortage crisis has been compounded by liberal politicians’ poor decisions—not properly managing our water resources and refusing to build water storage for decades.”  

Clearly embarrassed at being unable to prove her own statement, Grove retreated to a safer line of attack: Drought is the fault of “liberal politicians.” 

Even some anti-abortion activists didn’t agree with Grove’s theory. 

Pro-Choice Kern County called her comments “absolute lunacy” and created a mock-up of a T-shirt: “I made a desert with my abortion and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

Grove isn’t alone in believing that God’s displeasure lies behind natural disasters.

Another is Bill Koenig, the conservative editor of World Watch Daily. God, he asserts, is righteously enraged at California’s acceptance of same-sex marriage and abortion.

“We’ve got a state that over and over again will go against the word of God, that will continually take positions on marriage and abortion and on a lot of things that are just completely opposed to the scriptures.”

Abortion isn’t mentioned as a sin in the Bible. Yet it’s a ready culprit for natural disasters—in the sermons of fundamentalist preachers.

Evangelist Pat Robertson blamed abortion for Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

And Steve Lefamine, the director of Columbia Christians for Life in South Carolina, agreed with Robertson that abortion caused Hurricane Katrina.

In an interview with the Washington Post, he claimed that when he viewed the full-color satellite map of the hurricane, he saw an eight-week-old fetus in the image.

FACEBOOK VS. THE FIRST AMENDMENT, PRIVACY AND FREE ELECTIONS: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 17, 2022 at 12:10 am

As it now operates, Facebook poses a direct threat to the First Amendment, the privacy of its users and democratic elections.

Facebook is the world’s largest social media company, with 2.936 billion users by April, 2022. Its social and political influence on the United States is enormous. According to its profile on Wikipedia:

“The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.

“Posts originating from the Facebook page of Breitbart News, a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.

“Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.” 

To which can be added the following:

  • I was sentenced to “Facebook Jail” for two posts. The first of these stated: “Americans are historical illiterates.” This was labeled “hate speech and inferiority.” The fact that the distinguished historian David McCullough had said exactly the same meant nothing to Facebook.
  • Comedians have long gained laughs at Americans’ historical illiteracy: When Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show, he often did “Jaywalking Tours” where he asked people about seemingly well-known historical events. It was common to see people say the Civil War happened in the 1940s (instead of 1861-1865) or to believe that the Texans won at the battle of the Alamo.
  • A second post deleted showed a group of heavily-armed Proud Boys standing around a cross.  Above this I had posted the caption: “Proud Boys posing with their latest victim.” This was labeled as “hate speech.” 
  • Since this post was bluntly critical of the Proud Boys, the question emerges: Does criticizing the Proud Boys—Fascists who played a major role during the January 6 attempted coup against the Capitol Building—constitute “hate speech”?   

Proud Boys 

Anthony Crider, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

  • I am currently banned from Facebook for posting the following: A Facebook member had posted this solution for achieving universal peace: All enlisted members of all the world’s militaries should refuse to serve. In 2002-3, I had watched President George W. Bush lie the country into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war in Iraq. Thus, I felt the poster’s “solution” required a serious dose of realism. 
  • So I posted a meme below it that contained an image of Herman Goring—chief of the German Luftwaffe (air force) during World War II. As a convicted war criminal, he should, I felt, have insight into how easy it is to lead a nation into war. And he did: “Naturally, the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in every country.”
  • No sooner had I posted this than I found myself once again accused of violating Facebook’s “Community Standards.” As in past cases, Facebook did not deign to state, specifically, what standards I had violated, or how the post endangered other Facebook members. I simply found myself blocked from Facebook.

25+ Best Hermann Goering Memes | Goering Memes, His Memes, Are Memes

  • Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, disclosed tens of thousands of Facebook’s internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Wall Street Journal in 2021. She testified before Congress that Facebook promotes conflict to increase its readership and keep them reading—and buying. So the comment I made fell exactly into that category of exciting controversy. 

People who libel and/or harass others should be banned from social media. It’s precisely because Twitter refuses to do so that its reputation is fatally tainted.

But posting a comment that is based on accurate history should not qualify as hate speech. And none of the examples I have cited fit that definition.

Through its worldwide membership, Facebook exerts an influence that rivals—if not exceeds—that of most government institutions. Its greatest infamy: Allowing Russian trolls to play a lethal role in electing Donald Trump President in 2016. And no doubt they are preparing to do so again in 2024. 

In a highly polarized political environment, Mark Zuckerberg holds the unique distinction of having infuriated both Democrats and Republicans during his appearances before Congress. His secret: The overweening arrogance he routinely displays to those he considers lesser mortals. His motto is: ““Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”

It’s long past time for those at the legislative level to show him that some things—such as the First Amendment, the right to privacy and elections free of foreign influence—should not be broken.  And that there is a high price to pay for those who do.

FACEBOOK VS. THE FIRST AMENDMENT, PRIVACY AND FREE ELECTIONS: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2022 at 12:10 am

There is an urgent need for states—and especially the Federal government—to impose serious regulatory controls on Facebook.

Facebook is the world’s largest social media company, with 2.936 billion users by April, 2022. Its social and political influence on the United States is enormous. According to its profile on Wikipedia:

“The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.

“Posts originating from the Facebook page of Breitbart News, a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.

“Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.”

Meta Platforms Headquarters Menlo Park California.jpg

Facebook / Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California 

LPS.1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

To which should be added the following:

  • Facebook operates as virtually a law unto itself, arbitrarily deciding which posts violate its “Community Standards” and deleting them (and their posters) without warning and right to appeal.
  • No details are ever given as to what about the post, specifically, posed a threat to other Facebook members.
  • Facebook claims that its users have the right to appeal: “You can disagree with the decision if you think we got it wrong.”
  • But then Facebook declares: “We usually offer the chance to request a review and follow up if we got the decision wrong. We have fewer reviewers available right now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. We’re trying hard to priorities reviewing content with the most potential for harm. This means we may not be able to follow up with you, though your feedback helps us do better in the future.” 
  • Using COVID as an excuse to avoid responsible behavior is despicable. If Facebook is going to ban people for supposedly violating its “Community Standards,” there is a moral obligation—if not a legal one—to give them a chance to share their side of the story.
  • Facebook revenues have made its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, worth $71.5 billion. But Facebook refuses to provide its users with an 800 number so they can appeal directly to the Censorship Committee and share their reasons for posting the comments they did.   

Mark Zuckerberg F8 2019 Keynote (32830578717) (cropped).jpg

Mark Zuckerberg 

Anthony Quintano from Westminster, United States, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

  • Nor does Facebook provide even an Instant Messaging capability, so members can do so. 
  • Facebook’s refusal to provide a contact number for its members exposes them to potential fraud. National Public Radio published a January 31, 2017 article on “Searching for ‘Facebook Customer Service’ Can Lead To a Scam.”
  • “According to Google data: “‘Facebook customer service’ gets searched, on average, about 27,000 times a month in the U.S.” Yet on its own “Help Community” page, Facebook admits: “Facebook doesn’t offer a phone number for support.” 
  • Nor do Facebook’s executives deign to respond to letters sent to them. I have sent letters to its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and to Sheryl Sandberg, a member of its board of directors. Neither had the courtesy to reply.
  • Many of those I know on Facebook have been censored for posts that criticize Donald Trump. Apparently, “freedom of expression” exists only for those who support a man who staged an illegal coup to overturn a totally legitimate election.
  • Members can be banned from Facebook for posting entirely legitimate news stories. One such story described how Texas Congressman Joe Burton had sent a series of smarmy emails to numerous women—while posing as a paragon of “family values.”
  • The post was removed and its poster was sent the following message: “We removed content you posted. We removed this content because it doesn’t follow the Facebook Community Standards.” Then the member who posted it found himself blocked from Facebook.

facebook -community-standards-thou-shalt-not-have-personal-opinions-thou-50500808-1.png

  • One Facebook member posted an innocuous anti-Trump cartoon: A group of children are lined up at a house on Halloween. A woman at the door says: “Oh, look. We have a pirate, a witch and a Trump supporter [a boy wearing a white sheet as a ghost].” The post was removed and the poster blocked from Facebook:
  • Many Facebook users have found themselves punished after Facebook’s star chamber censors found a post they didn’t like from four years earlier.
  • Facebook’s arbitrary and punitive actions are so notorious they have become grist for countless memes—some of which are hilarious: “Warning: You have violated a rule we haven’t  made up yet. Because you’re a known troublemaker you’ve been banned for 30 days. Thank you for using Facebook, have a nice day.”

Our Favourite Banned Facebook Memes - The Inappropriate Gift Co

  • I was sentenced to “Facebook Jail” for two posts. The first of these stated: “Americans are historical illiterates.” This was labeled “hate speech and inferiority.” The fact that the distinguished historian David McCullough had said exactly the same meant nothing to Facebook.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion, only comments celebrating the ignorance of ignorant people will be considered acceptable on Facebook.

DIFFERENT LIVES–AND DIFFERENT LEGACIES

In Entertainment, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2022 at 12:12 am

Two deaths. Two entirely different legacies.

The first—of Rush Limbaugh—came on February 17, 2021.  

The second—of Olivia Newton-John—came on August 10, 2022.

Limbaugh hosted The Rush Limbaugh Show, which was nationally syndicated on AM and FM radio stations from 1988 until his death in 2021.

Rush Limbaugh

With 15.5 million listeners, Limbaugh’s radio show was the most popular one in the United States. He became one of the most prominent Right wing voices in the country during the 1990s. 

Among his targets: Blacks; liberals; Democrats; gays; lesbians; feminists (whom he called “feminazis”); consent in sexual relations; environmentalism; climate change; abortion rights; Barack Obama; the need for masking and vaccinations against COVID-19.

Among the personalities and causes he championed: The 2003 Iraq war; torture at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison; eliminating taxes on the wealthy; smoking; Donald Trump; 

His attack on Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student who testified before Congress on February 23, 2012, was typical Limbaugh. 

Fluke said that insurance companies should cover the costs of birth control. As a student at a Jesuit campus that refuses to provide insurance coverage for contraception, birth control costs can be as high as $3,000 during the three years a woman attends law school.

Limbaugh’s response: “So Ms. Fluke and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it.  And I’ll tell you what it is.  We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Sandra Fluke was among the millions who didn’t mourn when Limbaugh died at 70 on February 17, 2021, of lung cancer caused by a lifetime of cigar smoking.

If the legacy of Rush Limbaugh was darkness personified, the legacy of Olivia Newton-John was one of sunshine and joy. 

Olivia Newton-John

Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

She dominated the pop charts of the 1970s and ’80s with mega hits “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “I Honestly Love You,” “Have You Never Been Mellow?” “Magic,” and “Physical.” 

Vanity Fair described her thus:  “Her angelic beam matched with a clear, sweet-yet-supple soprano was vocal satin, giving her a versatile edge in singing feel-good numbers across genres and styles.” 

But her biggest splash came in “Grease,” the top-grossing movie for 1978, where she co-starred with John Travolta. Her role as Sandy, an Australian exchange student, brought her international acclaim and further propelled her musical career. The movie’s soundtrack remains one of the world’s best-selling albums.   

“I don’t think anyone could have imagined a movie would go on almost 40 years and would still be popular and people would still be talking to me about it all the time and loving it,” Newton-John said in 2017.

She won four Grammy awards and racked up five number-one hits and another 10 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Having sold more than 100 million records, Newton-John is one of the most popular singers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

“I love to sing, it’s all I know how to do,” she told CNN in 2017. “That’s all I’ve ever done since I was 15, so it’s my life. I feel very grateful that I can still do it and people still come to see me.”

An animal-rights advocate, she cancelled a 1978 concert tour of Japan to protest the slaughter of dolphins caught in tuna fishing nets.

Among the charities and foundations she supported: Cure Breast Cancer, Red Cross, Healthy Child Healthy World, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was a performer on the 1979 Music for UNICEF Concert for the UN’s International Year of the Child, televised worldwide.

Behind her bright smile and sunny disposition lay the shadow of tragedy. In 2005 Newton-John’s then-boyfriend, Patrick McDermott, disappeared at sea while on a fishing trip off the coast of California.

“It’s very hard to live with that,” she told CNN’s Larry King in 2006. “It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve been through a lot of things.”

In 1992, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She recovered, but for 25 years she lived with the constant threat of its return.

“I draw strength from the millions of women who have faced this challenge successfully,” she said in a statement. “This has been detected early because I’ve had regular examinations, so I encourage other women to do the same.”

Then, in May 2017, she announced that the cancer had returned and metastasized to her lower back. 

Asked during a February 2021 interview if she had contemplated her own death, she replied, “I have quite a few times,” adding it was “sooner than I would have wanted. I mean—we all know we are going to die. I think we spend our lives probably much in denial of it.”

The title of her 2019 autobiography, Don’t Stop Believin’, summed up her attitude toward life.

On August 8, 2022, Olivia Newton-John died from cancer at her home in the Santa Ynez Valley of California. She was 73. 

Euripides, the Greek  tragedian, was right: When good men dietheir goodness does not perish, but lives though they are gone. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies and is buried with them.”

REPUBLICANS: LINCOLN IS DEAD–LONG LIVE BOOTH!

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 11, 2022 at 12:10 am

It’s the racism and sexism, stupid!

That’s how Lilliana Mason, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute, sees the reason for the animosity between Republicans and Democrats.

“Part of the reason that partisan animosity between Democrats and Republicans is so terrible right now is because what the parties are fighting over are really matters of racial and gender equality—the traditional social hierarchy—and whether we’re going to go back to being a country where White Christian men were always at the top of that hierarchy or become a more egalitarian, multiethnic democracy.” 

Lilliana Mason

Lilliana Mason

Referring to the book she co-wrote with fellow political scientist Nathan P. Kalmoe, Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy, she said:

“What we found in our data was that, particularly on the right, Republicans who really hated Democrats the most were also the highest in racial resentment and sexism.

“And those who hated Democrats the least were those who were lowest in racial resentment and sexism. Actually, in our data, racial resentment is one of the most powerful predictors of Republicans hating Democrats.”

Once again—as in the years leading to the Civil War—it’s the South trying to impose a slavocracy mentality and control over the rest of the nation. 

From 1860 to 1865, the South—Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia—produced the greatest case of mass treason in America’s history.

Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories

Union (blue) and Confederate (red) states: 1860 – 1865

According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect.” 

“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.

“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.

It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North refused to do. 

Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln President in 1860.

An iconic photograph of a bearded Abraham Lincoln showing his head and shoulders.

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country. 

Southerners found all of this intolerable.

On April 12, 1861—just over a month since Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4—Southern batteries opened fire on Union Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, triggering the Civil War.

More than 750,000.Americans died—when the population of the United States stood at 31,443,321.

Four years later, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Now Southerners are trying to win through political manipulation what they couldn’t by open treason.  

Red states are adopting Fascistic social policies on such issues as abortion, gay rights and classroom censorship. And they are trying to prevent the federal government or their own largest metro areas to resist those policies.

In the case of abortion, Red states are not only outlawing it within their own borders but trying to prevent states where abortion is legal from providing that service.

Thus Republicans, who began as the party of freedom, have mutated into the party now trying to end it.

According to Donald Kettl, the former dean of the public policy school at the University of Maryland:

“The only time I can recall in American history even remotely like this [divergence] was after the Civil War when the separate but equal doctrine began to emerge” across the South as a backlash against the attempts of the 13th, 14th and 15th Constitutional amendments to ensure equality for the freed slaves.

CNN Correspondent Ronald Brownstein warns of this development: 

“The real threat in the red state effort to set their own course may be less an advantage for one side or another than a challenge to the nation’s underlying cohesion. 

“As red states grow more aggressive about going their own way, while working to preempt challenges from above (the federal government) or below (blue local governments), they are testing how much divergence the nation’s fundamental cohesion can take before it begins to unravel.”

Twenty-five states voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.  Of these:

  • Twenty of these states rank in the bottom 25 of those who hold at least a four-year college degree;
  • Most fall into the top half when states are ranked by the share of their population that are White Christians or who own guns;
  • Twenty-three rank in the top 26 states that emit the most carbon from their energy sector;
  • These states have long sought to reverse the “rights revolution” of the last 60 years—on such issues as abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception.

Today’s Republican party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It has become the party of John Wilkes Booth, Benito Mussolini and Donald Trump.

“LAW AND ORDER” REPUBLICANS SEEK IMMUNITY FOR TRUMP

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2022 at 12:10 am

On Thursday, August 8, 1974, Richard M. Nixon resigned as the 37th President of the United States.

On Monday, August 8, 2022, for the first time in American history, Donald Trump became the first former President to be the subject of an FBI raid.

The raid came without warning on Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. FBI agents, armed with a search warrant, scoured the premises—reportedly for documents Trump illegally took before he left the White House on January 20, 2021.

In January, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago, including materials that had been identified as classified. 

“I really don’t believe that the department would have taken such a significant step as pursuing a search warrant for the president’s residence about information they already had back,” said Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director on CNN “Newsroom.”

The most famous members of Mar-a-Lago - YouTube

Mar-a-Lago

“There had to be a suspicion, a concern and indeed specific information that led them to believe that there were additional materials that were not turned over.”

Both the FBI and the Justice Department have refused to comment on any aspect of the raid.

But Donald Trump rushed to do so.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.

“After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.

“What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democratic National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”

Donald Trump

There are several differences between Watergate and the FBI raid on Trump’s residence—that is, for anyone who cares about enforcing the law.

First, the burglary at the Watergate hotel—on June 17, 1972—was completely illegal, carried out by a group of men working for President Richard M. Nixon. They had installed illegal bugging equipment in the suite used by the Democratic National Committee—but that had malfunctioned.

So they made a second entry to repair it.

It was during that second burglary that the burglars were arrested.

Second, the raid on Trump’s home was fully authorized by the Justice Department. 

To get judicial approval for the search, investigators had to present to a judge a detailed affidavit that established probable cause that a crime had been committed and that evidence of that crime existed at the property where the search was sought.

But before prosecutors asked a magistrate judge to approve the warrant, investigators had to obtain the approval from the highest levels of the Justice Department. Too much historical and political significance was at stake.

“Not only would the investigators have to suggest it, not only would a line prosecutor have to agree with it, but multiple layers of management would have had to approved of it—all the way up to the Attorney General,” Daren Firestone, a former DOJ attorney, told CNN.

Third, Donald Trump—before and after his Presidency—has amassed a solid record of criminality.

In 2018, Trump was forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds for political purposes at his Trump Foundation. The Foundation was shut down under court-supervised dissolution in 2019.

And his Trump University scammed its students, promising to teach them “the secrets of success” in the real estate industry—then delivered nothing. In 2016, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement  with many of those students.

The Controversy Surrounding Trump University - ABC News

Trump’s record of criminality during his four years in the White House is too lengthy to catalog here. To cite just two of his greatest crimes:

  1. Refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, and claiming that he was “cheated” by widespread voter fraud; and
  2. Inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol where Electoral College votes were being counted to determine the winner of that election.

More than a year and a half after the 2020 election, no evidence of widespread voter fraud has emerged—even though Trump continues to spread “The Big Lie.”

Meanwhile, “law-and-order” Republicans have rushed to Trump’s defense.

“The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

“There must be an immediate investigation and accountability into Joe Biden and his Administration’s weaponizing this department against their political opponents—the likely 2024 Republican candidate for President of the United States,” said New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of House GOP leadership.

Missouri GOP Senator Josh Hawley—a major instigator of the January 6 attack on Congress—said that President Joseph Biden “has taken our republic into dangerous waters.” He demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland resign or be impeached.

John Adams, America’s second President, coined the phrase “a government of laws, not of men.”

Republicans scurrying for Trump’s favor now support the opposite.

TAKING BACK OUR BORDERS

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 5, 2022 at 12:10 am

If Americans decide they truly want to control access to their own borders, there is a realistic way to accomplish this.  

And it doesn’t involve building a wall along the Mexican border—which would prove ridiculously expensive and easily circumvented.

(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.

Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.

These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.

(2) The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities which have actively violated Federal immigration laws.

In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now Vice President of the United States—created a secret program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.

She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony.

(3) Indicting such officials would be comparable to the way that President Andres Jackson dealt with the threat South Carolinians once made to “nullify”—or ignore—any Federal laws they didn’t like.

Jackson quashed that threat by making one of his own: To lead an army into that State and purge all who dared defy the laws of the Federal Government.

(4) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile. 

City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.

And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.

(5) CEOs whose companies—like Wal-Mart—systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.

Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least twenty years.

This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./Mexican border. CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.

Without employers luring illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the flood of such illegal job-seekers would quickly dry up.

(6) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.

A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.

A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.

If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should—like their parents—be subject to deportation.

(7) The United States Government—from the President on down—should stop apologizing for the right to control the country’s national borders.

The Mexican Government doesn’t hesitate to apply strict laws to those immigrating to Mexico. And it feels no need to apologize for this.

Neither should we.

(8) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language—English. 

In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language—Spanish.

Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.

(9) Those who are not legal citizens of the United States should not be allowed to vote in its elections.

In Mexico, those who are not Mexican citizens are not allowed to participate in the country’s elections. 

The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws.

The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same.

(10) The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries—such as China and Mexico—whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens. 

The Mexican government well remembers the 10-year Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) starring Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Emiliano Zapata and a host of other equally ruthless killers—and the one million dead men, women and children it produced.

So Mexico uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions. 

Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unaffordably high price.  Otherwise those dumpings will continue.