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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2017 at 12:08 am
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper witnessed President Donald Trump’s 77-minute rant at a Phoenix campaign rally on August 22.
Trump angrily defended his refusal to condemn white supremacists for their intimidating and violent actions in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12-13. And he continued to slander the news media as unpatriotic.
He also attacked NAFTA and the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and threatened to shut down the government if Congress refused to pay for a border wall. (During his 2016 campaign, he had repeatedly promised that Mexico would pay for this.)
Afterward, Clapper told CNN: “I find this downright scary and disturbing….I really question his ability to be—his fitness to be—in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it. Maybe he is looking for a way out.”
James Clapper
But the part of Clapper’s interview that most caught the attention of the media and Washington’s political establishment came when reporter Don Lemon asked: Is Trump a threat to national security?
“Well, he certainly could be,” Clapper replied.
“Again, having some understanding of the levers that a president can exercise, I worry about, frankly, you know, the access to nuclear codes,” Clapper answered.
And Clapper knows more about “the levers that a President can exercise” than most: He served no fewer than ten Presidents–from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.
He warned that “in a fit of pique,” Trump could order a nuclear strike against the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“There’s actually very little to stop him,” Clapper said. “The whole system’s built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there’s very little in the way of controls over you know, exercising a nuclear option, which is pretty damn scary.”
But long before the Clapper interview, Americans had more than enough knowledge about Trump to judge him unfit for the Oval Office.
- He unknowingly admitted to being a sexual predator of women: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Donald Trump
- He refused to release his tax returns—unlike every other Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
- He said he was prepared to withdraw from NATO, the American-European alliance that held the Soviet Union at bay for a half-century.
- He often and publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, the absolute dictator of a foreign power hostile to the United States.
- He publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Putin—to interfere directly in an American Presidential election: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Vladimir Putin
- On November 18, Trump—rather than face trial—settled the Trump University case out of court for $25 million. “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
- On March 16, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- On August 9, Trump issued a veiled solicitation for the assassination of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- After slandering President Barack Obama for five years as “the President from Kenya,” he blatantly lied: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”
The number of people, places and things Trump has insulted is so extensive The New York Times compiled a list of 273 of them.
Trump’s rampant egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them—52%—bear his last name. Among the references he’s made to himself:
- “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
- “My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest—and you all know it.”
- Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, he replied: “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
* * * * *
Those Americans who voted for Donald Trump knew the character of the man they were electing. They cannot claim ignorance of who he was and what he intended to do.
They enthusiastically supported him because he gave voice to their hatreds and prejudices. And because they believed he would humiliate and destroy those they wanted to see humiliated and destroyed.
They are as deserving of the contempt of their fellow Americans as Trump himself.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 24, 2017 at 12:09 am
With the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Republican Party went into a tailspin of dismay.
For almost 50 years, Republicans had conjured up The Red Bogeyman to scare voters into sending them to Congress and the White House.
But now that the “workers’ paradise” had disappeared, Americans seemed to lose interest in the Communist Menace.
True, the People’s Republic of China remained, and its increasing economic clout would challenge the United States well into the 21st century. But Americans didn’t seem to fear the Red Chinese as they had the Red Russians.
What was the Republican Party to do to lure voters?
On September 11, 2001, the answer arrived—in two highjacked jetliners that slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one that struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
Consider:
- Mike Huckabee – “If the purpose of a church is to push forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I have a hard time understanding that.”
- Herman Cain – ”I would not” appoint a Muslim in his administration.
- Newt Gingrich – “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they [his grandchildren] are my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists. …”
- Rick Santorum – On supporting the racial profiling of Muslims: “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely.”
- Mitt Romney – “Based on the numbers of American Muslims in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position [for a Muslim] would be justified.”
And on July 13, 2012, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) sent letters to the Inspectors General of the Departments of
- Defense;
- State;
- Justice; and
- Homeland Security.
“The purpose of these letters,” wrote Bachmann, was to “request a multi-department investigation into potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the United States Government.”
Michelle Bachmann
Bachmann further asserted in her letter to the State Department that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
In response, Arizona’s United State Senator John McCain said: “These attacks have no logic, no basis, and no merit and they need to stop. They need to stop now.”
“I don’t know Huma,” said House Speaker John Boehner, “but from everything that I do know of her she has a sterling character.”
And the evidence for these attacks?
The Center for Security Policy’s claim that Abedin’s father (who died when she was a teenager), mother and brother are “connected” to the organization.
And what is the Center of Security Policy? A private organization subsidized by donors to Right-wing causes.
In a separate letter, Bachmann demanded to know how Abedin received her security clearance.
Among the co-signers of Bachmann’s letter to the Inspectors General were:
- Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, who has said abortion has done more harm to blacks than slavery;
- Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, who called presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, ”uppity”; and
- Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, who claims that terrorist organizations send pregnant women into the U.S. so that their children will be American citizens–who can enter and leave the country at will as they are trained to be terrorists abroad.
When pressed for their evidence of “a vast Muslim conspiracy,” right-wing accusers usually refuse to provide any.
An example of this occurred during an August 13, 2010 interview between Gohmert and CNN’s Anderson Cooper:
COOPER: What research? Can you tell us about the research?
GOHMERT: You are attacking the messenger, Anderson, you are better than this. You used to be good. You used to find that there was a problem and you would go after it.
COOPER: Sir, I am asking you for evidence of something that you said on the floor of the House.
GOHMERT: I did, and you listen, this is a problem. If you would spend as much time looking into the problem as you would have been trying to come after me and belittle me this week –
COOPER: Sir, do you want to offer any evidence? I’m giving you an opportunity to say what research and evidence you have. You’ve offered none, other than yelling.
Nor did Gohmert offer any evidence that evening.
Of course, the ultimate Republican Muslim slander is that President Barack Obama—a longtime Christian—is himself a Muslim.
No doubt Republicans feel totally safe in making these attacks, since Muslims comprise only 1% of the American population.
This has long been a hallmark of right-wing attacks—to go after a minority that cannot effectively defend itself.
Thus, Adolf Hitler attacked the Jews of Germany.
And Republicans have successively attacked blacks, Hispanics and gays—until each group became politically influential enough to defeat Republican candidates.
Today, most right-wing politicians at least grudgingly court all of these groups.
When Muslims become a significant political force in their own right, the Right will court them, too. And then move on to yet another helpless scapegoat to blame for America’s troubles.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 23, 2017 at 12:06 am
“Judge not, that you not be judged. For with what judgment you judged, you shall be judged, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
So warns the Gospel of St. Matthew, 7:1-2. It’s advice that Right-wingers Joseph McCarthy, Robert Welch and George H.W. Bush would have done well to heed.
Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin’s gift to the United States Senate, became infamous as the demagogue whose Red-baiting accusations terrified America from 1950 to 1954.
Joseph 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.”
Americans were already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:
- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had not withdrawn the Red Army from the countries it had occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II.
- In 1948, the Soviet Union developed–and demonstrated–its own atomic bomb, an achievement U.S. scientists had claimed would not happen for at least a decade.
- In 1949, China fell to the triumphant armies of Mao Tse Tung.
But anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech. Republicans–resentful at being denied the White House since 1932–seized upon anti-communism as their passport to power.
No American–no matter how prominent–was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer–”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Among those accused:
- Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
- President Harry S. Truman
- Playwright Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller
- Actors Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel, Lloyd Bridges, Howard Da Silva, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield
- Composers Arron Copland and Elmer Bernstein
- Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who presided over the creation of America’s atomic bomb
- Actressses Lee Grant, Delores del Rio, Ruth Gordon and Lucille Ball
- Journalists Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer, who had chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
- Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast, John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett
Even “untouchable” Republicans became targets for such slander.
The most prominent of these was President Dwight D. Eisenhower–labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, who founded the John Birth Society in 1958.
Robert Welch
Welch, an independently wealthy businessman, used his money to publicize the Society and its views. Welch saw even hardline anti-Communists like Vice President Richard Nixon and actor Ronald Reagan as dangerously liberal.
Meanwhile, McCarthy finally overstepped himself. In 1953, he attacked the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convened an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
But the hearings backfired, exposing McCarthy as the bullying demagogue he was. A Senate committee voted to condemn his behavior, charging that he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Although McCarthy remained in the Senate another two and a half years, his political influence had ended.
Journalists who had raced to cover his latest slander now avoided him. So did his Republican colleagues–many of whom had once sought his help at election time.
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1960.
After holding the White House for eight years under Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates. They elected Richard Nison–and re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980, Republicans held the White House until 1992. Throughout that time, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents–or at least unwitting pawns–of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchrian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas–one of America’s poorest states–and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Although Republicans continued to hurl “Communist!” and “treason!” at their opponents, these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans–and their right-wing supporters–at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 22, 2017 at 12:02 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohem, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohem
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the black-uniformed Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohem, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohem’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohem–-or they would get rid of the Fuhrer.
So Rohem died in a hail of SS bullets-–as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Among the SS commanders supervising those executions was Reinhard Heydrich—a tall, blond-haired formal naval officer who was both a champion fencer and talented violinist.
Ultimately, he would become the personification of the Nazi ideal—”the man with the iron heart,” as Hitler eulogized at Heydrich’s funeral just eight years later.
Reinhard Heydrich
Even so, Heydrich had a problem: He could never escape vicious rumors that his family tree held a Jewish ancestor.
His paternal grandmother had married Reinhold Heydrich, and then Gustav Robert Suss. For unknown reasons, she decided to call herself Suss-Heydrich.
Since “Suss” was widely believed in Germany to indicate Jewish origin, the “stigma” of Jewish heritage attached itself to the Heydrich family.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service. But his arrogance and overweening ambition created a great many enemies.
Only a year later, he became the target of an urgent investigation by the SS itself. The charge: That he was part-Jewish, the ultimate sin in Hitler’s “racially pure” Nazi Germany.
The investigation cleared Heydrich, but the rumor of his “tainted” origins persisted, clearly tormenting the second most powerful man in the SS. Even his superior, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, believed it.
When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech assassins in Prague, Himmler attended his funeral. He paid tribute to his former subordinate at the service: ”You, Reinhard Heydrich, were a truly good SS-man.”
But he could not resist saying in private: “He was an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race.”
Those who dare to harshly judge others usually find themselves assailed just as harshly.
A modern-day example is Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a 2014 candidate for U.S. Senator from Wyoming.
Liz tried to position herself as far more right-wing than her opponent, Republican U.S. Senator Michael Bradley “Mike” Enzi.
She found her work cut out for her: In March, 2007, Enzi was ranked by National Journal as the sixth-most conservative U.S. Senator. Among his legislative priorities:
- Supporting partial privatization of Social Security
- Consistently voting against expanding Medicare.
- Voting against enrolling more children or the poor in public healthcare.
Mike Enzi
And Liz had a problem Enzi did not: Her sister, Mary, was not only a lesbian but legally married to another woman: Heather Poe. This led many Wyoming voters to wonder if Liz Cheney was far-Right enough to merit their support.
So Liz went all-out to assure them that even though her sister led a degenerate lifestyle, she, Liz, stood foursquare against legalizing gay marriage: “I do believe it’s an issue that’s got to be left up to states. I do believe in the traditional definition of marriage.”
Liz Cheney
And, in another statement: “I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage.
“I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.”
This stance led to a heated rift between her and Mary. “For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage,” Mary Cheney wrote in a Facebook post in September, 2013.
“Freedom means freedom for everyone,” she continued. “That means that all families—regardless of how they look or how they are made—all families are entitled to the same rights, privileges and protections as every other.”
Adding to the complications: Their father, Dick Cheney—often ridiculed as “Darth Vader” for his own extreme Right-wing views—endorsed same-sex marriage in 2009.
(After a brief run, Cheney, on January 6, 2014, Cheney withdrew from the race.)
But, as was true for officials in Nazi Germany, so is it true for Right-wing Republicans: It’s impossible to be too radical a Right-winger.
In the 1930s and 40s, it was politically—and personally—dangerous to be labeled “pro-Jewish” or “pro-Communist” in Hitler’s Germany.
And today it is equally dangerous—at least politically—to be labeled “pro-liberal” or “pro-gay” in the Republican Party.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 17, 2017 at 12:01 am
It was a memo that could have been written by Joseph Goebbels—Adolf Hitler’s brilliant and fanatical Minister of Propaganda.
The only difference: This memo was written in English, not German.
Joseph Goebbels
The memo was released by the White House on the evening of August 15. Earlier that day, President Donald Trump had given a fiery, impromptu press conference defending white extremist groups.
This, in turn, had been prompted by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi violence that exploded in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend of August 12-13.
Trump’s incendiary remarks laying blame on both violent Fascists and non-violent protesters had ignited anger throughout the nation. And they caused many Republicans—in a rare show of claimed moral outrage—to publicly break with the President.
Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Wisconsin tweeted: “We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.”
Paul Ryan
Arizona’s Republican United States Senator, Jeff Flake, released a statement on August 15: “We cannot accept excuses for white supremacy and acts of domestic terrorism. We must condemn them. Period.”
And John McCain, Arizona’s other Republican Senator, took to twitter on the same evening: “There is no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so.”
Faced with such overwhelming condemnation, Donald Trump did what he always does when faced with criticism: He leaned on others to defend him.
On the evening of August 15, the White House sent out official “talking points” to Republican members of Congress.
The memo urged them to say that Trump was “entirely correct” that “both sides of the violence in Charlottesville acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.”
With unintended irony, the memo claimed that Trump “has been a voice for unity and calm, encouraging the country to ‘rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that brings us together as Americans.'”
Left out of this statement were the following truths:
Love has nothing to do with:
- Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen who march down streets—as they did in Charlottesville—shouting: “Jews will not replace us!” and “Blood and soil!”
- Columns of angry-faced men strutting down streets, yelling, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
- Hordes of heavily armed men—carrying shields, clubs, pistols and even automatic rifles—terrorizing the local citizenry.
And loyalty does not have anything to do with:
- Those who proudly brandish Nazi swastika flags. Of the Nazis’ ultimate legacy, historian Klaus Fischer writes: “The Nazis’ New Order was little more than a slave empire, a vast system of organized oppression, exploitation, and extermination.”
- People who proudly carry flags of the Confederacy, which gave the United States its greatest case of mass treason. From 1861 to 1865, members of this group waged war against a legitimately-elected government. And the reason for that Confederacy: To maintain and expand a slave empire of millions of black men, women and children.
Here is the White House memo:
NEWS OF THE DAY
Charlottesville
- The President was entirely correct — both sides of the violence in Charlottesville acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.
- Despite the criticism, the President reaffirmed some of our most important Founding principles: We are equal in the eyes of our Creator, equal under the law, and equal under our Constitution.
- He has been a voice for unity and calm, encouraging the country to “rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that brings us together as Americans.”
- He called for the end of violence on all sides so that no more innocent lives would be lost.
- The President condemned – with no ambiguity – the hate groups fueled by bigotry and racism over the weekend, and did so by name yesterday, but for the media that will never be enough.
- The media reacted with hysteria to the notion that counter-protesters showed up with clubs spoiling for a fight, a fact that reporters on the ground have repeatedly stated.
- Even a New York Times reporter tweeted that she “saw club-wielding “antifa” beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”
- The local ACLU chapter also tweeted that
- We should not overlook the facts just because the media finds them inconvenient:
- From cop killing and violence at political rallies, to shooting at Congressmen at a practice baseball game, extremists on the left have engaged in terrible acts of violence.
- The President is taking swift action to hold violent hate groups accountable.
- The DOJ has opened a civil rights investigation into this weekend’s deadly car attack.
- Last Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had completed the largest prosecution of white supremacists in the nation’s history.
- Leaders and the media in our country should join the president in trying to unite and heal our country rather than incite more division.
* * * * *
Many of those who oppose the goals of the Trump administration are now taking partial comfort in the sheer incompetence of the President.
He has always felt free to display his hatred, egomania and dictatorial nature. He has never been able to apologize or admit error.
As a real estate mogul, he could get away with such behavior in relative privacy. As President, these traits have turned into his worst enemies.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 21, 2017 at 12:21 am
On March 6, 2017, House Republican leaders unveiled the American Health Care Act (AHCA) as their replacement for “Obamacare.”
Conservative Republicans immediately declared that it didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare. And “moderates” complained that it would leave too many people uninsured.
Democrats, meanwhile, stayed silent. They had pushed hard in 2009-10 to provide all Americans with access to healthcare. And they weren’t going to participate in dismantling their signature legislation.
On March 13, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released its report estimating that about 18 million people would be uninsured in 2018 if the AHCA were enacted. The number of uninsured people would reach 19 million in 2020 and 24 million in 2026.
Still, Republicans plunged forward, with House leaders tweaking it slightly to win conservative and “moderate” votes.
Still, conservatives felt the bill helped too many people. And “moderates” feared that the millions of voters who would lose their insurance would vote them out of office at the next election.
On March 24, President Donald Trump, knowing the AHCA couldn’t pass the House, asked Speaker Paul Ryan to pull it off the floor.
And Ryan did so, only moments before a scheduled vote.
Finally, on May 4, House Republicans were ready to vote to pass the AHCA.
The vote was preceded by a pep rally, which featured beer, the “Rocky” theme song, the “Taking Care of Business” song, a prayer and the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Some Republicans, asked whether they had read the bill they supported, refused to answer.
That up to 24 million Americans would lose their medical insurance meant nothing to Right-wingers.
What did matter to them was:
- Destroying the legacy of Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President; and
- Initiating a huge transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the 1% wealthiest.
On May 4, House Republicans passed the AHCA and sent it the Senate. There it was expected to be significantly revised.
But this, too, didn’t matter to House Republicans. They had “kept faith” with their hate-filled. Right-wing constituents—and assured their own re-elections.
Speaking in front of nearly 100 GOP lawmakers in the White House Rose Garden, Trump boasted that the AHCA would “finish off” the “catastrophe” of Obamacare.
Donald Trump
At a White House celebration, Trump boasted: “This has brought the Republican Party together.”
But then came disaster—for Republicans—in the Senate.
With Democrats abstaining, Republicans found themselves fighting each other.
Some wanted to gut “Obamacare” entirely, whatever the consequences for the 24 million Americans who would be left without insurance.
Others feared that slashing more than $700 billion from Medicaid—the Federal medical insurance program for the poor—would lead to millions of angry voters turning out Republicans at the polls.
(And slashing Medicaid—as opposed to expanding it, as President Obama had sought to do—was a major reason why Republicans wanted to overturn “Obamacare.”)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) desperately tried to hammer out a compromise between the two opposing sides. When this proved impossible, it was clear the “repeal and replace” bill wouldn’t pass the Senate.
At that point, President Trump tweeted his own solution: “Republicans should just ‘REPEAL’ failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!”
But this proved too politically risky for some Republicans.
On July 18, Republican Senators’ efforts to replace the ACA without a ready replacement collapsed.
As usual, Donald Trump had a ready “solution” to offer. Like Adolf Hitler issuing his “scorched earth” order in a doomed Berlin in 1945, the President said:
“Let Obamacare fail; it’ll be a lot easier. And I think we’re probably in that position where we’ll just let Obamacare fail.
“We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it. I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We’ll let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us and they’re going to say, ‘How do we fix it? How do we fix it?’ Or, ‘How do we come up with a new plan?’”
* * * * *
Allowing Obamacare to fail would deprive millions of Americans of healthcare. But that meant nothing to Donald Trump.
Just as destroying everything still remaining in Germany had meant nothing to Adolf Hitler.
Fortunately for Germany, one man—Albert Speer—finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.
Albert Speer
Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he mounted a successful effort to block such destruction and persuade influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.
As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.
Since the election of America’s first black President, Republicans have waged a similar “scorched earth” campaign.
Acting as extortionists, they repeatedly threatened to shut down the government if they didn’t get their way in legislative matters. And they repeatedly blocked legislation to help the poor, the unemployed, the sick, women, the elderly, the disabled and the middle-class.
Like Adolf Hitler, their attitude has been: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.”
The country is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive brutalities of its own Right-wing fanatics.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 20, 2017 at 12:50 am
Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled.
His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.
Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler had ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.
Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.
Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.
“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”
Speer argued in vain that there must be a future for the German people. But Hitler refused to back down. He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.
The next day, Speer told Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”
“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.
“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”
Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.
By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” decree.
Speer had been the closest thing to a friend in Hitler’s life. Trained as an architect, he had joined the Nazi Party in 1931.
He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year.
From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years.
In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.
Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.
“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.
“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”
Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler.
Fast-forward to the United States and the 2008 election of the nation’s first black President.
On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act (ACA), nicknamed Obamacare. Its purpose: To provide access to healthcare for millions of poor and middle-class Americans who had heretofore been unable to obtain it.
President Barack Obama
It became—and remains—Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment.
Republicans immediately declared “Obamacare” Public Enemy Number One and set out to repeal it. By March 2014 they had already voted against it 54 times, trying to undo or substantially change it.
In October, 2013, they shut down the Federal Government for 15 days. They hoped to extort Obama into de-funding the ACA: If he did, they would re-open Federal agencies.
But, facing pressure from voters unable to obtain basic government services, Republicans backed down.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, every Republican candidate pledged to repeal Obamacare if s/he were elected.
Donald Trump—who won the Republican nomination and then the election—repeatedly made this the centerpiece of his campaign.
On October 25, he promised: “My first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability.
“You’re going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. And it’s going to be so easy.”
But after taking office on January 20, he found that replacing the ACA wasn’t so easy.
On March 6, 2017, House Republicans unveiled the American Health Care Act (AHCA). This was attacked by conservatives because it didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare. And “moderate” Republicans complained that it would leave too many people uninsured.
On March 13, 2017, the Congressional Budget Committee released its report estimating that about 18 million people would be uninsured in 2018 if the AHCA were enacted. The number of uninsured people would reach 19 million in 2020 and 23 million in 2026.
Still, Republicans plunged forward, with House leaders making slight changes to win conservative and moderate votes.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 19, 2017 at 12:10 am
Dennis Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, was released from Federal prison today–July 18.
He had served 13 months of a 15-month sentence.
Hastert was the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007. He had been indicted on May 28, 2015, for violating federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.
He had tried to conceal $3.5 million he had paid since 2010 to a man he had molested as a high school student.
The student had been on the wrestling team that Hastert had coached as a teacher at Yorkville High School in Yorkfille, Ill.
“I felt a special bond with our wrestlers,” Hastert wrote in his 2004 memoirs, Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years of Coaching and Politics. “And I think they felt one with me.”
Apparently that “special bond” extended to activities outside the ring. In the pre-sentence report, Justice Department prosecutors charged that Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Hastert had claimed that a coach should never strip away another person’s dignity. But, said federal prosecutors, “that is exactly what defendant did to his victims. He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty, and devoid of dignity.”
Later, in 1981, Hastert entered Congress.
Dennis Hastert
Hastert was not indicted for having had a sexual relationship with an underage student. The statute of limitations had long ago run out on that offense.
He was indicted for trying to evade federal banking laws and lying to the FBI.
The Bureau had wanted to know if Hastert was using the cash for criminal purposes or if he was the victim of a criminal extortion.
And Hastert had claimed he was storing cash because he didn’t feel safe with the banking system: “Yeah, I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.”
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
On October 28, 2015, Hastert pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Although he escaped going to prison as a child molester, he did not escape the stigma of being labeled one.
“The defendant is a serial child molester,” pronounced Judge Thomas M. Durkin at Hastert’s sentencing. “Some actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works. Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘Speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.”
During his tenure as Speaker of the House, Hastert had waged all-out war on homosexual rights. This included:
- Pushing the anti-homosexual Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) through the House. This “forbids requiring any state or any other political subdivision of the United States to credit as a marriage a same-sex relationship treated as marriage in another state or equivalent government.”
- Proposing a Constitutional amendment to “establish that marriage shall consist of one man and one woman.”
- Voting against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which banned companies from discriminating against employees “on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Owing to Hastert’s “deeply conservative” voting record, in 1998, he received perfect scores of 100 from
- The National Rifle Association;
- The Christian Coalition;
- The National Right to Life Committee; and
- The Chamber of Commerce.
Hastert, who concealed his past as a sexual predator while claiming to be a man of virtue, wrote in his autobiography: “I was never a very good liar. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough. I could never get away with it, so I made up my mind as a kid to tell the truth and pay the consequences.”
It would take decades before the revealing of the truth forced him to pay the consequences.
Hastert makes the third Republican “family values” Speaker of the House to become ensnared in an ethics scandal.
- Newt Gingrich was the first Speaker (1985-1999) in the history of the House to be reprimanded and punished for ethics violations. His offense: Claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes.
- His successor, Bob Livingston, a supposedly happily married man and Gingrich’s presumed successor, was forced to resign when Hustler publisher Larry Flynt revealed his sexual infidelities. He had self-righteously demanded that President Bill Clinton, who had had an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, resign his office.
- Dennis Hastert’s conduct involved neither money nor women—but a series of male high school students.
Of course, Democrats have had their sex scandals as well. But Democrats usually don’t suffer as badly from them.
The reason: Republicans portray themselves as moral examples for the nation. So for them, being caught literally with their pants down proves a double-whammy.
They are condemned for their specific illegal/immoral acts—and for the sheer hypocrisy of their false claims of sainthood.
Ironically, Right-wingers like Hastert would fare better when caught in homosexual or extramarital affairs if they simply admitted their sexual tastes and registered as Democrats.
But in heavily Right-wing states like Texas and Oklahoma, they wouldn’t stand a chance of being elected as a Democrat. And Red-state voters, feeling themselves moral arbiters of the nation, wouldn’t elect anyone they thought was “unnatural.”
So Right-wingers will continue pretending to be moral paragons—and will continue paying the price when they’re exposed as fallible humans.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on July 18, 2017 at 12:22 am
On the May 27, 2016 edition of the PBS Newshour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields noted the ability of Elizabeth Warren to rattle Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trunp’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
“I mean, she obviously–he can’t stay away from her. He is tweeting about her.”
Donald Trump
And syndicated New York Times Columnist David Brooks said on the same program the Democrats faced two choices in combating Trump:
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
But sharp-edged humor clearly works for Warren.
A May 12, 2016 story on CNN—“Elizabeth Warren Gives Trump a Dose of His Own Medicine on Twitter”—notes:
“In the past week the Massachusetts Democrat has refined an aggressive anti-Trump message through a series of so-called tweetstorms.
“Whenever Trump criticizes her, Warren fires right back at him, sometimes twice as hard.”
Warren’s tweets, according to the article, appeared to have two goals:
- Challenge Trump on social media, which he had so far dominated; and
- Use attention-catching words like “bully” and “loser.”
Among her tweets:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully—not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor did Warren restrict herself to battling Trump on Twitter.
Elizabeth Warren
On May 24, 2016, Warren unleashed perhaps her most devastating attack on Trump at an event hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy:
“Just yesterday, it came out that Donald Trump had said back in 2007 that he was ‘excited’ for the real estate market to crash because, quote, ‘I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.’
“That’s right. The rest of us were horrified by the 2008 financial crisis, by what happened to the millions of families…that were forced out of their homes.
“But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown—because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap….
“What kind of a man does that? I’ll tell you exactly what kind—a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure moneygrubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes some money off it….”
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Many of them—such as former President Barack Obama—take the view: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.” Thus, they take the “high ground” while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via “smear and fear” tactics.
As far back as the early 1950s, slander-hurling Wisconsin U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy demonstrated the effectiveness of such tactics. Wrote Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam, in his monumental study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule, yet, here, too, Democrats have proven unable or unwilling to make use of this powerful weapon.
Donald Trump, for example, has labeled established news media as “fake news.” Yet despite his repeated assaults on the press, judiciary and Intelligence agencies such as the CIA and FBI, not one Democrat has dared to label him a “fake President.”
Similarly, while he has branded Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary,” no Democrat—despite Trump’s well-established admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—has dared to call him “Red Donald,” “Putin’s Poodle” or “Commissar-in-Chief.”
Nor to charge him with using dictatorial methods via the damning barb: “TrumPutin.”
Nor, in this YouTube-obsessed age, have Democrats assailed Trump with a ridiculing video. In the hands of a creative writer, “Springtime for Hitler,” the signature tune of the hit play and movie, The Producers, could become “Springtime for Trumpland.”
And Democrats could attack the Trump administration’s secretive ties with Russian oligarchs and Intelligence agents by turning the Muppet Song, “The Rainbow Connection,” into “The Russian Connection.”
A possible stanza could go:
Abraham Lincoln is watching and asking:
“How much more slime must there be?”
What’s so amazing is we just sit gazing
While traitors destroy liberty.
Someday we’ll find it
The Russian Connection—
The bribers, the traitors, you’ll see.
If Democrats continue to fight Waffen-SS tactics with those of a Shirley Temple, they will continue to decline in influence as a political party. Their only hope lies in combating the Heinz Guderians of the Republican Party with the full-force tactics of a George S. Patton.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on July 17, 2017 at 12:41 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
With the business magnate having won the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.”
Donald Trump
Ironically, Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, had reached a similar conclusion about Trump:
“I think there is a sophomore quality that is entertaining with Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned of having him in charge of his nuclear weapons because his visceral response to attack people on their appearance—short, tall, fat, ugly—my goodness that happened in junior high.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:
- Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
- Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
How did American politics reach this state of affairs?
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”
Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Newt Gingrich
Even worse, Gingrich encouraged the news media to disseminate such accusations. Among his suggestions:
- “Fights make news.”
- Create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism: “A shield issue is, just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion. You better…show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center.”
In the memo, Gingrich advised:
“….In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning.
“As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’
“That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases….
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media.
“The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
Here is the list of words Gingrich urged his followers to use in describing “the opponent, their record, proposals and their party”:
- abuse of power
- anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
- betray
- bizarre
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- cheat
- coercion
- “compassion” is not enough
- collapse(ing)
- consequences
- corrupt
- corruption
- criminal rights
- crisis
- cynicism
- decay
- deeper
- destroy
- destructive
- devour
- disgrace
- endanger
- excuses
- failure (fail)
- greed
- hypocrisy
- ideological
- impose
- incompetent
- insecure
- insensitive
|
- intolerant
- liberal
- lie
- limit(s)
- machine
- mandate(s)
- obsolete
- pathetic
- patronage
- permissive attitude
- pessimistic
- punish (poor …)
- radical
- red tape
- self-serving
- selfish
- sensationalists
- shallow
- shame
- sick
- spend(ing)
- stagnation
- status quo
- steal
- taxes
- they/them
- threaten
- traitors
- unionized
- urgent (cy)
- waste
- welfare
|
Yes, speaking like Newt—or Adolf Hitler or Joseph McCarthy—“takes years of practice.”
And to the dismay of both Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump has learned his lessons well.
Only one opponent—who was not a Presidential candidate—managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.
On the May 27, 2016 edition of the PBS Newshour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields noted the ability of Elizabeth Warren to rattle Trump:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
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THE #1 THREAT TO AMERICA’S SECURITY: DONALD TRUMP
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2017 at 12:08 amFormer Director of National Intelligence James Clapper witnessed President Donald Trump’s 77-minute rant at a Phoenix campaign rally on August 22.
Trump angrily defended his refusal to condemn white supremacists for their intimidating and violent actions in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12-13. And he continued to slander the news media as unpatriotic.
He also attacked NAFTA and the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and threatened to shut down the government if Congress refused to pay for a border wall. (During his 2016 campaign, he had repeatedly promised that Mexico would pay for this.)
Afterward, Clapper told CNN: “I find this downright scary and disturbing….I really question his ability to be—his fitness to be—in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it. Maybe he is looking for a way out.”
James Clapper
But the part of Clapper’s interview that most caught the attention of the media and Washington’s political establishment came when reporter Don Lemon asked: Is Trump a threat to national security?
“Well, he certainly could be,” Clapper replied.
“Again, having some understanding of the levers that a president can exercise, I worry about, frankly, you know, the access to nuclear codes,” Clapper answered.
And Clapper knows more about “the levers that a President can exercise” than most: He served no fewer than ten Presidents–from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.
He warned that “in a fit of pique,” Trump could order a nuclear strike against the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“There’s actually very little to stop him,” Clapper said. “The whole system’s built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there’s very little in the way of controls over you know, exercising a nuclear option, which is pretty damn scary.”
But long before the Clapper interview, Americans had more than enough knowledge about Trump to judge him unfit for the Oval Office.
Donald Trump
Vladimir Putin
The number of people, places and things Trump has insulted is so extensive The New York Times compiled a list of 273 of them.
Trump’s rampant egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them—52%—bear his last name. Among the references he’s made to himself:
* * * * *
Those Americans who voted for Donald Trump knew the character of the man they were electing. They cannot claim ignorance of who he was and what he intended to do.
They enthusiastically supported him because he gave voice to their hatreds and prejudices. And because they believed he would humiliate and destroy those they wanted to see humiliated and destroyed.
They are as deserving of the contempt of their fellow Americans as Trump himself.
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