Posts Tagged ‘REPUBLICANS’
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BERLIN, BLOOMBERG, BORDER WALL, BRIAN KEMP, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, EMILY MURPHY, ENGLAND, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAIUS CALIGULA, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, GEORGE FLOYD, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, LAMAR ALEXANDER, MARTIN GUGINO, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MITCH MECONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUNICH CONFERENCE, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAFAEL EDUARDO "TED" CRUZ, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROME, RON JOHNSON, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2023 at 12:13 am
Once he became the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.
On November 3, 2020, 80 million voters decided they wanted a change—and elected former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
Trump refused to accept that verdict.
Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, he said:
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.”
For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt.
States ignored his demand and kept counting.
Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud.
Specifically:
- Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
- Trump ballots had been systematically destroyed.
- Tampered voting machines had turned Trump votes into Biden ones.
Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. And, one by one, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
For 20 days, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy refused to release $7.3 million in transition funding and Federal resources to the President-elect’s team.
Under the law governing presidential transitions, Murphy was responsible for determining the winner based on publicly available information before the actual Electoral College vote.
Finally, on November 23, Murphy released the transition funding and resources.
Losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House to persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.
Nothing changed.
On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.
Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
None of them branded Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as those of a tyrant.
Just as Germans did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler’s inexorable march toward war—and the destruction of millions of lives and Germany itself—so, too, did Americans seem paralyzed to put an end to the equally self-destructive reign of the man often dubbed “Carrot Caligula.”
Gaius Caligula was “the mad emperor” of ancient Rome. Like Trump, he lived by a philosophy of “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
He ruled as the most powerful man of his time—three years, 10 months and eight days. And all but the first six months of his reign were drenched in slaughter and debauchery.
There are basically three ways America’s continuing slide into tyranny could have been stopped:
Congressional Republicans could have revolted against Trump’s authority and/or agenda.
They could, for example, have demanded that Trump accept the verdict of the electorate—as every other past President had. But they didn’t.
Invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President in cases where he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It also allows the House and Senate to confirm the recommendation over the President’s objection by two-thirds vote.
The Vice President then takes over as President.
A case could easily have been made that Trump, emotionally distraught over his loss and determined to circumvent the will of the electorate, had been rendered unfit to continue in office. But, once again, Republicans let fear be their guide.
He had fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017 and publicly humiliated his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for more than a year until firing him in 2018. Vice President Mike Pence in particular had set new records for sycophancy.
The “Caligula solution.” Like Trump, Roman emperor Gaius Caligula delighted in humiliating others. His fatal mistake was taunting Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
Gaius Caligula
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Trump had similarly behaved arrogantly toward his Secret Service guards. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018. He also forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them were stricken with this often lethal disease as a result.
During the 12 years that Adolf Hitler ruled Nazi Germany, at least 42 assassination plots were launched against him.
The best-known of these literally exploded on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Count Claus Shenk von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in a conference room attended by Hitler and his generals. Hitler survived only by sheer luck.
By contrast, no similar plot was aimed at Donald Trump.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BERLIN, BLOOMBERG, BORDER WALL, BRIAN KEMP, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, EMILY MURPHY, ENGLAND, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAIUS CALIGULA, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, GEORGE FLOYD, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, LAMAR ALEXANDER, MARTIN GUGINO, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MITCH MECONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUNICH CONFERENCE, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAFAEL EDUARDO "TED" CRUZ, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROME, RON JOHNSON, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2023 at 12:13 am
“Why are we letting one man systematically destroy our nation before our eyes?”
It’s a question millions of Americans asked themselves since Donald Trump became President of the United States.
Millions of Germans asked themselves the same question throughout the six years of World War II.
In September, 1938, as Adolf Hitler threatened to go to war against France and England over Czechoslovakia, most Germans feared he would. They knew that Germany was not ready for war, despite all of their Fuhrer’s boasts about how invincible the Third Reich was.
A group of high-ranking German army officers was prepared to overthrow Hitler—provided that England and France held firm and handed him a major diplomatic reverse.
But then England and France—though more powerful than Germany—flinched at the thought of war.
They surrendered to Hitler’s demands that he be given the “Sudetenland”—the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.
Hitler’s popularity among Germans soared. He had expanded the territories of the Reich by absorbing Austria and Czechoslovakia—without a shot being fired!
The plotters in the German high command, realizing that public opinion stood overwhelmingly against them, abandoned their plans for a coup. They decided to wait for a more favorable time.
It never came.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Less than one year after the infamous “Munich conference,” England and France were at war—and fighting for the lives of their peoples.
As for the Germans: Most of them blindly followed their Fuhrer right to the end—believing his lies (or at least wanting to believe them), serving in his legions, defending his rampant criminality.
And then, in April, 1945, with Russian armies pouring into Berlin, it was too late for conspiracies against the man who had led them to total destruction.
Soviet flag waves over defeated Nazi Germany
Berliners paid the price for their loyalty to a murderous dictator—through countless rapes, murders and the wholesale destruction of their city. And from 1945 to 1989, Germans living in the eastern part of their country paid the price as slaves to the Soviet Union.
Have Americans learned anything from this warning from history about subservience to a madman?
The answer seems to be half-no, half-yes.
Half-no: In 2016, almost 63 million Americans elected Donald Trump—a racist, serial adulterer and longtime fraudster—as President.
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters outvoted 74,196,153 Republican voters to elect former Vice President Joseph Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
Donald Trump
Upon taking office on January 20, 2017, Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.
- Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Giving Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Shutting down the Federal Government for 35 days because Democrats refused to fund his ineffective “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay. The shutdown ended due to public outrage—without Trump getting the funding amount he had demanded.
- Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
- Allowing the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, infecting (to date) 14.8 million Americans and killing 282,000.
- Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
- Ordering his Right-wing followers to defy states’ orders to citizens to “stay-at-home” and wear of masks in public to halt surging COVID-19 rates.
And throughout all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.
A typical example:
On June 4, 2020, during protests over the police murder of black security guard George Floyd, a curfew was imposed on Buffalo, New York. As police swept through Niagara Square, Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old peace activist with the Catholic Worker Movement, walked into their path as if attempting to speak with them.
Two officers pushed him and he fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the pavement and losing consciousness.
On June 9, Trump charged that Gugino was part of a radical leftist “set up.” Trump offered no evidence to back up his slander.
Typical Republican responses included:
- Kentucky Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to say whether Trump’s tweet was appropriate.
- Texas Senator Ted Cruz: “I don’t comment on the tweets.”
- Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said he hadn’t seen the tweet—and didn’t want it read to him: “I would rather not hear it.”
- Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander: “Voters can evaluate that. I’m not going to give a running commentary on the President’s tweets.”
Half-yes: On November 3, 2020, 80 million voters decided they wanted a change—and elected former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
1912 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLACKS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CASEY DESANTIS, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GAYS, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MAGGIE HABERMAN, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK POST, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICHOLE HEMMER, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROTESTERS, PUBLIC HEALTH WORKERS, RACISM, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROGER STONE, RON DESANTIS, SALON, SCHOOLS, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SEXUALITY, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTH SOCIAL, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VACCINATIONS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WALL STREET JOURNAL, WALT DISNEY CORPORATION, WILLIMAM HOWWARD TAFT, WOODROW WILSON
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on March 24, 2023 at 12:10 am
In his coming war against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump may have the last word.
The former President has warned that if he can’t be the Republican Presidential nominee in 2024, “he’s willing to burn it all down.”
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who has intimately covered Trump for years, has tweeted:
“Yes, Trump is more vulnerable than he’s been in a long time. But that has happened before and he’s survived.”
Maggie Haberman
Andrew Lih, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“Trump has extremely few major donors who want to do anything for him right now and a number of them are having active conversations about the best way to stop him. But. Again….sound familiar?
“Trump has made clear he’s willing to burn it all down if he doesn’t get what he wants, which is maintaining his grip on the product line he’s been developing for six years: the Republican party. So a lot of electeds will have to make a choice they’ve not had to before.”
There is precedent for this. After serving two terms in the White House (1901-1909) Theodore Roosevelt became increasingly disillusioned with his handpicked successor: William Howard Taft.
Theodore Roosevelt
By 1912, he decided to run for a third term as a third-party candidate. His candidacy split the Republican vote—and enabled Democrats to elect Woodrow Wilson President.
No doubt many Democrats are now salivating at the possibility of the same occurring in 2024.
And even more of them are looking forward to seeing two would-be tyrants—Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis—trading lethal blows for most of the Presidential year.
Their reaction would be similar to that expressed by then-Senator Harry S. Truman when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.”
* * * * *
As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, its dictator, Adolf Hitler, sought to punish the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.
His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”
In his infamous “Nero Order,” he decreed the destruction of everything still remaining–industries, ships, harbors, communications, roads, mines, bridges, stores, utility plants, food stuffs.
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.
Throughout his four years in office, President Donald Trump made it clear that America faced a stark choice: It could remain a constitutional democracy—or allow him to become an all-powerful “President-for-Life.”
Among his outrages:
- Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Giving Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Shutting down the Federal Government for 35 days in 2018-19 because Democrats refused to fund his ineffective “border wall” between the United States and Mexico.
- An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay. The shutdown ended due to public outrage—without Trump getting the funding amount he had demanded.
- Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
- Repeatedly lying about the dangers posed by the COVID-19 virus, and thus enabling it to ravage the country and ultimately kill 400,000 by the time Trump left office.
- Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
Trump’s ultimate act of criminality and treason came on January 6, 2021, when he incited his followers to violently attack the United States Capitol Building. Their goal: To prevent Republicans and Democrats from counting the Electoral Votes cast in the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump fully understood that an accurate count of those votes would reveal his loss to Joe Biden: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump.
Fortunately for American democracy, there were enough patriots determined to prevent Trump from becoming the absolute dictator he clearly intended to be.
Like Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump’s attitude was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.”
Deprived of his chance to destroy the country he claimed to love, Trump now threatens to destroy the political party that brought him to near-absolute power in 2016.
And Ron DeSantis stands ready to establish himself as an equally Trumpian dictator.
Their party 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.
1912 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLACKS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CASEY DESANTIS, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GAYS, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MAGGIE HABERMAN, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK POST, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICHOLE HEMMER, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROTESTERS, RACISM, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROGER STONE, RON DESANTIS, SALON, SCHOOLS, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SEXUALITY, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTH SOCIAL, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VACCINATIONS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WALL STREET JOURNAL, WALT DISNEY CORPORATION, WILLIMAM HOWWARD TAFT, WOODROW WILSON
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 23, 2023 at 12:10 am
For Americans, it may turn out to be the equivalent of the deathmatch between German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.
At the very least, it promises to be the Right-wing heavyweight championship of the decade, if not the century: An all-out slugfest between former President Donald J. Trump and Florida Governor Ron D. DeSantis.
On November 10, Trump publicly attacked DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and took credit for DeSantis’ success after endorsing him in 2018.
This was only two days after DeSantis was soundly re-elected Governor—and the much-hyped “Red wave” failed to sweep Democrats out of state and federal offices in the 2022 midterm elections.
On his website, Truth Social, Trump posted that DeSantis had been a political lightweight who had come to him “in desperate shape” when running for his first term in office in 2017.
Donald Trump
“Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse [sic] him, he could win. also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart.”
For Trump, DeSantis’ worst sin was refusing to say whether he would run for President in 2024.
Having been defeated for a second term by Joe Biden in 2020, Trump believes he has an absolute right to regain that office in another two years.
“Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games! The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.’ Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”
By “loyalty” Trump meant: Loyalty to himself.
For Trump, there was only one “right” answer DeSantis could have given: “I will not be a candidate for President in 2024 and I will totally support President Trump for that office.”
And that was not the response that DeSantis gave.
Even worse for Trump: Several of his loudly-supported candidates across the country lost their electoral bids.
To add to his rage and sense of betrayal: Conservative media sided with DeSantis—such as Fox News and the New York Post, which ran a front page headline calling DeSantis “DeFuture” the day after the election.
New York Post, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Responded Trump: “NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post, is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious.”
A Trump advisor, speaking off-the-record, told Politico: “Obviously he is escalating. It is total shots fired. It is not what I would have done if it were totally up to me, but you can’t argue with Donald Trump’s tactics. They work. He is savage but effective. He was never going to stay restrained for long.”
“He is obviously threatened by a DeSantis presidential run,” said a longtime Florida Republican consultant speaking of Trump. “And by doing this, I think he will lose a lot of his base support.”
Trump’s advisors are trying to persuade him to soften his image. They fear that his angry and divisive rhetoric is turning off many voters who like his policies but desire some normalcy.
They are also trying to persuade Trump to focus less on his 2020 election loss and offer solutions to voters’ problems.
At the DeSantis victory rally, chants resounded: “Two more years!”—meaning that his supporters want him to run for President in 2024.
DeSantis has not responded to the attacks Trump has made on him.
Two Florida Republicans close to DeSantis told Yahoo News that the governor would be wary of attacking Trump. He wants to focus on policy issues and Florida’s recovery from Hurricane Ian.
By doing so, they said, DeSantis will highlight how his governing style differs from Trump’s more combative and less policy-focused approach.
It also prevents him from getting sucked into an endless tit-for-tat war of insults with the insult-happy ex-President.
The Donald Trump-Ron DeSantis relationship wasn’t always so hostile.
Trump’s endorsement played a huge role in DeSantis’ winning the 2018 GOP primary against former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who was an early favorite.
And DeSantis quickly showed his gratitude with a campaign video that was a naked Valentine to Trump’s ego—and the base that worshiped him.
Released on July 30, 2018, the ad was narrated by DeSantis’ wife, Casey.
CASEY DESANTIS: Everyone knows my husband, Ron DeSantis, is endorsed by President Trump. But he’s also an amazing dad. Ron loves playing with the kids.
DESANTIS: “Build the wall” [as his son uses colored plastic bricks to build a wall. This was a line right out of Trump’s repeated demands for a wall separating the United States from Mexico.]
CASEY: He reads stories.
DESANTIS: “Then Mr. Trump said ‘You’re fired.’ I love that part'” [as he reads a book to his son].
CASEY: He’s teaching Madison to talk.
DESANTIS: “Make America great again” [as he holds up a “Trump” sign that says exactly that].
CASEY: People say Ron’s all Trump, but he’s so much more.
DESANTIS: “Bigly. So good” [as he’s looking at his son in a crib].
CASEY: I just thought you should know.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, AL QAEDA, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, “THE BIG LIE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOHN BATES, JOHN THUNE, JOSEPH BIDEN, LARRY RENDALL BROCK, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2023 at 12:40 am
On March 17, a federal judge sentenced Larry Rendall Brock, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, to two years’ imprisonment for joining a mob that tried to overturn a legitimate Presidential election.
It was a decision that would have appalled Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
U.S. District Judge John Bates had convicted Brock after a bench trial in November, 2022, of one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanor counts for his role in the January 6, 2021 coup attempt.
Larry Brock (in helmet) on the floor of the Senate
Prosecutors asked Bates to sentence Brock to five years in prison, owing to his calls for violence on Facebook before the coup attempt:
- “When we get to the bottom of this conspiracy we need to execute the traitors that are trying to steal the election, and that includes the leaders of the media and social media aiding and abetting the coup plotters.”
- “I bought myself body armor and a helmet for a civil war that is coming.”
- “Do not kill LEO [law enforcement officers] unless necessary. Gas would assist in this if we can get it.”
But Bates rejected a significant enhancement against Brock for threatening bodily injury. Bates’ decision reduced his sentencing guideline range to 24-30 months.
U.S. District Judge John Bates
Brock’s defense attorney, Charles Burnham, tried to put the best spin possible on Brock’s behavior: “It is inconceivable that he was motivated by anything other than genuine concern for democracy.
“If Mr. Brock was sincerely motivated by high ideals, it significantly reduces his culpability even if the Court should privately disagree with his view.”
Brock, 55, of Grapevine, Texas, graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1989. He was on active duty until 1998 and served in the reserves until 2014.
Bates credited Brock’s distinguished military service, which included five Air Medals and multiple deployments during the War on Terror, as well as his community involvement and his lack of any criminal history.
And that is where—according to Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science—-Bates went dangerously wrong.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his masterwork, The Discourses, Machiavelli provides clear instructions on how to preserve liberty within a republic. In Book 1, Chapter 24, he advises: “Well-Ordered Republics Establish Punishments and Rewards for Their Citizens, But Never Set Off One Against the Other.”
Specifically:
“The services of Horatius had been of the highest importance to Rome, for by his bravery he had conquered the Curatii. But the crime of killing his sister was atrocious, and the Romans were so outraged….that he was put upon trial for his life.
“…It may seem like an instance of popular ingratitude, but a more careful examination…will show that the people were to blame rather for the acquittal than for having him tried.
“And the reason for this is, that no well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits. But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits.
“And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin.
“For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.”
No better proof of this can be found in the unwillingness of local, state and federal courts to hold accountable former President Donald Trump for a decades-long history of criminality.
This includes two attempts to impeach him as President—in 2019 and 2021.
The first impeachment trial centered on two charges: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The second trial centered on the charge of “incitement of insurrection” against the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
The evidence against Trump was overwhelming in both trials, but his Right-wing allies in a Republican-controlled Senate twice acquitted him.
And although he was banned from Youtube, Facebook and Twitter in the wake of his inciting an attack on Congress, the oligarchs who own these websites have since fully restored his accounts.
He is once again free to use their platforms to spread his “Big Lie” gospel that he was robbed of the Presidency in 2020 through massive voter fraud.
Moreover, he is doing so as a candidate for President of the United States.
There is a very real danger that his millions of Fascistic followers could return him to the Oval Office—and thus put an end to the 245-year history of democratic government in the United States.
And the fact that so many of his followers have gotten slap-on-the-wrist sentences for their treasonous coup attempt only incites them to similar future violence.
All of which would lead Machiavelli to declare: “This bodes ill for your republic.”
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, AL QAEDA, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, “THE BIG LIE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOHN BATES, JOHN THUNE, JOSEPH BIDEN, LARRY RENDALL BROCK, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 21, 2023 at 12:10 am
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, would have been appalled.
On March 17, a federal judge sentenced Larry Rendall Brock, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, to two years’ imprisonment for joining a mob that tried to overturn a legitimate Presidential election.
The date was January 6, 2021, and the site was the United States Capitol Building. Inside, members of Congress were counting Electoral College votes from the 2020 Presidential race.
Officially, the popular vote had already been counted: On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters had elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Donald Trump, running for a second term as President, got 74,196,153 votes.
That should have been enough to decide who would be the next President of the United States. But in America, the winner isn’t chosen according to the popular vote—but according to the number of Electoral College votes s/he receives
Brock—and the mob—knew how that vote would go. It would—like the popular vote—end Donald Trump’s dream of a second term. And it would usher Joe Biden into the Oval Office. :
But having repeatedly “joked” about how wonderful it would be if the United States—like China—had a “President-for-Life,” Trump wasn’t ready to concede office.
He immediately began spreading “The Big Lie”: That he had been defeated by massive voter fraud. And that this had been made possible through Dominion Voting Systems.
On January 6, 2021, Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence and north of Constitution Avenue and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.
Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol Building to express their anger at the voting process and to intimidate their elected officials to reject the results.
Donald Trump addresses his Stormtrumpers
“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by a bold and radical left Democrats which is what they are doing and stolen by the fake news media.
“Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal….
“Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back….And we’re going to have to fight much harder….
“And after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.”
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
- A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
- One attacker was shot as protesters forced their way toward the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.
Stormtrumpers scaling Capitol Building walls
- Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
- Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
- Shouts of “Hang [Vice President Mike] Pence!” often rang out.
- Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
- Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building
More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
Larry Brock made his contribution to the attempted coup by entering the floor of the Senate Chamber, wearing a combat helmet and tactical vest and carrying zip-tie handcuffs. He examined paperwork on Senators’ desks while inside the building for approximately 37 minutes.
For their safety, members of Congress had been evacuated from their joint session.
Fortunately for those members, Brock was unable to carry out the goals laid out in a manifesto he sent to another military veteran on Christmas Eve, 2020. Titled “Plan of Action if Congress fails to act on 6 January,” the document laid out eight points that Brock described as “main tasks,” including:
- Seizing all Democratic politicians and Biden key staff and select republicans [sic], including Senators John Thune and Mitch McConnell, and interrogating them using “measures we used on Al Queda” [sic].
- Seizing national media figures. Brock wrote they should “eliminate them. Media silence except for White House communications.”
- President Trump would issue a general pardon “for all crimes up to and including murder” for those who put down “the Democratic Insurrection.”
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS STIREWALT, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JACQUI HEINRICH, JOE BIDEN, LAURA INGRAHAM, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN, NEWSDAY, NEWSMAX, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUPERT MURDOCH, SALON, SEAN HANNITY, SEATTLE TIMES, SIDNEY POWELL, SLANDER, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 15, 2023 at 12:12 am
Greed—among evil men—will always find a way.
It did in 1939.
Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, had spent most of the year threatening Poland with invasion. He had even set a secret timetable—September 1—for his attack.
Yet he faced a dangerous obstacle on his road to war: The Soviet Union.
Since the early 1920s Hitler had railed against the Soviet Union as Germany’s greatest threat. He intended, in fact, to destroy it at the first opportunity.
But his still-untested army, the Wehrmacht, wasn’t ready for that yet.
Adolf Hitler
And if he attacked Poland, there was a real danger that the Soviet Union might declare war on Germany.
Hitler wanted a nonaggression treaty with England, with which he had a love/hate relationship. But the British government didn’t trust him.
The Soviet government—headed by Premier Joseph Stalin—also wanted a pact with Great Britain. But the British didn’t trust him, either.
In mid-August, 1939, with the September 1 deadline quickly approaching, Hitler made an unprecedented decision: He humbled himself before his arch-enemy, Stalin, and requested the signing of a Russia-German nonaggression pact.
To sweeten the deal, Hitler offered something that he knew the British would never give Stalin: The eastern half of Poland.
On August 23, the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was signed in Moscow by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbontrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
Joseph Stalin
Nine days later, World War II erupted.
In 2020, greed—among evil men—again found a way.
On November 3, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Donald Trump, running for a second term as President, got 74,196,153 votes.
But having repeatedly “joked” about how wonderful it would be if the United States—like China—had a “President-for-Life,” Trump wasn’t ready to concede office.
He immediately began spreading “The Big Lie”: That he had been defeated by massive voter fraud. And that this had been made possible through Dominion Voting Systems.
Donald Trump
Dominion—charged Trump and his attorneys—had rigged its vote-tabulating machines to replace votes for Trump with votes for Biden.
And soon Trump had the help of a major propaganda megaphone to carry his lie nationwide: The Fox News Network.
Just as Hitler and Stalin each had something to gain from their nonaggression pact, so did Trump and Fox.
Trump wanted at least another four unearned years in the White House. And Fox wanted to retain—if not expand—its viewing audience.
In 2022, for its seventh consecutive year, Fox News stood as the top-rated cable news network in the United States. Fox averaged 1.4 million total day viewers.
By contrast, 733,000 watched MSNBC and 568,000 watched CNN.
In prime time, Fox came in first with an average of 2.3 million viewers in 2022.
MSNBC came in second with 1.2 million and CNN ranked third with an average of 730,000.
As for profits: Fox’s net income for the twelve months ending December 31, 2022 was $1.507B, a 4.94% increase year-over-year.
Yet just as Trump couldn’t bear losing the intoxicating power of the Presidency, Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox, couldn’t bear losing any part of his audience.
In a March 1, 2023 opinion piece, Jack Shafer, Politico’s senior media writer, vividly describes the dilemma Murdoch faced after the 2020 election:
“In Murdoch’s own words, delivered in Dominion suit depositions, he describes himself as frightened by the power Donald Trump holds over the Fox audience….Far from being a media superpower, as his foes would describe him, Murdoch comes off as trapped by the craven choices he made to serve as Trump’s supplicant and protector.
“…The Trump-Fox feedback loop benefited both parties as Fox ran interference for Trump throughout his presidency and Trump filled Fox’s schedule with the strong meat of his persona. By July 2019, Trump had given 61 interviews to Fox channels compared to 17 for ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC/CNBC combined.”
But after Trump incited a deadly riot against the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, Murdoch feared the next Trump explosion would be aimed at Fox.
The reason: On Election Night, Chris Stirewalt, the political editor of Fox News Channel, was the first to project Biden’s victory in Arizona. This turned out to be right—and brought a furious attack upon Stirewalt by Fox host Tucker Carlson.
Putting the truth bluntly, Murdoch said in a deposition: “Nobody wants Trump as an enemy. We all know that Trump has a big following. If he says, ‘Don’t watch Fox News, maybe some don’t.’”
Twenty days after Trump’s attempted coup—on January 26—Murdoch allowed Mike “My Pillow” Lindell to appear on the network’s Tucker Carlson Tonight Show.
Lindell was a longtime Fox advertiser—and a vocal purveyor of the lie that Dominion had enabled the Democrats to steal the 2020 election.
Two months later, in March, 2021, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News.
The Hitler-Stalin pact ultimately ravaged the Soviet Union through German invasion and left Germany conquered and divided by Russia for 44 years.
The Trump–Fox pact ultimately left Trump enraged at Fox and left Fox facing financial ruin for its lies on Trump’s behalf.
1984 (BOOK), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ” 9/11, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS STIREWALT, CNN, CONDOLEEZA RICE, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DICK CHENEY, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD RUMSFELD, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, GEORGE ORWELL, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISTORY, HUFFINGTON POST, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JEB BUSH, JOE BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, LAURA INGRAHAM, LAVRENTI BERIA, LIBEL, MARCO RUBIO, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE LINDELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI-SOVIET NONAGGRESSION PACT, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN, NEWSDAY, NEWSMAX, NEWSWEEK, NKVD, NPR, PAUL WOLFOWITZ, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD CLARKE, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN HANNITY, SEATTLE TIMES, SIDNEY POWELL, SLANDER, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STEVE BANNON, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WASHINGTONPOST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics on March 14, 2023 at 12:10 am
At one time, Americans believed that the wholesale rewriting of history happened only in the Soviet Union.
“The problem with writing about history in the Soviet Union,” went a popular joke inside the Soviet Union, “is that you never know what’s going to happen yesterday.”
A classic example of this occurred in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Lavrentiy Beria had been head of the NKVD, the dreaded predecessor to the KGB, from 1938 to 1953. On June 26, 1953, three months after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Beria was arrested on orders of his fellow Communist Party leaders, who feared he intended to purge them.
Beria was executed on December 23.
Lavrentiy Beria
But the Great Soviet Encyclopedia had just gone to press with a long article singing Beria’s praises.
What to do?
The editors of the Encyclopedia wrote an equally long article about “the Bering Straits,” which was to be pasted over the article about Beria, and sent this off to its subscribers. An unknown number of them decided it was safer to paste accordingly.
Similarly, Joseph Stalin was depicted in Soviet “history” texts as the architect of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
No “historian” dared mention that Stalin’s wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack in 1941. As had Stalin’s “nonaggression” pact with Germany in 1939, where he and Adolf Hitler secretly divided Poland between them.
Joseph Stalin
But Russians no longer have a monopoly on rewriting history.
During the 2016 Presidential election, the Republican party furiously rewrote history in a desperate attempt to win the White House.
Specifically, its members tried to convince Americans that:
- President George W. Bush “kept us safe” (excluding, of course, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, which slaughtered 3,000 Americans); and/or
- President Bush wasn’t to blame for 9/11—it was his predecessor, Bill Clinton (who left office more than a year and a half before 9/11).
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
In 2015, Jeb Bush entered the “Rewriting History for Americans” sweepstakes.
On October 16, 2015, during an interview on Bloomberg TV, Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for President in 2016, dared speak (for Republicans) the unspeakable:
“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time. He was President, OK? Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Bush was quick to respond on Twitter: “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Jeb Bush
Trump replied:
“At the debate you said your brother kept us safe–I wanted to be nice & did not mention the WTC came down during his watch, 9/11.”
And: “No @JebBush, you’re pathetic for saying nothing happened during your brother’s term when the World Trade Center was attacked and came down.”
Suddenly, on February 13, another Republican Presidential candidate rushed to rewrite 9/11: Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
According to Rubio: “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.”
And on the following day, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he again made the charge: “If you’re going to ascribe blame, don’t blame George W. Bush, blame a decision that was made years earlier, not to take out bin Laden when the opportunity presented itself.”
All of which ignored such embarrassing truths as:
- During the first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was not permitted to brief President Bush, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new Al-Qaeda outrage.
- From January 20 to September 11, 2001, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
- National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject of terrorism. Then she insisted that the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting.
- Paul Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
- Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz—whose real target was Saddam Hussein—said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
- Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
- Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
- Neither Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld nor Wolowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor has any of them been brought to account.
People who say the Republicans are “batshit crazy” for denying responsibility for 9/11 clearly haven’t read—or understood—George Orwell’s novel, 1984.
The unnamed Party’s slogan is: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
The same holds true for Republicans: They hope to rewrite the past, as Joseph Stalin did, to wash away their crimes and errors–and pin these on their self-declared enemies.
And thus gain—and retain—absolute power over 300 million Americans.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS STIREWALT, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAVID BROOKS, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JACQUI HEINRICH, JOE BIDEN, JONATHAN CAPEHART, LAURA INGRAHAM, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE LINDELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN, NEWSDAY, NEWSMAX, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUPERT MURDOCH, SALON, SEAN HANNITY, SEATTLE TIMES, SIDNEY POWELL, SLANDER, SLATE, STEVE BANNON, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 9, 2023 at 12:10 am
Fox News has spent two years peddling “The Big Lie”—that President Donald J. Trump was cheated of electoral victory in 2020.
But now the truth is coming to light.
On the March 3 edition of The PBS Newshour, political commentators David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart explored the explosive revelations emerging from a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.
Host Amna Nawaz opened:
And, at CPAC today, [Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for President Trump] went after Fox, saying they’re not pro-Trump enough.
But, just this week, we did see a huge admission in that—the latest filings and the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, that admission from Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch. He conceded under oath Fox hosts lied about the 2020 election, and he chose not to stop them. What are the implications of that?
David Brooks
New York Times Columnist David Brooks: Rupert Murdoch started a paper called The Australian a long time ago. He was a journalist, an actual journalist. And now he’s gotten to the point where you can lie on camera if—as long as your ratings are OK.
Those people who lied didn’t lie over little things. They lied about the election results of a presidential election, kind of a major deal. And we now know—as we all suspected—they all knew what was happening.
And Murdoch is sitting there atop this organization sort of blithely pretending it’s not really his problem. And so he can say it, and he has power over the corporation today. He owns it. He could fire Tucker [Carlson]. He could fire all the people—all the people who were in on this and whose journalistic integrity has been exposed as zero.
And yet he’s still trying to blithely rise above it. And so it’s amazing that we have a major news organization that is inaccurate about a presidential election.
Jonathan Capehart
Washington Post Associated Editor Jonathan Capehart: Oh, it’s huge. And it was confirmation of something that folks on the left and just folks paying attention kind of suspected: That Fox News, the “news” is in quotes, that they’re out there blatantly telling lies.
But then to see in black and white as part of this case that not only…they would say lies on television, but then, behind the scenes, they knew the truth.
And what that says to me is, Rupert Murdoch and his anchors, those people who are peddling in lies, they are insulated from the effect of the lies that they tell. When you see someone saying, “Oh, our ratings are going down, and that’s going to affect the stock price.” So there’s no concern….
Rupert Murdoch
Hudson Institute, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
So that means you’re more concerned about your bottom line than the corrosive impact on our democracy and political discourse in this country. That, to me, was what’s really disturbing.
And what’s even more disturbing is that Fox News isn’t even really covering this lawsuit, which means that their audience, who should know about what’s being said about them and about the programming for them, they will never—they might not ever know….that what they’re being told is just a big bunch of lies.
Amna Nawaz: I go back to the impact again, though, because their audience, which is in the millions, right……if you’re a loyal Fox watcher prone to distrust any other information source anyway, does any of this make an impact?
Jonathan Capehart: Well, that’s the point I was trying to make. We don’t even know if they will even know about this case, as a result. And even if they do find out, either they might not trust it, or maybe they just don’t care. I don’t know.
David Brooks: Well, they’re losing some viewers to the further right, the Bannons of the world. So they are — they are definitely losing viewers.
But my colleague David French made the core point about Fox. If you’re in red America or in rural America, Fox is not just a news organization. It’s your community center. It’s an organization that—that news organization that pays intense attention, that lots of good news stories about cops and soldiers.
A lot of things that happen in red America that don’t get much coverage in the coastal media get a lot of attention in Fox. And so the loyalty there is not only about politics, and it’s not only about news coverage. It’s just about where people see themselves reflected.
* * * * *
A Twitter user recently asked: “Are critical thinkers being vastly outnumbered in the USA because secondary education is just so damn expensive? It’s no wonder Republican states are among the most poorly educated.”
The answer is: No.
You don’t have to accept propaganda.
You can question the official version of any story.
You can seek out multiple sources.
You don’t have to seek out only those sources that confirm your long-held prejudices.
And you don’t need a college education to do so.
If Right-wingers—who make up the audience for Fox News—are ignorant, it’s because they want to be ignorant.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS STIREWALT, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAVID BROOKS, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JACQUI HEINRICH, JOE BIDEN, JONATHAN CAPEHART, LAURA INGRAHAM, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE LINDELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN, NEWSDAY, NEWSMAX, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUPERT MURDOCH, SALON, SEAN HANNITY, SEATTLE TIMES, SIDNEY POWELL, SLANDER, SLATE, STEVE BANNON, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TUCKER CARLSON, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 8, 2023 at 12:12 am
Reputable news organizations believe they’re hurt when a reporter gets his facts wrong—or, worse, invents a story for sensationalistic attention.
For Fox News Network, getting hurt means that some of its own reporters have told the truth. And, as a result, many of its viewers are turning to other Right-wing propaganda outlets.
In a series of email exchanges, Fox Network executives revealed they were not simply loyal to President Donald Trump but mortally afraid of him.
Star Host Tucker Carlson said that Trump was good at “destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
Nor was Carlson the only one. The fear started at the very top—with Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch: “Nobody wants Trump as an enemy. We all know that Trump has a big following. If he says, ‘Don’t watch Fox News, maybe some don’t.”
Up to January 26, 2021, Murdoch allowed Fox advertiser Mike “My Pillow” Lindell to appear on the Tucker Carlson Tonight Show to lie that Trump had been cheated of victory by massive voter fraud.
Questioned as to why he allowed it, Murdoch agreed with the statement, “It is not red or blue, it is green.”
Rupert Murdoch
Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In short: Lust for money, not ideology, motivated Fox’s slant on politics.
And, as with all Fox News commentary, truth played no role in the decision to air it.
With unapologetic hypocrisy, Fox stars Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham brutally mocked the lies being peddled by Trump—and their own network.
In a text to Ingraham, Carlson said that Sidney Powell, an attorney who was representing the Trump campaign, was “lying” and that he had “caught her” doing so.
Ingraham: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].”
Hannity said Giuliani was “acting like an insane person” and Ingraham described him as “an idiot.”
And Hannity said: “That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second.”
Sean Hannity
How do we know all this? Certainly not because some outraged Fox whistleblower made these exchanges public.
It’s because Fox’s chief victim, Dominion Voting Systems, decided to strike back.
The Denver-based company produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States.
Dominion, claimed Fox, had criminally enabled Democrats to steal the election for Joe Biden by programming its machines to throw out votes meant for Trump.
Its reputation unfairly tarnished, its employees threatened with violence by Trump’s Fascistic supporters, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in March, 2021.
Dominion charged Fox News with pushing false conspiracy theories about the company to win back dissatisfied viewers upset with its coverage of Trump’s defeat.
Libel lawsuits are typically centered around one falsehood. But Dominion cites a lengthy list of Fox hosts making false claims even though they were known to be untrue.
According to an almost 200–page document Dominion filed in the lawsuit:
“From the top down, Fox knew ‘the Dominion stuff’ was ‘total BS.’ Yet despite knowing the truth—or at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth—Fox spread and endorsed these ‘outlandish voter fraud claims’ about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as ‘crazy,’ ‘absurd,’ and ‘shockingly reckless.’
“As a result of the false accusations broadcast by Fox into millions of American homes, Dominion has suffered unprecedented harm and its employees’ lives have been put in danger,” Dominion’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
Backing up its assertions: A treasury of emails, texts, testimony, and other private communications from Fox News personnel contradicting the network’s claims that Dominion’s voting machines had rigged the presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor.
These had all been obtained through the discovery process.
While Fox was echoing Trump’s claims of “massive voter fraud,” its executives and commentators knew that he—and they themselves—were lying.
In mid-November 2020, Carlson texted one of his producers that “there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” of the election.
Later, Carlson said that Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s attorneys and a prominent accuser of election fraud, “is lying.”
Sidney Powell
Dana Perino, an anchor, called allegations of voter fraud against Dominion “total bs,” “insane,” and “nonsense.”
Murdoch told an executive on November 6, 2020 that “if Trump becomes a sore loser we should watch Sean [Hannity] especially and others don’t sound the same.”
And on January 5, 2021, Murdoch wrote to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott:
“It’s been suggested our prime time three [Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham] should independently or together say something like, ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won.’ It would “go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election [was] stolen.”
But Fox never aired such a statement.
Fox has repeatedly tried to get the case dismissed, but Superior Court Judge Eric Davis has refused to do so. A trial is slated to begin on April 17.
There is a difference between journalism and Fascistic propaganda. And Fox News Network routinely provides examples of the latter.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BERLIN, BLOOMBERG, BORDER WALL, BRIAN KEMP, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, EMILY MURPHY, ENGLAND, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAIUS CALIGULA, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, GEORGE FLOYD, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, LAMAR ALEXANDER, MARTIN GUGINO, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MITCH MECONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUNICH CONFERENCE, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAFAEL EDUARDO "TED" CRUZ, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROME, RON JOHNSON, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
ONCE AGAIN, ACCOMPLICES TO OUR OWN DESTRUCTION: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2023 at 12:13 amOnce he became the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.
On November 3, 2020, 80 million voters decided they wanted a change—and elected former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
Trump refused to accept that verdict.
Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, he said:
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.”
For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt.
States ignored his demand and kept counting.
Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud.
Specifically:
Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. And, one by one, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
For 20 days, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy refused to release $7.3 million in transition funding and Federal resources to the President-elect’s team.
Under the law governing presidential transitions, Murphy was responsible for determining the winner based on publicly available information before the actual Electoral College vote.
Finally, on November 23, Murphy released the transition funding and resources.
Losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House to persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.
Nothing changed.
On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.
Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
None of them branded Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as those of a tyrant.
Just as Germans did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler’s inexorable march toward war—and the destruction of millions of lives and Germany itself—so, too, did Americans seem paralyzed to put an end to the equally self-destructive reign of the man often dubbed “Carrot Caligula.”
Gaius Caligula was “the mad emperor” of ancient Rome. Like Trump, he lived by a philosophy of “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
He ruled as the most powerful man of his time—three years, 10 months and eight days. And all but the first six months of his reign were drenched in slaughter and debauchery.
There are basically three ways America’s continuing slide into tyranny could have been stopped:
Congressional Republicans could have revolted against Trump’s authority and/or agenda.
They could, for example, have demanded that Trump accept the verdict of the electorate—as every other past President had. But they didn’t.
Invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President in cases where he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It also allows the House and Senate to confirm the recommendation over the President’s objection by two-thirds vote.
The Vice President then takes over as President.
A case could easily have been made that Trump, emotionally distraught over his loss and determined to circumvent the will of the electorate, had been rendered unfit to continue in office. But, once again, Republicans let fear be their guide.
He had fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017 and publicly humiliated his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for more than a year until firing him in 2018. Vice President Mike Pence in particular had set new records for sycophancy.
The “Caligula solution.” Like Trump, Roman emperor Gaius Caligula delighted in humiliating others. His fatal mistake was taunting Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
Gaius Caligula
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Trump had similarly behaved arrogantly toward his Secret Service guards. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018. He also forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them were stricken with this often lethal disease as a result.
During the 12 years that Adolf Hitler ruled Nazi Germany, at least 42 assassination plots were launched against him.
The best-known of these literally exploded on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Count Claus Shenk von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in a conference room attended by Hitler and his generals. Hitler survived only by sheer luck.
By contrast, no similar plot was aimed at Donald Trump.
Share this: