Posts Tagged ‘ROBERT S. MUELLER’
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID (BOOK), NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2024 at 12:12 am
“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveals his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID (BOOK), NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 5, 2024 at 12:10 am
“One man in the free world has the power to launch a nuclear war that might destroy civilization: the President of the United States. What if that man were mentally unbalanced?”
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
He wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, Hollenbach believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel rereleased in 2018? The answer lay in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president [Donald Trump] has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
From the beginning of his Presidency, Trump aroused fear—based not only of what he might do, but that he might be mentally unbalanced. Consider:
On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department turned up no evidence to substantiate Trump’s foray into Presidential libel.
Donald Trump
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who dared to answer this question was John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner, who admits he has not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his Presidency to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
Facing a hostile Democratic House of Representatives and a potentially explosive report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw down the gauntlet.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDERSON COOPER, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GARY SCHULTZ, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HAMAS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUFFINGTON POST, ISRAEL, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JIM JORDAN, MARK COLEMAN, MATT GAETZ, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL COHEN, MIKE DISABATO, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD STRAUSS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIAN SUBVERSION, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SEXUAL ABUSE, SLATE, SPECIAL COUNSEL, SPORTS, STEVE SCALISE, 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, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP, UPI, USA TODAY, WRESTLING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2023 at 12:07 am
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became Speaker of the House of Representatives on January 7.
But there was a fatal catch: Desperate to become Speaker, he had agreed to let even a single lawmaker force a vote on his removal. This was a concession to about 20 holdouts.
On October 3, eight Right-wingers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) forced that vote.
Kevin McCarthy
A scramble for the Speakership followed.
At first, Steve Scalise (R-LA) seemed to have the required number of votes—217.
But then he dropped out, admitting he couldn’t meet that requirement.
Next to jump into the ring: Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Jordan founded the House Freedom Caucus, which seeks to impose a Fascistic agenda on America.
Which makes him unacceptable to Republicans who want a Speaker who can break the Republican-induced House logjam. On October 13, more than 50 Republicans voted against supporting him.
Republicans’ failure to support a popular candidate has frozen the House while major international and domestic crises loom.
The most immediate: Israel’s war against Hamas, following the terrorist group’s horrific attacks that killed 1,300 Israelis on October 6.
Coming up: The November 17 shutdown of the federal government unless Congress agrees on a budget.
During and after Donald Trump’s Presidency, Jordan has defended his litany of demonstrated lies and documented criminality.
Appearing on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” on April 16, 2018, Jordan accused Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, of being a liar. He accused the Washington Post of lying. He asked Cooper if he had ever lied.
But, pressed by Cooper on whether he had ever heard Trump lie, Jordan replied: “I have not. I don’t know of it. Nothing comes to mind.”
Rep. Jim Jordan
Jordan pushed to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Prior to the 2020 Presidential election, Jordan repeatedly claimed that Democrats would steal it. After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, Jordan falsely charged that they had stolen it.
After the election, Jordan urged Trump not to concede, spread conspiracy theories, supported lawsuits attempting to disqualify the legitimate results and discussed plans to object to the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021.
In a message to CNN, Ryan Goodman, the editor of Just Security and a law professor at New York University, wrote: “Jordan’s appearances on right-wing and far right-wing news outlets and his social media account were a near constant drumbeat of disinformation up until January 6th.”
“Jim Jordan was deeply involved in Donald Trump’s antidemocratic efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” said Thomas Joscelyn, one of the authors of the final report from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack at the United States Capitol.
“Jordan also helped organize congressional opposition to counting Biden’s certified electoral votes. None of Jordan’s efforts were rooted in legitimate objections. He simply sought to keep Donald Trump in power, contrary to the will of the American people.”
Even after the failed coup, 147 House and Senate Republicans voted to overturn the election. Jordan was one of them.
And Trump reciprocated. In his speech to his treasonous supporters on January 6, 2021, Trump called Jordan one of the “great ones” for his efforts.
Stormtrumpers trying to overturn the 2020 Presidential election
Meanwhile, Jordan is being haunted by a scandal of his own.
Jordan served as an assistant coach at Ohio State University (OSU) from 1987 to 1995. Several former OSU wrestlers claim Jordan ignored sexual abuse of students by the team’s doctor.
In April, 2018, OSU announced it was investigating charges that Richard Strauss had abused team wrestlers while he served as the team doctor from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Strauss died in 2005.
Jordan claims he didn’t know about the abuse.
Yet several former wrestlers assert that they told Jordan about the abuse or remember Jordan being a part of conversations about the abuse.
“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler, told NBC. It was DiSabato’s allegations against Strauss that led OSU to open the investigation. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
In an email to Ohio State’s legal counsel, DiSabato wrote: “Strauss sexually assaulted male athletes in at least fifteen varsity sports during his employment at OSU from 1978 through 1998.”
“There’s no way unless he’s got dementia or something that he’s got no recollection of what was going on at Ohio State,” former Ultimate Fighting Championship world champion Mark Coleman told the Wall Street Journal about Jordan. “I have nothing but respect for this man, I love this man, but he knew as far as I’m concerned.”
Speaking with reporters in Ohio, Jordan offered a Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing” defense:
“We knew of no abuse, never heard of abuse. If we had, we would have reported it. If, in fact, there’s problems, we want justice for the people who were victims, obviously, and as I said, we are happy to talk with the folks who are doing the investigation. But the things they said about me just were flat-out not true.”
Thus, a President accused of multiple crimes finds himself defended by a man accused of ignoring the sexual abuse of young men.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2023 at 12:12 am
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom had announced he was withdrawing several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
- Ties: Made in China
- Suits: Made in Indonesia
- Trump Vodka: Made in the Netherlands, and later in Germany
- Crystal glasses, decanters: Made in Slovenia
- And the clothing and accessories line of his daughter, Ivanka, is produced entirely in factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around [with North Korea]. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
- Trump had boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”
- On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
- Damned him as a racist, a conman and a cheat.
- Revealed that Trump had cheated on his taxes and bought the silence of a porn “star” to prevent her revealing a 2006 tryst before the 2016 election.
- Estimated he had stiffed, on Trump’s behalf, hundreds of workers Trump owed money to.
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2023 at 12:16 am
“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer about Donald J. Trump.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump revealed his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he was trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival.
Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It didn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What mattered to him was that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color mattered. Words, ideas didn’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
Robert Meuller
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently found it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people wanted to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 14, 2023 at 12:05 am
“One man in the free world has the power to launch a nuclear war that might destroy civilization: the President of the United States. What if that man were mentally unbalanced?”
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
He wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, Hollenbach believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel released in 2018? The answer lay in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
From the beginning of his Presidency, Trump aroused fear—based not only of what he might do, but that he might be mentally unbalanced. Consider:
On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
- “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
- “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
- “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
- “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department turned up no evidence to substantiate Trump’s foray into Presidential libel.
Donald Trump
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who dared to answer this question was John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffered from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” said Gartner, who admitted he had not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his Presidency to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
Facing a hostile Democratic House of Representatives and a potentially explosive report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw down the gauntlet.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW CUOMO, ANDREW JOHNSON, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BILL CLINTON, BILL DE BLASIO, BLACK LIVES MATTER, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD J. TRUMP FOUNDATION, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ERNST ROHM, EVAN HOLLANDER, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE FLOYD, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JENNY DURKAN, JOHN S. TIGAR, JOSEPH BIDEN, LAFAYETTE SQUARE, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PORTLAND, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, RUSSELL T. VOUGHT, SALON, SCHUTZSTAFFEL, SEATTLE, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, STORMTROOPERS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED WHEELER, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON D.C., WILLIAM BARR, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 21, 2023 at 12:11 am
Eighty-six years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faced the same fate under President Donald J. Trump.
On June 1, 2020, Trump declared: ”I am your President of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters.”
But on that same evening, Trump ordered police, Secret Service agents and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
They were protesting the murder of George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25.
The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo op outside the church.
Donald Trump at St. John’s Church
On September 2, Trump sent a memo to Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Attorney General William P. Barr. Its message: Find ways to cut funding to several cities controlled by Democrats.
Trump singled out four cities for defunding: Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; and New York City.
Trump gave his official reason for this move: “Anarchy has recently beset some of our states and cities. My administration will not allow federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones.”
He blamed rising crime rates on Black Lives Matter protesters and blacks who had looted and burned stores during nationwide protests against police brutality. And he claimed that only he could save America from a civil war ignited by such protesters.
At the same time, he totally ignored—or defended—armed white militias who had faced off with Black Lives Matter protesters.
The memo seemed especially aimed at New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio and the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, had been highly critical of Trump’s failure to stem the Coronavirus pandemic.
On Twitter, Cuomo accused Trump of trying to strip funding that cities and states need to recover from Coronavirus: “He is not a king. He cannot ‘defund’ NYC. It’s an illegal stunt.”
Andrew Cuomo
Bill Neidhardt, a spokesman for de Blasio, tweeted: “As much as Donald Trump wants New York City to drop dead, we will never let this stand. This has nothing to do with ‘law and order’. This is a racist campaign stunt out of the Oval Office to attack millions of people of color.”
Trump’s directive “intrudes on Congress’ power of the purse, would never stand up in court and is nothing more than a distraction from the fact that Americans are less safe under the Trump administration,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesman for the Democratic majority of the House Appropriations Committee.
“It seems the only place where there is no respect for the rule of law is the White House,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said.
She attacked Trump’s move as a tactic to further divide Americans when the Coronavirus pandemic demanded leadership and unity.
Trump “continues to believe that disenfranchising people living in this country to advance his petty grudges is an effective political strategy,” tweeted Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Trump’s order was never implemented—and was officially revoked on February 24, 2021, by the Justice Department of President Joe Biden.
As for his claim of being “your President of law and order”:
Trump is only the third United States President—after Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton—to be impeached. And not once but twice
In addition, Trump waged all-out war on the following legal institutions:
- The FBI: When FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election on Trump’s behalf, Trump fired him without warning on May 9, 2017.
- The Justice Department: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation. On November 7, 2018, the day after Democrats won a majority of House seats, Trump fired Sessions.
- The Special Counsel: He tried to fire Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, the man appointed to investigate the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 Presidential election.
- The Judiciary: On October 20, 2018, Trump attacked U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar as an “Obama judge.” Tigar had ruled that the administration must consider asylum claims no matter where migrants cross the U.S. border.
- The Electoral Process: On September 2, Trump urged residents in the critical political battleground of North Carolina to try to vote twice in the November 3 election, once by mail and once in person—a totally illegal act..
On the private-sector front:
- On December 10, 2019, Trump paid $2 million to eight charities as part of a settlement where he admitted to misusing funds raised by the Donald J. Trump Foundation. These had been used to promote his presidential bid and pay off business debts. He was forced to close the charity as a result.
- Legal action also forced Trump to shut down his unaccredited Trump University, which the conservative magazine National Review described as a “massive scam.” Although he boasted that he never settled lawsuits, he settled this one in November, 2016, for a reported $25 million rather than go to trial.
When Donald Trump calls himself a “law and order President,” he means: “My order is your law.”
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW CUOMO, ANDREW JOHNSON, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BILL CLINTON, BILL DE BLASIO, BLACK LIVES MATTER, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD J. TRUMP FOUNDATION, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ERNST ROHM, EVAN HOLLANDER, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE FLOYD, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMPEACHMENT, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JENNY DURKAN, JOHN S. TIGAR, JOSEPH BIDEN, LAFAYETTE SQUARE, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PORTLAND, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, RUSSELL T. VOUGHT, SALON, SCHUTZSTAFFEL, SEATTLE, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, STORMTROOPERS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TED WHEELER, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON D.C., WILLIAM BARR, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2023 at 12:05 am
On June 30, 1934, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Brownshirts. It was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The Brownshirts (also known as “Stiormtroopers”) had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents (especially Communists) and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, had served as a tough army officer during World War 1. He was one of the few men allowed to use “du,” the personal form of “you” in German, when addressing Hitler.
Rohm urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own undisciplined paramilitary legions as the nation’s defense force.
Ernst Rohm
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
Hitler didn’t hesitate. Backed by armed thugs, he stormed into Rohm’s apartment, catching him in bed with a young S.A. Stormtrooper.
Accusing his onetime friend of treasonously plotting to overthrow him, Hitler screamed: “You’re going to be shot!”
Rohm was not plotting a coup. But the generals had the whip hand—and, for Hitler, that was enough to literally sign Rohm’s death warrant.
Hours later, sitting in a prison cell, Rohm was offered a pistol with a single bullet.
“Adolf himself should do the dirty work,” said Rohm, adding: “All revolutions devour their own children.”
One hour later, Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets.
Earlier throughout that day, so had several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies. Many of them yelled “Heil Hitler!” as they stood against barracks walls waiting to be shot.
SS firing squad
Thirteen days later, addressing the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, Hitler justified his purge in a nationally broadcast speech: “If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the Supreme Judge of the German people!
“I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterize down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life.
“Let the nation know that its existence—which depends on its internal order and security—cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”
Adolf Hitler addressing parliament
Eighty-six years after Adolf Hitler declared himself “the Supreme Judge of the German people,” the United States faces the same fate under President Donald J. Trump.
On September 2, Trump sent a memo to Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Attorney General William P. Barr. Its title: “Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence and Destruction in American Cities.”
Both officials were ordered to find ways to cut funding to several cities controlled by Democrats.
Donald Trump
Accusing local and state officials of abdicating their duties, Trump wrote: “Anarchy has recently beset some of our states and cities. My administration will not allow federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones.”
In his memo, Trump ordered Vought to issue guidance in 30 days “to the heads of agencies on restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants.”
And he gave Barr 14 days to identify “anarchist jurisdictions” that “permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures” to restore order.
Trump singled out four cities for defunding: Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; and New York City.
The move threatened billions of dollars for many of the country’s largest urban cities.
But protecting American citizens from crime was not the real reason for this effort.
Polls showed Trump trailing his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. As a result, Trump was resorting to the classic Republican tactics of smear and fear.
He wanted to shift public attention from his failure to halt the escalating Coronavirus pandemic—which had already killed more than 189,000 Americans and left 25 million unemployed.
He also wanted to turn Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality into white counter-protest at the ballot box.
Trump had long relied on divide-and-rule tactics to gain and hold power. He hoped to persuade suburban whites that he was the only thing standing between them and a black crime wave about to engulf them.
The hatred that millions of older whites—especially rural ones—felt for most of their fellow Americans gave Trump the White House in 2016. Trump hoped that such hatred—combined with fear—would do it again in 2020.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BURT LANCASTER, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONVENTION (C-PAC)), CROOKS AND LIARS, DACHAU, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JAMES COMEY, JAMES ROBART, JEWS, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, KIM JONG-UN, LAUREN BOEBERT, LYING, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RACISM, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT PAYNE, ROBERT S. MUELLER, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SPENCER TRACY, 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 LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER (BOOK), 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, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 6, 2023 at 12:10 am
Those who have seen the classic 1960 movie, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” will remember its pivotal moment.
That’s when Burt Lancaster, as Ernst Janning, the once distinguished German judge, confesses his guilt and that of Nazi Germany in a controlled, yet emotional, outburst.
Addressing the court—presided over by Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy)—Janning explains the forces that led to the triumph of evil.
“My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the concentration camps. Not aware? Where were we?
“Where were we when Hitler began shrieking his hate in the Reichstag? When our neighbors were dragged out in the middle of the night to Dachau?
“Where were we when every village in Germany has a railroad terminal where cattle cars were filled with children being carried off to their extermination? Where were we when they cried out in the night to us? Were we deaf? Dumb? Blind?
“My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the excuse we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty?
“Maybe we didn’t know the details, but if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
It’s possible to imagine an equally conscience-stricken member of the Donald Trump administration making a similar statement:
“My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the ICE concentration camps. Not aware? Where were we?
“Where were we when Trump began shrieking his hate across the country? When Trump called our free press ‘the enemy of the people’?
“Where were we when Trump openly praised Vladimir Putin and attacked those in the FBI, CIA and other Intelligence agencies sworn to protect us?
“Where were we when the victims of Trump’s hatred cried out in the night to us? Were we deaf? Dumb? Blind?
“My counsel says we were not aware of Trump’s treasonous collusion with Vladimir Putin—and his intention to betray American freedoms in exchange for the Presidency. He would give you the excuse we were misled by the lying rhetoric coming out of the White House.
“Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details—but if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
Donald Trump
In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:
“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”
On November 8, 2016, 62,984,828 ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans catapulted Donald Trump—a man, charged conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, with an “odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity”—into the Presidency.
And on November 3, 2020, 74,223,975 of those same Americans again voted for him.
Upon taking office in January, 2017, Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.
- Repeatedly and viciously 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.”
- Brutally attacking American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Lying so often—30,573 times in four years—he’s universally distrusted, at home and abroad.
- Shutting down the Federal government from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019—because Democrats refused to fund his useless “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. This lasted until January 25, 2019, when Trump caved to public pressure.
- Lying about the dangers of the deadly COVID-19 virus, thus allowing it to ravage the country and kill 400,000 Americans.
- Refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election in 2020 and falsely claiming himself the victim of massive voter fraud.
- Inciting thousands of his followers to storm the United States Capitol Building to prevent the winner, Joe Biden, from being declared President-elect.
**********
So why have millions of Americans stood by Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?
Their #1 reason: Hatred—of most of their fellow Americans.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) accurately voiced that hatred at the Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC) at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, MD.:
“We have to make sure we are undoing everything the left has done legislatively… every diversity, equity and inclusion program, every ESG rule, every woke initiative…must be uprooted and completely de-funded.”
Actually, they want more than that.
Republicans know that if you deprive those you detest of food, clothing, shelter—and medical care—you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads. Or even rigged vote-counts.
That’s why they campaign furiously to eliminate Social Security, Food Stamps, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act.
Far more than the once fear-inspiring Communist Party, Republican voters now pose a “clear and present danger” to American liberties.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDERSON COOPER, AP, “THE BIG LIE”, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BIG TECH, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHUCK TODD, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GARY SCHULTZ, GEORGE FLOYD, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, INSTAGRAM, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JIM JORDAN, JOE BIDEN, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, MARK COLEMAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEET THE PRESS, MIKE DISABATO, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD STRAUSS, RIGHT-WING HATE SPEECH, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIAN SUBVERSION, RUSSIANS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SEXUAL ABUSE, SLATE, SPECIAL COUNSEL, SPORTS, ST. JOHN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 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, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP, UPI, USA TODAY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WRESTLING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2023 at 12:21 am
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department and the FBI.
He comes to office with a unique mission: To attack the investigative agencies which proved that Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign received support from Russian Intelligence agents.
Jordan believes there should not have been any investigation into this unholy alliance.
Rep. Jim Jordan
Now, armed with the power of subpoena, Jordan is moving on several investigative fronts at once.
One of his major targets: The FBI.
Jordan is outraged that the Bureau raided Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, to retrieve classified documents the ex-President illegally took after leaving office.
“They raided Trump’s home. They haven’t raided Biden’s home,” Jordan said on the January 29 edition of “Meet the Press.”
“Because Biden didn’t defy a subpoena, Congressman,” its moderator, Chuck Todd, replied, adding that Trump had 60 days to comply before the FBI executed a search warrant.
Papers from Biden’s time as Vice Presidential under Barack Obama had turned up at Biden’s Delaware home and a Washington office.
Another of Jordan’s targets is Big Tech, which he accuses (without evidence) of suppressing free speech. By this, he means there is anti-Right-wing bias at some of the top social media companies in the country.
In fact, Right-wing hate speech and misinformation are commonly found on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Facebook and Twitter have reinstated Donald Trump’s accounts—which were suspended after he incited the treasonous January 6, 2021 riot against Congress.
But the fact that Right-wing propaganda has not been suppressed on the Internet means nothing to Jordan. The claim has become a rallying cry for the Right—just like “The Big Lie” that Trump was cheated of a second term by massive voter fraud in 2020.
And when confronted head-on by the brutal truth of its falsity, Right-wingers simply ignore it and shout even louder that they’re being oppressed.
“The Germans,” said Winston Churchill, “are either at your throat or at your feet.” This has proven equally true for Republicans—especially the most infamous one of all: Donald Trump.
When he held the whip hand, he was arrogance personified—as when he ordered the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park on June 1, 2020. The reason: So he could take a photo-op at St. John’s Episcopal Church following the police murder of George Floyd.
Yet when faced with investigation by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, Trump called himself “the most persecuted President in history.” Even Abraham Lincoln, he claimed, never suffered such harsh attacks.
Robert S. Mueller
Meanwhile, Jim Jordan is being haunted by a scandal of his own.
Jordan served as an assistant coach at Ohio State University (OSU) from 1987 to 1995. Several former OSU wrestlers claim Jordan ignored sexual abuse of students by the team’s doctor.
In April, 2018, OSU announced it was investigating charges that Richard Strauss had abused team wrestlers while he served as the team doctor from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Strauss died in 2005.
Jordan claims he didn’t know about the abuse.
Yet several former wrestlers assert that they told Jordan about the abuse or remember Jordan being a part of conversations about the abuse.
“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler, told NBC. It was DiSabato’s allegations against Strauss that led OSU to open the investigation. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
In an email to Ohio State’s legal counsel, DiSabato wrote: “Strauss sexually assaulted male athletes in at least fifteen varsity sports during his employment at OSU from 1978 through 1998.”
“There’s no way unless [Jordan’s] got dementia or something that he’s got no recollection of what was going on at Ohio State,” former Ultimate Fighting Championship world champion Mark Coleman told the Wall Street Journal. “I have nothing but respect for this man, I love this man, but he knew as far as I’m concerned.”
Which immediately raises the question: How can you respect and love a man who knew that students were being sexually abused—and did nothing to stop it?
Speaking with reporters in Ohio, Jordan offered a Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing” defense:
“We knew of no abuse, never heard of abuse. If we had, we would have reported it. If, in fact, there’s problems, we want justice for the people who were victims, obviously, and as I said, we are happy to talk with the folks who are doing the investigation. But the things they said about me just were flat-out not true.”
As President, Trump said he believed his ally Jordan “100 percent”: “I don’t believe them at all,” Trump told reporters, referring to the wrestlers who have come forward.
Thus, a President accused of moral depravity found himself defended by a man accused of ignoring the sexual abuse of young men.
And today, elevated by a Republican House win in 2022, a man who defended wholesale corruption by Trump now holds investigative authority over those law enforcement agencies who fought to expose that corruption.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID (BOOK), NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE, X
WHEN A PSYCHOPATH RULED THE WHITE HOUSE: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2024 at 12:12 am“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump reveals his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he’s trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival. Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It doesn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What matters to him is that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color matters. Words, ideas don’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently finds it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people want to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Share this: