Posts Tagged ‘Ronald Reagan’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 18, 2026 at 12:08 am
Republicans have long tried to prevent or eliminate programs that aid the poor and middle-class, including:
- Social Security (since it began in 1935)
- Medicare
- National health insurance
- Food stamps
- WIC (Women, Infants, Children).
So why are so many poor Americans now flocking to this party’s banner?
Two reasons: Racism and greed. There are historical parallels for both.
First, race:
In 1999, historian Victor Davis Hanson noted the huge gap in wealth between the aristocratic, slave-owning minority of the pre-Civil War South and the vast majority of poor white Southerners.
Victor Davis Hanson
“Before the war in the counties Sherman would later ruin, the top 10% of the landowners controlled 40% of the assessed wealth.”
In contrast, “more than half of those who were lucky enough to own any property at all still possessed less than 15% of the area’s valuation.”
So Hanson asked: “Why did the millions of poor whites of the Confederacy fight at all?”
He supplied the answer in his brilliant work on military history, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny.
One of those liberators was General William Tecumseh Sherman, who led 62,000 Union troops in a victorious “March to the Sea” through the Confederacy in 1864.
So why did so many poor Southern whites literally lay down their lives for the wealthy planter class, which despised them?
According to Hanson: “Behind the entire social fabric of the South lay slavery.
“If slavery eroded the economic position of the poor free citizens, if slavery encouraged a society of haves and have-nots…then it alone offered one promise to the free white man—poor, ignorant and dispirited—that he was at least not black and not a slave.”
And the planter class and its allies in government easily fobbed off their poor white countrymen with cheap flattery. Said Georgia Governor Joseph Brown:
“Among us the poor white laborer is respected as an equal. His family is treated with kindness, consideration, and respect. He does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense his equal. He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men.”
Arlington House and plantation, former home of Robert E. Lee
Similarly, poor whites now flock to the Republican Party—which holds them in equal contempt—in large part to protest the 2008 election of the first black President of the United States.
According to a Pew Research Center study released on July 22, 2011: “Notably, the GOP gains have occurred only among white voters; a 2-point Republican edge among whites in 2008 (46% to 44%) has widened to a 13-point lead today (52% to 39%).”
Since the 1960s, Republicans have pursued a campaign policy of “divide and rule”—divide the nation along racial lines and reap the benefits at election time.
- Republicans opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Republicans opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Republicans, with Richard Nixon as their Presidential candidate in 1968 and 1972, pursued what they called a “Southern strategy”: Use “code language” to stoke fear and hatred of blacks among whites.
- Republicans have falsely identified welfare programs exclusively with non-whites. (Of the six million Americans receiving food stamps, about 42% are white, 32% are black, and 22% are Latino–with the growth fastest among whites during the recession.)
Thus, in voting Republican, many of these poor whites believe they are “striking a blow for the white race.”
And they can do so in a more socially acceptable way than joining a certified hate group such as the American Nazi Party or Ku Klux Klan.
Since 2015, openly racist groups such as the Klan and the American Nazi Party have flocked to the banner of Presidential candidate mogul Donald Trump. By enthusiastically courting their support, the real estate mogul has made it possible for Republican candidates to openly display their own racism.
Now greed:
In the hit play, 1776, on the creation and signing of the Declaration of Independence, there is a telling exchange between John Dickinson and John Hancock. It comes during the song, “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men.”
Dickinson, the delegate from Pennsylvania, urges Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, “to join us in our minuet.”
By “us” he means his fellow conservatives who fear losing their property and exalted status by supporting American independence from Great Britain.
John Dickinson
Hancock declines, saying: “Fortunately, there are not enough men of property in America to dictate policy.”
To which Dickinson replies: “Perhaps not. But don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us.”
Today, poor whites generally identify with the CEOs of powerful corporations. They believe the Republican gospel that they can attain such wealth—if only the government will “get out of my way.”
They forget—or ignore–the truth that government, for all its imperfections, is sometimes all that stands between them and a wide range of predators.
In return, the CEOs despise them as the privileged have always despised their social and economic “inferiors.”
Unless the Democratic Party can find ways to directly address these bitter, Politically Incorrect truths, it will continue its decline into insignificance.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 17, 2026 at 12:10 am
On July 22, 2011, ABC News carried the following story:
The Pew Foundation, analyzing voter identification, found “the electorate’s partisan affiliations have shifted significantly” since Barack Obama won office in 2008.
The GOP had gained strength among white voters, most specifically “the young and poor.”
A seven-point Democratic advantage among whites under age 30 three years ago had turned into an 11-point GOP advantage. And a 15-point Democratic advantage among whites earning less than $30,000 annually had swung to a slim four-point Republican edge by 2011.
In addition:
- The GOP gains had occurred only among white voters.
- Republicans had made sizable gains among white voters since 2008. Fifty-two percent of white voters called themselves Republicans or leaned to the GOP, compared with 39% who affiliated with the Democratic Party or leaned Democratic.
- Democrats had lost their edge among lower income white voters.
- In 2008, Democrats had a 15 point lead among white voters with family incomes less than $30,000. By 2011, Republicans had a four-point edge among this group.
- The GOP’s lead among middle income white voters had grown since 2008, and Republicans held a substantial advantage with higher income white voters.
- Republicans have made gains among whites with a high school education or less. The GOP’s advantage over Democrats had grown from one point in 2008 to 17 points in 2011 among less educated whites.
- Republicans had made smaller gains among whites voters who had college degrees.
What is fascinating about these findings is this: The Republicans have, since 1980, pursued a policy of gutting programs aimed at helping the poor—while repeatedly creating tax-breaks for the wealthiest 1% of the population.
For Republicans, the patron saint of this “love-the-rich-screw-the-poor” ideology remains Ronald Reagan–two-time governor of California and twice-elected President of the United States (1981-1989)
Ronald Reagan, who taught Americans to worship the wealthy
Among those charting Reagan’s legacy as President was former CBS Correspondent David Shoenbrum.
In his bestselling autobiography, America Inside Out: At Home and Abroad from Roosevelt to Reagan, he noted:
- On January 28, 1981, keeping a pledge to his financial backers in the oil industry, Reagan abolished Federal controls on the price of oil.
- Within a week, Exxon, Texaco and Shell raised gasoline prices and prices of home heating oil.
- Reagan saw it as his duty to put a floor under prices, not a ceiling above them.
- Reagan believed that when government helped business it wasn’t interfering. Loaning money to bail out a financially incompetent Chrysler was “supporting the free enterprise system.”
- But putting a high-profits tax on price-gouging corporations or filing anti-trust suits against them was “Communistic” and therefore intolerable.
- Tax-breaks for wealthy businesses meant helping America become stronger.
- But welfare for the poor or the victims of a predatory marketplace economy weakened America by sapping its morale.
“In short, welfare for the rich is good for America. But welfare for the poor is bad for America, even for the poor themselves, for it encourages them to be shiftless and lazy.
“Somehow, loans to the inefficient management of American corporations would not similarly encourage them in their inefficient methods,” wrote Shoenbrun.
Republicans have sought to dismantle Social Security ever since that program began in 1935. And Republicans have furiously opposed other programs aiding the poor and middle-class—such as Medicare, food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, Children).
In short, this is not a political party with a history of rushing to the defense of those most in need.
So the question remains: Why are so many poor Americans flocking to its banner?
The answer lies in the history of the American South—and slavery.
ADAM KINZINGER, ADOLF HITLER, AL CAPONE, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BERNIE MORENO, BLACK DEATH, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC), CHINA, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAVID SCHERTLER, DEMOCRATS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DONALD TRUMP, ELLIOT NESS, FIFTH AMENDMENT, FINAL SOLUTION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK, FOX BUSINESS THURSDAY, GARY PETERS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP, JOSEPH BIDEN, JULIUS STREICHER, MAFIA, MARIA BARTIROMO, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (NIAID), NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, NUREMBERG WR CRIMES TRIALS, PARDONS, PBS NEWSHOUR, PERJURY, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROPAGANDA, RAND PAUL, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, RICHRD 111 (PLAY), ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., ROBERT H. JACKSON, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, SOVIET UNION, SUSAN GLASSER, 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 UNTOUCHABLES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON WEEK, WILLIAM SHKESPEARE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 28, 2026 at 12:07 am
During 2020—the last year of the first Trump administration and the worst year of COVID—President Donald Trump offered 11 different steps for defeating COVID-19.
Nine of those steps have been revealed. Here are the last two:
11. Learn to Live With It: According to a July 3 story by NBC News: “Eager to move forward and reopen the economy amid a recession and a looming presidential election, the White House is now pushing acceptance. ‘The virus is with us, but we need to live with it.’”
12. Victory Over Coronavirus:“ “Advisor to the President” and First Daughter Ivanka Trump wrote: “Over the past four years, President Trump’s policies and investments in science and technology ensure that America stands ready to solve America’s most pressing problems and that our workforce is prepared for tomorrow’s innovations.”
Ivanka Trump has absolutely no scientific or technology background.
And Trump’s fellow Republicans proved just as anti-science and anti-education as himself.
Donald Trump
In March, 2020, as COVID-19 raged unchecked throughout the country, an NBC News poll found that that only 30% of Republicans said they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
By 2026, 23% of Republicans expressed confidence in higher education, while 50% of Democrats did.
Peter Baker. the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, appeared on the July 31 episode of Washington Week. Offering his own commentary on Republicans’ attempt to shame and destroy Anthony Fauci, he said:
“I think they’re making an awful lot out of, you know, what would be pretty normal in those early days when we did not know a lot, right? Scientists were of multiple opinions about the origin of it, they were of multiple opinions about how it was transmitted, and there were multiple opinions about what the best course of action was….
Anthony Fauci speaking to the White House press corps
“It’s not just that he was wrong, it’s that he is evil, and that he….should go to jail. I mean, he’s literally compared to Hitler and Mengele. This isn’t a scientist who just got things wrong, and maybe he did get something wrong. This, in this case, in Rand Paul’s world, it’s good and evil.”
* * * * * * * * * *
On July 26, 1946, Chief United States Counsel Robert H. Jackson delivered his closing remarks against the major Nazi defendants for war crimes at Nuremberg. He might as well have been speaking about Donald Trump and his cheerleading—and misleading—chorus on Coronavirus:
“Lying has always been a highly approved Nazi technique. [Adolf] Hitler, in Mein Kampf, advocated mendacity as a policy. {Foreign Minister Joachim] Von Ribbentrop admits the use of the ‘diplomatic lie.’
“….Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. They all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary….’Final solution’ of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination. ‘Special treatment’ of prisoners of war meant killing. ‘Protective custody’ meant concentration camp.
Robert H. Jackson
“Besides outright false statements and double talk, there are also other circumventions of truth in the nature of fantastic explanations and absurd professions.
“[Rabid anti-Semite Julius] Streicher has solemnly maintained that…his reason for destroying synagogues…was only because they were architecturally offensive….
“This was the philosophy of the National Socialists. When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue their habits of a lifetime in this dock?
“It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs.”
Citing William Shakespeare’s play about the murderous Richard 111, Jackson concluded:
“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: ‘Say I slew them not.’ And the Queen replied, ‘Then say they were not slain. But dead they are…’
“If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”
If Americans find Donald Trump blameless for refusing to take decisive action against the Coronavirus threat, they might as well say there was no plague, there were no thousands of dead Americans, there was no dereliction of Presidential responsibility.
It remains the mission of Right-wing Republicans like Senator Rand Paul to ignore Donald Trump’s unforgivable responsibility for the deaths of more than 400,000 Americans. Even worse, they seek to blame heroes like Anthony Fauci, who, fighting an unprecedented enemy, sought to save lives.
The advent of COVID-19 was the 21st century’s version of the Black Death. No one could agree on its origins, how it was transmitted, or the best ways to prevent or cure it. But at least there were doctors who desperately tried to find answers to these questions.
ADAM KINZINGER, ADOLF HITLER, AL CAPONE, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BERNIE MORENO, BLACK DEATH, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC), CHINA, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAVID SCHERTLER, DEMOCRATS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DONALD TRUMP, ELLIOT NESS, FIFTH AMENDMENT, FINAL SOLUTION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK, FOX BUSINESS THURSDAY, GARY PETERS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP, JOSEPH BIDEN, JULIUS STREICHER, MAFIA, MARIA BARTIROMO, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (NIAID), NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, NUREMBERG WR CRIMES TRIALS, PARDONS, PBS NEWSHOUR, PERJURY, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROPAGANDA, RAND PAUL, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, RICHRD 111 (PLAY), ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., ROBERT H. JACKSON, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, SOVIET UNION, SUSAN GLASSER, 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 UNTOUCHABLES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON WEEK, WILLIAM SHKESPEARE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 27, 2026 at 12:12 am
Imagine this:
For two and a half years—1929 to late 1931—Elliot Ness and his special unit known as “The Untouchables” conduct Intensive operations, surveillance and brewery raids against the criminal empire of Al “Scarface” Capone.
Six years later, a Senate subcommittee subpoenas Ness and brutally grills him on how his unit carried out those raids:
“Why did you target Al Capone—did you have something personal against him?”
“You never did convict him, did you? That was done by the IRS for tax evasion.”
“Capone was just a businessman. He never hurt anybody.”
“Your unit is famous for not taking bribes. Wasn’t Capone offering enough?”
“There’s no such thing as a Mafia.”
Imagine, also, how such a brutal attack on a celebrated lawman would have damaged the morale of countless other lawmen—and would-be lawmen.
Elliot Ness
So it’s easy to imagine how Republicans’ brutal attack on Anthony Fauci affects current members of the medical profession—and would-be members of it.
Fauci is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022 and as Chief Medical Advisor to the President–—Joseph Biden––from 2021 to 2022.
So what did this man—who has dedicated his entire adult life to protecting Americans against infectious diseases—do to ignite such hatred?
He had merely spoken the hard medical truth about Coronavirus. In doing so, he had at times contradicted then-President Donald Trump’s ignorance- and lie-riddled statements.
For example: Trump had loudly touted hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for the Coronavirus.
Yet Fauci dared to point out there had been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Moreover, given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal.
Statements like this infuriated Trump’s base of—at best—half-educated fans.
Donald Trump
On July 31, Susan Glasser, a journalist who writes a column for The New Yorker, appeared on Washington Week, a PBS public affairs television program.
Commenting on the “death match” between Fauci and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Glasser said: “Yes. I mean, look, the historical analogy that leaps to mind is not a reasonable bipartisan commission to look at lessons learned from a national tragedy. It’s a witch hunt. It’s McCarthyism.
“You know, we do, unfortunately, have a long history of that as well. And to see an 85-year-old public servant who spent 50 years of his life combating terrible diseases in this country and around the world, you know, it was a painful sight.
“You know, especially to see a bunch of senators accuse Fauci of the best they could come up with, you know, was a diary in which he was dazzled, you know, to meet celebrities and, you know, admitted that he butt-dialed Barbra Streisand….
“The person who was accountable ultimately for America’s failed initial handling of the pandemic in 2020 was someone named Donald Trump.”
Susan Glasser
During 2020—the last year of the first Trump administration and the worst year of COVID—Trump offered 11 different steps for defeating COVID-19:
- Denial: COVID entered the United States on January 19. By January 27, Trump didn’t think the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.
- Lies: On January 22, Trump said “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.” By March 10, he was saying: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
- Republican subservience to Trump’s denial and lies: During the vital months of January and February, Republicans refused to challenge Trump’s unwillingness to take the virus seriously—before it gained a foothold in the United States.
- Chaos: Like Adolf Hitler, Trump likes to pit individuals and organizations against each other. This creates needless duplication of efforts and wastes resources. But it ensures that Trump—like Hitler—remains the final voice of authority, since so many others are competing for his favor and direction.
- Extortion: Trump and Republicans used a deadly plague as a weapon against those Americans they hate. This included seizing medical supplies slated for Democratic states and sending them to Republican ones.
- Propaganda Disguised as News: Since Easter weekend, President Donald Trump held almost 50 daily press briefings at the White House. Their purpose: To serve as a substitute for Trump’s hate-filled political rallies, which had been canceled and have been likened to those staged by Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, at Nuremberg.
- Quackery as Medicine: On April 23, Trump raised the possibility of preventing or curing the Coronavirus by use of ultraviolet light—or even injection of disinfectant.
- “Reopen the Country”: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urged Americans to wear masks and keep at least six feet from their fellows. And most of the nation’s governors issued stay-at-home orders that banned large gatherings—including visits to parks and beaches. Yet Trump openly encouraged defiance of those orders.
- Ignore the Danger: Although health experts expressed fears about large gatherings during the Coronavirus pandemic, Trump and his Republican allies—such as South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem—held tightly-packed, mask-free political rallies.
ADAM KINZINGER, ADOLF HITLER, AL CAPONE, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BERNIE MORENO, BLACK DEATH, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC), CHINA, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAVID SCHERTLER, DEMOCRATS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DONALD TRUMP, ELLIOT NESS, FIFTH AMENDMENT, FINAL SOLUTION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK, FOX BUSINESS THURSDAY, GARY PETERS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP, JOSEPH BIDEN, JULIUS STREICHER, MAFIA, MARIA BARTIROMO, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (NIAID), NAZI PARTY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, NUREMBERG WR CRIMES TRIALS, PARDONS, PBS NEWSHOUR, PERJURY, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROPAGANDA, RAND PAUL, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, RICHRD 111 (PLAY), ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., ROBERT H. JACKSON, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, SOVIET UNION, SUSAN GLASSER, 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 UNTOUCHABLES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON WEEK, WILLIAM SHKESPEARE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 26, 2026 at 12:05 am
Days before grilling Anthony Fauci at a Senate hearing, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary entries and work records.
These had been made available to him by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—a notorious foe of vaccines.
Fauci blasted the move by the senator as an attempt at “embarrassing and intimidating” him.
As a result, Fauci did not answer a single question from any lawmakers during the entire three-hour hearing, invoking the Fifth Amendment 111 times: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
Republican senators, in turn, attacked Fauci over COVID-19 pandemic guidance—and his refusal to testify.
Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) gave voice to that antagonism:
“It was about six years ago today that I decided I’m going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run for United States Senate. And here I am sitting in front of you six years later, saying who the fuck do you think you were for doing that? It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.”
Moreno called Fauci a criminal and said he was more concerned about being a celebrity than helping the American people: “There is no defense of what you did. You may have had a 50+ year legacy of public service, but it ends in total and complete disgrace.”
Bernie Moreno
Moreno asked Fauci to apologize to people, business owners and military members the Senator said were harmed by COVID restrictions.
As if inconveniencing business owners was a far greater sin than taking steps to save lives.
Others blasted Moreno for his questioning, with several pointing out how he had largely remained silent when his daughter accused her ex-husband, Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), of physically abusing her. Moreno had called it a “private, personal matter.”
“Did Senator Bernie Moreno call out his son in law who beat his daughter with any of the same vigor as he did fauci?” former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger wrote in a social media post.
Senator Gary Peters, (D-MI) the top Democrat on the committee, looked beyond the hearing to its impact on history and science:
“It’s tempting to turn one person into the scapegoat for a crisis that hundreds of officials across both the Trump and the Biden administration were responsible for handling.
“This is only going to, unfortunately, deter other scientific experts from public service to understand that this is what they would have to go through as they provide their advice to us.”
Gary Peters
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that the hearing was an effort “to rewrite this history” of the pandemic: [“it is] shameful that in a country like ours, a dedicated public servant like Doctor Fauci has experienced persistent threats to his life since the pandemic because of the lies that are told about him.”
And he called the proceeding “an insult to the memory of more than one million Americans who died from COVID-19.”
Paul challenged Fauci over his Fifth Amendment right, warning him: “It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions for your refusal to testify.”
Fauci’s attorney David Schertler called the hearing part of Paul’s “public crusade” against the scientist. And he repeatedly tried to speak up after Paul threatened Fauci but was silenced by Paul.
PAUL: “You will respect these proceedings. You were told not to sit at the table. You insist on sitting at the table and we told you you would not be recognized. You are not invited here for testimony, sir. You are being disruptive.”
Schertler continued to speak with Paul, and Senator Gary Peters asked for the attorney to be given an opportunity—but was denied.
PAUL: “There’s a row behind you, sir. That’s where you were told to sit … and now you’re disrupting the proceedings.
“That’s the way you want to be remembered, and that’s what you’re going to do. You are not recognized, sir. Security, please remove him from the room.”
Upon exiting the hearing room, Schertler told reporters that Fauci “has a valid Fifth Amendment privilege and he has the right to assert it and that’s what I was trying to tell the committee.”
After the hearing, Paul told NBC News that the committee would vote next week on holding Fauci in contempt of Congress.
“We will schedule a vote. It’s already been scheduled for next week, for a vote on contempt of Congress, referral of contempt of Congress. If the vote is affirmative, it will be sent to the Department of Justice, and they will have to make a decision whether to pursue this.
“We believe that with his liability, his immunity from criminal liability, that he didn’t need to hide behind the Fifth Amendment, and that maybe the Fifth Amendment doesn’t attach when you have a pardon in place.”
The vote was expected to occur at a Department of Homeland Security business meeting scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on August 5.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2026 at 12:10 am
In contrast to Anthony Fauci, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has repeatedly attacked efforts to lessen the spread of COVID and spread factually incorrect information about the virus.
In August 2021, Paul stated in a video that “most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work” and that “cloth masks don’t work” to prevent infection.
YouTube suspended Paul for seven days following these remarks, stating the content violated their COVID-19 medical misinformation policies.
in November, 2021, Paul claimed that: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection. Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science, which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.”
This contradicted the results of a scientific study from Denmark, which showed that mask usage helped to mitigate the spread of the virus.
On December 17, Paul said on Fox Business Thursday: “There’s no science to keeping schools closed, and there’s actually no good science to keeping restaurants closed, in fact there’s no good science that anything we’ve done has changed the trajectory” of the pandemic.
“Every one of the mandates—and you look in country after country, state after state—you look at when the mask mandates went in—the incidents went up exponentially after the mandates. Restaurants, nobody can eat in a restaurant, there’s no science behind any of that,” Paul told Breitbart News at the Turning Point USA convention.
Anti-lockdown demonstration at the Ohio Statehouse
Becker1999 from Grove City, OH, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Paul claimed that high school graduation ceremonies and possibly wedding anniversaries even a decade later would be banned by the government if “we’re not careful” to protect our individual freedoms.
Mocking masks as “face diapers,” Paul said: “It’s like wearing your underwear. You might as well cut your underwear up and wear your underwear as protection. It doesn’t work.
“None of it really makes any sense, and there’s no epidemiological evidence. You know, it’s like, ‘Wash your hands, stand six feet apart.’ There’s no evidence that that slowed down the [spread]. The trajectory of the virus hasn’t been altered at all by any of these things.”
N95 mask
Republicans contend that because President Joe Biden gave Fauci a pardon, he cannot claim fear of prosecution for questions about the time the pardon covers.
But Fauci could theoretically face state or local prosecution, as well as federal prosecution for making any false statements to the panel. And Fauci said he was convinced Paul’s goal was to trip him up and trigger a perjury allegation.
Fauci said in his opening remarks that he welcomed congressional oversight, pointing to the more than 200 times he appeared before Congress over his more than five-decade career with the federal government.
But he stated his belief that this hearing was being held in bad faith:
“Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’
“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion.
“Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.”
Anthony Fauci and President George W. Bush
In the days before the hearing, Paul had released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s personal diary entries and work records. These had been made available to him by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—a notorious foe of vaccines.
Among the diary entries, released by Paul in an attempt to damage Fauci, were those showing Fauci’s growing disillusionment with President Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
These described Trump as “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent.”
Trump’s lies about the dangers of COVID and his fake cures for it—such as drinking bleach and shining UV light up a patient’s anus—ultimately resulted in tens of thousands of American deaths.
Fauci’s disillusionment with Trump clearly rested on a firm foundation. But Paul obviously believed that Fauci’s disgust with Trump reflected badly on him, not the President.
Fauci blasted the move by Paul as an attempt at “embarrassing and intimidating” him.
As a result, Fauci did not answer a single question from any lawmakers during the entire three-hour hearing, invoking the Fifth Amendment 111 times: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 24, 2026 at 12:05 am
“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
—Ronald Reagan, speaking about the leaders of the Soviet Union
On July 29, Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
He did so under subpoena issued on the orders of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), a longtime foe of Fauci.
The hearing was allegedly intended to probe the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether Fauci misled Congress and the public.
Witnesses before Senate committees are always asked: “Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
But Senators are never asked to do the same.
Had Senator Rand Paul been required to answer that question—and had he done so honestly—he would have admitted: “The reason for this hearing is to prove that Fauci covered up COVID’s origins. I believe it emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China, that had received American research funding.
“I also believe—and intend to prove—that he needlessly closed schools and churches. And I will be looking for any statement I can interpret as perjury so he can be prosecuted and sent to prison—as I have long said he should be.”
Rand Paul
Fauci had helped lead the White House response for Presidents Donald Trump and Joseph Biden and is now retired from government service. He is 85.
At the opening of the hearing, Fauci read from a prepared statement: “I have appeared multiple times for hearings in the Senate and the House, usually under oath, and sat for several days—long transcribed sworn interviews answering questions about the very issues that are now the subject of this hearing.
“Although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. He then repeatedly refused to answer questions from the Committee—especially from its Republican members.
The reason: President Biden gave him a pardon for all of his official conduct from 2014 to 2025. Fauci hadn’t committed any crimes. Biden intended to protect him from any future malicious prosecution by incoming President Donald Trump, whose hostility toward Fauci was well-known.
The pardon prevents Fauci from being federally prosecuted for any of his actions as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. That includes many of the pandemic-related decisions and actions Paul sought to grill him about.
Anthony Fauci
But Fauci could face state or local prosecution, as well as federal prosecution for making any false statements to the panel. And Fauci said he was convinced Paul’s goal was to trip him up and trigger a perjury allegation.
Paul has, in fact, called for Fauci’s imprisonment.
On December 2, 2021, he told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network: “Fauci should go to prison for five years for lying to Congress. They’ve prosecuted other people, they’ve selectively gone after Republicans, but in no way will they do anything about him lying.”
Paul and Bartiromo both claimed that Fauci lied to Congress when he said that the National Institutes of Health did not fund “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Gain of function research is a common scientific practice in which researchers trigger mutations and study how they affect a specific subject. In recent years, scientists have become increasingly less willing to conduct the research in some circumstances due to associated risks.
“He should be prosecuted for lying, but at the very least he should be taken out of his position because I think he cost people’s lives through misinformation,” Paul told Bartiromo.
On the contrary, Paul himself has repeatedly attacked efforts to lessen the spread of COVID and spread factually incorrect information about the virus.
COVID-19 virus
On May 5, 2020, the NBC News website reported: “Rand Paul, the only senator known to have contracted COVID-19, defended his decision not to wear a mask on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, citing his ‘immunity’ to a disease that top scientists are still trying to understand.
“I have immunity. I’ve already had the virus, so I can’t get it again and I can’t give it to anybody,” Paul told reporters, referring to his March diagnosis. ‘I can’t get it again, nor can I transmit. So of all the people you’ll meet here, I’m about the only safe person in Washington.'”
According to Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and global health policy expert and NBC News contributor, Paul’s claim “flies in the face of expert guidance from organizations like the WHO [World Health Organization] and CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], who both very clearly said we don’t know, It’s the pinnacle of misinformation. It’s not true. We have no evidence.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2026 at 12:22 am
The 2024 Presidential election has raised serious issues about the office which demand addressing.
And there’s still time for such remedies to be in place by the time the 2028 election occurs.
Reform #1: Institute mandatory FBI background investigations on all declared Presidential candidates.
Donald Trump’s trial for hush money payments to porn “star” Stormy Daniels has highlighted an issue that should have been addressed long ago: Americans don’t know as much about their candidates for President as they think they do.
- As the trial testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker revealed: In August, 2015, he met with Trump at Trump Tower and offered to use the Enquirer to catch and kill any allegations of extramarital affairs against Trump.
- Later he personally facilitated a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to keep her affair with Trump hushed up.
- This came in addition to Trump’s paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels to ensure his 2006 tryst with her didn’t emerge during the campaign.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels
- Similarly, in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy successfully ran for President while concealing his affliction with Addison’s Disease—an insufficiency of the Adrenal glands that can prove fatal.
Thus, all future candidates for President should be required to submit to full FBI background investigations at least one year before election time—with the results released before the election. Any candidate refusing to participate should be barred from competing.
You’re not allowed to become an FBI agent or Cabinet Secretary without passing a background investigation. You shouldn’t be allowed to become President without one, either.
Reform #2: No Presidential candidate can be over 70 at the time s/he leaves office.
The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that commercial airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65.
FBI agents have a mandatory retirement age of 57.
Commissioned officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps must retire by 64.
Yet Donald Trump was 78 when he was elected to his second term in 2024. Six months after he was inaugurated on January 20, 2025, he was 79.
Trump will be 82 in 2028, his last year in office (assuming he doesn’t stage another—and successful—coup attempt).
The Presidency is notorious for prematurely ageing its occupants: “The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office,” said Dr. Michael Roizen. He used presidential medical records from the 1920s through today to reach this conclusion.
The United States Presidency is becoming a mirror-image of the geriatric former Soviet Union:
- In 1982, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev died at age 75.
- He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov—who died, in 1984, at age 69.
- He, in turn, was followed by Konstantin Chernenko—who died in 1985 at age 73.
Finally, the Politburo—tired of replacing the General Secretary every two years—elected 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, who lived to leave office six years later at age 60.
Funeral for Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev – 1982
In 2024, having two geriatric candidates for President—Trump and Joseph Biden—become comic fodder for late-night TV hosts. Yet voters feared that neither candidate could handle the strains of another four years as President—or even survive a full term.
Reform #3: Abolish the honorific title of “Mr. President” for ex-Presidents.
This used to be offered as a tribute to a former President for having won the support of the majority of Americans.
But Donald Trump corrupted this phrase, as he has so much else in American life. After losing the 2020 Presidential election, he continued to insist that he was the legitimate President of the United States, and Biden was a usurper.
When his fanatical followers referred to him as “President Trump,” that was what they meant—thus trying to de-legitimize Biden’s Presidency and elevate Trump as the rightful victor.
The 2005 Stolen Valor Act makes it a federal misdemeanor for anyone to falsely claim to have received any U.S. military decoration or medal—such as the Medal of Honor or Purple Heart. Violating the law can lead to fines, up to a year in prison, or both.
Thus, Congress should mandate that only the current holder of the Presidency has the legal right to call himself “Mr. President”—and that right ends when he no longer occupies the White House.
Reform #4: Require millionaire ex-Presidents to pay for their Secret Service protection.
Every ex-President since Dwight D. Eisenhower—even Jimmy Carter—has been a multi-millionaire.
Assigning a platoon of elite Secret Service agents to watch over every ex-President 24/7 is a huge expense.
The case of Ronald Reagan is instructive: At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—while living in a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills—received lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
United States Secret Service
It’s also an unnecessary expense. There has never been an attack on an ex-President in all of American history.
Still, if the powers-that-be consider this essential, then millionaire ex-Presidents should be required to pay for their protection—just as moguls and Hollywood celebrities do.
As the situation now exists, the government is simply providing welfare for the rich. Whereas the poor face strict limits on how high their income can be and still receive welfare.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 8, 2026 at 12:35 am
On May 2, 2022, POLITICO released a bombshell of a story: The United States Supreme Court intended to strike down Roe v. Wade.
The proof came in an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, circulated within the court and obtained by POLITICO.
And on June 24, the Court completely repudiated the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights.
The Supreme Court
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”
Over 22 million women and girls of reproductive age now live in states with near-total abortion bans,
Making this possible was the appointment of three Right-wing Justices by President Donald Trump: Neil Gorsuch (2017); Brett Kavanaugh (2018); and Amy Coney Barrett (2020).
This has been a dream for Right-wing anti-abortion fanatics since the Court struck down abortion restrictions 53 years ago.
So what’s responsible for all this fetus fanaticism?
First, there is an energized constituency for politicians willing to wave this red flag.
Every major Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan has tapped into this voting bloc. And each has found plenty of votes to be gotten from it.
Second, many fetus fanatics simply dislike women.
They fear and resent the women’s movement, which has given women the right to enter the workforce and compete directly with men.
And what they hate most is the legal right of a woman to avoid becoming pregnant via birth control—or to abort the result of a male’s sperm if they do. They see this as a personal rejection.
The Right is made up overwhelmingly of uneducated white males. And many of these men would feel entirely at home with a Christianized version of the Taliban. They long for a world where women meekly cater to their every demand and believe only what their male masters approve for them to believe.
Third, many fetus fanatics are “family values” hypocrites.
For example: Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), an anti-abortion, “family values” doctor, had an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion. He also agreed that his wife should have two abortions.
Scott DesJarlais
People like this subscribe to a philosophy of: “Do as I say, not as I do. And if I do it, it’s in the service of a Higher Cause and therefore entirely justified.”
Many of them refuse aid to women needing food, shelter and healthcare for themselves and/or their children.
Fourth, many fetus fanatics feel guilty about their own past sexual transgressions—especially if these resulted in pregnancy.
And they want to prevent others from living the same life they did.
Some of these people are well-intentioned. Even so, they usurp unto themselves a God-like right to intrude on the most intimate decisions for others—regardless of what those people may need or want.
Fifth, many fetus fanatics embrace contradictory goals.
On one hand, most of them claim they want to “get government off the backs of the people.” That usually means allowing corporations to pollute, sell dangerous products and treat their employees as slaves.
On the other hand, they want to insert the government into the vagina of every woman. That means empowering State and Federal authorities to prevent women from getting birth control or an abortion—even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
And while they’re gung-ho on protecting fetuses, once a poor pregnant woman gives birth, they attack her for seeking food, shelter and healthcare for her infant and herself.
Sixth, many leaders of the fetus fanatics movement are independently wealthy.
This means that even if abortion could be outlawed for the vast majority, they could always bribe a willing doctor—here or abroad—to perform such an operation on their wife, daughter and/or mistress. For them, there is always an escape clause.
Seventh, many fetus fanatics are not truly “pro-life.”
They totally oppose abortion under most—-if not all—circumstances. But they also fully support:
- Making military-style assault weapons available to nutcases;
- Capital punishment;
- Going to war for almost any reason;
- Wholesale massacres of wildlife;
- Despoiling of the environment; and/or
- Even nuclear war.
For fetus fanatics, the line runs: “I love fetuses. Everything else is expendable.”
Eigth, many fetus fanatics believe that since their religion teaches that abortion is wrong, they have a moral duty to enforce that belief on others.
This is especially true for evangelical Christians. These are the same people who condemn Muslims—such as those in Saudi Arabia—for segregating women, forbidding them to drive and forcing them to wear head scarfs or chadors—loose, usually black robes.
Taliban: Islam’s version of the “Right-to-Life” movement
But while they condemn Islamics for their general intolerance of others’ religious beliefs, they lust to impose their own upon those who belong to other churches. Or who belong to no church at all.
Nineth, many fetus fanatics are just as opposed to birth control as they are to abortion.
Thus, when Georgia University law student Sandra Fluke asked Congress to require insurance companies to cover birth control, Rush Limbaugh branded her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 10, 2026 at 12:12 am
A reputation for being feared can be useful.
But it’s dangerous to constantly employ cruelties or punishments.
Whoever does so, warns Niccolo Machiavelli, “is always obliged to stand with knife in hand, and can never depend on his subjects, because they, owing to continually fresh injuries, are unable to depend upon him.”
Such a President is Donald Trump, who, as a Presidential candidate in 2016, told journalist Bob Woodward: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.”
As a Presidential candidate and President, Trump has repeatedly used X to attack hundreds of real and imagined enemies in politics, journalism, TV and films.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them. Making one inflammatory statement after another, he offended one group of potential voters after another. Among those groups:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Blacks
- The disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-war
Since becoming President in 2017 and 2025, Trump has attacked and/or infuriated a wide array of influential agencies or groups. Among these:
- “Obamacare” patients: Trump authorized the directors of Federal agencies to waive requirements of the Affordable Care Act—which provides medical insurance to 22 million otherwise uninsured Americans—to the “maximum extent permitted by law.”
- The CIA: Appearing at CIA headquarters on his first full day in office, Trump addressed about 400 case officers. Standing before the star-studded memorial wall honoring 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty. Trump ignored their sacrifice. Instead, he boasted of the size of his Inaugural crowd and how many times he had appeared on the cover of Time.
- Civil rights advocates: Trump signed an executive order banning Muslims from entering the United States.
- He also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to massively expand the number of people subject to detention and deportation.
- Women: Trump has publicly insulted numerous women—such as Carly Fiorina, Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell—on their looks.
- He’s been accused by 22 women of making improper sexual advances.
- And he successfully backed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whom Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers.
- Medicare patients: During the 2016 campaign, Trump said he would allow Medicare to negotiate down the price of prescription drugs. But after meeting with pharmaceutical lobbyists on January 31, 2017, Trump said: “I’ll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare.”
And he has bullied and insulted even White House officials and his own handpicked Cabinet officers:
- Jeff Sessions: Trump waged a Twitter-laced feud against his Attorney General. Sessions’ “crime”? Recusing himself from investigations into well-established ties between Russian Intelligence agents and members of Trump’s Presidential campaign.
- On the day after the November, 2018 mid-term elections, Trump fired him.
- Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross: Trump told him: “I don’t trust you. I don’t want you doing any more negotiations….You’re past your prime.”
- Chief of Staff Reince Priebus: Suffered repeated humiliations by Trump—such a being ordered to kill a fly that was buzzing about.
- On another occasion, Trump told an associate that Priebus was “like a little rat. He just scurries around.”
- On July 28, 2017, Priebus resigned.
- Chief of Staff John Kelly: Trump similarly ridiculed Priebus’ replacement, a former Marine Corps general. Kelly tried to limit the number of advisers who had unrestricted access to Trump—and bring discipline to his schedule.
- Instead of being grateful, Trump became furious. Kelly told colleagues: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
John Kelly
- The United States Secret Service: Before taking office as President, Trump infuriated this agency by keeping his longtime private security force—and adding its members to the elite federal agency. Thus, he clearly sent the insulting message: “You’re not good enough, and I don’t trust you.”
Trump’s repeated humiliations—and firings—of high-ranking administration officials led to a near-paralysis of his government. Many agencies were plagued by staff shortages. And many of the replacements were not of “top drawer” quality.
If Trump ever read Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, he’s clearly forgotten the Florentine’s warning on the need to avoid hatred at all costs.
The new musical version of the play/movie A Bronx Tale allows Mafia capo Sonny to sing his lesson on fear versus love to Calogero, the teenager who idolizes him:
Listen now what I tell ya
This advice is you know whose
Love or fear—
It’s up to you kid
But you live with what you choose.
And it’s true: You live with what you choose.
Make being loved your top priority, and you risk being labeled a weakling who can be rolled—as Bill Clinton did.
But make being feared your goal, and you risk creating an atmosphere of hatred and paranoia—as Donald Trump has.
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WHY THE POOR VOTE REPUBLICAN: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 18, 2026 at 12:08 amRepublicans have long tried to prevent or eliminate programs that aid the poor and middle-class, including:
So why are so many poor Americans now flocking to this party’s banner?
Two reasons: Racism and greed. There are historical parallels for both.
First, race:
In 1999, historian Victor Davis Hanson noted the huge gap in wealth between the aristocratic, slave-owning minority of the pre-Civil War South and the vast majority of poor white Southerners.
Victor Davis Hanson
“Before the war in the counties Sherman would later ruin, the top 10% of the landowners controlled 40% of the assessed wealth.”
In contrast, “more than half of those who were lucky enough to own any property at all still possessed less than 15% of the area’s valuation.”
So Hanson asked: “Why did the millions of poor whites of the Confederacy fight at all?”
He supplied the answer in his brilliant work on military history, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny.
One of those liberators was General William Tecumseh Sherman, who led 62,000 Union troops in a victorious “March to the Sea” through the Confederacy in 1864.
So why did so many poor Southern whites literally lay down their lives for the wealthy planter class, which despised them?
According to Hanson: “Behind the entire social fabric of the South lay slavery.
“If slavery eroded the economic position of the poor free citizens, if slavery encouraged a society of haves and have-nots…then it alone offered one promise to the free white man—poor, ignorant and dispirited—that he was at least not black and not a slave.”
And the planter class and its allies in government easily fobbed off their poor white countrymen with cheap flattery. Said Georgia Governor Joseph Brown:
“Among us the poor white laborer is respected as an equal. His family is treated with kindness, consideration, and respect. He does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense his equal. He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men.”
Arlington House and plantation, former home of Robert E. Lee
Similarly, poor whites now flock to the Republican Party—which holds them in equal contempt—in large part to protest the 2008 election of the first black President of the United States.
According to a Pew Research Center study released on July 22, 2011: “Notably, the GOP gains have occurred only among white voters; a 2-point Republican edge among whites in 2008 (46% to 44%) has widened to a 13-point lead today (52% to 39%).”
Since the 1960s, Republicans have pursued a campaign policy of “divide and rule”—divide the nation along racial lines and reap the benefits at election time.
Thus, in voting Republican, many of these poor whites believe they are “striking a blow for the white race.”
And they can do so in a more socially acceptable way than joining a certified hate group such as the American Nazi Party or Ku Klux Klan.
Since 2015, openly racist groups such as the Klan and the American Nazi Party have flocked to the banner of Presidential candidate mogul Donald Trump. By enthusiastically courting their support, the real estate mogul has made it possible for Republican candidates to openly display their own racism.
Now greed:
In the hit play, 1776, on the creation and signing of the Declaration of Independence, there is a telling exchange between John Dickinson and John Hancock. It comes during the song, “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men.”
Dickinson, the delegate from Pennsylvania, urges Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, “to join us in our minuet.”
By “us” he means his fellow conservatives who fear losing their property and exalted status by supporting American independence from Great Britain.
John Dickinson
Hancock declines, saying: “Fortunately, there are not enough men of property in America to dictate policy.”
To which Dickinson replies: “Perhaps not. But don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us.”
Today, poor whites generally identify with the CEOs of powerful corporations. They believe the Republican gospel that they can attain such wealth—if only the government will “get out of my way.”
They forget—or ignore–the truth that government, for all its imperfections, is sometimes all that stands between them and a wide range of predators.
In return, the CEOs despise them as the privileged have always despised their social and economic “inferiors.”
Unless the Democratic Party can find ways to directly address these bitter, Politically Incorrect truths, it will continue its decline into insignificance.
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